The lad took the empty hand and wrung it hard, and held it long.
CHAPTER IX
The time, half-past four o’clock in the morning; the date the twentieth of September, eighteen hundred and fifty-four; the place the southern bank of the River Alma. Present, some thirty thousand stalwart British men, the vast majority of them snoring open-mouthed, and here and there in the grey of the morning a sentry pacing up and down. Facing northward, Polson Jer-vase’s regiment lies far to the right, and to the right of it again, at a distance of some half a mile, the men of Bosquet’s command are also sleeping. This is a day destined to be famous and terrible in history; but the dawn is cloudless and quiet. Away beyond the slope of the valley, across the grey flow of the river and half-way upon the northern slope, the pacing sentries, or such of them as are sharp-sighted, can perceive what looks like a wrinkle in the hill. It is some three or maybe four miles from the long line of sleepers, and it indicates the outlines of that great Redoubt around which the memories of Englishmen will cling for centuries to come.
Near five o’clock, and a soft warm morning wind blowing under a stainless sky. Gallopers from headquarters pass here and there with a quiet word, ‘Wake your men, and make no noise.’ There is no sound of any bugle call at that reveille, and the men silently arise, sit up and shake themselves, and mostly make their toilet by a simple process of eye-rubbing and the assumption of their headgear. Then the camp fires are lit here and there where a clump of officers gathers together over their morning tea and coffee. For thus early in the campaign all the luxuries of home are not abandoned or forgotten. Troop and company orderlies stroll down to the river, bearing buckets, and the rank and file munch their ration of ship’s biscuit. And before the simple meal is barely over, the stealthy word passes along the ranks, and a forward march begins, ghost-like in the dawn. Somewhat clumsily manoeuvred by their chiefs, the line, three or four miles in length, dips; down towards the river and crowds at a few chosen fording places. Then it spreads out again like an open fan, and marches up the further slope—the infantrymen dripping from the arm-pits downwards, and the handful of cavalry on the right of the British flank shining in the rising sun to the horses’ shoulders.
Then a pause, and a long pause. Vine yards along the hill and spaces of field and farm, and scattered houses here and there, and on the left the village of Vourliouk, set aflame by the foe for some as yet undiscovered reason. The smoke goes circling up into the pure air, and a faint scent of burning is discernible. Still a mile and a half away on either side the great Redoubt, and in front of it there are cubes and oblongs which look like masses of grey stone, and might pass for such except that now and again they may be seen to move. These are the infantry troops of Russia, with whom our own men are soon to be in deadly conflict. The fields of Europe have heard no sounds of any cannon fired in anger since the last loud Sabbath of Waterloo shook down the spoilers of the Continent; but, unseen at this distance, the guns which line that wrinkle of the hill above there are charged to the throat, and there are resolute men behind them.
The sun rises higher and higher, and the men of the halted army throw themselves to the ground, awaiting a further word from somebody. Solitary gallopers go hither and thither, over the rolling hills. The staff, with waving plumes, goes cantering along the line, and the idea somehow passes through the ranks that Lord Raglan has gone to consult with Monsieur St. Arnaud as to the disposition of the day’s battle. There are thousands of youngsters lying there among the vineyards who have never, until this moment, set eyes on their commander. Raglan goes by amidst a dropping fire of cheers, the sleeve of the right arm dangling loose beside him, his bronzed Roman face one cheerful and inspiring smile, and the cunning left hand, with which he has learned to write his despatches, held low down as he controls his charger. And on the far right of the English line, Polson Jervase is standing at his horse’s head, cheering with the rest, when on a sudden he discerns a familiar figure: General Boswell is at the Chiefs side and the two are in familiar converse. The young soldier’s first battle not yet begun, and Irene’s father going by so near and yet so unmindful of him as a mere unit among the waiting thousands. And it is not yet, not even yet, so very certain that we are to give battle this morning, after all. For we have been bedevilled hither and thither with false marches and with false rumours of sailing and lines of route. Monsieur St. Arnaud has been for camping south of the Balkans, and giving battle to the power of Russia there, and Raglan has been all for the Crimea and the road to Sevastopol. And no man has known what to believe amongst the divided councils of the Allies. The men amongst the vineyards are plucking and sucking the grapes. The sun grows hotter and hotter, and there is so dreary a silence in these waiting hours that the angry neigh of a horse is heard for a mile along the line. Five o’clock when we began to move, and here is high noon, and impatience all on edge, and nothing done. The staff comes cantering back, and another hour goes by in silence; and then from the Highlanders half a mile away on the left of the handful of cavalry there rises a sound of jubilation. And round the camp fires at night, when the fight is over and the English are in possession of the field, the men learn the reason of the cry. Sir Colin Campbell has sent round the word that the men are to break their cartridge packets, and lay the cartridges loose in their pouches, and this is the first word of real business. Now at one o’clock, or near it, the note passes along the line from east to west, and the men are afoot again, and marching forward two deep against those solid masses of grey human masonry, and that gash upon the hill-side which is by and by to burst like a volcano into flame. There goes the first boom of cannon from the Russian side, and a round shot sends the earth spluttering amidst the staff as it canters by once more, plumes waving, and epaulets, and scabbards, and gold lace, and all the fine tinsel of war, as yet unsoiled, glittering in the sunshine.
This is no day for a cavalryman to win honour. Here we sit on the hill-side with a downward slope before us, and an upward slope beyond, and the unmounted men are working their way onward and upward, whilst we are held inactive. And now the war begins in earnest. The tartan fellows are lounging along, half of them with the stem of a grape bunch between their teeth, loading and firing as they go, scarcely a man of them having stood fire before, and walking towards their baptism of death and blood with an astounding cheerfulness, and the long waving broken line converges as if by instinct, and, as the historians of the battle tell us, without definite order from any quarter, towards that grim gash on the hillside, until it grows to be something of a mob, so thickly clustered that the Russian batteries cleave lines through it. It wavers, it pauses, it rushes forward, it takes shelter beneath the forehead of the hill on which the great Redoubt stands, and then declines, a mere swarm of ants to look at from this distance, towards the belching roar and smoke and flame. And on a sudden the batteries are silent, and far and far there goes up a cheer. And then there is silence again, and a long waiting, and the grave massive oblongs and cubes of masonry come down on this side and on that, and the watchers in the valley wait in a tense and terrible strain. Where are the reinforcements? Where is the Duke of Cambridge, with the Guards? Hidden away there in a wrinkle of the hill they are waiting for some unknown reason, and the conquerors of the great Redoubt seem doomed. But after awful minutes and minutes, which stretch to hours, the line sweeps up. Raglan’s immortal two guns come into play from the knoll on the distant right, and the tide of battle is turned again. And all the while we of the cavalry division are maddened with excitement, and consumed by ennui, by turns, wearied with thirst and heat, and waiting in vain for our chance to strike a blow at the enemy. Bored and tired and athirst, the men who have stood for hours at the bridle throw themselves on the sunburned grass. No chance for us to-day, says one to the other, and the tide of battle, now grown invisible, is rolling noisily here and there, now seeming as if it would vanish altogether into the air, and now as if a flying enemy had suddenly taken heart and were back in swift return. And here is a hill to the west of us, and the hot sun, yet shining clean and bright through whiffs and shreds of scattered smoke, goes down behind it, and the shadow lengthens, and creeps up the brown-green face of the hill to the left. And lo, on a sudden, a sweating galloper on the crest of the hill, with his horse one lather from haunch to bridle, is tearing down with orders. Here is old Stacey in the saddle again, and his hoarse voice is calling. The tired and thirsty souls are alert in an instant, and away go the Heavy Dragoons at a walk until the hill is breasted. Then at a trot, a canter, a gallop, a charge. For the masses of the enemy are all huddled in disorderly crowds away there in the pass, and it needs but one decisive blow to smite them into utter rout and scatter them like chaff. Then was an hour when the fate of a great campaign lay in the balance; and because that hour was not chosen England had to pour out her blood and her treasure in one mingled torrent for a year or two. For as the charging regiment was in amongst the lingerers of the retreat, the pursuit was called away. The keener spirits had naturally ridden furthest, and there was no man there that day who was keener than Polson Jervase. When the bugles rang out the ‘Retire,’ he would, had he been in command, have risked a plagiarism of Nelson, with a glass at the blind eye, and would have failed to recognise the recalling signal. But he was a unit, and a private unit at that. And he was already half emmeshed amidst the edges of the flying crowd, and actually at their mercy, if any of the fugitives had found so much as a sheep’s heart to awake within him.
So he turned and galloped back, and since he had been one of the first in the advance, he was naturally one of the last to retreat. There had been a rare burst of a downhill mile or two, and his horse, unfed and unwatered within the last twelve hours, was in need of mercy. He rode the poor beast tenderly, caressing him as he went, and looking up he was aware of an officer in staff uniform, who was rounding up the stragglers. There are few things that appeal more directly from man to man than the sympathy of the sound and rooted sportsman. Polson had followed the hounds almost from the time when he could first bestride a pony; and the sight of a clean workman across bad country was like wine to him at any time. This fellow in the cocked hat and waving plumes was splendidly mounted, to be sure, but the going was as treacherous and difficult as it well could be, and the horseman rode with an address and daring which were delightful to look at. He waved an urgent hand from three or four hundred yards away towards Polson, who responded by a gesture indicating the route he meant to take. The last straggler having been thus rounded up, the officer turned and reined in his charger for a final look at the retreating forces of the enemy; and somewhere from the black middle mass of them down in the shadow of the valley there came a flash and a volley of smoke, and almost directly afterwards an echoing boom of sound. The charger reared, drooped upon his haunches, and fell over; the rider dropped with admirable agility on one side and avoided the threatened mischief of the fall. There were scores of unmastered steeds racing about the valley and the upward slopes; Polson rode for the nearest, and, having secured it, cantered up to the place where the dead charger lay, A round shot had ploughed its way clean through the noble creature’s chest, and the sight was pitiable and gruesome.
‘Here is a mount, sir,’ said the young dragoon. ‘Not as good as your own, but it will carry you back to camp, anyhow.’