CHAPTER XVIII.
THE HEIGHTS OF DJUNIS.
It was the morning of the 20th of October, and the bells of St. Nestor's Monastery were just tolling for matins, when the deep hoarse boom of the Turkish Krupp guns announced their attack upon Djunis, the key of the Servian position, some almost impregnable heights overlooking Deligrad and the valley of the Morava.
It was a wild and gusty morning. The chill breeze was sweeping fiercely through the groves and woodlands, casting their dark and fitful shadows in the morning sunshine on the ground beneath. There the dead leaves were whirled in clouds to and fro, and the green blades of the dewy and yet untrodden grass shone like steel or silver in the sheen of the level sun.
Long ere this, the Servian and Russian troops—three thousand of the latter had joined only two months before—were under arms, and all moving into the various positions assigned to them; and the sombre columns, in the brown uniforms of Milano, or the dusky grey capotes of the Emperor, were marching in masses up the steeps and along the slopes, with their bayonets and accoutrements flashing incessantly in the sun, deploying, deepening, and extending, anon reducing their front as some natural obstruction came in the way, to deploy in front formation again, the tri-colours waving in the wind, while occasionally the clear blast of a bugle was borne past on it.
Cecil's regiment, formed by squadrons of which he commanded the leading one, had all the cloaks rolled and strapped to the pommel of the saddles. Baggage, valises, and all that might impede the men in action, were left in camp, and the edge and point of the sword alone were looked to for the work of the day, which was chiefly to support a battery of guns and go wherever they were wanted.
'My God, I thank Thee!' thought Cecil, with high and pure enthusiasm in his heart, as he leaped on his horse that morning; 'to-day, whatever may happen—whatever fate may befall me—I am again a Cameronian, a Queen's officer, one of the true old Cameronians who in every fight, from the days of Dunkeld to the fall of Magdala, have carried their colours with honour, and given place to none!'
And so he felt that it was as much in the character of a British officer, as one in the service of Milano Obrenovitch, he drew his sword in what was eventually to prove the last battle of the Servian war.
The cavalry brigade to which he belonged moved off by fours from the right of squadrons.
'Shagaum-marche! trot—à levo!—nà préte!' (left wheel—forward!) followed, and the column began to descend the Krusevac road, moving to the left across a valley.
Here he passed the infantry corps of Pelham and Stanley, halted temporarily.
'A cigar, Falconer,' said the former, holding out his case.
'Thanks—acceptable indeed in this chill atmosphere.'
'If I get knocked on the head to-day—' began Pelham, who was rather a reckless fellow.
'A cheerful beginning!' said Stanley, sharply; 'I wish you would shut up, old man. But well, suppose you were so?'
'My tragic fate would be mourned sincerely, at least by many a sorrowful West-end trader, in whose books my later annals have been noted. But, ta, ta, Falconer—there goes our bugle. Advance!'
Shot dead by a Snider bullet in his heart, poor Pelham, within an hour after this, lay cold and stiff on the slope of the Djunis, while his regiment took up its position in front of the fast-advancing Turkish lines.
With the three days' fighting that now ensued we shall not trouble the reader, further than with that portion which cannot be omitted—the part that Cecil saw, and that he bore in it, with what befell him there.
Though Tchernaieff, on this day, placed the management of the troops chiefly in the hands of General Dochtouroff, he seemed to be ubiquitous, and was seen everywhere in rapid succession all over the Servian position, assisting in the placing of brigades here and there, on the most advantageous ground, and, as an officer who was present has recorded, 'he placed the troops exactly where they were most needed, for the Turks made their attack upon the very positions he had fixed upon.'
'Good-morning, Herr Capitan,' said he, as he passed Cecil's squadron, which had halted near some glassy steeps most difficult of ascent, in rear of the Servian position; 'but it seems to me that the enemy has got very correct information about all the points of our ground.'
'They have evidently been furnished with a plan, excellency,' remarked a Russian aide-de-camp, whose breast was covered with Crimean and Khivan medals.
'A plan!' exclaimed Cecil; 'how can they have got it?'
'How, but through the agency of that scoundrel Guebhard, the renegade!' replied Tchernaieff, with a dark frown, and a Tartar-like gleam in his eyes; 'but the seven gates of hell are always open, and if he is here under fire, he may reach one of them to-night!'
'If not?'
'And if he ever falls into my hands, it will be an eye for an eye—a tooth for a tooth—his wretched life against the many lives lost to-day!'
He galloped on; the battle had begun in earnest now; fire and smoke enveloped the whole position that towered skyward; the booming of the heavy Krupp guns and the roar of rifle-musketry loaded the air, and amid it all the Grim Sergeant was calling fast his ghastly roll, while Cecil sat inactive, impatient in his saddle, and longing to see some work cut out for the cavalry.
Wounded Servians and Russians came pouring past from the heights, smeared with blood and dust—the bronzed and battle-hardened veterans of old wars and the lad newly enrolled but a week before; some were binding up their wounds as they limped past, and some fell on the way, and lay there prone, dead or in a swoon, unheeded and untended—a painful spectacle to look upon in cold blood.
So closely was the attack of the position pressed, and so mixed up did the batteries of artillery and the brigades seem, that amid the sulphureous cloud that enveloped them it was difficult to know, sometimes, which were Servian and which were Turkish.
All day long around the steeps of the Djunis the cannon boomed and the rattle of musketry continued, and great was the slaughter everywhere. Whatever might have been the shortcomings of the Servians in previous battles, all fought well and nobly then, and the din of battle all the livelong day rang between the peaks of the wooded mountains, with a thousand hollow reverberations, drowning every sound elicited by human enthusiasm, valour, suffering, or the heavy hand of coming death.
The smoke seemed to mingle with the clouds, especially towards sunset, where westward, beyond the mountain-tops, a red and tempestuous sun was setting, filling all the vast expanse with intense ruddy light, that threw up intervening objects in opaque and distinct outline.
On many a face that had been bright with youth and health in the morning the sunset fell now, and left it cold, white, and lifeless; the dusk drew on, and still the terrible work of slaughter went forward without ceasing.
As it deepened into utter gloom, the red, streaky, and incessant flashes from hundreds of cannon burst forth incessantly; the infantry sought each other's where-abouts by their mutual firing, pouring it in almost at random, while on one side ever and anon burst forth the deep, hoarse 'Hurrah!' of the Muscovite and Slav, on the other the incessant and shrill high shout of 'Allah, Allah, hu!' till, as if by mutual consent, the contest ceased, and both armies lay down, weary and worn, to endure hunger, thirst, and cold, on the ground where they had fought, and surrounded by all the agony and horrors of their mutual carnage.
Many lay down on that night on the slopes of the Djunis who never rose again.
Cecil passed it rolled in his cloak beside his charger, with a stone for a pillow; but sleep was a stranger to his eyes, and amid the incessant cries and moans of the wounded, who streamed past rearward by twos, threes, or even scores at a time, he strove to think of Mary's letter and all it suggested, to render him oblivious, for a time, of all his terrible surroundings.
A sergeant of his troop shared with him the contents of a flask of raki, fiery stuff, but very acceptable under the circumstances, for Cecil was as great a favourite with his Servian troopers as he had been with the Cameronians; and the act of the sergeant—whilom a poor copper-miner in the mountains—recalled to his memory the faith and generosity of his old Cameronian servant, Tommy Atkins, on the last night he was under the same roof with the dear old regiment.
Cecil knew not how the fight had gone on the summit of the position, but when morning dawned, among those who were still straggling, crawling, and limping down from it came a man in a scarlet tunic. Scarlet! The sight of the familiar colour made Cecil's heart leap. The wearer, who was severely wounded, proved to be a new aide-de-camp of Tchernaieff's, a lieutenant of the 1st Hussars of the Russian Imperial Guard, whose uniform is like the British.
He informed Cecil that a portion of the position, named the Crevet Plateau, which Dochtouroff had retaken from the Turks, had afterwards fallen again into the hands of the enemy; but he had sworn to retake it or die there, and after a terrible conflict, in which men perished by companies around him, he had failed to do so, though his troops had got into that state of rage or frenzy which the French term acharnement.
With dawn the work of death began again, and Cecil's troop, with some other cavalry, began, by a circuitous route, to ascend the position. Ere long shot began to fall and shells to burst among them, scattering wounds, suffering, and death; but so much were the whole heights involved in smoke that he could see little of what was going on, and knew less of the great game that was being played, though the hill on which he was ordered to halt commanded a view of the valleys on both sides.
A regiment of Russian infantry, far away on the right, held with resolute bravery a post assigned it by Dochtouroff, and the Turkish masses with their scarlet fezzes and green standards, and their incessant shout of 'Allah!' seemed to hurl their fury against it again and again in vain. On the left the smoke from three villages, set on fire by them, rolled along the valley and veiled everything. In one part of the field a Russian regiment, which had expended the last of its cartridges, deliberately 'stood at ease' under the Turkish fire, perishing where it was posted, rather than lose honour by falling back!
Thick lay the dead and thicker the wounded on every hand, and the medley of sounds that went up from the Crevet Plateau and the eminences around it was appalling; and the evening of the second day was drawing on.
Suddenly General Dochtouroff, pale and excited, but with flashing eyes, dashed up to where Cecil was at the head of his squadron, and sharply reining in his horse on the curb, said:
'A brigade of guns is getting into position to attack the flank of yonder Turkish column on the left. At the hazard of your life you will support the guns!'
Dochtouroff then galloped away, and, as it proved eventually, Cecil never saw him again.
'Here come the artillery!' cried a voice, as the guns came thundering to the front—all Russian, painted green, guns and carriages alike. Along the slope of the Djunis heights the brigade came in column at full speed, withdrawn from some other position to act with effect at the point indicated. Crushing many a dead body, and splashing through pools of blood, they went in wild career, the drivers using whip and spur with a will; the fence of a flax-field was swept away like a gossamer web, as the guns rushed to the front—six horses to each gun and limber, three riders to each gun.
Over vineyard walls, fallen trees, through laurel bushes, every horse straining at the gallop, every driver lashing his team and goring with the spurs, while yelling, 'Dobro! dobro! hurrah! hurrah!' they made a wonderfully impressive sight.
Sometimes the guns bounded up eighteen inches or more, as the iron-bound wheels went over some rock or obstruction, but no man lost his seat, and no horse failed in its pace—eight guns, eight tumbrils, eighty horses, and a hundred men, all rushing on for life and death to obey Dochtouroff, and get into position, the cavalry galloping in their rear, and from a column of march right in front, as they wheeled up into line, they formed to the left.
The guns were slewed round with their muzzles to the enemy's line, the limbers were cast off, drawn rearward, and in hoarse Russian the word was given to fire. 'Boom, boom, boom!' rang along the front, shrouding all in smoke, and making terrible havoc in the ranks of the Turkish brigade; but still went up the cry of 'Allah, Allah, hu!' the concluding word of the Muezzin's call to prayer.
The guns were not charged with shot, but short-fuse shell, and the roar of each explosion veiled for a moment all the other sounds of battle. The explosions were awful, and fast fell the fezzes to earth, the corpses so mangled as to be scarcely recognised as human; yet the brave Turks, incited by their officers, full of military and religious ardour, seeing, perhaps, the glories of Paradise opening before them and the dark-eyed girls waving their scarfs of green, closed nobly in, and were making a forward movement as if to charge the guns, still shouting, 'Allah, Allah, hu!' And now came the time for Cecil to go to work, to get clear of the brigade of cannon, and form in front to charge, while the latter were reloaded; and even after all he had undergone there now boiled up in his heart the 'rapture of the strife,' as Attila is said to have termed the fierce excitement of battle.
'By half troops to the right turn—left wheel—forward—trot!' were his orders.
'By half troops left wheel—form squadron!' he cried, raising himself in his stirrups and brandishing his sword; 'forward—gallop—CHARGE!'
By this time, the Turkish infantry were confusedly endeavouring to form square over the piles of dead and dying who had fallen before the cannon.
Ere the final word had left his lips, Cecil had seen that his squadron had advanced at a brisk trot to within fifty yards of the enemy's front—that there were no closing and crowding of his files to impede the free action of man and horse, and that the former kept the latter well in hand, pressing forward by leg and spur when necessary; and in splendid order, ere the square was formed, with the force of a locomotive, the troopers were sword in hand among them, hewing them down on right and left, the hurrahs of the Servians mingling with the yells of the Turks.
'Fours about!' sounded the shrill trumpet, and away wheeling off to the right and left, while the Turks were still struggling to form square, he left the guns uncovered, and once more the plunging fire—grape and canister this time—went with serpent-like hiss through the swaying mass—tearing off legs, arms, and heads, laying the dead and the dying in swathes above each other.
As he again formed his squadron, breathless now, in rear of the guns, Cecil could see through the whirling and eddying smoke that it was no longer a line, but a mob of men who were in front—a mob whose shrieks, screams, and shouts rent the evening air, while the muskets and bayonets seemed to sway helplessly to and fro.
Another round of these terrible guns from right to left, given with such force and rapidity that the hot guns almost leaped from the ground with the concussion, and the Turks in that quarter gave way en masse, just as the fiery sun went down beyond the dark mountain ranges.
Again Cecil led on his troopers, who had been straining like greyhounds in the leash—on over the ground an acre and more of which was covered by men mutilated in every way—corpses struck by four, five, six bullets—yea, in some instances by a whole charge of canister—and where every blade of grass was dyed red—on to the charge once more, and, as there was no time to take prisoners, a terrible havoc was made—a havoc at which his heart, even in the thrill of what he thought was victory, began to sicken; but he had received his orders to support the guns, and nobly had he done so.
At that point the strife was nearly over, when a cry of agony escaped the lips of Cecil, as a bullet—the last shot of some wounded man—pierced his chest like a red-hot sword-blade, and he fell forward on the neck of his horse, clutching wildly at the reins the while; at the same moment another Turk who lay wounded—an officer apparently—by one slash of his sharp Damascus sabre, all but disembowelled the animal, which uttered a snorting cry, and wheeling round, quitted the field at a mad and infuriated gallop, with his helpless rider clinging to the pommel of the saddle. No one could stop or intercept its headlong career, and in less than a minute the luckless commander vanished from the eyes of his squadron!
Was Palenka's prediction about to come true after all?
Cecil had thought the field was won, yet it was not entirely so. Had the winning thereof depended on the fiery valour of one man, Dochtouroff had been victor. At the head of two hundred Russians he charged with the bayonet right into the centre of the Turkish main attack, with such fury that ere the rifles crossed the enemy wheeled about and fled, and he saved the principal position—that of Djunis; 'but Krupp guns, Snider rifles, and better trained troops, in far superior numbers, had done their work, and Servia was beaten!'
During the three days' fighting, the latter lost not less than nine thousand soldiers, in killed, wounded, and missing; and of three thousand Russians who were in the field, only seven hundred remained untouched at sunset on the third day.
The losses of the Turks were never precisely known, but they must have been terrible, as they were the attacking force, and had assailed well-chosen positions that were deemed impregnable.
In Russia and abroad, bluff old Tchernaieff was blamed for recklessness in his tactics, and doubtless he made mistakes which ended in failures. 'And then,' says Captain Salusbury, in his work on those wars, 'it must not be forgotten that he always expected reinforcements which never came. And again it is to be noted that he had to operate with eighty thousand of not the very best troops in a country that required, to command success, two hundred thousand well-trained and thoroughly disciplined soldiers. There is no doubt that the men I saw under fire were a far inferior lot to those who fought in the early part of the war.'
When the battle—the last of the strife—was fairly over, a requiem for the dead was solemnly held, according to the Russian ritual, in a tent upon the field, where numbers of ladies, the wives—and in too many sorrowful instances the widows—of Russian officers were gliding about like angels of mercy, ministering to the wants of the wounded. While leaving Dochtouroff to hold the position, Tchernaieff withdrew to the camp at Deligrad.
Meanwhile where was Cecil Falconer, or Montgomerie as he had been learning to call himself now?