Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/357

 FIELD OF THE ALMA. 331 thus labuiuud. At the time, his exceeding zeal chap. made him seem to he acting for the honour of i^_^ some great cause much more than from tender pity; but what he felt he has owned and recorded: ' It was the most painful act,' he says, ' I ever had ' to perform. Some of the faces were terrible and ' ghastly from wounds, and hardly had mouths to ' eat or drink with. They were faces to haunt one ' in sleep.' One young man in the centre of a rank of prostrate soldiers sat u{>, and succeeded in causing himself to be distinguished as an officer ; and although there were few or none amongst the other sufferers who could speak any tongue but their own, there was a plaintive melody in the sound of the words they uttered which served to convey to a stranger an idea of their gentleness and gratitude. There were some who, in cheerful tones, declined to prolong life by eating, and asked instead for a light. Sankey, of the Quartermaster- General's department, entered into Eomaine's i'eeling with great warmth, and not only shared with him in the bodily labour offending the suf- ferers, but helped to overcome the difficulty that there is in wringing new kinds of exertion from people who are over-much r(>gi]ated. Of course, the English sentries, who had been left for a time without food, were at once supplied with biscuit ; but it did not at all delight them to have the m.ere staff of life without any of what they regarded as the more cheering part of their rations. There was no enemy's force at hand to whom the care of these wounded Paissians could be jjiven