That was the busiest day those regions had seen since time began. To the few bewildered inhabitants it seemed as though the whole unknown world was emptying itself on their shores. Before sunset over 60,000 men were landed, and still there were more to come. All that coast, from Eupatoria to Old Fort, was like an ant-hill dropped suddenly on to a strange place, over which its tiny occupants swarmed tumultuously in the endeavour to accommodate themselves to the new conditions. The weather, which had held up during the day, broke towards evening. The surf reared viciously up the shingle beach, and the rain came down in torrents. The tents were still aboard ship; men and officers alike sat and soaked throughout the dreary night in extremest misery. Jack among them. He had been sent on in advance of his corps to make observations and dispositions for the accommodation of the ordnance, and carried--according to instructions--nothing but his great-coat rolled up lengthwise and slung over his shoulder, a canteen of water, and three days' provision of cooked salt meat and biscuit in a haversack. The men had their blankets in addition, and their rifles and bayonets and ammunition. When the deluge broke on them, and the spray came flying up the beach in sheets, drenching them alike above and below, the men huddled together and tried to improvise shelters with their great-coats and blankets. But Nature was pitiless and seemed to bend her direst energies to the task of damping their spirits. With their bodies she had her will, but their spirits were beyond her, for they were on Russian territory at last, and that meant business. Jack sat on the wet shingle, back to back with one of his fellows, and the rain soaked through him, till his very marrow felt cold. Some of the men near him, crouching under their sopping blankets, started singing, and "God save the Queen" and "Rule Britannia" rolled brokenly along the lines for a time. But by degrees the singing died away, the wet blankets exerted their proverbial influence, and silent misery prevailed. The weather had broken before the cavalry got ashore, so Jim spent that night very gratefully in the comfort of his bunk on the _Himalaya_, and wondered how they were faring on land. He was up before sunrise, however, and hard at work, though the waves were still high, and landing horses would be no easy matter. And worse [end of line is blank] He came on Jack prowling anxiously among the black masses just wakening into life again. "Hello, Jim!" he said hoarsely. "Where were you? Did you get damp?" "We're not landed yet. Too rough for the horses." "Lucky beggars! I never had such a night in my life. It was ghastly. Why the deuce couldn't they let us have some tents? Those French beggars had theirs, and the beastly Turks too. We're the worst-managed lot I ever heard of."