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 Inkerman. 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 bât 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 10,000 good troops. The Ninth Division, under General Brunet was expected.{206}
Our 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.
On the 24th, Lord Raglan, attended by Major-General Airey and a few staff officers, rode over to Balaklava. He went on board the Caradoc and had a long interview with Sir E. Lyons alone, previous to which there was a council of war. Lord Raglan did not return to head-quarters till it was nearly dusk.
I had a long reconnaissance of Sebastopol on the same day, in company with Captain Biddulph, of Artillery. It was a beautifully clear day, and at times it was almost warm. We went up to the hill in advance and on the left of the maison brulée, and swept every inch of ground. The aspect of the place itself had changed very little, considering the hundreds of tons of shot and shell thrown into it; but whitewashed houses, roofed with tiles, and at most two stories high, in the suburbs, were in ruins. The roofs, doors, and windows were off, but puffs of smoke showed that the frames were covers for Russian riflemen. In front and left, lay a most intricate series of covered ways, traverses, zigzags, and parallels from the seaside, close to the Quarantine Battery, over the undulating land to the distance of sixty-five metres from the outer works of the Russians. Swarms of Franctireurs lined the advanced parallel, and kept up a continual pop, pop, pop, in reply to the Russian riflemen behind their advanced works.