Part 44 (2/2)
”We were ahead of him in that, I think,” said Hyde, winking at Anatole.
”He is with Miss Nightingale, you know, who has come out as head nurse.”
”Heaven bless her!”
”Well, for all the new arrivals, we don't get on very fast with the siege.”
”Why don't they go into the place, without all this s.h.i.+lly-shallying?”
cried an impetuous Briton. ”We'd take the place--we, the rank and file--if the generals only would let us do the work alone.”
”They are a poor lot, the generals, I say.”
”Halt, there! not a word against Lord Raglan,” cried Hyde.
”He is so slow.”
”Yes, but he is uncommon sure. Have you ever seen him in action? I have. He knows how to command: so quiet and self-possessed. Such a different man from the French generals, who always shout and swear and make such a confounded row. What do you think of your generals, Anatole?”
”Canrobert is an imbecile; he never knows his own mind.”
”Well, we shan't be troubled with him much longer,” said a fresh arrival. ”Canrobert has just resigned the chief command.”
”Impossible!” said Anatole, when the news was interpreted to him.
”It is perfectly true, I a.s.sure you,” replied the last speaker. ”I have just come from the English headquarters, and saw the new French commander-in-chief there. Palliser, I think they call him.”
”Pelissier,” said the French sergeant, correcting him. ”That is good news. A rare old dog of war that. We shan't wait long to attack if he has the ordering.”
”They say the Russian generals have changed lately. Gortschakoff has succeeded Mentschikoff.”
”Confound those koffs! They are worse than a cold in the head.”
”And just as difficult to get rid of. I'd like to wring their necks, and every Russian's at Sebastopol.”
”Mentschikoff could not have been a bad fellow, anyway.”
”How do you know that?”
”Why, one of our officers who was taken prisoner at Inkerman has just come back to camp. I heard him say that while he was in Sebastopol he got a letter from his young woman at home. She said she hoped he would take Mentschikoff prisoner, and send her home a b.u.t.ton off his coat.”
”Well?”
”The letter was read by the Russian authorities before they gave it him, and some one told the general what the English girl had said.”
”He got mad, I suppose?”
”Not at all. He sent on the letter to its destination, with a note of his own, presenting his compliments, and regrets that he could not allow himself to be taken prisoner, but saying that he had much pleasure in inclosing the b.u.t.ton, for transmission to England.”
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