The Press.
London, England, 1855-01-20 00:00:00

(Original setters front ttr tErituta.

Camp before Sebastopol, Dec. 23, 1854.

My dearest —, A thousand thanks to all of you
for your nice, long letters of 29th November and
27th December, which I got last night. I declare I
haven't enjoyed anything so much since I have been
in the Crimea as I did those letters, though the time
at which they arrived was not the most opportune to
be jolly or anything else : it was about four o'clock
in the afternoon ; it had been raining all day and was
still; I bad just been warned to go down with 150
men to the advanced trenches, the place where the
enemy always make their night attacks, and I knew
that I should be wet through in half an hour after I
had been out, besides having to remain for twelve
hours in the most uncomfortable place you can
imagine—first having to blunder down two miles
over muddy, rocky ground covered with Russian
cannon-balls, which you could not see for the dark-
ness, and consequently tumbled over on your face
every ten minutes, and when you got there having
to lie in a trench with a foot of water in it, with your
eyes and ears wide awake for a sortie. (That's what
I don't call the "romance of war.") Well, after
reading all your affectionate letters I declare that I
felt for the moment quite unmanned and nervous at
going to this post. I felt how sorry I should be to
die when there were so many who cared for me alive,
and how sorry they would all be at my death. That
is the dark side of letters : they make you feel so
anxious for your own safety, whereas if you are left
here without seeing or hearing of anybody who cares
for you, you get quite callous and don't care for any-
thing, and think you may as well be shot to-night as
suffer all these hardships for months, and then per-
haps be shot, after all, at the end.
Well, to continue with a short account of last
night, just to give you a specimen of a subaltern's
duty in a line regiment out here. It was the darkest
night I ever saw, raining cats and dogs. After losing
our way three or four times, we got to our post., re-
lieved the old guard there, and envied them going
back to their wet tents, and then we began to settle,
or rather unsettle, ourselves for the night. There
was nothing between our sentries whom I threw out
in front and the enemy but a small ravine, up which
it is a favourite dodge of the Russians to crawl and
try to take us in flank. Further up the ravine, to-
wards our trenches, was a guard of the Rifles—about
one hundred men, I suppose. All went quiet for five
hours or so, during which I was most miserable,
suffering so awfully from cold feet every time I sat
down on a lump of wet clay or stone to rest myself
for a few minutes, and obliged to get up and kick my
toes against a 68-pounder to warm them. About
twelve o'clock the rain stopped, and it got a little
lighter, and about two I heard somebody asking
where the officer was. I called out, " Here lam :
what du you want ? " It was a sergeant of my party
coming to report that one of our sentries had come
in to say that he saw a body of men moving up the
ravine towards our right flank. Of course I was out
in a minute, with my pistol handy, and examined
them. I saw at once that it must be the enemy, so
I despatched an intelligent corporal to the Rifles on
our right to inform them of the fact. However,
their sentries had already seen them, and the officer
of the Rifles sent back to tell me to look out for my
left and my front, as this might be a feint; and a few
minutes afterwards, as I lay flat on the ground, with
my eyes towards where I knew the Rifles were, I
saw a burst of musketry, and after that heard a lot
of shouting and rushing, and then the enemy were
seen through the darkness retreating down the road;
so I turned our men out, and gave them a volley,
which they answered well, and the bullets whistled
over our heads in a storm : they were too high,
though, and only wounded two of our men. The
Russians, finding that we were on the alert, retired
at once, as they always do on these occasions. I do
not know how many the Rifles killed, but we bagged
one fellow. You must know that the Russians in
these sorties are generally halt' drunk, and one of
them came rushing up to our trench, and was shot
by twenty bullets about thirty yards from it. We
hauled him in, and the soldiers pulled off his long
Russian boots, which they all wear. I bagged his
bayonet to make a candlestick of. After the enemy
had retired, their batteries, which of course from the.
musketry could see exactly where we were, opened a
regular tornado of shot and shell upon us, and we
had to lie as close as wax to the parapet for an hour
or so : as it was, two of our men were killed by a
shell which burst just on the trench. After this
affair was over we were left quiet till the morning ;
and uncommonly glad I was to get back to my tent,
cold, wet, and sick. I was obliged to break up my
only table to make a fire to warm some coffee, and
then I went to sleep for four or five hours, and woke
all right, and very hungry, with nothing but salt
meat to eat. However, that was the worst night, in