Chapter XLVII: Homeward Bound

Early next morning Jack was roused from his slumbers by Barrymore putting his head into the tent and shouting, ‘Jack, up with you, and come out. The Russians are scooting out of Sebastopol, and the town is ours.’

Had Jack received an electric shock he could not have leapt up quicker. In two minutes he was outside and hurrying off with Barrymore and Will to a place whence they could get a good view.

There they saw dense clouds of black smoke rising from the town, while frequent violent explosions rent the air. The Russians had retreated across their bridge to the north side about two o’clock in the morning, having previously set fire to the town. The Malakoff was the key to the enemy’s position, and the loss of it compelled the Russians to evacuate the town. The attack upon the Redan, though unsuccessful, had drawn off a large force from the Malakoff, and thus rendered the task of the French much easier.

As the news flew round the camp that the siege of Sebastopol, the longest in modern history, was over, tremendous cheers burst out. The most curious thing about it all to Jack was the cessation from the incessant crashing of guns. Not a single cannon boomed. Pickets were at once sent out to prevent any one from entering Sebastopol, and a general order was issued thanking all ranks for their efforts to take the town.

That day poor Linham, who for some days had been very morose, confided to Jack that the wound in his leg so troubled him that he could no longer keep to his duty. Since the battle of the Tchernaya it had broken out afresh, and had been getting gradually worse. Jack and Will at once took him to the regimental doctor, who shook his head when he examined the wound.

‘Bad, bad--very bad,’ he said. ‘This ought to have been seen to long ago. Besides, you are much run down. A steamer starts from Balaclava to-morrow with invalids for England. I will get you sent with them. You have done your work here, and the sea voyage and good treatment at home will put you right.’

Sergeant Linham at first resolutely refused to go; but the colonel backed up the order, and Jack and Will took him down to Balaclava and saw him aboard the _Himalaya_.

‘Ha, hum! good-bye, boys,’ said Linham as they parted on the deck. ‘Somehow I feel my soldiering days are done. The war must be pretty near over now, and when the regiment comes home mind you come and see me if I am still in hospital.’

Jack and Will promised, and shook hands with their old comrade, who in a strangely husky voice said, ‘God bless you, you toads!’

The next day Jack was one of the commander-in-chief’s escort when he rode through Sebastopol, and Jack gazed in wonder at the awful ruins. The houses were roofless and gutted, every inch of ground was ploughed up by shot and shell, and dead and dying Russians lay about on every hand. Life in Sebastopol must have been almost unbearable. The ditch of the Redan was still half-full of the brave fellows who had fallen in the attack, and Jack gazed at them sadly, thinking that if Sebastopol was at last theirs bitter had been the price paid for it.[9]

Exactly twelve days after the fall of Sebastopol, on the first anniversary of the battle of the Alma, a review was held, and the Crimean medals just sent out from England were distributed. The medals had no names on them; but some sort of a muddle had been expected.

Jack’s medal had four clasps, and at the presentation it was further announced that for the gallant charge made by a squadron of the regiment at the battle of the Tchernaya, by which General de la Marmora and his staff had been saved from capture, the General had intimated that all the officers and non-commissioned officers of that squadron, excluding corporals, would be presented with the Sardinian war-medal, and that six troopers or corporals, to be elected by their comrades, would be similarly decorated.

‘That means that we shall have two medals instead of one,’ said Jack to Will, who had fortunately been with the squadron.

‘Well, the more the merrier,’ said Will.

Jack had several times been to visit his new-found uncle, Colonel Harrington; who, though making progress, was still very ill, and the doctors had ordered him at once to return to England. Jack went down to Balaclava with him, and the colonel’s last words were, ‘When I get home, and am well enough, the first visit I shall make will be to your mother and your sisters. From what you have told me of the girls I am most anxious to see them. And as for you, dear Jack, take care of yourself, and mind and write to me. I shall use my influence for you at the Horse Guards, for if you intend to remain in the army I shall see that you serve as an officer, a position for which you have every qualification.’

Jack thanked his uncle cordially, and begged he would convey his love to all his relatives and friends. Riding back from Balaclava, having plenty of time, he dismounted and walked for a considerable distance along the fatal valley down which they had made their charge, looking about him at the Causeway Heights and the Fedoukine Hills, the different landmarks bringing back with startling vividness all the incidents of that day. There were many relics of the fight still lying about--rotting headdresses, rusty bits of accoutrements and arms, and hundreds of fragments of shell and half-buried round-shot. Skeletons of horses were plentiful, and Jack stood gazing at one, wondering whether it was that of his faithful Dainty, for he guessed he was about on the spot where she had fallen.

Going some distance farther towards the hills he kicked a large boulder and moved it, when he saw a piece of discoloured metal which had been half-buried by it. Stooping, he picked it up and found it was a bugle, which had been crushed and battered as though smashed with a hammer. Curiosity prompted him to rub away the earth and rust from the bell of the instrument in order to see to which regiment it had belonged, when to his surprise he saw dimly No. 1243, 17th Lancers. That was his regimental number, and the bugle was his. In a flash he recollected how it was dashed from his grasp by a round-shot the last time he had ever sounded, for on that day he ceased to be a trumpeter.

He remounted and made his way to camp, taking his relic with him. When he showed it to Barrymore, just outside the regimental’s tent, the latter said, ‘It’s very strange your finding it; however, you must keep it. And that reminds me, I have a relic which, when I thought you were dead, I found in your tent and meant to keep.’

He went into his tent and brought out an old battered lance-cap, with the corners all broken down, the plate bent, a bullet-hole through the square top, and a sword-cut on the side which had cut completely down to the round leather skull-piece, the cut having been stitched up with a bit of string.

‘Do you know this?’ asked Barrymore.

‘My old cap!’ said Jack in surprise.

‘It is so, and since you’re here amongst us in the flesh I’ll make you a present of it. Put it with your bugle. When you’re a colonel you’ll show them with pride to your friends.’

‘I don’t suppose that day will ever come,’ laughed Jack; ‘but anyway I’ll accept it, and will give it to my mother as a relic of the Balaclava charge.’

So far as the cavalry was concerned the war was over. The troops would have to be kept in the Crimea till peace was finally declared, but there seemed to be no further use for cavalry; and in November the ‘Death or Glory Boys’ embarked for Ismail, where they went into comfortable quarters.

For several months they had a very easy time. The anniversaries of the three big battles were kept up in the army with great celebrations, and at Christmas they had a gay time.

Jack had many letters from his friends, and amused himself by writing an account of all that had happened to him since he had come out. One other honour came to him. The men of the different regiments had to choose so many of their comrades who were to be given the French war medal, and Jack was one of those chosen by his comrades.

With the cavalry, the great battle had been Balaclava, and for Jack’s unique experience in having ridden in both charges, and for having, as all the survivors of the 17th asserted, ‘brought the regiment out of action,’ to say nothing of him and Barrymore having rescued Captain Norreys, he had won the name of ‘Blair of Balaclava,’ which had ever since stuck to him. So he was one of those selected for the French war medal, which was presented to him at the same time as the Sardinian one.

‘I shall be decorated all over soon,’ he laughed to Will as he surveyed the three glittering medals on his breast. ‘I’m carrying quite a weight of metal.’

‘And I only wish that every man who carried metal,’ said Will with a laugh, ‘deserved it half as much as you do.’

One day, when Jack was reading in his quarters, he heard a tremendous cheering from some men of the regiment. He went out, book in hand, to see what was the matter.

‘What’s the row?’ he asked of a private who had been out only six months.

‘We’re under orders for home,’ shouted the lad; ‘we start in three days.’

‘Well,’ growled a grizzled veteran named Penn--who had nearly twenty years’ service, and who, besides having ridden beside Jack in the ‘death ride,’ wore five medals on his breast--‘well, you needn’t open your mouth so wide. If you had come out with us two years ago you’d perhaps think more of the chums you were leaving out here than the mincing miss you think’s waiting for you at home.’ And somehow the old soldier’s words found an answering echo in Jack’s heart.

Nevertheless, all was joyous bustle and excitement, and when three days later they embarked for home all were in high spirits. They had a comfortable voyage, and the few survivors, only a handful who had come out from England with the regiment, used to gather on the deck in the evening, and while they smoked their pipes fight their battles over again, and relate to one another the adventures they had passed through with comrades, alas! no more.

‘You and I, Will, of all the trumpeters who came out are the only two left,’ said Jack one magnificent evening as he and Will leant over the taffrail watching the sunset. ‘Napper dead of cholera, Brittain and Parkes killed at Balaclava, poor old Linham and the trumpet-major invalided, and Tom Callon discharged with one arm.’

‘Don’t talk about it, Jack; we’ve added new honours to the regiment, but we’ve paid the full price.’

After a prosperous voyage the good steamer _Candra_ dropped anchor in Queenstown Bay, and next day the regiment was disembarked. And then a surprise was in store for the ‘Death or Glory Boys.’ The band of a Hussar regiment came to play them to the station, and when the regiment marched out through the dock-gates they saw a vast multitude of people. English troops had never been popular in Ireland; even in England they had been coldly treated. The army had waned in popularity during the forty years of peace since the Peninsula days.

But for two years the people had been full of the doings of the troops. They had read with moist eyes and kindly hearts the story of the heights of the Alma, of the valley of Balaclava. Their feelings had been wrung when they read of the thousands dying of cholera, of cold, of starvation, and of overwork before Sebastopol.

Their pulses had been quickened when they learned how the ragged, famished, disease-stricken handfuls had hurled back into the fog, whence they emerged, the thousands of the Czar, contending on the slopes of Inkermann from dawn almost till sunset, dying proudly--nay, joyously--where they stood, but never retreating. And, lastly, they had glowed with pride when they heard of the dogged pertinacity with which the handful of heroes, struggling against almost every evil to which an army is open, maintained that stubborn fight in the trenches, enduring without one word of complaint, facing with cheerfulness every danger, suffering privation in silence, meeting death and wounds before the enemy with a smile of contempt, or willingly yielding up their lives from sickness, because they held it was their duty. Every soldier had fulfilled his promise to Queen and Country.

And so the British soldier had shown that he was the same as the men who had hurled back the flower of Napoleon’s army in the Peninsula. He had vindicated his existence; he stood forth in the simple grandeur of his nature; he had shown his countrymen--nay, all the world--that he was the same calm and superb fighter as of yore, and his countrymen had taken him to their hearts and determined to show him they loved him.

So it happened that when the Lancers entered the streets the warm-hearted, impulsive Irish people gave full vent to their feelings. They shouted, they cheered, they forced themselves in amongst the horses, in several instances actually dismounting the Lancers. They shook hands with them, the women even kissing them, they pressed presents upon them, offered them food, drink, tobacco, and so on; and at last all progress was stopped till a large body of police arrived and literally forced a way for the embarrassed soldiers.

‘Good heavens, Will!’ said Jack to his friend when at last they were safely in the railway-station, ‘what an experience! The people seem to have gone mad. I’d almost as soon go through another Balaclava as that.’

‘I don’t know that I would not rather,’ said Will. ‘I’ve had three buttons torn off my tunic, been nearly cut in half by people hanging on to my sword, and been kissed by a terrible old woman who I should think has lived all her life on whisky, onions, and tobacco!’

When they arrived at Cahir, where they were to be stationed, the town had determined to give the Lancers a right royal welcome. The officers were invited to a banquet and ball by the mayor, the non-coms, and men were fêted and feasted; the townspeople pressed forward to make the acquaintance of the men, and asked them here and there till every one was tired. They soon got to know which of the men had ridden in the famous charge, and every one who wore the clasp with Balaclava on it was certain of a warm and hearty welcome.

Things presently began to settle down into the usual home routine, many men went away on furlough, and Jack himself was hoping to get away. He was sent off one day to Queenstown to meet some details from the depôt, returning next day.

When on the next morning he passed through the gate he almost burst out laughing as the sentry smartly ‘carried’ his lance and brought his left hand across his body till it touched the lance in salute.

‘Is he mad or has he got a touch of the sun?’ thought Jack.

Marching his men to the orderly-room, Jack was crossing the square when he met Sergeant-major Barrymore. Instead of the usual cheery, ‘Good-morning, Jack,’ the regimental passed his whip under his left arm, faced Jack, and saluted him as he would the colonel.

‘I say, Bob, what the dickens is up?’ said Jack. ‘Are you all mad? What does it mean?’

‘It means, _sir_,’ said Barrymore with a smile, ‘that you were gazetted some days ago to a cornetcy by purchase, and were in orders last night as posted to B Troop.’

Jack flushed crimson, then stammered out, ‘Surely you’re joking, Bob?’

‘Not at all,’ cried a voice from behind, and Jack saw Colonel Norreys and the adjutant. ‘Blair,’ continued the colonel, shaking hands with Jack, ‘I’m happy to welcome you as a brother-officer; you’re an honour to the regiment. Come over to the mess; there’s some one there waiting to see you.’

Feeling as if he were walking on air, Jack followed his colonel, and was soon shaking hands with his uncle, Colonel Harrington.

‘My dear Jack, how well you are looking!’ cried Colonel Harrington, ‘and what a show of medals you’ve got there! I intended to give you a little surprise over the matter of your commission, but was unfortunate in finding you away from barracks.’

‘How can I thank you, sir?’

‘By saying nothing about it. And, besides, it’s as much my old friend Colonel Leland’s doing as mine. I had no idea he knew you till I met him in London. He’s an old comrade of mine.’

‘But, sir, I can never keep up a commission in a regiment like this. I have nothing but my pay.’

‘You have me, Jack. I am a miserable old bachelor having no one to care for. I am going to adopt you as my son, and in return for what you have done for me I intend to leave you my fortune.’

Jack was overwhelmed. ‘My mother and sisters, how are they?’ he asked presently.

‘All well, and, by Jove, aren’t the girls handsome? You’ll open your eyes when you see them, young man, for they must have altered much in the last two years.’

‘I hope soon to see them,’ said Jack.

‘We start to-night,’ said Colonel Harrington. ‘I have just arranged with your colonel here, and I have got you two months’ leave. There are clothes, uniform, and all sorts of things to see to, settlements to make, and I don’t know what, all of which we must go to London to do.’

That night Jack dined for the first time in the officers’ mess, and as he entered in his sergeant’s uniform he received a magnificent reception.

They caught the night train, and at noon next day arrived in London. Jack did, indeed, stare with surprise at the handsome, elegant young ladies who stood beside his mother; he could hardly believe they were his sisters, so much had they altered, and they stared in surprise at the tall, broad, bronzed soldier, with the glittering medals and the incipient moustache.

But when Mrs Blair hung round his neck and sobbed out her thanks that her dear boy had been preserved to her amidst all the terrible dangers he had passed through, he knew that at least she had not changed.

The Lelands were there to welcome Jack, who noticed that his now fellow-officer Captain Leland, who had gone home on leave directly he had arrived in Ireland, kept very close to Molly, and that they seemed very pleased with one another. And the way in which Colonel Harrington beamed on them all did Jack’s heart good.

That night Mrs Blair confessed to Jack that her reconciliation with her brother and her family had given her more pleasure than she could tell; and, thanks to the colonel’s business acumen, on going over her late husband’s affairs with Mr Bailey he found that the old lawyer had much neglected and muddled things, and that Mrs Blair was much better off than she had supposed. Judicious changes and speculations made by the colonel, and a lawsuit successfully undertaken, had more than trebled her income.

‘So that, my dear Jack,’ she said, ‘as I am afraid I shall soon lose Molly, for she and Harry Leland seem to have made a match of it, I shall have more than enough for myself and the other two girls to live on in ease and comparative luxury.’