Chapter XXXVII: Miseries Accumulate

When Jack got back to the lines of his regiment he found that Will, not much the worse for his broken head, had already returned.

It was more than likely that the timely warning they had been able to give the picket of the 41st saved a surprise on the part of the Russians which might have been most awkward for the British.

Jack and Will had, however, been ‘absent without leave;’ and though in their own regiment the part they had played became known, yet no official mention was made of it, for awkward questions might have been asked.

The next morning was bright and cold, and the whole of the battlefield could be seen. It was then, and only then, that the terrible nature of the struggle of the day before could be realised; and it was seen that the fog, though most confusing at the time, had yet been a blessing, for it had prevented the British from being disheartened by the tens of thousands who had been pitted against them, and the Russians from discovering the mere handful of British by whom they were opposed.

Early in the morning shoals of people from Balaclava--Greeks, Armenians, Turks, sailors from the fleet, and others--came to visit the battlefield, taking medals, ribbons, crucifixes, chains, and so on as mementos of the great fight.

To prevent this the cavalry were ordered to turn out as patrols, and to keep every one off the battlefield but those engaged there. All day long Jack and Will were thus engaged, and a terrible duty it was.

‘It’s worse than fighting,’ said Jack. ‘Just look there, Will, where we fought so long at the Sandbag Battery. The dead are literally in heaps--see, eight deep! English, Russians, and French, all one on top of the other!’

The groans and cries of the wounded as they were borne past were heart-rending. The Russians lay around in thousands, and it seemed as if the task of gathering them in would never finish. The wounded were seen to first, being carried to the hospital tents. The dead Russians were placed side by side in long trenches. Even while thus engaged, the enemy on several occasions opened fire from Sebastopol on the burying-parties, much to the indignation of officers and men.

On the second day Jack’s regiment had to go down to Balaclava for stores. Near the town they heard the cheery tones of a band playing ‘Cheer, boys, cheer!’ the words of which the men were singing, and saw an infantry regiment, just landed, marching up to the front.

The fresh-coloured, smart-looking lads were cheering loudly, for they had heard of the glorious victory of Inkermann. Presently they came abreast of the Lancers, and they stared hard at the handful of war-worn, tattered, bearded, dirty horsemen, with battered caps and rusty arms. One youngster said to another as they passed Jack, ‘What troops are these, Bill, old man?’

‘Look like the “Beggars’ Own,”’ answered Bill. ‘I reckon they’re Frenchies.”

‘No fear,’ said another; ‘they’re English; look at their faces.’

‘Crikey, Bill!’ said the first speaker, ‘they ain’t much to look at; a wash ’u’d do ’em good,’ at which there was a laugh, and several of the troopers who had ridden down the Valley of Death coloured redly.

‘Poor fellows!’ said Barrymore to Jack, ‘wait till they’ve been in the Crimea a fortnight and taken a turn at trench and picket duty, they’ll understand things a bit then.’

Alas! within a month that regiment had lost two-thirds of its number, mostly from cholera.

The work in the trenches was being pushed forward rapidly; but there was no longer any hope that Sebastopol could be taken by assault. True, the Russians had lost heart over Inkermann, and it was doubtful whether they could again be got--at least for months--to come out in the open and face the English, and all felt that the siege must be a long and protracted affair.

The losses in the trenches and from sickness were nearly a hundred a day, and the handful of men before Sebastopol knew that unless speedy reinforcements arrived they would be absolutely at the mercy of the enemy. A week after Inkermann, had the Russians attempted another sortie the result might have been different.

The weather changed, and it began to get bitterly cold, and rain fell in torrents.

‘I believe we shall have to winter here,’ said Will to Jack one night as they shiveringly turned into their tent.

‘Then may the Lord help us,’ replied Jack, ‘for few of us will live to see the spring again.’

‘It almost seems as if the people at home had forgotten us.’

‘It’s easy to do that, sitting before a cosy fire after a good dinner, your feet in slippers, a book in your hand, and’----

‘For goodness’ sake shut up, Jack, or I shall murder you,’ said Will, ‘to draw such a picture with us here, hungry, cold, and wet, with nothing but the sodden ground to sleep on. Ugh, it’s awful!’

Jack and Will occupied a tent together. Since Balaclava all troop distinctions had been lost. The handful of survivors formed themselves into one regiment, the men of different corps making troops. Since that day in the North Valley the survivors seemed drawn together by a mutual bond of sympathy, and in place of the jealousy often existing between regiments there was a feeling of good-fellowship.

On the particular night on which Will had his grumble it poured with rain, and the canvas getting saturated, the water soon began to leak through. Jack and Will wrapped their cloaks round them to keep some of the rain off, and so inured to hardships were they that they managed to sleep.

About five o’clock, however, they were both awakened by the streams of water which flowed underneath the flaps of the tent and were saturating them. Cold and miserable, they both sat up, listening to the wind howling through the camp. It got louder and louder; the sides of the tent began to rise and flutter, the rain driving right into the lads’ faces. The cords creaked and the pole began to bend.

‘Blest if I don’t think the lot’ll come down directly,’ said Will.

‘No fear,’ replied Jack; ‘it’s weathered as bad before; this pole is very strong.’

The wind simply shrieked, while the rain was dashed in sheets upon the side of the tent.

‘It certainly _is_ violent,’ said Jack. ‘I’ve heard they get bad storms here, but’----

_Snap--crash!_ the pole of the tent had broken off close to the ground, and Jack and Will were struggling under a heap of wet, cold canvas. Painfully, and at considerable risk, they fought their way out, and at last stood erect.

Heavens, what a sight met their gaze! Nearly every tent was down; many were being whirled sky-high in the blast; others covered the struggling forms of their former occupants. Men in every state of dress and undress were to be seen, some trying to chase their belongings, others having as much as they could do to stand up against the blast, many only staring blankly at each other. All round was a sea of mud; this was picked up by the wind, and being whirled along soon covered everybody and everything with a wet, freezing coating of earth.

Everything that Jack and Will possessed was under the wreck of their tent, and they fought manfully to rescue some of their things. Jack at last got his boots; but he had to sit down in mud almost to his waist to put them on. His fur-jacket, spoil from the convoy at Mackenzie’s Farm, he also got, and his dress-cap. Will rescued part of his things too; then the wind picked up the tent and whirled it away.

Tentless, Jack and Will looked around them. A captain of Hussars, in his shirt only, was tearing after a pair of overalls, which he at last captured only to find they were not his own. Men everywhere were chasing articles, while the air was filled with headdresses, caps, coats, wet blankets, even pieces of furniture from the officers’ tents.

And still the force of the wind increased. Wagons were overturned; the horses were knocked down and rolled over, then getting up, they broke loose from the picket-ropes and rushed madly out over the plain. The skies were leaden-coloured, the wind howled fiercer and fiercer; snow, sleet, rain all fell together; every one was soon knee-deep in mud.

Presently a cry arose, ‘The hospital-tent is down!’ and this was seen to be the case. Hundreds of poor fellows suffering from ghastly wounds received at Inkermann and in the trenches since were exposed to all the fury of that dreadful storm, and many succumbed.

All who were able to stand fought their way over to the hospital-tent, and, moving up to their knees in mud, lashed by the storm, they helped to carry the poor, uncomplaining fellows behind walls, into barns and stables, anywhere, so that they could get a little shelter until the fury of the elements abated.

All the morning Jack and Will worked at the hospital; and when they had finished, a good-hearted doctor took the lads into a hut which had been erected for his stores, and there gave them a hot cup of tea each--luxury of luxuries--some beef and ration-biscuits, and then a glass of brandy. To the doctor’s kindness the two lads always attributed the fact that they took no serious harm from the effects of the storm.

About midday the wind changed; it got piercingly cold, and snow fell heavily, soon covering everything with a mantle of white. During the afternoon the wind abated somewhat, and some attempts were made to recapture and re-erect tents; but only a few were recovered, and the ground being literally turned to mud the pegs would not hold. A few were got up by some means or other; but, the wind again rising, they were all blown down again.

Night approached, and the storm showed but small signs of abating. Jack and Will, huddled up in their cloaks, wet through and through, were sheltering from the wind under the lee of a wall, when a sergeant of the 8th Hussars whom both knew passed them.

‘Hallo, boys,’ he said, ‘there’s small comfort there. Have ye no better shelter?’

‘No, Flannigan,’ replied the lads.

‘Come with me, then. I’m going up to the barn used as a stable by the men of “Ours” who are Lord Raglan’s escort.’

The lads gladly followed the kindly sergeant, and presently reached the great barn. Here they found a mixed company, Hussars, Lancers, linesmen, officers, privates, all mixed up together, huddling round two fires which they had managed to light. There were a number of horses in the barn which the smoke from the fires made very restless. It is impossible to describe the combination of smells in the place; but it was heaven compared with outside, and thankfully Jack and Will squeezed up to a fire, and standing in their steaming garments thankfully accepted the bit of fried ration-pork offered to them, and drank a tot of rum.

Dozing by fits and starts, disturbed by the constant going and coming of different people, the neighing and stamping of the horses, and a tremendous cannonading opened by the Russians on the French lines, they passed the night, and awoke in the morning to find a bright, cold sky, the country covered in snow, every place ankle-deep in mud; but oh, blessing of blessings! the wind gone, and the sun, the genial sun, shining gloriously!