Early in the morning shoals of people from Balaclava—Greeks, Armenians, Turks, sailors from the fleet, and others—came to visit the battlefield, taking medals, ribbons, crucifixes, chains, and so on as mementos of the great fight.
To prevent this the cavalry were ordered to turn out as patrols, and to keep every one off the battlefield but those engaged there. All day long Jack and Will were thus engaged, and a terrible duty it was.
‘It’s worse than fighting,’ said Jack. ‘Just look there, Will, where we fought so long at the Sandbag Battery. The dead are literally in heaps—see, eight deep! English, Russians, and French, all one on top of the other!’
The groans and cries of the wounded as they were borne past were heart-rending. The Russians lay around in thousands, and it seemed as if the task of gathering them in would never finish. The wounded were seen to first, being carried to the hospital tents. The dead Russians were placed side by side in long trenches. Even while thus engaged, the enemy on several occasions opened fire from Sebastopol on the burying-parties, much to the indignation of officers and men.
On the second day Jack’s regiment had to go down to Balaclava for stores. Near the town they heard the cheery tones of a band playing ‘Cheer, boys, cheer!’ the words of which the men were singing, and saw an infantry regiment, just landed, marching up to the front.
The fresh-coloured, smart-looking lads were cheering loudly, for they had heard of the glorious victory of Inkermann. Presently they came abreast of the Lancers, and they stared hard at the handful of war-worn, tattered, bearded, dirty horsemen, with battered caps and rusty arms. One youngster said to another as they passed Jack, ‘What troops are these, Bill, old man?’
‘Look like the “Beggars’ Own,”’ answered Bill. ‘I reckon they’re Frenchies.”
‘No fear,’ said another; ‘they’re English; look at their faces.’
‘Crikey, Bill!’ said the first speaker, ‘they ain’t much to look at; a wash ’u’d do ’em good,’ at which there was a laugh, and several of the troopers who had ridden down the Valley of Death coloured redly.
‘Poor fellows!’ said Barrymore to Jack, ‘wait till they’ve been in the Crimea a fortnight and taken a turn at trench and picket duty, they’ll understand things a bit then.’