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One of these was his despatch to Balaclava to make inquiries for the knapsacks of the regiment. They had been left on board ship, and the transport had been expected daily in Balaclava harbour. The men were sadly in want of a change of clothes, and neither these nor the little odds and ends that go to make up a soldier's comfort were available until they got their packs.
In the quartermaster's department everything "went on slowly and badly; tents, pack-saddles, kettles, knapsacks and cartridge boxes, were all 'deficient in quantity and quality." The army contractors were positively dishonest, and the war department seems to have been fearfully negligent in all of its work.
At the same time they ate the scanty rations they carried in their knapsacks, and wondered what had become of the wagons. Jackson sent detachments to seek his supply trains, but Harry knew that he would not wait for it in the morning. The horses drawing the heavy loads over the slippery roads would need rest as badly as the men, and Jackson would go on.
"You've made so many," I answered cheerfully, while my real thoughts were busy with his bodily state of health. For his appearance shocked me. He stood among a litter of papers, books, neckties, nailed boots, knapsacks, maps and what-not, that rolled upon the floor from the mouth of the Willesden canvas sack.
He made officers and men throw off all useless incumbrances, cut their hair close, wear leggings to protect them from briers, brown the barrels of their muskets, and carry in their knapsacks thirty pounds of meal, which they cooked for themselves; so that, according to an admiring Frenchman, they could live a month without their supply-trains.
It was safe to describe places and people, and he so described them that The Squad squirmed in its delight at feeling itself marching in a procession attending the Emperor in Vienna; standing in line before palaces; climbing, with knapsacks strapped tight, up precipitous mountain roads; defending mountain-fortresses; and storming Samavian castles. The Squad glowed and exulted.
The fire was made to burn at last and breakfast cooked and over, we packed our knapsacks and started for home. We got across the plain fairly well and down the cliff, which was not an easy descent, on to the shore. It took us one hour and twenty-five minutes scrambling over the stones and boulders of the shore, and we went very quickly, just taking a respite now and again.
Almost simultaneously with the shock which the sight of the well-known number on the soldiers' knapsacks gave him, arose in his mind the romantic, ideal thought, of enlisting in the ranks of this same regiment, and recovering, as a private soldier and unknown, that honour which as officer he had lost.
Overcoats, blankets, haversacks and knapsacks were hastily pied, and the two most exhausted men in each company placed on guard over them. Kent and Abe did not contribute their canteen to the company pile. But then its weight was much less of an impediment than when they left Camp Dick Robinson.
In this column of one hundred and forty thousand men and about fifty thousand horses of all kinds, a hundred thousand combatants marching at the head with their knapsacks, their arms, upwards of five hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, and two thousand artillery-waggons, still exhibited a formidable appearance, worthy of soldiers who had conquered the world.
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