A Soldier's Experience; or, A Voice from the Ranks: Showing the Cost of War in Blood and Treasure. A Personal Narrative of the Crimean Campaign, from the Standpoint of the Ranks; the Indian Mutiny, and Some of its Atrocities; the Afghan Campaigns of 1863Gowing, T. (Timothy)
History
A Soldier's Experience; or, A Voice from the Ranks: Showing the Cost of War in Blood and Treasure. A Personal Narrative of the Crimean Campaign, from the Standpoint of the Ranks; the Indian Mutiny, and Some of its Atrocities; the Afghan Campaigns of 1863
Gowing, T. (Timothy)
Crimean War, 1853-1856 -- Personal narratives
One Russian was caught trying to walk off with one of our small mortars;
he was a huge monster, but some ten inches of cold steel, from a man
named Pat Martin, stopped his career. Another, a Greek Priest, fired his
revolver into our small-arm magazine, but luckily no harm was done. He
was at once bayoneted; next morning he was seen to be a powerful fellow.
Poor Capt. Vicars was brought into the trench and placed upon a
stretcher. He seemed quite cheerful, said he did not think it was much,
and hoped soon to be able to go at them again. These were not, perhaps,
his exact words, but the substance of them as nearly as I can remember.
He was then sent home to camp, but before he had reached it his spirit
had fled to him who gave it. He was ready. A faithful soldier of the
Cross, he had, from the day it had pleased the Lord to speak peace to
him, been always ready to depart to be with Jesus. A noble and brave
man, he did not know what fear was as far as the enemy was concerned,
but he loved the Lord with all his heart and soul; and, like one of old,
was not at all ashamed to stand forth and tell poor sinners what the
Lord had done for him. But he is gone to be with Him whom he loved to
speak of when on earth.
Her Most Gracious Majesty had lost by that fatal bullet one of Britain's
bravest sons; and all around the spot where poor Vicars had fallen it
was evident the bayonet had done some terrible work.[3] The enemy let us
alone for the remainder of the night, and next morning there was a flag
of truce out. They had paid heavily for their intrusion, for in places
they lay in heaps one on the top of the other. We were relieved next
morning; and in the evening poor Capt. Vicars was laid in his cold
grave, together with other officers. We committed his body to the earth,
And his pure soul unto his Captain, Christ,
Under whose colours he had fought so long.
The 97th seemed to feel his loss keenly, and over his grave strong men
wept like a lot of children who had lost a fond father, and then vowed
they would revenge him the first opportunity.[4] The Captain was a
general favourite throughout the Light Division, for he used to go, when
off duty, from regiment to regiment doing all he could to point poor
thoughtless sinners to the Lamb of God.
Such were some of the men who helped to unfurl the Standard of old
England on the blood-stained walls of Sebastopol; and, while some were
struck down to rise no more, in the first action; others were permitted,
apparently with a charmed life, to go from field to field. I am not one
of those who believe that all is left to chance, on the contrary, I am
convinced that all our lives are in God's keeping. I know that I have
been mercifully watched over through seen and unseen dangers of no mean
sort. Besides those events that I have here narrated, I have yet to tell
of nineteen years' life in India with sword and pestilence scattering
death all around me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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