Page:The Letters Of Queen Victoria, vol. 3 (1908).djvu/69

1854] of course, be in possession of all the details of that fearful day, on which our loss was so very great. I made a mistake in stating the number of dead in the Grenadiers; it was much larger than I stated. I think we must have suffered more than any other Corps, for, on the following day, when the roll was called, two hundred and twenty-five men were absent; of these one hundred and one were killed, and the rest wounded. There cannot be any doubt that we allowed ourselves to be surprised, for the first notice we had of the Russians was receiving their heavy shot in the camp of the 2nd Division. Nearly all their tents were torn by round shot. It is even said that a shell lodged in an officer’s portmanteau, burst, and, of course, scattered all his goods to the winds. Experience has made us wise, or rather Lord Raglan wise, for since that day the French and ourselves have been busy in entrenching our right; it is now so strong that no enemy can attack us there with the slightest chance of success; it is only a pity it was not done before. The Turks were chiefly employed making these redoubts, which is in fact the only thing they have done except burying the dead Russians. Never shall I forget the sight of the dead and dying Russians on the field. Some of these poor wretches had to lie on the field for at least sixty hours before they were removed to the hospital tents; the majority of course died. I am afraid this is one of the necessities of war, for we had to remove our own people first. I went round the hospitals next morning. It was a horrid sight to see the bodies of the men who had died during the night stretched before the tents, and to see the heaps of arms and legs, with the trousers and boots still on, that had been cut off by the surgeons.

The Russians were so near that most of the officers had to use their swords and revolvers. Many single acts of daring took place; among others, Colonel Percy, of our Regiment, dashed in front of his Company, sword in hand, into a dense body of Russians who were in a battery. I was not in the thick of it, but was engaged with an outlying picquet on the left of the attack. George was in the very thick of it, and, not seeing me, kept asking some of our men where I was. They did not know. He tells me that he thought for a long time I was killed, and even fancied that he had seen me lying on the ground; it turned out later to have been poor Colonel Dawson’s body which he mistook for me.