Part 8 (1/2)
The march from the Katcha to the south side was performed without interruption, and on the 26th, six days after the battle of Alma, the Allied Army reached their new position. According to arrangements, the British occupied the harbor of Balaklava, while the French took possession of Kamiesch and Kaznatch, as bases for the supply of their armies. At the mouth of Balaklava Harbor are the ruins of a Genoese fort standing 200 feet above the sea. This was supposed to be unoccupied. As the staff, however, were entering the town, they were astonished by four sh.e.l.ls falling close to them.
The ”Agamemnon,” which was lying outside, at once opened fire, and the fort immediately hung out a flag of truce. The garrison consisted only of the commandant and sixty men. The officer, on being asked why he should have opened fire when he knew that the place could not be held, replied that he did so as he had not been summoned to surrender, and felt bound in honor to fire until he did so.
The British s.h.i.+ps at once entered the harbor, and the disembarkation of the stores and siege-train commenced. The harbor of Balaklava was but ill-suited for the requirements of a large army. It was some half mile in length and a few hundred yards broad, and looked like a little inland lake, for the rocks rose precipitously at its mouth, and the pa.s.sage through them made a bend, so that the outlet was not visible from a s.h.i.+p once fairly inside. The coast is steep and bold, the rocky cliff rising sheer up from the water's edge to heights varying from 400 to 2000 feet. A vessel coasting along it would not notice the narrow pa.s.sage, or dream--on entering--that a harbor lay hidden behind. On either side of the harbor inside the hills rose steeply, on the left hand, so steeply, that that side was useless for the purposes of s.h.i.+pping. On the right hand there was a breadth of flat ground between the water and the hill, and here and upon the lower slopes stood the village of Balaklava. The valley extended for some distance beyond the head of the harbor, most of the ground being occupied with vineyards. Beyond was the wide rolling plain upon which the battles of Balaklava and Inkerman were to be fought. Taken completely by surprise, the inhabitants of Balaklava had made no attempt to escape, but upon the arrival of the British general, a deputation received him with presents of fruit and flowers.
By this time the fleet had come round, and the sailors were soon hard at work a.s.sisting to unload the transports and get the stores and siege materials on sh.o.r.e. It was reported that a marine battery was to be formed, and there was eager excitement on board as to the officers who would be selected. Each of the men-of-war contributed their quota, and Lieutenant Hethcote found that he had been told off as second in command, and that he was to take a mids.h.i.+pman and twenty men of the ”Falcon.”
The matter as to the mids.h.i.+pman was settled by Captain Stuart.
”You may as well take Archer,” he said. ”You won't like to ask for him because he's your cousin; but I asked for his berth, you know, and don't mind doing a little bit of favoritism this once.”
And so, to Jack's intense delight, he found that he was to form a portion of the landing party.
These were in all 200 in number, and their work was, in the first place, to a.s.sist to get the heavy siege guns from the wharf to the front.
It is necessary that the position occupied by the Allies should be perfectly comprehended, in order to understand the battles and operations which subsequently took place. It may be described as a triangle with one bulging side. The apex of the triangle were the heights on the seash.o.r.e, known as the Marine Heights.
Here, at a point some 800 feet above the sea, where a ravine broke the line of cliffs, was the camp of the marines, in a position almost impregnable against any enemy's force, following the seash.o.r.e. On the land-slopes of the hills, down towards Balaklava, lay the Highland Brigade, guarding the approach from the plains from the Marine Heights to the mouth of Balaklava Valley, at the mouth of which were the camps of the cavalry, and not far off a sailor's camp with heavy guns and 800 men.
This side of the triangle continued along over the undulating ground, and some three miles farther, reached the right flank of the position of the Allies above Sebastopol, which formed the base of our imaginary triangle.
This position was a plateau, of which one side sloped down to Sebastopol; the end broke steeply off down into the valley of Inkerman, while behind the slopes were more gradual. To the left it fell away gradually towards the sea. This formed the third side of the triangle. But between Balaklava and Sebastopol the land made a wide bulge outwards, and in this bulge lay the French harbor of Kamiesch.
From the Marine Heights to the crest looking down upon Sebastopol was a distance of some seven miles. From the right of our position above Inkerman Valley to Kamiesch was about five miles.
A glance at the map will enable this explanation to be understood.
At the commencement of the siege the British were posted on the right of the Allies. This, no doubt, was the post of honor, but it threw upon them an enormous increase of work. In addition to defending Balaklava, it was upon them that the brunt of any a.s.sault by a Russian army acting in the field would fall. They would have an equal share of the trench-work, and had five miles to bring up their siege guns and stores; whereas the French harbor was close to their camp.
It was tremendous work getting up the guns, but soldiers and sailors willingly toiled away, pus.h.i.+ng, and hauling, and aiding the teams, princ.i.p.ally composed of bullocks, which had been brought up from Constantinople and other Turkish ports. Long lines of arabas, laden with provisions and stores, crawled slowly along between Balaklava and the front. Strings of mules and horses, laden with tents, and driven by men of every nationality bordering the Mediterranean, followed the same line.
Parties of soldiers, in fatigue suits, went down to Sebastopol to a.s.sist unloading the s.h.i.+ps and bringing up stores. Parties of officers on ponies brought from Varna or other ports on the Black Sea, cantered down to make purchases of little luxuries on board the s.h.i.+ps in the harbor, or from the Levantines, who had set up little shops near it.
All was life and gayety.
”It is all very well, Mr. Archer,” growled d.i.c.k Simpson, an old boatswain, as the men paused after helping to drag a heavy gun up one of the slopes, ”in this here weather, but it won't be no laughing matter when the winter comes on. Why, these here fields would be just a sheet of mud. Why, bless you, last winter I was a staying with a brother of mine what farms a bit of land down in Norfolk, and after a week's rain they couldn't put the horses on to the fields. This here sile looks just similar, only richer and deeper, and how they means to get these big carts laden up through it, beats me altogether.”
”Yes, d.i.c.k,” Jack Archer answered, ”but they expect to take the place before the winter comes on.”
”They expects,” the old tar repeated scornfully. ”For my part, I don't think nothing of these soldier chaps. Why, I was up here with the first party as come, the day after we got here, and there warn't nothing in the world to prevent our walking into it. Here we've got 50,000 men, enough, sir, to have pushed those rotten old walls down with their hands, and here we be a-digging and a-shovelling on the hillside nigh a mile from the place, and the Russians are a-digging and a-shovelling just as hard at their side. I see 'em last night after we got back to camp. It seems to me as if these here generals wanted to give 'em time to make the place so strong as we cannot take it, before they begins. Why, it stands to reason that the Roos.h.i.+ans, who've got their guns all stored close at hand, their soldiers and their sailors handy, and no trouble as to provisions and stores, can run up works and arm them just about three times as fast as we can; and where shall we be at the end of three months? We shall be just a-s.h.i.+vering and a-shaking, and a-starving with cold, and short of grub on that 'ere hill; and the Roos.h.i.+ans will be comfortable in the town a-laughing at us. Don't tell me, Mr. Archer; my opinion is, these 'ere soldiers are no better than fools. They don't seem to have no common sense.”
”I hope it's not as bad as all that, d.i.c.k,” Jack laughed. ”But it certainly does seem as if we were purposely giving the Russians time to strengthen themselves. But you'll see when we go at them we shall make short work of them.”
”Well, I hope so, Mr. Archer,” d.i.c.k Simpson said, shaking his head ominously, ”but I'm dubious about it.”
By this time the oxen and men had recovered their breath, and they again set to at their tiresome work. Although the weather was fine and the position of the camps high and healthy, the cholera which had ravaged their ranks at Varna still followed them, and during the three first weeks in the Crimea, the Allies lost as many men from this cause as they had done in the Battle of Alma.
By the 4th of October forty pieces of heavy artillery had been brought up to the front, and the work of the trenches began in earnest.
On the morning of the 10th the Russian batteries for the first time opened a heavy fire upon us. But the distance was too great for much harm to be done. On the 11th the Russians made their first sortie, which was easily repulsed.