It was while the infantry and Naval Brigade were still before Sebastopol, toiling, trenching, and pounding with cannon and mortar at all its southern side, we had our ardour fired, our enthusiasm kindled, and our sorrow keenly excited by the tidings of that glorious but terrible death ride, the charge of the six hundred cavalry at Balaclava; and of how only one hundred and fifty came alive out of that mouth of fire, the valley where rained "the red artillery"--the 13th Hussars were said to have brought only twelve men out of the action, and the 17th Lancers twenty--and how nobly they were avenged by our "heavies" under the gallant Scarlett; and of the stern stand made against six thousand Russian horse by the "thin red line" of the Sutherland Highlanders.
On the day these tidings were circulated in the trenches by many who had witnessed the events, we seemed to redouble our energies, and shot and shell were poured with greater fury than ever on the city, while sharper, nearer, and more deadly were the contests of man and man in the rifle-pits between it and the trenches. Then followed the sortie made by Menschikoff, supposing that most of the allied forces had been drawn towards Balaclava--a movement met by the infantry and artillery of the second division under Sir De Lacy Evans, and repulsed with a slaughter which naturally added to the hatred on both sides; and innumerable were the stories told, and authenticated, of the Russians murdering our helpless wounded in cold blood. On the night of the 2nd November I was again in the trenches opposite to the eastern flank of Sebastopol, the whole regiment being on duty covering the batteries and working-parties.
The day passed as usual in exciting and desultory firing, the Russians and our fellows watching each other like lynxes, and never missing an opportunity for taking a quiet shot at each other. A strong battalion of the former was in our front, lurking among some mounds and thick abattis, formed of trees felled and pegged to the earth with their branches towards us; and above the barrier and the broken ground that lay between it and the advanced trench-ground, strewed with fragments of rusty iron nails, broken bottles, and the other amiable contents of exploded bombs, torn, rent, upheaved, or sunk into deep holes by the explosion of mines and countermines, shells and rockets, we could see their bearded visages, their flat caps and tall figures, cross-belted and clad in long gray shapeless coats, as from time to time they yelled and started up to take aim at some unwary Welsh Fusileer, heedless that from some other point some comrade's bullet avenged him, or anticipated his fate. To attempt a description of the trenches to a non-military reader, in what Byron terms "engineering slang," would be useless, perhaps; suffice it to say that we were pretty secure from round shot, but never from shells, the trenches or zigzags being dug fairly parallel to the opposing batteries, with a thick bank of earth towards Sebastopol, a banquette for our men to mount on when firing became necessary.
Near us was a battery manned by our Royal Artillery--the guns being run through rude portholes made in the earthen bank, with the addition of sand-bags, baskets, and stuffed gabions, to protect the gunners. All was in splendid order there: the breeching-guns ever ready for action; the sponges, rammers, and handspikes lying beside the wheels; the shot piled close by as tidily as if in Woolwich-yard; the carbines of the men placed in racks against the gabions; the officers laughing over an old Punch, or making sketches, varied by caricatures of the Russians, their men sitting close by in their greatcoats, smoking and singing while awaiting orders, and listening with perfect indifference to the casual dropping fire maintained by us against the enemy in the abbatis or pits along our front, though almost every shot was the knell of a human existence.
Death and danger were now strangely familiar to us all, and we cared as little for the whish of a round bullet or the sharp ping of the Minie, while it cut the air, as for the deep hoarse booming of the breaching-guns; it was the cry of "bomb!" from the look out men, that usually made us start, and sprawl on our faces, or scamper away, for shelter, to crouch with our heads stooped in our favourite or fancied places of security among the gabions, till a soaring monster, with death and mutilation in its womb, with its hoarse puffing that rose to a whistle, concussed all the air by the crash of its explosion.
Our men were all in their greatcoats, with their white belts outside; and, save when a section or so started angrily to arms, as those fellows in the abattis became more annoying, they sat quietly on the ground or against the wall of the trench, smoking, chatting with perfect equanimity, and occasionally taking a sip of rum or raki from their canteens; for, after weeks and months of this kind of duty, especially after the severity of the Crimean war set in, our older soldiers seemed utterly indifferent as to whether they lived or died.
All of them, even such boys as Tom Clavell, had been front to front with death, again and again. Among ourselves, even, there was an incessant scramble for food; hence in the expression of their faces and eyes there was something hard, set, fierce, and undefinable--half-wolfish at times, devil-may-care always; for in a few weeks after the landing at Eupatoria, they had seen more and lived longer than one can do in years upon years of a life of peace.
"What do you see, Hugh, that you look so earnestly to the front?" I asked of Price, who was lying on his breast with a rifle close beside him, and his field-glass, to which his eyes were applied, wedged in a cranny between two sand-bags.
"A Russian devil has made a bolt out of the abattis into yonder hole made by a shell."
"And what of that?"
"I am waiting to pot him, as he can't stay there long," replied Price, usually the best of good-natured fellows, but now looking with a tiger-like stare through the same lorgnette which he had used on many a day at the Derby, and many a night at the opera; "there he comes," he added. In a moment the Minie rifle, already sighted, was firmly at the shoulder of Price, who fired; a mass like a gray bundle, with hands and arms outspread, r............