One of the Six Hundred: A Novel

by James Grant

We had not been without hope of going in the Himalaya, which would have taken the entire regiment in her capacious womb, and which, moreover, is our only cavalry ship; but the authorities had declared otherwise.

The morning of our embarkation was beautiful; the scene animated, picturesque, and bustling, such as Portsmouth alone could exhibit at such a time; but we were sorely troubled by our horses. Some were conveyed on board in stall-boxes, others were lowered down the hatches by bellybands and slings, in which, being spirited and young, they were very restive, lashing out, to the imminent danger of the brains and bones of those in their vicinity, until they found themselves in the tow-padded stalls below the maindeck.

Adding to the bustle and interest of the scene, several ships of war were taking in stores and preparing for sea; boats, manned by seamen and marines in white jackets, were shooting to and fro between Portsmouth on one side and Gosport on the other. A strong detachment of the 19th (1st Yorkshire) Regiment was embarking on board the Melita, a Cunard steamer; the Euxine, a Peninsular and Oriental liner, was receiving many of the staff, a number of horses, and nearly twenty tons of ball cartridges. A squadron of the 8th, or Royal Irish Hussars, under Major de Salis, were stowing themselves on board of the Mary Anne transport; and a great body of Woolwich Pensioners, a numerous staff of veterinary surgeons, members of the ambulance, ordnance, and transport corps, were all embarking at the same time. Thus the hurly-burly was prodigious, and the whole of the quays were encumbered by baggage, stores, field-pieces, mortars, shot and shell, chests of arms, tents and camp equipage, guarded by marines with fixed bayonets, or seamen with drawn cutlasses. With all this apparent activity there was, of course, the counteracting influence of that red-tapism which is the curse of the British service. When war was declared the Royal Arsenal did not contain a sufficient quantity of shells to furnish the first battering train that went to Turkey, and the fuses then issued had been in store ever since the battle of Waterloo! Even the mattocks and shovels issued to the troops had been sent home from the Peninsula by the Duke of Wellington as worthless!

Here at Portsmouth we saw many a bitter—also to too many it proved a final—adieu. With all my soul I loved Louisa; and yet, when, standing on the dockyard jetty there, I saw the partings of husbands from their wives, and fathers from their children, I thanked Heaven in my heart that in this, to them, most bitter hour, I had only my good black charger to care for.

Midday was past ere all the passengers for the Pride of the Ocean, with their baggage, &c., were on board. I had personally to see the cattle stabled below; the men told off to their messes and watches; the lances, swords, and other arms stowed away in racks; the valises and hammocks slung to their cleats, and so forth. In the stables one stall on each side was left vacant, with spare slings, in case of accidents at sea.

Fortunately, I was spared the annoyance of Berkeley's society on the voyage out, as there was not space for more than one troop on board the clipper; so he was with Wilford's on board the Ganges. He was not exactly "in Coventry," but somehow our mess disliked him, and could not exactly comprehend, as they phrased it, "what was up" between him and me.

Now that I was again in favour with Louisa Loftus; now that the untoward affair at the Reculvers had been completely explained, and that the victory was mine, and his the shame, defeat, and rejection—nearly all emotion of hostility against him had died away, or been replaced by settled contempt. Yet the hostile meeting was still looming in the future, and would have to ensue on the first suitable opportunity.

I was not sorry when the bustle of embarkation was over, and the clipper was towed out to the famous reach or roadstead at Spithead, where she came to anchor for a time, under the shelter of the high lands of the Isle of Wight.

The noblest army that ever left the shores of the British Isles was, undoubtedly, that which departed under Lord Raglan's orders for the East.

It was the carefully-developed army of forty years of peace, during which the world had made a mighty stride in art, in science, and in civilization—greater than it had done, perhaps, between the days of the Twelfth Crusade and the last day of Waterloo.