'Not at all,' said Belton; 'either will be quite as honourable as a shot from the Rifle Pits, or a splinter from a Whistling Dick out of the Redan.'
'Which, by-the-by, none of us are likely to see,' grumbled Catanagh, draining a long glass of Kirklissa wine, with an angry sigh.
By this time our Major had communicated with the British military authorities at Constantinople, detailing the loss of the Vestal, and that he had obtained quarters for his men in the Bombardiers' Barracks at Heraclea, or Erekli, as the Turks name it; and, by a messenger, he was instructed to remain in his present cantonment until further orders, as there was every prospect now of hostilities ceasing, and our presence would not be required with Sir Colin Campbell and the Highland Brigade.
At this time, January 3rd, 1856, we had fifty-eight thousand British soldiers in the Crimea; a Council of War, composed of British and French general officers, had assembled in Paris, and Russia had accepted the Austrian propositions as a basis for the negotiation of a peace. The despatch to the Major concluded by stating, that the French had blown up Fort St. Nicolas at Sebastopol, where our miners were busy destroying the magnificent docks. With this long document going the round of the mess-table, we gulped down our disappointment and the Roumelian wine together, on the evening before I marched with this devil of a Yuze Bashi to his castle of Rodosdchig; and our enthusiastic hopes of a protracted war—a war that from the mouth of the Danube would roll like a flame over Hungary, Poland, and Italy—our hopes of rapid promotion, of French medals and crosses of the Legion of Honour, dwindled down into tame and vapid surmises as to the disbanding of second battalions, and the parsimonious reduction of additional captains, lieutenants, and ensigns.
'So we shall be here till further orders,' observed the Major, in conclusion.
'Abominable ill luck!' said Jack Belton.
'Instead of being at Sebastopol, in at the death. and the glory of the affair,' chimed the captain of our Light Bobs, 'we shall be learning to smoke opium and sit crosslegged, to relish pillau, eat hash, and pepperpot with our fingers.'
'And to rub up our Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and so forth, to make love to the charming Haidees of Roumelia—but, waiter, see who knocks at the door!' added the Major, as a rat-tat rang on the painted door of the long room which was fitted up for our temporary mess, and the walls of which were painted in arabesques with pious quotations from the Koran.
The Highlander in his kilt, who acted as one of our mess-waiters, opened the door and ushered in our acquaintance, the fat Yuze Bashi, who, having a lively recollection of the bright, amber-coloured sherry, and full-bodied old port, which we had saved from the bulged hull of Her Majesty's steam-transport Vestal, visited us as often as propriety would allow; for he was a cunning old dog, who willingly gave up his chance of the slender houris in Heaven for a cup of good wine and the plump and substantial houris of earth.
Carrying his pipe and, of course, his paunch before him, he entered with a prodigious salaam and bowed to us all; then he ogled the decanter, and sat down near Catanagh, who was too polite and too much of a soldier not to accord him a welcome.