CHAPTER XX.
EXPEDITIONS ON HORSE AND ON FOOT.
Comfortable couch—A terrible sortie—The borrowed animal reclaimed—A bad position—Lord Raglan lends me another steed—General Estcourt—Female improvements—Visit to the French camp—A French canteen—A lively vivandière—French regimental kitchens—Discoveries—Interview with Colonel Steele—Pertinent remarks—A carriage—Mrs. Estcourt and her sister—General Camp Hospital—Cathcart’s Hill—Strange reports—Concert à la Soyer—Receipt for a stew—Conversation with Sir John Campbell—A flag of truce—A good peep at Sebastopol—A cavalcade of amateurs—A sad spectacle—A narrow escape—Noisy night.
NEXT morning, I found myself wrapped up in a horse-cloth, with a pair of top-boots for a pillow. The unfeeling and ungrateful board to which I had intrusted my precious limbs, had by the morning stamped his patron’s seal upon my back. The following day we learnt that a terrible sortie had taken place in the night, and that there had been a severe loss of men on both sides. At an early hour the court-yard was thronged with officers; despatches were flying in every direction; the cannon was roaring as usual, but the fusillade had ceased. I then went to the stable for my pony, when I found the owner, Mr. Day, upon his back, just going home.
“Ah, Monsieur Soyer, I made sure that you had lost my pony as well as your own. I expected you back immediately, being in want of it.”
“I was not aware of that, or I would have walked from your place sooner than have deprived you of it.”
“Oh, never mind. Have you heard anything of your animal?”
“No! but I am going to look after him this morning. That is the reason why I slept at head-quarters last night.”
“I am going about the camp,” said he, “and will inquire for you.”
He then started, of course leaving me without a horse, and with dreadful pains in my back and legs, which I attributed to the softness of the bed with which I had been favoured; though I could not boast of a single feather, like that Tocrisse of a recruit, who took one out of his master’s feather bed, laid it down on the boarded floor of his hut, and next morning told his companions that his master must be foolish to sleep upon a feather bed.
“Why?” asked they.