Chapter IX · THE NIGHT MARCH TO TCHORGOUN.

"The Royal Fusileers will parade in light marching order, and in their great coats, at twelve o'clock to-night, and march to the rear of the Defence Works, to join the brigade of Sir Colin Campbell, in his reconnaissance of the enemy's lines. Officers commanding companies to see that the men's ammunition is completed to sixty rounds."

Such was the Brigade Order read by Horace on the evening of the 20th February; and he muttered, "Great coats, by Jove! I should think so;" for the atmosphere was bitterly cold, and the unexpected parade was annoying, as he had provided a little supper in his hut; and being popular in the division, to say nothing of the regiment, his guests would be sure to come, each bringing his own knife, fork, and spoon; and to some such social gatherings they had sometimes to add their own "grog and prog;" for before Sebastopol an entertainment was somewhat of a scramble, so far as viands and table appurtenances were concerned—a wretched picnic, with a perpetual shot-and-shell accompaniment.

Horace, with the assistance of the Fusileer, his servant, had contrived to make his hut pretty comfortable, and felt extremely loth to quit it on the night in question.

He had constructed an arm-chair out of an empty flour-cask, by sawing off the half of one side to the middle thereof, and therein he took his repose, and enjoyed a "quiet weed" after the fatigue of the trenches, or having a few hours' shooting behind a sand-bag in the rifle-pits, while Beamish and others who might drop in had to perch themselves on his "overland" or bullock trunks. But to turn out for a night march in the then state of the thermometer, when he expected guests, and was getting his bedfellow heated, was a decided bore—the aforesaid "fellow" being a sixteen-pound shot which he was wont to warm in the fire by which his supper was cooked, and place thereafter at the foot of his camp bed.

Rearward of his hut the wind was howling up from the valley of Inkerman, where the graves of those slain in the two battles lay under the winter snow; it came into the hut by many a crevice and cranny, together with a cloud of white drift whenever the door was opened, so that his candle end, which was stuck in a horn lantern, was often on the point of extinction.

The swords of Probyn, Bingham, and two other poor fellows who had fallen, were hanging on the wall until Horace could get them transmitted home to sorrowing parents or friends. A few Russian muskets and leather helmets gleaned up from the adjacent field (to be sent as trophies to Willowdean), with a bucket, some black bottles, full or empty, tins of preserved meat, a few cooking utensils, with a truckle camp bed, formed the entire furniture of Horace's abode, which measured some ten or twelve feet each way, and might have passed for the wigwam of Robinson Crusoe; but to see stray numbers of Punch, the Illustrated News, and monthly "Army List" would be an anachronism there.

The first who arrived was Everard Home, the Master of Ernescleugh, from the Guards' camp; then came Beamish, young Hunton of the 34th, Ned Elton, limping after his wound received at the Alma, and two Cavalry men; but save their swords and belts, little trace of regimentals (that good old word which is now going out of fashion) could be found upon them. All wore fur-trimmed overcoats of different kinds, caps with ear-covers, and huge warm gloves and mufflers, comfortable knitted things, the offerings of fair friends and tender-hearted Englishwomen, far away at home; and all were thickly coated with snow.

"Welcome, Ponsonby, though the last," cried Horace to one of the Dragoons; "but you can't close the door too quickly."

"True for you," added Beamish; "that intrusive beast Boreas blows the snow in everywhere."

"I wonder what Beau Brummel would have thought of such 'damp strangers' as you?" said Horace, laughing, as they shook the snow from their caps and outer garments.

Alas! now for those who had been particular in their toilettes, who were careful in parting their hair, in the choice of colours for their cravats, and were puppyish in the tint and fitting of their gloves and curve of whisker! In aspect all had become ragged and wolf-eyed, like desperadoes, and were no way ashamed of seeming so, for each made the other's costume a source of jest, and the cleverness with which he patched his own a boast.

Men who had been of the "best style" in London, and should be so again if spared; the Brahmins of Society, the Flower of the Lady's Mile, the pinks of the Household Brigade, now frequently appeared in clouted boots and strange garments of their own stitching. Their dainty straw-coloured or lavender kids had given place to worsted muffatees and mits, cut out of old forage caps, and the waxen heath blossom at their button-hole, like the delicate exotics that accompanied it, were all things of the past.

Handsome fellows who had made many a white bosom flutter and many a beautiful eye grow brighter in Belgravia, and who had hitherto given much of their spare time to the cultivation of their whiskers, and staring through the plate glass of a club-room window, were now reduced to grease their own boots, thankful if they had the grease to do so, and glad to boil their own coffee, thankful if they had the coffee and the fire to boil it; while Sybarites, who whilom had lisped slightingly of pale sherry, because it was "corked," condemned mess-room port, and talked largely of vintage wines, had now to content them with a mouthful of burning raki out of a wooden canteen, or of Jamaica rum, the gift of a casual man-o'-war's-man.

And such were the condition and aspect of those who assembled in the hut of Horace Ramornie on this night of the 20th of February; but all were lively, laughing, full of pluck, and only sorry that their regiments were not detailed to join in the reconnaissance.

"A devil of a night to go though!" said Elton. "Are we to be joined by the French?"

"Yes; Bosquet and Villenois come with four thousand men," replied Home, the Guardsman.

"And Colin Campbell's force——"

"With your corps, will muster about eighteen hundred bayonets."

"There are some dragoons of the Turkish Contingent going under that fellow Chesters," said Hunton.

"A scoundrel who is knave enough to cheat the 'cutest fellow in the Scottish Law List—and that is a strong one," added Horace, aside to him.

His servant had by some means provided an ample supper of ham and eggs, the savoury odour of which filled the hut; to this was added a little pie of larks, which the Zouaves were in the habit of shooting and offering for sale. When these viands were discussed, cigars with brandy-and-water became the order of the night.

"By Jove! your cookery does you credit, Ramornie," exclaimed Home, who was seated on an inverted basket, with his plate on his knees. "My fellow is clever in his way too. He made a mess for me yesterday out of a slice from a goat 'found dead,' that Lucullus might have smacked his lips on tasting.

"Had Lucullus been ass enough to come here," grumbled a cavalry officer, "and not do 'Banting.'"

"It was quite an Apician meal."

"A truce to your classics, Home," said Horace, "or I shall fancy myself at Sandhurst again; and, in truth, I'd rather be before Sebastopol."

"You here in the Crimea, Home?" said a dragoon, suddenly recognising the half-disguised Guardsman.

"By Jove! I wish I was anywhere else," replied Home; "we last met at Maidstone, I think?"

"Are you detailed for the trenches to-night?"

"Yes; at twelve o'clock we go to the front."

"I have not seen you, Ponsonby," said Horace, "since the Balaclava day. By the way, how did you feel in the Cavalry charge?"

"Feel!" exclaimed the dragoon officer, as he tipped the ashes off his cigar, and his eyes sparkled; "I felt as if impelled on, and on, and onward by some new and terrible impulse that amounted to mad exultation—the impulse to ride over, bear down, cut, thrust, and hew, to annihilate man, horse, and everything! Our Colonel led us nobly till we were in the heart of that Russian horde, and then he fell, crying—

"'Cut your way back, my lads; go through them again like bricks; they are only Cossacks, mounted on wretched screws!'

"But three of these Cossacks pinned the fallen man to the earth with their lances, for thus he was found by some of Scarlett's Brigade, when the heavies went in for work."

"Any more news of that spy, who has figured so often among us as a Captain of Zouaves?" asked Beamish.

"No; there is a sharp look out kept for him, but he seems to be a very ubiquitous personage."

"It's in luck I am," said Beamish, "having a supper like this, after actually eating a dinner to-day."

"I dined on nothing particular," said Ponsonby.

"But I had a veritable dinner, bedad! and it is not every man who can make that boast before Seblastherpoll, as my servant Barney calls it. By the merest good luck I found a Turk lying dead, and in his havresack a chicken and a bottle of sherry—the forbidden of the Prophet. I have left only the bones of the one and the cork of the other, and did so with regret."

"Had you thoughts of swallowing them too?" lisped Ponsonby, who, though tattered and unshaven, still retained something of his "man-about-town" air.

"What was going on at the left attack last night, Hunton? There was an awful shindy made with those two Lancaster guns in your quarter."

"Can't say, Horace; I was fast asleep—worn out. Never heard it, in fact. Besides, we are so used to the incessant pounding with those heavy cannon."

"Any word of Wedderburn from Scutari?" asked Beamish.

"Getting rapidly well, and going home on sick leave."

"The wounding of him by that Russian was a rascally affair!"

"There goes the warning bugle for our fellows!" said Horace, as the notes of the signal rose and fell on the fitful wind, and he proceeded to invest himself in a thick overcoat. "I must leave you here to finish the night as you like—only please don't burn the hut down. House property is valuable here; and there is one more bottle of brandy in the corner."

"I'll finish what I have here," said Beamish, with a sigh of regret, as he drained a bottle beside him; "for who among us can be sure of coming back again? The drink is uncommonly good. Who's your confiding merchant, Horace?"

"A Sutler at Balaclava—oddivee: he writes it in his accounts. There's the bugle again, the men are falling in."

None would remain behind; all were intent on watching, if possible, the reconnaissance, and so all rose to quit the hut together.

"By Jove! Horace, in such an atmosphere as this——"

"What—of frost, Beamish?"

"No, tobacco: it is mighty difficult to find the door of your—bungalow."

"If he doesn't think himself in India again, and the thermometer twenty degrees below the freezing point. Hope you feel warm, Pat! What an imagination you have!"

"But an utterance getting thick and feathery," replied Beamish, who had imbibed more than sufficient of the cognac.

"What are you about?" asked Horace, laughing heartily.

"I am searching the wall in vain——"

"For what?"

"That orifice popularly known as a door."

"Here it is, and, by jingo, a soberer with it!" cried Horace as he opened it, and the keen fierce blast of hail and snow came in together. Giving his arm to Beamish, whose steps were unsteady, Horace set out for the muster place.

"Good-bye, Beamish," cried Ponsonby. "Look me up to-morrow, if you escape to-night."

"All right; I'll put Balaclava on my visiting list. Steady, eyes front," hiccuped Beamish, as he floundered on through the blinding drift, clinging tenaciously to Ramornie's arm. "Well, if we don't leave footprints in the sands of time before Sebastopol, we'll leave some in the snow; but, d—n it, don't it look very like madness in a parcel of fellows in red coats going out in the snow to pot a set of other fellows in grey or green coats, when all might be comfortably in bed beside their wives, if they had them."

Horace thought of his cosy sixteen-pound shot, and laughed—some thoughts of Gwenny came into his mind too, as they stumbled on. Gwenny would doubtless be fast asleep then, with her soft cheek on her laced pillow in her pretty room at Willowdean, and dreaming, perhaps, of him, with one of the last batch from "Mudie" lying at hand.

"Are those two stars West Inkerman Lights?"

"There is but one light, Pat; and no wonder that we see it so well beyond the river: it is four hundred and two feet high."

"There go the 'whistling dicks!'"

Some cannonading was going on at the right of the French batteries, which were shelling—even in such frightful weather—the earthen works that lay between the South Fort and the Quarantine Bastion; thus, the bombs which in daylight were discernible like black globes soaring through the air, now seemed like meteors of brilliant fire, as each described an arc to the spot where it was expected to spread destruction and death.

They could hear the church bells of Sebastopol, tolling midnight, as they trod on.

The Fusileers were soon under arms, the battalion "told off," and the march began through the darkness and drift along the left bank of the Tchernaya and beside the aqueduct which had been destroyed by the Allies. The night was intensely gloomy and the snow fell heavily, impeding the progress of the regiment, which, however, successfully joined the force of Sir Colin Campbell on the high open ground which lies two miles and a half westward of Tchorgoun, and then there occurred that which, for a time, appeared to be an indecisive halt.

"One might live to the age of those old fellows who figure in the Pentateuch, and not endure what we do here before Sebastopol!" said Ned Elton, who felt his wounded limb aching in the cold.

"What the deuce is wrong? Why are we halted here?" asked his father, Sir Edward, impatiently, of an aide-de-camp who trotted slowly past in the dark, looking like a white phantom in his coating of snow.

"There's some infernal mistake," was the reply. "The French have not come up, and the Russians are in great force—five thousand men at least—in Kamara, under General Prince Galitzin."

"The French seldom fail us."

"A messenger from General Canrobert to Sir Colin Campbell has stated, that in consequence of the extreme severity of the weather to-night, the regiments he had under arms to take part in the reconnaissance have been ordered back to their tents; but the messenger lost his way in the snow. He was too late to inform the fiery old Highlander, who was already on the march, and here we are!"

"And here a few of us are likely to remain, if the halt lasts long," added Sir Edward, for the cold was intense, and many cases of frost-bitten noses and fingers were occurring in the ranks.

Notwithstanding the state of the weather, old Sir Colin was all on fire to have a brush with the enemy under Galitzin; and it happened, as he thought, fortunately, that General Villenois, having learned that his leader's change of plans had been communicated too late, got his Zouaves under arms, and amid the dark and the snowy tempest, had moved down from the heights to join in the expedition.

A cheer from the Rifle Brigade and Royal Fusileers greeted the two dark columns of the French when they were discerned moving through the gloom; and after a brief consultation between the Generals, the command "Forward" was given, and the advance began towards Tchorgoun and Kamara at four in the morning, with the Rifles and Highland Light Infantry extended in skirmishing order.

A few cavalry of the Turkish Contingent, under Major Chesters, who had now recovered and joined the army, hovered on the right flank. The river Tchernaya lay on the left.

The orders of Sir Colin were, that not a shot was to be fired, even if they came upon the enemy, as he hoped a body of them might be surprised and quietly attacked by the bayonet; but the snow-flakes fell so thickly, that the extended files had difficulty in keeping each other in view, and the fingers of the men were so bennmbed that very few could fix their bayonets!

In profound silence—for the tread of the marching columns was completely muffled, even as their appearance was hidden by the snow—they proceeded thus, till suddenly there was a half-stifled shout!

Three Russian advanced sentinels had been taken by the skirmishers of the 71st Highlanders, who literally stumbled against them in the obscurity.

"Flash, flash! bang, ping! There go the carbines!" cried Beamish, as the Cossack Videttes of the picquet at Kamara began firing at random in the dark; and then followed the hoarse din of the Russian drums, as their Infantry began to get under arms in the town.

The order was then given to retire, for the reconnaissance was a failure, and Sir Colin—by the absence of Bosquet's troops—had no supports to fall back upon in case of being vigorously attacked; besides, the snow was falling more heavily than ever. "One company could not see its neighbour; each regiment was hidden from the other, and the men were becoming, momentarily, less able to advance." Then the cases of frost-bite were increasing fast, especially among the Highlanders, who had been ordered to take off their warm fur caps and resume their plumed Scottish bonnets.

A few random volleys were exchanged, and then the retrograde movement began with speed. Horace was earnestly wishing himself back in his hut, and surmising that his sleeping partner, the sixteen-pound shot, would be cold enough by that time.

"We can't be back to camp sooner than mid-day now," said Beamish. "We have a horrid road to march by—the road that leads to glory and Sebastopol. Bad cess to both of them! Have you a drop of anything in your canteen, Horace!"

Ere Ramornie could reply, the power of speech seemed to pass from him. He received a dreadful blow in the back, and fell on his face among the snow. The entire regiment seemed to vanish from his sight, and he found himself left alone; for a half-spent shot had struck him in the back, and in the darkness, drift, and confusion, his fall was unseen, as he had been in rear of his company, which was covering the rear of the battalion.

An emotion of despair at the prospect of being left there to perish, made him stagger wildly up; but all trace of Campbell's force, and of the Zouaves of Villenois had disappeared. Nothing was visible around him but whiteness—a sheet of snow beneath his feet, and white flakes falling blindingly aslant on the biting wind that came in fierce gusts from the Black Sea.

To advance was as perilous as to retreat; for he might be staggering towards the enemy, and to remain still was impossible. But his difficulties were soon solved, as he stumbled against a party of Russian soldiers, who were already in possession of a prisoner, a mounted officer.

To these he was fain to surrender himself, and escape being butchered, as he had not power remaining to use his revolver; and he found himself marched off towards Tchorgoun, a prisoner of war, in company with the other who had fallen into their hands in the confusion; and that other proved to be—Major Chesters, of the Turkish Contingent!