The British Expedition to the CrimeaRussell, William Howard, Sir
History
The British Expedition to the Crimea
Russell, William Howard, Sir
Crimean War, 1853-1856
Parties of men busy at work. Groups along the hill-side forty or fifty
yards apart. You find them around a yawning trench, thirty feet in
length by twenty feet in breadth, and six feet in depth. At the bottom
lie packed with exceeding art some thirty or forty corpses. The
grave-diggers stand chatting, waiting for arrivals to complete the
number. They speculate on the appearance of the body which is being
borne towards them. "It's Corporal----, of the--th, I think," says one.
"No! it's my rear rank man, I can see his red hair plain enough," and so
on. They discuss the merits or demerits of dead sergeants or comrades.
"Well, he was a hard man: many's the time I was belled through him!" or
"Poor Mick! he had fifteen years' service--a better fellow never
stepped." At last the number in the trench is completed. The bodies are
packed as closely as possible. Some have still upraised arms, in the
attitude of taking aim; their legs stick up through the mould; others
are bent and twisted like fantoccini. Inch after inch the earth rises
upon them, and they are left "alone in their glory." No, not alone; for
the hopes and affections of hundreds of human hearts lie buried with
them!
For about one mile and a half in length by half a mile in depth the
hill-side offered such sights as these. Upwards of 2,000 Russians were
buried there.
[Sidenote: WATCHING A TREACHEROUS ENEMY.]
As I was standing at the Sandbag Battery, talking to some
officers of the Guards, who were describing their terrible
losses, Colonel Cunynghame and Lieutenant-Colonel Wilbraham of the
Quarter-Master-General's staff rode up to superintend the burial
operations. The instant their cocked hats were seen above the ridge a
burst of smoke from the head of the harbour, and a shell right over us,
crashed into the hill-side, where our men were burying the Russian dead!
Colonel Cunynghame told me Lord Raglan had sent in a flag of truce that
morning to inform the Russians that the parties on the hill-side were
burying the dead. As he was speaking a second shell came close and broke
up our party. It is quite evident that the society of two officers in
cocked hats, on horseback, is not the safest in the world. We all three
retired.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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