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Grapeshot, too, occasionally showered past, from which it would appear that the Russians had brought some iron guns into position, as grape fired from brass pieces would destroy the bore from the softness of the metal. The ships in the harbour, and the battery at the Round Tower, also threw shot and shell on to the slope.

This cannonade was the preface to another infantry attack, which now again threatened our right, and a battery was ordered to that flank. While I was delivering the order, a round shot passed through my horse close to the saddle and rolled us over. He had shortly before been struck by a musket-ball in the haunch, which did not disable him; and had been wounded by a cannon-ball at the Alma, being one of the few horses that ever survived such an event. This was the poor fellow's last field; while on the ground another cannonshot passed through him. A sergeant of artillery-a very fine young fellow, named M'Keown-ran to extricate me; he had just lifted me from under the horse, and I was in the act of steadying myself on his shoulder, when a shot carried off his thigh, and he fell back on me, uttering cries as if of amazement at the suddenness of his misfortune. I laid him gently down, resting on a bush, and looked at the wound; the leg was smashed, and almost severed. Calling two men to carry him to the rear, I hastened to the right after the battery.

Advancing in the thick bushes beyond the spot where the battery had come into action, I turned about and saw it retiring. It was already at some distance, and the movement was explained by the appearance of a line of Russian infantry suddenly extending along the upper edge of the slope, between me and our alignment, and at about forty yards' distance. On my left, lower down the slope, as I turned towards our position, men of different regiments, principally guardsmen, were retreating from the two-gun battery. The Duke of Cambridge galloped past me, calling to the men to fire, and ran the gauntlet of the whole Russian line, escaping with a bullet through his sleeve.

Being lame from a recent injury, I considered myself lost the bullets cut the branches and leaves on every side, and all attempts to rally our men were met by the unanswerable reply that their ammunition was spent. At that moment the right of the position was absolutely without defence, and the enemy by advancing resolutely must have turned it. But, from panic or some other cause, they fortunately retired instead of advancing-a friendly dip in the ground afforded a shelter from their last shots, and the men who had retreated rallied and lay down under the low intrenchment already spoken of, while their officers distributed fresh packets of ball-cartridge. On this intrenchment a heavy fire of artillery was directed, which continued for nearly an hour. An officer whom I met here, to whom I was lamenting the death of my horse, told me he had placed his in a hollow close at hand, where he was quite secure-but going to visit him presently afterwards, he found that a shell had penetrated this admirable retreat, and blown him to pieces. I saw a magnificent team of chestnut gun-horses prostrated here by a single destructive shell, and five of the six did not rise again.

Many of the men of the fourth division had but just returned from the trenches when the attack of the Russians commenced. They, as well as those who had not been on duty during the night, were at once marched to the scene of action a mile and a half distant. Arriving at the tents of the second division, they received contradictory orders, and the regiments were separated. Part of the 20th and 68th, and two companies of the 46th, passing to the right of the position, were ordered to support the remnant of the defenders of the two-gun battery. These fresh troops at once charged the enemy, routed them, and pursued them to the verge of the heights, when, returning victorious, they found the battery, as they repassed it, again occupied by Russians, a fresh force of whom had mounted the cliff from the valley. It was while collecting his men to meet this new and unexpected foe that Sir George Cathcart, who had

advanced with this part of his division, was shot dead.

At this juncture the remainder of Bosquet's division (except his reserve) came up on the right, and, passing at once over the crest, threw themselves into the combat, and, fighting side by side with our regiments, pressed the Russians back. A porte drapeau (ensign bearing the colours) of a French battalion, displayed great gallantry in this advance, leaping on the battery and waving the colours, amid a shower of bullets, from which he escaped unhurt. Some French cavalry were moved up at this time; but the ground was unfit for this arm, and they were withdrawn, having lost some men and horses. Shortly after the French regiments came to support ours, we received other efficient aid.

Seeing that our field-artillery was unequally matched with the Russian guns of position, Lord Raglan had despatched an order to the depôt of the siege train, distant about half a mile, for two iron 18-pounders, the only English guns of position landed from the ships which were not already placed in the defensive works at Balaklava and elsewhere. These were at once brought up by Lieut.-Colonel Gambier, the commander of the siege train, who, as he ascended the hill, was wounded by a grapeshot, which contused his chest and obliged him to leave the field. The guns were then brought up and placed in position among our field-batteries by Lieut.Colonel Dickson, who directed their fire with admirable coolness and judgment, which he continued to display till the close of the battle, under a cannonade which, at these two guns alone, killed or wounded seventeen men. In a short time the Russian field-pieces, many of them disabled, were compelled to withdraw; and a French field-battery coming up shortly after the 18-pounders opened their fire, posted itself on the right, and did excellent service, though exposed, like our own guns, to a tremendous cannonade, which killed many of their men and horses, and blew up an ammunition-waggon.

Between these two opposing fires of artillery a fierce desultory combat

of skirmishers went on in the coppice. Regiments and divisions, French and English, were here mixed, and fought hand to hand with the common enemy, who never again succeeded in advancing, nor in obtaining, in any part of the field, even a partial success.

About noon the fire of the Russian guns slackened, as was surmised, from want of ammunition. After a time they reopened, though not with their former fierceness. Their intended surprise, supported by the attack of their full force, had utterly failed; their loss had been enormous, and the Allies had been reinforced. The battle was prolonged only by the efforts of their artillery to cover the retreat of the foiled and broken battalions.

During the battle Sir De Lacy Evans, who had been sick on board ship at Balaklava, rode up to the field with his aide-de-camp, Boyle, and, calling me by name, began to question me about the battle. He looked extremely ill, but was as cool and intrepid as he always is in action. While I was speaking to him, a shell, crashing through some obstacle close by, rose from the ground, passed a foot or two above our heads, and dropping amid a group a few yards behind us, exploded there, wounding some of them-but Sir De Lacy did not turn his head.

Officers and men fought the battle fasting. About two o'clock a group of us being near General Pennefather's tent, he told his servant to bring out wine and biscuits, which were never more welcome. A shell bursting over the hill sent its freight of bullets through and through the group without touching anybody.

At three o'clock the French and English generals with their staffs passed along the crest of the disputed hill. The enemy's guns, replying to ours, still sent a good many shot over the ridge, but this survey of the field showed it free from the presence of the enemy, whose infantry had withdrawn behind the opposite hill. At half-past three their guns also withdrew, and the whole force of the enemy retired across the Tchernaya, pursued by the fire of a French battery supported by two battalions, which, being pushed forward to a

slope of the heights commanding the causeway across the marsh, converted their retreat into a flight.

At the commencement of the battle, Liprandi's force had moved forward, threatening two distant points of our line-while a sally was made in force on the French trenches, which was repulsed, with a loss to the enemy of one thousand men, the French pursuing them within their works.

Until the arrival of the fourth division and the French, the ground was held by about 5000 of our troops. In all, 8000 English and 6000 French were engaged. The Russian force was estimated by Lord Raglan at 60,000.

Few great battles require less military knowledge to render them intelligible than this. The plan of the enemy was, after having succeeded in placing their guns unopposed in the required position, to pour on one particular point of our line which they knew to be inadequately guarded, a fire which should at once throw the troops assembling for its defence into disorder, and then to press on at the same point with overwhelming masses of infantry. Our position once penetrated, the plains afforded ample space for the deployment of the columns, which might then attack in succession the different corps of the allied army scattered on the plateau at intervals too wide for mutual and concerted defence.

The Russians succeeded in posting their artillery, in sweeping the field selected with a tremendous fire, and in bringing an enormously superior force to a vigorous and close attack. According to all calculation, they were justified in considering the day their own. But the extraordinary valour of the defenders of the position set calculation at defiance. At every point alike the assailants found scanty numbers, but impenetrable ranks. Before them everywhere was but a thin and scattered line opposed to their solid masses and numerous skirmishers, yet beyond it they could not pass. No doubt, to their leaders it must long have appeared incredible they could fail. Again bravely led, they came bravely to the assault, and with the same result; and, unwillingly, they * length perceived that, if the allied

troops could resist successfully when surprised, no hope remained of defeating them, now that they were reinforced, and on their guard.

On our part it was a confused and desperate struggle. Colonels of regiments led on small parties, and fought like subalterns, captains like privates. Once engaged, every man was his own general. The enemy was in front, advancing, and must be beaten back. The tide of battle ebbed and flowed, not in wide waves, but in broken tumultuous billows. At one point the enemy might be repulsed, while, at a little distance, they were making their most determined rush. To stand on the crest and breathe awhile, was to our men no rest, but far more trying than the close combat of infantry, where there were human foes with whom to match, and prove strength, skill, and courage, and to call forth the impulses which blind the soldier to death or peril. But over that crest poured incessantly the resistless cannon-shot, in whose rush there seems something vindictive, as if each were bestridden by some angry demon; crashing through the bodies of men and horses, and darting from the ground on a second course of mischief. The musket-ball, though more deadly, and directed to an individual mark, bears nothing appalling in its sound, and does not mutilate or disfigure where it strikes. But, fronting uncovered and inactive a range of guns which hurl incessantly those iron masses over and around you, while on all sides are seen their terrible traces, it is difficult to stave off the thought that, in the next instant, your arm or leg may be dangling from your body a crushed and bloody mass, or your spirit driven rudely through a hideous wound across the margin of the undiscovered country.

Rarely has such an artillery fire been so concentrated, and for so long, on an equally confined space. The whole front of the battle-field, from the ravine on the left to the two-gun battery on the right, was about three quarters of a mile. Nine hours of such close fighting, with such intervals of cessation, left the victors in no mood for rejoicing. When the enemy finally retired, there was no exultation, as when the field of the

Alma was won: it was a gloomy though a glorious triumph.

Neither our loss nor that of the enemy was fully known that day; but a glance at any part of the ground showed the slaughter to be immense. A few of the enemy were dead within our lines; along the whole front of the position they lay thick in the coppice. Every bush hid a dead man, and in some places small groups lay heaped. In a spot which might have been covered by a common bell-tent, I saw lying four Englishmen and seven Russians. All the field was strewn; but the space in front of the two-gun battery, where the Guards fought, bore terrible pre-eminence in slaughter. The sides of the hill, up to and around the battery, were literally heaped with bodies. It was painful to see the noble Guardsmen, with their large forms and fine faces, lying amidst the dogged, low-browed Russians. One Guardsman lay in advance of the battery on his back, with his arms raised in the very act of thrusting with the bayonet; he had been killed bya bullet entering through his right eye. His coat was open, and I read his name on the Guernsey frock underneath- an odd name"Mustow." While I was wondering why his arms had not obeyed the laws of gravity, and fallen by his side when he fell dead, a Guardsman came up and told me he had seen Mustow rush out of the battery and charge with the bayonet, with which he was thrusting at two or three of the enemy when he was shot. In their last charges, the Russians must have trodden at every step on the bodies of their comrades. In the bushes all around wounded men were groaning in such numbers, that some lay two days before their turn came to be carried away. I passed a Russian with a broken leg, whom some scoundrel had stript to his shirt, and calling a soldier who was passing, desired him to take a coat from a dead man and put it on the unfortunate creature; at the same time directing the attention of a party of men collecting the wounded to the place where he lay. Passing the same spot next day, the Russian, still stript to his shirt, lay motionless, with his eyes closed. I told a French soldier who was near to see if he was dead;

the Frenchman, strolling up with his hands in his pockets, pushed his foot against the Russian's head; the stiffened body moved altogether like a piece of wood, and the soldier, with a shrug and one word, "mort," passed on. Large trenches were dug on the ground for the dead; the Russians lay apart; the French and English were ranged side by side. Few sights can be imagined more strange and sad in their ghastliness than that of dead men lying in ranks, shoulder to shoulder, with upturned faces, and limbs composed, except where some stiffened arm and hand remain pointing upward. The faces and hands of the slain assume, immediately after death, the appearance of wax or clay; the lips parting show the teeth; the hair and mustache become frowzy, and the body of him who, half-anhour before, was a smart soldier, wears a soiled and faded aspect.

Down the ravine along which the Woronzoff road runs to the valley, the dead horses were dragged and lay in rows; the English artillery alone lost eighty. The ravine, like all those channelling the plains, is wild and barren; the sides have been cut down steeply for the sake of the limestone, which lies close to the surface, in beds of remarkable thickness. A lime-kiln, about ten feet square, built into the side of the hill, afforded a ready-made sepulchre for the enemy left on this part of the field, and was filled with bodies to the top, on which a layer of earth was then thrown.

While I was on the ground, a day or two after the battle, several shells were thrown from the ships in the harbour, some of which pitched amongst the parties collecting the wounded. General Pennefather, finding I was going to headquarters, desired me to deliver a message stating the fact. Next day a flag of truce was sent into the town to complain of this, and further, to say that, both in this battle and the action at Balaklava, Russian soldiers had been seen killing our wounded on the field; demanding if the war was to be carried on in this manner. The answer of Prince Menschikoff was, that the shells had been directed, not at the parties engaged in clearing the field, but at those intrenching the position; and that, if

any of the wounded had been put to death, it could have been only in a few particular instances; in excuse of which he remarked, that the Russian

soldiers were much exasperated in consequence of the fire from the French trenches having destroyed one of the churches of Sebastopol.

CHAPTER XIV.-WINTER ON THE PLAINS.

Early in November the weather, hitherto mild and sunny as the Indian summer of Canada, began to grow foggy, moist, and raw. The horizon

of the Black Sea was blotted with mists, and its surface changed from blue to cold grey, while the sky was either leaden or black with clouds.

About daybreak on the 14th, a strong wind from the south drove before it a flood of rain; the tents, swelling inward beneath the blast, left no slant sufficient to repel the water, which was caught in the hollows, and filtered through. I was awoke by it dripping on my face, which I covered with my cloak, and slept again. Again I was awoke, and this time more rudely. The wind had increased to a hurricane, in which the canvass flapped and fluttered, and the tent-pole quivered like a vibrating harp-string. At the opening of the tent, my servant appeared uttering some words, which were blown away, and never reached me till, putting his head within, he told me I must get up-adding, that the tents were nearly all blown away. As he spoke, the pegs that held mine to the ground parted-the canvass was driven against the pole, and the whole structure fell with a crash across my bed.

Sitting up and grasping my fluttering blankets, I beheld such of my effects as had not weight enough to keep them stationary, dispersed in the air, and borne on the wings of the wind into a distant valley. Halfwritten letters clung for a moment, in places, to the muddy ground before pursuing their airy flight, and garments of every description strewed the plain. My servant was in full pursuit of a cocked hat which was whirled onward at a tremendous pace, till its course was arrested by a low wall; and on the muddy wheel of a cart hung a scarlet waistcoat grievously bemired. All round me were figures like my own, of half-clad men

sitting amid the ruins of their beds, and watching, with intense interest, the dispersion of their property, while those tents which had continued to resist the gale, fell over, one after the other, like inverted parachutes. Horses, turning their scattered tails to the blast, leaned against it with slanting legs, blinded by their clothing, which, retained by the surcingles, was blown over their heads; and all around were seen men struggling up, with frequent loss of ground, each holding some recovered article. Whatever could be collected in this way was placed beneath the fallen tents, the edges of which were then loaded with heavy stones. In the distance other encampments were seen in similar plight, and everywhere the rows of tents which had dotted the plain had disappeared.

Hard as it seemed to be stript of shelter by the storm, those who had passed the night in the trenches had still greater reason to complain. There they had consoled themselves during the watches of the wet, gusty night, by the promise of warmth and rest in the morning; and hastening, chilled and weary, to their camp for the comforting hot coffee, and pleasant well-earned sleep, officers and men found their temporary homes level as a row of Persians worshipping the rising sun, and the space they had kept dry, in the midst of mire, become a puddle. No fires could be lit, no breakfast warmed, for the blast extinguished the flame and scattered the fuel; and all that could be done was, to gather the blankets out of the mud, and to try to raise again the fallen tents.

But these were by no means the greatest sufferers. The hospital tents, higher than the rest, were blown down, leaving the patients exposed, almost naked, to the bitter wind and driving rain: and the first efforts of the men in camp were directed to

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