But Britain had not the slightest intention of so inglorious an ending to the great "weapon-show" she had commenced. Were our splendid troops, eager and burning for fight, to return to their own country and homes, with, figuratively speaking, their fingers in their mouths, and without having once drawn a trigger? Perish the thought!
The Russian Bear must be crushed and humbled, his fleet in the Black Sea must be destroyed, and Sebastopol, Russia's strongest fortress in this sea, laid in ashes.
War! war! war!
When I come to think of it now, reader, I don't altogether blame the people of Great Britain for desiring to humble the overbearing Emperor Nicholas. Even the Queen herself saw that he was in the wrong, and talked of the ambition and selfishness of one man and his immediate subordinates as being the cause of our having to draw the sword. On the other hand, I do not think that any one who has read the history of this great war could help pitying the Czar's subjects. The poet Cowper says,—
"War's a game which, were their subjects wise,
Kings would not play at."
But the sufferings of our own poor soldiers and sailors, all brought on by mismanagement, strike closer home to our hearts. We can pity these still more, while we cannot but be angry with those who were to account for all their misery, and for all the trials they so bravely bore.
We gained experience in the Crimea, however, and one might almost say that this is cheap at any price.
CHAPTER II.
A GHASTLY ADVENTURE—THE EMBARKATION—A
STORMY LANDING.
As soon as it was known in Britain that the Russians had retreated from the Danube, and that their forces would in all likelihood be poured into the Crimea to reinforce that great stronghold, every scrap of news from the seat of war was welcomed with the greatest enthusiasm. Every one, too, seemed to be listening breathlessly and in silence for the first shot to be fired. It was a silence, all made sure, that would soon be broken by the pæans of victory. Our soldiers near Varna were not idle. True, they were waiting for embarkation, and what a wearisome wait it was! It would have been irksome in the extreme had our troops not been kept busy collecting wood and manufacturing gabions and bastions for the siege-works before Sebastopol.