CHAPTER XXXIX

THE REDAN

The days dragged on in the camp. Sometimes wearily enough, sometimes enlivened by a party of pleasure to Baidar, an expedition to the monastery of St. George, a general action at the Tchernaya, a hurdle-race at Kadikoi, or some trifling excitement of the same kind. Already the great heat was beginning to be tempered by the bracing air of autumn, and the army was more than half inclined to speculate on the possibility of another long dreary winter before Sebastopol.

But the time had come at last. The blow so long withheld was to be launched in earnest, and for a day or two before the final and successful assault, men's minds seemed to tell them--they scarce knew why--that a great change was impending, and that every night might now be the last on which the dogged valour of the besieged would man those formidable defences that, under the names of the Malakhoff, the Redan, etc., had for so long occupied the attention of France, England, and indeed the whole of Europe.

I was sitting outside Ropsley's tent, sharing my breakfast of hard biscuit with Bold, at daybreak of a fine September morning. The old dog seemed on this occasion to have renewed his youth, and was so demonstrative and affectionate as to call down a strong reproof from Ropsley, with whom he was never on very friendly terms, for laying his broad paw on the well-brushed uniform of the Colonel. "Tie the brute up, Vere," said he, carefully removing the dirt from his threadbare sleeve, "or he will follow us on parade. Are you ready? if so, come along. I would not be late to-day of all days, for a thousand a year."

I remained in his rear, as he completed the inspection of his company. I had never seen the men so brisk or so smartly turned out, and there was an exhilarated yet earnest look on their countenances that denoted their own opinion of the coming day. Ropsley himself was more of the _bon camarade_, and less of the "fine gentleman" than usual. As we marched down to the trenches side by side, he talked freely of old times,--our school-days at Everdon, our later meeting at Beverley, and, by a natural transition, turned the subject of conversation to Victor de Rohan and his sister Valerie. I had never known him allude to the latter of his own accord before. He seemed to have something on his mind which pride or mistrust, or both, would not permit him to bring out. At last, apparently with a strong effort, he whispered hurriedly--

"Vere, I've a favour to ask you--if I should be _hit_ to-day by chance, and badly, you know, I should like you to write and remember me to the De Rohans, and--and--particularly to Countess Valerie. If ever you should see her again, you might tell her so."

I pressed his hand in answer, and I thought his voice was hoarser as he resumed.

"Vere, it is not often I confess myself wrong, but I have wronged you fearfully. If I'm alive to-morrow I'll tell you all; if not, Vere, can you--_can_ you forgive me?"

"From my heart," was all I had time to reply, for at that instant up rode the leader of the assault, and Ropsley's voice was calm and measured, his manner cold and cynical as ever, while he answered the short and military catechism usual on such occasions.

"Then it's all right," was the remark of the mounted officer, in as good-humoured and jovial a tone as if the affair in hand were a mere question of one of his own Norfolk battues; "and what a fine morning we've got for the business," he added, dismounting, and patting his horse as it was led away, ere he turned round to put himself at the head of the storming party.

I watched him as one watches a man whose experiences of danger have given him a fascination perfectly irresistible to inferior minds. It was the same officer whom I have already mentioned as the latest arrival to disturb the dinner-party in the grotto, but to-day he looked, if possible, more cheerful, and in better spirits than his wont. I thought of his antecedents, as they had often been related to me by one of his oldest friends,--of his unfailing good-humour and kindliness of disposition--of his popularity in his regiment--of his skill and prowess at all sports and pastimes, with the gloves, the foils, the sharp-rowelled spurs of the hunting-field, or the velvet cap that fails to protect the steeplechaser from a broken neck--of his wanderings in the desert amongst the Bedouin Arabs, and his cold bivouacs on the prairie with the Red Indians--of his lonely ride after the Alma, when, steering by the stars through a country with which he was totally unacquainted, he arrived at the fleet with the news of the famous flank march to Balaklava--of his daring _sang-froid_ when "the thickest of war's tempest lowered" at Inkermann, and of the daily dangers and privations of the weary siege, always borne and faced out with the same merry light-hearted smile; and now he was to _lead the assault_.

None but a soldier knows all that is comprised in those three simple words--the coolness, the daring, the lightning glance, the ready resource, the wary tactics, and the headlong gallantry which must all be combined successfully to fill that post of honour; and then to think that the odds are ten to one he never comes back alive!

As I looked at his athletic frame and handsome, manly face, as I returned his cordial, off-hand greeting, as courteous to the nameless Interpreter as it would have been to General Pelissier himself, my heart tightened to think of what might--nay, what _must_ surely happen on that fire-swept glacis, unless he bore indeed a life charmed with immunity from shot and steel.

Man by man he inspected the Forlorn Hope,--their arms, their ammunition pouches, their scaling-ladders, all the tackle and paraphernalia of death. For each he had a word of encouragement, a jest, or a smile. Ropsley and his company were to remain in support in the advanced trenches. All was at length reported "ready," and then came the awful hush that ever ushers in the most desperate deeds--the minutes of pale and breathless suspense, that fly so quickly and yet seem to pass like lead--when the boldest cheek is blanched, and the stoutest heart beats painfully, and the change to action and real peril is felt to be an unspeakable relief to all.

A cold wet nose was poked into my hand. Bold had tracked me from the camp, and had followed me even here; nothing would induce him now to quit my side, for even the dog seemed to think something awful was impending, and watched with red, angry eyes and lowered tail and bristling neck, as if he too had been "told off" for the attack.

A roar of artillery shakes the air; our allies have opened their fire on the Malakhoff, and their columns are swarming like bees to the assault. Battalion after battalion, regiment after regiment, come surging through the ditch, to break like waves on the sea-shore, as the depressed guns of the enemy hew awful gaps in their ranks--to break indeed but to re-form, and as fresh supports keep pressing them on from the rear, to dash upwards against the earthwork, and to overflow and fling themselves from the parapet in the face of the Russian gunners below.

The Muscovite fights doggedly, and without dream of surrender or retreat. Hand to hand the conflict must be decided with the bayonet, and the little Zouaves shout, and yell, and stab, and press onward, and revel, so to speak, in the wild orgy of battle.

But the Northman is a grim, uncompromising foe, and more than once the "red pantaloons" waver and give back, and rally, and press on again to death. Instances of gallantry and self-devotion are rife amongst the officers. Here, a young captain of infantry flings himself alone upon the bayonets of the enemy, and falls pierced with a hundred wounds; there, an old white-headed colonel, _decore_ up to his chin, draws an ominous revolver, and threatens to shoot any one of his own men through the head that shows the slightest disinclination to rush on. "_Ma foi_," says he, "_c'est pour encourager les autres!_" The southern blood boils up under the influence of example, and if French troops are once a little flushed with success, their _elan_, as they call that quality for which we have no corresponding expression, is irresistible. The Russians cannot face the impetuosity of their charge; already many of the guns are spiked, and the gunners bayoneted; the grey-coated columns are yielding ground foot by foot; fresh troops pour in over the parapet, for the living are now able to pass unscathed over the dead, with whom the ditch is filled. The fire of the Russians is slackening, and their yell dies away fainter on the breeze. A French cheer, wild, joyous, and unearthly, fills the air,--it thrills in the ears of Pelissier, sitting immovable on his horse at no great distance from the conflict; his telescope is pressed to his eye, and he is watching eagerly for the well-known signal. And now he sees it! A gleam of fierce joy lights up his features, and as the tricolor of France is run up to the crest of the Malakhoff, he shuts his glass with a snap, dismounts from his horse, and rolling himself round in his cloak, lies down for a few minutes' repose, and observes, with a zest of which none but a Frenchman is capable, "_Tenez! voila mon baton de Marechal!_"

His are not the only eyes eagerly watching the progress of the attack; many a veteran of both armies is busied recalling all his own experiences and all his knowledge of warfare, to calculate the probabilities of their success whose task it is to cross that wide and deadly glacis which is swept by the batteries of the Redan.

The men are formed for the assault, and the word is given to advance.

"Now, my lads," says the leader, "keep cool--keep steady--and keep together--we'll do it handsomely when we're about it. Forward!"

It is related of him whom Napoleon called "the bravest of the brave," the famous Ney, that he was the only officer of that day who could preserve his _sang-froid_ totally unmoved when standing with _his back_ to a heavy fire. Many a gallant fellow facing the enemy would pay no more regard to the missiles whistling about his ears, than to the hailstones of an April shower; but it was quite a different sensation to _front_ his own advancing troops, and never look round at the grim archer whose every shaft might be the last. What the French Marshal, however, piqued himself upon as the acme of personal courage and conduct, our English leader seems to consider a mere matter-of-course in the performance of an every-day duty. Step by step, calm, collected, and good-humoured, he regulates the movements of the attacking force. Fronting their ranks, as if he were on parade, he brings them out of their sheltering defences into the iron storm, now pouring forth its deadly wrath upon that rocky plateau which _must_ be crossed in defiance of everything.

"Steady, men," he observes once more, as he forms them for the desperate effort; "we'll have them _out of that_ in ten minutes. Now, my lads! Forward, and follow me!"

The cocked hat is waving amongst the smoke--the daring Colonel is forward under the very guns--with a British cheer, the Forlorn Hope dash eagerly on, comrade encouraging comrade, side by side, shoulder to shoulder--hearts throbbing wild and high, and a grip of iron on good "Brown Bess." Men live a lifetime in a few such moments. There are two brothers in that doomed band who have not met for years--they quarrelled in their hot youth over their father's grave, about the quiet orchard and the peaceful homestead that each had since longed so painfully to see once more; and now they have served, with half the globe between them, and each believes the other to have forgotten him, and the orchard and the homestead have passed away from their name for ever. They would weep and be friends if they could meet again. There are but four men between them at this moment, and two are down, stark and dead, and two are dragging their mangled bodies slowly to the rear, and the brothers are face to face under the fatal batteries of the Redan.

"Is't thou, my lad?" is all the greeting that passes in that wild moment; but the blackened hands meet with a convulsive clasp, and they are brothers once more, as when, long ago, they hid their sturdy little faces in their mother's gown. Thank God for that! In another minute it would have been too late, for Bill is down, shot through the lungs, his white belts limp and crimson with blood; and John, with a tear in his eye, and something betwixt an oath and a prayer upon his lips, is rushing madly on, for the cocked hat is still waving forward amongst the smoke. and the Colonel is still cheering them after him into the jaws of death.

But soldiers, even British soldiers, are but men, and the fire grows so deadly that the attacking force cannot but be checked in its headlong charge. The line breaks--wavers--gives way--the awful glacis is strewed with dead and dying--groans and curses, and shrieks for "_water! water!_" mingle painfully with the wild cheers, and the trampling feet, and the thunder of the guns; but volumes of smoke, curling low and white over the ground, veil half the horrors of that ghastly scene; yet through the smoke can be discerned some three or four figures under the very parapet of the Redan, and the cocked hat and square frame of the Colonel are conspicuous amongst the group.

It must have been a strange sight for the few actors that reached it alive. A handful of men, an officer or two, a retiring enemy, a place half taken, and an eager longing for reinforcements to complete the victory.

An aide-de-camp is despatched to the rear; he starts upon his mission to traverse that long three hundred yards, swept by a deadly cross-fire, that blackens and scorches the very turf beneath his feet. Down he goes headlong, shot through the body ere he has "run the gauntlet" for a third of the way. Another and another share the same fate! What is to be done? The case is urgent, yet doubtful; it demands promptitude, yet requires consideration. Our Colonel is a man who never hesitates or wavers for an instant. He calls up a young officer of the line, one of the few survivors on the spot; even as he addresses him, the rifleman on his right lurches heavily against him, shot through the loins, and a red-coated comrade on his left falls dead at his feet, yet the Colonel is, if possible, cooler and more colloquial than ever.

"What's your name, my young friend?" says he, shaking the ashes from a short black pipe with which he has been refreshing himself at intervals with much apparent zest. The officer replies, somewhat astonished, yet cool and composed as his commander. The Colonel repeats it twice over, to make sure he has got it right, glances once more at the enemy, then looking his new acquaintance steadily in the face, observes--

"Do I seem to be in a _funk_, young man?"

"No," replies the young officer, determined not to be outdone, "not the least bit of one, any more than myself."

The Colonel laughs heartily. "Very well," says he; "now, if I'm shot, I trust to you to do me justice. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I must communicate with my supports. Every aide-de-camp I send gets knocked over. I'm no use here alone--I can't take the Redan single-handed--so I'm going back myself. It's only three hundred yards, but I can't run quite so fast as I used, so if I'm killed, I shall expect you to bear witness that I didn't go voluntarily into that cross-fire because _I was afraid_."

The young officer promised, and the Colonel started on his perilous errand. On the success of his mission or the tactics of that attack it is not my province to enlarge. Amongst all the conflicting opinions of the public, there is but one as to the daring gallantry and cool promptitude displayed on that memorable day by the leader of the assault.

Every man, however, moves in his own little world, even at the taking of Sebastopol. It was not for a nameless stranger, holding no rank in the service, to run into needless danger, and I was merely in the trenches as a looker-on, therefore did I keep sedulously under cover and out of fire. It is only the novice who exposes himself unnecessarily, and I had served too long with Omar Pasha not to appreciate the difference between the cool, calculating daring that willingly accepts a certain risk to attain a certain object, and the vainglorious foolhardiness that runs its head blindly against a wall for the mere display of its own intrinsic absurdity.

That great general himself was never known to expose his life unnecessarily. He would direct the manoeuvres of his regiments, and display the tactics for which he was so superior, at a safe distance from the fire of an enemy, as long as he believed himself sufficiently near to watch every movement, and to anticipate every stratagem of the adversary; but if it was advisable to encourage his own troops with his presence, to head a charge, or rally a repulse, who so daring and so reckless as the fortunate Croatian adventurer?

And yet, with all my care and all my self-denial--for indeed, on occasions such as these, curiosity is a powerful motive, and there is a strange instinct in man's wilful heart that urges him into a fray--I had a narrow escape of my own life, and lost my oldest friend and comrade during the progress of the attack.

I was gazing eagerly through my double glasses--the very same that had often done me good service in such different scenes--to watch the forms of those devoted heroes who were staggering and falling in the smoke, when a stray shell, bursting in the trench behind me, blew my forage-cap from my head, and sent it spinning over the parapet on to the glacis beyond. Involuntarily I stretched my hand to catch at it as it flew away, and Bold, who had been crouching quietly at my heel, seeing the motion, started off in pursuit. Ere I could check him, the old dog was over the embankment, and in less than a minute returned to my side with the cap in his mouth. The men laughed, and cheered him as he laid it at my feet.

Poor Bold! poor Bold! he waved his handsome tail, and reared his great square head as proudly as ever; but there was a wistful expression in his eye as he looked up in my face, and when I patted him the old dog winced and moaned as if in pain. He lay down, though quite gently, at my feet, and let me turn him over and examine him. I thought so--there it was, the small round mark in his glossy coat, and the dark stain down his thick foreleg--my poor old friend and comrade, must I lose you too? Is everything to be taken from me by degrees? My eyes were blinded with tears--the rough soldiers felt for me, and spared my favourite some water from their canteens; but he growled when any one offered to touch him but myself, and he died licking my hand.

Even in the turmoil and confusion of that wild scene I could mourn for Bold. He was the one link with my peaceful boyhood, the one creature that she and I had both loved and fondled, and now _she_ was lost to me for ever, and Bold lay dead at my feet. Besides, I was fond of him for his own sake--so faithful, so true, so attached, so brave and devoted--in truth, I was very, _very_ sorry for poor Bold.