"Who's that drunken fellow—an old soldier in the odd uniform, with medals on his breast?"
"Hush! he's the last one left of the Ambulance Corps. They cost a lot of money, and did some good, but McMurdo won't have them now, unless he gets his own way with them, and——"
"I beg your pardon, but who is that foreign officer in a white bournous, and attended by a brilliant staff of Generals—him with the blue and silver stripe down his trousers I mean, and gold braid on his waistcoat, and a red and white cap; it must be Pelissier?"
"That! why, that's M. Soyer, chef de nos batteries de cuisine, and if you go and speak to him, you'll find he'll talk to you for several hours about the way your meat is wasted; and so I wish you good morning, sir, and every success in trade and commerce to enable you to pay all the gentlemen you have seen to-day, as well as a speedy entry into Sebastopol."
JACK TAR'S THEATRE.
At one o'clock on the 30th August the camp was shaken by a prodigious explosion. A tumbrel, from which the French were discharging powder into one of the magazines near the Mamelon, was struck by a shell, which bursting as it crashed through the roof of the carriage, ignited the cartridges; 1400 rounds, 10lbs each, exploded, shattering to atoms the magazine, and surrounding-works, and whirling in all directions over the face of the Mamolen and beyond it, 150 officers and men. Of these, 40 were killed upon the spot, and the rest were scorched and burnt, or wounded by splinters, stones, and the shot and shell which were thrown into the air by the fiery eruption. A bright moon lighted up the whole scene, and shed its rays upon a huge pillar of smoke and dust, which rose into the air from the Mamelon, and, towering to an immense height, unfolded itself and let fall from its clustering waves of smoke and sulphurous vapour a black precipitate of earth, fine dust, and pebbles, mingled with miserable fragments, which dropped like rain upon the works below. There was silence for an instant, and but for an instant, as the sullen thunder rolled slowly away and echoed along the heights of Inkerman and Mackenzie. Then the Russians, leaping to their guns, cheered loudly, but their voices were soon smothered in the crash of the French and English batteries, which played fiercely upon their works. The Russians replied, but they were unable to take any advantage of our mischance, owing to the firmness of the French in the advanced trenches, and the steadiness with which the cannonade was continued. The dark cloud hung like a pall for nearly an hour over the place, reddening every moment with the reflection of the flashes of the artillery, which boomed incessantly till dawn. The musketry was very heavy and fierce all along the advanced trenches, and as no one except those in the parallels near the Mamelon knew the precise nature of the explosion, great anxiety was manifested to learn the truth. Some persons asserted that the Russians had sprung a mine—others, that the French had blown in the counterscarp of the Malakoff—and with the very spot under their eyes, people were conjecturing wildly what had taken place; just like those at home, who did not hesitate to make the boldest assertions respecting the events which occurred in the Crimea, and of which they knew neither the scene nor the circumstance.
There were rumours that the garrison of Sebastopol was in an extremely disorganized state. The losses in the town were frightful, and notwithstanding their official and non-official declarations, the Russians suffered from want of water and of spirits. Indeed, it was confidently affirmed that, owing to the deficiency of forage, their cavalry had been compelled to fall back on the road to Bakschiserai. They threw up another battery, close to the Spur Battery, commanding a small path from the Tchernaya. The French constructed strong redoubts on the site of the old redoubts in the plain. These works were in connection with the outer line of defence from Kamara, Traktir, and Tchorgoun, and the Sardinian and Turkish batteries towards Baidar, and behind them were the old batteries defending Balaklava, which became one of the strongest positions in the world.
Our allies were losing heavily, in the White Works, which they captured on the 7th of June, where they lost one-half of the men who went into it every day. The 12-gun battery on the north side took them in flank and reverse, the Malakoff enfiladed them on the other side, and they were exposed to the direct fire of the shipping in front. They called the place "l'Abattoir." Our own losses were very heavy, but still the army were full of hope and courage.
As for Jack Tar, he can speak for himself. This was the bill of his play:—
Theatre Royal, Naval Brigade.
On Friday Evening, 31st of August, will be Performed
Deaf as a Post!
To be followed by
The Silent Woman.
The whole to conclude with the laughable Farce, entitled,
Slasher and Crasher.
Seats to be taken at 7 o'clock. Performance to commence
precisely at 8 o'clock.
God save the Queen! Rule Britannia!