Jack Archer: A Tale of the Crimea

by G. A. Henty

The recital was a long one, and Jack was fain to admit that the hardships which he had gone through were as nothing to those which had been borne by our soldiers in the Crimea during the six months he had been away from them. The trials and discomforts of the great storm had been but a sample of what was to be undergone. After Inkerman, it had been plain to the generals in command that all idea of taking Sebastopol must be abandoned until the spring, and that at the utmost they could do no more than hold their position before it. This had been rendered still more difficult by the storm, in which enormous quantities of stores, warm clothing, and other necessaries had been lost.

It was now too late to think of making a road from Balaklava to the front, a work which, had the authorities in the first place dreamt that the army would have to pass the winter on the plateau, was of all others the most necessary. The consequence of this omission was that the sufferings of the troops were terrible.

While Balaklava harbor was crowded with ships full of huts, clothing, and fuel, the men at the front were dying in hundreds from wet, cold, and insufficient food. Between them and abundance extended an almost impassable quagmire, in which horses and bullocks sank and died in thousands, although laden only with weights which a donkey in ordinary times could carry. Had the strength of the regiments in front been sufficient, the soldiers might have been marched down, when off duty, to Balaklava, to carry up the necessaries they required. But so reduced were they by over-work and fatigue, that those fit for duty had often to spend five nights out of seven in the trenches, and were physically too exhausted and worn-out to go down to Balaklava for necessaries, even of the most urgent kind. Many of the regiments were almost annihilated. Large numbers of fresh troops had come out, and drafts for those already there, but the new-comers, mostly raw lads, broke down under the strain almost as fast as they arrived, and in spite of the number sent out, the total available strength did not increase. One regiment could only muster nine men fit for duty. Many were reduced to the strength of a company. The few survivors of one regiment were sent down to Scutari until fresh drafts should arrive and the regiment could be reorganized, and yet this regiment had not been engaged in any of the battles. Scarce a general of those who had commanded divisions and brigades at the Alma now remained, and the regimental officers had suffered proportionally. The regiments which had won the Alma still remained before Sebastopol, but their constituents had almost entirely changed, and the proportion of those who had first landed in the Crimea that still remained there when Jack returned was small indeed.

The sufferings of the French, although great, had not been nearly so severe as our own. Their camps were much nearer to their port, the organization of their services was far better and more complete, and as in the first place the siege work had been equally divided between them, the numbers at that time being nearly the same, the work of our men had become increasingly hard as their numbers diminished, while that of the French grew lighter, for their strength had been trebled by reinforcements from home. Thus, while our men were often five nights out of the seven on duty in the cold and wet, the French had five nights out of seven in bed. This gave them far greater time to forage for fuel, which was principally obtained by digging up the roots of the vines and brushwood—every twig above the surface having long since been cleared away—to dig deep holes under their tents, to dry their clothes and to make life comfortable.

At last the strength of the English diminished to such a point that they were at length incapable of holding the long line of trenches, and they were obliged to ask the French to relieve them, which they did by taking over the right of our attack, a measure which placed them opposite to the two Russian positions of the Mamelon and Malakoff batteries, which proved to be the keys of Sebastopol.

As spring came on matters brightened fast. English contractors sent out large bodies of navvies, and began to lay down a railway from Balaklava to the front, reinforcements poured in, and the health of the troops began to improve. Troops of transport animals from every country on the Mediterranean were landed. A village of shops, set up by enterprising settlers, was started two miles out of Balaklava. Huts sprang up in all directions, and all sorts of comforts purchased by the subscriptions of the English people when they heard of the sufferings of their soldiers, were landed and distributed.

The work of getting up siege guns and storing ammunition for a re-opening of the bombardment in earnest, went on merrily, and the arrival of 15,000 Turkish troops, and of nearly 20,000 Sardinians, who pitched their camps on the plain, rendered the allies secure from an attack in that direction, and enabled them to concentrate all their efforts on the siege.

So far the success had lain wholly with the Russians. For every earthwork and battery raised and armed by the allies, the Russians threw up two, and whereas when our armies arrived before it on 25th September, Sebastopol was little more than an open town, which could have been carried by the first assault, it was now a fortified place, bristling with batteries in every direction, of immense strength, and constructed upon the most scientific principles. Many of their works, especially the Mamelon, Malakoff, and Tower batteries, were fortresses in themselves, with refuges dug deeply in the earth, where the garrison slept, secure from the heaviest fire of our guns, and surrounded by works on every side.

In the trenches it was the Russians who were always the aggressors. Sortie after sortie was made throughout the winter, and in these the Russians often obtained possession for a time of portions of our trenches or those of the French. Along in front of their works the ground was studded with rifle-pits, sometimes so close to our works that it was impossible for a man to show his head above them, and the artillerymen were frequently unable to work their guns, owing to the storm of bullets which the Russians sent through the embrasures whenever a sign of movement was discerned. In the desperate fights in darkness in the trenches we lost more men than in either of the pitched battles of the campaign; and it was only the dogged courage of our soldiers and the devotion of the officers which enabled us to maintain our footing in the trenches before the city which we were supposed to be besieging.

Throughout the winter the fleet had lain inactive, although why they should have done so none knew, when they had it in their power, by attacking the Russian forts in the Sea of Azof, to destroy the granaries upon which the besieged depended for their supplies.