"That arm of yours always seems to be getting itself damaged, Jack," Hawtry said next morning, as he came into the hut. "You put it in the way of a bullet last time, and now you've got it smashed up. How do you feel altogether?"
"I am awfully bruised, Dick, black and blue all over, and so stiff I can hardly move."
"That's just my case," Dick said, "though, as you see, I can move. The doctor's been feeling me all over this morning, and he said it was lucky I was a boy and my bones were soft, for if I had been a man, I should have been smashed up all over. As to my elbows and my knees, and all the projecting parts of me, I haven't got a bit of skin on them, and my uniform is cut absolutely to ribbons. However, old boy, we did a good night's work. We saved sixteen lives, we got no end of credit, and the chief says he shall send a report in to the Admiral; so we shall be mentioned in despatches, and it will help us for promotion when we have passed. The bay is a wonderful sight. The shores are strewn with floating timber, bales of stores, compressed hay, and all sorts of things. Fellows who have been down to the town told me that lots of the houses have been damaged, roofs blown away, and those gingerbread-looking balconies smashed off. As for the camps, even with a glass there is not a single tent to be seen standing on the plateau. The gale has made a clean sweep of them. What a night the soldiers must have had! I am put on the sick list for a few days so I shall be able to be with you. That's good news, isn't it?"
"Wonderfully good," Jack laughed, "as if I haven't enough of your jaw at other times. And how long do you suppose I shall be before I am out?"
"Not for some little time, Jack. The doctor says you've got four ribs broken as well as your arm."
"Have I?" Jack said, surprised. "I know he hurt me preciously while he was feeling me about this morning; but he didn't say anything about broken ribs."
A broken rib is a much less serious business than a broken arm, and in ten days Jack was up and about again, feeling generally stiff and sore, and with his arm in a sling. The surgeon had talked of sending him on board ship, but Jack begged so hard for leave to remain with the party ashore, that his request was granted.
Winter had now set in in earnest. The weather was cold and wet; sometimes it cleared up overhead, and the country was covered with snow. A month after the accident, Jack was fit for duty again. Seeing what chums the lads were, the officer in command had placed them in the same watch, for here on land the same routine was observed as on board ship. The duties were not severe. The guns were kept bright and polished, the arms and accoutrements were as clean as if at sea. Each day the tars went through a certain amount of drill, and fatigue parties went daily down to the harbor to bring up stores, but beyond this there was little to do. One of the occupations of the men was chopping wood for fuel. The sides of the ravine immediately below the battery had long since been cleared of their brushwood, and each day the parties in search of fuel had to go farther away. Upon the day after Jack returned to duty, he and Hawtry were told off with a party of seamen to go down to cut firewood. Each man carried his rifle in addition to his chopper, for, although they had never been disturbed at this occupation, the Russians were known not to be far away. The sailors were soon at work hacking down the undergrowth and lopping off branches of trees. Some were making them up into faggots as fast as the others cut them, and all were laughing and jesting at their work.
Suddenly there was a shout, and looking up, they saw that a party of Russians had made their way noiselessly over the snowclad ground, and were actually between them and the heights. At the same moment a volley of musketry was poured in from the other side, and three or four men fell.
"Form up, form up," Hawtry shouted. "Well together, lads. We must make a rush at those beggars ahead. Don't fire till I tell you, then give them a volley and go at them with the butt-end of your muskets, then let every one who gets through make a bolt for it."
The sailors, some twenty strong, threw themselves together, and, headed by the midshipmen, made a rush at the Russians. These opened fire upon them, and several dropped, but the remainder went on at the double until within twenty yards of the enemy, when pouring in a volley and clubbing their muskets, they rushed upon them.
For a moment there was a sharp mélée; several of the sailors were shot or bayoneted, but the rest, using the butt-ends of their muskets with tremendous execution, fought their way through their opponents. Jack had shot down two men with his revolver, and having got through, was taking his place at the rear of the men—the proper place for an officer in retreat?—when he saw Hawtry fall. A Russian ran up to bayonet him as he lay, when Jack, running back, shot him through the head. In a moment he was surrounded, and while in the act of shooting down an assailant in front, he was struck on the back of the head with the butt of a musket, and fell stunned across the body of his friend. When he recovered consciousness, he found that he was being carried along by four Russians. He could hear the boom of cannon and the rattle of musketry, and knew that the defenders on the heights were angrily firing at the retreating party, who had so successfully surprised them. As soon as his bearers perceived that Jack had opened his eyes, they let him drop, hauled him to his feet, and then holding him by his collar, made him run along with them.
When they had mounted the other side of the slope, and were out of fire of the guns, the party halted, and Jack, hearing his own name called, looked round, and saw Hawtry in the snow, where his captors had dropped him.
"Hullo, Dick! old fellow," Jack shouted joyfully; "so there you are. I was afraid they had killed you."
"I'm worth a lot of dead men yet, Jack. I've been hit in the leg, and went down, worse luck, and that rascally Russian would have skewered me if you hadn't shot him. You saved my life, old fellow, and made a good fight for me and I shall never forget it; but it has cost you your liberty."
"That's no great odds," Jack said. "It can't be much worse stopping a few months in a Russian prison, than spending the winter upon the heights. Besides, with two of us together, we shall be as right as possible, and maybe, when your leg gets all right again, we'll manage to give them the slip."
The Russian officer in command of the party, which was about 200 strong, now made signs to the boys that they were to proceed.
Dick pointed to his leg, and the officer examined the wound. It was a slight one, the ball having passed through the calf, missing the bone.
He was, however, unable to walk. A litter was formed of two muskets with a great-coat laid between them, and Dick, being seated on this, was taken up by four men, and Jack taking his place beside him, the procession started. They halted some four miles off at a village in a valley beyond the Tchernaya.
The next day the boys were placed on ponies, and, under the escort of an officer and six troopers, conducted to Sebastopol. Here they were taken before a Russian general who, by means of an interpreter, closely examined them as to the force, condition, and position of the army.
The lads, however, evaded all questions by stating that they belonged to the fleet, and were only on duty on the heights above Balaklava, and were in entire ignorance of the force of the army and the intentions of its general. As to the fleet, they could tell nothing which the Russians did not already know.
The examination over, they were conducted to one of the casemates of Fort St. Nicholas. Here for a fortnight they remained, seeing no one except the soldier who brought them their food. The casemate was some thirty feet long by eighteen wide, and a sixty-eight-pounder stood looking out seaward. There the boys could occasionally see the ships of war of the allies as they cruised to and fro.
It was very cold, for the opening was of course unglazed. They had each a heap of straw and two blankets, and these in the daytime they used as shawls, for they had no fire, and it was freezing sharply.
Dick's leg had been examined and dressed by a surgeon upon his first arrival; but as the wound was not serious, and the surgeons were worked night and day with the enormous number of wounded at Inkerman, and in the various sorties, with which the town was crowded, he did not again come near his patient. The wound, however, healed rapidly.
As Jack remarked, the scanty rations of black bread and tough meat—the latter the produce of some of the innumerable bullocks which arrived at Sebastopol with convoys, too exhausted and broken down for further service—were not calculated to cause any feverish excitement to the blood, nor, had it been so, would the temperature have permitted the fever to rise to any undue height.
Their guards were kind to them so far as was in their power, and upon their using the word "tobacco," and making signs that they wanted to smoke, furnished them with pipes and with tobacco, which, although much lighter and very different in quality from that supplied on board ship, was yet very smokable, and much mitigated the dulness from which the boys suffered. A few days after their captivity the boys heard the church bells of Sebastopol ringing merrily.
"I wonder what all this is about?" Dick said; "not for a victory, I'll be bound."
"Why, bless me," Jack exclaimed, "if it isn't Christmas day, and we had forgotten all about it! Now, that is hard, monstrously hard. The fellows on the heights will just be enjoying themselves to-day. I know they were talking about getting some currants and raisins from on board ship, and there will be plum-duff and all sorts of things. I wonder how they're all getting on at home? They're sure to be thinking often enough of us, but it will never enter their minds that here we are cooped up in t............