CHAPTER XXX.--NEWS OF BATTLE.

We came in sight of Malta at daybreak on the 28th of September, and

about noon dropped our anchor in the Marsamuscetta, or quarantine

harbour, where all ships under the rank of a frigate must go. This

celebrated isle, the master-key of the Mediterranean, the link that

connects us with Egypt and India, was a new scene to me. Mostyn and

some others on board the Urgent had been quartered there before, and

while I was surveying the vast strength of its batteries of white

sandstone, with those apparently countless cannon, that peer through

the deep embrasures, or frown _en barbette_ over the sea; the quaint

appearance of those streets of stairs, which Byron anathematised; the

singular architecture of the houses, so Moorish in style and aspect,

with heavy, overhanging balconies and flat roofs all connected, so

that the dwellers therein can make a common promenade of them; the

groups of picturesque, half-nude, and tawny Maltese; the monks and

clerical students in rusty black cloaks and triangular hats; the Greek

sailors, in short jackets and baggy blue breeches; the numbers of

scarlet uniforms, and those of the Chasseurs de Vincennes (for two

French three-deckers full of the latter had just come in); the naked

boys who dived for halfpence in the harbour, and jabbered a dialect

that was more Arabic than Italian--while surveying all this from the

poop, through my field-glass, Mostyn was pointing out to me the great

cathedral of St. John, some of the auberges of the knights, and

anticipating the pleasure of a fruit lunch in the Strada Reale, a

drive to Monte Benjemma, a dinner at Morell's, in the Strada Forni, a

cigar on the ramparts, and then dropping into the opera-house, which

was built by the Grand-master Manoel Vilhena, and where the best

singers from La Scala may be heard in the season; and Price of ours

was already soft and poetical in the ideas of faldettas of lace, black

eyes, short skirts, and taper ankles, and anticipating or suggesting

various soft things. While the soldiers clustered in the waist, as

thick as bees, the officers were all busy with their lorgnettes on the

poop, or in preparation for a run ashore, when the bells of Valetta

began to ring a merry peal, the ships in the harbour to show all their

colours, and a gun flashed redly from the massive granite ramparts of

St. Elmo, a place of enormous strength, having in its lower bastions a

sunk barrack, capable of holding two thousand infantry.

"Another gun!" exclaimed little Tom Clavell, as a second cannon sent

its peal over the flat roofs, and another; "a salute, by Jove! What is

up--is this an anniversary?"

It was _no_ anniversary, however, and on the troopship coming to

anchor in the crowded and busy harbour, and the quarantine boat coming

on board, we soon learned what was "up;" the news spread like

lightning through the vessel, from lip to lip and ear to ear; the hum

grew into a roar, and ended in the soldiers and sailors giving three

hearty cheers, to which many responded from other ships, and from the

shore; while the bands of the Chasseurs de Vincennes, on board the

three-deckers, struck up the "Marseillaise."

News had just come in that four days ago a battle had been fought by

Lord Raglan and Marshal St. Arnaud at a place called the Alma in Crim

Tartary; that the allied troops after terrible slaughter were

victorious, and the Russians were in full retreat. That evening a few

of us dined at the mess of the Buffs, a battalion of which was

quartered in the castle of St. Elmo. The officers occupied one of the

knights' palaces--the Auberge de Bavière--near that bastion where the

Scottish hero of Alexandria is lying in the grave that so becomes his

fate and character. This auberge is a handsome building overlooking

the blue sea, which almost washes its walls; and there we heard the

first hasty details of that glorious battle, the story of which filled

our hearts with regret and envy that we had not borne a share in it,

and which formed a source of terrible anxiety to the poor wives of

many officers who had left them behind at Malta, and who could only

see the fatal lists after their transmission to London. We heard the

brief story of that tremendous uphill charge made by the Light

Division--the Welsh Fusileers, the 19th, 33rd, 88th, and other

regiments--supported by the Guards and Highlanders; that the 33rd

alone had _nineteen_ reliefs shot under their two colours, which were

perforated by sixty-five bullet-holes. We heard how Colonel Chesters

of ours, and eight of his officers, fell dead at the same moment, and

that Charley Gwynne, Phil Caradoc, and many more were wounded.

"On, on, my gallant 23rd!" were the last words of Chesters, as he fell

from his horse.

We heard how two of our boy ensigns, Buller and little Anstruther of

Balcaskie, were shot dead with the colours in their hands; how

Connelly, Wynne, young Radcliffe, and many more, all fell sword in

hand; how the regiment had fought like tigers, and that Sir George

Brown, after his horse was shot under him, led them on foot, with his

hat in his hand, crying, "Hurrah for the Royal Welsh! Come on, my

boys!"

And on they went, till Private Evans planted the Red Dragon on the

great redoubt, where nine hundred men were lying dead. The heights

were taken by a rush, and the first gun captured from the Russians was

by Major Bell of ours, who brought it out of the field. A passionate

glow of triumph and exultation filled my heart; I felt proud of our

army, but of my regiment in particular, for the brave fellows of the

Buffs were loud in their commendations of the 23rd; proud that I wore

the same uniform and the same badges in which so many had perished

with honour. None but a soldier, perhaps, can feel or understand all

this, or that _esprit de corps_ already referred to, and which sums up

love of country, kindred, pride of self and profession, in one. But

anon came the chilling and mortifying thought that I enjoyed only

reflected honours. Why was I now seated amid the splendour and luxury

of a mess in the Auberge de Bavière? Why was I not yonder, where so

many had won glory or a grave? How provoking was the chance, the mere

chain of military contingencies, by which I had lost all participation

in that great battle, the first fought in Europe since Waterloo--this

Alma, that was now in all men's mouths, and in the heart of many a

wife and mother, fought and won while we had been sailing on the sea,

and while the unconscious folks at home throughout the British Isles

were going about their peaceful avocations; when thousands of men and

women, parents and wives, whose tenderest thoughts were with our

gallant little host, were ignorant that those they loved best on earth

perhaps were already cold, mutilated, and buried in hasty graves

beneath its surface, in a place before unheard of, or by them unknown.

So great was the slaughter in my own regiment, that though I was only

a lieutenant, there seemed to be every prospect of my winning ere long

the huge spurs won by Toby Purcell at the Boyne Water; but my turn of

sharp service was coming; for, though I could not foresee it all then,

Inkermann was yet to be fought, the Quarries to be contested, the

Mamelon and Redan to be stormed, and Sebastopol itself had yet to

fall. Had I shared in that battle by the Alma, I might have perished,

and been lost to Estelle for ever; leaving her, perhaps, to be wooed

and won by another, when I was dead and forgotten like the last year's

snow. This reflection cooled my ardour a little; for love made me

selfish, or disposed to be more economical of my person, after my

enthusiasm and the fumes of the Buffs' champagne passed away; and now

from Malta I wrote the first letter I had ever addressed to her, full

of what the reader may imagine, and sent with it a suite of those

delicate and beautiful gold filigree ornaments, for the manufacture of

which the Maltese jewellers are so famed; and when I sealed my packet

at the Clarendon in the Strada San Paola, I sighed while reflecting

that I could receive no answer to it, with assurances of her love and

sorrow, until after I had been face to face with those same Muscovites

whom my comrades had hurled from the heights of the Alma.

Three days after this intelligence arrived we quitted Malta, and had a

fair and rapid run for the Dardanelles. The first morning found us,

with many a consort full of troops, skirting, under easy sail, the

barren-looking isle of Cerigo--of old, the fabled abode of the goddess

of love, now the Botany Bay of the Ionians; its picturesque old town

and fort encircled by a chain of bare, brown, and rugged mountains,

whose peaks the rising sun was tipping with fire. As if to remind us

that we were near the land of Minerva, and of the curious Ascalaphus,

"Begat in Stygian shades

On Orphnè, famed among Avernal maids,"

many little dusky owls perched on the yards and booms, where they

permitted themselves to be caught. Ere long the Isthmus of Corinth

came in sight--that long tract of rock connecting the bleak-looking

Morea with the Grecian continent, and uniting two chains of lofty

mountains, the classical names of which recalled the days of our

school-boy tasks; thence on to Candia, the hills of which rose so pale

and white from the deep indigo blue of the sea, that they seemed as if

sheeted with the snow of an early winter; but when we drew nearer the

shore, the land-wind wafted towards us the aromatic odour that arises

from the rank luxuriance of the vast quantity of flowers and shrubs

which there grow wild, and form food for the wild goats and hares.

Every hour produced some new, or rather ancient, object of interest as

we ploughed the classic waters of the Ægean Sea, and no man among us,

who had read and knew the past glories, traditions, and poetry of the

shores we looked on, could hear uttered without deep interest the

names of those isles and bays--that on yonder plain, as we skirted the

mainland of Asia, stood the Troy of Priam; that yonder hill towering

in the background, a purple cone against a golden sky, was Mount Ida

capped with snow, Scamander flowing at its foot; Ida, where Paris, the

princely shepherd, adjudged the prize of beauty to Venus, and whence

the assembled gods beheld the Trojan strife; for every rock and peak

we looked on was full of the memories of ancient days, and of that

"bright land of battle and of song," which Byron loved with all a

poet's enthusiasm. Dusk was closing as we entered the Hellespont; the

castles of Europe and Asia were, however, distinctly visible, and we

could see the red lights that shone in the Turkish fort, and the

windmills whirling on the Sigean promontory, as we glided, with

squared yards, before a fair and steady breeze, into those famous

straits which Mohammed IV. fortified to secure his city and fleets

against the fiery energy of the Venetians; and now, as I do not mean

"to talk guide-book," our next chapter will find us in the land of

strife and toil, of battle and the pest; in that Crim Tartary which,

to so many among us, was to prove the land of death and doom.