CHAPTER XL.--A PERILOUS DUTY.

I have said that, ere the regular hutting of the army for the winter

siege began, quarters were found for me by fate elsewhere; a

circumstance which came about in the following manner. All may have

heard of the famous solitary ride of Lieutenant Maxse of the Royal

Navy, to open a communication between headquarters and Balaclava; and

it was my chance to have a similar solitary ride to perform, but,

unfortunately, to fail in achieving the end that was in view. One

afternoon, on being informed by the adjutant of ours that I was wanted

at headquarters, I assumed my sword and sash--indeed, these

appurtenances were rarely off us--and putting my tattered uniform in

such order as the somewhat limited means of my "toilet-table"

admitted, repaired at once, and not without considerable surprise, and

some vague misgivings, to the house inhabited by Lord Raglan. I had

there to wait for some time, as he was busy with some of the

headquarter staff, and had just been holding a conference with certain

French officers of rank, who were accompanied by their aides and

orderlies. Among them I saw the fat and full-faced but soldier-like

Marshal Pelissier, the future Duc de Malakoff, with his cavalry escort

and banner; and grouped about the place, or departing therefrom, I saw

Chasseurs d'Afrique in sky-blue jackets and scarlet trousers; Imperial

Cuirassiers in helmets and corslets of glittering steel; French horse

artillery with caps of fur and pelisses covered with red braid. There,

too, were many of our own staff officers, with their plumed hats; even

the Turkish cavalry escort of some pasha, stolid-looking fellows in

scarlet fezzes, were there, their unslung carbines resting on the

right thigh; and I saw some of our Land Transport Corps, in red

jackets braided with black, loitering about, as if some important

movement was on the tapis; but whatever had been suggested, nothing

was fated to come of it.

Through the buzz and Babel of several languages, I was ushered at

last, by an orderly sergeant, into the little dingy room where the

Commander-in-chief of our Eastern army usually held his councils or

consultations, received reports, and prepared his plans. The military

secretary, the chief of the staff, the adjutant-general, and some

other officers, whose uniforms were all threadbare, darned, and

discoloured, and whose epaulettes were tattered, frayed, and reduced

almost to black wire, were seated with him at a table, which was

littered with letters, reports, despatches, telegrams, and plans of

Sebastopol, with the zigzags, the harbour, the valley of the

Tchernaya, and of the whole Crimea. And it was not without an emotion

of interest and pleasure, that I found myself before our old and

amiable leader, the one-armed Lord Raglan--he whose kindly nature,

charity, urbanity, and queer signature as _Fitzroy Somerset_, when

military secretary, had been so long known in our army during the days

of peace; and to whom the widow or the orphan of a soldier never

appealed in vain.

"Glad to see you, Captain Hardinge," said he, bowing in answer to my

salute; "I have a little piece of duty for you to perform, and the

chief of the staff" (here he turned to the future hero of the attack

on the Redan) "has kindly reminded me of how well you managed the

affair of the flag of truce sent to the officer on the Russian left,

concerning the major of the 93rd Highlanders."

I bowed again and waited.

"My personal aides," he continued, "are all knocked up or engaged

elsewhere just now, and I have here a despatch for Marshal Canrobert,

requiring an immediate answer, as there is said to be an insurrection

among the Polish troops within Sebastopol, and if so, you will readily

perceive the necessity for taking instant advantage of it. At this

precise time, the Marshal is at a Tartar village on the road to

Kokoz." (Here his lordship pointed to a map of the Crimea.) "It lies

beyond the Pass of Baidar, which you will perceive indicated there,

and consequently is about thirty English miles to our rear and right.

You can neither miss him nor the village, I think, by any possibility,

as it is occupied by his own old corps, the 3rd Zouaves, a French line

regiment, and four field guns. You will deliver to him this letter,

and bring me his answer without delay."

"Unless I fail, my lord."

"As Richelieu says in the play, 'there is no such word as fail!'" he

replied, smiling. "But, however, in case of danger, for there _are_

Cossacks about, you must take heed to destroy the despatch."

"Very good, my lord--I shall go with pleasure."

"You have a horse, I presume?"

"I had not thought of that, my lord--a horse, no; here I can scarcely

feed myself, and find no use for a horse."

"Take mine--I have a spare one," said the chief of the staff, who was

then a major-general and C.B. He rang the hand-bell for the orderly

sergeant, to whom he gave a message. Then I had a glass or two of

sherry from a simple black bottle; Lord Raglan gave me his missive

sealed, and shook my hand with that energy peculiar to the one-armed,

and a few minutes more saw me mounted on a fine black horse, belonging

to the chief of the staff, and departing on my lonely mission. The

animal I rode--round in the barrel, high in the forehead, and deep in

the chest, sound on its feet and light in hand--was a thorough English

roadster--a nag more difficult to find in perfection than even the

hunter or racer; but his owner was fated to see him no more.

I rode over to the lines of the regiment, to let some of our

fellows--who all envied me, yet wished me well--know of the duty

assigned me. What was it to me whether or not _she_ saw my name in

despatches, in orders, or in the death list? Whether I distinguished

myself or died mattered little to me, and less now to her. It was a

bitter conviction; so excitement and forgetfulness alike of the past

and of the present were all I sought--all I cared for. Caradoc,

however, wisely and kindly suggested some alteration or modification

in my uniform, as the country through which I had to pass was

certainly liable to sudden raids by scouting Cossacks. So, for my red

coat and bearskin, I hastily substituted the blue undress surtout,

forage cap, and gray greatcoat. I had my sword, revolver, and

ammunition pouch at my waist-belt. Perceiving that I was gloomy and

sullen, and somewhat low-spirited in eye and bearing, Caradoc and

Charley Gwynne, who could not comprehend what had "been up" with me

for some time past, and who openly assured me that they envied me this

chance of "honourable mention," accompanied me a little way beyond the

line of sentries on our right flank.

"Au revoir, old fellow! Keep up your heart and remember all I have

said to you," were Phil's parting words, "and together we shall sing

and be merry. I hope to keep the 1st of March in Sebastopol, and there

to chorus our old mess room song;" and as he waved his hand to me, the

light-hearted fellow sang a verse of a ditty we were wont to indulge

in on St. David's-day, while Toby Purcell's spurs were laid on the

table, and the band, preceded by the goat led by the drum-major with a

salver of leeks, marched in procession round it:

"Then pledge me a toast to the glory of Wales--

To her sons and her daughters, her hills and her vales;

Once more--here's a toast to the mighty of old--

To the fair and the gentle, the wise and the bold;

Here's a health to whoever, by land or by sea,

Has been true to the Wales of the brave and the free!"

And poor Phil Caradoc's voice, carolling this local ditty, was the

last sound I heard, as I took the path that led first towards

Balaclava and thence to the place of my destination, while the sun of

the last day of November was shedding lurid and farewell gleams on the

spires and white walls of Sebastopol. Many descriptions have rendered

the name and features of Balaclava so familiar to all, with its old

Genoese fort, its white Arnaout dwellings shaded by poplars and other

trees, that I mean to skip farther notice of it, and also of the mud

and misery of the place itself--the beautiful and landlocked harbour,

once so secluded, then crowded with man-of-war boats and steam

launches, and made horrible by the swollen and sweltering carcasses of

hundreds of troop-horses, which our seamen and marines used as

stepping-stones when leaping from boat to boat or to the shore. Some

little episodes made an impression upon me, which I am unlikely to

forget, after approaching Balaclava by a cleft between those rocky

heights where our cavalry were encamped, and where, by ignominiously

making draught-horses of their troopers for the conveyance of planks,

they were busily erecting a town of huts that looked like a "backwood"

hamlet. A picturesque group was formed by some of the kilted Highland

Brigade, brawny and bearded men, their muscular limbs displayed by

their singular costume, piling a cairn above the trench where some of

their dead comrades lay, thus fulfilling one of the oldest customs of

their country--in the words of Ossian, "raising the stones above the

mighty, that they might speak to the little sons of future years."

Elsewhere I saw two Frenchmen carrying a corpse on a stretcher, from

which they coolly tilted it into a freshly dug hole, and began to

cover it up, singing the while as cheerily as the grave-digger in

_Hamlet_, which I deemed a striking proof of the demoralising effect

of war--for their comrade was literally buried exactly as a dog would

have been in England; and yet, that the last element of civilisation

might not be wanting, a gang of "navvies" were laying down the

sleepers for the first portion of the camp-railway, through the main

street of Balaclava, the Bella-chiare of the adventurous Genoese.

Though I did not loiter there, the narrow way was so deep with mud,

and so encumbered by the débris and material of war, that my progress

was very slow, and darkness was closing in on land and sea when I

wheeled off to the left in the direction of Kokoz, after obtaining

some brandy from a vivandière of the 12th French Infantry--not the

pretty girl with the semi-uniform, the saucy smile, and slender

ankles, who beats the drum and pirouettes so prettily as the orthodox

stage vivandière--but a stout French female party, muffled in a

bloodstained Russian greatcoat, with a tawny imp squalling at her

back. I passed the ground whereon the picturesque Sardinian army was

afterwards to encamp, and soon entered the lovely Baidar valley. The

mountains and the dense forests made me think of Wales, for on my

right lay a deep ravine with rocks and water that reflected the stars;

on my left were abrupt but well-wooded crags, and I could not but look

first on one side, and then on the other, with some uneasiness; for

Russian riflemen might be lurking among the latter, and stray Cossacks

might come prowling down the former, far in rear of Canrobert's

advanced post at the Tartar village. A column such as he had with him

might penetrate with ease to a distance most perilous for a single

horseman; and this valley, lovely though it was--the Tempe of the

Crimea--I was particularly anxious to leave behind me. I have said

that I felt reckless of peril, and so I did, being reckless enough and

ready enough to face any danger in front; yet I disliked the idea of

being quietly "potted" by some Muscovite boor lying _en perdue_,

behind a bush, and then being brained or bayoneted by him afterwards;

for I knew well that those who were capable of murdering our helpless

wounded on the field, would have few compunctions elsewhere.

Reflection now brought another idea--a very unpleasant one--to mind.

Though I was in _rear_ of this French advanced post, there was nothing

to prevent Cossack scouts--active and ubiquitous as the Uhlans of

Prussia--from deeming me a spy and treating me as such, if they found

me there; for was not Major André executed most ignominiously by the

Americans on that very charge, though taken in the uniform of the

Cameronian regiment?

Unfortunately for me, there were and are two roads through the Baidar

valley: one by the pass, of recent construction; and the other, the

ancient horse-road, which is old, perhaps, as the days of the Greeks

of Klimatum. A zigzag ascent, and a gallery hewn through the granite

rocks for some fifty yards or so, lead to a road from whence, by its

lofty position, the whole line of shore can be seen for miles, and the

sea, as I saw it then, dotted by the red top-lights of our men-o'-war

and transports. The other follows for some little distance, certainly,

the same route nearly, but comes ere long to the Devil's Staircase,

the steps of which are trunks of trees alternated by others hewn out

of the solid rock; and this perilous path lies, for some part of the

way at least, between dark, shadowy, and enormous masses of impending

cliffs, where any number of men might be taken by surprise. And

certainly I felt my heart beat faster, with the mingled emotions of

fierce excitement and stern joy, as I hooked my sword-hilt close up to

my waist-belt, assured myself that the caps were on my revolver, and

spurred my roadster forward. Darkness was completely set in now, and

before me there twinkled one solitary star at the distant end of the

gloomy and rocky tunnel through which I was pursuing my solitary way.