CHAPTER V.

News of an Armistice--Destruction of the White Buildings--The Explosion--A lively and novel Scene at Traktir Bridge--Fraternization--The Cossacks--Meeting of the Generals--Death of Major Ranken--The Armistice finally settled--Ruin of Sebastopol--Can it rise again?--Visits to the Tchernaya--Discussions on Army Matters--System of Purchase--Pros and Cons.

The Morning of February 28th brought us news of the conclusion of an armistice. The Russians had it first, by telegraph from St. Petersburg, and the mail from Constantinople brought its confirmation to the Allies. At 8 A.M. a boat, bearing a flag of truce, put off from the north side, and was met half-way across the harbour by one from the French. The Russians brought a communication from General Lüders. As if to celebrate the armistice, the so-called White Buildings were blown up in the afternoon. Soon after three o'clock, spectators began to assemble at the Redan, in front of Picket-house Hill, on Cathcart's Hill, and in other commanding positions. There was not a very strong muster at any of these places, for we were rather _blasé_ in the matter of explosions; and, although the day was bright and sunny, the ground was very heavy with mud and snow, and the cold too sharp to be pleasant. There was a certain amount of snowballing among the pedestrians, which doubtless contributed to keep up a supply of caloric, and one or two base attacks were made upon unfortunate equestrians, who, not having snow within their reach, or a supply of ready-made snowballs in their pockets, had no choice but to charge their assailants or resort to ignominious flight. Half an hour passed; feet were very cold, noses very blue, fingers hardly felt the reins, grumbling was heard: "It is nearly four o'clock; why the deuce doesn't it go off?" Patience, I fear, was not a very common virtue in the Crimean army. An impromptu "shave," suggested by the circumstances of the moment, was passed about. "Pelissier is coming; they wait for him."

Now it so happened that Pelissier was _not_ coming. The armistice gave him something to do and think of, and moreover, he had been disappointed a few days before, when it had been notified to him that the White Buildings were to be blown up. So he no longer put his faith in the unpunctual engineers of perfidious Albion. Some French and other foreign officers came, waiting patiently and confidingly in the Redan, and in front of Picket-house Hill, just over the ravine. Another half-hour passed. A quarter-past four, and no explosion. Strong language began to be used; wishes were uttered, the fulfilment of which would certainly not be desired by the engineers, at whose door, rightly or wrongly, the delay was laid. The third half-hour had not quite elapsed when the report spread that the explosion was "put off." According to some accounts, it would occur in an hour and a half; according to others, next day, while a third party talked of the next week; there was a general movement campwards. A few Artillery officers still stuck to the Redan; Picket-house Hill was quickly cleared, except of one or two obstinate expectants, Cathcart's Hill was abandoned by many. Just at a quarter to five, when few of the weary who had departed could have reached their quarters, and some could have been but a hundred or two yards on the wrong side of the hill-crests, out gushed a small puff of white smoke from the White Buildings--then came a big puff of black smoke. There was a slight explosion, a grumbling roar; stones were hurled into the air and pitched high over the eastern wall into the docks, and after a silence which seemed to last nearly a minute, came a series of pops and puffs as mines went off in rapid succession, an immense volume of smoke appeared, not in dense sluggish masses slowly surging up, as at the explosion of Fort Nicholas, but in a thinner cloud, which rose so high that the summit of the murky column was visible over Picket-house Hill to persons some way down the Woronzoff Road, where it passed through the Light Division camp. After the explosions of the buildings, Fort Constantine sent a solitary shell into the French side, so the armistice was not considered to be perfect until after the conference.

Major George Ranken, of the Royal Engineers, was killed at the explosion of the White Buildings. A mine having failed to explode, Major Ranken sent his men to a distance and entered the place to renew the train. From the position in which his corpse was found it was supposed that he had completed his perilous task, and was about getting through a window when the explosion took place and the building fell in. His arm was broken, and there were injuries to the skull and spine which must have occasioned instant death. Major Ranken commanded the ladder party in the last attack on the Redan. He was a most promising officer, a great favourite with his comrades, and his loss was deplored by all who knew him. It was hard to have escaped the murderous fire of the 8th of September only to die, less than five months later, crushed beneath a shattered wall. The unfortunate officer was buried with military honours, at the Engineers' Cemetery, Left Attack. He was followed to the grave by General Eyre, commanding the Third Division; by Colonel Lloyd, commanding the Royal Engineers; and by a large number of officers of his own corps and of other arms. Major Ranken had the melancholy distinction of being the last Englishman killed in the Crimea. The last Frenchman killed there fell in a duel.

[Sidenote: THE COSSACKS.]

On the morning of February the 29th there was a lively and novel scene at ten o'clock at Traktir Bridge. At its further end a white flag was hoisted, and just beyond it some five-and-twenty Cossacks halted, who had escorted thither the Russian General Timovoieff and his staff. At a few minutes past ten General Barnard and some staff officers rode down through the ravine between the two hills on which the battle of the Tchernaya was fought, and crossed to the other side of the river. The Generals who met to arrange the details of the armistice occupied two tents, pitched on a strip of greensward in the rear of the bridge. They were, General Timovoieff, Chief of the Staff of the 4th Corps of the Russian army, which was in front and furnished the advanced posts; Generals de Martimprey and Windham and Colonel Count Pettiti, Chiefs of the Staffs of the French, English, and Sardinian armies. The three latter were deputed by their Generals-in-Chief to present the proposals of armistice which these had discussed and decided upon. Their mission extended no further, and General Timovoieff, not being authorized to accept those proposals without referring them to his General-in-Chief, merely took a copy of them to transmit to General Lüders.

There were, perhaps, half a dozen other English officers, about as many French, and a much larger number of Sardinians. All these went over the bridge, and a sort of fraternization ensued between them and some Russian officers--that is to say, there was a good deal of civility, and some ill-treatment of the French and German languages; but, as to carrying on much conversation with our Muscovite friends, it was not an easy matter, for there seemed a mutual embarrassment as to what subject to pitch upon. Horses were a natural theme, and the Russians expressed admiration of some of those present, and were probably rather astonished at their good condition.

The great object of curiosity to us was the fur-capped Cossacks, around whom the allied officers assembled, examining their arms; and equipments and entering into conversation, which, in most cases, was carried on by signs. They were slender, wiry men--ugly enough, most of them--mounted on small, rough, active horses, and carrying, besides sword and carbine, flagless lances, whose long black poles terminated in a small but very sharp-pointed steel head. They seemed well pleased to cultivate the acquaintance of their enemies, and also had evidently an eye to the main chance. One of the first things I saw was a Cossack corporal proposing a barter to a Sardinian officer. The latter had a tolerably good riding-whip, for which the astute child of the Don insisted on swapping a shabby sort of instrument of torture, of which his pony was doubtless rejoiced to be rid. The Sardinian hesitated, the Cossack persisted, and the exchange was effected, the officer looking, as I thought, rather ruefully after his departed _cravache_, and somewhat contemptuously at the shabby but characteristic stick and thong he had received for it. The signal thus given, the whip trade soon acquired great activity. Probably some of the officers present were ready enough to part with a tolerably good whip for a bad Cossack one, as a _souvenir_ of the day's proceedings and of the commencement of the armistice.

It had been expected that vedettes would be placed, and that very little freedom of intercourse would be allowed beyond the bridge of Traktir, and people at first thought themselves fortunate in getting over the bridge and having a good view of the Cossacks and a chat with some stray Russian officer. Later, however, as the morning, which had previously been cold and raw, advanced, and the sun shone bright and warm, the dry, grassy, and shrub-grown plain of the Tchernaya looking tempting for a canter, officers began to get restless, and to move away from the bridge across a small stream or ditch, and up a strip of level ground leading to a sort of monument, a square pedestal of rough stones surmounted by a dwarf pillar, of no particular order of architecture, and concerning whose origin and object the Russians, of whom inquiry was made, could say nothing. Some more Sardinian and French officers had by this time come down, but besides those engaged in the conference and attached to General Windham's staff, I do not think there were a dozen English officers on the ground. The general disposition of all seemed to be to move outwards in the direction of the Russian lines. People did not know how far they might go, and accordingly felt their way, cantering across a bit of level ground, and up a hill, and then pausing to look about them and reconnoitre the country and see whether there was any sign of obstacles to further progress. The soil was of a lighter and more sandy nature than it was generally found to be within our lines; in some places it was rather thickly sprinkled with bushes, saplings, and tall weeds. Several brace of red-legged partridges were sprung, some of them so near our horses' feet that a hunting-whip would have reached them.

[Sidenote: THE CONFERENCE AT TRAKTIR.]

As the day advanced, the field grew still larger. A French General arrived with his Staff and several French Hussar officers. Numbers of Sardinians came, but the English were detained in camp by a muster parade, and many also had been misinformed that the meeting of the Generals was not to take place until twelve or one. The horses, long accustomed to sink to the fetlock in horrid Balaklavan and Sebastopolitan mire, seemed to enjoy the change to the firm, springy turf beyond the Tchernaya; more partridges were sprung, to the immense tantalization of some there present, who would have given a month's pay for a day's shooting over such ground; some hares also were started, and one of them was vigorously pursued by a subaltern of a sporting turn, whose baggage pony, however, was soon left far in rear by puss's active bounds. By this time we were getting far on towards the Russian lines and batteries, when the field began to spread out, some taking to the right, and getting very near to a Cossack vedette, who seemed rather puzzled to account for the presence of so many strange horsemen within musket-shot of his post, and who, after beginning to circle once or twice in signal of an enemy's approach, received a reinforcement in the shape of another Cossack, who rode down the hill as if to warn the intruders off forbidden ground. Another party of gallopers went close up to the battery known as No. 49, and held communion with some vedettes, with whom they smoked an amicable cigarette, until a Russian officer came up and politely informed them in French that his orders were to allow no one to come any further, and that he hoped they would retire, which they of course did. More to the left a numerous body of horsemen, followed by a straggling array of Zouaves, Chasseurs, Bersaglieri, and other infantry soldiers, who had made their way to the ground, rode up to the ridge just below the spur of the hill to the south of Inkerman. Here they were very near the Russian pickets, and within particularly convenient shot of various batteries, had these thought proper to open, and there most of them paused, for to go further really looked like abusing the good-nature of the enemy, who had thus allowed us to profit by the conference to enjoy a ride further into the Russian territory than any one has been since this camp was formed, and to take a near view of their positions and defences. Only half a dozen adventurous and inquisitive spirits pushed ahead, and seemed as if they intended charging a Russian battery, and the vedettes in this direction began to move uneasily about also, when up came a Sardinian staff officer at full speed, his blue plume streaming in the wind, and gave chase to the forward gentlemen, shouting to them to return. They, seeing themselves thus cut off in the rear, and perhaps to avoid a rebuke, made a retrograde flank movement, escaped their pursuer, and rejoined the main body; and, as orders were then given that no one should go further, a return towards the bridge became pretty general. On reaching the bridge a halt was again called round the group of Cossacks, and all eyes were fixed upon the two neat blue and white-striped tents, with awnings over their entrances. Some of the Generals were standing outside, and it was evident that the conference was drawing to a close.

A short delay ensued, which I perceived that the Cossack corporal availed himself of to exchange his Sardinian whip for a much better French one, the receiver of the former doubtless imagining he had secured a genuine Russian article. Then cocked hats and feathers were seen moving among the horses near the tents; orderlies and escorts mounted; the Cossacks did the same, and presently English, French, Sardinian, and Russian Generals and Staff rode over the bridge and between a double line formed by the spectators. General Timovoieff, a soldierly-looking man of agreeable physiognomy, rode first, and smilingly returned the salutes with which he was received. General Windham was close beside him, a little in the rear. There was an escort of French Chasseurs-à cheval and a small one of the 11th Hussars, and the big horses and tall well-fed men of the latter strikingly contrasted with the puny, although hardy steeds, and with the meagre frames of the Cossacks, who seemed to regard them with some wonderment, while the Hussars glanced at them as if they thought that one squadron of theirs would have an easy bargain of half a dozen sotnias of such antagonists. The _cortége_ proceeded a short distance into the plain, and then the allied portion took leave of "_nos amis l'ennemi_" and retraced their steps to the bridge. They had passed over it, and the crowd of spectators was following, when they were met by a throng of officers from the English camp, coming down "to see the fun," which, unfortunately, was over. Nevertheless, they were pressing forward across the bridge, and would, doubtless, had they been allowed, have ridden up to the Bilboquet battery, or across to Mackenzie's Farm--for it is an axiom that nothing will stop an English infantry officer, mounted on his favourite baggager; but a French Staff captain, seeing what was likely to ensue, ordered the sentries to allow no one to cross the bridge. As we rode up the ravine between the two mamelons, which witnessed such sharp fighting on the 17th of August, 1855, we met scores more of English officers coming down, only to be turned back.

At one on the afternoon of March 14th, the Staff of the allied and Russian armies again met at Traktir Bridge--on this occasion to sign the conditions of the armistice, which were finally agreed to, the Russians having shown themselves tolerably pliant. The day was raw, dull, and disagreeable, with a sharp northerly breeze blowing, but nevertheless a considerable number of English, French, and Sardinian officers found their way to the bridge, doubtless in hopes of a repetition of the canter of the 29th of February; but if that was the bait that lured them there they were completely disappointed.

Altogether, there was a good number of Russian officers at or near Traktir Bridge. Some of them were strolling by twos and threes in the field, at a short distance beyond, and when these were descried there was usually a regular charge down upon them by the allied officers, eager to make their acquaintance. Their manner was generally grave and rather reserved, but they conversed readily, and all had the tone and appearance of well-bred men. Some of them were very young. There was one youth of eighteen, who named to us the regiment of Hussars in which he was an officer, and seemed knowing about horses, pointing out the English ones from among the French, Italians, and Arabs that stood around. All--cavalry as well as infantry, and the General and his Staff--wore the long uniform greatcoat of a sort of brown and grey mixture, and seemed to have no other insignia of rank than the different colours and lace of the shoulder-strap. There was also a difference of fineness in the cloth of their coats from that of the soldiers, but this at a very short distance was not apparent. The Staff wore white kid gloves, and I noticed some of them with smart patent leather boots--elegancies rarely seen in our part of the Crimea.

This time there was no scouring the plain and gossiping with vedettes; the aqueduct was the limit, observance of which was enforced by a chain of Zouave sentries patrolling to and fro. A Russian picket was stationed at about rifle-shot distance beyond the river, along the further bank of which Cossack and Dragoon vedettes were posted at short intervals. There was nothing else of any interest to observe, and most of the persons whom curiosity led to the spot soon grew tired of standing at the edge of a ditch, and gazing at a distant handful of Muscovites; so they turned their horses, and tried to warm themselves by a canter back to the camp.

[Sidenote: RUINS OF SEBASTOPOL.]

But so far as Sebastopol was concerned there was little for the Russians to gain by covering it with the thin cloak of an armistice.

Had fire been rained down from Heaven upon the devoted city its annihilation could not have been more complete. The shells of princely mansions which remained on the French side of the town had been knocked to atoms by the Russian batteries on the north side; the theatre was demolished, and the beautiful church of St. Peter and St. Paul laid in ruins by the same implacable foe; and they directed particular volleys of round shot and shell on a monument to one of their naval heroes, which stood conspicuously placed in front of a beautiful little kiosk in the midst of a garden, to which there was a fine approach from the place behind Fort Nicholas by a handsome flight of steps, now destroyed. On a quadrilateral pedestal of some pretensions, supporting entablatures with allegorical devices, and ornamented at the summit by a _puppis_, were inscribed, when first I saw it, the name of "Kazarski," and the dates 1829 and 1834, with an intimation that the monument was erected in his honour. Most of the letters were stolen and knocked away; and had not the fire from the north ceased, the pedestal itself would have disappeared likewise. The French garrison, somewhat harassed by the incessant fire on the town, which, however, did them or us but little mischief, constructed out of the débris of the houses a very neat _quartier_ inside the walls. The huts of which it was composed consisted of wood, ranged in regular rows, with the usual street nomenclature in these parts of the world. The stranger who halted to survey it from the neighbouring heights, deceived by the whitewashed and plastered walls of the houses, might think that Sebastopol was still a city; but when he walked through its grass-grown, deserted streets, formed by endless rows of walls alone, of roofless shells of houses, in which not one morsel of timber could be seen, from threshold to eaves; when he beheld great yawning craters, half filled with mounds of cut stone, heaped together in irregular masses; when he gazed on tumuli of disintegrated masonry, once formidable forts, and shaken, as it were, into dust and powder; when he stumbled over the fragments of imperial edifices, to peer down into the great gulfs, choked up with rubbish, which marked the site of the grand docks of the Queen of the Euxine; beheld the rotting masts and hulls of the sunken navy which had been nurtured there; when he observed that what the wrath of the enemy spared was fast crumbling away beneath the fire of its friends, and that the churches where they worshipped, the theatres, the public monuments, had been specially selected for the practice of the Russian gunners, as though they were emulous of running a race in destruction with the allied armies--he would, no doubt, come to the conclusion that the history of the world afforded no such authentic instance of the annihilation of a great city. It is certainly hard to believe that the site can ever be made available for the erection of houses or the construction of docks; but I am by no means certain that the immense resources in the command of manual labour possessed by the Government of Russia, of which this very struggle afforded us all such striking proofs, in the Quarantine Battery, the Bastion Centrale, the Bastion du Mât, the Redan, the Mamelon, and the Malakoff, may not be made available in time to clear away these modern ruins, and to rebuild houses, theatres, palaces, churches, forts, arsenals, and docks, as before.

In the Inkerman ravines are inexhaustible supplies of building material, which can be floated by the Tchernaya into the waters of the harbour with very little trouble. The immense quantity of cut stone lying in piles at the upper end of the harbour showed that the Allies interrupted the Russians in the development of the splendid architectural plans which it was the ambition of emperors to accomplish, and which engaged every thought and energy of the Muscovite governors of the Crimea.

[Sidenote: THE PURCHASE SYSTEM.]

Notwithstanding the very cold weather which prevailed, numbers of our officers and men descended to the Tchernaya every day to communicate with the Russians, to examine the new race-course, or to wade after the wild-fowl which abound in the marshes. There was nothing new in these interviews, except that the Russians grew more cordial, or less sullen. The number of officers who came down to our side bore a very small proportion to that of the allied officers who attended these _réunions_. The men seemed never to tire of looking on each other. French, English, and Sardinians swarmed down to the banks of the Tchernaya, in spite of the cold and bitter winds, to confabulate with the Ruskis, to exchange money with them, and to stare at their dogged, and, it must be added, rather dirty-looking enemies, who were not quite so eager or so active in their curiosity as the allied soldiery, and who needed the stimulus of turning a dishonest penny in the exchange of small coins to tempt them from grass cutting, and the pursuit of wild ducks and hares by the flats beneath Mackenzie's Farm to the banks of the stream. The men I saw on the warm 20th of September on the slopes of the Alma seemed repeated and multiplied in every direction across the Tchernaya. There was a wonderful family likeness among the common soldiers. The small round bullet-head, the straight light hair, high cheek-bones, grey keen eyes, rather deeply set beneath straight and slightly defined eye-brows, undemonstrative noses, with wide nostrils, large straight mouths, square jaws, and sharp chins, were common to the great majority of them. Their frames seemed spare and strongly built; but neither in stature nor breadth of shoulder did they equal the men of our old army of 1854. Many of the officers could scarcely be distinguished from the men in air, bearing, or dress, except by the plain, ill-made, and slight swords, which they carried from an unornamented shoulder-belt; but now and then one met with a young fellow with the appearance of a gentleman, in spite of his coarse long coat; occasionally a great tall lumbering fellow, who seemed to be of a different race from the men around him, slouched along in his heavy boots. The clothing of the troops appeared to be good. Their boots, into which they tucked their loose trousers, were easy and well-made, and the great-coats worn by the men fitted them better than our own fitted the English infantry. The colour, not so much a grey as a dunnish drab, is admirably suited not only to conceal the wearers in an open country, but to defy dust, mud, or rain to alter its appearance.

It was but natural that the two armies should be interested in each other's condition. The better-informed Russian officers were of course aware of the nature of our purchase system, but to most of them, that system was incomprehensible as novel. Its anomalies were, however, so strongly felt that the debates in Parliament which took place about this time on the subject were read with deep interest, and repeated and re-argued over and over again in camp. The friends of the system took it for granted that the arguments used against it must emanate from men of democratical and unconstitutional tendencies, and from enemies to the army and to the aristocracy, and Captain Figgs or Colonel Cottontwist were as fierce in their denunciations of Lord Goderich, Sir De Lacy Evans, and even Lord Palmerston, because he made some theoretical admissions against the system, as Lord Plantagenet or the Earl of Saxo-Grammaticus. They protested loudly that the object of these innovators was to drive "gentlemen" out of the army; while their opponents declared that the effect of the system was to keep "gentlemen"--those fiery cadets of old families who in other times were the true soldiers of fortune, the descendants of the gentry cavaliers--_out_ of the army. If the ex-Sergeant Jones, holding a commission in one of our corps or regiments, was noisy in his cups and over-elated with his good fortune, his peccadilloes were the subject of rejoicings, and were regarded as sufficiently conclusive evidence that we could not open our commissions to the rank and file; and if he happened to be brought to a court-martial and reprimanded or cashiered, the demonstration was complete.

At the time I wrote, "It must be admitted that the training of our barrack-rooms is not favourable to the acquirement of decent manners and gentlemanlike demeanour, and that until we elevate the profession of arms in England, and remove the stigma popularly impressed from the rank of a private soldier, we cannot expect to induce the needy members of the more respectable classes in society to enter as volunteers; and the high rate of rewards for skill in all mechanical and industrial arts will ever offer an obstacle to the efforts of the recruiting sergeant to enlist a better sort of recruits so long as the present scale of pay and ration stoppages is maintained. The advocates for the abolition of purchase are impressed by the force of such objections as are presented by the general constitution of our army; but, after all, what the country keeps up its army for is, not that it may consult the wishes or the tastes of any class whatever, however numerous, powerful, and wealthy, but that the army may fight its battles, and maintain its liberties and its glory against all comers. Pompey's dandies were, no doubt, greatly displeased at being slashed in the face by Caesar's rough legionaries, and thought them very low fellows; nor had Rupert's cavaliers any great opinion of the good breeding or _politesse_ of Old Noll's Ironsides; but the camp has never been regarded as any special school for demeanour or the inculcation of etiquette, however favourable it may be to the development of some of the nobler qualities of humanity; and if we really can procure brave, intelligent, zealous, and deserving officers by some enlargement of the limits which have hitherto circumscribed our choice, we must submit to the inconvenience, though they may have a smack of the barrack-room about them. It must be recollected that our boasted mess system utterly breaks down in active campaigning, and that, in the field, the officers live separately or in very small groups, so it is only in times of _peace_ that those whom Providence _finxit meliore luto_ will be obliged to come in contact with the commissioned _grossier_, who will, after all, always represent a very small minority. It is forgotten by the friends of the system of "rank for money," that there has as yet been no officer from the ranks whose conduct before the enemy has been the subject of unfavourable notice, and that not one of them has been obliged to leave the service for refusal to perform his duty in the trenches; nor has it always been officers from the ranks who have been subjected to courts-martial, by the sentences of which they were forced from the army. In fact, many of those who take this side of the question are arguing, not for aristocracy, but for aurocracy; they are sacrificing to Plutus when they think they are worshipping Mars, and they confound the two questions--in themselves entirely distinct, but so mingled in camp dialogue as to be inseparable--of the purchase system with that of promotion from the ranks. There are such difficulties in the way of an abolition of the former system, that its most intrepid advocate may well pause before he _suddenly_ demolishes it, and the devotion, the courage, and the endurance of the British officer of the army, and the respect of the men for him, are very weighty considerations in the way of the theoretical reformer.

"But if it have its advantages, the system has also its great, its crying evils, of which every mouth is full, and which are only met by the remark that there are evils in every system. Look at the case of Lieutenant-Colonel Cuddy, of the 55th. At the battle of Inkerman, he, as senior Captain, took the command of his regiment, when his senior officers were either killed or wounded. Throughout the whole of that terrible winter he served in the trenches, kept his handful of men together, and in all respects proved himself as careful as he was brave, and as prudent as he was zealous. Although lieutenant-colonel in the army, he was only captain in his regiment, and after having gone through the winter of 1854 and the spring of 1855, with all their hardships and conflicts, when the regimental majority was for purchase, owing to the retirement of the gallant Major Coats (whom I saw so badly hit at the Alma, that I thought he could scarce recover), Colonel Cuddy had the mortification of seeing Captain Cure, who was seven years his junior in the list of captains, and who had served at home with the depôt during the beginning of the campaign, pass over his head by purchase, and take the command of the regiment out of his hands. And can the country now heal the wound in that proud spirit? No; poor Cuddy fell at the Redan, and his cares and his sorrows are over for ever.

[Sidenote: PROCLAMATION OF PEACE.]

"Cases somewhat similar are not wanting in other regiments. Right or wrong, had this war gone on, the purchase system was doomed. General Orders were crowded with notices that Captain So-and-So, having done the duty of field officer, that Lieutenant Such-a-One, having acted as Captain, and that Sergeant-Major Nobody, having acted as quartermaster of his regiment from such a date, would draw pay and allowances accordingly. War pushed our system horribly out of shape, and gave its delicate frame such squeezes, and deranged it so terribly, that its dearest friends scarcely knew it when we carried it home. Some of the young and intelligent officers on the Staff did not hesitate to express a hearty wish for the abolition of the system. To the French it was utterly incomprehensible, and it is a fixed idea in the mind of Private Jean François Marie that General Codrington paid enormous sums for the honour of commanding the army--otherwise he cannot understand it."