Soyer's Culinary Campaign: Being Historical Reminiscences of the Late War.: With The Plain Art of Cookery for Military and Civil InstitutionsSoyer, Alexis
History
Soyer's Culinary Campaign: Being Historical Reminiscences of the Late War.: With The Plain Art of Cookery for Military and Civil Institutions
Soyer, Alexis
Cooking for military personnel; Crimean War, 1853-1856
One of the gentlemen present--an English officer, unknown to me--wrote
our names upon his card, and, by order of the commandant of a battery,
we were allowed to enter. The sight is too painful to dwell upon, from
the immense numbers of dead and wounded piled one upon the other. They
were mostly young men, who had fallen so bravely in defence of their
country in this glorious, though disastrous, combat. I could not help
remarking, both in the French and Russian dead, that those who had been
killed by gun-shots passing through the body lay as if they had fallen
in to a sweet slumber, with a smile upon their cold lips, and a happy
and pleasing expression of countenance, very different to the fearful
and contorted appearance generally presented, when from our comfortable
homes we are summoned by that “strict serjeant--Death,” in consequence
of old age or illness. This induced me to say to my companions in the
trenches, “It appears to me as if death had not time to convey them to
his mournful shore, but that the genius of glory had unexpectedly
stepped in, and taken possession of their souls, which were now happily
ascending to heaven and a better world; while, on the contrary, those
who have lost a limb or received serious wounds in the head, appear to
have expired in the most painful torture.”
The funeral service was going on rapidly and solemnly on all sides. The
main attack had been against the French, and their newly-arrived
Imperial Guard suffered considerable loss. The greater part of the time
allowed for the armistice had now elapsed, and we therefore thought of
retiring. None of us were, however, acquainted with the French trenches,
and it took us a considerable time to find our way out. I must have
taken a wrong turn, or at least the man to whom I had entrusted my pony
had done so, although I had given him a franc, and promised him another
on getting out all right, merely to see that no one untied the pony. As
he was on duty at the time, and agreed to do this, I trusted him with
it. My friends found their steeds where they had left them. Pondering
upon my ill-luck, and fearing the pony, which belonged to Lord Raglan,
was also lost, I felt much perplexed, so I scrambled up between the
gabions, and perceived, to my great joy, a man leading my pony about in
the ravine. I met the person with whom I had left him, and he told me
that his commanding-officer would not allow the pony to remain there any
longer, as hostilities would begin again immediately, and being in sight
of the enemy, they might think it belonged to a superior, and direct
their fire that way; and having some other duties to perform, he gave my
steed in charge of another man, and requested me to give the other man
the franc I had promised him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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