In the Track of the Troops by R. M. Ballantyne (best books to read in life .TXT) 📕

anxious air, which attracted the attention of the surrounding soldiers, “it’s not that which troubles me. I’m as sure of the pretty little sweetheart as I am that the sun will rise to-morrow; but there’s my dear old mother that lost a leg last Christmas by the overturning of a sledge, an’ my old father who’s been bedridden for the last quarter of a century, and the brindled cow that’s just recovering from the measles. How they are all to get on without me, and nobody left to look after them but an old sister as tall as myself, and in the last stages of a decline—”

At this point the scout, as Corporal Shoveloff had dubbed him, was interrupted by a roar of laughter from his comrades, in which the “corporal” joined heartily.

“Well, well,” said the latter, who was not easily quelled either mentally or physically, “I admit that you have good cause for despondency; nevertheless a man like you ought to keep up his spirits—if it were only for the sake of example to young fellows, now, like André Yanovitch there, who seems to have buried all his relatives before starting for the wars.”

The youth on whom Shoveloff tried to turn the laugh of his own discomfiture was a splendid fellow, tall and broad-shouldered enough for a man of twenty-five, though his smooth and youthful face suggested sixteen. He had been staring at the fire, regardless of what was going on around.

“What did you say?” he cried, starting up and reddening violently.

“Come, come, corporal,” said Sergeant Gotsuchakoff, interposing, “no insinuations. André Yanovitch will be ten times the man you are when he attains to your advanced age.—Off with that kettle, lads; it must be more than cooked by this time, and there is nothing so bad for digestion as overdone meat.”

It chanced that night, after the men were rolled in their cloaks, that Dobri Petroff found himself lying close to André under the same bush.

“You don’t sleep,” he said, observing that the young soldier moved frequently. “Thinking of home, like me, no doubt?”

“That was all nonsense,” said the youth sharply, “about the cow, and your mother and sister, wasn’t it?”

“Of course it was. Do you think I was going to give a straight answer to a fool like Shoveloff?”

“But you have left a mother behind you, I suppose?” said André, in a low voice.

“No, lad, no; my mother died when I was but a child, and has left naught but the memory of an angel on my mind.”

The scout said no more for a time, but the tone of his voice had opened the heart of the young dragoon. After a short silence he ventured to ask a few more questions. The scout replied cheerfully, and, from one thing to another, they went on until, discovering that they were sympathetic spirits, they became confidante, and each told to the other his whole history.

That of the young dragoon was short and simple, but sad. He had been chosen, he said, for service from a rural district, and sent to the war without reference to the fact that he was the only support of an invalid mother, whose husband had died the previous year. He had an elder brother who ought to have filled his place, but who, being given to drink, did not in any way fulfil his duties as a son. There was also, it was true, a young girl, the daughter of a neighbour, who had done her best to help and comfort his mother at all times, but without the aid of his strong hand that girl’s delicate fingers could not support his mother, despite the willingness of her brave heart, and thus he had left them hurriedly at the sudden and peremptory call of Government.

“That young girl,” said Petroff, after listening to the lad’s earnest account of the matter with sympathetic attention, “has no place there, has she?”—he touched the left breast of André’s coat and nodded.

The blush of the young soldier was visible even in the dim light of the camp-fire as he started up on one elbow, and said—

“Well, yes; she has a place there!”

He drew out a small gilt locket as he spoke, and, opening it, displayed a lock of soft auburn hair.

“I never spoke to her about it,” he continued, in a low tone, “till the night we parted. She is very modest, you must know, and I never dared to speak to her before, but I became desperate that night, and told her all, and she confessed her love for me. Oh, Petroff, if I could only have had one day more of—of—but the sergeant would not wait. I had to go to the wars. One evening in paradise is but a short time, yet I would not exchange it for all I ever—” He paused.

“Yes, yes, I know all about that,” said the scout, with an encouraging nod; “I’ve had more than one evening in that region, and so will you, lad, after the war is over.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” returned the dragoon sadly; “however, she gave me this lock of her hair—she is called ‘Maria with the auburn hair’ at our place—and mother gave me the locket to put it in. I noticed that she took some grey hair out when she did so.”

“Keep it, lad; keep it always near your heart,” said the scout, with sudden enthusiasm, as the youth replaced and buttoned up his treasure; “it will save you, mayhap, like a charm, in the hour of temptation.”

“I don’t need that advice,” returned the soldier, with a quiet smile, as he once more laid his head on his saddle.

Soon the noise in our little camp ceased, and, ere long, every man was asleep except the sentinels.

Towards morning one of these observed a man approaching at full speed. As he came near the sentinel threw forward his carbine and challenged. The man stopped and looked about him like a startled hare, then, without reply, turned sharply to the left and dashed off. The sentinel fired. Of course we all sprang up, and the fugitive, doubling again to avoid another sentinel, almost leaped into the arms of André Yanovitch, who held him as if in a vice, until he ceased his struggles, and sank exhausted with a deep groan.

On being led to one of the fires in a half-fainting condition, it was found that he was covered with blood and wounds. He looked round him at first with an expression of maniacal terror, but the moment he observed Petroff among his captors he uttered a loud cry, and, springing forward seized his hand.

“Why, Lewie,” exclaimed the scout, with a gleam of recognition, “what has happened?”

“The Bashi-Bazouks have been at our village!” cried the man wildly, as he wiped the blood out of his eyes.

“Ha!” exclaimed Dobri, with a fierce look; “we can succour—”

“No, no, no,” interrupted the man: with a strange mixture of horror and fury in his blood-streaked face; “too late! too late!”

He raised his head, stammered as if attempting to say more, then, lifting both arms aloft, while the outspread fingers clutched the air, uttered an appalling cry, and fell flat on the ground.

“Not too late for revenge,” muttered the officer commanding the detachment. “Dress his wounds as quickly as may be, Mr Childers.”

He gave the necessary orders to get ready. In a few minutes the horses were saddled, and I had done what I could for the wounded man.

“You know the village he came from, and the way to it?” asked the commanding officer of Petroff.

“Yes, sir, I know it well.”

“Take the man up behind you, then, and lead the way.”

The troop mounted, and a few minutes later we were galloping over a wide plain, on the eastern verge of which the light of the new day was slowly dawning.

An hour’s ride brought us to the village. We could see the smoke of the still burning cottages as we advanced, and were prepared for a sad spectacle of one of the effects of war; but what we beheld on entering far surpassed our expectations. Harvests trampled down or burned were bad enough, so were burning cottages, battered-in doors, and smashed windows, but these things were nothing to the sight of dead men and women scattered about the streets. The men were not men of war; their peasant garbs bespoke them men of peace. Gallantly had they fought, however, in defence of hearth and home, but all in vain. The trained miscreants who had attacked them form a part of the Turkish army, which receives no pay, and is therefore virtually told that, after fighting, their recognised duty is to pillage. But the brutes had done more than this. As we trotted through the little hamlet, which was peopled only by the dead, we observed that most of the men had been more or less mutilated, some in a very horrible manner, and the poor fellow who had escaped said that this had been done while the men were alive.

Dismounting, we examined some of the cottages, and there beheld sights at the mere recollection of which I shudder. In one I saw women and children heaped together, with their limbs cut and garments torn off, while their long hair lay tossed about on the bloody floors. In another, which was on fire, I could see the limbs of corpses that were being roasted, or had already been burnt to cinders.

Not one soul in that village was left alive. How many had escaped we could not ascertain, for the wounded man had fallen into such a state of wild horror that he could not be got to understand or answer questions. At one cottage door which we came to he stood with clasped hands gazing at the dead inside, like one petrified. Some one touched him on the shoulder, when we were ready to leave the place, but he merely muttered, “My home!”

As we could do no good there, and were anxious to pursue the fiends who had left such desolation behind them, we again urged the man to come with us, but he refused. On our attempting to use gentle force, he started suddenly, drew a knife from his girdle, and plunging it into his heart, fell dead on his own threshold.

It was with a sense of relief, as if we had been delivered from a dark oppressive dungeon, that we galloped out of the village, and followed the tracks of the Bashi-Bazouks, which were luckily visible on the plain. Soon we traced them to a road that led towards the mountainous country. There was no other road there, and as this one had neither fork nor diverging path, we had no difficulty in following them up.

It was night, however, before we came upon further traces of them,—several fires where they had stopped to cook some food. As the sky was clear, we pushed on all that night.

Shortly after dawn we reached a sequestered dell. The road being curved at the place, we came on it suddenly, and here, under the bushes, we discovered the lair of the Bashi-Bazouks.

They kept no guard, apparently, but the sound of our approach had roused them, for, as we galloped into the dell, some were seen running to catch their horses, others, scarcely awake, were wildly buckling on their swords, while a few were creeping from under the low booths of brushwood they had set up to shelter them.

The scene that followed was brief but terrible. Our men, some of whom were lancers, some dragoons, charged them in all directions with yells of execration. Here I saw one wretch thrust through with a lance, doubling backward in his death-agony as he fell; there, another turned fiercely, and fired his pistol full at the dragoon who charged him, but missed, and was cleft next moment to the chin. In another place a wretched man had dropped on his knees, and, while in a supplicating attitude, was run through the neck