When we reached the bank the infantry paused for a moment to see if the canal could be forded or if we should have to cross by the bridge over which the light field-battery were passing at the gallop, and unlimbering and opening fire, as soon as they cleared the head of the bridge, to protect our advance. At this juncture the enemy opened on us with grape and canister shot, but they fired high and did us but little damage. As the peculiar whish (a sound when once heard never to be forgotten) of the grape was going over our heads, the Blue-jackets gave a ringing cheer for the "Red, white, and blue!" While the Ninety-Third, led off by Sergeant Daniel White, struck up The Battle of the Alma, a song composed in the Crimea by Corporal John Brown of the Grenadier Guards, and often sung round the camp-fires in front of Sebastopol. I here give the words, not for their literary merit, but to show the spirit of the men who could thus sing going into action in the teeth of the fire of thirty well-served, although not very correctly-aimed guns, to encounter a force of more than ten to one. Just as the Blue-jackets gave their hurrah for the "Red, white, and blue," Dan White struck up the song, and the whole line, including the skirmishers of the Fifty-Third and the sailors, joined in the stirring patriotic tune, which is a first-rate quick march:
Come, all you gallant British hearts
Who love the Red and Blue,[30]
Come, drink a health to those brave lads
Who made the Russians rue.
Fill up your glass and let it pass,
Three cheers, and one cheer more,
For the fourteenth of September,
Eighteen hundred and fifty-four.
We sailed from Kalimita Bay,
And soon we made the coast,
Determined we would do our best
In spite of brag and boast.
We sprang to land upon the strand,
And slept on Russian shore,
On the fourteenth of September,
Eighteen hundred and fifty-four.
We marched along until we came
Upon the Alma's banks,
We halted just beneath their guns
To breathe and close our ranks.
"Advance!" we heard, and at the word
Right through the brook we bore,
On the twentieth of September,
Eighteen hundred and fifty-four.
We scrambled through the clustering vines,
Then came the battle's brunt;
Our officers, they cheered us on,
Our colours waved in front;
And fighting well full many fell,
Alas! to rise no more,
On the twentieth of September,
Eighteen hundred and fifty-four.
The French were on the right that day,
And flanked the Russian line,
While full upon their left they saw
The British bayonets shine.
With hearty cheers we stunned their ears,
Amidst the cannon's roar,
On the twentieth of September,
Eighteen hundred and fifty-four.
A picnic party Menschikoff
Had asked to see the fun;
The ladies came at twelve o'clock
To see the battle won.
They found the day too hot to stay,
The Prince felt rather sore,
On the twentieth of September,
Eighteen hundred and fifty-four.
For when he called his carriage up,
The French came up likewise;
And so he took French leave at once
And left to them the prize.
The Chasseurs took his pocket-book,
They even sacked his store,
On the twentieth of September,
Eighteen hundred and fifty-four.
A letter to Old Nick they found,
And this was what it said:
"To meet their bravest men, my liege,
Your soldiers do not dread;
But devils they, not mortal men,"
The Russian General swore,
"That drove us off the Alma's heights
In September, fifty-four."
Long life to Royal Cambridge,
To Peel and Camperdown,
And all the gallant British Tars
Who shared the great renown,
Who stunned Russian ears with British cheers,
Amidst the cannon's roar,
On the twentieth of September,
Eighteen hundred and fifty-four.