Jack Archer: A Tale of the Crimea

"You'll never get down alive, sir," one of the sailor said. "The wind will dash you against the cliff. I'll try, sir, if you like; I'm heavier."

"Let me go down with you," Jack said. "The two of us are heavier than a man, and we shall have four legs to keep us off the cliff. Besides, we can help each other down below."

"All right," Dick said. "Fasten us to the rope, Hardy. Make two loops so that we shall hang face to face, and yet be separate, and give me a short rope of two or three fathoms long, so that we can rope ourselves together, and one hold on in case the other is washed off his feet when we get down. Look here, Hardy, do you lie down and look over the edge, and when you hear me yell, let them hoist away. Now for it!"

The boys were slung as Dick had ordered. "Lower away steadily," Dick said. "Stop lowering if we yell."

In another minute the lads were swinging in space, some ten feet out from the face of the cliff. For the first few yards they descended steadily, and then, as the rope lengthened, the gusts of wind flung them violently against the face of the cliff.

"Fend her off with your legs, Jack; that's the way. By Jove, that's a ducking!" he said, as a mighty rush of spray enveloped them as a mountainous sea struck the rock below. "I think we shall do it. There's something black down below, I think some part of her still holds together; slowly!" he shouted up, in one of the pauses of the gale, and Hardy's response of "Aye, aye, sir," came down to them.

It was a desperate three minutes; but at the end of that time, bruised, bleeding, half-stunned by the blows, half-drowned by the sheets of water which flew over them, the lads' feet touched the rocks. These formed a sloping shelf of some thirty feet wide at the foot of the cliff.

The wreck which had appeared immediately under them was forty feet away, and appeared a vague, misshapen black mass. They had been seen, for they had waved the lantern from the edge of the cliff before starting, and they had several times shouted as they descended, and as they neared the ground, they were delighted at hearing by an answering shout that their labors had not been in vain, and that some one still survived.

"Throw us a rope," Dick shouted at the top of his voice; and in a moment they heard a rope fall close to them. Groping about in the darkness, they found it, just as a wave burst below them, and, dashing high over their heads, drove them against the rock, and then floated them off their feet. The rope from above held them, however. "Lower away!" Dick yelled, as he regained his feet, and then, aided by the rope from the ship, they scrambled along, and were hauled on to the wreck before the next great sea came.

"I've broken my arm, Dick," Jack said; "but never mind me now. How many are there alive?"

There were sixteen men huddled together under the remains of the bulwark. The greater portion of the ship was gone altogether, and only some forty feet of her stern remained high on the rocky ledge on which she had been cast. The survivors were for the most part too exhausted to move, but those who still retained some strength and vigor at once set to work. In pairs they were fastened in the slings, and hauled up direct from the deck of the vessel, another rope being fastened to them and held by those on the wreck, by which means they were guided and saved somewhat from being dashed against the cliff in the ascent.

When those below felt, by the rope no longer passing between their hands, that the slings had reached the top, they waited for a minute to allow those in them to be taken out, and then hauling upon the rope, pulled the slings down again for a fresh party. So, slowly and painfully, the whole party were, two by two, taken up from the wreck.

Several times while the operation was being performed great crashes were heard, followed by loud shouts and screams, as vessel after vessel drove ashore to the right or left of them. But Jack and his friend, who consulted together, agreed that by no possibility could these be aided, as it was only just at the point where the wreck lay that the rocks at the foot of the cliff were high enough to be above all but exceptionally high waves, and any one adventuring many yards either to the right or left would have been dashed to pieces against the cliff by the first wave.

The midshipmen were the last to leave the ship. Dick had in vain begged his messmate to go up in one of the preceding batches, as the last pair would necessarily be deprived of the assistance from the lower rope, which had so materially aided the rest. Jack, however, refused to hear of it. When the slings came down to them for the last time, they put them on, and stood on the wreck watching till a great wave came. When it had passed, they slipped down the side of the ship by a rope, and hurried over the rocks till immediately under the spar, whose position was indicated by a lantern held there. Then, in answer to their shout, the rope tightened, and they again swung in the air.

The wind blew no more fiercely than before; indeed, it was scarce possible it could do so; but they were now both utterly exhausted. During the hour and a half which they had stood upon the remains of the wreck, they had been, every minute or two, deluged with water. Sometimes, indeed, the sea had swept clean over them, and had it not been that they had lashed themselves with ropes, they must have been swept away.

Every great wave had swept away some plank or beam of the wreck, and when they left it, scarce a fragment of the deck remained attached to the rudder-post. Terrible was the buffeting they received as they ascended, and time after time they were dashed with immense force against the face of the cliff.

To Jack the noise and confusion seemed to increase. A strange singing sounded in his ears, and as the slings reached the top, and a burst of cheering broke from the seamen there, all consciousness left him.

The officer in command of the party was himself at the spot; he and many others having made their way down, when the news spread that a rescue was being attempted. Dick, too, was unable to stand, and both were carried by the sailors to the top of the slope. Here a cup of strong rum-and-water was given to Dick, while some pure spirits poured down his throat soon recalled Jack to consciousness. The latter, upon opening his eyes, would have got up, but this his officer would not allow; and he was placed on a stretcher and carried by four tars up to the heights, where he was laid in one of the sod huts, and his arm, which was badly fractured, set by the surgeon.

The sixteen rescued men had, as they gained the top, been at once taken down into Balaklava, the sole survivors of the crews of over twenty ships which had gone to pieces in that terrible hurricane.

Of the fleet of transports and merchantmen which, trim and in good order, had lain in the bay the afternoon before, some half-dozen only had weathered the hurricane. The "City of London" alone had succeeded in steaming out to sea when the gale began. The "Jason" and a few others had ridden to their anchors through the night. The rest of the fleet had been destroyed, victims to the incompetence and pig-headedness of the naval officer in charge of the harbor. That there was ample room for all within it, was proved by the fact that, later on, a far larger number of ships than that which was present on the day of the gale lay comfortably within it.

The largest ship lost was the "Prince," with whom nearly 300 men went down. Even inside the harbor vessels dragged their anchors and drifted ashore, so terrible was the gale, which, indeed, was declared by old sailors and by the inhabitants of the town to be the most violent that they ever experienced. Enormous quantities of stores of all kinds, which would have been of immense service to the troops in the winter, were lost in the gale, and even in the camps on shore the destruction was very great.

CHAPTER XI.

TAKEN PRISONERS

"That arm of yours always seems to be getting itself damaged, Jack," Hawtry said next morning, as he came into the hut. "You put it in the way of a bullet last time, and now you've got it smashed up. How do you feel altogether?"

"I am awfully bruised, Dick, black and blue all over, and so stiff I can hardly move."

"That's just my case," Dick said, "though, as you see, I can move. The doctor's been feeling me all over this morning, and he said it was lucky I was a boy and my bones were soft, for if I had been a man, I should have been smashed up all over. As to my elbows and my knees, and all the projecting parts of me, I haven't got a bit of skin on them, and my uniform is cut absolutely to ribbons. However, old boy, we did a good night's work. We saved sixteen lives, we got no end of credit, and the chief says he shall send a report in to the Admiral; so we shall be mentioned in despatches, and it will help us for promotion when we have passed. The bay is a wonderful sight. The shores are strewn with floating timber, bales of stores, compressed hay, and all sorts of things. Fellows who have been down to the town told me that lots of the houses have been damaged, roofs blown away, and those gingerbread-looking balconies smashed off. As for the camps, even with a glass there is not a single tent to be seen standing on the plateau. The gale has made a clean sweep of them. What a night the soldiers must have had! I am put on the sick list for a few days so I shall be able to be with you. That's good news, isn't it?"

"Wonderfully good," Jack laughed, "as if I haven't enough of your jaw at other times. And how long do you suppose I shall be before I am out?"

"Not for some little time, Jack. The doctor says you've got four ribs broken as well as your arm."

"Have I?" Jack said, surprised. "I know he hurt me preciously while he was feeling me about this morning; but he didn't say anything about broken ribs."

A broken rib is a much less serious business than a broken arm, and in ten days Jack was up and about again, feeling generally stiff and sore, and with his arm in a sling. The surgeon had talked of sending him on board ship, but Jack begged so hard for leave to remain with the party ashore, that his request was granted.

Winter had now set in in earnest. The weather was cold and wet; sometimes it cleared up overhead, and the country was covered with snow. A month after the accident, Jack was fit for duty again. Seeing what chums the lads were, the officer in command had placed them in the same watch, for here on land the same routine was observed as on board ship. The duties were not severe. The guns were kept bright and polished, the arms and accoutrements were as clean as if at sea. Each day the tars went through a certain amount of drill, and fatigue parties went daily down to the harbor to bring up stores, but beyond this there was little to do. One of the occupations of the men was chopping wood for fuel. The sides of the ravine immediately below the battery had long since been cleared of their brushwood, and each day the parties in search of fuel had to go farther away. Upon the day after Jack returned to duty, he and Hawtry were told off with a party of seamen to go down to cut firewood. Each man carried his rifle in addition to his chopper, for, although they had never been disturbed at this occupation, the Russians were known not to be far away. The sailors were soon at work hacking down the undergrowth and lopping off branches of trees. Some were making them up into faggots as fast as the others cut them, and all were laughing and jesting at their work.

Suddenly there was a shout, and looking up, they saw that a party of Russians had made their way noiselessly over the snowclad ground, and were actually between them and the heights. At the same moment a volley of musketry was poured in from the other side, and three or four men fell.

"Form up, form up," Hawtry shouted. "Well together, lads. We must make a rush at those beggars ahead. Don't fire till I tell you, then give them a volley and go at them with the butt-end of your muskets, then let every one who gets through make a bolt for it."

The sailors, some twenty strong, threw themselves together, and, headed by the midshipmen, made a rush at the Russians. These opened fire upon them, and several dropped, but the remainder went on at the double until within twenty yards of the enemy, when pouring in a volley and clubbing their muskets, they rushed upon them.

For a moment there was a sharp mélée; several of the sailors were shot or bayoneted, but the rest, using the butt-ends of their muskets with tremendous execution, fought their way through their opponents. Jack had shot down two men with his revolver, and having got through, was taking his place at the rear of the men—the proper place for an officer in retreat?—when he saw Hawtry fall. A Russian ran up to bayonet him as he lay, when Jack, running back, shot him through the head. In a moment he was surrounded, and while in the act of shooting down an assailant in front, he was struck on the back of the head with the butt of a musket, and fell stunned across the body of his friend. When he recovered consciousness, he found that he was being carried along by four Russians. He could hear the boom of cannon and the rattle of musketry, and knew that the defenders on the heights were angrily firing at the retreating party, who had so successfully surprised them. As soon as his bearers perceived that Jack had opened his eyes, they let him drop, hauled him to his feet, and then holding him by his collar, made him run along with them.

When they had mounted the other side of the slope, and were out of fire of the guns, the party halted, and Jack, hearing his own name called, looked round, and saw Hawtry in the snow, where his captors had dropped him.

"Hullo, Dick! old fellow," Jack shouted joyfully; "so there you are. I was afraid they had killed you."

"I'm worth a lot of dead men yet, Jack. I've been hit in the leg, and went down, worse luck, and that rascally Russian would have skewered me if you hadn't shot him. You saved my life, old fellow, and made a good fight for me and I shall never forget it; but it has cost you your liberty."

"That's no great odds," Jack said. "It can't be much worse stopping a few months in a Russian prison, than spending the winter upon the heights. Besides, with two of us together, we shall be as right as possible, and maybe, when your leg gets all right again, we'll manage to give them the slip."

The Russian officer in command of the party, which was about 200 strong, now made signs to the boys that they were to proceed.

Dick pointed to his leg, and the officer examined the wound. It was a slight one, the ball having passed through the calf, missing the bone.

He was, however, unable to walk. A litter was formed of two muskets with a great-coat laid between them, and Dick, being seated on this, was taken up by four men, and Jack taking his place beside him, the procession started. They halted some four miles off at a village in a valley beyond the Tchernaya.

The next day the boys were placed on ponies, and, under the escort of an officer and six troopers, conducted to Sebastopol. Here they were taken before a Russian general who, by means of an interpreter, closely examined them as to the force, condition, and position of the army.

The lads, however, evaded all questions by stating that they belonged to the fleet, and were only on duty on the heights above Balaklava, and were in entire ignorance of the force of the army and the intentions of its general. As to the fleet, they could tell nothing which the Russians did not already know.

The examination over, they were conducted to one of the casemates of Fort St. Nicholas. Here for a fortnight they remained, seeing no one except the soldier who brought them their food. The casemate was some thirty feet long by eighteen wide, and a sixty-eight-pounder stood looking out seaward. There the boys could occasionally see the ships of war of the allies as they cruised to and fro.

It was very cold, for the opening was of course unglazed. They had each a heap of straw and two blankets, and these in the daytime they used as shawls, for they had no fire, and it was freezing sharply.

Dick's leg had been examined and dressed by a surgeon upon his first arrival; but as the wound was not serious, and the surgeons were worked night and day with the enormous number of wounded at Inkerman, and in the various sorties, with which the town was crowded, he did not again come near his patient. The wound, however, healed rapidly.

As Jack remarked, the scanty rations of black bread and tough meat—the latter the produce of some of the innumerable bullocks which arrived at Sebastopol with convoys, too exhausted and broken down for further service—were not calculated to cause any feverish excitement to the blood, nor, had it been so, would the temperature have permitted the fever to rise to any undue height.

Their guards were kind to them so far as was in their power, and upon their using the word "tobacco," and making signs that they wanted to smoke, furnished them with pipes and with tobacco, which, although much lighter and very different in quality from that supplied on board ship, was yet very smokable, and much mitigated the dulness from which the boys suffered. A few days after their captivity the boys heard the church bells of Sebastopol ringing merrily.

"I wonder what all this is about?" Dick said; "not for a victory, I'll be bound."