Had ye no graves at home, Across the briny water, That hither ye must come, Like bullocks to the slaughter? If we the work must do, Why the sooner 'tis begun, If flint and trigger hold but true, The quicker 'twill be done, By the rifle! the good rifle! In our hands it is no trifle!
The battle was fought and won; the thunder had died away along the heights of the Alma; it was all over now—that "hell of blood and ferocity" was past; and little more remained but to number the dead, and lay them in their last ghastly homes. The agonies even of the wounded—that terrible grey acre of Russian wounded—were half forgotten by the untouched; but many a bright-eyed girl in England far away, and in that northern land which was to me the dearest half of "sea-walled Albion," who was wearing her gay muslins and flowers, would be coming forth, ere long, in the crape and sable livery of grief; for many a father and mother's hope and pride were among the redcoats that lay so motionless and still along those fatal slopes.
The sun was verging westward, the smoke of the villanous saltpetre hung like a lurid canopy over the summit of the Kourgané Hill, and that final scene of slaughter in the Great Redoubt; and now men, who had been separated in the confusion and hurry of the conflict, were meeting again, and congratulating each other that they were spared.
We, the small force of cavalry, a thousand sabres and lancers, who had hitherto been impatient onlookers, now dashed through the river, without Lord Raglan's authority; and, though the upsetting of a field-gun, and the slippery nature of the ford, were the cause of much delay, we reached the summit of the Kourgané Hill soon after the Highlanders had swept the foe from it. We had six guns with us, and their fire told fearfully upon the retreating masses of the Russians, who left mangled piles of dead in their rear. The battery was divided; one half our force, led by Lord Cardigan, escorting those on the right, while Lord Lucan, with the rest, conducted those that were on the left. Our orders were, also, to glean up cannon, prisoners, and other trophies.
The earl rode in advance with my squadron of lancers. We picked up a good many prisoners, who sullenly threw down their arms and submitted. These men were all light infantry, wearing flat forage-caps, and long grey coats that reached to their ankles.
On this duty we had to traverse a great portion of the field, and its aspect was harrowing; a day of slaughter was to be followed by a night of agony.
Here and there were pools of blood, in which the flies were battening, and from whence the honey-bee and the snow-white butterfly strove in vain to free their tiny pinions; and on the glacis of the Great Redoubt, where men of all regiments—but chiefly Welsh Fusiliers—lay blended together, were bodies to be seen without heads, or legs, or arms, bowels torn out, brains crushed, blood oozing from eyes, or ears, or mouths—blood, blood everywhere: for it was there that grape, canister, and round-shot had bowled through the advancing columns.
Among those ghastly piles lay an ensign of one of our line regiments—a poor boy, fresh from Eton or Harrow, struck down in his first red coat. He had a miniature in his hand—a young and beautiful girl, thought I. But Pitblado handed it to me, and then I saw that it represented a grey-haired woman, of comely and matronly aspect.
She was his mother, no doubt. Could she have seen him there!
A ball had pierced his chest. He was not quite dead; for when Pitblado poured some water between his lips, his eyes opened, and he began to mutter as if speaking to his mother—that his head lay on her breast, and he heard, in fancy, her replies.
True, in the end, to the first instinct, or first tender impulse of nature, as, when a little child, he had, under pain or wrong, hid his weeping face in his mother's lap, the old spirit came over him; and as his dying ear seemed to hear that mother's voice, a holy light shone over his livid face, and the poor lad died happily.
He must have been shot under his colours, for the standard belt was yet over his left shoulder.
The roar of battle was gone now, and the bushes where the dead ensign lay were literally alive with larks, thrushes, and linnets in full song.
Many of the Russian slain had half-bitten cartridges in their open mouths. Many who were shot in the head lay with their faces on the sod, and their muskets under them; and when struck in the heart, death was so instantaneous that all retained the position in which they had been shot. By their attitudes, we might know the time they had been in dying.
In one place seven of the Russian 26th—for that number was on their glazed leather helmets—lay all in a line, with their bayonets at the charge. All these men had been slain by a shower of grape, and were shot in the head or breast.
As we rode on we secured many prisoners and several battery guns; all the cannon were on stocks of wood, painted green, with white crosses on the breeches and muzzles.
And now we were traversing the Kourgané Hill, where the fine fellows of our household brigade, in their bright scarlet and black bearskins, were lying in great numbers, and close by were many of the Black Watch, but all dead. I reined in my horse, and looked at them earnestly.
The countenances of some seemed as if still in life, so far as expression went. Some were calm and resigned; some as if in prayer. Others were fierce and stern; but all were pale and white as the cold Carrara marble. The evening breeze passed over them; it lifted their hair and the black plumes in their bonnets. Then the dead seemed as if about to stir. There they lay, with the blood stiffening on their tartans. My heart was very full.
In some faces I could read a ghastly and defiant smile, and several were stretched at length, as if the friends that would ere long be sorrowing for them in their distant home were about to commit them to their winding-sheet.
Where our cannon had mauled their retreating cavalry, the horses lay in close ranks, with their long necks stretched out, and their riders beneath them, all torn, brained, or disembowelled alike by the iron storm of grape-shot that had swept through the squadron. In some places we saw only a red, muddy pulp, composed of flesh and bones, where the enemy's brigade of guns had traversed the ground.
"War!" says a French writer; "those by whose will war comes—those who make men resemble the savage beasts—will have a fearful account to render to the righteous Judge above!"
As we passed along with our prisoners, many of our wounded reviled and execrated them, for on all hands we heard stories of Russian treachery.
Our soldiers, in some instances, when supplying their wounded enemies with water from their canteens, were shot down by the very wretch whose thirst they had just quenched. Captain Eddington, of the 95th, was murdered in this fashion by a Russian rifleman, in sight of the whole regiment, and of his brother, a lieutenant, who rushed in advance to avenge him and fell riddled with bullets. Maddened by several such incidents, our soldiers, with their musket butts, dashed out the brains of several of the wounded, slaying them like reptiles, and undeserving of mercy.
Such details are only calculated to weary and revolt; but the stern scene was not without its brighter features.
Already the surgeons were busy among the wounded, and our gallant seamen were all tenderness, sympathy, and activity, as they conveyed them on board the ships, from the rigging of which the events of that exciting day had been witnessed by thousands.
"Cheer up, sodjer," I sometimes heard them shout, as they bore a maimed victim, pale and bloody, to the boats; "we shall all eat our Christmas duff in Sebastopol."
Many whom they bore away were "booked" for Chelsea, "the poor soldier's last home in the land of the living;" but many were fated to die of their wounds ere the sun of the morrow lit up the waters of the Euxine.
We were now far in the rear of the original Russian position, and were actually riding along the Sebastopol road, when Captain Bolton, of the 1st Dragoon Guards, whose sword hand was muffled in a bloody handkerchief, came galloping after us, to explain that Lord Raglan desired we should fall back at once.
"His lordship fears that you are going too far in advance," said he, "and that the Russian flying artillery may halt and open on you. Give up all pursuit of prisoners; set loose those you have, and simply escort the guns."
On this we halted and liberated more than a hundred prisoners of all ranks, several being officers. Some of the latter shrugged their shoulders contemptuously at the commiseration we expressed for some of the Russian wounded, who lay on the road expiring of weakness and thirst.
"Bah!" said one, in French, to me; "they are only private soldiers—peasants—and will soon die."
His sentiments were worthy of a Russian aristocrat; but he was a grim, stern, and white-moustached officer, evidently of high rank, for his breast was covered from epaulette to epaulette with stars, medals, and crosses.
I had afterwards reason to know that this officer was General Baur, who had commanded the reconnaisance at Bulganak.
As we were retiring, we came among some of the French, and I recognised Mademoiselle Sophie, the vivandière whom I had seen at Gallipoli and Varna, and who immediately offered me a petit verre of cognac from her little store, which I gladly accepted. She looked pale and excited, and her eyes were bloodshot.
"Our regiment has suffered heavily to-day, monsieur," said she. "I was thrice under fire with it; but so many of my comrades fell—that—that—mon Dieu! it proved too much for me."
"Your friend, M. Jolicoeur, of the 2nd Zouaves," said I; "he, I hope, has escaped to-day?"
"Hélas! mon pauvre Jules! he is lying yonder with ever so many more of ours," she replied, pointing with her trembling hand to the Telegraph Battery.
"Wounded?"
"Dead, monsieur, dead! He fell when planting the standard of the 2nd Zouaves on the summit, where you may still see it flying. Poor Captain Victor Baudeuf, who used to flirt so terribly with Rigolboche, and pay such frightful sums for a fauteuil every night she danced, till Mademoiselle Theresa took her place at the cafés chantants—well, he, too, and two hundred of our rank and file, are lying there."
The vivandière wept and wrung her hands.
All great excitements are followed by a painful reaction; and I shall not readily forget the dreary night that followed the day of the Alma.
My troop bivouacked near the old ruined walls that lie on the western flank of the Kourgané Hill.
Vast numbers of dead were lying near; they disturbed us not. But the wounded, the dying—ah, their moans and cries were frightful! I muffled my head in my cloak, and strove to shut out the piteous-sounds, and court sleep beside my jaded charger, close to whose side I crept for warmth.