Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/224

 180 THE WINTER TROUBLES. CHAP, that soldierly pride which forbids outward signs '__ disclosing self-pity or despair ; and it is not in- deed even certain that such of them as remained for the moment unstricken by illness were at all in a mournful humour. They imagined that the siege going on portended a not distant result ; and according to the judgment of one who well understood them, their spirit was sustained by a belief that they would soon be breaking into Sebastopol. Even of the 11,000 men on the Chersonese still able to handle a firelock and keep their names out of the sick-list, it must not be ima- gined that all, or even perhaps a great part, were free from grave, bodily ailment ; for there reigned in this suffering army so noble a spirit that many, though ill, refused to increase the labours of their comrades by going into hospital. And besides, though the soldier would by entering the sick-list obtain remission of labour, and might hope to derive good from fresh meat and from medical aid, he still could not but know that in the noisome field-hospital no less than in his own tent, he would be lying under single canvas upon the bare earth, or at best upon a bush or an arm- ful of brushwood that had been cut down to form a rude bed, with still only one blanket to shield him from the rigours of winter, and enduring l)csides all the misery of being one in a closely ranged layer of sick or wounded men with scarce any of the appliances needed for decent hospital service. All their hardships — hardships too often fatal