Part 16

We know very little of the boyhood of Charles Gordon, beyond the fact that during the first ten years of his life he lived at the Pigeon House Fort, in Dublin Bay, next in the Fort of Leith, and later on the Island of Corfu. All these places are spots of great natural beauty--a vista of stretching sea or mountain-top which the frowning fortress only aided in romance and charm. Many a long ramble must the boy have had, storing his memory with these quiet, sylvan pictures.

Not far from Leith was the famous battlefield of Prestonpans, where, nearly a century before, his great-grandfather had been taken prisoner. From his father or brothers he must have heard many a wild tale of the Highlanders and their exploits.

As a child, however, this did not appeal to him. He loved nature in her quiet moods best. He was timid and nervous, to such an extent that the firing off of the cannon, when the colors were lowered at sundown, would make him jump half out of his boots. It was only by the sternest sort of self-control that he obtained the mastery of himself.

Not that Charles Gordon was ever a coward. Morally he was ever-unflinching. He abhorred a lie, and was always ready to stand up for his convictions. But his physical frame was made of weaker stuff--much to his own vexation.

One of the few early stories related of him is that he had difficulty in learning to swim. He could not get the stroke and he had a horror of being in water over his head. So he made a practise of deliberately throwing himself into deep water, when out with his mates, knowing that it was "sink or swim," or a case of getting pulled out. He was then only nine.

A few years later, another instance reveals his determination. A great circus was advertised in London, a novelty in those days, and the Gordon boys had been promised the treat. But just before its arrival, Charles fell into disgrace. He was charged with some fault which he did not think should have been laid to his door. Later he was forgiven, and told that he might attend the circus. But his pride was aroused, and he refused to go.

When he was ten, the first definite step toward making him a soldier was taken--for of course, being a Gordon, he must be a soldier. He was sent to school at Taunton, preparatory to entering, as a cadet, the Royal Military Academy, at Woolwich. At that time, its commandant was a veteran of Waterloo, a peppery old chap who had left one of his legs on the soil of France, as a souvenir. He was a martinet as to discipline, and Charles, who had become accustomed to doing a good deal of thinking for himself, came into frequent clashes with him.

One day, the old man said, "Gordon, I am tired of fooling with you. You are incompetent; you will never make an officer."

The young cadet, a boy of sixteen, gave him look for look, without quailing--then by way of reply tore his epaulettes from his shoulders, turned on his heel, and strode out of the room.

Naturally, the guardhouse was next in order, where the culprit could cool his heels and meditate upon the sinfulness of superior officers. In this particular case he seems to have blamed it upon the missing leg, for he remarked, long afterwards: "Never employ any one minus a limb to be in authority over boys. They are apt to be irritable and unjust."

He remained in the Military Academy four years, having been put back six months by way of discipline, and left it without any regrets. At this time, indeed, he had a positive distaste for the army. It was all drill and monotony. One day was too much like another. What was the good of it all? Why did men have to learn to kill each other anyhow? Were we not put on earth for a higher mission?

Thus reasoned the young man, who, all his life, was subject to moods of introspection and intense religious thought--surely strange material out of which to build a soldier! He sensed this fact himself and was not at all anxious to enter the army; and frequently in later life expressed a lively dissatisfaction for the service. He was an exemplification of the poet's line:

"I feel two natures struggling within me."

When he entered the service, as a second lieutenant of the Engineers, at the age of nineteen, there was little to attract one in the army life. The long peace of Europe, which had followed the defeat of Napoleon, seemed likely to last forever. Except for a relatively small outbreak in France, in 1848, all Europe was quiet. Consequently, the army held little attraction to an active young man. It was all drill and the petty details of garrison life. But underneath the placid surface, the political pot of Europe was really boiling furiously--only waiting a chance to bubble over. That chance soon came.

Gordon's first assignment was to Pembroke, where plans were required for the forts at Milford Haven. Here with other engineers he worked for a few months, when he was ordered to the Island of Corfu. This was not altogether to his liking. He had spent a part of his boyhood there in the Ionian Islands, but felt that they were "off the map" so far as real activity was concerned.

Then the bubbling pot at last boiled over. Russia, impatient of bounds, had begun her march southward, past the Black Sea, and toward the coveted lands of Turkey. The "balance of power," that precarious something that has always kept Europe on edge--and particularly in the Balkans--was upset. Whether England wanted to or not, she must get into the breach.

Thus began the Crimean War, a desperate struggle that was to bear some glorious pages in England's history, and some dark ones as well. It was to see the "Charge of the Light Brigade"--splendid in itself, but brought about because "some one had blundered." It was to produce a Florence Nightingale--but also the hideous sufferings which she helped to assuage.

For England was unprepared. Her years of idleness had broken down her military organization. Splendid fighting men she still had, but the fighting machine itself was rusty.

Young Gordon, perhaps through his father's influence, obtained a transfer from Corfu to the Crimea. The father did not much like his new billet. He may have sensed something of what was coming. But he did not fear for his son.

"Get him into real action, I say," he would remark. "That will show whether there's any stuff in him. I guess there is," he added grimly, thinking of Charles's troubles in college. "All the time he was in the Academy, I felt like I was sitting on a powder barrel."

In mid-December, of 1854, Gordon set sail from England, on his first real job as a soldier. He was going with the task of building some wooden huts for the soldiers, and lumber was being shipped at the same time. But the soldiers for whom these shelters were intended were even then dying from exposure on the plains of Sebastopol. It was the first lesson of unpreparedness.

Of this, however, the young engineer was then ignorant. He was in high spirits over the prospect of action and seeing the world. He arrived at Marseilles "very tired," as he writes to his mother, but not too tired to give her a detailed description of what he has seen thus far--"the pretty towns and villages, vineyards and rivers, with glimpses of snowy mountains beyond."

On New Year's Day he reached his destination, Balaklava. It was the depth of winter, and disaster stared the British in the face. The Russians were having the best of it. They were out-generalling the enemy at every turn. The British could do little more than dig in and hang on, with the bull-dog stubbornness which has always marked them.

At first, the young lieutenant heard little of this. His duties as construction engineer kept him busy six miles back of the battle line.

"I have not yet seen Sebastopol," he writes on January 3, "and do not hear anything of the siege. We hear a gun now and then. No one seems to interest himself about the siege, but all appear to be engaged in foraging for grub." Two days later he writes: "We have only put up two huts as yet, but hope to do better soon."

The army was suffering from both cold and hunger, and was in pitiable plight. Again he writes: "Lieutenant Daunt, Ninth Regiment, and another officer of some Sixtieth Regiment, were frozen to death last night, and two officers of the Ninety-Third Regiment were smothered by charcoal. The streets of Balaklava are a sight, with swell English cavalry and horse-artillery carrying rations, and officers in every conceivable costume foraging for eatables."

There was little military glamor in such sights as this. No wonder, young Gordon felt sick of it all. But he never gave the slightest indication of quitting. He only worked all the harder to help do his bit. As Spring advanced, he had an opportunity to work closer to the lines. He received orders to construct trenches and rifle pits, which at times was extremely hazardous and brought him under fire. On one occasion a Russian bullet missed his head by a scant inch.

At last, in the month of June, came his first chance to do some real fighting. Every branch of the service was marshalled by the commanding general, Lord Raglan, for a massed attack. What happened can best be described in Gordon's own words: