Memorials of Capt. Hedley Vicars, Ninety-seventh Regiment by Marsh, Catherine, 1818-1912/Chapter 11
XI.— THE VICTORY.
God led it to its long repose,
Its glorious rest.
And though the warrior's sun has set,
Its light shall linger round us yet,
Bright, radiant, blest."—Longfellow.
The night of the 22d of March was dark and dreary. The wind rose high, and swept in stormy gusts across the Crimea. There was for a time a stillness over the three armies, like the calm before a tempest.
At the advanced post of the British forces on the side nearest the French, was a detachment of the 97th Regiment, commanded by Captain Vicars. No watch-fire on that post of danger might cast its red light, as aforetime, on the Book of God. Yet was that place of peril holy ground. Once more the night breeze bore away the hallowed sounds of prayer. Once more the deep, earnest eyes of Hedley Vicars looked upward to that heaven in which his place was now prepared. Perhaps in that dark night he pictured a return to his country, to his home, to the chosen of his heart, and thought of all the loving welcomes which awaited him. But there are better things than these, dear as they are, which God hath prepared for them that love Him. Perhaps his spirit took a loftier flight, and imagined the yet more joyful welcomes upon the eternal shore.
One stern duty more, soldier and Christian, and realities more lovely and glorious than it hath entered into the heart of man to conceive, shall satisfy thy soul. Fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore at God's right hand. Around thee, in a few moments, may be a host of foes; but the air is filled with chariots and horses of fire to carry thee home, to be numbered with God's saints in glory everlasting.
Soon after ten o'clock that night a loud firing commenced, and was sustained in the direction of the Victoria redoubt, opposite the Malakhoff tower. Taking advantage of the darkness of the night, a Russian force of 15,000 men issued from Sebastopol. Preserving a sullen silence they approached from the Mamelon under cover of the fire of their ambuscades, and effected an entrance into the French advanced parallel, before any alarm could be given by the sentries. After a short but desperate struggle, the French were obliged to fall back on their reserves.
The column of the enemy then marched along the parallel, and came up the ravine on the British lines, for the purpose of taking them in flank and rear. On their approach being observed, they were supposed to be the French, as the ravine separated the Allied armies. Hedley Vicars was the first to discover that they were Russians.
With a coolness of judgment which seems to have called forth admiration from all quarters, he ordered his men to lie down until the Russians came within twenty paces. Then, with his first war-shout "Now, 97th, on your pins, and charge!" himself foremost in the conflict, he led on his gallant men to victory, charging two thousand with a force of barely two hundred. A bayonet wound in the breast only fired his courage the more; and again his voice rose high, "Men of the 97th, follow me!" as he leaped that parapet he had so well defended, and charged the enemy down the ravine.
One moment a struggling moonbeam fell upon his flashing sword, as he waved it through the air, with his last cheer for his men—"This way, 97th!" The next, the strong arm which had been uplifted, hung powerless by his side, and he fell amongst his enemies. But friends followed fast. His men fought their way through the ranks of the Russians, to defend the departing life of the leader they loved. Noble, brave men! to whom all who loved Hedley Vicars own an unforgotten debt of gratitude and honour.
In their arms they bore him back, amidst shouts of a victory so dearly bought.
An officer of the Royal Engineers stopped them on their way and asked whom they carried. The name brought back to him the days of his boyhood. The early playmate, since unseen, who now lay dying before him, was one whose father's deathbed had been attended and comforted by his own father as minister and friend.[1]
Captain Browne found a stretcher, and placing his friend upon it, cooled his fevered lips with a draught of water. That "cup of cold water shall in no wise lose its reward."
To each inquiry, Hedley Vicars answered cheerfully, that he believed his wound was slight. But a main artery had been severed, and the life-blood flowed fast.
A few paces onward, and he faintly said, "Cover my face; cover my face!"
What need for covering under the shadow of that dark night? Was it not a sudden consciousness that he was entering into the presence of the Holy God, before whom the cherubim veil their faces.
As the soldiers laid him down at the door of his tent, a welcome from the armies of the sky sounded in his hearing. He had fallen asleep in Jesus, to wake up after His likeness, and be satisfied with it.
We "asked life of Thee, and thou gavest it him, even length of days for ever and ever."
- ↑ The Dean of Lismore.