Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/225

SUFFERINGS OF THE ARMIES. 181 — our officers and men endured with a heroism, chap. as the Sebastopol Committee declared, ' uusur- '__ ' passed in the annals of war ; ' and in truth the J,J'(f/of q'^, contented devotion of the men under these cruel '^™y- trials was such as to appear almost preternatural in the eyes of one who measures self-sacritice by a merely civilian standard. Incredible as the state- ment may seem, there is yet ground for saying, though of course, in only general terms, that the men did not choose to complain of the privations and hardships under which they were suffering. It is remembered indeed that once they showed indignant displeasure, but the feeling in that in- stance sprang from what was a purely unselfish, nay, even delicate sentiment. An order had been issued directing that the blanket in which a dead soldier lay wrapt when carried to the edge of his grave should be removed from his body before consigning it to earth, and that measure our men disapproved. In the midst of their own bodily sufferings, they condemned what they thought a slight to the remains of their departed comrades. The true soldier, or ' paid-man,' as distin- guished from the one raised by conscription, is indeed a man governed by feelings and convic- tions which at first sight appear strangely differ- ent from those of other human beings. Upon the humble rights that he has acquired by enter- ing the army he insists with a curious tenacity ; but as regards the other side of his wild, romantic bargain, he performs it with unstinting readiness, paying down his vast stake, his freedom, his ease,