She blushed a little.
"I have often wondered," she began.
"People who play Providence ought not to wonder. Well, I am glad he died happy. That, at any rate, is to your credit." So he rose and left her.
The days passed rapidly, full to the brim of work, and every day brought her more and more admiration for the courage and cheeriness of the men, more and more resentment at the ghastly way in which they were treated by the authorities at home. Boots had already given out, none were available in store, and in a whole officers' mess only one subaltern had a holeless pair. And he was the son of a widow who had half-ruined herself by sending her darling the two separate boots of a pair by letter post. She would have held it worth more, could she have seen his face of pride among his comrades.
On the night of the 18th of October a diversion arose which, when it was over, caused much amusement.
A party of sappers and miners, losing their way, fell into a Russian picket, which, possessed by the idea of a general assault, incontinently skedaddled into the town and raised the alarm, thereby causing much beating of drums and bugle calls. The Allied armies, alarmed in their turn, instantly stood to arms, while gun after gun boomed from the city forts, echoing and re-echoing among the reverberating rocks. After an hour or two, however, the gunners seemed to recognise that they were only, so to speak, shooting at their own shadows or echoes, and gradually peace reigned, broken by roars of laughter round many a camp fire.
But on the 25th something serious happened which brought the shambles close once more. To the Turkish contingent had been assigned the redoubts which protected the heights behind the entrenchments. On the morning of the 25th the Russians, numbering some twenty thousand troops, after following the same route by which the Allies had reached Balaklava, appeared unexpectedly before these redoubts. The Turks abandoned them without striking a blow and fled down the valley to the plain in sheer panic. Nor did a volley from the 93rd Highlanders, hastily formed up, stop them. For a short while confusion and courage were conspicuous. The British, taken unawares, fought like heroes. Finally there followed the famous Light Cavalry Charge of which the French general, watching it, said "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre." By whose fault the order was given for a deed which will stir the blood at every English heart even at the day of doom, Heaven only knows. The man who brought it was the first to fall. Briefly told--it needs no grand words--it amounted to this. Six hundred men and horses charged uselessly, desperately, defiantly, because they were told to do so, down an open valley exposed to a cross fire from guns posted on either side of them, and to a frontal fire from the evacuated and abandoned forts. The charge commenced at 11.10. It was barely 11.35 when a hundred and sixty men, many of them wounded, rode back, having done what they were told to do. The rest lay on the held.
But it was a victory for all that, and when night came, bringing an hour or two of rest to Marrion, she spent it in going round with a revolver she borrowed from Dr. Forsyth and putting wounded horses out of their pain.
"Don't forget to give them their password," he said, as he gave the weapon to her.
She looked at him uncomprehending. "I forgot you hadn't lived in the East," he went on, with a smile. "Say 'In the name of the Most Merciful God' before you shoot."