"War," says Napier, in his "Peninsular History," "war tries the military framework; but it is in peace that the framework itself must be formed—otherwise barbarians would be the leading soldiers of the world. A perfect army can only be made by civil institutions."
The same magnificent writer says elsewhere, with terrible truth, "In the beginning of each war England has to seek in blood the knowledge necessary to insure success; and like the fiend's progress towards Eden, her conquering course is through chaos, followed by Death!" and that such was her course in the Crimea, let the errors of general routine, the trenches of Sebastopol, and the criminal red-tapism at home bear witness.
Of the morale of that army there can be no higher evidence than the voices that came from the poor fellows in our ranks—the letters with which they filled the newspapers of the day, detailing with spirit, simplicity, and pathos their humble experiences in the great events of the war.
All our men loved Beverley, who was a model commanding officer, and my troop deemed themselves (as I did) peculiarly lucky in being with him and the head-quarters staff. He took great care of his regiment, and a strict supervision of the horses.
He had left nothing undone while at home, by the establishment and encouragement of a school, a library, and so forth, to raise the moral tone of the lancers, their wives and families; hence some of the contributions of our privates to the newspapers were fully equal to any that emanated from Sir Colin's famous Highland Brigade. Beverley regularly visited the sick in hospital, and cheered them by his kindly manner; and all the little ones who played in the barrack square smiled and welcomed the approach of the colonel, who was seldom without a few small coins to scatter among them, and cause a scramble; yet, as I have said, he was somewhat of a dandy, and not without a tinge of affectation in his tone and manner.
Next evening saw us at sea.
The Nab Light had sunk far astern, and the pale cliffs of the Isle of Wight had melted into the world of waters.
Old Jack Bloater, the pilot from Selsey, had drunk his last horn of grog at the binnacle, and left us with every wish for "an 'appy journey—a bong woyage, as the monseers called it, and that we would soon give them Roosians a skewerin'."
And now I knew that many a day, and week, and month, it might be years, filled up by the perils and stormy passages of a life of campaigning, must inevitably pass ere I should again hear Louisa's voice, before I had her hand in mine, and looked into her tender eyes again—if I was kindly permitted by Heaven to return at all. But little knew our departing army of the suffering and horrors that were before it—horrors and sufferings to which the bayonets and bullets of the Russians were but child's play.
I was now away from her finally, and without the least arrangement having been made for that which alone can soothe the agony and anxiety of such a separation—correspondence! I clung to the hope that she might write to me; if not, I could only hear of her from Cora, or perhaps when Miss Wilford wrote to her brother Fred; and, it might be, from some stray paragraph in the Court Journal or Morning Post, if either ever found its way beyond the Dardanelles, which seemed doubtful.