Kitabı oku: «The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood», sayfa 9
CHAPTER XV.
THE LAST OF LORD LYDSTONE
The mixed population of Constantinople in these busy, stirring times was ripe for any great surprise. It was much moved and excited by a startling bit of news that spread very rapidly next day.
An atrocious murder had been committed on the Stamboul side, near the Bridge of Boats.
Certainly, murders were not unknown in this hive of complex life, harbouring as it did the very scum and refuse of European rascality. But the victims were mostly vile, nameless vagabonds, low Greeks, Maltese suttlers, Italian sailors, or one or other of the hybrid mongrel ruffians following in the track of our armies, any of whom might be sent to their long account without being greatly missed.
It was otherwise now: the murdered man was a prominent personage, an Englishman of high rank, a rich and powerful representative of a great people. No wonder that Constantinople was agitated and disturbed.
On this occasion Lord Lydstone was the murdered man.
He had been found at daybreak by the Turkish patrol, lying in a doorway just where he had fallen dead, stabbed to the heart.
The body was taken to the nearest guard, and inquiries were instituted. A card-case found on the body led to identification, and a report made to the British Embassy set in motion the law and justice of the peace.
Nothing satisfactory or conclusive was brought to light. No one could account for his lordship's presence in that, the lowest quarter of the city; the only clue to his movements was furnished by his steward and body-servant on board the yacht.
The valet came on shore and gave his evidence before the informal court, which was dealing with the case at the British Embassy, presided over by the attachés.
"When did you see his lordship last?"
"Last night. My lord dined on board alone. He appeared depressed, and altogether low. He told me he should go to bed early."
"And did he?"
"No. Late in the evening a shore-boat came off—one of those caiques, I think they called them—with a letter, very urgent."
"For Lord Lydstone?"
"For his lordship. He seemed much disturbed on reading it."
"Well?"
"My lord called me and said he would dress to go on shore. I gave him out the suit which he was wearing when the body was found."
"He said nothing about the letter, or its contents?"
"Oh, no! My lord was never given to talking much, although I was his confidential valet since he left college. He never spoke to me of his affairs. My lord always kept his distance, as it was proper he should."
"Could you tell at all what became of this letter?"
"My lord put it in his pocket when he was dressed."
"You are certain of this?"
"Most positive."
"Was any such letter found in the pockets of the deceased?" asked the attaché of the Turkish police, through the dragoman of the Embassy.
Nothing of the kind had been found.
"The letter was no doubt removed purposely. This would destroy all trace of its origin. It was evidently a snare, a bait to lure the poor lord on shore," said one attaché to another.
"It is curious that he should have been so ready to swallow it."
"There must have been something peculiarly persuasive in the letter."
"But we have heard that he was much distressed, or annoyed, at receiving it."
"Persuasive in a good or bad sense—probably the latter. At any rate, it was sufficient to lure him on shore."
"Of course there is something beneath all this: some intrigue, perhaps."
"The old story, 'who is she?' I suppose."
"But I thought he was devoted to his cousin, the fair Mrs. Wilders."
"Is she still in Constantinople?"
"Yes, I think so. Still at Misseri's, I believe."
"I wonder whether she has yet heard about this horrible affair. Some one ought to break it to her."
But no one was needed for a task from which all shrank, with not unnatural hesitation. While they still talked, a message was brought in to the effect that Mrs. Wilders was in the antechamber, and her first words, when one of the attachés joined her, plainly showed that she had heard of Lord Lydstone's death.
"What a horrible, frightful business!" she said, in a voice broken with emotion. "Oh! this wicked, accursed town! How did it happen? Do tell me all you know."
"We are completely in the dark. We know nothing more than that Lord Lydstone was found stabbed at daylight this morning in the streets of Stamboul."
"What could have taken him there?"
The attaché shrugged his shoulders.
"There is nothing to show, except that he was inveigled by some mysterious communication—a letter sent on board the yacht."
"Inveigled for some base purpose—robbery, perhaps?"
"Very probably. When the body was found, it had been rifled of everything—watch, money, rings: everything had gone."
Mrs. Wilders sighed deeply. It might have been a sigh of relief, but to the attaché it seemed a new symptom of horror.
"But how imprudent—how frightfully imprudent—of the poor dear lord to venture alone, and so late at night, into that vile quarter. What could have tempted him?"
"That's what we are all asking. Some unusually powerful motive must have influenced him, we may be sure, and that I hope we may still ascertain. It will be the first step towards detecting the authors of the crime."
"They will be discovered, you think?"
"No efforts will be spared, you may be sure. The means at our disposal are not very first-rate, perhaps, but we have been promised the fullest help by the Turkish Minister of Police, and we shall leave no stone unturned."
"Oh! I do so hope that the villains will be discovered. Is there anything I can do?"
"Hardly, Mrs. Wilders. But, as you are the only representative of the family, it would be well perhaps for you to go on board the yacht. Poor Lord Lydstone's papers and effects should be sealed up. One of us will accompany you."
"I shall be delighted to be of any use. When shall we start?"
"The sooner the better," said the attaché, Mr. Loftus by name; and, leaving the inquiry, the two took boat, and were presently alongside the Arcadia.
They were received by the captain, a fine specimen of a west-country sailor, a hardy seaman, well schooled in his profession, who had long commanded a vessel in the Mediterranean trade, and was thus well qualified to act as sailing-master in the Arcadia's present cruise.
But Captain Trejago was soft-hearted, easily led, especially by any daughter of Eve, and he had long since succumbed to the fascinations of Mrs. Wilders's charms. From the day she first trod the deck of the yacht he had become her humblest, perhaps, but most devoted, admirer and slave.
They exchanged a few words of sympathy and condolence.
"You have lost a good friend, Captain Trejago," said the lady.
"He was that, ma'am. My lord was one of the finest, noblest men that ever trod in shoe-leather. And you, ma'am—it must be very terrible for you."
"Losing him in such a way, it is that which embitters my grief. But this gentleman"—she turned to Mr. Loftus—"comes from the Embassy to seal up his lordship's papers."
"Quite right, ma'am. That ought to be done without delay."
"We can go down into the cabin, then?" said Mrs. Wilders.
"Why! surely, ma'am, you ought to know the way. Mr. Hemmings"—this was the valet—"is not on board, as you know: but I will send the second steward if you want any help."
Assisted by the steward, Mr. Loftus proceeded in a business-like manner to place the seals of the Embassy upon the desk, drawers, and other receptacles in Lord Lydstone's cabin. While they were thus employed, Mrs. Wilders sat at the cabin-table under the skylight, her head resting on one hand, and in an attitude that indicated the prostration of great sorrow. The other hand was on the table, fingering idly the various objects that strewed it. There were an inkstand, a pen-tray, a seal, a blotting-book or portfolio, and many other odds and ends.
This blotting-book, with the same listless, aimless action, Mrs. Wilders presently turned to, and turned over the leaves one by one.
Between two of them she came upon a letter, left there by accident, or to be answered perhaps that day.
The feminine instinct of curiosity Mrs. Wilders possessed in no common degree. To look at the letter thus exposed, however unworthy the action, was a temptation such a woman could not resist. She began to read it, almost as a matter of course, but carelessly, and with no set purpose, as though it was little likely to contain matter that would interest her. But after the first few lines its perusal deeply absorbed her. A few lines more, and she closed the book, leaving her hand inside, and looked round the cabin.
Mr. Loftus and his assistants were still busily engaged upon their official task. Neither of them was paying the slightest attention to her.
With the hand still concealed inside the blotter, she folded up this missive which seemed so interesting and important, and, having thus got it into a small compass, easily and quickly transferred it to her pocket.
She looked anxiously round, fearing she might have been observed. But no one had noticed her, and presently, when Mr. Loftus had completed his work, they again left the yacht for the shore.
So soon as Mrs. Wilders regained the privacy of her own room at Misseri's, which was not till late in the day, she took out the letter she had laid hands on in the cabin of the yacht, and read it through slowly and carefully.
It was from Lord Lydstone's father, dated at Essendine Towers, the principal family-seat.
"My dear boy," so it ran, "your mother and I are very grateful to you for your very full and deeply interesting letter, with its ample, but most distressing, account of our dear Anastasius. It is a proud, but melancholy, satisfaction to know that he has maintained the traditions of the family, and bled, like many a Wilders before him, for his country's cause. His condition must, however, be a constant and trying anxiety, and I beseech you, more particularly on your mother's account, to keep us speedily informed of his progress. It is some consolation to think that you are by his side, and it is only right that you should remain at Constantinople so long as your brother is in any danger.
"But do not, my dear boy, linger long in the East. We want you back with us at home. This is your proper place—you who are our eldest born, heir to the title and estates—you should be here at my side. There are other urgent reasons why you should return. You know how anxious we are that you should marry and settle in life. We are doubly so now. Your brothers before this hateful war broke out made the succession, humanly speaking, almost secure. But the chances of a campaign are unhappily most uncertain. Anastasius has been struck down; we may lose him, which Heaven forbid; a Russian bullet may rob us any day of dear Hugo too. In such a dire and grievous calamity, you alone—only one single, precious life—would remain to keep the title in our line. Do not, I beseech you, suffer it to continue thus. Come home; marry, my son; give us another generation of descendants, and assure the succession.
"I have never made any secret of my wishes in this respect; but I have never told you the real reasons for my deep anxiety. It was my father's earnest hope—he inherited it from his father, as I have from mine—that the title might never be suffered to pass to his brother Anastasius's heirs. My uncle had married in direct opposition to his father's orders, in an age when filial disobedience was deemed a very heinous offence, and he was cut off with a shilling. I might say that he deserved no better; but he did not long survive to bear the penalty of his fault. He left a child—a daughter, however—to whom I would willingly have lent a helping hand, but she spurned all my overtures in a way that grieved me greatly, although I never openly complained. That branch of the family has continued estranged from us; and I am certainly indisposed to reopen communications with them.
"Yet the existence of that branch cannot be ignored. It might, at any time, through any series of mishaps of a kind I hardly like to contemplate, but, nevertheless, quite possible in this world of cross-purposes and sudden surprises, become of paramount importance in the family; for in point of seniority it stands next to ourselves. The next heir to the title, after you and your brothers, is the grandson of Anastasius Wilders, a lad of whom I know nothing, except that he is quite unfitted to assume the dignity of an Earl of Essendine, should fate ever will it that he should succeed. This unfitness you will readily appreciate when I tell you that he is at present a private soldier in a marching-regiment in the East. Stranger still, this regiment is the same as that in which poor Anastasius is serving—the Royal Picts. The young man's name is McKay—Stanislas Anastasius Wilders McKay. I have never seen him; but I am satisfied of his existence, and of the absolute validity of his claims. My agents have long had their eye on him, and through them I have full information of his movements and disposition. He appears a decent, good sort of youth. But I feel satisfied that we ought, as far as is possible by human endeavour, to prevent his becoming the head of the family.
"You are now in possession of the whole of the facts, my dear Lydstone, and I need scarcely insist upon the way in which you are affected by them. You will not hesitate, I am sure, after reading this letter, to return to England the moment you can leave your poor brother."
There was more in the letter, but it dealt with purely business matters, which did not interest the person who had become clandestinely possessed of it.
To say that Mrs. Wilders read this letter with surprise would inadequately express its effect upon her. She was altogether taken aback, dismayed, horror-stricken at its contents.
Now, when chance, or something worse, had cleared the way towards the great end, after which she had always eagerly, but almost hopelessly, hankered, a new and entirely unexpected obstacle suddenly supervened.
Another life was thrust in between her and the proximate enjoyment of high rank and great wealth.
Who was this interloper—this McKay—this private soldier serving in the ranks of the Royal Picts? What sort of man? What were his prospects—his age? Was it likely that he would stand permanently in her way?
These were facts which she must speedily ascertain. The regiment to which he belonged was in the Crimea, part of her uncle's brigade. Surely through him she might discover all she wanted to know. But how could this be best accomplished?
The more she thought over it, the more convinced she was that she ought to go in person to the Crimea, to prosecute her inquiries on the spot. While still doubtful as to the best means of reaching the theatre of war, it occurred to her that she could not do better than make use of Lord Lydstone's yacht.
It would have to go home eventually—to be paid off and disposed of by Lord Lydstone's heirs. But there was surely no immediate hurry for this, and Mrs. Wilders thought she had sufficient influence with Captain Trejago to persuade him, not only to postpone his departure, but to take a trip to the Crimea.
In this she was perfectly successful, and the day after Lord Lydstone's funeral the Arcadia, with a fine breeze aft, steered northward across the Black Sea.
It reached Balaclava on the morning of the 5th of November, and Mrs. Wilders immediately despatched a messenger on shore to inform the general of her arrival. That day, however, the general and his brigade were very busily employed. It was the day of Inkerman!
CHAPTER XVI.
"HARD POUNDING."
Mr. Hobson, as he called himself, had been perfectly right when he gleefully assured Mrs. Wilders that the Russians were gathering up their strength for a supreme effort against the allies. Reinforcements had been steadily pouring into the Crimea for weeks past—two of the Czar's sons had arrived to stir up the enthusiasm of the soldiers. Menschikoff, who still commanded, counted confidently upon inflicting exemplary chastisement upon the invaders. He looked for nothing less, according to an intercepted despatch, than the destruction or capture of the whole allied army.
No doubt the enemy had now an overwhelming superiority in numbers. The total land forces under Prince Menschikoff's command, including the garrison of Sebastopol, were 120,000 strong. Those numbers included a large body of cavalry and a formidable field artillery.
The entire allied army was barely half that strength. It was called upon, moreover, to occupy an immense front—a front which extended from the sea at Kamiesch to the Tchernaya, and from the Tchernaya, by a long and circuitous route, back to the sea at Balaclava. This line, offensive as regards the siege-works, but defensive along the unduly extended and exposed right flank at Balaclava, was close on twenty miles. The great length of front made severe demands upon the allied troops; it could only be manned by dangerously splitting up their whole strength into many weak units, none of which could be very easily or rapidly reinforced by the rest.
Perhaps the weakest part of the whole line was the extreme right, held at this moment by the British Second Division. Here, on an exposed and vitally important flank, the whole available force was barely 3,000 men. For some time past it had been intended to fortify this flank by field-works, armed with heavy artillery. But, although the necessity for protecting it was thus admitted, the urgency was not exactly understood, or at least was subordinated to other operations; as a matter of fact, this flank was "in the air," to use a military phrase, lying quite open and exposed, with only an insufficient, greatly harassed garrison on the spot, and no supports or reserves near at hand.
The utmost assistance on which this small body could count, as was afterwards shown, under stress, too, of most imminent danger, was 14,000 men. Not that all these numbers were fully available at any one time; they were constantly affected and diminished by casualties in the height and heat of the action; so that never were there more than 13,000, French and English, actually engaged.
On the other hand, the Russian attacking force was 70,000 strong, and they had with them 235 guns.
It was in truth another battle of giants, like Waterloo. "Hard pounding," as the great duke said of that other fight; a fierce trial of strength; a protracted, seemingly unequal, struggle between the dead weight of the aggregate many and the individual prowess of the undaunted, indomitable few.
The enemy's plan of action had been minutely and carefully prepared. We know it now. He meant to use his whole strength along his entire front—in part with feigned and deceiving demonstrations to "contain" or hold inactive the troops that faced him, in part with determined onslaught, delivered with countless thousands, in massive columns, against the reputed weakest point of our line.
This plan Menschikoff hastened to put into execution. Time pressed: the enemy had learnt through spies that an assault on Sebastopol was close at hand. Besides, the Grand Dukes had arrived, and the troops, worked up to the highest pitch of loyal fanatic fervour, were mad to fight under the eyes of the sons of their father, the holy Czar.
Dawn broke late on that drear November morning: November the 5th—a day destined to be ever memorable in the annals of British arms: a dawn that was delayed and darkened by dense, driving mists, and rain-clouds, black and lowering.
Nothing, however, had broken the repose of the British camp, or hinted at the near approach of countless foes.
The night had been tranquil; the enemy quiet; only, in the valley beneath our pickets on the Inkerman heights, some sentries had heard the constant rumbling of wheels, but their officers to whom they reported did not interpret the same aright, as the movement of artillery.
An hour or more before daylight the church-bells of Sebastopol rang out a joyous peal. Why not? It was the Sabbath morning. But these chimes, alas! ushered in a Sunday of struggle and bloodshed, not of peaceful devotion and prayer.
The outlying pickets had been relieved, and were marching campwards; the Second Division had had its customary "daylight parade"; the men had stood to their arms for half-an-hour, and, as nothing was stirring, had been dismissed to their tents; the fatigue-parties had been despatched for rations, water, fuel—in a word, the ordinary daily duties of the camp had commenced, when the sharp rattle of musketry rang out angrily, and well sustained in the direction of our foremost picket on Shell Hill.
"That means mischief!" The speaker was General Codrington, who, according to invariable rule, had ridden out before daylight to reconnoitre and watch the enemy. "Halt the off-going pickets; we may want all the men we can lay hands on."
Then this prompt and judicious commander proceeded to line the Victoria ridge, which faced Mount Inkerman, with the troops he had thus impounded, and galloped off to put the rest of his brigade under arms.
The firing reached and roused another energetic general officer, Pennefather, who now commanded the Second Division in place of De Lacy Evans.
"Sound the assembly!" he cried. "Let the division stand to its arms. Every man must turn out: every mother's son of them. We shall be engaged hot and strong in less than half-an-hour."
As pugnacious as any terrier, Pennefather, with unerring instinct, smelt the coming fight.
His division was quickly formed on what was afterwards called the "Home Ridge," and which was its regular parade-ground. But the general had no idea of awaiting attack in this position. It was his plan rather to push forward and fight the enemy wherever he could be found. With this idea he sent a portion of his strength down the slope to "feed the pickets," as he himself called it, whilst another was advanced to the right front under General Wilders, and with this body went the Royal Picts. The Second Division benefited greatly by this advance, for the Russians were now absolute masters of the crest of the Inkerman hill, where they established their batteries, and poured forth volley after volley, all of which passed harmlessly over the heads of our men. Meanwhile the alarm spread. A continuous firing, momentarily increasing in vigour, showed that this was no affair of outposts, but the beginning of a great battle. The bulk of the allied forces were under arms, and notice of the attack had been despatched to Lord Raglan at the English headquarters.
In less than a quarter-of-an-hour, long before 7 a.m., Lord Raglan was in his saddle, ready to ride wherever he might be required most.
But whither should he go? The battle, as it seemed, was waging all around him, on every side of the allied position. A vigorous fire was kept up from Sebastopol; down in the Tchernaya valley the army, supposed to be still under Liprandi, but really commanded by Gortschakoff, had advanced towards the Woronzoff road, and threatened to repeat the tactics of Balaclava by attacking with still greater force the right rear of our position; last of all, around Mount Inkerman, the unceasing sound of musketry and big guns betrayed the development of a serious attack.
Lord Raglan was not long in doubt. He knew the weakest point of the British position, and rightly guessed that the enemy would know it too.
"I shall go to Inkerman," he said. "That is their real point, I feel sure. And we must have up all the reinforcements we can muster. You, Burghersh, tell Sir George Cathcart to move up his division and support Pennefather and Brown. You, Steele, beg General Bosquet to lend me all the men he can spare."
Pennefather had his hands full by the time Lord Raglan arrived. With a paltry 3,000 odd men he was confronting 25,000; but, happily, the morning was so dark and the brushwood so thick that his men were hardly conscious that they were thus outnumbered.
Not that they would have greatly cared; they were manifestly animated with a dogged determination to deny the enemy every inch of the ground, and with unflagging courage they disputed his advance, although they were so few. Once more it was the "Thin Red Line" against the heavy column: hundreds against thousands, a task which for any other troops would have been both hopeless and absurd.
But Pennefather's people stoutly held their own. On his left front, one wing of the 49th Regiment routed a whole Russian column, and drove it back at the point of the bayonet down the hill; to give way in turn, but not till it was threatened by 9,000 men. Next, four companies of the Connaught Rangers stoutly engaged twenty times their number, and only yielded after a stubborn fight. General Buller came up next, with a wing of the 77th, which was faced by a solid mass five times as strong.
"There are the Russians," cried Egerton, who commanded the 77th. "What shall we do, general?"
"Charge them!" was Buller's prompt reply.
The next instant the slender line, with a joyous hurrah, was engulfed in a giant column. The effect was instantaneous. The Russian column reeled before the fiery charge, wavered, then broke and fled.
More to the right, Mauleverer prolonged the line with the 30th, and gave so good an account of the Russians in his front that they, too, fell back in disorder; and Bellairs, with a party of the 49th, was equally triumphant.
Beyond these forces, General Wilders, with whom young McKay now rode as extra aide, led a fraction of his brigade, including the Royal Picts, against the Sandbag Battery, a point deemed important because it commanded the extreme right of the position.
On the far sides of the slopes, beyond the battery were 4,000 Russian troops, and the mere sight of Wilders with his deployed line sufficed to shake the steadiness of the foe. The Russian bugles sounded a retreat, the leading companies faced about, and, communicating the panic to those behind the hill, the whole mass gave way and ran down the slope, followed by a destructive fire from the British line.
Thus ended the first phase of this unequal contest. Pennefather had triumphed to an extent of which neither he nor his heroes were fully aware. Barely 1,200 men had routed 15,000! The few had achieved a decisive victory over the many.
But the struggle had only just begun. Many more and still severer trials awaited our starving, weary, sorely-beset soldiers that day.
The enemy had numberless fresh and still untried troops at hand. Column after column had been moving steadily forward, some from the town, some from the eastern side of the Tchernaya, and already the Russian generals were in a position to renew the fight. A new onslaught was now organised, to be made by 19,000 men under cover of ninety guns.
So far in those early days of the battle the brunt of it had fallen upon the Second Division, supported by a portion of the Light. Stout old General Pennefather had had the supreme control throughout.
"I will not interfere with you," Lord Raglan said, as, standing by his staff, he watched the progress of the fight from the ridge. "You know your ground, as you have occupied it so long with your camp. I'm sure I can trust you."
"Thank you, my lord. I'll do my best, never fear," replied Pennefather.
"Their artillery fire is very troublesome, and must be over-mastered. If I could only get up some of the siege-train guns to help you. Let some one go back to the artillery park, and tell them I want a couple of eighteen pounders."
An aide-de-camp at once galloped off with the order, but two or three eventful hours elapsed before these guns were brought to bear upon the action.
Pennefather's men, although for the moment triumphant, had their hands full. They showed an undaunted front or "knotted line" of fighting-men: the remnants of the pickets, fragments, and odds-and-ends of many regiments, mixed up and intermingled, still in contact with the enemy, and so far still without supports.
Officers came back rather despondingly to ask for help.
"I cannot send you a single man," was the firm reply to one applicant. "You must stand your ground somehow."
"We should be all right, sir, but the men have run out of ammunition."
"It's no use. I can't give you a round. What does it matter? Don't make difficulties. Stick to your bayonets. And remember you've got to hold on where you are, or we shall be driven into the sea."
The want of cartridges was what the troops felt most direly. They growled savagely and grumbled at the mismanagement that kept back these indispensable supplies.
Only here and there the energetic action of a few shrewd officers did something to mend the mischief.
Thus the Royal Picts benefited by the astute promptitude of long-headed Sergeant Hyde. He was acting as quartermaster, and as such had been left behind in camp, although sorely against his will, when the rest of the regiment went out to fight. But he had heard the long, well-sustained roll of musketry-fire, and it satisfied one not new to war that a very close contest had begun.
"They'll soon fire away their cartridges at this rate," he said to himself. "If I could only get the ammunition-reserves up to them! I'll do it." And on his own responsibility he laid hands on all the beasts in camp: spare chargers, officers' ponies, and other animals, and quickly loaded them with the cartridge-boxes. Then, leading the cavalcade, he hurried to the front, asking as he went for the Royal Picts.
He found his regiment in the Sandbag Battery, and they received him, so soon as his errand was known, with a wild cheer.
"Excellently done!" cried Colonel Blythe. "You have a good head on your shoulders, Hyde: ammunition was the one thing we needed."
"Yes," shouted a brawny soldier, "we were just killed for want of cartridges."
"And want of food," grumbled another; "sorra bite nor sup since yesterday."
"Sergeant darling," said a third, "won't you sound the breakfast-bugle? Fighting on an empty stomach is but a poor pastime."
Thus, in the interval between two combats, but always under a galling and destructive fire, they joked and bandied words with a freedom that discipline would not have tolerated at any other time.
