The bloody fields of Crimea

Call to arms

My name it George Caine, I am writing about my experiences from the Crimean conflict from 1854-1856. I went into this war serving with the British army alongside my childhood friends I used to work in the London factories with, Charlie Hicks and jack Warren. Also others we met along the way. Here is our story...

We had been planning to get out of the London slums for some time. The poverty, the disease, the smoke. We knew this was not our destiny.
Our time came in 1853. Conflict with Russia had been brewing for some time now. We knew that the queen would call on every man to do their patriotic duty. And she did. On a clear sunny day in the slums of east London, a British army recruitment officer accompanied by a small group of soldiers came through the overcrowded streets, calling on men to sign up to defend country and empire from the aggression displayed by the Russian bear.
Myself, Charlie and Jack were amongst the first in line. Back in those days I was a muscular lad due to my days in the factories. I had dark short hair and a
Thin moustache. Charlie was a slightly chubby short lad with light brown hair, and jack a tall lad with wavy blonde hair. I was the smart one, more common sense and street smarts than school education though, Charlie was not too smart but a good comedian. And jack was sort of a mix of both, and he was quite smart and educated for someone of our background. He was the only one on our street who knew how to read or write!

The recruitment officer picked on us first, 'you boys' he chanted enthusiastically 'you look the part, physically fit, handsome lads you are the ladies will be all over you when they see you in uniform!' One by one we signed up, happy to do our part, the officer congratulated us and moved on to the next group of lads.
After saying our goodbyes to family and friends we headed off to training.
We found out rather quickly that officers weren't as kind or friendly as the one that recruited us. In fact many of them were the opposite.
Anyway I won't bore you with all the details of our training other than we made friends with the lads of our company rather quickly. Mr Thomas Hamlin was the leader of our unit. Though an aristocratic man he was he still got along well with his men. He was an experienced professional soldier who had served in India and China. He also maintained a very smart uniform and thick moustache.
The other men of our company I will introduce you to later.
In 1854 having completed our training we departed for the Crimea. I understood little about the war only that our allies were France and the ottomans and that the Russians were aggressively expanding, this posed a threat to our passage to India and the empire.
On the day of our departure we marched through the streets in full uniform with the bands playing, people cheering, and union jacks everywhere. 'It is predicted the war would be over in 12 weeks' I said to Charlie and jack. Charlie seemed quite pleased but jack seemed to disagree 'I doubt we'll be home until at least 1855' he said. 'Wars take long you see' he continued. 'Doubt that' said Eddy one of our fellow comrades 'those Russians are notoriously weak, they wouldn't be able to last that long against Englishmen!' he yelled and the regiment let out a cheer. Morale was very high amongst the men considering the task at hand.
We then proceeded to board the ship and the music and cheering slowly faded away.