Part 31

I strove to imagine how Louisa Loftus would bear the shock of hearing that I had fallen--if fall I should. When and by whom would the news be broken to her? I thought, too, of the quiet old woods of Calderwood Glen, under the shadow of the greater Lomond. There, at least, all was peace, thank Heaven; and in my heart I prayed that long, long might it be so. And strange it was, too, that in this exciting time, when so many thousands of various races were about to close in the shock of battle--when a few minutes more might see me face to face with death--death by the cannon, the rifle, or the sabre--even while the explosion of the French shells rung every instant in the air--there flickered in my memory snatches of frivolous musical strains, and one or two trivial mess-room incidents; so that the vast array along the Alma seemed almost a phantasmagoria. But here a hand was laid upon my bridle arm. It was the hand of my faithful follower, Willie Pitblado, who slung his lance, and, sinking the soldier in the friend and countryman, said, while his bright grey eyes sparkled under his lancer cap--

"Hear you that, sir? It is the pipes of the Highland brigade!"

We were so far to the right of our squadron as to be close to the division of the Duke of Cambridge, which was composed of the Grenadier, Coldstream, and Scots Fusilier Guards, with three of the Highland regiments (the 42nd, 79th, and 93rd), whose pipers were now playing each the pibroch of their corps during the second halt; and then over all the field the old wild "memory of a thousand years" was kindled in every Scotchman's heart. I felt his enthusiasm; I saw that Willie felt it too, and in the kindly smile we exchanged there was conveyed a world of hidden sentiment. Wild, barbarous, and uncouth as it may be deemed--an instrument, perhaps, beyond improvement--the voice of the war-pipe seldom falls without a strange and stirring effect upon the Scottish ear; and let neither Englishman nor Irishman ever trust that Scot who hears it unmoved by the love of country and of home. There is something rotten at his heart's core! In whatever part of the distant world a Scotchman hears its strange notes, and the hoarse hum of its deep bass drones, it sets him dreaming of home; of the old thatched cottage in the mountain-glen, where the trouting burn gurgles under the long yellow broom, or "the auld brigstane" where he fished in boyhood; and with its voice come back the faces of "the loved, the lost, the distant, and the dead," and the glories and the battles of the years that are gone. He sees, too, the old kirk, where he prayed by his mother's knee; the graveyard, with all its mossy stones, and the forms of those who are lying there rise again in memory's eye. So the storm-beaten Isleman may seem to hear once more the waves that lash on Jura's rocks, or the scream of the wild birds over Scarba's shore, when ploughing far away in the wastes of the Indian Sea. It is difficult to define what this influence is; but that Scot is little to be envied who hears the warpipe unmoved, when far away from home, or as we heard it on that day beside the Alma; and though proud of his lancer regiment, I could see that my comrade Willie's heart was with the Highlanders, whose dark plumes were tossing on our right. It was at this time that Sir Colin Campbell, in his quiet, grave way, said to one of his officers, as the historian before quoted records, "This will be a good time for the men to get loose half their cartridges."

"And when the command travelled along the ranks of the Highlanders, it lit up the faces of the men one after another, assuring them that now, at length, and after long expectance, they indeed would go into action. They began obeying the order, and with beaming joy, for they came of a warlike race; yet not without emotion of a grave kind. They were young soldiers, and new to battle."

But now the trumpets recalled us to our brigade in rear of the infantry, who had the chief work of that bloody day to do. And just as we wheeled into our places, a roar of musketry on our right announced that the impetuous French had commenced the attack! The enemy's shot and shell were coming souse among us now, and many heard for the first time the fierce rushing sound, and then the mighty shock, as a bullet ripped up the earth, or swept a man away; while shells that burst in mid-air fell in hissing showers, that tore our clothing with their jagged edges, when they failed to wound. Dashing through the Alma, in front of the steep cliffs, under a terrific shower of round shot, grape, and musketry, which clothed the whole face of the slopes with spouting lines of white smoke, streaked with flashes of fire, waking a thousand echoes in the sky above and earth below, the French poured forward in yelling and impetuous masses. Fresh from their campaigns and conquests in burning Algeria, those fierce little Zouaves, in their blue jackets, red breeches, and turbans, active as mountain goats, were seen swarming up at the point of the bayonet, and forming in two lines, which charged with headlong rush on the astonished Muscovites, whose general, being thus completely outflanked on the cliffs being scaled, sought, but sought in vain, to change his front, and drive the French from those hills they had taken so rapidly and so gallantly, but at awful loss.

"Allah-Allah Hu!" was now the cry that rent the air, as the Turks advanced.

Under their green standards--the holy colour--with the crescent and star, massed in close column at quarter distance, the Turkish troops came on; and through the sea of red fezzes the cannon balls made many a deadly lane, until the battalions deployed into line, sending, as Studhome said, "many a believer to Paradise in a state of mutilation such as the houris wouldn't appreciate." But on they went against that sheet of lead and iron, shoulder to shoulder with the French; and many a shaven crown and many a scarlet fez, with its broad military button and blue tassel, were lying on the turf, while, with visions of the dark-eyed girls of Paradise waving their green scarves from their couches of pearl, and crying, "Come, kiss me, for I love thee," many a grim, Turkish soul passed forth into the night of death. On the other flank were the French linesmen, crying on "_Dieu, et la Mere de Dieu_," to help them in their last agony, while the sisters of charity and the _vivandieres_ rivalled each other in the rear in their attention to the wounded and dying.

*CHAPTER XXXIX.*

Three hundred cannon threw up their emetic, And thirty thousand muskets flung their pills Like hail to make a bloody diuretic. Mortality! thou hast thy monthly bills; Thy plagues, thy passions, thy physicians, yet tick, Like the death-watch, within our ears the ills Past, present, and to come;--but all may yield To the true portrait of one battle-field. BYRON.

At half-past one the British infantry advanced into action; like lightning the order flew along the line, for it was borne by Nolan, the impetuous and the gallant.

The village of Burliuk, the centre of our position, was still in flames that rose to a vast height, especially from the well-filled stackyards.

To the right of the conflagration, two regiments of Adams's brigade, the Welsh[*] and 49th, or Hertfordshire, crossed the river by a deep and dangerous ford, under a galling fire from the Russian Minie Riflemen, who were ensconced among the vineyards on the opposite bank. The remainder crossed on the left of Burliuk, and, both uniting beyond it, the whole division of De Lacy Evans found themselves engaged in sanguinary strife, while we, the cavalry, could but sit in our saddles and look on, but burning with impatience to advance.

[*] 41st--so called since 1831.

On the extreme left of the British advance, the Light Division, under Sir George Brown, G.C.B. (a Peninsular veteran of the old fighting 43rd), crossed the stream in their immediate front. Rugged and precipitous, the bank rose above them. So steep was it in some places that one of our officers, when in the act of climbing, was mortally wounded by having his entire spinal column traversed by a ball, which had been fired perpendicularly down from the Russian ranks above. Dense vineyards and abattis of felled trees partially obstructed the advance of our gallant Light Division; but in vain, for the 7th, the 33rd, and Welsh Fusiliers, the 77th, and Connaught Rangers pressed on under the volleying fire; and such was their coolness, that the soldiers threw to each other bunches of the delicious crimson grapes, to quench their thirst, for they had been long in marching order under a burning morning sun. The Minie balls were showering past like hail; caps, epaulettes, ears, fingers, and teeth were torn away, and every moment the men fell fast on every hand; but from right to left the cries of "Forward! on! on! forward!" were incessant, and the human surge of the Light Division swept on, bearing with it the whole 95th regiment. Rapidly they formed in line beyond the broken ground--rapidly and magnificently--and threw their steady fire into the strong redoubts with terrible effect; but hundreds were falling on both sides, and now commenced that ever memorable charge up hill by which we won the Alma. Faintly in the air came a yell of defiance from the Russians; it was very different from "the strong-lunged, massive-throated, deep-chested outbursts of cheering" that ran along the ranks of the British infantry.

Conspicuous on a grey horse, amid the clouds of passing smoke, we could see old Sir George Brown, riding as he had ridden with the Light Division of other days, at Busaco and Talavera. A deadly sheet of fire now tears through the 7th Fusiliers--led by Lacy Yea--they waver, but re-form! By the same fire the 23rd are decimated, and Colonel Chester falls at their head, shouting, "On, lads, on!" Relief after relief is shot down under the colours of the 7th. One is lost for a time; but, hurrah! it is safe among the soldiers of the Royal Welsh!

Under their colour, young Anstruther (the son of my uncle's neighbour, Balcaskie) is shot dead, and the poor boy rolls down the hill, enveloped in its silken folds; but again it waves in the wind, as Private Evans snatches it up, and bears it on towards the Great Redoubt.

Thicker fall the dead on every hand, for it is all musketry, and the deep, hoarse boom of the cannon, surging like a stormy sea, roll upon roll. The wounded are crawling, limping, and streaming to the rear; the dead lie close as autumn leaves in Vallombrosa. On stretchers and crossed muskets, officers and men are borne to the riverside, and, reeking with blood, the stretchers return for other victims. Hythe is forgotten now, and all her science of musketry; for no man thinks of sighting his Minie rifle, but all load, and cap, and blaze away at random, though many an officer is shouting, "Steady, men, steady, and aim below the crossbelts."

On, yet on, rolls the human surge, for what or who could withstand them--our noble infantry, our 19th and 33rd, our 77th and 88th, as they rush on, with colours flying and loud hurrahs!

But now there is a louder cry!

Their leader falls! In a cloud of dust both horse and man go down, and for a moment the advance is paralyzed--but for a moment only.

Again the grand old soldier is at their head on foot, his sword glittering above his white head, and, reckless of the tremendous fire which sweeps through them, our troops dash at the redoubts--a mighty torrent in scarlet--the flashing bayonets are lowered--man seeks man, ready to grapple body to body with his foe, and the sparks of fire rise in the midst as steel clashes on steel, for the Russian hearts are stout and their hands are strong as ours; the dead and the dying are heaped over each other, to be trampled on and smothered in their blood.

Nine hundred of our officers and men fell, killed and wounded, amid the terrible _melee_ in the Great Redoubt, and all up the scorched slope that leads to it. In the torn vineyards, and among the leafy abbatis, the poor redcoats are lying thicker than ever I have seen the scarlet poppies stud the harvest fields in Lothian or the Merse!

The red dragon of the Royal Welsh is flying on that fatal redoubt, but not yet is the victory ours!

Descending from the higher hills, a mighty column of Russian infantry--a double column, composed of the Ouglitz and Vladimir battalions, bearing with them the image of St. Sergius, a solemn trust given to them by the Bishop of Moscow--a supposed miraculous idol, borne in the wars of the Emperor Alexis, of Peter the Great, and Alexander I.--came rushing to the mortal shock, in full confidence of victory.

Deploying into line, the great grey mass, with their flat caps and spiked helmets--for the corps were various--came boldly on, and followed up a deadly volley by a powerful bayonet charge. Then the ranks in scarlet, exhausted by their toilsome ascent, began to waver and fall back, followed down hill by the yelling Russian hordes, who had a perfect belief in their own invincibility, and barbarously bayoneted all our wounded as they came on.

Terribly fatal was this temporary repulse to the gallant Welsh Fusiliers in particular; but now the 7th and 33rd, with the Guards and Highlanders, advanced, and again the struggle was resumed.

Of the 33rd, nineteen sergeants fell, chiefly in defence of the colours; and fourteen bullet holes in one standard and eleven in the other attested to the fury of the conflict.

Throwing open his ranks to allow the retreating regiments to re-form and recover breath, the Duke of Cambridge now brought up his division, though there was a momentary fear of its success, for an officer high in rank exclaimed--

"The brigade of Guards will be destroyed. Ought it not to fall back?"

"Better that every man of her Majesty's Guards should lie dead upon the field than turn their backs upon the enemy!" was the stern and proud response of grim old Colin Campbell, a veteran of the old and glorious wars of Wellington, as he galloped off to put himself at the head of his Highlanders, whom he had had skilfully brought on in _echelon_ of regiments. They reserved their fire, and advanced in solemn silence.

Terribly was our splendid brigade of Guards handled, when the Highlanders came up, and then, as Kinglake tells us, a man in one of the regiments re-forming on the slope cried, in the deep, honest bitterness of his heart, "Let the Scotsmen go on--they'll do the work!" and, with three battalions in the kilt, Sir Colin (whose horse was killed under him) advanced to meet _twelve_ of the flushed and furious enemy.

"Now, men," said he, "you are going into action, and remember this, that whoever is wounded--I don't care what his rank is--must lie where he falls. No soldier must carry off wounded men. If any one does such a thing, his name shall be stuck up in his parish kirk. Be steady--keep silence--fire low! Now, men--the army are watching us--make me proud of my Highland brigade!"

The brilliant author of "Eoethen," an eye-witness of this part of the field, describes their movements so beautifully that I cannot resist quoting him again.

"The ground they had to ascend was a good deal more steep and broken than the slope close beneath the redoubt. In the land where those Scots were bred, there are shadows of sailing clouds skimming up the mountain side; and their paths are rugged and steep; yet their course is smooth, easy, and swift. Smoothly, easily, swiftly, the Black Watch seemed to glide up the hill. A few instants before, and their tartans ranged dark in the valley; now their plumes were on the crest."

Another line in _echelon_, and another--the Cameron and the Sutherland Highlanders; and now, to the eyes of the superstitious Muscovites, the strange uniform of those troops seemed something terrible; their waving sporrans were taken for horses' heads; they cried to each other that the Angel of Light had departed, and the Demon of Death had come!

Close and murderous was the fire that opened on them; then a wail of despair floated over the grey masses of the long-coated Russian infantry, as they broke and fled, casting away knapsacks, and everything that might encumber their flight, and, for the first time, rose the Highland cheer. "Then," says the great historian of the war, "along the Kourgane slopes, and thence west almost home to the Causeway, the hill-sides were made to resound with that joyous and assuring cry, which is the natural utterance of a northern people, so long as it is warlike and free."[*]

[*] Kinglake, vol. ii.

The Heights of the Alma were won!

*CHAPTER XL.*

Had ye no graves at home, Across the briny water, That hither ye must come, Like bullocks to the slaughter? If we the work must do, Why the sooner 'tis begun, If flint and trigger hold but true, The quicker 'twill be done, By the rifle! the good rifle! In our hands it is no trifle!

The battle was fought and won; the thunder had died away along the heights of the Alma; it was all over now--that "hell of blood and ferocity" was past; and little more remained but to number the dead, and lay them in their last ghastly homes. The agonies even of the wounded--that terrible grey acre of Russian wounded--were half forgotten by the untouched; but many a bright-eyed girl in England far away, and in that northern land which was to me the dearest half of "sea-walled Albion," who was wearing her gay muslins and flowers, would be coming forth, ere long, in the crape and sable livery of grief; for many a father and mother's hope and pride were among the redcoats that lay so motionless and still along those fatal slopes.

The sun was verging westward, the smoke of the villanous saltpetre hung like a lurid canopy over the summit of the Kourgane Hill, and that final scene of slaughter in the Great Redoubt; and now men, who had been separated in the confusion and hurry of the conflict, were meeting again, and congratulating each other that they were spared.

We, the small force of cavalry, a thousand sabres and lancers, who had hitherto been impatient onlookers, now dashed through the river, without Lord Raglan's authority; and, though the upsetting of a field-gun, and the slippery nature of the ford, were the cause of much delay, we reached the summit of the Kourgane Hill soon after the Highlanders had swept the foe from it. We had six guns with us, and their fire told fearfully upon the retreating masses of the Russians, who left mangled piles of dead in their rear. The battery was divided; one half our force, led by Lord Cardigan, escorting those on the right, while Lord Lucan, with the rest, conducted those that were on the left. Our orders were, also, to glean up cannon, prisoners, and other trophies.

The earl rode in advance with my squadron of lancers. We picked up a good many prisoners, who sullenly threw down their arms and submitted. These men were all light infantry, wearing flat forage-caps, and long grey coats that reached to their ankles.

On this duty we had to traverse a great portion of the field, and its aspect was harrowing; a day of slaughter was to be followed by a night of agony.

Here and there were pools of blood, in which the flies were battening, and from whence the honey-bee and the snow-white butterfly strove in vain to free their tiny pinions; and on the glacis of the Great Redoubt, where men of all regiments--but chiefly Welsh Fusiliers--lay blended together, were bodies to be seen without heads, or legs, or arms, bowels torn out, brains crushed, blood oozing from eyes, or ears, or mouths--blood, blood everywhere: for it was there that grape, canister, and round-shot had bowled through the advancing columns.

Among those ghastly piles lay an ensign of one of our line regiments--a poor boy, fresh from Eton or Harrow, struck down in his first red coat. He had a miniature in his hand--a young and beautiful girl, thought I. But Pitblado handed it to me, and then I saw that it represented a grey-haired woman, of comely and matronly aspect.

She was his mother, no doubt. Could she have seen him there!

A ball had pierced his chest. He was not quite dead; for when Pitblado poured some water between his lips, his eyes opened, and he began to mutter as if speaking to his mother--that his head lay on her breast, and he heard, in fancy, her replies.

True, in the end, to the first instinct, or first tender impulse of nature, as, when a little child, he had, under pain or wrong, hid his weeping face in his mother's lap, the old spirit came over him; and as his dying ear seemed to hear that mother's voice, a holy light shone over his livid face, and the poor lad died happily.

He must have been shot under his colours, for the standard belt was yet over his left shoulder.

The roar of battle was gone now, and the bushes where the dead ensign lay were literally alive with larks, thrushes, and linnets in full song.

Many of the Russian slain had half-bitten cartridges in their open mouths. Many who were shot in the head lay with their faces on the sod, and their muskets under them; and when struck in the heart, death was so instantaneous that all retained the position in which they had been shot. By their attitudes, we might know the time they had been in dying.

In one place seven of the Russian 26th--for that number was on their glazed leather helmets--lay all in a line, with their bayonets at the charge. All these men had been slain by a shower of grape, and were shot in the head or breast.

As we rode on we secured many prisoners and several battery guns; all the cannon were on stocks of wood, painted green, with white crosses on the breeches and muzzles.

And now we were traversing the Kourgane Hill, where the fine fellows of our household brigade, in their bright scarlet and black bearskins, were lying in great numbers, and close by were many of the Black Watch, but all dead. I reined in my horse, and looked at them earnestly.

The countenances of some seemed as if still in life, so far as expression went. Some were calm and resigned; some as if in prayer. Others were fierce and stern; but all were pale and white as the cold Carrara marble. The evening breeze passed over them; it lifted their hair and the black plumes in their bonnets. Then the dead seemed as if about to stir. There they lay, with the blood stiffening on their tartans. My heart was very full.

In some faces I could read a ghastly and defiant smile, and several were stretched at length, as if the friends that would ere long be sorrowing for them in their distant home were about to commit them to their winding-sheet.

Where our cannon had mauled their retreating cavalry, the horses lay in close ranks, with their long necks stretched out, and their riders beneath them, all torn, brained, or disembowelled alike by the iron storm of grape-shot that had swept through the squadron. In some places we saw only a red, muddy pulp, composed of flesh and bones, where the enemy's brigade of guns had traversed the ground.

"War!" says a French writer; "those by whose will war comes--those who make men resemble the savage beasts--will have a fearful account to render to the righteous Judge above!"

As we passed along with our prisoners, many of our wounded reviled and execrated them, for on all hands we heard stories of Russian treachery.