CHAPTER XXXVI

"THE FRONT"

Man has been variously defined by philosophers as a cooking animal (the truth of this definition, unless when applied to our Gallic neighbours, I stoutly contest), as a reasoning animal (this likewise will hardly hold water), as a self-clothing animal, as an omnivorous one, as an unfeathered biped, and as an improved specimen of the order of Simiae without the tail! None of these definitions will I accept as expressing exactly the conditions and necessities of our species. I believe man to be an animal fed on excitement--the only one in creation that without that pabulum, in some shape or another, languishes, becomes torpid, and loses its noblest energies both of mind and body. Why do men drink, quarrel, gamble, and waste their substance in riotous living? Why does Satan, according to good Dr. Watts, always provide work "for idle hands to do"? Why, but because man _must_ have excitement. If he have no safety-valve for his surplus energies in the labour which earns his daily bread, they will find vent through some other channel, either for good or evil, according to his bias one way or the other. There is no such thing as repose on the face of the earth; "push on--keep moving," such is the motto of humanity. If we are not making we must be marring, but we cannot sit still. How else do we account for the proverbial restlessness of the sailor when he has been a few weeks ashore? How else can we conceive it possible for a rational being, whilst enjoying the luxuries and liberty of a landsman's existence, to pine for the hardships, the restraint, the utter discomfort which every one must necessarily experience on board ship? How, except upon this principle, can we understand the charm of a soldier's life, the cheering influence of a campaign? It is most unnatural to like rigid discipline, short rations, constant anxiety, and unremitting toil. A wet great-coat on the damp earth is a bad substitute for a four-post bed, with thick blankets, and clean sheets not innocent of the warming-pan. A tent is a miserable dwelling-place at the best of times, and is only just preferable to the canopy of heaven in very hot or very cold, or very windy or very wet weather. There is small amusement in spending the livelong night in sleepless watching for an enemy, and little satisfaction in being surprised by the same about an hour before dawn. It is annoying to be starved, it is irritating to be frightened, it is uncomfortable to be shot,--yet are all these casualties more or less incidental to the profession of arms; and still the recruiting sergeant flaunts his bunch of ribbons in every market town throughout merry England, and still the bumpkin takes the shilling, and sings in beery strains, "Huzza for the life of a soldier!"

And I too had tasted of the fierce excitement of strife--had drunk of the stimulating draught which, like some bitter tonic, creates a constant craving for more--had been taught by the influence of custom and companionship to loathe the quiet dreamy existence which was my normal state, and to long for the thrill of danger, the variety and unholy revelry of war.

So I returned with Ropsley to the Crimea. I had small difficulty in obtaining leave from Omar Pasha to resign, at least for a time, my appointment on his personal staff.

"They are queer fellows, my adopted countrymen," said his Highness, in his dry, humorous manner, and with his quaint smile, "and the sooner you get out of the way, friend Egerton, the better. I shall be asked all sorts of questions about you myself; and if you stay here, why, the nights are dark and the streets are narrow. Some fine morning it might be difficult to wake you, and nobody would be a bit the wiser. Our Turk has his peculiar notions about the laws of honour, and he cannot be made to comprehend why he should risk his own life in taking yours. Besides, he is ridiculously sensitive about his women, particularly with a Christian. Had you been a good Mussulman, now, Egerton, it could have been easily arranged. You might have bought the lady, got drunk on champagne with old Papoosh Pasha, and set up a harem of your own. Why don't you become a convert, as I did? The process is short, the faith simple, the practice satisfactory. Think it over, my good Interpreter, think it over. Bah! in ten minutes you would be as good a Mussulman as I am, and better." And his Highness laughed, and bid me "Good-bye," for he had a good deal upon his hands just then, being on the eve of marriage with his _fifth_ wife, a young lady twelve years of age, daughter to his Imperial Majesty the Sultan, and bringing her husband a magnificent dowry of jewels, gold, and horses, in addition to many broad and fertile acres in Anatolia, not to mention a beautiful kiosk near Scutari and a stately palace on the Bosphorus, without which adventitious advantages she might perhaps have hardly succeeded in winning the heart of so experienced a warrior as Omar Pasha.

Thus it was that I found myself one broiling sunny morning leaning over the side of a transport, just then dropping her anchor in Balaklava Bay.

The scorching rocks frowned down on the scorching sea; the very planks on the deck glistened with the heat. There was no shade on land, and not a breath of air ruffled the shining bosom of the water. The harbour was full, ay, choked with craft of every rig and every tonnage; whilst long, wicked-looking steamers and huge, unwieldy troop-ships dotted the surface of the land-locked bay. The union-jack trailed idly over our stern, the men were all on deck, gazing with eager faces on that shore which combined for _them_ the realities of history with the fascinations of romance. Young soldiers were they, mostly striplings of eighteen and twenty summers, with the smooth cheeks, fresh colour, and stalwart limbs of the Anglo-Saxon race--too good to fill a trench! And yet what would be the fate of at least two-thirds of that keen, light-hearted draft? _Vestigia nulla retrorsum_. Many a time has it made my heart ache to see a troop-ship ploughing relentlessly onward with her living freight to "the front,"--many a time have I recalled AEsop's fable, and the foot-prints that were all _towards_ the lion's den,--many a time have I thought how every unit there in red was himself the centre of a little world at home; and of the grey heads that would tremble, and the loving faces that would pale in peaceful villages far away in England, when no news came from foreign parts of "our John," or when the unrelenting _Gazette_ arrived at last and proclaimed, as too surely it would, that he was coming back "never, never no more."

Boom!--there it is again! Every eye lightens at that dull, distant sound. Every man's pulse beats quicker, and his head towers more erect, for he feels that he has arrived at the _real thing_ at last. No sham fighting is going on over yonder, not two short leagues from where he stands--no mock bivouac at Chobham, nor practice in Woolwich Marshes, nor meaningless pageant in the Park: that iron voice carries _death_ upon its every accent. For those in the trenches it is a mere echo--the unregarded consequence that necessarily succeeds the fierce rush of a round-shot or the wicked whistle of a shell; but for us here at Balaklava it is one of the pulsations of England's life-blood--one of the ticks, so to speak, of that great Clock of Doom which points ominously to the downfall of the beleaguered town.

Boom! Yes, there it is again; you cannot forget why you are here. Day and night, sunshine and storm, scarce five minutes elapse in the twenty-four hours without reminding you of the work in hand. You ride out from the camp for your afternoon exercise, you go down to Balaklava to buy provisions, or you canter over to the monastery at St. George's to visit a sick comrade--the iron voice tolls on. In the glare of noon, when everything else seems drowsy in the heat, and the men lie down exhausted in the suffocating trenches--the iron voice tolls on. In the calm of evening, when the breeze is hushed and still, and the violet sea is sleeping in the twilight--the iron voice tolls on. So when the flowers are opening in the morning, and the birds begin to sing, and reviving nature, fresh and dewy, seems to scatter health and peace and good-will over the earth--the iron voice tolls on. Nay, when you wake at midnight in your tent from a dream of your far-away home--oh! what a different scene to this!--tired as you may be, ere you have turned to sleep once more, you hear it again. Yes, at midnight as at noon, at morn as at evening, every day and all day long, Death is gathering his harvest--and the iron voice tolls on.

"Very slack fire they seem to be keeping up in the front," yawns out Ropsley, who has just joined me on deck, and to whom the siege and all its accessories are indeed nothing new. Many a long and weary month has he been listening to that sound; and what with his own ideas on the subject, and the information a naturally acute intellect has acquired touching the proceedings of the besiegers, his is indeed a familiarity which "breeds contempt."

"Any news from the camp?" he shouts out to a middy in a man-of-war's boat passing under our stern. The middy, a thorough specimen of an English boy, with his round laughing face and short jacket, stands up to reply.

"Another sortie! No end of fellows killed; and _they say_ the Malakhoff is blown up."

Our young soldiers listen eagerly to the news. They have heard and read of the Malakhoff for many a day, and though their ideas of the nature and appearance of that work are probably of a somewhat confused description, they are all athirst for intelligence, and prepared to swallow everything connected with the destruction of that or any other of the defences with a faith that is, to say the least of it, a sad temptation to the laughter-loving informant.

A middy, though from some organic cause of which I am ignorant, is always restless and impatient towards the hour of noon; and our friend plumps down once more in the stern of his gig, and bids his men "give way"; for the sun is by this time high in the heavens; so we take our places in the ship's boat which our own captain politely provides for us, and avoiding the confusion of a disembarkation of men and stores, Ropsley, Bold, and I leap ashore at Balaklava, unencumbered save by the slender allowance of luggage which a campaign teaches the most luxurious to deem sufficient.

Ashore at Balaklava! What a scene of hurry and crowding and general confusion it is! Were it not that every second individual is in uniform and bearded to the waist, it would appear more like the mart of some peaceful and commercial sea-port, than the threshold of a stage on which is being fought out to the death one of the fiercest and most obstinate struggles which History has to record on her blood-stained pages. There are no women, yet the din of tongues is perfectly deafening. Hurrying to and fro, doing as little work with as much labour as possible, making immense haste with small speed, and vociferating incessantly at the top of their voices, Turks and Tartars, Armenians, Greeks, and Ionians, all accosted by the burly English soldier under the generic name of "Johnny," are flitting aimlessly about, and wasting her Majesty's stores in a manner that would have driven the late Mr. Hume frantic. Here a trim sergeant of infantry, clean and orderly, despite his war-worn looks and patched garments, drives before him a couple of swarthy nondescripts, clad in frieze, and with wild elf-locks protruding over their jutting foreheads, and twinkling Tartar eyes. They stagger under huge sacks of meal, which they are carrying to yonder storehouse, with a sentry pacing his short walk at the door. The sacks have been furnished by contract, so the seams are badly sewn; and the meal, likewise furnished by contract, and of inferior quality, is rapidly escaping, to leave a white track in the mud, also a contract article, and of the deepest, stickiest, and most enduring quality. The labours of the two porters will be much lightened ere they reach their destination; but this is of less moment, inasmuch as the storehouse to which they are proceeding is by no means watertight, and the first thunderstorm that sweeps in from the Black Sea is likely much to damage its contents. It is needless to add that this edifice of thin deal planks has been constructed by contract for the use of her Majesty's Government.

A little farther on, a train of mules, guided by a motley crowd of every nation under heaven, and commanded by an officer in the workmanlike uniform of the Land Transport, is winding slowly up the hill. They have emerged from a perfect sea of mud, which even at this dry season shows not the least tendency to harden into consistency, and they will probably arrive at the front in about four hours, with the loss of a third only of their cargo, consisting of sundry munitions which were indispensable last week, and might have been of service the day before yesterday, but the occasion for which has now passed away for ever.

A staff officer on a short sturdy pony gallops hastily by, exchanging a nod as he passes with a beardless cornet of dragoons, whose English charger presents a curious study of the anatomy of a horse. He pulls up for an instant to speak to Ropsley, and the latter turns to me and says--

"Not so bad as I feared, Vere. It was a mere sortie, after all, and we drove them back very handsomely, with small loss on our side. The only officer killed was young ----, and he was dying, poor fellow! at any rate, of dysentery."

This is the news of the day here, and the trenches form just such a subject of conversation before Sebastopol as does the weather in a country-house in England--a topic never new, but never entirely worn out.

Side by side, Ropsley and myself are journeying up the hill towards the front. A sturdy batman has been in daily expectation of his master's return, and has brought his horses down to meet him. It is indeed a comfort to be again in an English saddle--to have the lengthy, powerful frame of an English horse under one--and to hear the homely, honest accents of a _provincial_ English tongue. When a man has been long amongst foreigners, and especially serving with foreign troops, it is like being at home again to be once more within the lines of a British army; and to add to the pleasure of our ride, although the day is cloudless and insufferably hot in the valleys, there is a fresh breeze up here, and a pure bracing air that reaches us from the heights on which the army is encamped.

It is a wild, picturesque scene, not beautiful, yet full of interest and incident. Behind us lies Balaklava, with its thronging harbour and its busy crowds, whose hum reaches us even here, high above the din. It is like looking down on an ant-hill to watch the movements of the shifting swarm.

On our right, the plain, stretching far and wide, is dotted with the Land Transport--that necessary evil so essential to the very existence of an army; and their clustering wagons and scattered beasts carry the eye onwards to a dim white line formed by the neat tents and orderly encampment of the flower of French cavalry, the gallant and dashing Chasseurs d'Afrique.

On our left, the stable call of an English regiment of Light Dragoons reaches us from the valley of Kadikoi, that Crimean Newmarket, the doings of which are actually chronicled in _Bell's Life_! Certainly an Englishman's nationality is not to be rooted out of him even in the jaws of death. But we have little time to visit the race-course or the lines--to pass our comments on the condition of the troopers, or gaze open-mouthed at the wondrous field-batteries that occupy an adjoining encampment--moved by teams of twelve horses each, perhaps the finest animals of the class to be seen in Europe, with every accessory of carriage, harness, and appointments, so perfect as not to admit of improvement, yet, I believe, not found to answer in actual warfare. Our interest is more awakened by another scene. We are on classic ground now, for we have reached the spot whence

Into the valley of death Rode the six hundred!

Yes, stretching down from our very feet lies that mile-and-a-half gallop which witnessed the boldest deed of chivalry performed in ancient or modern times. Well might the French general exclaim, "_C'est magnifique!_" although he added, significantly, "_mais ce n'est pas la guerre._" The latter part of his observation is a subject for discussion, but of the former there is and there can be but one opinion. _Magnifique_ indeed it must have been to see six hundred horsemen ride gallantly down to almost certain death--every heart beating equally high, every sword striking equally hard and true.

Groom fought like noble, squire like knight, As fearlessly and well.

Not a child in England at this day but knows, as if he had been there, the immortal battle of Balaklava. It is needless to describe its situation, to dwell upon the position they were ordered to carry, or the fire that poured in upon front, flanks, ay, and rear, of the attacking force. This is all matter of history; but as the valley stretched beneath us, fresh, green, and smiling peacefully in the sun, it required but little imagination to call up the stirring scene of which it had been the stage. Here was the very ground on which the Light Brigade were drawn up; every charger quivering with excitement, every eye flashing, every lip compressed with the sense of coming danger. A staff officer rides up to the leader, and communicates an order. There is an instant's pause. Question and reply pass like lightning, and the aide-de-camp points to a dark, grim mass of artillery bristling far away down yonder in the front. Men's hearts stop beating, and many a bold cheek turns pale, for there is more excitement in uncertainty than in actual danger. The leader draws his sword, and faces flush, and hearts beat high once more. Clear and sonorous is his voice as he gives the well-known word; gallant and chivalrous his bearing as he takes his place--that place of privilege--_in front_--"_Noblesse oblige_" and can he be otherwise than gallant and chivalrous and devoted, for is he not a _gentleman?_ and yet, to the honour of our countrymen be it spoken, not a man of that six hundred, of any rank, but was as gallant and chivalrous and devoted as he--he has said so himself a hundred times.

So the word is given, and the squadron leaders take it up, and the Light Brigade advances at a gallop; and a deadly grasp is on the sword, and the charger feels his rider's energy as he grips him with his knees, and holding him hard by the head urges him resolutely forward--to death!

And now they cross the line of fire: shot through the heart, an aide-de-camp falls headlong from the saddle, and his loose horse gallops on, wild and masterless, and wheels in upon the flank, and joins the squadron once more. It has begun now. Man upon man, horse upon horse, are shot down and rolled over; yet the survivors close in, sterner, bolder, fiercer than before, and still the death-ride sweeps on.

"Steady, men--forward!" shouts a chivalrous squadron leader, as he waves his glittering sword above his head, and points towards the foe. Clear and cheerful rings his voice above the tramp of horses and the rattle of small-arms and the deadly roar of artillery. He is a model of beauty, youth, and gallantry--the admired of men, the darling of women, the hope of his house.--Do not look again.--A round-shot has taken man and horse; he is lying rolled up with his charger, a confused and ghastly mass. Forward! the squadron has passed over him, and still the death-ride sweeps on.

The gaps are awful now, the men told off by threes look in vain for the familiar face at right or left; every trooper feels that he must depend on himself and the good horse under him, but there is no wavering. Officers begin to have misgivings as to the result, but there is no hesitation. All know they are galloping to destruction, yet not a heart fails, not a rein is turned. Few, very few are they by this time, and still the death-ride sweeps on. They disappear in that rolling sulphurous cloud, the portal of another world; begrimed with smoke, ghastly with wounds, comrade cannot recognise comrade, and officers look wildly round for their men; but the guns are still before them--the object is not yet attained--the enemy awaits them steadily behind his gabions, and the fire from his batteries is mowing them down like grass. If but one man is left, that one will still press forward: and now they are on their prey. A tremendous roar of artillery shakes the air. Mingled with the clash of swords and the plunge of horses, oath, prayer, and death-shriek fly to heaven. The batteries are reached and carried. The death-ride sweeps over them, and it is time to return.

* * * * *

In twos, and threes, and single files, the few survivors stagger back to the ground, from whence, a few short minutes ago, a gallant band had advanced in so trim, so orderly, so soldier-like a line.

The object has been attained, but at what a sacrifice? Look at yon stalwart trooper sinking on his saddle-bow, sick with his death-hurt, his head drooping on his bosom, his sword hanging idly in his paralysed right hand, his failing charger, wounded and feeble, nobly bearing his master to safety ere he falls to rise no more. The soldier's eye brightens for an instant as he hears the cheer of the Heavy Brigade completing the work he has pawned his life to begin. Soon that eye will glaze and close for ever. Men look round for those they knew and loved, and fear to ask for the comrade who is down, stiff and stark, under those dismounted guns and devastated batteries; horses come galloping in without riders; here and there a dismounted dragoon crawls feebly back to join the remnants of what was once his squadron, and by degrees the few survivors get together and form something like an ordered body once more. It is better not to count them, they are so few, so _very_ few. Weep, England, for thy chivalry! mourn and wring thy hands for that disastrous day; but smile with pride through thy tears, thrill with exultation in thy sorrow, to think of the sons thou canst boast, of the deed of arms done by them in that valley before the eyes of gathered nations--of the immortal six hundred--thy children, every man of them, that rode the glorious death-ride of Balaklava!

"That was a stupid business," observed Ropsley, as he brought his horse alongside of mine, and pointed down the valley; "quite a mistake from beginning to end. What a licking we deserved to get, and what a licking we _should_ have got if our dragoons were not the only cavalry in the world that will _ride straight_!"

"And yet what a glorious day!" I exclaimed, for the wild cheer of a charge seemed even now to be thrilling in my ears. "What a chance for a man to have! even if he did not survive it. What a proud sight for the army! Oh, Ropsley, what would I give to have been there!"

"_Not whist_, my dear fellow," replied my less enthusiastic friend; "that is not the way to _play the game_, and no man who makes mistakes deserves to win. I have a theory of my own about cavalry, they should never be offered too freely. I would almost go so far as to say they should not be used till a battle is won. At least they should be kept in hand till the last moment, and then let loose like lightning. What said the Duke? 'There are no cavalry on earth like mine, but I can only use them _once_;' and no man knew so well as he did the merits and the failings of each particular arm. Nor should you bring the same men out again too soon after a brilliant charge; let them have a little time to get over it, they will _come_ again all the better. Never _waste_ anything in war, and never run a chance when you can stand on a certainty. But here we are at the camp of the First Division. Yonder you may catch a glimpse of the harbour and a few houses of the town of Sebastopol. How quiet it looks this fine day! quite the sort of place to take the children to for sea-bathing at this time of the year! I am getting tired of the _outside_, though, Egerton; I sometimes think we shall _never_ get in. There they go again," he added, as a white volume of smoke rose slowly into the clear air, and a heavy report broke dully on our ears; "there they go again, but what a slack fire they seem to be keeping up; we shall never do any good till we try a _coup de main_, and take the place by assault;" so speaking, Ropsley picked his way carefully amongst tent-ropes and tent-pegs, and all the impediments of a camp, to reach the main street, so to speak, of that canvas town, and I followed him, gazing around me with a curiosity rather sharpened than damped by the actual warfare I had already seen on so much smaller a scale.

There must have been at least two hundred thousand men at that time disposed around the beleaguered town, this without counting the Land Transport and followers of an army, or the crowds of non-combatants that thronged the ports of Kamiesch and Balaklava. The white town of tents stretched away for miles, divided and subdivided into streets and alleys; you had only to know the number of his regiment to find a private soldier, with as great a certainty as you could find an individual in London if you knew the number of his house and the name of the street where he resided--always pre-supposing that the soldier had not been killed the night before in the trenches, a casualty by no means to be overlooked. We rode down the main street of the Guards' division, admired the mountaineer on sentry at the adjoining camp of the Highland brigade, and pulled up to find ourselves at home at the door of Ropsley's tent, to which humble abode my friend welcomed me with as courteous an air and as much concern for my comfort as he would have done in his own luxurious lodgings in the heart of May-fair. A soldier's life had certainly much altered Ropsley for the better. I could see he was popular in his regiment. The men seemed to welcome back the Colonel (a captain in the Guards holds the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the army), and his brother officers thronged into the tent ere we had well entered it ourselves, to tell him the latest particulars of the siege, and the ghastly news that every morning brought fresh and bloody from the trenches.

As a stranger, or rather as a guest, I was provided with the seat of honour, an old, shrivelled bullock-trunk that had escaped the general loss of baggage on the landing of the army, previous to the battle of the Alma, and which, set against the tent-pole for a "back," formed a commodious and delightful resting-place; the said tent-pole, besides being literally the main-stay and prop of the establishment, fulfilling all the functions of a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, and a dressing-table; for from certain nails artfully disposed on its slender circumference, depended the few articles of costume and necessaries of the toilet which formed the whole worldly wealth of the _ci-devant_ London dandy.

The dandy aforesaid, sitting on his camp-bedstead in his ragged flannel-shirt, and sharing that seat with two other dandies more ragged than himself, pledged his guest in a silver-gilt measure of pale ale, brought up from Balaklava at a cost of about half-a-guinea a bottle, and drank with a gusto such as the best-flavoured champagne had never wooed from a palate formerly too delicate and fastidious to be pleased with the nectar of the immortals themselves, now appreciating with exquisite enjoyment the strongest liquids, the most acrid tobacco, nay, the Irish stew itself, cooked by a private soldier at a camp-fire, savoury and delicious, if glutinous with grease and reeking of onions.

"Heavy business the night before last," said a young Guardsman with a beautiful girlish face, and a pair of uncommonly dirty hands garnished with costly rings--a lad that looked as if he ought to be still at school, but uniting the cool courage of a man with the mischievous light-hearted spirits of a boy. "Couldn't get a wink of sleep for them at any time--never knew 'em so restless. Tell you what, Colonel, 'rats leave a falling house,' it's my belief there's _something up_ now, else why were we all relieved at twelve o'clock instead of our regular twenty-four hours in the trenches? Good job for me, for I breakfasted with the General, and a precious blow-out he gave me. Turkey, my boys! and cherry-brandy out of a shaving-pot! Do you call that nothing?"

"Were you in the advanced trenches?" inquired Ropsley, stopping our young friend's gastronomic recollections; "and did you see poor ---- killed?"

The lad's face fell in an instant; it was with a saddened and altered voice that he replied--

"Poor Charlie! yes, I was close to him when he was hit. You know it was his first night in the trenches, and he was like a boy out of school. Well, the beggars made a sortie, you know, on the left of our right attack: they couldn't have chosen a worse place; and he and I were with the light company when we drove them back. The men behaved admirably, Colonel; and poor Charlie was so delighted, not being used to it, you know," proceeded the urchin, with the gravity of a veteran, "that it was impossible to keep him within bounds. He had a revolver (that wouldn't go off, by the way), and he had filled a soda-water bottle with powder and bullets and odd bits of iron, like a sort of mimic shell. Well, this thing burst in his hand, and deuced near blew his arm off, but it only made him keener. When the Russians retired, he actually ran out in front and threw stones at them. I tried all I could to stop him." (The lad's voice was getting husky now.) "Well, Colonel, it was bright moonlight, and I saw a Russian private take a regular 'pot-shot' at poor Charlie. He hit him just below the waist-belt; and we dragged him into the trenches, and there he--he died. Colonel, this 'baccy of yours is very strong; I'll--I'll just walk into the air for a moment, if you'll excuse me. I'll be back directly."

So he rose and walked out, with his face turned from us all; and though there was nothing to be ashamed of in the weakness, I think not one of us but knew he had gone away to have his "cry" out, and liked him all the better for his mock manliness and his feeling heart.

Ere he came back again the bugles were sounding for afternoon parade. Orderly corporals were running about with small slips of paper in their hands, the men were falling in, and the fresh relief, so diminished every four-and-twenty hours, was again being got ready for the work of death in the trenches.