Among the last to come in was an officer on a weary horse, which could scarcely drag itself up the valley; numerous persons went forward to meet him. “That is Lord George Paget,” said one of the naval officers. He had, with Colonel Douglas, led out the remnant of the 4th Light Dragoons and a portion of the 11th Hussars; not only had the brigade, though separated into several bands, broken through the guns, but, driving the Russian horsemen before them, and finally breaking through all opposition, had made their way again up the valley, passing directly in front of a large body of Russian Lancers, and once more, under a fire of shot and shell, they returned to the foot of the Chersonese. The naval officers could not, naturally, tear themselves from the scene. For some time stragglers and riderless chargers were coming in, and then there was the numbering of horses, and afterwards the melancholy roll-call. Of the gallant brigade, which half an hour before had numbered nearly 700 horsemen, not 200 now remained fit for duty. A hundred and thirteen men had been killed, 134 wounded; while close upon 500 horses were killed or rendered unfit for service.
Now came the sad work of searching for the slain who could be reached and brought in for burial; but numbers still lay where the fire of the Russian batteries commanded the ground, as they could not be interred till a cessation of arms was agreed on for the purpose. Many a gallant trooper hurried forward notwithstanding to search for his wounded officers or comrades, and several were thus saved from perishing on the battlefield.
Another scene took place, trying to many a trooper who had managed to bring his wounded steed out of the fight. The farriers went round to examine those which had been rendered unserviceable by their hurts. Some of the men pleaded hard for those that were condemned, in the hopes that they might recover, but the farriers knew well that they would never again be fit to carry their riders in the fight.
“Shure, it’s myself would rather have been wounded than the poor baste,” exclaimed an Irish trooper, throwing his arm round his horse’s neck; “you wouldn’t have shot me, at all events. Just be after letting him live for a few days, at laste, and I’ll see what I can do to doctor him.”
“I’m obeying orders, Pat; I tell you, if he gets stiff he’ll never carry you fifty yards, much less the mile and a half you galloped over this afternoon,” was the answer.
Poor Pat, whose hacked blade showed the deadly work he had been doing, burst into tears, as the farrier led off his well-beloved horse to the spot appointed for its execution, where, with upwards of forty others, it was shot.
As it was too late by this time to go on to the Guards’ camp, Jack considering it his duty to sleep on board, and having had the satisfaction to hear that Sidney was well, and of sending him a message, he and his party returned to Balaclava. Tom and Archie were full of the exploits they had witnessed, and so excited did they become in describing them to their messmates, that they declared they would give up the service, and try and get their friends to obtain them commissions in the cavalry.
“Which means that your friends are to buy you commissions, which will cost them some thousands to begin with, besides finding you five or six hundred a year to enable you to live like the rest of your brother officers,” observed the assistant-surgeon. “I should just like to have the fortune which is lost to his family by each of the poor fellows who bit the dust this afternoon in yonder valley of death. I’d quit the service, you may depend on that, and buy a good practice on shore, with enough to set up my carriage at once.” The next morning Tom and Archie had changed their minds, and had resolved to continue serving their Queen and country afloat.
Jack, finding that he could not sail till the evening, went on shore, taking the two midshipmen with him, to make another attempt to visit Sidney. Having obtained the steeds they had ridden the previous day, they took the way to the Col, halting on the first high ground they reached. They saw that the Russians still retained in considerable force the redoubts they had won from the Turks.
“They seem unpleasantly close to our lines,” observed Tom to Archie; “our fellows must keep pretty wide awake, or they will be taking us by surprise some fine morning.”