After their defeat the Russians had retreated so precipitately that their route could not be ascertained, and orders were received from Lord Raglan that Lord Cardigan should at once pursue them. The news reached Devna at two in the morning, and reveille was at once sounded.
‘Now, boys,’ said Sergeant Linham to Jack and Will, as he passed them, ‘we’ve got work before us, so sharpen your swords and be ready to parade at four A.M.’
‘Come on,’ said Jack to Will, ‘get your carving-knife, and I’ll turn the handle while you sharpen.’
Full of glee at the prospect of a change from dismal Devna, and at a chance of at last coming face to face with a real enemy, the trumpeters went off.
Jack’s regiment, with the 8th and 11th Hussars, started that morning at four; they carried no tents and bivouacked on the bare ground. For seventeen days and nights they scoured the banks of the Danube toward Rustchuk and Silistria; but beyond putting to flight several bands of Bashi-Bazouks, who had been at their old game of pillaging and ravaging, no sign of an enemy did they see, and they returned to Devna quite disabled for service owing to the number of sore backs among the horses.
After the death of Napper, Jack had succeeded in getting back Dainty, and owing to his excessive care she was in tolerably good condition on his return.
The ravages of cholera continued, and soon after the return of the reconnoitring party the ‘Death or Glory Boys’ could barely muster on parade two hundred lances out of the three hundred and sixty one who had left England three months before.
All sorts of rumours were current. Sometimes it was said that the war had been abandoned, and that the troops were to return to England without having struck a blow; sometimes it was said they were at once to proceed to Sebastopol. But still they stayed on at Devna, apparently forgotten, till one August day an aide-de-camp arrived from Lord Raglan, bearing orders for the cavalry and Light Division of infantry to return to Varna and embark, for whence no one seemed to know. No one, however, cared so long as they were going from Devna, and not one who gazed for the last time on the rich meadows and wooded heights, the verdant hillsides and the dancing waters of lake and stream, but hoped in his heart he should never see them again.
Varna was found much altered; the place was still packed with troops, both French and British, though thousands had died. They had been buried everywhere. Limbs could be seen sticking up out of the sand, dead bodies rose from the bottom of the harbour and bobbed about in a hideous fashion, while the places which had been set apart as cemeteries were full to overflowing.
Many of the regiments were merely skeletons; the 5th Dragoon Guards had lost so many officers and men that for a time it was disregimented and joined with the 4th Dragoons. Still, a move was at hand, and all were hoping to see the last of Varna.