continued .......
Fanny eventually arrived at Balaklava, where she was reunited with her Henry. Conditions on shore were so bad that she regretfully begged a place to live on board ship. On the "Star of the South," within the partial protection of the harbour, she rode out a violent storm which destroyed ships and badly-needed supplies. Two weeks later, bodies were still afloat in the harbour. "I was scarcely over the ship's side, when the boat drifted – oh, horror! – against a dead body, one of the many that were floating in from the wrecks outside."
The situation in the Crimea were appalling, and bad decisions created extra hardships for the British army. The harsh conditions of daily life -- starving, wet, freezing, and surrounded by cholera-carrying filth -- killed thousands of men and horses. Fanny wrote scathingly:
'If any body should ever wish to erect a "Model Balaklava" in England, I will tell him the ingredients necessary. Take a village of ruined houses and hovels in the extremest state of all imaginable dirt; allow the rain to pour into and outside them, until the whole place is a swamp of filth ancle-deep; catch about, on an average, 1000 sick Turks with the plague, and cram them into the houses indiscriminately; kill about 100 a-day, and bury them so as to be scarcely covered with earth, leaving them to rot at leisure – taking care to keep up the supply. On to one part of the beach drive all the exhausted bât ponies, dying bullocks, and worn-out camels, and leave them to die of starvation. They will generally do so in about three days, when they will soon begin to rot, and smell accordingly. Collect together from the water of the harbour all the offal of the animals slaughtered for the use of the occupants of above 100 ships, to say nothing of the inhabitants of the town, – which, together with an occasional floating human body, whole or in parts, and the driftwood of the wrecks, pretty well covers the water – and stew them all up together in a narrow harbour, and you will have a tolerable imitation of the real essence of Balaklava.'
Not surprisingly, the British soldiers on shore were in poor condition to fight an opposing army. "The appearance of the officers very much resembles that of the horses; they all look equally thin, worn, ragged, and out of condition in every way." If Fanny sometimes seems to have more sympathy for the horses than for the men, perhaps it is because the horses had no share in creating the conditions which they must endure.
From the heights above, on October 25, 1854, Fanny saw both the triumph of Sir Colin Campbell's thin red line, and the heart-breaking destruction of the Light Brigade. "Now came the disaster of the day – our glorious and fatal charge. But so sick at heart am I that I can barely write of it even now. ... presently the Light Brigade, leaving their position, advanced by themselves, although in the face of the whole Russian force, and under a fire that seemed pouring from all sides, as though every bush was a musket, every stone in the hill side a gun. Faster and faster they rode. How we watched them! ... presently come a few horsemen, straggling, galloping back. "What can those skirmishers be doing? See, they form up together again. Good God! it is the Light Brigade!"
Fanny laments the decisions of the British leaders on several occasions. "Ah, how have our resources been wasted! – our horses killed! – our men invalided; while over it all broods the most culpable indifference!"
The Crimean war was a time of great hardships, great mistakes, and great sorrows. But Fanny Duberly was a woman of great spirit! She survived the entire war -- and a later posting to mutinous India -- before settling down with her beloved Henry in England.
http://merrigold.livejournal.com/http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/duberly/journal/journal.html