His gaze is fixed, no doubt, upon the Mackenzie plateau, but his courage fails him; nor does he care to repeat his little proverb, which was in his mouth when slaughter and bloodshed were spoken of in his presence in reference to our grand assaults — " On ne peut pas faire des omelettes sans casser des ceufs." The Marshal appears to have given up the manufacture of omelettes for the present; he has plenty of eggs if he likes to break them. There is very little matter of interest to record in one's diary. CHAPTER XXII. Departure 'of the Duke of Newcastle — The Mounted Staff Corps and the Ambulance Corps disbanded — Attention to the wants of the sick and wounded soldiers — Not only comforts but even luxuries supplied — Ttoom for improvement — Sir George Brown's speecli — Services of the Naval Brigade — Injustice of the authorities towards this brancli of tlie service — Irregular promotion — Movements in the port of Balaklava — A Slid accident — Humours.
Wednesday. The Duke of Newcastle left the fleet this morning on board Her Majesty's ship Highflyer, Captain Moore, in order to visit Circassia, and possibly to look at Kertch and the Eastern littoral of the Black Sea. He is accompanied or followed by Mr. Simpson, the artist, who has been so long engaged out here recording with his pencil the principal scenes of the war. His Grace has examined into many things connected with the army with a good deal of care, and he had an opportunity (of which he did not avail himself) of paying the last tribute of respect and affection to one of his own most favoured bantlings — to wit, " the mounted Staff" Corps," which has just expired of inanition and atrophy. " The Ambulance Corps" has also ceased to exist as a separate body, but it is hard to decide who has the control over its atoms.
Major Grant, of the former corps, is still out here, but his officers are preparing for other duties; and of the men who are willing to remain, the majority, if not the whole, will be employed as mounted mail guards, under the control of the army post-office authorities. Major Grant, of the Ambulance Corps, went to England long ago, and Captain Piggott only remains behind till the disjecta memhra of pensioners, carts, and horses are handed over to Colonel M'Murdo or some other proper officer. Thus two " corps " have perished during the Duke's visit. The men of the mounted Staff" Corps, who performed a good deal of severe work during the winter, have all along been viewed with jealousy and dislike, on account of the ridiculously high rate of their pay, which was equal to that of an ensign in the Line.
Latterly their duty was almost exclusively confined to the care and carriage of the mails and of despatch bags, and, indeed, their diminished numbers did not render them available for any further service. The men of the Ambulance Corps were judiciously selected from old pensioners, principally, it is to be supposed, on account of the notorious sobriety of the class, and because of their presumed softheartedness and tenderness. They drank hard, and were by no means inclined to spoil those under their charge by overindulgence. There were, of course, many exceptions in this respect, and the officers devoted themselves to their duty with all their ability and energy, but the corps was radically vicious in fonnation, and its defects could not be cured, and so by degrees it perished.
Of course the Duke of Newcastle's presence had no more to do with the fate of these bodies than it had with the conduct and events of the war, but it is odd enough that the two, which were most lauded at the time of their creation, and at whose birth his Grace presided with parental solicitude, should have come to an end, within the space of a few months, under his very eyes. The service of the ambulance has been lately performed by soldiers detached from the army for that pm-pose, and officers of the Line are employed in command at a time when they can be very ill spared from their regiments. As to the charges of the alleged hai'shness of some of the old ambulance men to those sent in their charge to Scutari, &c., it may have had the eiFect of calling attention to the abuses in the department.