Читать книгу From Midshipman to Field Marshal - Evelyn Wood - Страница 7

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At 2.30 on the 7th October all the officers saw the first detachment of guns’ crews march off. It interested me to recall this fact when commanding the Aldershot Division, thirty-five years later, and I had difficulty to ensure that officers examined the soldiers’ water-bottles when parading for a long march; for my Diary shows that at 2.30 on the 17th October 1854 the officers felt every wooden canteen which carried water, some with a dash of rum in it. We opened every man’s haversack to ensure that he had his salt pork and biscuit, and the Navy owes, to such personal attention to details, much of its success.

At 6.30 a.m. the bombardment opened, and those in camp fidgeted about till nine o’clock, when Lieutenant Douglas having appropriated my pony, cantered up to the Picket-house, whence he could see the Artillery duel, promising to return soon to enable me to have a look at the operations. This pony had been a great convenience to us all, and especially to me; for whenever we stopped work during the first few days after landing, the Commander sent me away on messages, so that I got neither rest nor regular meals.16 I had given 15s. for the animal. It was stolen from me soon after, but I replaced it early in November by one I bought out of a drove brought by a speculator from Asia Minor. For this I gave £18, but it was a cheap purchase, for it lived until 1883 at my mother’s, and later, my sister’s residence, in Essex, for the last years of its life.

Lieutenant Douglas had been away half an hour when a Bluejacket ran into the camp from the battery telling us there had been many casualties. He brought an order from Captain Peel for every available man in camp to go down to the battery with powder. I at once loaded up four Maltese carts, with the Relief of the Queen’s men, and hurried away down the Woronzow ravine, fearing lest my Senior officer might return, and taking the powder himself, order me to remain in camp. When we got to within 500 yards of the 21-gun battery, several shot and shell from the Redan, about 2000 yards distant, passed over our heads on the road which is carried down the ravine. We were lower than the battery, and in a line so as to receive the over-shoot of the Russian guns; a shell bursting immediately over the cart alongside which I was walking, carried away one of the wheel spokes. The men in the shafts and at the drag ropes, dropping their hold, ran for cover. I am constitutionally nervous, but it did not occur to me to run, and thus I was enabled to make a good start with the men, by ordering them peremptorily to return to their duty. I should add that I saw immediately the danger was over. When we got directly behind the battery we were practically in safety, being sheltered by the eastern cliff; for the road there runs deep in the ravine, in some caves on the eastern side of which we stored the powder, and I went into the battery by its left or western end.

The smoke was so dense from the continuous fire as to shut out all objects more than a few yards distant, but I knew the position of the battery well. For a week I had been constantly in it by night and by day; indeed, I had guided Commodore Lushington down on his first visit, thereby gaining a dinner, which was all the more acceptable just then as we were living entirely on salt beef and salt pork. Having placed the men under cover, I went towards the right or eastern end, the guns of which were manned by detachments of the Diamond and the Queen, that part of the battery being called from Captain Peel’s ship, the “Koh-i-noor.” About the centre of the battery its two faces met in an obtuse angle, and it was there during the next nine months most of our casualties occurred. The guns on the right face fired at the Malakoff 1740, and the Redan 1400 yards distant. Later, the guns on the right face had the Mamelon also as a target at 1400 yards range. Two guns in the Redan enfiladed the left-hand guns of the right (or eastern) face of the 21-gun battery, and as I passed them a shell close over my head made me stoop, till I felt my foot was on something soft, and another hasty step repeated the sensation. Looking down, I saw I was treading on the stomachs of two dead men, who had been fighting their guns stripped to the waist when killed, and whose bodies had been placed together. I was not only startled but shocked, and the feeling made me hold my head up when in danger for the next eight months.

When I reported my arrival and handed over the men, I was employed carrying powder from caves in the Woronzow road up into the battery, passing in every journey two companies of Infantry, who were lying behind a large heap of loose stones, acting as a covering party for the guns. The soldiers were on the southern slope of the hill, on the crest of which our men in the 21-gun battery were firing northwards. The stones afforded some cover, but the men would have been safer without it, for they were lying exactly where the over-shots from the Malakoff and the Redan crossed. In one of my journeys from the caves to the battery I was passing close to a sergeant as he was cut into two pieces by a round-shot which struck him between the shoulders.

I was glad to get to work, commanding three guns’ crews in the battery, for it was less trying to nerves, besides the additional interest. I had taken over from my friend Mr. Sanctuary three 32-pounder guns, and we were discussing the exact elevation for the Malakoff Tower, when he offered to lay a gun for me. While we were checking the aim by looking along the sights, a shell burst on the parapet immediately above us, bringing a great portion of it into our faces. Sanctuary was hit heavily in the face. I got much less of the stones and gravel, but was knocked down by my friend’s body. We poured some dirty water over his face, and he soon revived, bravely declining all aid; but either from the wound in his eye, which was destroyed, or possibly from concussion, he could only walk in a circle, and was obliged to accept a man’s arm. After he had left the battery, Lieutenant A. King,17 Horse Artillery, brought three waggons down with powder, and unloaded most of it near the stones where the covering party of Infantry were lying.

It was a peculiarity of our want of system that there was no Commanding officer in the trenches, and it was natural for Lieutenant King to suppose that where the men were lying would be the safest place. He brought one waggon right up to the battery, and having unhooked his horses left it. Although it was in full sight of the Russians, being about three feet above the battery, and was fired on, yet no one was hurt, as it was unloaded by Captain Peel and Lieutenant Douglas. We had more difficulty about the loads left near the stones; they were out of sight of the enemy, but from the fire of two Russian batteries crossing, shot and shell kept tumbling about the boxes in a manner which seemed to threaten destruction to anyone who approached the spot. It was comparatively simple to unload the waggon close to the trenches, for there two brave officers handed out the cases to men who were only momentarily in much danger.

Captain Peel sent me down with some men to bring up the two loads from near the stones. We got up a case or two, when the men, without actually refusing to carry, declared the work was too dangerous, and took cover. I reported this to my own Commander and to Captain Peel, and was ordered to promise any Bluejacket a sum of money who would come down with me. I made the offer in vain. This I reported to my Commander,18 who said, “Well, I will come,” and turning to the captain of the nearest gun he said, “Come on, Daniel Young; we will go to the devil together, if at all.” He and the willing, stalwart man shouldered a box between them and carried it up, thus encouraging others, and eventually I got nearly all the boxes up, with only one sailor wounded.

Mr. Daniel, H.M.S. Diamond, Aide-de-Camp to Captain Peel, tried with me to carry one up by slinging the box on a fascine.19 The boxes, holding 112 lbs. net of powder, were lined with interior cases of thick zinc, having over all solid wooden coverings. The weight was too much for the fascine, as indeed it was for us, and the case sagged down three times on to my heels, for I was in front, so we agreed that we preferred to accept the chances, and sit on a box to encourage the Bluejackets to return, until the last box had been taken away. Some soldiers helped, one being a man I afterwards knew, Sergeant-Major H. Burke.

We were fortunate in having few casualties, for the Russians aiming high there were more shot striking over the spot than in the battery. While Mr. Daniel and I were sitting on the powder boxes, a mule being led up with two barrels of powder, one on either side, was struck full in the chest by a shell, which exploding scattered the body of the mule, but the powder remained intact. There was another remarkable escape, as the drivers of a waggon we had just emptied were mounting. The wheel driver was swinging his right leg over the horse’s back, when its hind quarters were carried away by a round-shot.

Later in the afternoon, another waggon which had been brought to the same place was exploded by a shell, one of the horses being thrown high into the air, on which the Russians, standing up on their parapets, cheered loudly. We did the same, however, when about two o’clock magazines in the Malakoff and in the Redan exploded in rapid succession. The latter battery was wrecked by the explosion: only three guns being able to fire, and later, there were only two guns in the Malakoff in action.

Before the first bombardment, Captain Peel asked Lieutenant Ridge and Midshipman Daniel of H.M.S. Diamond, and Lieutenant Douglas and Midshipman Wood of the Queen, to disregard fire in the battery, by always walking with head up and shoulders back and without undue haste. He himself was a splendid example. I know he felt acutely every shot which passed over him, but the only visible effect was to make him throw up his head and square his shoulders. His nervous system was so highly strung, however, that eight months later a mere flesh wound incapacitated him for many months. He was a most tender-hearted man towards his fellow-creatures and animals; and in 1851, when he was crossing the Nubian Desert from Korosko to Abu Hamed, he dismounted from his camel in order to give a small dying bird some water.

We opened fire on the 17th with 126 guns. Everyone was certain that the Russian batteries would soon be silenced, and so provision was made for an assault that evening. The troops were kept ready to “fall in,” storming columns detailed with Engineer officers as guides, sappers with scaling ladders, and the horses of the Field batteries stood “Hooked in.” During the forenoon, however, the French gunners were fairly beaten, two of their magazines blew up, causing great loss of life, and their guns ceased firing at one o’clock, just as the Allied fleets came into action at the harbour’s mouth. We were too busy to notice what the effect of the Russian fire was on our men-of-war, but we were all deeply mortified when at sundown we saw them haul out of action.

On the evening of the 17th the British Left Attack ran short of ammunition, and it moreover had the undivided attention of the Russian batteries to the westward of it; for the French still farther west had ceased fire: they had not constructed their magazines with sufficient strength, and in consequence had several explosions. We were better supplied in the 21-gun battery, and, owing to Captain Peel’s foresight and determination, his command was the only one which fired unceasingly until the 24th October.

For the opening of the bombardment we sent all our servants into battery, and thus when I got back to camp, just before dark, I had to go with a bucket to the watering-place at the head of the ravine near the 3rd Division, and then to stub up roots in the vineyard for firewood to boil some water. I fried some pork and ship’s biscuits, but possibly my efforts as a cook were not approved; at all events, our servant was not allowed to go to battery on the 18th, to my great joy, but he was the only man of the detachment of H.M.S. Queen who was kept off duty, and he had to draw rations, cook, and mend clothes of a Commander, four Lieutenants, one Mate, and a Midshipman.

Able-seaman Elsworthy was of that uncommon class of sailors and soldiers who never hesitate on occasion to contradict an officer, but can always remain respectful while doing so. This man had great independence of character, and we became firm friends. I was fond of him because of his care, not only of me, but all my friends, and I respected his determination to always support me, when he thought I was doing my best for the Mess. He generally accompanied me on my foraging expeditions, on which I went daily for the next eight months when not on duty. Once, however, in December, I went down to Kamiesh Bay alone, and gave 58s. for half a large pig. Perhaps I paid too much for it, but I had great difficulty in bringing it home on the pony, and so was mortified when the Commander at dinner found fault with me for my extravagant purchase. Elsworthy, who was waiting on us, interposed, and gravely asserted that the Commander knew nothing about pork, and that not only was the half-pig excellent of its kind, but that it was very cheap. It is only fair to the Commander to add, that I have now, in 1905, read one of his letters at the time to the Captain of the Queen eulogising Elsworthy.

That night, before I slept, it occurred to me that I had been very nearly out of this world several times during the day, and that since I had left school I had said very few prayers. A cockpit on board a man-of-war, which for readers who have no nautical knowledge may be described as a cellar lined with wood, to the roof of which, in H.M.S. Queen, some twenty-five hammocks were slung, is not a favourable place for devotions. The furniture consisted of some twenty or thirty whitewashed sea-chests, and I cannot recall having seen a man or boy pray there.

I realised in the presence of imminent danger my sins of omission, but like a boy argued it would be cowardly to begin until after the bombardment. When it ceased, my good intentions were forgotten until the next bombardment, with its recurring perils, reminded me. Then the same chain of thought recurred, and similar resolutions were made with identical results. This happened again at the third bombardment, and then I was so ashamed that I have ever since been more mindful of my religious duties.

THE UPLAND

Walker & Boutall sc