INSIDE SEBASTOPOL.
The horrors inside the town, where the enemy had established their hospitals, baffle all description. Some of our non-commissioned officers and men went into those places, and described the scenes as heart-rending and revolting in the extreme. Many of the buildings were full of dead and dying mutilated bodies, without anyone to give them even a drink of water! Poor fellows, they had well defended their country’s cause, and were now left to die in agony, unattended, uncared for, packed as closely as they could be stowed away, saturated with blood, and with the crash of the exploding forts all around them; they had served their loving friend and master, the Czar, but too well; there they lay, in a state of nudity, literally rolling in their blood. Many, when our men found them, were past all aid, others were out of their mind, driven mad by pain and the appalling sights in the midst of which they were. Our officers and men, both French and English, found their way there indiscriminately, and at once set to work to relieve them; medical aid was brought as quickly as possible to them, but hundreds had passed beyond all earthly assistance.
Such a Sunday! Our men were struck with wonderment and horror at the awful scenes—
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Piled high as autumn shocks, there lay The ghastly harvest of the fray; The corpses of the slain— Both friend and foe. |
These were the horrors of war! Though a soldier and fully embued with the spirit of patriotism, I would say with all my heart, “From war good Lord deliver us.” The man who delights in war is a madman; I would put him in the thick of it for just one day, and he would then know a little what war to the knife means. Our men, I am happy to relate, did everything they could for those of the enemy in whom a spark of life was found. Yes, the very men who only a few hours before had done all they could to destroy life, were now to be found, in their right minds, doing all that lay in their power for their unfortunate foes as well as friends.
A soldier, it matters not what his rank, must not for one moment, when engaged, think what the consequences are or may be. It is his duty to destroy all he can belonging to the enemy; in fact, he is often worked up to such a pitch that he becomes a perfect fiend, or, as the Russians called us at the Alma, “red devils in petticoats.” None but men who are mad could do in cold blood the deeds that were performed by some of our men.
A STREET IN SEBASTOPOL AFTER THE SIEGE.
It is an old saying that “if anything is to be done let it be done well,” and—I must again repeat it—our men now set to work with a will to do all that lay in their power to rescue from an untimely end as many as they could. The sights on all sides melted to tears many veterans who had resolutely stormed the heights of Alma, rode up the valley of death at Balaclava, and stood as conquerors on the field of Inkermann, which names will never be forgotten as long as language endures. Many bodies were fast decomposing, and had to be interred at once—one common grave answered for both friend and foe. The ditch in front of the Redan was utilised for all who fell anywhere near it; those that fell in our trenches were buried there, the parapets being in both cases thrown upon them; the stench was almost unbearable for weeks afterwards. Some two or three hundred rough-looking coffins were found in the town—they were full, it was supposed, of officers, but the enemy had not had time to bury them. A steamer came over from the north side on Monday, the 10th September, 1855, under a flag of truce, and begged to be allowed to remove the wounded. The request was at once granted, for our doctors were only too glad to get rid of them, as they had plenty in their own camps to attend to: a very great number of these poor fellows had been suffering intense agony for forty-eight hours, when, without even a drink of water, they were removed out of our sight. All our wounded found in the town were carried as quickly as possible to camp; and then the men set to work to get what they could for themselves out of the midst of the ruins—set to work plundering, if you choose to call it so. But it was dangerous work, and many of them lost their limbs, and some their lives, through their foolishness, by the fire from the enemy across the harbour. Some who were laden with all sorts of articles were stopped by the officers, who wanted to know what they were going to do with all that rubbish. The men would at once throw down their loads and salute the officers, who repeated the question, “What on earth do you want with all that rubbish, my men?” “An sure your ’onor don’t we mane to let furnished lodgings!” They were carrying chairs, tables, bed-cots, in fact, articles too numerous to mention; “Sure, your ’onor, we are not going to let the Zouaves have it all!” A stalwart Irish grenadier, when being rebuked for pilfering, answered, “Sure, an your ’onor, them nice gentlemen they call Zouaves have been after emptying the place clane out; troth if the divil would kindly go to sleep for only one minute them Zouaves would stale one of his horns, if it was only useful to keep his coffee in.” Truly these gentlemen were capital hands at fishing up all that was likely to be useful. Some of our Hibernian boys had got a good haul, and were making off as fast as possible, when a party of Zouaves stopped them and wanted to go halves; but Paddy was not half such a fool as he was taken for—he would not give up anything until he had found out which was the best man, so the load was thrown down, and the Frenchmen were very soon satisfied and only too glad to get out of the way. It was a common saying in camp that there was nothing too hot or too heavy for the Zouaves to walk off with, and where there was room for a rat there was room for one of these nimble little gentlemen to get in. They proved themselves all during the fighting troublesome customers to the enemy; and now that the fight was over they distinguished themselves by pilfering everything they could lay hands upon; but they did not get all—our huts were made very comfortable by the wood that our men brought out of the town. Although the second winter was far colder than the first, we had means to resist the cold with, any amount of clothing and good shelter, with plenty to eat and drink. By degrees our wounded began to recover so as to be able to walk about the camp, and to return to their duty; and had the war continued, we should have had upwards of 100,000 men in our army alone, to march against the enemy, but, thank God, it was ordered otherwise.