A circumstance occurred in Balaklava on the 25th, which I stated for the consideration of the public at home without one single word of comment. The Charity, an iron screw steamer, was in
CRIMEA.
harbour for the reception of sick under the charge of a British medical officer. That officer went on shore and made an application to the officer in charge of the Government stoves for two or three to put on board the ship to warm the men. " Three of my men," said he, " died last night from choleraic symptoms, brought on from the extreme cold, and I fear more will follow."
•'Oh!" said the guardian of stoves, "you must make your re- £:*Vvion in due form, send it up to head-quarters, and get it sigi*J^ «•*». perly, and returned, and then I will let you have the stoves.,r
" But my men may die meantime."
" I can't help that; I must have the requisition."
" It is my firm belief that there are men now in a dangerous state whom another night's cold will certainly kill."
" I really can do nothing; I must have a requisition properly signed before I can give one of these stoves away."
"For God's sake, then, lend me some; I'll be responsible for their safety."
"I really can do nothing of the kind."
" But, consider, this requisition will take time to be filled up and signed, and meantime these poor fellows will go."
"I cannot help that."
"I'll be responsible for anything you do."
" Oh, no, that can't be done!"
" Will a requisition signed by the P. M. 0. of this place be of any use!"
"No." -
" Will it answer, if he takes on himself the responsibility?"
" Certainly not."
The surgeon went off in sorrow and disgust.
I appended another special fact for Dr. Smith, the head of the British Army Medical Department. A surgeon of a regiment stationed on the cliffs above Balaklava, who had forty sick out of two hundred, had been applying to the " authorities " in the town for three weeks for medicines, and could not get one of them, The list he sent in was returned with the observation, " We have none of these medicines in store." The surgeon came down with his last appeal: — " Do, I beg you, give me any medicine you have for diarrhoea."
" We haven't any."
" Have you any medicine for fever? Anything you can let me have, I'll take."
" We haven't any."
" I have a good many cases of rheumatism. Can you let me have any medicines?"
" We haven't any"
Thus, for diarrhoea, fever, and rheumatism there were nc specifics. Dr. Smith could prove, no doubt, that there were granaries full of the finest and costliest drugs and medicines for fever, rheumatism, and diarrhoea at Scutari, but the knowledge that they were there little availed those dying for want of them at Balaklava.
But with all this, the hand of the plague was not stayed.
Sickness clung to our troops, the soldiers who climbed the bloodysteeps of the Alma in the splendour of manly strength, and who defended the heights over the Tchernaya exhausted, and " washed out " by constant fatigue, incessant wet, insufficient food, want of clothing and of cover from the weather, died away in their tents night after night. Doctors, and hospitals, and nurses, came too late, and they sank to rest unmurmuringly, and every week some freshly-formed lines of narrow mounds indicated the formation of a new burial-place.
It must not be inferred that the French escaped sickness and mortality. On the contrary, our allies suffered to a degree which would have been considered excessive, had it not been compared with our own unfortunate standard of disease and death, and to the diminution caused by illness, must be added that from the nightly sorties of the Russians and the heavy fire from the batteries.