As soon as General Canrobert had reviewed a couple of divisions, there was " an officers' call." The officers formed a square, General Canrobert, riding into the centre, addressed them with much elocutionary emphasis respecting the speedy prospect of active operations against the place, which he indicated by the illustration, " If one wants to get into a house, and cannot get in at the door, he must get in at the window."
The address was listened to, however, with profound silence. The General and staff took up ground near the centre of the position, and regiment after regiment marched past. A sullen gun from the enemy, directed towards the nearest column from the battery over the Tchernaya, denoted the vigilance of the Russians, but the shot fell short against the side of the plateau. The troops — a great tide of men — the coming of each gaudy wave heralded over the brow of the hill, crested with sparkling bayonets, by the crash of martial music — rolled on for nearly two hours. Chasseurs a pied, infantry of the line, Zouaves, Voltigeurs, and Arabs passed on column after column, till the forty-five battalions of gallant Frenchmen had marched before the eyes of him who might well be proud of commanding them. The Chasseurs Indigenes, their swarthy faces contrasting with their white turbans, clad in light blue, with bright yellow facings and slashing, and clean gaiters and greaves, showed like a bed of summer flowers; the Zouaves rushed by with the buoyant, elastic, springing tread which reminded one of Inkerman; nor was the soldier-like, orderly, and serviceable look of the line regiments less worthy of commendation. Then came the roll of the artillery, and in clouds of dust, rolling, and bumping, and jolting, the sixty guns and their carriages had gone by. The General afterwards rode along the lines of the Chasseurs d'Afrique, and of the two regiments of dragoons, which went past at a quick trot. It was said that there were 2,000 horsemen in the four regiments. They certainly seemed fit for any duty that horse and man could be called upon to execute. The horses, though light, were in good condition, particularly those of the Chasseurs d'Afrique. The inspection terminated shortly after six o'clock. Each regiment, as it defiled past the General, followed the example of the colonel, and cried " Vive V JEmpereur! "
Next day the General reviewed Pelissier's corps, in rear of the trenches, and passed through the 40,000 men of which it consisted, using much the same language as the day previously.
Up to the 27th there was no material change in the position of the allied armies before Sebastopol, or in the attitude of the enemy within and outside the city. Every night there was the usual expenditure of ammunition. Nothing, indeed, was more difficult to ascertain than the particulars of these nocturnal encounters. After a cannonade and furious firing, which would keep a stranger in a state of intense excitement all night, it was common to hear some such dialogue as this the following'morning: — " I say, Smith, did you hear the row last night? "
"No, what was it?"
" Oh, blazing away like fury. You don't mean to say you didn't hear it?"
" Not a sound; came up from the trenches last night, and slept like a top."
"Hallo, Jones," (to a distinguished 'cocked hat' on horseback, riding past,) "tell us what all the shindy was about last night."
" Shindy, was there? By Jove, yes; I think I did hear some firing — the French and the Russians as usual, I. suppose."
"No, it sounded to me as if it was in front of our right attack."
"Ah, yes — well — I suppose there was something."
Another thinks it was on the left, another somewhere else, and so the matter ends, and rests for ever in darkness unless the Invalide Russe, the Moniteur, or the Gazette throw their prismatic rays upon it. I need not say that all minute descriptions of charges or of the general operations of war conducted at night are not trustworthy. Each man fancies that the little party he is with bear the whole brunt of the work, and does all the duty of repulsing the enemy; and any one who takes his narrative from such sources will be sure to fall into innumerable errors. From the batteries or from the hills behind them one can see the flashes flickering through the darkness, and hear the shouts of the men — but that is all — were he a combatant he would see and hear even less than the spectator. In a day or two after the affair was over, one might hear what really had taken place by taking infinite pains and comparing all kinds of stories. It was, in fact, a process of elimination. Nothing afforded finer scope to the exercise of fancy than one of
CRIMEA.