CHAPTER XXXIX
THE REDAN
The days dragged on in the camp. Sometimes wearily enough, sometimesenlivened by a party of pleasure to Baidar, an expedition to themonastery of St. George, a general action at the Tchernaya, ahurdle-race at Kadikoi, or some trifling excitement of the same kind.Already the great heat was beginning to be tempered by the bracing airof autumn, and the army was more than half inclined to speculate on thepossibility of another long dreary winter before Sebastopol.
But the time had come at last. The blow so long withheld was to belaunched in earnest, and for a day or two before the final andsuccessful assault, men's minds seemed to tell them--they scarce knewwhy--that a great change was impending, and that every night might nowbe the last on which the dogged valour of the besieged would man thoseformidable defences that, under the names of the Malakhoff, the Redan,etc., had for so long occupied the attention of France, England, andindeed the whole of Europe.
I was sitting outside Ropsley's tent, sharing my breakfast of hardbiscuit with Bold, at daybreak of a fine September morning. The old dogseemed on this occasion to have renewed his youth, and was sodemonstrative and affectionate as to call down a strong reproof fromRopsley, with whom he was never on very friendly terms, for laying hisbroad paw on the well-brushed uniform of the Colonel. "Tie the bruteup, Vere," said he, carefully removing the dirt from his threadbaresleeve, "or he will follow us on parade. Are you ready? if so, comealong. I would not be late to-day of all days, for a thousand a year."
I remained in his rear, as he completed the inspection of his company.I had never seen the men so brisk or so smartly turned out, and therewas an exhilarated yet earnest look on their countenances that denotedtheir own opinion of the coming day. Ropsley himself was more of the_bon camarade_, and less of the "fine gentleman" than usual. As wemarched down to the trenches side by side, he talked freely of oldtimes,--our school-days at Everdon, our later meeting at Beverley, and,by a natural transition, turned the subject of conversation to Victor deRohan and his sister Valerie. I had never known him allude to thelatter of his own accord before. He seemed to have something on his mindwhich pride or mistrust, or both, would not permit him to bring out. Atlast, apparently with a strong effort, he whispered hurriedly--
"Vere, I've a favour to ask you--if I should be _hit_ to-day by chance,and badly, you know, I should like you to write and remember me to theDe Rohans, and--and--particularly to Countess Valerie. If ever youshould see her again, you might tell her so."
I pressed his hand in answer, and I thought his voice was hoarser as heresumed.
"Vere, it is not often I confess myself wrong, but I have wronged youfearfully. If I'm alive to-morrow I'll tell you all; if not, Vere, canyou--_can_ you forgive me?"
"From my heart," was all I had time to reply, for at that instant uprode the leader of the assault, and Ropsley's voice was calm andmeasured, his manner cold and cynical as ever, while he answered theshort and military catechism usual on such occasions.
"Then it's all right," was the remark of the mounted officer, in asgood-humoured and jovial a tone as if the affair in hand were a merequestion of one of his own Norfolk battues; "and what a fine morningwe've got for the business," he added, dismounting, and patting hishorse as it was led away, ere he turned round to put himself at the headof the storming party.
I watched him as one watches a man whose experiences of danger havegiven him a fascination perfectly irresistible to inferior minds. Itwas the same officer whom I have already mentioned as the latest arrivalto disturb the dinner-party in the grotto, but to-day he looked, ifpossible, more cheerful, and in better spirits than his wont. I thoughtof his antecedents, as they had often been related to me by one of hisoldest friends,--of his unfailing good-humour and kindliness ofdisposition--of his popularity in his regiment--of his skill and prowessat all sports and pastimes, with the gloves, the foils, thesharp-rowelled spurs of the hunting-field, or the velvet cap that failsto protect the steeplechaser from a broken neck--of his wanderings inthe desert amongst the Bedouin Arabs, and his cold bivouacs on theprairie with the Red Indians--of his lonely ride after the Alma, when,steering by the stars through a country with which he was totallyunacquainted, he arrived at the fleet with the news of the famous flankmarch to Balaklava--of his daring _sang-froid_ when "the thickest ofwar's tempest lowered" at Inkermann, and of the daily dangers andprivations of the weary siege, always borne and faced out with the samemerry light-hearted smile; and now he was to _lead the assault_.
None but a soldier knows all that is comprised in those three simplewords--the coolness, the daring, the lightning glance, the readyresource, the wary tactics, and the headlong gallantry which must all becombined successfully to fill that post of honour; and then to thinkthat the odds are ten to one he never comes back alive!
As I looked at his athletic frame and handsome, manly face, as Ireturned his cordial, off-hand greeting, as courteous to the namelessInterpreter as it would have been to General Pelissier himself, my hearttightened to think of what might--nay, what _must_ surely happen on thatfire-swept glacis, unless he bore indeed a life charmed with immunityfrom shot and steel.
Man by man he inspected the Forlorn Hope,--their arms, their ammunitionpouches, their scaling-ladders, all the tackle and paraphernalia ofdeath. For each he had a word of encouragement, a jest, or a smile.Ropsley and his company were to remain in support in the advancedtrenches. All was at length reported "ready," and then came the awfulhush that ever ushers in the most desperate deeds--the minutes of paleand breathless suspense, that fly so quickly and yet seem to pass likelead--when the boldest cheek is blanched, and the stoutest heart beatspainfully, and the change to action and real peril is felt to be anunspeakable relief to all.
A cold wet nose was poked into my hand. Bold had tracked me from thecamp, and had followed me even here; nothing would induce him now toquit my side, for even the dog seemed to think something awful wasimpending, and watched with red, angry eyes and lowered tail andbristling neck, as if he too had been "told off" for the attack.
A roar of artillery shakes the air; our allies have opened their fire onthe Malakhoff, and their columns are swarming like bees to the assault.Battalion after battalion, regiment after regiment, come surging throughthe ditch, to break like waves on the sea-shore, as the depressed gunsof the enemy hew awful gaps in their ranks--to break indeed but tore-form, and as fresh supports keep pressing them on from the rear, todash upwards against the earthwork, and to overflow and fling themselvesfrom the parapet in the face of the Russian gunners below.
The Muscovite fights doggedly, and without dream of surrender orretreat. Hand to hand the conflict must be decided with the bayonet,and the little Zouaves shout, and yell, and stab, and press onward, andrevel, so to speak, in the wild orgy of battle.
But the Northman is a grim, uncompromising foe, and more than once the"red pantaloons" waver and give back, and rally, and press on again todeath. Instances of gallantry and self-devotion are rife amongst theofficers. Here, a young captain of infantry flings himself alone uponthe bayonets of the enemy, and falls pierced with a hundred wounds;there, an old white-headed colonel, _decore_ up to his chin, draws anominous revolver, and threatens to shoot any one of his own men throughthe head that shows the slightest disinclination to rush on. "_Ma foi_,"says he, "_c'est pour encourager les autres!_" The southern blood boilsup under the influence of example, and if French troops are once alittle flushed with success, their _elan_, as they call that quality forwhich we have no corresponding expression, is irresistible. TheRussians cannot face the impetuosity of their charge; already many ofthe guns are spiked, and the gunners bayoneted; the grey-coated columnsare yielding ground foot by foot; fresh troops pour in over the parapet,for the living are now able to pass unscathed over the dead, with whomthe ditch is filled. The fire of the Russians is slackening, and theiryell dies away fainter on the breeze. A French cheer, wild, joyous, andu
nearthly, fills the air,--it thrills in the ears of Pelissier, sittingimmovable on his horse at no great distance from the conflict; histelescope is pressed to his eye, and he is watching eagerly for thewell-known signal. And now he sees it! A gleam of fierce joy lights uphis features, and as the tricolor of France is run up to the crest ofthe Malakhoff, he shuts his glass with a snap, dismounts from his horse,and rolling himself round in his cloak, lies down for a few minutes'repose, and observes, with a zest of which none but a Frenchman iscapable, "_Tenez! voila mon baton de Marechal!_"
His are not the only eyes eagerly watching the progress of the attack;many a veteran of both armies is busied recalling all his ownexperiences and all his knowledge of warfare, to calculate theprobabilities of their success whose task it is to cross that wide anddeadly glacis which is swept by the batteries of the Redan.
The men are formed for the assault, and the word is given to advance.
"Now, my lads," says the leader, "keep cool--keep steady--and keeptogether--we'll do it handsomely when we're about it. Forward!"
It is related of him whom Napoleon called "the bravest of the brave,"the famous Ney, that he was the only officer of that day who couldpreserve his _sang-froid_ totally unmoved when standing with _his back_to a heavy fire. Many a gallant fellow facing the enemy would pay nomore regard to the missiles whistling about his ears, than to thehailstones of an April shower; but it was quite a different sensation to_front_ his own advancing troops, and never look round at the grimarcher whose every shaft might be the last. What the French Marshal,however, piqued himself upon as the acme of personal courage andconduct, our English leader seems to consider a mere matter-of-course inthe performance of an every-day duty. Step by step, calm, collected, andgood-humoured, he regulates the movements of the attacking force.Fronting their ranks, as if he were on parade, he brings them out oftheir sheltering defences into the iron storm, now pouring forth itsdeadly wrath upon that rocky plateau which _must_ be crossed in defianceof everything.
"Steady, men," he observes once more, as he forms them for the desperateeffort; "we'll have them _out of that_ in ten minutes. Now, my lads!Forward, and follow me!"
The cocked hat is waving amongst the smoke--the daring Colonel isforward under the very guns--with a British cheer, the Forlorn Hope dasheagerly on, comrade encouraging comrade, side by side, shoulder toshoulder--hearts throbbing wild and high, and a grip of iron on good"Brown Bess." Men live a lifetime in a few such moments. There are twobrothers in that doomed band who have not met for years--they quarrelledin their hot youth over their father's grave, about the quiet orchardand the peaceful homestead that each had since longed so painfully tosee once more; and now they have served, with half the globe betweenthem, and each believes the other to have forgotten him, and the orchardand the homestead have passed away from their name for ever. They wouldweep and be friends if they could meet again. There are but four menbetween them at this moment, and two are down, stark and dead, and twoare dragging their mangled bodies slowly to the rear, and the brothersare face to face under the fatal batteries of the Redan.
"Is't thou, my lad?" is all the greeting that passes in that wildmoment; but the blackened hands meet with a convulsive clasp, and theyare brothers once more, as when, long ago, they hid their sturdy littlefaces in their mother's gown. Thank God for that! In another minute itwould have been too late, for Bill is down, shot through the lungs, hiswhite belts limp and crimson with blood; and John, with a tear in hiseye, and something betwixt an oath and a prayer upon his lips, isrushing madly on, for the cocked hat is still waving forward amongst thesmoke. and the Colonel is still cheering them after him into the jaws ofdeath.
But soldiers, even British soldiers, are but men, and the fire grows sodeadly that the attacking force cannot but be checked in its headlongcharge. The line breaks--wavers--gives way--the awful glacis is strewedwith dead and dying--groans and curses, and shrieks for "_water!water!_" mingle painfully with the wild cheers, and the trampling feet,and the thunder of the guns; but volumes of smoke, curling low and whiteover the ground, veil half the horrors of that ghastly scene; yetthrough the smoke can be discerned some three or four figures under thevery parapet of the Redan, and the cocked hat and square frame of theColonel are conspicuous amongst the group.
It must have been a strange sight for the few actors that reached italive. A handful of men, an officer or two, a retiring enemy, a placehalf taken, and an eager longing for reinforcements to complete thevictory.
An aide-de-camp is despatched to the rear; he starts upon his mission totraverse that long three hundred yards, swept by a deadly cross-fire,that blackens and scorches the very turf beneath his feet. Down he goesheadlong, shot through the body ere he has "run the gauntlet" for athird of the way. Another and another share the same fate! What is tobe done? The case is urgent, yet doubtful; it demands promptitude, yetrequires consideration. Our Colonel is a man who never hesitates orwavers for an instant. He calls up a young officer of the line, one ofthe few survivors on the spot; even as he addresses him, the rifleman onhis right lurches heavily against him, shot through the loins, and ared-coated comrade on his left falls dead at his feet, yet the Colonelis, if possible, cooler and more colloquial than ever.
"What's your name, my young friend?" says he, shaking the ashes from ashort black pipe with which he has been refreshing himself at intervalswith much apparent zest. The officer replies, somewhat astonished, yetcool and composed as his commander. The Colonel repeats it twice over,to make sure he has got it right, glances once more at the enemy, thenlooking his new acquaintance steadily in the face, observes--
"Do I seem to be in a _funk_, young man?"
"No," replies the young officer, determined not to be outdone, "not theleast bit of one, any more than myself."
The Colonel laughs heartily. "Very well," says he; "now, if I'm shot, Itrust to you to do me justice. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. Imust communicate with my supports. Every aide-de-camp I send getsknocked over. I'm no use here alone--I can't take the Redansingle-handed--so I'm going back myself. It's only three hundred yards,but I can't run quite so fast as I used, so if I'm killed, I shallexpect you to bear witness that I didn't go voluntarily into thatcross-fire because _I was afraid_."
The young officer promised, and the Colonel started on his perilouserrand. On the success of his mission or the tactics of that attack itis not my province to enlarge. Amongst all the conflicting opinions ofthe public, there is but one as to the daring gallantry and coolpromptitude displayed on that memorable day by the leader of theassault.
Every man, however, moves in his own little world, even at the taking ofSebastopol. It was not for a nameless stranger, holding no rank in theservice, to run into needless danger, and I was merely in the trenchesas a looker-on, therefore did I keep sedulously under cover and out offire. It is only the novice who exposes himself unnecessarily, and Ihad served too long with Omar Pasha not to appreciate the differencebetween the cool, calculating daring that willingly accepts a certainrisk to attain a certain object, and the vainglorious foolhardiness thatruns its head blindly against a wall for the mere display of its ownintrinsic absurdity.
That great general himself was never known to expose his lifeunnecessarily. He would direct the manoeuvres of his regiments, anddisplay the tactics for which he was so superior, at a safe distancefrom the fire of an enemy, as long as he believed himself sufficientlynear to watch every movement, and to anticipate every stratagem of theadversary; but if it was advisable to encourage his own troops with hispresence, to head a charge, or rally a repulse, who so daring and soreckless as the fortunate Croatian adventurer?
And yet, with all my care and all my self-denial--for indeed, onoccasions such as these, curiosity is a powerful motive, and there is astrange instinct in man's wilful heart that urges him into a fray--I hada narrow escape of my own life, and lost my oldest friend and comradeduring the progress of the attack.
I was gazing eagerly through my d
ouble glasses--the very same that hadoften done me good service in such different scenes--to watch the formsof those devoted heroes who were staggering and falling in the smoke,when a stray shell, bursting in the trench behind me, blew my forage-capfrom my head, and sent it spinning over the parapet on to the glacisbeyond. Involuntarily I stretched my hand to catch at it as it flewaway, and Bold, who had been crouching quietly at my heel, seeing themotion, started off in pursuit. Ere I could check him, the old dog wasover the embankment, and in less than a minute returned to my side withthe cap in his mouth. The men laughed, and cheered him as he laid it atmy feet.
Poor Bold! poor Bold! he waved his handsome tail, and reared his greatsquare head as proudly as ever; but there was a wistful expression inhis eye as he looked up in my face, and when I patted him the old dogwinced and moaned as if in pain. He lay down, though quite gently, atmy feet, and let me turn him over and examine him. I thought so--thereit was, the small round mark in his glossy coat, and the dark stain downhis thick foreleg--my poor old friend and comrade, must I lose you too?Is everything to be taken from me by degrees? My eyes were blinded withtears--the rough soldiers felt for me, and spared my favourite somewater from their canteens; but he growled when any one offered to touchhim but myself, and he died licking my hand.
Even in the turmoil and confusion of that wild scene I could mourn forBold. He was the one link with my peaceful boyhood, the one creaturethat she and I had both loved and fondled, and now _she_ was lost to mefor ever, and Bold lay dead at my feet. Besides, I was fond of him forhis own sake--so faithful, so true, so attached, so brave anddevoted--in truth, I was very, _very_ sorry for poor Bold.