Jack was with many others a spectator of this scene from Cathcart Hill; but it must not be imagined that even a vague idea of what was passing could be gleaned by the lookers-on.  The Redan, which was the point of view immediately opposite, was fully a mile away.  In a few minutes from the commencement of the fight the air was thick with smoke, and the din of battle along so extended a front was so continuous and overpowering that it was impossible to judge by the sound of firing how the fight was going on at any particular point.

Upon the night before there was a general sanguine feeling as to the success of the attack, and many a laughing invitation was given to future dinners in the hotels of Sebastopol.  Great, then, was the disappointment when, an hour after its opening, the tremendous roll of musketry gradually died away, while the fire of the allied batteries angrily opened, telling the tale that all along the line the allies had been defeated, save only for the slight success at the cemetery.

Eagerly were the wounded questioned, as, carried on stretchers, or slowly and painfully making their way upon foot, they ascended the hill.  In most of them regret at their defeat or anger at the incompetence of those who had rendered defeat certain, predominated over the pain of the wounds.

“Be jabers,” said a little Irishman, “but it was cruel work entirely.  There was myself and six others and the captain made our way up to a lot of high stakes stuck in the ground before the place.  We looked round, and divil another soul was there near.  We couldn’t climb over the stakes, and if we had got over ’em there was a deep ditch beyond, and no way of getting in or out.  And what would have been the good if we had, when there were about 50,000 Russians inside a-shouting and yelling at the top of their voices, and a-firing away tons of ammunition?  We stopped there five minutes, it may be, waiting to see if any one else was coming, and then when four of us was killed and the captain wounded, I thought it time to be laving; so I lifted him up and carried him in, and got an ugly baste of a Russian bullet into my shoulder as I did so.  Ye may call it fightin’, but it’s just murder I call it meself.”

Something like this was the tale told by scores of wounded men, and it is little wonder that, sore with defeat and disappointment, and heart-sick at the loss which had been suffered, the feelings of the army found vent in deep grumblings at the generals who had sent out a handful of men to assault a fortress.

The next day there was another truce to allow of the burial of the dead and the collection of the wounded who lay thickly on the ground between the rival trenches.  It did not take place, however, till four in the afternoon, by which time the wounded had been lying for thirty hours without water or aid, the greater portion of the time exposed to the heat of a burning sun.