Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/354

 328 THE HALT OX THE CHAP. Avere ghastly in the eyes of some: others thouglit ^^' they could envy the soldier released at last from liis toil, and encountering no moment of interval between hard fighting and death. In general, the undisturbed clothing of the stricken soldiers hid their wounds from a com- mon observer ; and it was only here and there — as where a man's head had been partly shot away, or where the skull had been entered by a cannon- ball — that the ugliness of the havoc was obtruded upon the sight. For the most part, the wounded men lay silent. Now and then a man would gently ask for water, or w-ould seek to know- when it was likely that he would be moved and cared for ; but, in general, the wounded were so little inclined to be craving after help or sym- pathy, that for dignity and composure thoy were almost the equals of the dead. Still, although there was nothing in the held of the battle which could mar the dignity of war, the sight was of a kind to press hurtfully upon the imagination of young soldiers. For such troops it Avas an ill thing to be kept a long time together in the contemplation of a field strewn with dead and wounded ; and this the more be- cause the sight went to make a man question the cause of the slaughter in his own corps. None can wonder if the survivors of the Light Division men who had stormed the redoubt were inclined to let their thoughts dwell upon the nature of the trial to which they had been exposed, and even, in some regiments, to comment, and soy, ' "Wu