Soyer's Culinary Campaign: Being Historical Reminiscences of the Late War.: With The Plain Art of Cookery for Military and Civil Institutions

for a few seconds we positively could not see anything. I expected that my two friends had been blown into the air, and they thought that I had met with the same fate. We soon perceived there was no harm done. Our horses advanced a few paces; and upon turning the corner of the ravine, about ten yards in advance, we perceived three sailors lying dead, as we thought, and the ground about them covered with blood. Two of them were screaming; the other had one leg blown to atoms, and was badly wounded in the other. We lifted the man who was lying on his face, thinking that he was the worst of all, when to our surprise we found that he had not been touched, excepting by a few fragments of his friend’s limbs, which had fallen upon his back. His companion was slightly wounded in four places: it was a most extraordinary circumstance that his trousers were torn to ribbons, and a piece of the bridge of his nose was taken clean off, from which wound he bled copiously. We perceived that it was not a mine, but a thirteen-inch shell, which had exploded, though not a vestige of it remained near the spot; nothing but a train of burnt powder about five feet long and three inches wide could be seen near the poor fellows who had so imprudently risked their lives. We did all we could to alleviate their sufferings. It was extremely awkward to meddle with the first, who remained perfectly motionless, and no hospital was near nor doctor to be obtained. I gave a French soldier five shillings to run to the French camp and fetch a doctor: he did not succeed, but returned with a stretcher. I also sent to Sebastopol, but without success. I had just tied the poor fellow’s leg very tight above the knee, in order to stop the loss of blood, when General Dacres and a number of officers who had heard the report came to the spot. I told the general how the accident had occurred, as