Chapter L: Red-Tape

The siege of Sebastopol was quite out of the ordinary run, and about as curious a business as ever was. For one usually thinks of a besieged town as surrounded by the enemy and cut off from the rest of the world. And, that was never the case with Sebastopol.

The allied forces drew a ring round the south and east sides of the town, and the sea guarded it on the west, but by way of the north and north-east the Russians had free passage at all times, and could introduce fresh troops and provisions and all the material of war at will, and so the defence was in a state of continuous renewal, and fresh blood was always pouring in to replace the terrible waste inside.

By those open ways also they sent out army after army to creep round behind the besiegers, to harry and annoy them, and this it was that led to some of the fiercest battles of the campaign. The knowledge also that great bodies of Russians were at large in their rear, and only waiting, opportunity to attack them, kept the Allies perpetually on the strain, and hurried musters in the dark to repel, at times imaginary, assaults were of almost nightly occurrence.

Failing complete investment--when starvation, added to perpetual and irretrievable wastage, must in time have brought about a surrender--the Allies could only pound away with their big guns, and hope to wear down the heart and pride of Russia by the sheer dogged determination to pound away till there was nothing left to pound at.

The later attempts to breach and storm, to which all these gigantic efforts were directed, were but a part of the same policy. Russia was to be crushed by the combined weight of England and France and Turkey, and, later on, Sardinia. It was very British, very bull-doggy, but it was also terribly wasteful and costly all round.

The Russians had expected the attack on the north side, and had made it almost impregnable. When, by their flank march, the Allies came round to the south, the town was absolutely open and unprotected, the streets running up into the open country. Before the Allies could gird up their loins for a spring, earthworks and forts had sprung up in front of them as though by magic, and the only means of approach was by the slow, hard way of parallels, trenches, and zigzags. And all this it was that made up the Crimean War.

But our boys were busy, and so kept happy in spite of discomforts without end.

Every single thing the army heeded, either for fighting or for sheer and simplest living, had to be brought to it by sea, and the one door of entrance was tiny Balaclava Bay--with the natural consequence that Balaclava Bay became inextricably blocked with shipping discharging on to its narrow shores, and its shores became inextricably piled with masses of war material and stores, with no means of transport to the camps six and eight and ten miles away. And so confusion became ten times confounded, and brave men languished and died for want of the stores that lay rotting down below. Add to this the fact that every British official's hands were bound round and round, and knotted and thrice knotted, with coils of stiffest red tape, and no man dared to lift a finger unless a dozen superiors in a dozen different departments had authorised him to do so, in writing, on official forms, with every "t" crossed and every "i" carefully dotted, and you have the simple explanation of the horrors of the Crimea.

Our own red-tape and sheer stupidity wrought far more evil on our men than all the efforts of Menchikoff and Gortschakoff with all the might of Russia at their backs.

The trenches wormed their zigzags slowly down the slope, towards the Russian lines, and never was there more zealous zigzager than Jack. The Russians poured shot and shell on him and his fellow moles; but they dug on, mounted their heavy guns, and dosed him with pointed Lancaster shells, which were new to him, and impressed him most unpleasantly.

And Jim galloped to and fro and worried more over his horse's feeding than his own, and kept very fit and well.

He went over now and again to the Heavies, to see how George Herapath and Ralph Ruben were standing it, and found them generally on the growl at having so little to do and none too much to eat, and they all condoled with one another, and expressed themselves freely on such congenial subjects as the Transport and Commissariat Departments, and felt the better for getting it out.

Letters from home came with fair regularity now, and they swapped their news and had time to write long letters back--except Jack, whose whole soul was in his trenches, and who was too tired and dirty for correspondence when he came out of them.

So upon Jim devolved the duty of keeping Carne and Wyvveloe posted as to the course of the war, and his painfully produced scrawls were valued beyond their apparent merits by the anxious ones at home, and treasured as things of price.

For Gracie, at all events, said to herself, when each one came, "It may be the last we shall ever get from him"; and, "They may both be lying dead at this moment. This horrible, horrible war!"

But she wrote continually to both of them; and if the dreadful feeling that she might only too possibly be writing to dead men was with her as she wrote, she took good care that no sign of It appeared in her letters. They were brave and cheery letters, telling of the little happenings of the neighbourhood, and always full of the hope of seeing them again soon. And if she cried a bit at times, as she wrote and thought of it all, be sure no tear-spots were allowed to show. They had quite enough to stand without being worried with her fears.

And she prayed for them every night and every morning with the utmost devotion, though, indeed, at times she remained long on her knees, pondering vaguely. For she knew that what must be, must be, and that her most fervent prayers could not turn Russian bullets from their destined billets--that if God saw it well to take her boys, they would go, in spite of all her asking. And so she came to commending them simply to God's good care, and to asking for herself the strength to bear whatever might come to her.

When the Alma lists came out, she and the Rev. Charles scanned them with feverish anxiety, and with eyes that got the names all blurred and mixed, and hearts that beat muffled dead marches, and only let them breathe freely again when they had got through without finding what they had feared.

And both of them, grateful at their own escape, thought pitifully of those whose trembling fingers, stopping suddenly on beloved names, had been the signal for broken hearts and shattered hopes and desolated lives.

And, any day, that might be their own lot too; and so, like many others in those times, they went heavily, and feared what each new day might bring.

Margaret Herapath spent much of her time with them, and Sir George was able to bring them news in advance of the ordinary channels.

And the grim old man up at Carne read the news-sheets and the lists, which smelt of snuff when he had done with them, and was vastly polite and unconcerned about it all when Gracie and Eager went to visit him; but Kennet led somewhat of a dog's life at this time, and had to find consolation for a ruffled spirit where he could.