Not that these personal facts were declared in the abrupt manner they are here given to the reader. Far from it; they merely loomed through the haze of their discourse as, walking the deck for hours, they canvassed the war and its objects, and its probable results. Upon all these themes they agreed wonderfully, each being fully satisfied that the whole campaign was only a well-concerted roguery,—a scheme for the dismemberment of Turkey, when she had been sufficiently debilitated by the burden of an expensive contest to make all resistance impossible. Heaven knows if either of them seriously believed this. At all events, they said it to each other, and so often, so circumstantially, and so energetically that it would be very rash in us to entertain a doubt of their sincerity.
“I have been recommended to a house kept by a Mrs. Seacole,” said Classon, as they landed on the busy quay, where soldiers and sailors and land-transport men, with Turks, Wallachs, Tartars, and Greeks, were performing a small Babel of their own.
“God help me!” exclaimed Terry, plaintively, “I 'm like a new-born child here; I know nobody, nor how to ask for anything.”
“Come along with me, then. There are worse couriers than Paul Classon.” And bustling his way through the crowd, his Reverence shouldered his carpet-bag, and pushed forward.
It was, indeed, a rare good fortune for Terry to have fallen upon a fellow-traveller so gifted and so accomplished; for not only did Paul seem a perfect polyglot, but he possessed that peculiar bustling activity your regular traveller acquires, by which, on his very entrance into an inn, he assumes the position less of guest than of one in authority and in administration. And so now Paul had speedily investigated the resources of the establishment, and ordered an excellent supper, while poor Driscoll was still pottering about his room, or vainly endeavoring to uncord a portmanteau which a sailor had fastened more ingeniously than necessary.
“I wish I knew what he was,” muttered Terry to himself. “He 'd be the very man to help me in this business, if I could trust him.”
Was it a strange coincidence that at the same moment Paul Classon should be saying to himself, “That fellow's simplicity would be invaluable if I could only enlist him in our cause; he is a fool well worth two wise men at this conjuncture”?
The sort of coffee-room where they supped was densely crowded by soldiers, sailors, and civilians of every imaginable class and condition. Bronzed, weather-beaten captains, come off duty for a good dinner and a bottle of real wine at Mother Seacole's, now mingled with freshly arrived subs, who had never even seen their regiments; surgeons, commissaries, naval lieutenants, Queen's messengers, and army chaplains were all there, talking away, without previous acquaintance with each other, in all the frankness of men who felt absolved from the rule of ordinary etiquette; and thus, amid discussions of the campaign and its chances, were mingled personal adventures, and even private narratives, all told without the slightest reserve or hesitation: how such a one had got up from his sick-bed, and reported himself well and fit for duty, and how such another had pleaded urgent private affairs to get leave to go home; what a capital pony Watkins had bought for a sovereign, what execrable bitter beer Jones was paying six shillings the bottle for; sailors canvassing the slow advances of landsmen, soldiers wondering why the blue-jackets would n't “go in” and blow the whole mock fortifications into the air; some boasting, some grumbling, many ridiculing the French, and all cursing the Commissariat.
If opinions were boldly stated, and sentiments declared with very little regard for any opposition they might create, there was, throughout, a tone of hearty good-fellowship that could not be mistaken. The jests and the merriment seemed to partake of the same hardy character that marked each day's existence; and many a story was told with a laugh, that could not be repeated at the “Rag,” or reported at the Horse Guards. Classon and Driscoll listened eagerly to all that went on around them. They were under the potent spell that affects all men who feel themselves for the first time in a scene of which they have heard much. They were actually in the Crimea. The men around them had actually just come off duty in the trenches: that little dark-bearded fellow had lost his arm in the attack of the Mamelon; that blue-eyed youth, yonder, had led a party in assault on the Cemetery; the jovial knot of fellows near the stove had been “plotting” all night at the Russians from a rifle-pit. There was a reality in all these things that imparted a marvellous degree of interest to individuals that might otherwise have seemed commonplace and ordinary.
Amidst the noisy narratives and noisier commentaries of the moment, there seemed one discussion carried on with more than usual warmth. It was as to the precise species of reward that could be accorded to one whose military rank could not entitle him to the “Bath.”