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.
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