The French were landing elsewhere, under St. Arnaud and Canrobert; and ere long, sixty thousand men stood to their arms on that remarkable peninsula, Crim Tartary—of old, the Isle of Kaffa, and known to recent fame as the Crimea!
We were entirely without baggage. Our tents, and everything that might encumber us in advancing to meet the enemy, had been left on board the fleet; thus, few of us had cause to forget the night of the 14th of September, when the army halted to sleep in an open bivouac, on bare ground, for we had learned nothing in the art of conducting a war since Moore fought and fell at Corunna.
Without cessation the drenching rain fell down. Thus our thin uniforms and blankets were speedily soaked; but all ranks suffered in common. I saw the Duke of Cambridge sleeping amid his staff, with his head protected by a little tilt cart. For myself, I chiefly passed that miserable night muffled in my cloak, dismounted, in the ranks beside my horse, with my right arm twisted in the stirrup-leather for support, and my head reposing on the holster flap. Thus I snatched a standing doze, with the cold rain pouring down the nape of my neck; and in this fashion most of the cavalry division passed this night, the effects of which were speedily shown in the ranks of our young and as yet untried army.
Many of our battalions were already in possession of a hill on the right of our landing place, and commanding it; and all the evening of the 14th its sides were brightened by the glitter of their arms shining brightly in the sun (that was then setting in the golden Euxine), as they formed along its green slope in contiguous close columns of regiments.
"But," says an eye-witness, "what were those long strings of soldiery now beginning to come down the hillside, and to wind their way back towards the beach? and what were the long white burdens horizontally carried by the men? Already—already on this same day? Yes, sickness still clung to the army. Of those who only this morning ascended the hill with seeming alacrity, many now came down thus sadly borne by their comrades. They were carried on ambulance stretchers, and a blanket was over them. Those whose faces remained uncovered were still alive. Those whose faces had been covered by their blankets were dead. Near the foot of the hill the men began to dig graves."
Each poor fellow was buried in his uniform and blanket. Thus began our war in the Crimea!
The reason for our tents being left on board was occasioned by the curse of the red-tapeism and ignorance in London. On the outbreak of the conflict, we were destitute alike of the materiel and the personnel for a transport corps of any description whatever, beyond a few Maltese mule carts; and had the Russians availed themselves of the ample time so kindly given them by our ministry, and swept every species of horse and waggon from the Crimea, our advance upon Sebastopol had been a movement of greater difficulty than it proved to be. All our most useful baggage was thus left at Varna, and there I lost with mine much of the lumber with which I had provided myself at Maidstone, and at good Sir Nigel's expense. At last we were on Russian ground. I reminded Studhome of the conduct of Mr. Berkeley, and urged that now a meeting should be arranged beyond the outposts. I remember how palpably Jack changed colour at my angry suggestion. He concealed from me a fact, which afterwards came to my knowledge, that Berkeley had circulated injurious reports concerning me through not only the lancers, but the hussar corps of our brigade. But now Studhome put it to me, as a matter of feeling and discretion, whether I should insist on this secret duel, for a matter that was long past, when we would soon be face to face with the enemy, and when one of us, perhaps both, might not be spared to see another muster day. These arguments prevailed; I smothered my wrath, and met Mr. De Warr Berkeley (as he chose to designate himself) on duty with cold civility, but nothing more. To be cordial was beyond my powers of acting or endurance. And thus, for the time, our quarrel stood. When those who were ignorant of the cause of coolness between us remarked it, his general answer was—
"Aw—haw—don't know the reason, 'pon my soul; but those Scotsmen are such doocid awd fellahs."
Our contingent consisted of twenty-six thousand foot, one thousand mounted cavalry, and sixty pieces of cannon, divided into five divisions of infantry and one of horse; an absurdly small force to attempt an invasion of Russia, even with the greater strength of the French and Turkish allies—the former being thirty thousand, and the latter seven thousand bayonets. Our first division, led by his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, consisted of the Grenadier, Coldstream, and Scots Fusilier Guards, with three Highland regiments—the Black Watch, the Cameron, and 93rd Highlanders, all considering themselves the corps d'élite of the army. The other divisions, under Sir George Brown, Sir De Lacy Evans, Sir Richard England, and Sir George Cathcart, were composed of our splendid infantry of the line—as I have elsewhere said—the noble and carefully developed army of forty years of peace; and the Earl of Lucan, who in his youth had served as a volunteer with the Russians against the Turks in the campaigns under Diebitch, led our mounted chivalry—the cavalry division—the flower of the British Isles—yet to be covered with glory in the disastrous Valley of Death! While the armies were advancing, with my troop I was repeatedly despatched by the Quarter-master-General, Major-General Richard Airey, to procure provisions and carriages, for that officer, beyond any other, had seen from the first the necessity of procuring supplies and means of transport. On one of these occasions, by his orders, I had the good fortune to capture twenty-five kibitkas, or waggons, in a village near our line of march. On the same day I think it was that his aide-de-camp, the gallant Nolan, when exploring for water, came upon a Russian government convoy of eighty waggons laden with flour, and seized them all, routing the escort. In all we obtained three hundred and fifty waggons, with their teams and Tartar drivers.
The chief proprietor of the kibitkas I had taken was the patriarch or leading man of the village—a Tartar of venerable aspect, wearing a pelisse or long robe of blue stuff, with a small black lambskin cap, not unlike an Egyptian tarboosh, from under which his white hair flowed upon his shoulders.