Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers Part 10

Were we not put on earth for a higher mission?

Thus reasoned the young man, who, all his life, was subject to moods of introspection and intense religious thought--surely strange material out of which to build a soldier! He sensed this fact himself and was not at all anxious to enter the army; and frequently in later life expressed a lively dissatisfaction for the service. He was an exemplification of the poet's line:

"I feel two natures struggling within me."

When he entered the service, as a second lieutenant of the Engineers, at the age of nineteen, there was little to attract one in the army life. The long peace of Europe, which had followed the defeat of Napoleon, seemed likely to last forever. Except for a relatively small outbreak in France, in 1848, all Europe was quiet. Consequently, the army held little attraction to an active young man. It was all drill and the petty details of garrison life. But underneath the placid surface, the political pot of Europe was really boiling furiously--only waiting a chance to bubble over. That chance soon came.

Gordon's first a.s.signment was to Pembroke, where plans were required for the forts at Milford Haven. Here with other engineers he worked for a few months, when he was ordered to the Island of Corfu. This was not altogether to his liking. He had spent a part of his boyhood there in the Ionian Islands, but felt that they were "off the map" so far as real activity was concerned.

Then the bubbling pot at last boiled over. Russia, impatient of bounds, had begun her march southward, past the Black Sea, and toward the coveted lands of Turkey. The "balance of power," that precarious something that has always kept Europe on edge--and particularly in the Balkans--was upset. Whether England wanted to or not, she must get into the breach.

Thus began the Crimean War, a desperate struggle that was to bear some glorious pages in England's history, and some dark ones as well. It was to see the "Charge of the Light Brigade"--splendid in itself, but brought about because "some one had blundered." It was to produce a Florence Nightingale--but also the hideous sufferings which she helped to a.s.suage.

For England was unprepared. Her years of idleness had broken down her military organization. Splendid fighting men she still had, but the fighting machine itself was rusty.

Young Gordon, perhaps through his father's influence, obtained a transfer from Corfu to the Crimea. The father did not much like his new billet. He may have sensed something of what was coming. But he did not fear for his son.

"Get him into real action, _I_ say," he would remark. "That will show whether there's any stuff in him. I guess there is," he added grimly, thinking of Charles's troubles in college. "All the time he was in the Academy, I felt like I was sitting on a powder barrel."

In mid-December, of 1854, Gordon set sail from England, on his first real job as a soldier. He was going with the task of building some wooden huts for the soldiers, and lumber was being shipped at the same time. But the soldiers for whom these shelters were intended were even then dying from exposure on the plains of Sebastopol. It was the first lesson of unpreparedness.

Of this, however, the young engineer was then ignorant. He was in high spirits over the prospect of action and seeing the world. He arrived at Ma.r.s.eilles "very tired," as he writes to his mother, but not too tired to give her a detailed description of what he has seen thus far--"the pretty towns and villages, vineyards and rivers, with glimpses of snowy mountains beyond."

On New Year's Day he reached his destination, Balaklava. It was the depth of winter, and disaster stared the British in the face. The Russians were having the best of it. They were out-generalling the enemy at every turn. The British could do little more than dig in and hang on, with the bull-dog stubbornness which has always marked them.

At first, the young lieutenant heard little of this. His duties as construction engineer kept him busy six miles back of the battle line.

"I have not yet seen Sebastopol," he writes on January 3, "and do not hear anything of the siege. We hear a gun now and then. No one seems to interest himself about the siege, but all appear to be engaged in foraging for grub." Two days later he writes: "We have only put up two huts as yet, but hope to do better soon."

The army was suffering from both cold and hunger, and was in pitiable plight. Again he writes: "Lieutenant Daunt, Ninth Regiment, and another officer of some Sixtieth Regiment, were frozen to death last night, and two officers of the Ninety-Third Regiment were smothered by charcoal. The streets of Balaklava are a sight, with swell English cavalry and horse-artillery carrying rations, and officers in every conceivable costume foraging for eatables."

There was little military glamor in such sights as this. No wonder, young Gordon felt sick of it all. But he never gave the slightest indication of quitting. He only worked all the harder to help do his bit. As Spring advanced, he had an opportunity to work closer to the lines. He received orders to construct trenches and rifle pits, which at times was extremely hazardous and brought him under fire. On one occasion a Russian bullet missed his head by a scant inch.

At last, in the month of June, came his first chance to do some real fighting. Every branch of the service was marshalled by the commanding general, Lord Raglan, for a ma.s.sed attack. What happened can best be described in Gordon's own words:

"About three a. m. the French advanced on the Malakoff tower in three columns, and ten minutes after this our signal was given. The Russians then opened with a fire of grape that was terrific." And again: "They mowed down our men in dozens, and the trenches, being confined, were crowded with men who foolishly kept in them instead of rushing over the parapet, and, by coming forward in a ma.s.s, trusting to some of them at least being able to pa.s.s through untouched to the Redan, where, of course, once they arrived, the artillery could not reach them, and every yard nearer would have diminished the effect of the grape by giving it less s.p.a.ce for spreading. We could thus have moved up the supports and carried the place. Unfortunately, however, our men dribbled out of the ends of the trenches ten and twenty at a time, and as soon as they appeared they were cleared away."

Thus ended the first engagement in which Gordon took part. The Allies suffered defeat, and Lord Raglan died a few days later of a broken heart. It was not an auspicious baptism of fire.

In August another a.s.sault was made, which also met defeat. Gordon ends his account with the remark: "We should have carried everything before us, if the men had only advanced."

Perchance one reason why the men failed to advance was that their morale had been lowered, by reason of the privations they had undergone. This was before the days of the Red Cross, the army canteen, or the Y. M. C. A. with its homely comfort. The men had had to shift for themselves. Nursing the sick and wounded was almost unknown, until the white-clad figure of Florence Nightingale showed the world its dereliction. Listen to what this devoted pioneer among nurses has to say:

"Fancy working five nights out of seven in the trenches. Fancy being thirty-six hours in them at a stretch, as they sometimes were, lying down, or half-lying down often forty-eight hours with no food but raw salt pork, sprinkled with sugar, rum, and biscuit; nothing hot, because the exhausted soldier could not collect his own fuel, as he was expected to do, to cook his own rations; and fancy through all this, the army preserving their courage and patience, as they have done, and being now eager (the old ones as well as the young ones) to be led into the trenches. There was something sublime in the spectacle."

Sublime? Granted. But no soldier fights well on an empty stomach.

Despite their hardships and reverses, however, the Allies were at last successful in the capture of Sebastopol. But it was a barren victory, as the Russians had set fire to the town and destroyed practically everything of value. The war soon afterwards ceased, and with it the first hard lesson in Charles Gordon's military training. He had entered it a somewhat careless youth. He came out of it a seasoned veteran.

That his government had learned to appreciate his services is shown by the fact that he was soon afterward placed on a joint commission of the English, French, Russians, and Austrians, to lay down a boundary line between Russia and her neighbors at the southwest. It was only one of many later attempts to define the Balkans.

"The newly-ceded territory is in great disorder," writes Gordon. "The inhabitants refuse to obey the Moldaves and own n.o.body's authority.

This is caused, I suspect, by Russian intrigues."

Already cracks were beginning to show in the new boundary wall.

After three years of steady but interesting work following up the ravages of war, Gordon returned home. It was a rest well earned, and likewise needed, for there were still more strenuous days ahead. Then back he went, in the Spring of 1858, to complete his work in the Caucasus.

"I am pretty tired of my post as peacemaker," he writes; "for which I am naturally not well adapted. . . . I am quite in the dark as to how my mission has been fulfilled, but it is really immaterial to me, for I will not accept other work of such an anomalous character."

The "other work" that was being stored up for him was of quite different nature. He might have called it "anomalous," but it was to tax and bring out every resource in him.

China, that land of distance and mystery, was undergoing a period of upheaval. A usurper had tried to seize the reins of government, and the French and British ships had been attacked. The British sent a force of reprisal, somewhat like that sent against the Boxer rebellion in recent years. This was in 1860; and Gordon was sent out with the rank of captain.

The first work of this expeditionary force was scarcely worthy of a civilized country. They set fire to a summer palace and gardens of a prince who had mistreated some English prisoners. It was a piece of vandalism that went against the grain with Gordon.

"You can scarcely imagine the beauty and magnificence of the palaces we burnt," he writes. "It made one's heart sore to destroy them. It was wretchedly demoralizing work."

In the Spring of 1862, Gordon had become a major, and was ordered, with a Lieutenant Carden, to explore the Great Wall of China. This was more to his liking. The two men were congenial and well fitted by temperament and experience for the task. They penetrated provinces in the interior never before entered by a white man, and had a variety of adventures, some amusing, others exciting.

During the winter it grew extremely cold, high up in the mountains. He relates that eggs were frozen as hard as if they had been boiled. At another time they are caught in a terrific dust storm, which he thus describes:

"The sky was as dark as night; huge columns of dust came sweeping down, and it blew a regular hurricane, the blue sky appearing now and then through the breaks. The quant.i.ty of dust was indescribable. A ca.n.a.l, about fifty miles long and eighteen feet wide, and seven deep, was completely filled up."

From these more or less peaceful incidents, Gordon was presently called to more exciting events. The great Tai-ping rebellion had been raging for some months. It was the work of a Chinese schoolmaster, who said that Heaven had sent him to rescue China. He chose for t.i.tle "The Heavenly King," and with some thousands of fanatical followers, overran a large part of the interior. His seat of government was in Nanking.

In his first clashes with the small British army, in 1862, his troops had the better of the argument. They spoke with open contempt of the foreigners, and all English, whether soldiers or missionaries, were in imminent danger. Things came to such a pa.s.s that an American, named Ward, obtained permission to organize a band of volunteers for mutual protection. This band did remarkable work, and soon grew from a force of two hundred, to two thousand--every man of them ready to die in his tracks.

They met the fanatical followers of "The Heavenly King" more than half-way, and gave them such thorough doses of hot shot and cold steel, that the rebels finally ran at sight of them. It is said that Ward's men fought seventy engagements in one year, and won every fight. The Imperial Chinese Government was very grateful for their aid, and conferred upon them a high-sounding name which meant, "Ever-Victorious Army."

Unluckily, Ward lost his life in leading an a.s.sault, and left his army without a general. Li Hung Chang, the statesman, who was later known as the Grand Old Man of China, came to the British commander General Stavely, and asked him to appoint a British officer to lead the Ever-Victorious Army.

Stavely cast about him, and his eye fell upon Major Gordon, who was then engaged upon a survey of the defenses of Shanghai. He had known Gordon and admired him. He believed that here was the man for the task.

"What he was before Sebastopol he has been since--faithful, trusty, and successful," reasoned the General. "Before Pekin and Shanghai he has evinced just the qualities that are needed now. Although he has never been in command, he will rise to this occasion, to which he is more fitted than any other man whom I know."

Gordon at first declined the honor, perhaps through false modesty, and the command was given to a Captain Holland, with bad results. Holland traded too much on the invincibility of the Ever-Victorious Army, and attacked a strongly fortified position at Taitsan. His forces were driven off with a loss of three hundred men. It was a grievous loss, but the moral loss was far deeper. His men lost spirit, while the rebels were extravagant in their glee.

Something had to be done at once. Again they came to Gordon with the offer of leadership, and this time, he accepted--but not without some misgiving. In a letter home, dated March 24, 1863, he writes:

"I am afraid you will be much vexed at my having taken the command of the Sung-kiang force, and that I am now a Mandarin. I have taken the step on consideration. I think that any one who contributes to putting down this rebellion fulfils a humane task, and I also think tends a great deal to open China to civilization."

Gordon soon proved that he had both courage and resourcefulness. He did not risk another a.s.sault upon Taitsan, as the rebels expected, but decided to attack them in another quarter. He took one thousand men by river to an inland town, Chanzu. Here was a loyal Chinese garrison which had been besieged by the rebels and was in sore straits.

The coming of Gordon was a bold and unexpected move, as the rebels must have outnumbered his force five to one. But Gordon had brought two field pieces along, and at once opened fire. By night-fall the enemy had enough of it, and retreated. The next morning the Ever-Victorious Army marched triumphantly into Chanzu, where they received a great welcome. Gordon thus received reinforcements not only from this garrison, but also from some of the rebel forces who had begun to "smell a mouse" and decided to come over while the coming was good.

Gordon was much interested in some of these young rebel chiefs. He says that they were very intelligent, and were splendidly dressed in their silks, and had big pearls in their caps. The head man was about thirty-five years old, and was ill and worn with anxiety.

"He was so very glad to see me, and chin-chinned most violently, regretting his inability to give me a present, which I told him was not the custom of our people."