[PB: Does "From the narrative" suggest Parkinson wrote a longer account, which may have included Balaclava etc, or simply that Wood edited down his Alma account?]
His account of the Battle of the Alma, as told to Walter Wood, was published in The Royal Magazine Volume XV1. pp. 167 and seq. (There is a copy in the 11th Hussar files.)
[PB: This was republished in Walter Wood, Survivors' Tales of Great Events, Retold from Personal Narratives, London: Cassell, 1906. Book and transcript in hand.]
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IV.
THE BATTLE OF THE ALMA.
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One of the very first - if not actually the first - shots of the Crimean War was fired by Sergeant-Major J. Parkinson, late 11th Hussars, who served in the Light Brigade, and took part in the charge of the "Six Hundred." He was in the Crimea from first to last, and was present at all the engagements, including the Alma, Inkerman, Balaklava, and Sebastopol. After leaving the army, he was in the mounted police in London; then he had a long and honourable record in the Birmingham police force, from which he retired on pension.
The great battle of the Alma was fought on September 20th, 1854. The Allies - English, French, and Turks - and the Russians were almost evenly matched, but the Russians had an enormous advantage in their strong position.
THROUGH the surf, which broke and murmured on the shore, each man struggling with two horses, sometimes in the water, sometimes on the rafts, cold and drenched - that was how we landed in the
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Crimea. Our regiment was nearly nine hours in getting from the transport to the shore - yet it got there safely, and even if we shook and shivered in our soldier finery, that was better than being at the bottom of the sea, which some of the foreign troops had reached instead of the land.
We belonged to the Light Brigade - yes, I went through the Valley of Death with the Six Hundred - and we bivouacked as best we could. We had three days' rations, but no commissariat, and we got through that first miserable night in the land of the enemy as best we could. We wrapped ourselves in our cloaks, and lay down and tried to sleep, but there was not much rest for most of us. To begin with, there was the excitement of actual campaigning, and we did not know what was going to happen.
As a matter of fact, that very first night in the Crimea a remarkable thing resulted from the natural nervousness of new troops in a new campaign. War is like most other things - you have to get used to it; it is full of surprises, too, and we received our baptism of fire in a very strange way.
Some of us were bivouacking, and some of us were sent at once on outlying piquet, as the cavalry in the Crimea called it; outpost duty, as the term now is.
I rode out with my comrades of the 11th Hussars towards the direction in which we knew the Russians must be. About half a mile from us our French allies were still landing from their ships. Suddenly, to our amazement, the darkness of the
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night was broken by flashes of fire, and the stillness was disturbed by the crackle of small-arms.
What had happened? Who was firing on us? It could not be the Russians, because they were inland; it could not be our own comrades, who, even in their excitement, could not have opened fire on their own piquets, knowing where we were. There was only one explanation, and that was that the French, hearing, but not seeing us, knowing that the Russians were in our direction, had mistaken us for the enemy, and had instantly begun peppering into us! And so in truth it was.
The very first shots to be fired in the Crimea were fired by our friends and allies into us!
We were in a desperate case. We knew that the "potters" were our allies, and were thus prevented from retaliating; yet it was not exactly a pleasant thing to come by such an early and inglorious death.
What did we do? What could we do but dismount a good deal quicker than we had mounted, and shelter behind our saddles and our horses until such time as the real truth had dawned on our friends? And providentially that was very soon, for they knew from the non-return of their fire that they were blazing away at friends. We heard the welcome and soothing sound of the "Cease fire!" But the French had drawn some blood, at least, because two or three of our horses were wounded. The precarious luck of war had saved us from death under fire before ever a Russian had been seen.
That incident was mere comedy. We were soon
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enough to get more than our fill of the gloomy horrors of a long and woefully mismanaged war.
Our friendly baptism was swiftly followed by the first brush with the enemy himself, and a plunging into the sensations of meeting in the flesh the men of whom we had heard and talked so much, but had not yet beheld.
We had a day in which to settle down - then, early in the morning following, we marched off in skirmishing order in front of the brigades of infantry, with two troops of horse artillery in our rear. It was a time for thrilling emotions, for eager anticipations, for a man to test himself, and find out of what stuff he was made. Here we were, almost as soon as we had set foot in the Crimea, marching to seek the enemy, with every probability of a speedy finding.
The hours passed on, and the afternoon was wearing; then, abruptly and dramatically, we met the foe - and that part of it in which we, as cavalry - men, were so intensely interested - the Cossack, of dread reputation.
It was a wonderful first meeting of combatants. We came together, we knew that we were mortal enemies - yet we advanced without firing, drawn to one another as if magnetised, until we were near enough to laugh at each other Not more than a hundred and fifty yards separated us, yet it was not until that short distance intervened that we crushed our mutual curiosity, remembered that we were there to fight and not to stare, and suddenly and simultaneously opened fire.
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You might suppose from our closeness to each other, even allowing for the nervousness and disorder which are inseparable from a first engagement, that there would have been blood enough and to spare shed in this opening meeting; yet it is an extraordinary fact that, although we were firing into each other for at least twenty minutes, not a man amongst us was hurt - only one was struck, and that was a trooper, who was hit on the foot by a spent bullet I
And how did this come about, you ask? Well, you must remember that I am talking of fifty years ago, when a very slow - firing and imperfect carbine was in use - a weapon which even the smartest of men could not discharge more than once in two minutes. We fired from ten to twelve rounds of ammunition each from the saddle - there was no dismounted firing by cavalry through the whole of the war. Nowadays, two such forces, so near to each other, would suffer mutual annihilation in a few moments - but then, of course, they would never get so near, except for sabre work.
But the Russians were not so fortunate as we had been, for the Horse Artillery dashed up, and began firing, and the enemy retreated with the loss of several men. Grape and canister proved far more deadly than the carbine.
It was a striking opening to the war, and the effect of it upon us was remarkable too. Our men stood their ground coolly - astonishingly calmly, in - deed, considering that almost without exception they were young men - most of them youths, in fact -
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fresh from England. I believe this freedom from fear when the firing had really begun was due to the fact that no one was hurt. A feeling of great confidence was aroused, and our spirits rose to a high pitch.
If this was war - where were its horrors? They were to be revealed to us in all their nakedness only a day later, by Alma River.
We of the Light Brigade were in a starving state, for by this time our three days' provisions had gone, and we had nothing to eat or drink. But providence and energy - and again the luck of war - saved us from too much suffering. We were bivouacking on that night before the first great battle in the Crimea at a village called Bulganac. It was now forlorn and deserted, but some ducks and poultry and a few pigs and sheep had been left in the hurry of evacuation by the villagers, and we raided and captured them and roasted them over our camp - fires as best we could, which was indifferently, as we had no cooking utensils. It was a welcome meal, and all we had to eat until the battle was over.
That was a memorable and fateful night. The battlefield was an area of about five square miles - a valley commanded by two ranges of hills. We, the Allies - British, French, and Turkish - were in the valley; the Russians, equalling us in strength, were mustered in the hills. The object of the fight was to overcome and drive them away - and to do that it was necessary that the heights should be stormed and captured.
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Who that went through it can ever forget that night before the battle? It was dreary because of the intense cold and our own unreadiness for it - no tents, no comforts, no commissariat - none of the things which are needful nowadays to make your troops ready for contest; we had been dumped down on shore and hurried up to meet the Russians. But our gloomy bivouac ended when the morning broke - a cold, grey, misty morning, which was in keeping with the spirits of many of us. Swift disease had carried off many of us in the night - yet there was no time for mournful contemplation. The players were mustered for the great game of death and triumph, and the game began with a general advance of the Allies at something after one o'clock, when the sun was high and hot.
A river and a village ran parallel with each other under the first range of heights - a narrow river and a mean mud village. The miserable buildings had been filled with straw and other quickly-burning things - why, we did not learn until the battle opened; then the village burst into flames and smoke, and we saw that the purpose was to mask the fire of the Russian batteries, which immediately began to flash and boom in the hills.
Simultaneously with the outbreak of the fire in the huts and hills the British infantry forded the Alma, and began that desperate journey which those who could view it, as we from our position saw it - the Light Brigade was posted on the left flank, ready for a swoop when the enemy should be broken - never hoped to see accomplished.
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The Russian guns in the heights - there were 180 of them - roared and re-echoed, the valley below was torn with the shot and shell, the troops were ploughed into and the earth thrown up about them. Men fell, slain or wounded - the first - fruits of the war that was now raging in grim earnest - and it looked as if the red regiments would never reach the heights, and never scale and carry them. Yet they steadily drew nearer, gaining courage as they went. Covered by our own artillery fire, with chosen men picking off the gunners in the hills, the infantry forced its way to the burning village.
In face of such overwhelming odds, it seemed incredible that the victory could be won at all, still more unlikely that at such an early stage of the engagement there should be a chance of knowing how the fight would end; yet, in my judgment, even then the turning - point had been reached, for if troops could get across that wall - swept vale, surely they could not be held at bay when their blood was up and the time for storming with the bayonet came!
It was marvellous and thrilling to watch these raw, untrained lads push steadily on in face of such determined odds. On that field of battle no man could see more than part of the fight - not more than part is ever seen by any individual; but the Light Brigade were able to witness as much of the engagement as anybody. and a fascinating panorama it was, too.
There was the undulating plain between the hills and the sea, intersected by the river; on it,
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in the battle - smoke, were the brigades of Allies, rolling in red ranks towards the heights. Many of the masses of troops were very solid, some of the regiments were widely scattered. Colours were flying bravely in the thick air, officers were loudly encouraging their men; the men themselves were shouting as they advanced - and with it all there was the ceaseless dull crash of artillery and the constant rattle of musketry. And there were those other noises, also, which begin with every fight - the shrieks of the wounded and the groans of the dying - noises which are mercifully mingled with the greater din of battle, or men could never face each other in war.
Men were shot dead by gun or musket; others were hideously mangled. Still the ranks were kept together, still the colours were held on high, and the waving swords of the officers flashed in the grey smoke and the gleams of sunshine. There were a few - there always are, I think, in battles - whose hearts failed them, and who managed to fall out and stay behind in the confusion; but, with these rare exceptions, the redcoats panted on and up, and at last there came the great moment when the first of them were in the very batteries of the Russians. That was little more than an hour after the fight began - a grand result, indeed, when you bear in mind that the heights were considered impregnable, and that the Russians calculated that, even if they were constantly and desperately assailed and fell at all, they could not be reduced and taken in less than six or eight weeks. So sure were they of
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this that behind the second range of heights they had built towers from which they could comfortably watch the daily operations of the Allies.
The river, rugged ground, ruined buildings, burning huts, gardens, vineyards - all these and other obstacles had been safely passed in defiance of the Russian gunners and sharpshooters; now the very hills were reached, and the hardest trial of the battle came. Could human courage stand the fire from the very muzzles of the weapons and the steel of the defenders - could human strength, taxed so heavily by that desperate advance across the open that men could scarcely speak, survive that final call to mount the heights, and drive the brave and sullen greycoats off?
The answer was first given by one of the British regiments - the 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers. They stormed the Great Redoubt, the principal battery, and, with colours flying, rushed with the bayonet upon the defenders. One of the colours was planted in the earthwork by Ensign Anstruther, and in the very act of fixing it in token of a victory the gallant subaltern fell dead. The colour dropped with him, and his blood was dyeing the emblem which he had triumphantly raised.
Would his followers waver? Would they rally? For already the 23rd had suffered terribly, and there is a limit to endurance. The answer to the unspoken question was given instantly. Colour-Sergeant O'Connor snatched the colour from the stiffening hands, and raising it afresh, he put new heart of grace into the 23rd. During the rest of the
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battle he persisted in carrying the precious trophy he had saved, although he himself was shot through the chest. Afterwards he was given the Victoria Cross - one of the very first to be won - and rose to general's rank. He is still living.
But the Great Redoubt was not yet wholly won. The enemy was retreating, but he was dangerous still, and it was necessary to cripple him as he went. The guns were already limbering up, and one of them was just about to drive off when Captain Edward Bell, of the 23rd, shouted to his company, " Take that gun, lads! "He dashed forward as he spoke, outran his men, seized the leading horse, and actually, single-handed, made the gun a prize. He also was given the Cross for his valour.*
* This valiant officer was known as "Smiler" Bell, and it is bronze from "Smiler's gun" of which all the Victoria Crosses are made for the Navy as well as the Army. The Queen's Colour of the Royal Fusiliers was carried at the Alma by Captain Henry Mitchell Jones, one of the winners of the Cross, and known as " Alma " Jones throughout the Army. He was shot through the jaw-bone at the Alma, afterwards wounded at the capture of the Quarries on June 7th, and again by a shell splinter in the chest on September 8th. Captain Jones, now retired from the position of Consul-General in Siam, is still living. He is the youngest of six brothers, of whom five were all, antecedently to the Crimea, killed in action! - EDITOR.
Seven Crosses were won at the Alma, and most of them for gallantry just about this crucial period of the battle. There was Lord Wantage, who, when his Scots Fusilier Guards wavered because the odds seemed hopelessly against them, stood rock-like against the colours, and rallied his men; there was Sergeant John McKechnie, who in that
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supreme moment also raised his rifle, and shouted; " By the centre, Scots! By the centre! Look to the colours, and march by them! " Sergeant John S: Knox and Private Reynolds, too, were awarded the decoration for rallying the regiment that day - a rare quartette of honours; and there was another hero in Sergeant John Park, of the 77th Regiment, who gained the Cross for many acts of courage at the Alma.
While these few were doing things which won them lasting glory, the brave fellows who fought and bled and died, and whose very names have been forgotten, even if they were ever known, were holding grimly to their work, firing when firing was possible, falling back on sabre or bayonet when steel was needed, and never flinching from the death which played about them, never turning from the stern purpose of winning those frowning heights. They were thrilled and stimulated by the knowledge of success, encouraged by the capture of the Great Redoubt, heartened by the raising of the British colours in the very stronghold of the foe.
Now came the time when the Light Brigade and the Horse Artillery, all quick-moving troops, could be hurled against the enemy. He had been stricken and sorely hurt; it was necessary that his, crippling should be completed. War is war, and you can show no mercy until the fight is done, and one side or the other is the victor. So, as the grey-coated Russians hurried from the first range of heights, and sought refuge by retreating. along the valley there towards Sebastopol, we charged into and
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amongst them, scattering and driving them so that they should not re-assemble and remain a danger to us.
Every soldier will tell you that there is nothing more demoralising than to be inactive under fire. It is more than human flesh can endure to remain a mere target, getting all the fire and giving none - in this respect, at least, war makes man unselfish. We of the Light Brigade were very much in that position, for we were well within range of the Russian guns and in the line of fire of some of the artillery. The result was that round shot from the heights plumped into us from time to time, and made us jump, I can tell you. But a special providence appeared to overwatch us; because we suffered no casualties worth mentioning. All the same, we mere glad enough when the order was given for us to chase the flying enemy, and crown the glorious work of our own infantry and artillery - unseasoned soldiers who bad already done the work of veterans.
I have told you that there were a few waverers - was ever a battle fought which had not some at least of them? - but there were noble heroes, too, humble soldiers who fought as well as the very best, and for whom there was nothing at the finish but the soldier's grave. I do not think that any battle ever gave a truer hero than a Foot Guardsman whom I saw. Early in the fight he was wounded, yet he would not leave the ranks, he would not fall out; he would hold on until he fell. He tried to keep up with his regiment, and for a little while he did so, supported by his courage and excitement, but
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more than all, his sense of duty. Then he was over - come by loss of blood, he dropped behind, he lagged, he lost his place. The regiment rushed on and left him - it could do nothing else.
The Guardsman had done his duty, and he could do no more. To reach the heights was hope - less, impossible; to fall, with horse artillery and cavalry sweeping the plain, was to run an almost certain risk of being killed by hoofs or crushed by gun - wheels. He could just walk, and he used his last remaining strength to come towards us, and find refuge in our ranks. He advanced a little, he gained ground slightly, he came slowly nearer, and we were ready to receive him with a cheer of friendship and protection. Then, almost in the midst of those who could have helped him, saved his life, perhaps, he fell on that too bloody field. A shot had struck him, and he never moved again.
The general wish amongst the men of the Light Brigade before we received the order to advance was to get into action; but, of course, as cavalry, we could not work until the first range of heights was taken and the Russians driven out into the open, where we could get amongst them. So we had to bide our time, and wait as patiently as we could - and that was not very patiently with some of us. I vividly recollect the case of my old - nay, I must say young - comrade, George Wootton, a Cheltenham man, who was riding on my left in the ranks. The excitement of battle suddenly overcame him - he was at all times rather emotional - and, seized with an overwhelming
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wish to be in the thick of the fight, he made as if he would dash straight out of the ranks. Just as he was talking wildly a shell from the heights struck the ground not more than ten or a dozen yards in front of us. Wootton's terrified horse reared straight up, and would doubtless have gone over if we had not caught hold of the reins, and managed to keep him down and calm him. That sobered George for the time, and he got plenty of opportunity to work off his agitation a few minutes later. Poor George! He was killed in the charge of the Light Brigade five weeks later. It was said amongst us then that his excitement was his undoing, for, overcome by it, he rode out of the ranks and rushed to meet the doom that was certain to any solitary horseman in that fatal valley.
So far we had been the witnesses of the many horrors of a battlefield from a distance, now we were plunged into the thick of the conflict, and abruptly confronted all the dangers of a stricken field. At such a time the incidents of war make a far deeper impression on your mind than those with which you make acquaintance as a veteran, even as the earliest happenings in one's life stand out more clearly than the later events. One thing in particular I recall. The Horse Artillery had fired two rounds from each gun, and were advancing across the valley, the Light Brigade following them. As we rode after the retreating masses I saw a Russian lying on the ground, apparently dead. Not knowing that the cavalry were - following the guns he turned over on his side. Then
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I saw that he had his rifle underneath him, and that he was raising it. He fired at one of the men who was riding on the back of a gun-carriage. The man was badly wounded - and the Russian was instantly killed by one of our troopers as we rode past. If he had remained still he would have been unhurt, for no British sabre would have been raised to cut him down. His was not the only case of treachery that day - there were many others; and we became sadly accustomed to this feigning of death in the Crimea by Russians who were scarcely wounded at all, so that they could bring down at least one of the Allies. We kept up the pursuit until we were ordered to halt; and in spite of all that has been said about the feebleness of the harrying of the flying Russians, I think, as I have always thought, that if once they had pulled themselves together and rounded on us we should have been destroyed, and the heights would have been recaptured, because there were such hosts of them, and the advantages they possessed were so great. I can assure you that at the beginning of the battle I had little doubt as to the result, and that was that we should be compelled to abandon our attempt, and that victory, if it came at all, would be long delayed. Yet my gloomy fears had vanished long before we were recalled from the vale between the ridges, and knew that within three hours the first great glorious victory of the Crimea had been won. We had suffered heavily - the brave old 33rd Foot had lost nineteen sergeants in killed alone,
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mostly slain in defence of the colours, and many British officers had perished. The dead lay thick about the valley and in the hills; yet we were exuberant enough when we bivouacked on our first stern, hard-won battlefield, and by our camp-fires told and heard of the strange things that had been done and seen. We listened to the tales of French plundering, and listened all the harder because we ourselves had been forbidden to loot; and we heard of the curious discoveries, in the abandoned rifle-pits, of small barrels of a Russian drink called arrack, and of black bread and pro - visions which were plentiful enough to last six weeks. The British soldier of the Crimea was almost equal to any drink, but even he would not have been proof against the arrack, supposing he had been allowed to take it, which he was not; and so the spirit was emptied out of the casks, and allowed to run to waste.
The joy of triumph was succeeded by the gloom of burial. For two days after the battle we were burying our dead in the rifle - pits, and our wounded were collected and taken into hospital or on board ship. The rifle-pits were covered in, and we left our fallen sleeping on the heights which they had fought so well to win. Two years later, as one of Lord Gough's escort, I visited the battlefield again. The vineyards were there, there too were the broken ground, the ruined village, the murmuring river - all seemed strangely unchanged. Yet there was one new thing. When we
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marched from the Alma the rifle-pits were raw with new earth. The earth was seen no longer - for man-high grass was softly waving over our comrades' graves.