‘Perhaps so, and there are several more cavalrymen here who went down in the charge--Dryden of the 11th Hussars, who had thirty-six wounds when he was found on the field by the Russians; Cooper of the 13th, who had twenty-five; and Duke, same regiment, eighteen. We’ve several of the 8th, three of the 4th, and two 17th men, Stephenson and O’Lavery, besides myself. But not one of these but what was most severely wounded. Nearly a dozen of our fellows were taken from the field alive; but as far as I’ve heard we three are the only survivors, except two officers, who, I believe, were Cornets Leland and Sir William Lennox. While I was in hospital, a Russian who could speak English told me they had buried over forty men who had the “death’s head” on their appointments, and showed me several buttons he had cut off their uniforms.’ ‘It was a terrible day, Jim,’ said Jack. ‘There were only thirty-four of us who came out of the charge. But tell me your own adventures?’ ‘They’re soon told. You remember, after you rallied the handful of ours and some of the 8th we charged? Well, I cut my way through that and the second lot, when you remember the Russian brutes opened on us and their own men from their field-guns.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Then it was that a piece of shell brought down my horse, and I was a bit stunned by the fall. Presently I freed myself, just as several Polish Lancers came at me. One I cut from his saddle, and was tackling the others when another splinter of shell shattered my sword. One of the Russians then drew a pistol and shot at me, the ball passing through my arm. A Dragoon came up and cut me over the head with his sword and I went down; but before I lost consciousness some more Lancers went by and dug at me on the ground, piercing my left leg, my body, and my wounded arm. I remembered no more till I was being carried off the field at night, when I went in hospital with seven wounds. I had nothing to complain of there, and in due course I was packed off with a batch of other prisoners and brought here. Now you know all about me. What of yourself, of the regiment, and all our comrades?’ ‘Alas! there are few left,’ said Jack; and he told Linham the names of the survivors. Of Inkermann, of the great hurricane, and something of the cruel sufferings of the badly clad, half-starved heroes dying by hundreds of exposure, overwork, cholera, and sheer starvation, Linham had already heard from the most recent batch of prisoners, and Jack told him how things had been at the end of the year. ‘What a Government, what bungling, what murder! Yet in spite of all, our gallant fellows never complain; they just work till they die, and the few who survive will get a medal worth half-a-crown, and the right to die in the workhouse--ha, hum!’ Several other men then came in from another room, and amongst them were those few survivors of the light cavalry charge whom Linham had spoken of.