One of the Six Hundred 14 – Grant · Library Across
Literature · Romance
One of the Six Hundred 14One of the Six Hundred (part 14)
18
Literature · Romance
One of the Six Hundred 14
One of the Six Hundred (part 14)
GrantEnglish
After making his report to Lord Raglan and General Airey, Travers rode to Colonel Beverley, who occupied a Tartar's cottage near the river side. There he found several of ours, including Fred Wilford, old M'Goldrick, the paymaster, and Studhome, making a hearty repast on some well-cooked wild boar, with caviare, biscuits, and plenty of champagne, which had been found in the broken-down carriage of General Kiriakoff, whose crest and initials were painted on the lid of his canteen, which contained a tiny dinner service for four, but all of Dresden china.
"Gentlemen," exclaimed Beverley, starting to his feet, as Travers, Berkeley, and young Scarlett entered, "I am sorry to see you return alone. Where is our friend Norcliff?"
"Gone to the--aw--devil by the down train, probably," muttered Berkeley, whose teeth chattered as he drained a glass of champagne.
"He has fallen into the enemy's hands," said Captain Travers; "a rescue was impossible, as we knew not the extent of the ambush into which we fell. I saw him riding after us, with Berkeley----"
"Aw--yes, colonel--we were covering the rear of the squadron, in fact," interrupted that personage.
"Suddenly there was heard a single shot, and on looking back, I saw Berkeley galloping on alone----"
"Alone!"
"And poor Norcliff in the hands of the Russians, who were cutting him to pieces apparently."
"His horse had been shot under him?" said the colonel.
"Yes--but--aw--not by the Russians," said Berkeley.
"By whom, then?" asked the colonel, sharply.
"By himself," was the unhesitating response.
"Himself?"
"Absurd!"
"Impossible!" exclaimed his hearers, in succession.
"It is neither absurd nor impossible. The horse was killed by a pistol-shot, and he fell into the power of the Russians."
"Do you mean to say," asked the colonel, slowly, after a very ominous and unpleasant pause, during which Berkeley's paleness increased, and he tugged his moustache with his effeminate, girlish-like fingers, feeling evidently the loss of a toothpick, with which, like other fops, he soothed his leisure moments; "do you mean to say that this event was not accident, but design?"
"Can't tell, 'pon my life--aw--haw--would rather not say anything about it--it was doocid odd, anyway," drawled Berkeley, applying himself to the champagne again.
"Mr. Berkeley, I must insist upon your explaining."
"Can't say, I repeat--his pistol exploded--the bullet went through his horse's head----"
"Killing it on the spot?"
"Of course--aw--of course."
"What could be his reason----"
"Perhaps he thought--aw--it safer work to fall quietly into the hands of the Russians thus than to ride back under their fusilade."
"Are you aware, Mr. Berkeley," said the colonel, with increasing gravity, while all present exchanged some very peculiar glances, "that this is tantamount to branding our friend with cowardice?"
"I shall--aw--aw--answer that question, Colonel Beverley, when the time comes, and he returns," replied Berkeley; "but I don't think those Russian riflemen were in the mood to show much mercy or quarter to-day."
"And Norcliff was not such a muff as to surrender quietly," said M'Goldrick.
"You will answer the colonel's question when Norcliff returns say you?" exclaimed Studhome, starting forward, pale with passion; "answer it you shall, and now, to me!"
"Studhome!" said the colonel, interposing angrily, "this is some mistake--some wretched misconception. We all know that Captain Norcliff was incapable of committing the act you, Mr. Berkeley, impute to him."
"I have seen him lead his troop under fire ere now," growled Studhome; "and lead it when Mr. Berkeley might have thought it unpleasant work to follow him."
"Aw--haw--well, disprove it if you can," said Berkeley, with one of his old insufferable smiles, as he stuck his glass in his eye, and lounged out of the cottage, near which my poor fellow, Willie Pitblado, was lingering to pick up some certain information about me from the colonel's servants.
"Eh, me! this will be sair news for the folk at Calderwood Glen," he sighed, as he and Lanty O'Regan turned away together.
As Berkeley and I had been in the rear, none save myself could be cognisant of his foul act of treachery. He never doubted that I had been bayoneted by the Russians, and, confident that I should never return, he thus crowned his villany by attempting to destroy my honour.
Ere long we shall see what this availed him.
*CHAPTER XLIV.*
Yes, thou art gone, sweet friend, my own,
We miss thee every day,
And I, yet more than all, alone,
Can only weep and pray.
Pray to be rendered meet for heaven,
And agonize in prayer,
That if we meet no more below,
Our meeting may be there.
The first halting-place of my escort was in a wood of wild pear trees, among some of those ancient burial mounds or green tumuli which stud all the Crimea, but more particularly the peninsula of Kertch, where one still marks the tomb of Mithridates. In that solitude we heard only the voices of the birds, the lark, the tomtit, and the wren, as they twittered among the caper bushes.
The Cossacks hobbled their horses, and proceeded to seat themselves on the green sward that covered the bones of the classic warriors of other times. In their havresacks they had some black bread and salt, with a flask of quass. These they shared freely with me; and with such coarse fare I was forced to be content.
The corporal had a Russian poodle, red-eyed, fox-headed, and white as snow, which he pretentiously named Olga, after the Grand Duchess, and with this cur, to which he was much attached, he freely shared his repast, and that piece of felt which serves the Cossack alike for cloak, tent, and bed.
I could not be prevailed upon to join them in partaking of some wild horseradish, which Corporal Pugacheff discovered, and unearthed with his sabre, exhibiting a root as thick as his arm. After they had smoked for nearly an hour, during which I was left to my own unpleasant reflections, the march was once more resumed--leisurely, because I was afoot--towards the east, as the sun informed me, and that was all I could learn about it.
The uniforms of these Cossacks were richer than any I had yet seen. Each had a blue jacket, edged with yellow lace, hooked over a scarlet silk vest; loose blue trousers, fastened high above the waist; busbies of black shining wool, terminating in a crimson sack, with a scarlet sash, cartridge-box, and sabre, completed their costume. Like ourselves, they rode with the lance slung, and resting on the right toe.
That night we halted at a Tartar village. The inhabitants of the cottage to which we proceeded were somewhat over-awed by the three Cossacks--a race at all times rather unscrupulous--but were disposed to view me with a commiseration that made me begin to conceive hopes of escape.
Escorted by Corporal Pugacheff and his poodle, I was conducted to the humble apartment used by the males of the family. A wooden basin, filled with clear water, and a napkin, were presented to me by the master of the house--a venerable Tartar of the old nomadic race--that I might lave my face and hands; a pipe of the cherrywood tree, which grows in the mountains, was then given me to smoke, while a repast--not of horseflesh, happily--but of goat's milk, poached eggs, and cheese, was prepared; and these we ate with our fingers, seated on mats on the earthen floor, around the little stool on which the supper-tray was placed, for, in their household and habits, the poor Tartars are nearly as primitive as their forefathers were in the days of the valiant Batu Khan, the destroyer of Moscow.
A dish of sour milk and water--the veritable yaourt of the Osmanlis--was passed round; the master of the house returned thanks without uncovering his shaven head, the Cossacks resumed their pipes, the repast was over, and the day was closing in.
The hope of escape was growing stronger in my heart; but the corporal crushed it, as if he had divined my thoughts, by quietly securing my right hand to his left, with the small steel bridle of his horse, before we lay down to take our repose, and the escort, with their pistols loaded, slept side by side across the only doorway. In addition to all these precautions, if I ventured to move, almost to wink, the poodle, Olga, was on the alert, with cocked ears and bristling hair, barking furiously. How I hated that dog!
Though weary in mind and body, I could not sleep, even if the deep bass snoring that issued from the snub noses of my three keepers would have permitted me to doze.
Berkeley's infamous treachery made my heart glow like a furnace! How deeply I repented now that, instead of succouring and remounting him, I had not left him, as his prior conduct deserved, to the chances of war and fate, and to take the place now occupied by me!
How long might I be a prisoner!
Of this war with the greatest empire in the world none could foresee or calculate the end.
Years, perhaps, might pass, and find me still a captive. By the troops of General Canrobert, some men had been discovered who had been lost by the French on their fatal retreat from Moscow in 1813, and who had, from youth to age, been slaves in the Tartar fortresses or the Siberian mines.
My blood ran cold with this idea. Oh, if such were to be my fate!
If Berkeley returned to England after all, and married Louisa! And then, if this wretched Brassy Wheedleton succeeded in marrying Cora, while I was industriously quarrying for copper and assafoetida in the vicinity of that pleasant city, Tobolsk by name!
But what was Cora to me? She was my cousin, and, of course, my cousin must not throw herself away and make an unequal marriage.
"There are men in this world," says a female writer, "who are quite capable of being in love with two women at once."
This was not at all my case; but I fear that Louisa's cold and cutting neglect was causing me to think more than I used to do of Cora Calderwood, who I knew loved me well, and I remembered the strange episode of the spell, or mesmeric riddle, wrought by the hakim Abd-el-Rasig, the surgeon of the 10th Egyptian Infantry.
But to be a prisoner--the prisoner of these filthy wretches--and to be conveyed by them, like a helpless Polish exile, I knew not whither!
If in boyhood, and even in infancy, I had ever a horror of study and restraint; if in later years, even regimental discipline sometimes galled me by its monotonous trammels, the reader may imagine how I writhed, how my soul revolted, at the idea of being a Russian captive, and how I longed for vengeance on Berkeley. I swore to horsewhip him in front of the line, and pistol him after! There was no extravagant length in punishment to which my fancy did not resort and my fury indulge in. No MacGregor with the dirk at his lips, swearing vengeance for Alaster of Glenstrae; no Corsican De Franchi, vowing a dreadful vendetta on his foe, could harbour feelings more bitter than I did in those moments of futile anger in that poor Tartar cottage.
I talked to myself wrathfully and incoherently.
I dozed at last; but my slumber was haunted by dreams and nightmares, like those of a fevered patient. I saw Louisa Loftus, with her pale and lovely features distorted by fear, her black hair floating all dishevelled about her white shoulders. She was clinging to the verge of a lofty rock, towards which an angry tide was advancing, while I, chained, withheld by some mysterious power, was unable to succour or to save her. My voice was gone, and my agonies were unbelieved, as she only beheld them with proud smiles of scorn and derision.
The scene changed. Now she had married, or was about to marry the Marquis of Slubber, believing me dead--that I had perished in the East. I heard her say so, distinctly and tearlessly, with a calm sympathetic smile, which my Lady Chillingham, with an impatient motion of her fan rebuked. Still I was deprived of all power of volition, and a spell tied up my utterance, till Berkeley--I saw him to the life, in his lancer uniform, hovering about her, to the evident annoyance of the senile marquis--told her, in his drawling lisp, that he had seen me killed, and she quite believed him. Then a painful cry escaped me, and I awoke. I had other dreams, and these were, perhaps, the worst of all. I was free! I had exposed and punished Berkeley. I was again among my friends; handsome Beverley, Travers, bluff Jack Studhome, Fred Wilford, and the others were around me. The lancers were on parade, I heard the neighing of the chargers; and saw the long line of glittering lances, the plumes and banperoles waving in the sunshine; I heard the music of our band; we were laughing, talking, smoking; we were in the mess or billiard-room, and I could hear the bells of Canterbury ringing in the cathedral towers.
At other times I was in Calderwood Glen, under the old, old trees that had echoed to the hunting-horn of many a kingly Stuart; or I was on the heather muirs, gun in hand, with old Sir Nigel, knocking over the whirring partridges and the golden pheasants, the plash of the mountain burn and the hum of the mountain bee coming together on the balmy breeze, as I trod the green Lomond side, and saw the grassy glens of Fife, the blue Forth, and many a village spire among the woodlands far away.
Then to waken and find myself chained to the Cossack corporal, in that loathly Russian den, in the wilds of Crim Tartary, was a disappointment cruel and bitter!
The rising sun saw us once more on the road; but for what place I was still ignorant. Before we started Corporal Pugacheff released my hand, but pointed significantly to his pistols.
On this day, as we proceeded eastward, there rose in the distance on our right the mountain of the Tents, the highest in the Crimea (the Tchatir Dagh, a mass of red marble), so named from its resemblance to the dwellings of the Nogai Tartars. Five thousand feet it towered above the Euxine, with its summit crimsoned in the morning sun.
Through a defile, named Demir-Kapon (or the Iron Gate), we entered the valley of the Angar, a tributary of the Salghir (which flows into the Putrid Sea); and here, from the slopes of the mountain, the scenes we saw were full of rural loveliness--picturesque Tartar villages, laden orchards and blushing vineyards, and flocks and herds without end; everywhere softness blending with sublimity. I noted every foot of the way well, as I had but one thought--escape.
I remember that near the Tartar town of Sivritash, which lies twenty miles north-east of Sebastopol, we passed a body of Russian recruits for various regiments, all hastening to get into the latter place before the Allies could invest it.
These recruits were escorted by a squadron of the hussars of the Princess Maria Paulowna (sister of the Emperor). They were certainly gorgeously-equipped and accoutred troopers, mounted on fine Arab horses; but my admiration for them was not increased by a blow which one of them dealt me, in mere wantonness, with the flat of his sabre, as I trudged past wearily and afoot: but this insult honest Pugacheff resented by laying his lance heavily across the shoulders of the hussar.
Many questions were asked of him by the officers of these troops, who altogether mustered about five thousand men; and from the frequency with which the name Kourouk occurred in his replies, as well as the direction in which we were travelling, I surmised that we were proceeding to the fortress at that place.
In this conjecture I was right, for on the evening of the third day after my capture, I found myself a prisoner in the secluded Russian fort or outpost of Kourouk, which lies on the northern slope of the mountain of Karaba Yaila, and is distant exactly seventy miles, as a bird flies, from Sebastopol.
No parole was offered me; I was without money, and my name and rank were alike unknown; I was clad only in the tatters of my own regimental finery; and I felt a deep gloom steal over me, when the little wicket gate in the massive wooden and iron barriers of the fortress was closed behind me. And now, cast utterly among strangers, I parted with regret even from the snub-nosed Corporal Pugacheff, who had been my guide thus far, and from his red-eyed poodle, Olga, too.
I was the only prisoner of war in the fortress of Kourouk.
*CHAPTER XLV.*
It was at length the same to me,
Fettered or fetterless to be,
I learned to love despair.
And thus when they appeared at last,
And all my bonds aside were cast,
Those heavy walls to me had grown
A heritage--and all my own!
BYRON.
Situated on a rocky slope, under the shadow of the hills of Karaba Yaila, stand the town and castle of Kourouk.
Built by the Genoese upon the ruins of a fortress erected by a khan of the house of Zingis (under whom the Crimea became an independent monarchy in 1441), the castle had been in its glory in the days when Genoa the superb was mistress of the coasts of Asia, and the islands of Cyprus, Lesbos, and Scio; but when Mohammed II. conquered Constantinople, he destroyed all the colonies of the Genoese republic upon the shores of the Euxine.
The defenders of the Castle of Kourouk, under a Scottish soldier of fortune, made a gallant resistance; but were all put to the sword, and their skulls are now built into a portion of the rampart which faces Mecca. The rocks of red and white marble on which it stands have been excavated, like those of its contemporary, the old Genoese Castle of Balaclava, into magazines and stately chambers, the sides of which are covered with coloured designs in stucco.
The two old round towers of the Genoese days were crowned by Russian cupolas--one striped like a melon, the other cut into facets, like a pineapple, all red and yellow alternately, and each surmounted by a glittering cross. These, with the great white banner of St. Andrew, with its blue saltire over all, made Kourouk look gay at a distance.
Within all was grim and sombre enough.
The garrison consisted of a four-company battalion of Russian infantry, under a chef-de-bataillon, named Vladimir Dahl, a tall, grisly-moustached old soldier, who wore on his breast the embroidered representation of a Turkish standard, which he had taken from the Infidels, in the days of Navarino. Each of his companies consisted of two hundred men, and belonged to a regiment three thousand strong. Such corps are the usual Russian formation, and are commanded by a pulkovnick, or colonel.
These troops wore long, loose, dirty-grey capotes, reaching to their ankles. On their shoulders, and in front of their flat cloth caps, was sewn a piece of green stuff, with the regimental number, 45; and this was all their finery.
They were on parade in line as Corporal Pugacheff conducted me into the fortress; and I thought them a strange array of sorry-looking wretches, so stolid in aspect, that I was reminded of the traveller, who, on seeing a Russian and a British regiment under arms in the same square at Naples, exclaimed--
"There is but one face in that whole regiment, while in this" (pointing to the British) "every soldier has a face of his own."
I was treated with the greatest respect and kindness by old Vladimir Dahl and the officers of the 45th, or Tambrov Infantry, for the outrages of the French at Kertch, and the infamous massacre of our seamen at Hango, had not yet occurred to impart a bitterness to the war.
Neither he nor I knew the other's language; his capitans, fiarooschicks, and praperchicks (i.e., lieutenants and ensigns) were in the same condition. Thus we had no means of communication, save by clinking our glasses, and exchanging cigarettes, nods, winks, and grins.
An old Times newspaper was given to me. It was dated months back, and detailed the battle of Oltenitza; but its columns had been carefully purged by the censor of everything political--an ingenious process achieved by gutta-percha and ground glass.
The reader has, perhaps, heard of how a farrier-sergeant of the Emperor Alexander's Dragoon Guards predicted the destruction of the grand army of Napoleon I., on being shown a horseshoe dropped by the retreating cavalry of France.
"What! not frosted yet," he exclaimed, professionally, "and the snow to fall to-morrow! Holy St. Sergius! these fellows don't know Russia!"
Vladimir Dahl was the son of the farrier-sergeant who thus predicted the downfall of the enemies of Russia; and he was more proud of his father than if he had been, like the best of the Muscovite nobles, descended from Ruric the Norman.
The days passed slowly away. I might as well have been dumb, having no one to converse with. I could not pass the castle gates, as every avenue, angle, and outlet was guarded by snub-nosed Muscovites, in grey capotes, with loaded rifles and fixed bayonets.
Hope of escape as yet I had none!
On the morning of the fourth day, a mounted Paulowna hussar delivered at Kourouk a letter, with a shred of the feather of the quill with which it had been written inserted among the wax of the seal--a Russian mode of signifying speed.
It announced the arrival of General Baur, with all his staff. Baur had been wounded in the encounter with our troops at Khutor-Mackenzie; and I was very well pleased when the evening of the same day saw him ride into Kourouk, of which I was heartily weary; and I was not without hopes that the general, on remembering how we had released him after the Alma, might do something for me in the way of exchanging or paroling me; and in his aide-de-camp, the gay young Captain Anitchoff, of the Maria Paulowna Hussars, I was glad to see a face that I knew, and to meet one with whom I could converse.
The general had been wounded by a musket shot in the bridle arm. It was severely inflamed. Ease had been recommended, so he had come to spend a week or so at Kourouk, which was in his own military district; and on the very evening of his arrival, Anitchoff brought me an invitation to dine with him.
Anitchoff was eminently a handsome Russian. His eyes were dark, and had a latent fire in them that showed some Tartar blood; the lids were full and white, the lashes long and dark. His nose was straight and thin, and his ponderous moustache was as black as his close-shaven hair, or the wolf's fur that trimmed his light blue uniform.
My costume was of the most sorry description; but a few discrepancies were made up by Vladimir Dahl, who, among other things, presented me with a full uniform, silver epaulettes and all, of the Tambrov infantry.
French is not so much spoken in Russia as people in Britain suppose; yet, luckily for me, General Baur and Anitchoff could speak it fluently.
Before proceeding to the General's I asked--
"Can you inform me, Captain Anitchoff, if parole is to be accepted?"
"I cannot say, but rather think not," he replied, with hesitation.
"The deuce!" I exclaimed, haughtily; "then I shall escape, if I can."
"Pray don't think of it," said he, earnestly.
"Why?" I demanded, with intense chagrin.
"We have rather a summary mode of dealing with prisoners who attempt to escape. So be wary, my friend."
"Indeed, summary. How?"
"We don't always keep them on our hands," said he, with a smile that was grimly significant, while he played with the gold tassels of his hussar busby.
"Well, 'twere better to be shot than kept lingering here."
"Oh, you won't be kept here, my friend."
"Where then?"
"In a few days you will probably be sent with a convoy of sick and wounded by the way of Perecop and the desert plains towards Yekaterinoslav."
"I shall escape by the way," said I, doggedly.
"I repeat, my friend, don't think of it, for Trebitski, who will command, does not stand on trifles; and yet," he added, with a smile, "there are two persons who seldom fail in what they attempt--a prisoner and a lover."
"Why?"
"Stendahl, a Russian author, says, 'The lover thinks oftener of obtaining his mistress than the husband does of guarding his wife; the prisoner thinks oftener of escaping from his prison than the gaoler does of keeping him safe within its walls. Therefore, the lover and the prisoner should succeed.' You see," he continued, laughing, "we have some authors in snowy Russia, whatever you Britons may think to the contrary. But here is the general."
Passing through the officers of the 45th, who all made way for us, I was ushered into the presence of General Baur, the grim soldier, who was related to the hero of Beverley's interesting anecdote--Karlovitch Baur, son of Karl, the brother of Michel, the old miller of Husum.
He received me with studious politeness, though he could not help smiling at my Tambrov uniform. His left arm was in a sling, and, as he shook hands with me, I felt that he had but two right fingers remaining. A Turkish sabre had shorn him of the rest at Kalafat, on the Danube, in the year before.
Baur was every way a man of a severely impressive presence and aspect. He had an enormous white moustache, the long, snaky curls of which floated almost over each of his large silver epaulettes. His forehead was high, massive and stern; his hair, shorn short, was rough and grizly. His dark eyes were keen, bold, and inquiring at times; but at others they wore a deep, sombre and melancholy expression, as if he was always thinking of a world beyond the present--to be looking into it, in fact--and this was not to be wondered at when we consider that Karlovitch Baur was the hero of one of the most remarkable episodes ever committed to paper.
His manner was that of one who is prompt and ready alike in thought and action, and yet who never unsaid or undid anything.
Over his grass-green and silver-laced uniform, he wore a loose, wide souba, or fur coat with sleeves, for service, and this he cast aside when the trumpets announced that dinner was served; and then, among many other orders that glittered on his warlike breast, I saw that of St. Andrew, which was founded in 1699 by Peter the Great, and is only bestowed on crowned heads and officers of the highest rank.
It reminded me much of our own Order of the Thistle, being a blue enamelled saltire; but on the reverse was a Muscovite eagle, with the initials "S.A.P.R." (Sanctus Andreas, Patronus Russiae).
At the table I was seated between the general and his chief aide-de-camp, Anitchoff, both of whom conversed with me in French.
"How did it come to pass that you were taken prisoner?" asked the former.
"My horse was shot under me."
"Near the Belbeck?"
"Yes," said I, blushing like a school-girl, as I could not, for the soul of me, say that a British officer had degraded his epaulettes by the perfidy of which Berkeley had been guilty.
"Ah! unlucky; but such things will happen. Your troops and the French, with the Turkish dogs, are now almost in front of Sebastopol."
"Indeed!" said I, with a joy which I could not conceal.
"You think, no doubt, to take it under our moustaches, or, as you Britons say, under our noses; but you won't," he added with a grave smile. "St. Sergius has ordained it otherwise, and Todleben, the wary old Courlander, is busy fortifying it. His sappers are at work day and night."
"Pho! don't talk of Sebastopol, general," said his aide-de-camp, laughing. "Our feeding there was so bad that I felt inclined to try whether the Allies fared better than we did; but after the Alma, I thought that the less I considered the matter the better."
"Ah, that day at Alma played the deuce with many a family circle in Sebastopol," said Baur, twisting his moustache angrily.
"Yes," added Anitchoff; "many a widow is there now, weeping for the dear defunct with one eye, and ogling his successor with the other."
At this jest a dark frown gathered on the long, stern visage of Baur.
Dinner proceeded briskly. It was served up in a kind of hall, which had arched and painted windows, flanked by the round Genoese towers, whose gilt cupolas formed the chief features of the fortress.
The walls were simply whitewashed, and the furniture was somewhat of the "barrack ordnance" description of our own equipments in quarters at home.
The repast was rather military in fashion, and by no means a dinner a la Russe, all flower vases, bouquets, and kickshaws; but was composed of substantial edibles for hungry and soldierly stomachs.
We began with small glasses of kimmel, and then came caviare, made from the roe of the sturgeon of the Don, spread on thin slices of bread; then followed the fish--turbot and mackerel from the Black Sea; yellow-fleshed sterlets from the Volga, salted in oil; wild boar hams from the forest of Khutor-Mackenzie; mutton fed on the Tauridian steppes; pies of holy pigeons from the gilt domes I had admired at a distance; piles of Crimean fruit; the wines of Ac-metchet and Kastropulo, with Cliquot; and there, too, were London stout and Bass's pale ale, taken from some of our wrecks in the Black Sea.
During dinner I was amused by hearing the ideas entertained by the Russians of our British soldiers, with whom they were now for the first time in actual conflict; for Prince Menschikoff had industriously spread among his troops a rumour that we were only beardless seamen, dressed up as soldiers; and that, however formidable on the ocean, we were worthless ashore.
To this contemptuous notion was added a sublime faith in their own valour, and the miracles to be wrought by St. Sergius, whose image they bore at Alma, and whose fourth reappearance was confidently predicted by Innocent, Archbishop of Odessa, in his sermon to the garrison of Sebastopol, for Sergius was a patriotic saint and warrior who defeated the Tartars--whose "uncorrupted body" lies in a silver shrine, like a four-post bed, and whose shoes (sorely worn at the heels) are still preserved in the Troitza, or monastery, of the Holy Trinity at Moscow.
General Baur, a man deeply imbued with the most gloomy superstition, believed in all these delusions devoutly. His aide-de-camp and Vladimir Dahl, however, laughed at him covertly; but admitted that the appearance of the Highland regiments filled the columns on the Kourgane Hill with a strange terror; for being, as the author of "Eoethen" records, "men of great stature, and in a strange garb, their plumes being tall, and the view of them being broken and distorted by the wreaths of smoke, and there being, too, an ominous silence in their ranks, there were men among the Russians who began to conceive a vague terror--the terror of things unearthly; and some, they say, imagined that they were being charged by horsemen, strange, silent, and monstrous, bestriding giant chargers."
Dinner was drawing to a close, or giving place to the dessert, when my former acquaintance under less pleasant circumstances, Lieutenant Adrian Trebitski, of the Tchernimoski Cossacks, appeared, travel-stained, and splashed with the mud of a journey on his boots and sabretache, having arrived on duty with sick soldiers, and a deserter, who was to be shot on the morrow.
"Why not to-night?" asked the stern Baur.
"The sentence says to-morrow, general," replied Anitchoff consulting a despatch.
"Then to-morrow be it--I am not a messman, and so don't begrudge the poor wretch his last supper. Is he one of your corps, Trebitski?"
"Yes, general, I regret to say, a Cossack of our sotnia, from the Lena, in Siberia," replied Trebitski, who was eyeing me with an aspect of discomposure, evidently fearing that I might report the pillage I had undergone at his hands. But this fear subsided when I drank wine with him, clinking my glass over and under his, for I felt that my position was too perilous to make an enemy of this man, especially as Anitchoff informed me that he was to have command of the convoy which would take me towards Perecop.
"I hope he will treat me with courtesy," said I, "and remember that I am a commissioned officer."
"Why do you doubt him?" asked Anitchoff, with a quiet smile.
"I--I don't like the expression of his eyes."
"They are as keen as those of a Tartar; but, then, he has Tartar blood in him, for his mother was a woman of the middle Kirghis hordes, lately added to our empire."
"Are they remarkable for a curious expression of eye?"
"Yes; any Tartar can discern a single Russian horseman at a quarter of the distance that a Russian will discover a whole troop of Tartars, even with lances uplifted; hence they make our best vedettes."
I now heard complete details of the defeat of twenty thousand Russians at Khutor-Mackenzie; and that, on the morning of the 26th September, Balaclava had been taken, that its safe and secluded harbour was now full of our war ships and transports, and that already our army was on the heights above Sebastopol.
And so, while the great game, on which the eyes of all the world were turned, was being played by my noble comrades, I--the victim of treachery, ignorant alike of my fate and of the future--was to be marched towards the desert plains of Yekaterinoslav, in the custody of an unscrupulous ruffian like Trebitski, parooschick of the Tchernimoski Cossacks; one who knew as little about the position or feelings of a British officer as he did about those of the Great Llama.
On my bed that night I tossed restlessly to and fro, revolving a hundred plans for escape, but could decide on none. Bribery will achieve anything in Russia; but I had no money. I was also without weapons, a horse, or knowledge of the language. I determined, however, to look well about me; to study a map of the Crimea if I could find one; to act surely, warily, and resolutely; and to take the first opportunity of escaping, even if I should be shot down in the attempt. I was all the more free to make this essay, that, as yet, not a word had been spoken either of parole or exchange by the gloomy General Baur, or 'his more genial aide-de-camp.
By dawn next morning, the hoarse roll of the wooden drums summoned the garrison of Kourouk to witness the execution of the deserter; and by the time I came forth, as a spectator, the battalion of the 45th was under arms, formed in three sides of a hollow square, facing inwards; all silent, motionless as statues, closely ranked in their grey capotes and flat blue caps, with rifles shouldered and bayonets fixed.
The fourth side of the square was enclosed by the inner wall of a rampart, and there stood the culprit, pale and dejected in aspect, accompanied by a silver-bearded priest of the Greek church in white, with a gorgeous stole of cloth-of-gold, edged with fine lace. A dog bounded towards them--a fox-headed, snow-coloured, and red-eyed Russian poodle, whose bark was familiar to me; and then I was greatly concerned to recognise in the deserter, who was stripped of his uniform, and stood in his loose wide trousers and red flannel shirt, poor Corporal Pugacheff, who had escorted me from the Belbeck river.
"Had I known your disposition for levanting, my friend," thought I, "gladly would I have availed myself of it in time."
"Was he deserting towards the Allies?" I inquired of Anitchoff.
"No; he was supposed to be making off to his own country by the peninsula of Arabat, which encloses the Putrid Sea. Ah, pardonnez moi," added the hussar, and he yawned lazily in the chill air of the early morning, as he buttoned his well-furred pelisse over his uniform.
"But is not the punishment excessive?"
"Not for a soldier in time of war, surely! There are two classes in Russia exempt from all corporal punishment, severe as you may deem us--nobles, and soldiers who have been honoured with medals. Pugacheff served against the Turks at the frontier town of Isaktcha last year. He has a medal, so there is no resource but to shoot him; and here comes the firing company under a praperchick? (This grotesque word in Russ signifies an ensign.)
"What is he saying?" I asked, as the poor Cossack now threw himself on his knees, and raised his trembling hands and haggard eyes to heaven in supplication.
"He is praying to St. Sergius, and saying that, if his life that is to come in heaven were to be no better than it is on earth, as a corporal of Cossacks, pain and death would, indeed, be terrible!"
"Poor fellow!"
His sentence had been read over by Vladimir Dahl; and he and General Baur--both of whom wore cocked hats with immense green plumes, and well-furred soubas--withdrew a little way, and leaned composedly on their sabres, while the ramrods glittered in the rising sun, as the stolid-visaged firing party of twelve men loaded their rifles, cast them about, and capped. Now the chapel bell began to toll solemnly, and the standard waved, half-hoisted, in the wind.
The small, keen eyes of Pugacheff seemed fixed on vacancy. The old priest, in full canonicals, was praying with great earnestness and devotion; but the prisoner scarcely seemed to hear him.
Perhaps his eyes at that moment saw in fancy his father's cottage by the broad waters of the Lena; the grove of dark green pines that cast their shadows on the deep snow-wreaths, and the sharp, flinty summits of the distant hills, where the stalwart Siberian Cossack galloped in freedom, with his long, ready spear at his stirrup.
The fawning of the dog, Olga, now attracted the attention of the doomed man. He lifted it up, stroked, caressed, and kissed it tenderly, for the poor dog was, perhaps, his only friend. His rugged nature was melted, and I think there was a tear in his eye, as he looked with a haggard expression around him.
Suddenly his glance fell on me. He beckoned me to him, and gave me the dog, saying something, I know not what, hurriedly, and in a husky voice--a request, no doubt, that I would keep and be kind to the little animal when he was gone; and I led it away by its leather collar, just as the firing party brought their muskets to the "ready" and cocked them.
The dog whined and struggled fiercely with me. It broke away at last, and rushed to the side of its kneeling and blindfolded master, leaping, frisking, and barking joyously about him, just as the twelve death-shots flashed from the muzzles of the firing party.
When the smoke cleared away I saw the Cossack and his dog lying dead on the gravel, side by side. They had been shot at the same moment. Pugacheff had several balls in his head and breast, and from the white coat of the still quivering poodle a crimson current was pouring.
The corporal was buried in the dry ditch of Kourouk, and ere the last sods were put over his grave by the pioneers, his faithful little four-footed friend was thrown in beside him, by order of Vladimir Dahl, and they were covered up together.
The tolling of the chapel bell died away; hoisted to the truck, the Russian cross streamed out upon the morning wind; and so ended this little tragedy.
*CHAPTER XLVI.*
BEN. This wind you talk of blows us from ourselves!
Supper is done, and we shall come too late.
ROMEO. I fear too early; for my mind misgives,
Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night's revels; and expire the term
Of a despised life, closed in my breast,
By some vile forfeit of untimely death:
But he that hath the steerage of my course
Directs the sail!
SHAKSPEARE.
The noon of the succeeding day saw me several miles from the Castle of Kourouk, and pursuing the rugged old Tartar highway that was to conduct me to Yekaterinoslav, under the escort of Trebitski's Cossacks, about a hundred of whom, armed with sabres, pistols, and lances, and carrying their forage, food, and in most instances, plunder, rode in double file on each side of a train of kabitkas, which were filled with sick and wounded Russian soldiers, and, in a few instances, I saw Frenchmen among them.
Every jolt of those wretched waggons over the rough and rocky roads caused wounds to burst out afresh; groans and curses rose in the air, and blood was soon oozing or dripping through the salt-encrusted planking on the dusty highway.
These kabitkas are Tartar waggons, which are driven in vast numbers to Perecop for the conveyance of the salt, which, in the dry season--from June till August--lies on the plains or steppes so thick that they are usually driven axle-deep among it for loading.
A number of these waggons had been improvised by General Baur for ambulance purposes; and now I found myself seated in one, among some bloody and dirty straw, with three severely wounded men of the 45th, or Tambrov regiment, and a French officer, whose face was half hidden by a large bandage, discoloured by the blood of a sword-wound, which had laid open his right cheek.
Intent upon escape, I looked earnestly and constantly before me; but we were now traversing an undulating plain, that was dotted by a few trees, of strange aspect, and the flocks of the Nomadic Tartars. And as the path dipped down over an eminence, I took a last farewell, but certainly not "fond look," of Kourouk, with its two burnished domes, which glittered brightly in the sunshine, while the Mountain of the Tent looked faint and blue in distance.
Trebitski, the Cossack officer, had conceived, I knew why, a personal animosity for me; and ever and anon, as if he would anticipate any attempt on my part to escape, he hovered about the kabitka in which I was reclining, and recoiling in disgust from the grey-coated Muscovites who lay beside me, and whose presence made the air redolent of Stamboul tobacco, bloody bandages, and the Russian leather of their clumsy boots and coarse accoutrements.
One of the first acts of the pitiful Trebitski was to deprive me of a small basket of rations--cold fowl, wine, &c.--provided for me by the kindness of Vladimir Dahl and Captain Anitchoff, and to substitute in their place a meagre allowance of the black bread, salt, and vodka used by the half-barbarian escort.
I determined to report this petty theft on reaching his head-quarters; but where were they?
At Yekaterinoslav, on the banks of the Dnieper, in the territory of the Cossacks of Azof, far over the desert plains that lie beyond the Isthmus of Perecop, whose vast fortress bars the way from the Crimea to the mainland of Europe.
My blood boiled up with vengeance against Berkeley, my betrayer, and my entire soul revolted at the prospect of such a heartless and hopeless journey, with a doubtful termination--a captivity, the end of which none could foresee; and the desire--a deep, clamorous, and heart-burning desire--of escape at any hazard grew strong within me; but I was without weapon, money, or a horse.
Oh, that I had but five minutes' start, with such an animal under me as that ridden by Trebitski, which was a beautiful and powerful Arab, whose actions were full of lightness and grace!
To increase my annoyance, this bearded commander got tipsy more than once on brandy and absinthe; and then he would shake his crooked sabre at me with many "strange oaths," of which I could make nothing; but I thought that, if some of those "wives and daughters of England," who think foreigners so interesting, had been with us in the Crimea, their ideas of continentals might have changed in favour of their more prosaic countrymen.
"Ouf! pst! pst!" I heard the wounded Frenchman muttering, as he raised himself from an uneasy doze, and looked about him with one eye, that glared wildly, for bandages concealed the other. "But for this devilish Crimean business, I should have been flirting in the Bois de Boulogne, lounging in the Gardens of the Tuileries, eating ices at Tortoni's, or drinking lemonade at a cafe chantant with la belle Rogolboche. Pst! pst! c'est le diable!" Then, addressing himself to me, he said, "Ah, le Cossaque!--yon devil of a Trebitski--is a shocking ruffian--a veritable brigand! Luckily, the Russian savage does not understand a word we say. He has stolen your rations, and left you--pah! what a dog wouldn't eat; but I have something better, and you shall dine with me."
"I thank you, monsieur," said I.
"Comrades in glory, we shall be friends in misfortune!" exclaimed the Frenchman, with great emphasis. While he ran on thus, something in his voice seemed familiar to me.
"You are, monsieur--you are----"
"Exactly, my friend; Victor Baudeuf, at your service--Captain of the French line."
"I thought you were killed at Alma!"
"Only half killed, as you may see. Pardieu! but who told you so?"
"Mademoiselle Sophie."
"The vivandiere of the 2nd Zouaves?"
"Yes."
"Ah! she had always a spite at me--that dear little Sophie. You should see her riding at the head of the 2nd, with her canteen slung over her shoulder, and a cigarette between her little fingers, and a saucy twinkle in her bright eyes as she sings--
"Vivandiere du regiment
C'est Catin qu'on me nomme,
Je vends, je donne, et bois gaiment
Mon vin et mon rogomme.
"I hope she may escape all this wild work, and see our beautiful France again. No, monsieur, I was not killed, but most severely wounded--left for dead--and thus fell into the hands of these beastly fellows. I remember you now, monsieur. We often met at Varna, at the Restaurant de l'Armee d'Orient. A droll den it was! And you remember Jules Jolicoeur, of the 2nd Zouaves. Poor Jules! A round shot finished him at Alma. He has gone to his last account. Heaven rest him! You are a Scotsman, I believe, though I always took you for a Jean Boule--a biftek; and so you shall dine with me. 'Fier comme un Ecossais,' is still a proverb among us in France, in memory of the old times, which our Zouaves are about to renew, I think; for they boast themselves 'les Ecossais de l'Armee Francaise,' and fraternize like brothers with your sans culotte regiments, in what you call 'lakeelt.'"
All this sounded so like some of Toole's "French before breakfast," that I could almost have laughed at my garrulous friend, who produced from a small havresack, which he opened with his left hand--the right being severely shattered by a grape shot--one of those pates de foies gras for which Strasbourg is so famous; made from the livers of geese, after the poor birds have undergone a process there is no use in detailing here. Heaven knows how M. Baudeuf came by it, but the pate, with his biscuit, he divided very liberally with me, and with the three wounded Russians, who shared with us the soft comforts of the kabitka, and whose glances of hungry appeal there was no resisting.
Aware that they knew not a word we were saying, we conversed freely; and I told the Frenchman that, as no parole had been offered us, we should escape together. He replied that the hazard was great; yet that he would have shared it with me, but for his shattered hand, which made him every way so helpless. He wished me every success, and gave me secretly a little map of the Crimea, which he had concealed in the lining of his tattered uniform; and this on every occasion I studied intently.
"Mutilated as I am, it is of no use to me," said he; "but may serve you, mon camarade, at a pinch."
It was small, and by Huot and Demidoff; but was extremely correct.
On our arrival at Karasu-bazar, sixteen or eighteen miles from Kourouk, I was separated from this pleasant Frenchman. I never saw him again, and have too much reason to fear that he perished amid the horrors of a catastrophe which ensued subsequently.
It was evening when, after traversing a pleasant valley, we entered Karasu-bazar, so slow had been the progress of our primitive train of cars, with their melancholy load of human suffering. Situated on the Karasu, an affluent of the Salghir, this town is the great wine and fruit mart of the Crimea; and there a strange rabble of Tartars in short jackets, with open sleeves, high caps, and high boots; Greeks in scarlet fez and baggy blue breeches; Russians, with fur caps and canvas doublets, trimmed with fur; and Armenians, in long, flowing garments, crowded around us.
These escorted us through the narrow and tortuous streets in the dusk. To attempt an escape there would be futile, notwithstanding that the Tambrov uniform which I wore seemed to favour the idea.
Darkness set in. We were closely guarded; and now I heard the shrill, vicious whistle of a railway engine, and found the train of kabitkas halted near some wooden booths, where the wires and posts of a telegraph, a platform, and covered passenger shed, with other familiar features of the usual kind, indicated a railway station!
In fact, we had reached the head of a single track line of railroad, which had been hastily constructed for the conveyance of troops and munition of war a portion of the way towards Perecop; and probably it might have been carried to Arabat, at the head of the Putrid Sea, or to Sebastopol itself, but for the rapid advance of the Allies.
Roughly constructed and hastily laid down, it led from the banks of the Karasu I knew not at the time whither, as it was not depicted in the map given to me by Captain Baudeuf, from whom I was now, as I have said, separated.
We were all hurriedly thrust into carriages, or rather trucks, like those for conveying cattle in Britain, without seat or other accommodation, save a little straw for the miserable wounded, whose numbers were greatly augmented by some fugitives from Khutor-Mackenzie.
The line of trucks might be, I suppose, about forty, including one which bore the gallant Trebitski with his "Araby steed;" and three quaint and old-fashioned locomotives, with large wheels and high chimneys, were getting up their steam--one in front, one in rear, and one in the centre; and these, after much wheezing and puffing, screaming and clanking, with other discordant noises, got into motion simultaneously, and in the dark we shot away from the streets and bazaars of the Karasu, for where was yet a mystery to me.
The Cossack escort was now reduced to twenty dismounted men, who left their horses and lances behind them, and were distributed among the carriages; but luckily there were none in mine.
We had scarcely left the lights of the town behind us, when an odour of burning attracted my attention, and the attention of those who were penned up like sheep in the same truck with me. We could only communicate our fears by signs, and heads were constantly put forth on both sides of the train, and withdrawn, always with exclamations of excitement, while the alarming odour increased strongly.
The lines of rail were laid on sleepers of wood, and I imagined that, perhaps, the hot ashes dropping from the three engines might cause the smell of burning that was filling the air heavily, as we tore along past hills and rocks, the domes of village mosques, or churches, tipped with silver light by the rising moon; along wooden bridges that spanned hoarse and brawling mountain streams; across open wastes, where the millet, rye, and hemp had been reaped and gathered, or where the wild tobacco still grew; past slopes clothed by dark waving woods, the chestnut, the oak, and the wild pear tree, the rush of the train, and the scream of the engine scaring away the goshawks, the magpie, and kite from their nests; past round towers, arches, and aqueducts, the crumbling ruins of the old Genoese days; past where flocks and herds were grazing, till they fled on the noise of our approach.
And now the train dashed into a forest of pine and turpentine trees, through which it seemed to rush for miles upon miles, its speed augmenting every instant, while the odour of burning increased with every revolution of the wheels.
Anon, loud cries of terror and agony rang out at times upon the night breeze; and now a light--actual flames, other than those which came from the furnaces--occasionally shed its swift red gleam upon the gnarled tree stems that stood in thick ranks on each side of the way; and then came the appalling conviction upon all our minds that, in addition to having run off, or having been abandoned by its stupid Muscovite engine-drivers, the train was on fire!
In those open and rudely-constructed trucks, there were no windows to lower. I thrust my head through the nearest opening, and found that the two carriages in front of ours were a mass of flames, which burst forth fiercely from all the apertures, and these, as they rushed in streams behind, in consequence of the intense draught caused by the wild speed at which the train careered through the forest, were setting our carriage on fire also. Fortunately I was in the rear compartment, and for a time could look steadily ahead.
Oh, what a sight it was!
The footways on each side of the carriages that were on fire were literally alive with sick and wounded wretches, who had crept out, and now clung to the steps and handles, by which the guards usually clamber about, afraid alike to fall or cast themselves off; but every instant a shriek was heard, as the grasp of some maimed or feeble unfortunate relaxed, and he vanished from sight as the train swept on. Some fell into watercourses, some fell over banks, and were flung into the forest, the turpentine trees of which, in many places, were now in flames.
The straw amid which the more helpless wounded lay was soon on fire. Many of them were literally roasted alive, and I heard the pistols of the Cossacks exploding, as they went off in the heat, or as their despairing wearers shot themselves or each other.
The engine-drivers, for some reason unknown to me, must have jumped off and abandoned the train, for it swept through the forest unchecked, a mass of flames, from which the yells and shrieks were appalling. More than one carriage was literally burned down to its iron, all within perishing miserably.
Even at that desperate time the hope of escape grew strong within me, for every confusion was favourable. Being locked in on both sides, I crept through an aperture which served for a window, and found footing on the side gangway, with two or three others, who clung to the carriage and moaned fearfully, for the exertion had made their gunshot wounds burst out afresh. They soon dropped off, and I was left alone.
The rush of the glowing flames came hotly aft upon my face and hands. I saw the clinging mass ahead, swaying to and fro, their faces and figures reddened in the scorching glare, which lit up the line of rails like two red-hot wires that vanished into the forest--all this I saw for a moment, and a moment only.
I was about to drop off, and trust to Providence for the sequel, when there was a sudden shout, a crash, a vast shower of ruddy sparks, that seemed to fill the air with fire, a piercing yell, and then, in silence and darkness, I found myself rolling down a grassy bank for some twenty yards or so, until I was arrested from further harm by some soft tobacco plants, which there grew wild and thickly.
Unhurt, but greatly confused, and completely breathless I staggered up to look around me.
The coupling of two of the burning carriages had broken; they had tumbled heavily down the bank, breaking to pieces as they fell, scattering the brands of their blazing woodwork far and wide, killing outright some of the scorched and wounded occupants, several of whom I saw lying near me in the moonlight, blackened and mutilated, while the remainder of the train, with its three engines, all abandoned by their cowardly conductors, swept on its errand of destruction and death through the now flaming forest.
As I rose from amid the strange debris of smouldering wood and shattered iron, of dead or dying, and half-burned men, and was considering in which way to turn, I was met face to face by one whose right arm was broken, but who, nevertheless, uttered a hoarse and guttural malediction, with which I was not unfamiliar, having heard it frequently from his lips before. Drawing a pistol from his belt, with his left hand he levelled it at my head.
Luckily the percussion cap snapped, and the weapon hung fire. But to close with Trebitski--for he it was--to wrench the pistol away, and knock him mercilessly down with the butt-end, were all the work of a moment, and then I felt that I was "the monarch of all I surveyed."
I was turning away, when a peculiar snorting sound attracted my attention, and in a well-padded horse-box, which lay on its side far down the slope, I saw the head of Trebitski's Arab charger, as the poor animal lolled out its red tongue, and threw back its small close ears in terror and anger, for the sides of the horse-box were all scorched by flame; and the mere odour of fire is sufficient to inspire a horse with the most bewildering fear.
Here had Providence given me an additional chance for escape. But I had no time to lose; the train might be stopped by this time (though no sound, save the moans of the maimed, now disturbed the silence of that woody solitude), and succour might be sent to the sufferers, though human life is but little valued in Russia, and human suffering is viewed there with an amount of indifference that savours more of Asia than of Europe.
My dragoon knowledge served me usefully here. I contrived to calm and soothe the Arab horse, to unbuckle the braces that secured it in the partly-shattered stall, and it came forth, half-scrambling and half-crawling, trembling in every limb, and every fibre quivering under its glossy coat, which was flecked with white foam. Cowed, calmed, and terrified by the recent catastrophe, the horse was as docile as if Mr. Rarey had been whispering his magic in its ear.
A noble Arab, with all the peculiarities of its breed--the square forehead and fine black muzzle, the brilliant eyes and beautiful veins, the withers high and body light, and standing somewhere about fourteen hands and a half--it was whinnying, and rubbing its nose on my hand as if for protection and fellowship.
He was saddled and accoutred, and the bridle was hanging on the pommel.
In a moment I had it over his head, and buckled to perfection, the bridoon touching the corners of the mouth, but low enough not to wrinkle them.
I vaulted into the saddle, leaving the adjustment of the stirrups to a more leisure time, as Trebitski, in Cossack fashion, rode with his knees up to his elbows; and just as that redoubtable personage was reviving after his rough tap on the head, I dashed into the forest, and soon left the scene of suffering far behind me.
In several places the wood was on fire, and, being dry with the heat of the past summer, the branches and crisp leaves, particularly those of the turpentine trees, burned briskly. Thus I could see the wavering flames reddening the clouds above, while riding on, and ignorant of the route I was pursuing, through this dense old forest, the jungle and underwood at times completely retarding all progress.
