CHAPTER I.

Formation of the Russian Army--Difficulties explained--Appearance of the Men--Liège Muskets--Bayonets--Killing the Wounded--Glories of Inkerman--Commissary Filder's merits--Hardships of the Campaign--Officers in rags--Hurricane of the 14th of November--A mighty and strong Wind--Tents dislodged--A Medical Officer in difficulty--Horrors of the Scene--Sleet and Snow--Officers in distress--Bad news from Balaklava--A Lull.

From a deserter at Head-Quarters I gleaned some particulars respecting the formation of the Russian army. It had long been a puzzle to ignorant people like ourselves why the Russian soldiers had numbers on their shoulder-straps different from those on their buttons or on their caps. In recording my observations of the appointments of the men killed at the Alma, I remarked that certain "regiments" were present, judging by the shoulder straps. It will appear that these numbers referred not to regiments, but to divisions. So let our Pole, one of the few who came in after Inkerman, speak for himself through an interpreter:--

"What does the number on the strap on your shoulder indicate?"

"It is No. 16. It shows that I belong to the 16th Division of the army."

"Who commands it?"

"I don't know--a General."

"What does the number 31 on your buttons mean?"

"It means that I belong to Regt. 31 of the 16th Division."

"What does the number 7 on your cap, with P after it, mean?"

"It indicates that I belong to the 7th rota of my polk."

"What does a rota mean?"

"It means a company of 250 men."

"How many rotas are in a polk?"

"There are sixteen rotas in each polk."

"And how many polks are in a division?"

"There are four polks in a division."

"If that is so, why have you 31 on your buttons?" (A pause, a stupid look.)--"I don't know."

Finding our friend was getting into that helpless state of confusion into which the first glimpses of decimal fractions are wont to plunge the youthful arithmetician, we left him. Now let us combine our information, and see what, according to this Polish authority, a Russian division consists of. It stands thus:--

1 Rota = 250 men. 16 Rotas = 1 polk = 4,000 " 4 Polks = 1 division = 16,000 " One Division of infantry.

The men resembled those we met at the Alma, and were clad in the same way. We saw no infantry with helmets, however, and our soldiers were disappointed to find the Russians had, in most cases, come out without their knapsacks. Their persons were very cleanly, and the whiteness of their faces and of their feet were remarkable. Few of them had socks, and the marauders had removed their boots whenever they were worth taking. Our soldiers and sailors, as well as the French, looked out with avidity for a good pair of Russian boots, and were quite adepts in fitting themselves to a nicety by their simple mode of measurement--viz., placing their feet against those of the dead men. Many had medals, "the campaign of 1848-49 in Hungary and Transylvania." They were generally carried inside tin cases about their persons. Officers and men wore the same long grey coats, the former being alone distinguishable by the stripe of gold lace on the shoulder. Their uniform coats, of dark green with white facings and red and yellow trimmings, were put on underneath the great coat.

A considerable number of the Liège double-grooved rifles were found on the field. Many of the muskets bore the date of 1841, and had been altered into detonators. I remember a juvenile superstition in my sparrow-killing days, that such guns "shot stronger" than either flint or detonator, _pur sang_. Every part of the arm was branded most carefully. The word "BAK" occurs on each separate part of it. The Imperial eagle was on the brass heelplate, and on the lock "[Cyrillic: TULA] (Tula), 1841." The bayonets were long, but not well steeled. They bent if rudely handled or struck with force against the ground. The long and polished gun-barrels were made of soft, but tough iron. They could be bent to an acute angle without splitting. From the trigger-guard of each musket a thong depended, fastened to a cap of stout leather, to put over the nipple in wet weather. This seemed a simple and useful expedient. The devotion of the men to their officers was remarkable. How else was it that we seldom found either dead or wounded officers on the ground? It was again asserted--and I fear with truth--that the wounded Russians killed many of our men as they passed. For this reason our soldiers smashed the stock and bent the barrels. Some carried rifles, and heavy, thick swords with a saw-back, which they sold to the captains and sailors of merchantmen. Medals, ribands, the small brass crucifixes, and pictures of saints, and charms found upon the dead, were also in great request.

[Sidenote: THE COMMISSARIAT.]

If it is considered that the soldiers who met these furious columns of the Czar were the remnants of three British divisions, which scarcely numbered 8,500 men; that they were hungry and wet, and half-famished; that they belonged to a force which was generally "out of bed" four nights out of seven; enfeebled by sickness, by severe toil; that among them were men who had previously lain out for forty-eight hours in the trenches at a stretch--it will be readily admitted that never was a more brilliant contest maintained by our army.

Up to the beginning of this winter Commissary Filder deserved credit for his exertions in supplying our army. No army, I believe, was ever so well fed under such very exceptional circumstances. From Balaklava alone came our daily bread; no man had up to this time been without his pound of biscuit, his pound and a half or a pound of beef or mutton, his quota of coffee, tea, rice, and sugar, his gill of excellent rum, for any one day, excepting through his own neglect. We drew our hay, our corn, our beef, our mutton, our biscuits, spirits, and necessaries of all kinds from beyond sea. Eupatoria supplied us with cattle and sheep to a moderate extent; but the commissariat of the army depended on sea carriage. Nevertheless, large as were our advantages in the excellence and regularity of the supply of food, the officers and men had to undergo great privations.

The oldest soldiers never witnessed a campaign in which Generals were obliged to live in tents in winter, and officers who passed their youth in the Peninsular war, and had seen a good deal of fighting in various parts of the world, were unanimous in declaring that they never knew of a war in which the officers were exposed to such hardships. They landed without anything, marched beside their men, slept by them, fought by them, and died by them. They laid down at night in the clothes which they wore during the day; many delicately-nurtured youths never changed shirts or shoes for weeks together.

"Rank and fashion," under such circumstances, fell a prey to parasitical invasion--an evil to which the other incidents of roughing it are of little moment. The officers were in rags. Guardsmen, who were "the best style of men" in the Parks, turned out in coats and trousers and boots all seams and patches, mended with more vigour than neatness, and our smartest cavalry men were models of ingenious sewing and stitching. The men could not grumble at old coats, boots, or shoes when they saw their officers no better off than themselves. We had "soldiering with the gilding off," and many a young gentleman would be cured of his love of arms if he could but have had one day's experience. Fortunate it is for us that we have youth on which we can rely, and that there are in England men "who delight in war," who will be ever ready to incur privation and danger at her summons. As to young ladies suffering from "scarlet fever,"--who are thinking of heroes and warriors, singing of "crowning conquerors' brows with flowers," and wishing for "Arab steeds and falchions bright"--if they could but for one instant have stood beside me, and gazed into one of the pits where some thirty "clods of the valley," decked with scarlet and blue, with lace and broidery, were lying side by side, staring up at heaven with their sightless orbs, as they were about to be consigned to the worm, they would have joined in prayer for the advent of that day--if come it ever may--when war shall be no more, and when the shedding of blood shall cease. After Inkerman there was a period of collapse in the army. The siege languished. Our strength was wasting away--men's spirits failed--the future looked dark and uncertain.

It happened that we had a forewarning of what might be expected. On Friday, the 10th of November, just four days ere the fatal catastrophe which caused such disasters occurred, I was on board the _Jason_ Captain Lane, which happened to be lying outside, and as it came on to blow, I could not return to the shore or get to the camp that evening. The ship was a noble steamer, well manned and ably commanded, but ere midnight I would have given a good deal to have been on land; for the gale setting right into the bay, raised a high wild sea, which rushed up the precipices in masses of water and foam, astonishing by their force and fury; and the strain on the cable was so great that the captain had to ease it off by steaming gently a-head against the wind. The luckless _Prince_, which had lost two anchors and cables on bringing up a day or two before, was riding near the _Agamemnon_, and adopted the same expedient; and, of the numerous vessels outside, and which in so short a time afterwards were dashed into fragments against those cruel rocks, the aspect of which was calculated to thrill the heart of the boldest seaman with horror, there were few which did not drag their anchors and draw towards the iron coast which lowered with death on its brow upon us. Guns of distress boomed through the storm, and flashes of musketry pointed out for a moment a helpless transport which seemed tossing in the very centre of the creaming foam of those stupendous breakers, the like of which I never beheld, except once, when I saw the Atlantic running riot against the cliffs of Moher. But the gale soon moderated--for that once--and wind and sea went down long before morning. However, Sir Edmund Lyons evidently did not like his berth, for the _Agamemnon_ went round to Kamiesch on Sunday morning, and ordered the _Firebrand_, which was lying outside, to go up to the fleet at the Katcha. As to the _Prince_, and the luckless transports, they were allowed, nay, ordered, to stand outside till the hurricane rushed upon them.

On the 14th of November came a new calamity--the hurricane.

I had been in a listless state between waking and sleeping, listening to the pelting of the rain against the fluttering canvas of the tent, or dodging the streams of water which flowed underneath it, saturating blankets, and collecting on the mackintosh sheet in pools, when gradually I became aware that the sound of the rain and the noise of its heavy beating on the earth had been swallowed up by the roar of the wind, and by the flapping of tents outside. Presently the sides of the canvas, tucked in under big stones, began to rise, permitting the wind to enter and drive sheets of rain right into one's face; the pegs indicated painful indecision and want of firmness of purpose. The glimpses afforded of the state of affairs outside were little calculated to produce a spirit of resignation to the fate which threatened our frail shelter. The ground had lost solidity. Mud--nothing but mud--flying before the wind and drifting as though it were rain, covered the face of the earth.

The storm-fiend was coming, terrible and strong as when he smote the bark of the Ancient Mariner. The pole of the tent bent like a salmon-rod; the canvas tugged at the ropes, the pegs yielded. A startling crack! I looked at my companions, who seemed determined to shut out all sound by piling as many clothes as they could over their heads. A roar of wind again, the pole bent till the "crack" was heard again. "Get up, Smith! Up with you; Eber! the tent is coming down!" The Doctor rose from beneath his _tumulus_ of clothes. Now, if there was anything in which the Doctor put confidence more than another, it was his tent-pole; he believed that no power of Æolus could ever shake it. There was normally a bend in the middle of it, but he used to argue, on sound anatomical, mathematical, and physical principles, that the bend was an improvement. He looked on the pole, as he looked at all things, blandly, put his hand out, and shook it. "Why, man," said he, reproachfully, "it's all right--_that_ pole would stand for ever," and then he crouched and burrowed under his bed-clothes.

Scarcely had he given that last convulsive heave of the blankets which indicates perfect comfort, when a harsh screaming sound, increasing in vehemence as it approached, struck us with horror. As it neared us, we heard the snapping of tent-poles and the sharp crack of timber. On it came, "a mighty and a strong wind." It struck our tent! The pole broke off short in the middle, as if it were glass; in an instant we were half stifled by the folds of the wet canvas, which beat us about the head with fury. Breathless and half blind, I struggled for the exit, and crept out into the mud. Such a sight met the eye! The whole head-quarters' camp was beaten flat to the earth, and the unhappy occupants of tents were rushing in all directions in chase of their effects, or holding on by the walls, as they strove to make their way to the roofless barns and stables.

[Sidenote: A MIMIC VOLCANO.]

Three marquees stood the blast--General Estcourt, Sir John Burgoyne, and Major Pakenham's. The General had built a cunning wall of stones around his marquee, but ere noon it had fallen before the wind; the Major's shared the same fate still earlier in the day. Next to our tent was the marquee of Captain de Morel, aide-de-camp to Adjutant-General Estcourt, fluttering on the ground, and, as I looked, the canvas was animated by some internal convulsion--a mimic volcano appeared to be opening, its folds assumed fantastic shapes, tossing wildly in the storm. The phenomenon was accounted for by the apparition of the owner fighting his way against the wind, which was bent on tearing his scanty covering from his person; at last he succeeded in making a bolt of it and squattered through the mud to the huts. Dr. Hall's tent was levelled, the principal medical officer of the British army might be seen in an unusual state of perturbation and nudity, seeking for his garments. Brigadier Estcourt, with mien for once disturbed, held on, as sailors say, "like grim Death to a backstay," by one of the shrouds of his marquee. Captain Chetwode was tearing through the rain and dirt like a maniac after a cap, which he fancied was his own, and which he found, after a desperate run, to be his sergeant's. The air was filled with blankets, hats, great coats, little coats, and even tables and chairs! Mackintoshes, quilts, india-rubber tubs, bedclothes, sheets of tent-canvas went whirling like leaves in the gale towards Sebastopol. The barns and commissariat sheds were laid bare at once. The shingle roofs of the outhouses were torn away and scattered over the camp; a portion of the roof of Lord Raglan's house was carried off to join them.

Large arabas, or waggons, close to us were overturned; men and horses were rolled over and over; the ambulance waggons were turned topsy-turvy; a large table in Captain Chetwode's was whirled round and round till the leaf flew off, and came to mother earth deprived of a leg and seriously injured. The Marines and Rifles on the cliffs over Balaklava lost everything; the storm hurled them across the bay, and the men had to cling to the earth with all their might to avoid the same fate.

Looking over towards the hill occupied by the Second Division, we saw the ridges, the plains, and undulating tracts between the ravines, so lately smiling in the autumn sun, with row after row of neat white tents, bare and desolate, as black as ink. Right in front the camp of the Chasseurs d'Afrique presented an appearance of equal desolation. Their little _tentes d'abri_ were involved in the common ruin. One-half of our cavalry horses broke loose. The French swarmed in all directions, seeking for protection against the blast. Our men, more sullen and resolute, stood in front of their levelled tents, or collected in groups before their late camps. Woe to the Russians had they come on that day, for, fiercer than the storm and stronger than all its rage, the British soldier would have met and beaten their battalions. The cry was, all throughout this dreadful day, "Let us get at the town; better far that we should have a rush at the batteries and be done with it, than stand here to be beaten by a storm."

[Sidenote: FLYING FROM THE STORM.]

Let the reader imagine the bleakest common in all England, the wettest bog in all Ireland, or the dreariest muir in all Scotland, overhung by leaden skies, and lashed by a tornado of sleet, snow, and rain--a few broken stone walls and roofless huts dotting it here and there, roads turned into torrents of mud and water, and then let him think of the condition of men and horses in such a spot on a November morning, suddenly deprived of their frail covering, and exposed to bitter cold, with empty stomachs, without the remotest prospect of obtaining food or shelter. Think of the men in the trenches, the covering parties, the patrols, and outlying pickets and sentries, who had passed the night in storm and darkness, and who returned to their camp only to find fires out and tents gone. These were men on whose vigilance the safety of our position depended, and many of whom had been for eight or ten hours in the rain and cold, who dared not turn their backs for a moment, who could not blink their eyes. These are trials which demand the exercise of the soldier's highest qualities.

A benighted sportsman caught in a storm thinks he is much to be pitied, as, fagged, drenched and hungry, he plods along the hillside, and stumbles about in the dark towards some uncertain light; but he has no enemy worse than the wind and rain to face, and in the first hut he reaches repose and comfort await him. Our officers and soldiers, after a day like this, had to descend to the trenches again at night, look out for a crafty foe, to labour in the mire and ditches of the works; what fortitude and high courage to do all this without a murmur, and to bear such privations and hardships with unflinching resolution! But meantime--for one's own experience gives the best idea of the suffering of others--our tent was down; one by one we struggled out into the mud, and left behind us all our little household gods, to fly to the lee of a stone wall, behind which were cowering French and British of all arms and conditions.

Major Blane was staggering from the ruins of his marquee, under a press of greatcoat, bearing up for the shelter of Pakenham's hut. The hospital tents were all down, the sick had to share the fate of the robust. On turning towards the ridge on which the imposing wooden structures of the French were erected, a few scattered planks alone met the eye. The wounded of the 5th November, who to the number of several hundred were in these buildings, had to bear the inclemency of the weather as well as they could. Several succumbed to its effects. The guard tents were down, the occupants huddled together under the side of a barn, their arms covered with mud, lying where they had been thrown from the "pile" by wind. The officers had fled to the commissariat stores near Lord Raglan's, and there found partial shelter. Inside, overturned carts, dead horses, and groups of shivering men--not a tent left standing. Mr. Cookesley had to take refuge, and was no doubt glad to find it, amid salt pork and rum puncheons.

With chattering teeth and shivering limbs each man looked at his neighbour. Lord Raglan's house, with the smoke streaming from the chimneys, and its white walls standing out freshly against the black sky, was the "cynosure of neighbouring eyes." Lord Lucan, meditative as Marius amid the ruins of Carthage, was sitting up to his knees in mud, amid the wreck of his establishment. Lord Cardigan was sick on board his yacht in the harbour of Balaklava. Sir George Brown was lying wounded on board the _Agamemnon_, off Kamiesch Bay; Sir De Lacy Evans, sick and shaken, was on board the _Sanspareil_, in Balaklava; General Bentinck, wounded, was on board the _Caradoc_. The Duke of Cambridge was passing a terrible time of it in the _Retribution_, in all the horrors of that dreadful scene, off Balaklava. Pennefather, England, Campbell, Adams, Buller--in fact all the generals and officers--were as badly off as the meanest private.

The only persons near us whose tents weathered the gale were Mr. Romaine, Deputy Judge-Advocate-General; Lieutenant-Colonel Dickson, Artillery; and Captain Woodford. The first had pitched his tent cunningly within the four walls of an outhouse, and secured it by guys and subtle devices of stonework. They were hospitable spots, those tents--oases in the desert of wretchedness; many a poor half-frozen wanderer was indebted almost for life to the shelter they afforded. While reading this, pray never lose sight of the fact, as you sit over your snug coal-fires at home, that fuel was nearly all gone, and that there were savage fights among the various domestics, even in fine weather, for a bit of shaving or a fragment of brushwood. Never forget that the storm raged from half-past six o'clock till late in the day, with the fury of Azraël, vexing and buffeting every living thing, and tearing to pieces all things inanimate. Now and then a cruel gleam of sunshine shot out of a rift in the walls of clouds and rendered the misery of the scene more striking. Gathered up under the old wall, we could not but think with anxious hearts of our fleet of transports off Balaklava and the Katcha. Alas! we had too much reason for our anxiety.

Towards ten o'clock matters were looking more hopeless and cheerless than ever, when a welcome invitation came through the storm to go over to the shelter of Romaine's tent. Our first duty was to aid the owner in securing the pole with "a fish" of stout spars. Then we aided in passing out a stay from the top of the pole to the wall in front. A cup of warm tea was set before each of us, provided by some inscrutable chemistry, and with excellent ration biscuit and some butter, a delicious meal, as much needed as it was unexpected, was made by my friends and myself, embittered only by the ever-recurring reflection, "God help us, what will become of the poor fellows in the trenches?" And there we sat, thinking and talking of the soldiers and of the fleet hour after hour, while the wind and rain blew and fell with the full sense of the calamity with which Providence was pleased to visit us.

Towards twelve o'clock the wind, which had been blowing from the south-west, chopped round more to the west, and became colder. Sleet fell first, and then a snow-storm, which clothed the desolate landscape in white, till the tramp of men seamed it with trails of black mud. The mountain ranges assumed their winter garb. French soldiers flocked about head-quarters, and displayed their stock of sorrows to us. Their tents were all down and blown away--no chance of recovering them; their bread was "_tout mouillé et gâté_," their rations gone to the dogs. The African soldiers seemed particularly miserable. Several of them were found dead next morning outside our cavalry camp. Two men in the 7th Fusileers, one man in the 33rd, and one man of the 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade, were found dead, "starved to death" by the cold. About forty horses died, and many never recovered.

[Sidenote: A REFUGE FROM THE STORM.]

At two o'clock the wind went down a little, and the intervals between the blasts of the gale became more frequent and longer. We took advantage of one of these halcyon moments to trudge to the wreck of my tent, and having borrowed another pole, with the aid of a few men we got it up muddy and wet; but it was evident that no dependence could be placed upon it; the floor was a puddle, and the bed and clothes dripping. Towards evening there were many tents re-pitched along the lines of our camps, though they were but sorry resting-places. It was quite out of the question to sleep in them. What was to be done? There was close at hand the barn used as a stable for the horses of the 8th Hussars, and Eber Macraghten and I waded across the sea of nastiness which lay between us and it, tacked against several gusts, fouled one or two soldiers in a different course, grappled with walls and angles of outhouses, nearly foundered in big horse-holes, bore sharply up round a corner, and anchored at last in the stable.

What a scene it was! The officers of the escort were crouching over some embers; along the walls were packed some thirty or forty horses and ponies, shivering with cold, and kicking and biting with spite and bad humour. The Hussars, in their long cloaks, stood looking on the flakes of snow, which drifted in at the doorway or through the extensive apertures in the shingle roof. Soldiers of different regiments crowded about the warm corners, and Frenchmen of all arms, and a few Turks, joined in the brotherhood of misery, lighted their pipes at the scanty fire, and sat close for mutual comfort. The wind blew savagely through the roof, and through chinks in the mud walls and window-holes. The building was a mere shell, as dark as pitch, and smelt as it ought to do--an honest, unmistakeable stable--improved by a dense pack of moist and mouldy soldiers. And yet it seemed to us a palace! Life and joy were inside, though melancholy Frenchmen would insist on being pathetic over their own miseries--and, indeed, they were many and great--and after a time the eye made out the figures of men huddled up in blankets, lying along the wall. They were the sick, who had been in the hospital marquee, and who now lay moaning and sighing in the cold; but our men were kind to them, as they are always to the distressed, and not a pang of pain did they feel which care or consideration could dissipate.

A staff officer, Colonel Wetherall, dripping with rain, came in to see if he could get any shelter for draughts of the 33rd and 41st Regiments, which had just been landed at Kamiesch, but he soon ascertained the hopelessness of his mission so far as our quarters were concerned. The men were packed into another shed, "like herrings in a barrel." Having told us, "There is terrible news from Balaklava--seven vessels lost, and a number on shore at the Katcha," and thus made us more gloomy than ever, the officer went on his way, as well as he could, to look after his draughts. In the course of an hour an orderly was sent off to Balaklava with dispatches from head-quarters; but, after being absent for three-quarters of an hour, the man returned, fatigued and beaten, to say he could not get his horse to face the storm. In fact, it would have been all but impossible for man or beast to have made headway through the hurricane.

We sat in the dark till night set in--not a soul could stir out. Nothing could be heard but the howling of the wind, the yelping of wild dogs driven into the enclosures, and the shrill neighings of terrified horses. At length a candle-end was stuck into a horn lantern, to keep it from the wind--a bit of ration pork and some rashers of ham, done over the wood fire, furnished an excellent dinner, which was followed by a glass or horn of hot water and rum--then a pipe, and as it was cold and comfortless, we got to bed--a heap of hay on the stable floor, covered with our clothes, and thrown close to the heels of a playful grey mare, who had strong antipathies to her neighbours, a mule and an Arab horse, and spent the night in attempting to kick in their ribs. Amid smells, and with incidents impossible to describe or allude to more nearly, we went to sleep in spite of a dispute between an Irish sergeant of Hussars and a Yorkshire corporal of Dragoons as to the comparative merits of light and heavy cavalry, with digressions respecting the capacity of English and Irish horseflesh, which, by the last we heard of them, seemed likely to be decided by a trial of physical strength on the part of the disputants.

Throughout the day there had been very little firing from the Russian batteries--towards evening all was silent except the storm. In the middle of the night, however, we were all awoke by one of the most tremendous cannonades we had ever heard, and, after a time, the report of a rolling fire of musketry was borne upon the wind. Looking eagerly in the direction of the sound, we saw the flashes of the cannon through the chinks in the roof, each distinct by itself, just as a flash of lightning is seen in all its length and breadth through a crevice in a window shutter. It was a sortie on the French lines. The cannonade lasted for half-an-hour, and gradually waxed fainter. In the morning we heard that the Russians had been received with an energy which quickly made them fly to the cover of their guns.