He smiled. “That’s good, then. Thank’ee, sir.” And he lay back, with his eyelids twitching, breathing very quietly.
“Well,” says I. “Good-bye, Ryan. Good-bye, all of you. Ah – keep your spirits up. We’ll all be going home soon.”
“When the Ruskis is beat,” cries someone, and Ryan says:
“Three cheers for the Colonel!” and they all cheered, feebly, and shouted “Good old Flash Harry!” and the man with the patched eye began to sing, and they all took it up, and as I drove off with Lanskey I heard the words of the old Light Brigade canter fading behind me:
In the place of water we’ll drink ale,
An’ pay no reck’ning on the nail,
No man for debt shall go to jail,
While he can Garryowen hail.
I’ve heard it from Afghanistan to Whitehall, from the African veldt to drunken hunting parties in Rutland; heard it sounded on penny whistles by children and roared out in full-throated chorus by Custer’s 7th on the day of Greasy Grass – and there were survivors of the Light Brigade singing on that day, too – but it always sounds bitter on my ears, because I think of those brave, deluded, pathetic bloody fools in that Russian shed, with their mangled bodies and lost limbs, all for a shilling a day and a pauper’s grave – and yet they thought Cardigan, who’d have flogged ’em for a rusty spur and would see them murdered under the Russian guns because he hadn’t wit and manhood enough to tell Lucan to take his order to hell – they thought he was “a good old commander”, and they even cheered me, who’d have turned tail on them at the click of a bolt. Mind you, I’m harmless, by comparison – I don’t send ’em off, stuffed with lies and rubbish, to get killed and maimed for nothing except a politician’s vanity or a manufacturer’s profit. Oh, I’ll sham it with the best in public, and sport my tinware, but I know what I am, and there’s no room for honest pride in me, you see. But if there was – just for a little bit, along with the disgust and hatred and selfishness – I’d keep it for them, those seven hundred British sabres.
It must be the drink talking. That’s the worst of it; whenever I think back to Balaclava, there’s nothing for it but the booze. It’s not that I feel guilt or regret or shame – they don’t count beside feeling alive, anyway, even if I were capable of them. It’s just that I don’t really understand Balaclava, even now. Oh, I can understand, without sharing, most kinds of courage – that which springs from rage, or fear, or greed or even love. I’ve had a bit of them myself – anyone can show brave if his children or his woman are threatened. (Mind you, if the hosts of Midian were assailing my little nest, offering to ravish my loved one, my line would be to say to her, look, you jolly ’em along, old girl, and look your best, while I circle round to a convenient rock with my rifle.) But are these emotions, that come of anger or terror or desire, really bravery at all? I doubt it, myself – but what happened in the North Valley, under those Russian guns, all for nothing, that’s bravery, and you may take the word of a true-blue coward for it. It’s beyond my ken, anyway, thank God, so I’ll say no more of it, or of Balaclava, which as far as my Russian adventure is concerned, was really just an unpleasant prelude. Enough’s enough; Lord Tennyson may have the floor for me.
The journey from Yalta through the woody hills to Kertch was not noteworthy; once you’ve seen a corner of the Crimea you’ve seen it all, and it’s not really Russia. From Kertch, where a singularly surly and uncommunicative French-speaking civilian took me in charge (with a couple of dragoons to remind me what I was), we went by sloop across the Azov Sea to Taganrog, a dirty little port, and joined the party of an imperial courier whose journey lay the same way as ours. Ah-ha, thinks I, we’ll travel in style, which shows how mistaken one can be.
We travelled in two telegues, which are just boxes on wheels, with a plank at the front for the driver, and straw or cushions for the passengers. The courier was evidently in no hurry, for we crawled along at an abominably slow pace, although telegues can travel at a tremendous clip when they want to, with a bell clanging in front, and everyone scattering out of their way. It always puzzled me, when I later saw the shocking condition of Russian roads, with their ruts and pot-holes, how the highways over which the telegues travelled were always smooth and level. The secret was this: telegues were used only by couriers and officials of importance, and before they came to a stretch of road, every peasant in the area was turned out to sand and level it.
So as we lumbered along, the courier in state in the first telegue, and Flashy with his escort in the second, there were always peasants standing by the roadside, men and women, in their belted smocks and ragged puttees, silent, unmoving, staring as we rolled by. This dull brooding watchfulness got on my nerves, especially at the post stations, where they used to assemble in silent groups to stare at us – they were so different from the Crim Tartars I had seen, who are lively, tall, well-made men, even if their women are seedy. The steppe Russians were much smaller, and ape-like by comparison.
Of course, what I didn’t realize then was that these people were slaves – real bound, European white slaves, which isn’t easy to understand until you see it. This wasn’t always so; it seems that Boris Godunov – whom most of you will know as a big fellow who takes about an hour and a half to die noisily in an opera – imposed serfdom on the Russian peasants, which meant that they became the property of the nobles and land-owners, who could buy and sell them, hire them out, starve them, lash them, imprison them, take their goods, beasts and womenfolk whenever they chose – in fact, do anything short of maiming them permanently or killing them. They did those things, too, of course, for I saw them, but it was officially unlawful.
The serfs were just like the nigger slaves in the States – worse off, if anything, for they didn’t seem to realize they were slaves. They looked on themselves as being attached to the soil (“we belong to the master, but the land is ours”, was a saying among them) and traditionally they had bits of land to work for their own benefit – three days on their patch each week, three on the master’s, was supposed to be the rule, but wherever I went it seemed to be six on the master’s and one for themselves, if they were lucky.
It may not seem possible to you that in Europe just forty years ago white folk could be used like this, that they could be flogged with rods and whips up to ten times a day, or knouted (which is something infinitely worse), or banished to Siberia for years at their landlord’s whim; all he had to do was pay the cost of their transportation. They could be made to wear spiked collars, the women could be kept in harems, the men could be drafted off to the army so that the owners could steal their wives without embarrassment, their children could be sold off – and in return for this they were meant to be grateful to their lords, and literally crawl in front of them, calling them “father”, touching their heads on the ground, and kissing their boots. I’ve watched them do it – just like political candidates at home. I’ve seen a lot of human sorrow and misery in my time, but the lot of the Russian serf was the most appalling I’ve ever struck.
Of course, it’s all changed now; they freed the serfs in ’61, just a few years after I was there, and now, I’m told, they are worse off than ever. Russia depended on slavery, you see, and when they freed them they upset the balance, and there was tremendous starvation and the economy went to blazes – well, in the old days the landlords had at least kept the serfs alive, for their own benefit, but after emancipation, why should they? And it was all nonsense, anyway; the Russians will always be slaves – so will most of the rest of mankind, of course, but it tends to be more obvious among the Ruskis.
For one thing, they look so damned slavish. I remember the first time I really noticed serfs, the first day’s drive out of Taganrog. It was at a little village post-station, where some official was thrashing a peasant – don’t know why – and this dull clown was just standing and letting himself be caned by a fellow half his size, hardly even wincing under the blows. There was a little crowd of serfs looking on, ugly, dirty-looking rascals in hairy blue smocks and rough trousers, with their women and a few ragged brats – and they