Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/393

 RETURNING STRENGTH. 349 he might he told perhaps, orientally, by some of chap. the bearers of burthens, that ' the will of Allah '_ — his name be it blest ! — had made them the hard-driven slaves of the sacredly -bearded com- ' mander, the all-compelling, the sleepless, the in- ' more numerous than even the seed of Sheik ' Ibrahim after ninety and nine generations ; ' whilst the answer to any such question, if drawn from an English officer, was likely to be alto- gether neglectful of the spiritual element, and simply explain in five words that the cause of all the commotion was ' Tom Tower working his ' Croats.' Observed by our soldiers when passing on their numberless missions between camp and port, and reported by them to their comrades, the mere sight of this promising turmoil at Kadikoi began to do good. It was England, busy England herself, that at last had planted her foot in the midst of the drear winter soldier- ing, — not the England officially typified, that swathes her limbs round with Eed Tape, still less the mere quarrelsome, critical England, that goes digging and digging for faults as though for diamonds or gold, and thinks to help the poor soldier by teaching him to distrust his comman- ders, but — the larger, the generous England, fond- ly glowing with the love of her army from head to foot, and come out all the way to share with it the administrative troubles of the winter cam- paign, to front the same obstacles, to work by its side the same problems, intent on a simple.
 * exorable Father of boxes — the Father of boxes