Desertions to the enemy, from the French and from our own ranks, took place. The deserters generally belonged to the Foreign Legion, from the young draughts and from regiments just sent out. We received a few deserters in turn from the army in the rear, by scrambling along the cliffs, and one of them told us he was three days coming from Baidar by that route. These men stated that the part of the town built upon the slope to the sea was very little injured by our fire, as our shot and shells did not " top " the hill. To the south faced one steep slope covered with houses and batteries and ruined works and battered suburbs. The other descended to the sea, and was covered by public buildings, fine mansions, warehouses and government edifices. This part had suffered very little. The ships took refuge below this slope when pressed by our fire; the workmen and soldiers and sailors found snug quarters in the buildings.
CHAPTER V.
New Works— A Ghastly Procession — Reinforcements — Havoc amongst Horses — A Reconnaissance of Sebastopol — Red Tape and Routine — Changes of Weather — Sickness — Sufferings of the French — Effect of the Author's Statements — Facts— Continual Drain of Men — Affair of Musketry between the Russians and the French — Sharp-shooting— State of our Batteries — Orders with reference to Flags of Truce — A Spy in the Trenches — Good Fellowship at the Outposts.
We gradually relinquished ground to our allies, and the front, which it had cost so much strength and so much health to maintain, was gradually abandoned to the more numerous and less exhausted army. Some of our regiments were reduced below the strength of a company.
The French relieved the Guards of their outpost duties, and gradually extended themselves towards Iukerman. What a difference there was in the relative position of the two armies from that on the evening of the 17th of October, when the French fire had been completely snuffed out, and our own fire still maintained its strength.
There was a white frost on the night of the 22nd of January, the next morning the thermometer was at 42°. A large number of sick were sent into Balaklava on the 23rd on French mule litters and a few of our bat horses. They formed one of the most ghastly processions that ever poet imagined. Many were all but dead. With closed eyes, open mouths, and ghastly faces, they were borne along two and two, the thin stream of breath, visible in the frosty air, alone showing they were still alive. One figure was a horror — a corpse, stone dead, strapped upright in its seat, its legs hanging stiffly down, the eyes staring wide open, the teeth set on the protruding tongue, the head and body nodding with frightful mockery of life at each stride of the mule over the broken road. The man had died on his way down. As the apparition passed, the only remark the soldiers made was, — "There's one poor fellow out of pain, any way! " Another man I saw with the raw flesh and skin hanging from his fingers, the naked bones of which protruded into the cold air. That was a case of frost-bite. Possibly the hand had been dressed, but the bandages might have dropped off.
The French army received important reinforcements. The Eighth Division arrived at Kamiesch; it consisted of 10,000vgood troops. The Ninth Division, under General Brunet was expected.
CRIMEA.
Oar allies then would muster upwards of 75,000 bayonets. The Turks did not seem to amount to more than 5000 or 6000. These unfortunate troops received supplies of new clothing and uniforms from Riza Pasha, the War Minister at Constantinople, and were assuming a respectable appearance.
It would have astonished a stranger to have seen the multitudes of dead horses all along the road. In every gully were piles of their remains torn by wild dogs and vultures. On a lone hillside I beheld the remnants of the gallant grey on which Mr. Maxse rode to the mouth of the Katcha, in company with Major Nasmyth, on the eve of the flank march to Balaklava, and many of the equine survivors of the charge at Balaklava lay rotting away by the side of the cavalry camp. Some had dropped down dead, and were frozen still as they fell; others were struggling to rise from their miry graves. The carcases had been skinned, by the Turks and French, to cover their huts; many suspicious-looking gaps, suggestive of horse-steak, were cut out in their flanks.
There was very smart fighting in the trenches and advanced works between the French and Russians on the night of the 23rd and the morning of the 24th.