‘No, Will; we can save you if you get into hospital. I must go back to my duty to-morrow, and then there will be no one to look after you.’
There were tears in Will’s eyes as he pressed Jack’s hand.
Later on a hospital orderly came round with a litter, and, wrapped in the blankets and his own and Jack’s cloak, Will was laid upon it; then Jack took one end of the litter and the orderly the other, when they joined the convoy of sick going down to Balaclava. It was a ghastly procession. Some wagons contained the men wounded in the trenches during the night, and these groaned terribly as they were roughly jolted along, while the blood oozed between the planks and dripped into the mud and snow. Others, stricken with fever and cholera, presented a ghastly spectacle, with closed eyes, open mouths, and attenuated faces; only a thin steam of breath showing they were still alive.
Some were strapped on horseback, and just in front of Jack was one poor fellow who, having died on the road, still sat on his horse, the staring eyes wide open, the teeth clenched on his protruding tongue, while the head and body nodded with a terrible grotesqueness that filled with horror those who saw it. From many of the litters protruded hands and feet from which raw flesh and skin were literally hanging; these were cases of frost-bite.
Amidst such terrible sights Jack at last got Will to Balaclava, and was fortunate in being able at once to get him aboard the vessel that was sailing that night for Scutari. Poor Will was half-insensible, and Jack was spared the pain of leave-taking.
‘God bless you, old boy,’ he muttered as he took a last look at his friend and thought of the day when he had first seen the laughing, rosy, happy-looking trumpeter in Hounslow Barracks.
Jack got a mount at Balaclava, possibly the same horse on which the man had died coming down; and, feeling more depressed than he had been since the fatal 25th of October, he started back. Snow and sleet were driving in his face, and he could not see where he was going. With head bent he kept on, leaving his horse to find its way, he probably having made many a journey to Balaclava before.
It got very dark, and Jack reined in to look about him. He could see but a few yards, and he did not recognise any of his surroundings. Stunted snow-covered bushes were round him, and he missed the carcasses of the beasts which had died on that terrible road.
Heavens! the horse must have strayed! He was lost! He tried to look about him; but the bits of frozen rain cut into his face and prevented him from seeing more than a yard or two around him. He spurred his jaded horse and went forward a little quicker, vainly staring to right and left. Of a sudden he saw several mounted figures in front of him. They must be some stragglers riding from Balaclava to the camp, he thought; and, pushing forward, he hailed them. They turned, and then Jack’s heart gave a great thump—they were Cossacks!
Immediately wheeling his horse, Jack dug in his spurs, while he wildly endeavoured to draw his sword, the only weapon he then carried. His cloak, however, was entangled round the hilt, and he could not get at it. Shouts behind him showed he had been recognised as an Englishman.