Brave British soldiers and the Victoria Cross / a general account of the regiments and men of the British Army, and stories of the brave deeds which won the prize "for valour"

by Unknown

A chaplain belongs, of course, to the non-combatant class in the army. It is not his duty to appear in the field, or to take part in battles. He has to remain at the hospital, and to administer the consolations of religion to the wounded and the dying; but he is precluded by his profession from being present at, or taking part in, any battle.

It is for this reason, perhaps, that we have always had a certain pleasure in listening to soldiers as they fought their battles over in hospital, and recounted their experience to one another. It was all strange and new to us, as, we dare say, it will be to most of those who read this book.

The soldiers of whom we speak all took part in and survived the Crimean war. Their manly breasts are all adorned with the different medals awarded to them; two of them wear the Victoria Cross. One early object of our curiosity was to ascertain what are the sensations or feelings of a soldier on entering battle, or being exposed to fire for the first time. Now, the answer we invariably received will, perhaps, take some of our readers by surprise. They felt nothing of that warlike intoxication ascribed to the old Vikings on the eve of the combat; they had none of that strange joy ascribed by the patriarch to the war-horse at the sound of the trumpet, nor were they exactly afraid; but there was a certain uneasy sensation experienced by all as the bullet whizzed past the ear, and comrade after comrade dropped, sometimes with a sharp cry of pain, sometimes giving no sign.

This feeling some of them graphically described as similar to that which a bather experiences before plunging into the water; ce n’est que le premier pas qui coûte; after the first dip Richard is himself again. But our readers are not to suppose that the soldier shows the same hesitation in advancing to charge as the bather on the brink of the stream. If he did he would be a coward, and be scorned by all his comrades. To make the two cases parallel, we must suppose a thousand bathers rushing forward to the stream at once. Now, though an individual bather standing alone might stop short on reaching the water, and pause before taking a header, a thousand bathers rushing forward at once, would plunge into the water without hesitation. The dread of shame, of exposure, of ridicule, would nerve the least courageous for the final leap. There is, moreover, such a strong feeling of sympathy diffused among large bodies of men acting in concert that the strength of the stronger is imparted to the weaker. Now, it is the same with soldiers advancing to the charge. All of them feel the cold shiver like that of the bather approaching the water, but they march shoulder to shoulder, and with them are some old soldiers who have been under fire before. The younger ones are encouraged by their example, and many a lad who has trembled on first smelling powder has proved himself a hero in the fight.

We have read in books that soldiers sometimes weep while fighting hand to hand and sorely pressed—not tears of cowardly terror by any means, but such tears as the strongest of men will shed in hours of fierce excitement. Wellington wept as he embraced Blucher after the Battle of Waterloo. This, indeed, has been denied, but it is not difficult to believe it true. There are moments in the lives of all men, even the most reserved and self-contained, when the hidden fountains of feeling well over and find an outlet through the eyes, and we should not think a whit less highly of our soldiers did they shed a few tears of valiant rage while victory was still doubtful. But these tears, we suspect, are purely imaginary. For ourselves, we never met with a single soldier who confessed that he had shed tears himself, or seen others weep. We are sure that they would not have denied it if they had yielded to any such weakness, for, as a class, soldiers are the most truthful of men. All with whom we conversed agreed in affirming that our men were very quiet while fighting hand to hand with the enemy. There would be occasionally a shrill cry of pain from the wounded, or a short cry of triumph from the man who struck down his opponent, but generally, all the dread work of the battle-field was done in silence. All admitted that the most fearful sound during a battle was the cry of a wounded horse; it was so like that of a human being in his death agony—shrill, piercing, heartrending. The horses seem to become almost human in the hour of battle, to share in all the wild passions of the combatants, and to exult equally in the hour of victory.

But while our men fought in silence, the Russians were very noisy both in advancing and in fighting. They uttered the most savage yells, as if they thought to inspire our men with terror by the mere noise they made. They soon discovered that Englishmen are not so easily frightened; but they still continued to shout from mere habit. Their officers also encouraged them in this custom, giving them, moreover, drink to make them pot-valiant. Notwithstanding this, we have always heard our soldiers frankly speak of the Russians as “foemen worthy of their steel.” Brave men, we know, learn to respect one another even in the field, and the Russians are certainly one of the bravest nations in Europe. They still retain, however, many of the characteristics of savage life; they have not yet learned to act on the old Roman maxim, “Debellare superbos, parcere victis.” They often bayoneted our men when left defenceless and wounded. It is but just to add that they expected no mercy when left in the same condition, and seemed overwhelmed with surprise when our men treated them with the same generous tenderness as though they had been comrades instead of foes.

There are sometimes strange traits of character exhibited during the excitement of battle. Men may have been living under restraint for years, and come to believe themselves to be very different from what they are. Xenophon relates a story of a Greek soldier who, in consequence of a wound which had affected his brain, forgot the language he had spoken for many years, and began to express himself in his native tongue, which, before this accident, seemed to have entirely faded from his memory. Something analogous to this occurred at the Battle of the Alma, in the case of a sergeant of the Guards. He had once been much addicted to swearing, but had been enabled to vanquish this and other evil habits, and for many years had been looked up to by his comrades as a man of exemplary character. His company, while charging up the heights of the Alma, was surrounded by the enemy, and, after suffering severe loss, was obliged to retreat. In vain the poor sergeant endeavoured to rally them. He was borne along with the current. Overpowered with shame and rage, he gave way to a sort of madness, and swore such fearful oaths that we have often heard the men of his company say that it was something awful to hear him. Those who occupied the same tent with him relate that he spent most of the night after the battle in prayer, and was often heard sobbing like a child. He never spoke of the strange outburst of that day to any of his comrades, and they had the delicacy to avoid all allusion to the subject; but it was observed that he was more humble, kind, and considerate in his bearing towards them than he had ever been before. He survived the war and returned to England, where he enjoyed the respect of all who knew him, and was never known to indulge in the habit which gained the mastery over him at the Alma. He is now dead, but his surviving comrades speak with a sort of awe of the incident we have related.

One soldier of the Guards became raving mad at the Alma. It happened in this way:—The Russian fire struck down several of the men as they were advancing. The soldier of whom we speak was a young lad who had never smelt powder before. By his side was a comrade who belonged to the same district, and had enlisted at the same time. The latter was hit by a cannon-ball, and his brains were bespattered over the face of his friend, who became frantic, roaring and shouting like a madman. He imagined that his comrades were the enemy, and that he was fighting hand to hand with them. The whole company was thrown into confusion, and he wounded some of his comrades before he could be disarmed. He was conducted to the rear, fighting and struggling the whole way. The surgeons pronounced him to be a dangerous lunatic, and he was strapped down upon one of the beds in the hospital, with a sentinel to watch over him. That sentinel told us that he was never entrusted before or since with such an unpleasant duty. Owing to the shock which the brain had received, the poor madman could not rest for a moment. He fancied himself in the thickest of the combat, fighting with all the energy of despair, and swearing that his comrades should be avenged. He continued in this raving condition for about twenty-four hours, when, with the exultant cry of “Victory!” he expired. A similar incident occurred at Inkermann: in this case, also, the soldier survived only twenty-four hours.

Soldiers rarely feel much pain at the moment they receive their wounds, unless these be very severe, in which case they suffer much from thirst. There is one very gallant friend of ours—a non-commissioned officer—who was shot through the ankle in crossing the stream at the Alma. He knew not that he was wounded till the battle was over, but thought that his foot had got entangled among the vines in crossing the valley, and that he had sprained the joint. A good soldier never likes to go to hospital when there is any hard fighting, and our friend kept “a quiet sough,” as they say in the North, about his wound, and marched at the head of his company as if nothing had happened to him. His courage and endurance were rewarded: he was present at, and took part in, the Battle of Inkermann, where his gallantry attracted the notice of the commanding officer, on whose recommendation he obtained the medal and pension for distinguished conduct in the field. He was wounded also on this occasion, but his hurt was of a far more serious character. He was shot through the head: the bullet literally entered at one side, and came out at the other. He felt a sharp, stinging pain, and remembered nothing more till he regained his consciousness in hospital, and was surprised to learn that he had been some weeks under the doctor’s hands. He suffers no inconvenience from his wound now, except occasional dizziness and half-blindness after any excitement or exposure to the sun. Such a man in the French service might have risen to the rank of field-marshal, and obtained a name in the page of history. Well, after all, the great thing is to do our duty well in the position we occupy; and our friend, as sergeant-major of his distinguished regiment, is happier, probably, than if he had had greatness thrust upon him.