Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/304

 260 THE WINTER TROUBLES. CHAP, iiient ; and it would seem that, by this timS; '^' he had lost, or was losing, his composure ; for the statements which most strongly impressed him were all, in reality, valueless, and some of them beyond measure silly. One man, letter in hand, and effervescing with the excitement of a discoverer, came invading the office to show that, whilst our horses were perishing in the Crimea for want of forage, a quantity of chopped straw had been seen in a house at Scutari, some three or four hundred miles distant.(^^) Another adviser, less foolish, but not less a waster of time, applied his mind also to the question of forage, and showed that, whilst our cattle were starving, pressed hay in abundance was floating about neglected in the harbour of Balaclava. (^^) There also, the Duke had to hear, there were seen swimming numbers of planks, which, the witnesses declared, might have been turned into wooden houses, and cut up and used as fuel.(^^) As a rule, each dis- coverer came armed with a theory explaining who was to blame, and if not impugning Lord Kaglan, the multitudinous judges were prone to deliver sentence against his Headquarter Staff, or — more pointedly — against its ablest and most powerful member — that is, the Quartermaster- General. Of course, what many an impatient officer miglit be naturally sighing for, when he came down to Balaclava in quest of any kind of sup- plies, would be a few puissant staff functionaries so obliging to the individual, and so careless of