When I got back to camp at sunset, I went over to see a shipmate, Captain March, of the Royal Marines, who had been wounded in the fight. We had sent fifty of our two hundred Marines to Eupatoria on the 14th September, and the balance landed at Balaklava, which they garrisoned till a few days before the 5th November, when the Light Division had been so weakened by continuous work as to be unable to relieve their pickets.[23] Captain March was a favourite with everyone on board the Queen, and maintained his reputation by his cheery demeanour when badly wounded. He had been struck just behind the mouth by a big bullet, which had made an enormous hole in his jaw, but had left no sign of its exit; he lived, however, for forty years after the battle.
There were mingled feelings in our camps that evening: the officers felt intense pride in their men’s enduring courage, but they reflected uneasily that we had narrowly escaped a disaster. I think that with the exception of some night-fighting in the trenches our Infantry never fought during the war with so great, resolute, and sustained determination as on the 5th November.
Three days after the battle I visited the field for motives of business as well as curiosity, for I was nearly barefooted. When on the 1st October we were warned that we must carry everything we took on shore, I limited my load to a shirt, two blankets, two pocket-handkerchiefs, and two pairs of socks. My light sailor’s shoes were worn out within a week, in carrying messages for our Commander while he and my shipmates were at meals. I could not have gone on working, but that John Handcock, the Marine who had looked after me on board, and who was stationed on Balaklava Heights, hearing of my shoeless state, sent me down a pair of his own boots. These were also worn out, for although I rode my pony down to Balaklava, it was necessary for me to walk up, as it could not carry me and the things I brought for the Mess. I did not like the idea, however, of despoiling a dead man, so I took a Bluejacket with me, to whom I promised half a sovereign for a satisfactory fit. These he soon produced, and I had reason to praise the good workmanship of the Russian boot contractors.
During the last days of October the small quantities of grass remaining in the valleys failed, and it was more and more difficult to keep any flesh on my pony. Elsworthy (vide [p. 43]) and I, in one of our earliest visits to Balaklava, had cast covetous eyes on the stacks of barley laid out on the wharves ready for the ration parties, and later we took the pony down, I carrying ostentatiously the accumulations of my rum ration in a bottle. There was a sentry over the barley, but he perceiving the pony and two men with lashings, one carrying a suggestive bottle of rum, walked to the end of his “beat,” and looked steadily towards the mouth of the harbour until we had balanced a sack on the saddle and lashed it securely. As we departed, the sentry returned and picked up the bottle I had placed between two sacks. This method was followed throughout the winter, and until the month of May, when, being appointed an Aide-de-Camp to Captain Peel, I was able to obtain barley in a legitimate manner, on requisition.[24] I put up a rough shed for the pony, giving it one of my blankets, and had full advantage of its services, as it was never sick or sorry.
The last few days in October were pleasantly warm during the day although cold at night, but after the battle of Inkerman the weather grew daily worse. From the 10th, rain fell heavily, and continued incessantly for many days. That day I had to admit I was sick. I had been suffering from constant diarrhœa, induced by eating salt pork, often uncooked, and now the malady, aggravated by the cold and rainy weather experienced all night in the trenches, had made me seriously ill. The doctor directed me to remain lying down as much as possible, but on the morning of the 14th there befell the troops a great misfortune. It was blowing heavily in gusts at 4 a.m. when the battery Relief marched off, and sheets of rain beating on the tent made me congratulate myself I had been excused duty. At about 5 a.m. the tent pole was bending so ominously that the two Lieutenants in the tent with me, having put on all the clothes they possessed, held the pole by turns. At six o’clock, however, while the pole still held intact, a heavier blast of wind, lifting the tent right up in the air, carried it away. I was certainly uncomfortable with the rain beating down on me, and yet my sufferings were as nothing in comparison with hundreds of our soldier-comrades, some of whom wounded, and many sick, lay for hours exposed to the fury of the elements; for the hospital marquees, owing to their great spread of canvas, offered so much resistance to the wind that they were the first to fall. Several men in our Army who were “at duty” were found dead in the morning at their posts. Nearly all our horses broke loose from their picket ropes, and wild with terror careered over the Upland, and sixty of the very few we had, died that night. The force of the gale overturned waggons, and it was impossible for even a strong man to walk upright against the wind. When the tent blew away, my two companions took shelter under a low wall of stones which we had built round the powder magazine about a hundred yards from where our tent had stood, and when the storm moderated a little, more rain falling, I tried to join them; but the wind knocked me down, and I travelled the intervening distance on my hands and knees. Even in this fashion, however, the wind was too much for my remaining strength, and I should not have got to the wall but that our Gunnery Lieutenant and two Bluejackets going down on their knees, and joining hands, stretched out to intercept me. When I got under the shelter of the wall my comrades did all they could to help me, giving me the most sheltered spot.
As we looked around, we could not see more than two or three tents in any of the camps still standing, and these were protected by stone walls. We lay huddled together, thinking what might have happened to the ships, and watching the storm-driven kit which was swept through our camp. During the height of the gale two drums were borne along close to each other, and afforded us much interest. They rolled rapidly until caught by a stone or a tent peg, when the wind would turn them upright for a few seconds, and then a fresh gust carried them on again.
Not far from where we were lying there were two bell-tents still standing, belonging to different ships’ detachments. The Queen’s were on friendly terms with the officers of both, but the Commanders were very different in their nature. When the Senior in one was asked whether he would receive a sick Midshipman, he replied he was not going to have his tent made wet and dirty. About nine o’clock the officers who were in the other tent, belonging to H.M.S. Bellerophon, heard of my state, and two of them came over to invite me in. They supported me down, but to open the door would have had the effect of carrying the tent away, so I had to crawl in through a pool of water, which added to the mud already covering my jacket and trousers. My hosts, however, made light of this inconvenience, and regardless of the effect of my dirty state, covered me up in their clean dry blankets. I slept till awakened by the voice of our Commander, on his return from the battery, shouting, “Where, and how, is young Wood?”
About twelve o’clock the south-west wind veered to the westward, and then sleet fell, followed by snow, which lay on the hills; but from two o’clock the wind, though colder, was moderating, and the Naval Brigade set to work to repitch our camp, and by nightfall had collected, in many cases from afar, what remained of it.
Our losses that day were great both in lives and in stores, twenty-one vessels being wrecked off the mouth of Balaklava Harbour. A magazine ship carrying ten million rounds, and the Prince, one of our largest transports, laden with warm clothing and stores of all descriptions, went down. The French lost a line-of-battle ship and the Pluton off Eupatoria, where a Turkish line-of-battle ship sank with all hands. Many of the houses in Sevastopol were unroofed in the height of the gale.
The Admiral again made the signal, “Well done, Queen.” She was anchored off the mouth of the Katcha River, six miles north of Sevastopol, and during a lull in the storm sent boats to rescue men from several Austrian and Greek ships which had gone ashore. It was work of considerable danger, increased by the stupid barbarity of a few Cossacks, who fired on the rescue parties, wounding two of our men. Captain Michell, to whom this rescue was due, was not only brave himself, but possessed the more uncommon courage, that of daring to order others to risk their lives. He had previously offered to break the boom which closed the harbour mouth, by taking his ship at it under all plain sail; but, not unnaturally perhaps, his offer was declined by the Admiral. The rudder-head of the Queen was cracked by the action of the waves, and a week later I see by the Captain’s letters to his wife, and to the Commander who was with the brigade on shore, when the Admiral wished to send the Queen and the other sailing vessels down to the Bosphorus, Michell objected on the ground that if the line-of-battle ships could not physically assist the troops, yet their presence might do something to encourage them. Later he was ordered down, and writing to the Admiral from the Bosphorus in January 1885, mentions he has only 330 men on board out of 970 the establishment, all the others having landed.