Such troops as were about had received new uniforms, and looked clean
and tidy. Everywhere gangs of laborers were at work, and the whole
place wore a bright and cheerful aspect. Just outside the town an
engine with a number of laden wagons was upon the point of starting.
The sun was blazing fiercely down, and at the suggestion of one of the
sailors, who, though ready enough for a spree on shore, were viewing
with some apprehension the prospect of the long trudge along the dusty
road to Sebastopol, Jack asked the officer in charge of the train for
permission to ride up. This was at once granted, and Jack, his trunk
and the sailors, were soon perched on the top of a truck-load of
barrels of salt pork.

Jack could scarcely believe that the place was the same which he had
last seen, just when winter was setting in. A large village had grown
up near the mouth of the valley, wooden huts for the numerous gangs of
navvies and laborers stood by the side of the railway. Officers
trotted past on ponies, numbers of soldiers, English, French, Turkish,
and Sardinian, trudged along the road on their way to or from
Balaklava. The wide plain across which our cavalry had charged was
bright with flowers, and dotted with the tents of the Turks and
Sardinians. Nature wore a holiday aspect. Every one seemed cheerful
and in high spirits, and it needed the dull boom of the guns around
Sebastopol to recall the fact that the work upon which they were
engaged was one of grim earnest.

Upon arriving at the camp, Jack found that its aspect was not less
changed than that of the surrounding country. Many of the regiments
were already in huts. The roads and the streets between the tents were
scrupulously clean and neat, and before many of the officers' tents,
clumps of flowers brought up from the plain had been planted. The
railway was not yet completed quite to the front, and the last two
miles had to be traversed on foot.

Upon presenting his written orders to the officer in command of the
naval brigade, Jack was at once told off to a tent with two other
midshipmen, and was told that he would not, for the present, be placed
upon regular duty, but that he would be employed as aide-de-camp to
the commander, and as interpreter, should his services in that way be
required.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE REPULSE AT THE REDAN

The first impulse of Jack, after having stowed his traps in the tent
and introduced himself to his new mess-mates, was to mak