Chapter LVI: Dull Days

The ten days' voyage there and back, in Captain Jolly's bunk and cheerful company, did Jim a world of good. They lay off Scutari six days, and were back in the Cesspool, as Jolly persisted in calling Balaclava Bay, on the twenty-second of November, having just missed the great gale, which tore the camps to pieces and piled the wild Crimean coast with the wreckage of over forty ships and millions of pounds' worth of the goods that were so badly needed on shore.

Nearly every ship they passed, as they drew in, was dismasted and looked half a wreck, and Jim, when he had said good-Lye to the genial Jolly, and had waded through the muddy gorge and climbed the heights, found everything and everybody in the camps in very similar condition.

In spite of his own fitness, and the healthy frame of mind induced by sixteen days of clean salt air and the companionship of Captain Jolly, his spirits sank with every step he took. It was like climbing through a charnel-house--dead horses and mules stuck up out of the mud on every side, just as they had fallen under their loads and been left to die; and Jim's love for every dumb thing that went on four legs was sorely bruised before he got to the plateau.

And when he did get there the sights were more painful still--mud everywhere, and dirty pools and trickling streams, sodden tents, and gaunt, hungry-looking men in rags, trudging to and fro, with bare feet or with boots that only added to the dilapidated looks of their wearers. Truly, he thought, though not perhaps in so many words, this was the seamy side of war, and the glory and glamour were remarkable only by their absence.

He reported himself at Head-quarters, but saw only an aide-de-camp, who was the only clean and wholesome and fairly-fed person he had met since he landed. He learned that his chief, Lord Cardigan, was sick, and that his brigade was to go down to Balaclava as soon as possible, as the horses could not stand the miseries of the heights.

Then he went across to the French camps, and found things in very much better condition there, and Jack getting on famously and eager for all his experiences.

Jim told him of Seth and Ralph Harben, and he was profoundly surprised and saddened by it all.

"And you really think it was Ralph took Kattie away, Jim?" he asked, after a long stare of amazement.

"Seth wouldn't have done a thing like that unless he had good reason," said Jim simply.

"I can't imagine Kattie caring for a fellow like Ralph, you know," said Jack thoughtfully. "He was always such a--well, he's dead, so it's no good saying it, but you know yourself what he was. . . . But it's horrible to think of--four lives gone by reason of it."

And Jim said no more, except that he had thought it best to say nothing about it in his letters home.

There were two letters from Gracie to read, one to himself and one to Jack, both so bright and cheerful and full of hope that they could not by any possibility have imagined what it cost her to write like that, when her heart was so full of fears for them. She told Jim of Paddy's admirable behaviour, and of long delightful rides with Meg and Sir George on the flats. And she told Jack of visits to Sir Denzil, and how the Rimmer cottage was still shut up and empty. But from neither letter could the most discriminating judge have drawn any clue as to the writer's heart tending more to the one of them than to the other.

There were also letters from Charles Eager, with comments on the course of the war and the feeling at home, and fervent hopes for their safety and that of George Herapath--who lay out there in the cemetery on the cold hill-side. And there was also one from Lord Deseret to Jim, which contained, among other things, the somewhat surprising news that Mme Beteta had gone to St. Petersburg to fill an engagement there.

Then Colonel Carron came in and gave him hearty welcome, and wanted all his experiences over again.

"And how's my horse?" asked Jim, as soon as he got the chance. "I was thinking of him all the way up from the harbour. The road is thick with the poor beasts who have died there."

"He's first-rate. I've been riding him myself to keep him in condition, I shall be quite sorry to part with him. Deseret knew what he was about, my boy, when he chose him for you."

He was very pleased with Jim's eulogiums on Captain Jolly, and forthwith decided that Jack must make the next trip with him.

So they had a very pleasant time in the banked-up tent, in spite of the dreariness of things outside. But all too soon it came to an end, and Jim had to go off to his own Spartan quarters, where the heartiness of his greeting almost made up for the lack of everything else.

He settled down into the rut of camp life again, but found it all very slow and dull and dirty.

There was little doing. It was as much as they could do simply to live.

The dull routine of the trenches went on. The batteries spat shot and shell at the town at intervals, and Russian shot and shell came singing back in reply, and sometimes did a little damage.

And at times the camps would be wakened by furious fusillades in the advanced French lines, when the Russians enlivened matters with a sortie. But these alarms were spared the English, on account of the bad ground in their front, which did not lend itself to such matters.

More than once, too, they all turned out _en masse_ in the middle of the night--and always on the bitterest nights--to repel attacks in the rear which never came off.

And every day there went down to Balaclava the long slow procession of sick men, and to the cemetery another procession of those who had died in the night.

Jack duly got his leave and went away with Captain Jolly, and Jim busied himself, as well as the authorities would let him, in providing for the reception of the men and horses of the Light Brigade on the hill-side above Balaclava Bay.

A slow, dull time, wearing on body, mind, and spirit--and yet, not the worst time possible.