In the Track of the Troops. Robert Michael Ballantyne

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      “Well, a torpedo,” said I, “is an infernal machine—”

      “Jeff,” said my mother, seriously, “don’t—”

      “Mother, I use the word advisedly and dispassionately. It is a term frequently given to such engines, because of their horrible nature, which suggests the idea that they were originated in the region of Satanic influence. A torpedo, then, is a pretty large case, or box, or cask, or reservoir, of one form or another, filled with gunpowder, or gun-cotton, or dynamite, which is used chiefly under water, for blowing-up purposes. Sometimes men use torpedoes to blow up rocks, and sunken wrecks; and sometimes, I grieve to say it, they blow up ships and sailors.”

      “Dreadful! my dear,” said my mother; “nevertheless I should like to go with you on this excursion, and see what devices men invent for the purpose of killing each other.”

      “Very well, that’s settled,” said I. “Now, as to the other letter about the yacht. I will buy it, mother, and go on a cruise to the Mediterranean, on one condition, namely, that you and Nicholas and Bella go with me.”

      “Impossible!” exclaimed my mother, firmly; “I never could bear the sea.”

      “But you’ve had little experience of it,” said I.

      “Well, not much—but I cannot bear it.”

      “Now, mother,” said I, coaxingly, “here is Bella dying to go to sea, I know. Nicholas has loads of time, and cannot be left behind, and I wish very much to go; but all will fall to the ground if you refuse to accompany us. We cannot leave you in this house alone. The sea air will certainly do you good, and if it does not, we can land, you know, at Lisbon, Gibraltar, Nice,—anywhere, and return home overland.”

      “Well, then, I will go,” returned my pliant mother.

      “That’s right,” said I, sitting down to write. “Now, then, all of you get ready to go to London this afternoon. We shall spend a day or two there, because, before leaving, I must see the first Lord of the Admiralty on particular business. Afterwards we shall run down to Portsmouth by the afternoon express, spend the night there, and so be ready to face the torpedoes in the morning.”

      Chapter Three.

      An Interview with Men in Power

      There is something peculiarly exhilarating in bright sunshine and calm weather. This is no doubt a truism; but there are some truths of which one never tires, and in regard to which one feels ever-recurring freshness. Who ever wearied of a balmy breeze, or a bright sunrise? Even a glorious noon cannot pall upon us unless it be too hot.

      When bright sunshine is associated with good health, pleasant company, a successful courtship, and the prospect of light on a favourite study, the reader will understand how it was that my mother and I, with Nicholas and Bella, formed a peculiarly happy quartette as we perambulated the streets of London prior to my visit to the Admiralty.

      It was a Friday forenoon, and there were many holiday-keepers hastening to trains. At the corner of one of the main thoroughfares a crowd partly blocked the road. The cause of it became apparent to us when the head and arched neck of a black charger appeared, and then the white plume and polished cuirass of a Life Guardsman. We stood on a door-step, so that Bella might see the troop.

      As they passed before us, with that stately bearing of man and horse which has always seemed to me peculiar to the Life Guards, and the sun flashed in dazzling gleams from breasts and helmets, I glanced at my friend Naranovitsch. His soldierlike form was drawn up to its full height, while the flashing eye, flushed countenance, distended nostrils, and compressed but slightly smiling lips told, I thought, of a strong feeling of martial joy. Doubtless he was thinking at the moment of his own regiment, to which he had been but recently appointed, and of his comrades-in-arms.

      “Fine-looking fellows!” I whispered.

      “Splendid! glorious!” he said, in a deep, low voice.

      Bella looked quickly up at him, displaying an anxious, sorrowing face, and bright eyes, dimmed with ill-suppressed tears.

      “You are not ill, Bella?” he whispered, bending down with a look of tenderness, not unmixed with surprise.

      “No; oh, no,” she replied, in a low tone; “but the sight of the Guards has made me very sad.”

      I knew full well the cause of her emotion, but the crowded street was not a suitable place for explanation.

      “Come, follow me,” I said, and walked quickly along in the direction of the Strand, where I turned abruptly into one of those quiet courts which form, as it were, harbours of refuge from the rattle and turmoil of the great city. Here, sauntering slowly round the quiet precincts of the court, with the roar of the street subdued to a murmur like that of a distant cataract, Bella told Nicholas, in tones of the deepest pathos, how a German lady, Elsie Goeben, one of her dearest friends, had been married to the handsomest and best of men in one of the Prussian cavalry regiments. How, only six months after their union, the Franco-Prussian war broke out, and Elsie’s husband Wilhelm was sent with his regiment to the frontier; how in many engagements he had distinguished himself; and how, at last, he was mortally wounded during one of the sorties at the siege of Metz.

      “They did not find him till next day,” continued my sister, “for he had fallen in a part of the field so far in advance of the ground on which his dead comrades lay, that he had been overlooked. He was riddled with bullets, they say, and his noble face, which I had so often seen beaming with affection on his young wife, was so torn and disfigured that his friends could scarcely recognise him. He was still alive when found, and they knew his voice. When they raised him, he merely exclaimed, ‘At last, thank God!’ with a deep sigh, as if of relief. The words were few, but they had terrible significance, for they told of a long, long night of agony and dreadful solitude; but he was not quite alone,” my sister added, in a low voice, “for he was a Christian. He died before reaching the tents of his division.”

      Bella’s voice faltered as she said, after a moment’s pause, “Dear Elsie never recovered the shock. She joined her husband in heaven two months afterwards.”

      “Truly,” said I, “war is a terrible curse.”

      “I hate it! I detest it!” cried Bella, with a sudden tone and look of energy, that was all the more impressive because of her natural character being gentle and retiring.

      I saw that Nicholas was surprised and pained. He would fain have comforted Bella, but knew not what to say, for he had been trained to talk of “martial glory,” and to look on war through the medium of that halo of false glitter with which it has been surrounded by too many historians in all ages. The young Russian had hitherto dwelt chiefly on one aspect of war. He had thought of noble and heroic deeds in defence of hearth and home, and all that man holds sacred. To fight for his country was to Nicholas an idea that called up only the thoughts of devotion, self-sacrifice in a good cause, duty, fidelity, courage, romance; while, in regard to the minor things of a warrior’s life, a hazy notion of dash, glitter, music, and gaiety floated through his brain. Of course he was not ignorant of some of the darker shades of war. History, which told him of many gallant deeds, also recorded numberless dreadful acts. But these latter he dismissed as being disagreeable and unavoidable accompaniments of war. He simply accepted things as he found them, and, not being addicted to very close reasoning, did not trouble himself much as to the rectitude or wisdom of war in the abstract. Neither did he distinguish between righteous and unrighteous war—war of self-defence and war of aggression. Sufficient for him that he served his country faithfully. СКАЧАТЬ