r greatcoats and blankets, and I
daresay we shan't hurt; but I have seen something of campaigning, and
I tell you honestly I don't like the way in which we have started on
this job."

"What an inveterate old grumbler you are, Hyde! Besides, what right
have you to criticise the general and his plans?"

"We have entered into this business a great deal too lightly, I am
quite convinced of that," said Hyde, positively. "There has been no
sufficient preparation."

"Nonsense, man! They have been months getting the expedition ready."

"And still it is wanting in the most necessary things. It has to trust
to luck for its transport," and the old sergeant pointed with his
thumb to the captured carts. "We may, perhaps, get as many more; but,
even then, there won't be enough to supply us with food if we go much
further inland; we may never see our knapsacks again, or our tents."

"We shan't want them; it won't do us any harm to sleep in the open.
Napoleon always said that the bivouac was the finest training for
troops."

"You will be glad enough of shelter, sergeant-major, before to-night's
out, mark my words! The French are better off than we are; they have
got everything to their hands--their shelter-tents, knapsacks, and
all. They understand campaigning; I think we have forgotten the art."

"As if we have anything to learn from the French!" said the
self-satisfied young Briton, by way of ending the conversation.

But Sergeant Hyde was right, so far as the need for shelter was
concerned. As evening closed in, heavy clouds came up from the sea,
and it rained in torrents all night.

A miserable night it was! The whole army lay exposed to the fury of
the elements on the bleak hillside, drenched to the skin, in pools and
watercourses, under saturated blankets, without fuel, or the chance of
lighting a bivouac fire. It was the same for all; the generals of
division, high staff-officers, colonels, captains, and private men.
The first night on Crimean soil was no bad precursor of the dreadful
winter still to come.

Next day the prospect brightened a little. The sun came out and dried
damp clothes; tents were landed, only to be re-embarked when the army
commenced its march. This was on the third day after disembarkation,
when, with all the pomp and circumstance of a parade movement, the
allied generals advanced southward along the coast. They were in
search of an enemy which had shown a strange reluctance to come to
blows, a