glish and French soldiers carrying
wounded men, most of them looking more dead than alive from loss of
blood; while, as they advanced, they found numerous tents set up, in
which the surgeons were already at work amputating arms and legs, and
dressing the more severe wounds. Where the conflict had raged the
hottest, the surgeons, who had followed closely the advancing forces,
were employed with tourniquets doing their utmost to stop the life-blood
flowing from the veins of the wounded. Although the two midshipmen had
seen a good deal of fighting, they both turned sick as they gazed at the
fearful wounds inflicted by the round-shot.

The road they took leading them some way to the north of the Alma, it
was only after they had proceeded a considerable distance that they came
to the part of the ground where the English had chiefly fought. On the
eastern side was the burned village of Bourliouk; the hillside was
covered with the corpses of the men of the infantry regiments,
intermingled with the bodies of the grey-coated, helmeted Russians. The
cries of the wounded soon attracted those who came to succour them, and
the seamen under Higson were speedily laden with wounded men. After the
wounded had been inspected by a surgeon, and pronounced fit to be
removed, the party set off to return to the boats, while Tom and Archie
made their way up the hill in the track the Guards had taken, Tom
looking out anxiously on every side in search of his brother, whom he
dreaded to find among the killed.

They met numerous parties of soldiers, with a few sailors, who had
already landed, some carrying wounded men towards the village on the
banks of the Alma, the houses of which had been turned into hospitals;
others going in search of fresh burdens. The work of burying the dead,
who thickly strewed the ground in those parts where the fight had raged
the hottest, had not yet commenced; the living men had first to be cared
for. Here and there surgeons of the army, as well as many of the navy,
who had landed even before the battle was over, were attending to the
more desperate cases requiring immediate aid. The Russians received the
same attention as the English, and were at once carried off to the
hospitals. Some poor fellows lay under the walls and other shelter,
where they had crawled after being wounded; the larger number were found
where they fell.

Tom was in a hurry to push on, while he looked about on every side for
the unifo