Page:Memorials of Capt. Hedley Vicars, Ninety-seventh Regiment by Marsh, Catherine, 1818-1912.djvu/163

156 one of their batteries whizzed past my ear. I was afterwards told that the Russians think nothing of firing shell and round-shot when they see even one of our fellows. This seems to me like a sportsman going out to shoot snipe with a rifle. The weather has been very stormy, and our poor men are dying fast from cholera, brought on by exposure and want of warm clothing. We have already buried about twenty-two in four days, and a great number are in hospital.

"The duty has been very severe in the trenches, distant about three miles from our camp. I was in them from five in the afternoon till five next morning, and also on out-lying picquet the whole of the following night, sleeping in the open air, with a few bushes over me. I could hear the tolling of a great bell in Sebastopol, and the voices of the Russians working at their fortifications, as plainly as could be. On the night of the 27th I took a prisoner who was prowling about, fully believing I had hold of a live Russian; but on examining him by daylight he turned out to be only a Turkish soldier! their long light grey coats are so much like the Russians. No hope of 'cataracts' now. Indeed for a day or two I had not water enough to fill a bath for a midge! But yesterday I got a pint to wash my face and hands with, for sorely they needed it. We have nothing to complain of in the way of rations. I get one pound of salt pork and as much biscuit as I can eat every day. The other day my subaltern and a party of men gave chase to a young bullock close to the Russian lines. They caught him, and we made a capital dinner of part of him this afternoon.

"We are all anxiously waiting for Lord Raglan to storm Sebastopol; for, though we must lose many in doing it, yet, anything would be better than seeing our fine soldiers dying as they are daily. What should be done is to go at it at once, without more dilly-dallying!