Their cries and weeping were terrible to hear. And day and night, as if to mock our failure and frustration, the Russian artillery bellowed.

No less disturbing to us were the hints we received of ructions among our Commanding Officers. Around the clock the conferences went on, and more than once I saw a grand gentleman emerge from Lord Raglan’s tent and go stalking around the camp in high dudgeon, scarred cheeks blazing with anger, white gloves slapping against jostling scabbard. And several times we saw the engineer, Traveller, trotting across the camp site to Raglan’s tent bearing mysterious plans and other specifications; and so we knew that the deployment, at last, of this strange stuff anti-ice must be under consideration.

But of Lord Raglan himself we saw no sign. I imagined that gentleman, Father, his face drawn with care and sickness and his head full of memories of Waterloo and the Iron Duke, at the eye of a storm of disrespect and interrogation.

At last, on 27th June, our Captain called us together. His expression grim, he informed us that Lord Fitzroy Raglan had died the previous day, the 26th; that General Sir James Simpson had been appointed our new Commander-in-Chief; and that we should prepare ourselves for a fresh assault within twenty-four hours. This assault, said the Captain, would follow “a new artillery barrage of unprecedented ferocity.”

Then he stalked away from us, his back stiff, refusing to say any more.

We were never told the cause of Raglan’s death. Some say he died of disappointment, after that last, failed assault on the Russian redoubts; but I cannot believe it. For even a month earlier, when he visited our camp, Father, care and fatigue had seemed etched into that noble face. Now, God forbid that you should ever see a victim of the Cholera, Sir—I have seen too many—but if you do you will, I am sure, remark on the drained, troubled appearance of that unfortunate; and so I have no doubt of the cause of Raglan’s doom.