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Chapter 01 - Introduction to Operations Management
1-1
Copyright © 2021 McGraw-Hill. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill.
Solution Manual for Operations
Management 14th Edition William J
Stevenson
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CHAPTER 01
INTRODUCTION TO OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
Teaching Notes
Many students come to this course with negative feelings, perhaps because they have heard that the
course includes a certain amount of quantitative material (which many feel uncomfortable with), or
perhaps because the course strikes them as “how to run a factory.” Others seem to have very little idea
about what operations management is. I view the initial meeting with my classes, and this first chapter, as
opportunities to dispel some of these notions, and to generate enthusiasm for the course.
Highlights of the chapter include the following:
1. Operations as one of the three main functional concerns of most organizations.
2. The role and job of the operations manager as a planner and decision-maker.
3. Different ways of classifying (and understanding) production systems.
4. System design versus system operation.
5. Major characteristics of production systems.
6. Contemporary issues in operations management.
7. Operations as essentially managerial (planning, staffing, etc.)
8. The historical evolution of production/operations management.
9. Manufacturing operations versus service operations.
10. The need to manage the supply chain.
Reading: Why Manufacturing Matters

1-2
1. Given that the U.S. economy is becoming more service based, the percentage of employment in
manufacturing is declining while the percentage of employment in the service industry is
increasing. In addition, the loss of manufacturing jobs results in the loss of service jobs as well (a
general estimate is that four service jobs are lost for each manufacturing job lost).
2. The government could offer companies tax incentives for purchasing new equipment or for hiring
workers. In addition, the government could work with manufacturing companies to re-train
workers in more advanced manufacturing processes.
3. Manufacturing innovation is important because it requires high value-added knowledge work that
supports future innovation. Second, innovation generates high-paying jobs. Third, innovation is
important because it improves productivity, thereby slowing the outsourcing of jobs to lower
wage countries.
Reading: Agility Creates a Competitive Edge
The first solution could be for U.S. retailers to continue sourcing from China that part of demand that is
certain and to source uncertain demand from the same low-cost producers in Romania and Turkey.

1-3
This approach provides the advantages of low-cost manufacturing in China and the flexibility provided by
the suppliers in Romania and Turkey. The disadvantage of this approach is that transportation times for
U.S. retailers still will be longer than the transportation times faced by Zara’s and H & M.
A second approach could be that U.S retailers find low-cost, flexible suppliers just across the border in
Mexico. The advantages of this approach include low wages and shorter transportation times. The primary
disadvantages to this approach involve the time and expense of locating new suppliers. Additionally, the
U.S. retailers might have to lend considerable support developing the capabilities of these suppliers.
Reading: Sustainable Kisses
1. Hershey’s and other companies engage in sustainable business practices because consumers
prefer to do business with companies that practice sustainable sourcing and ethical treatment of
workers. Many of the leaders in these businesses hold the same values. By educating farmers,
Hershey’s can also help to increase the longevity and yield of cocoa plants.
2. Hershey’s actions may influence retailers and customers in its supply chain to become better-
educated about sourcing, which may influence competitors to adopt similarly sustainable business
practices.
Operations Tour: Wegmans Food Markets
1. Customers judge the quality of a supermarket based on:
a. Quality of individual products.
b. Exterior and interior physical look of the store.
c. Effectiveness and efficiency of service personnel.
2. a. Customer satisfaction is the major key to the success of any operation; without it, the
company cannot survive.
b. Forecasting allows the company to plan the workforce levels, purchase quantities, inventory
levels, and capacity.
c. Capacity planning allows the company to balance the trade-off between shortages and excess
inventories and between waiting lines and idle time.
d. A good location can have a significant impact in attracting customers, thus improving sales.
e. Planning and controlling levels of inventory will assist with avoiding stockouts and avoiding
excess inventory levels.
f. Good layout of the store can assist in maximizing customer service and sales by strategically
directing customers through the store. An effective layout can also improve the efficiency of
the operations.
g. Effective scheduling of company workers and work hours can improve both customer service
and efficiency. An effective schedule provides convenient store hours, minimal customer
waiting lines, and minimal employee idle time.
3. Wegmans uses technology to track inventory and manage its supply chain, which lessen the risk
of occurrences of out-of-stock events, and to maintain freshness in its meat and produce
departments.

1-4
Answers to Discussion and Review Questions
1. The term operations management relates to the management of systems or processes that create
goods and/or provide services. These processes involve the planning, coordination, and execution
of all activities within an organization that create goods and services. A supply chain is the
sequence of organizations, including their facilities, functions, and activities, that are involved in
producing and delivering a product or service. This sequence begins with basic suppliers of raw
materials and ends with the final customer. A supply chain includes activities and facilities
external to the internal operations function, e.g., sourcing and transportation of inbound materials.
2. The three primary functions are operations, finance, and marketing. Operations is concerned with
the creation of goods and services, finance is concerned with provision of funds necessary for
operation, and marketing is concerned with promoting and/or selling goods or services.
3. The operations function consists of all activities that are related directly to producing goods or
providing services. It is the core of most business organizations because it is responsible for the
creation of an organization’s goods or services. Its essence is to add value during the
transformation process (the difference between the cost of inputs and value and price of outputs).
4. Among the important differences between manufacturing and service operations are:
a. The nature and consumption of output.
b. Uniformity of input.
c. Labor content of jobs.
d. Uniformity of output.
e. Measurement of productivity.
Among the important similarities between manufacturing and service operations are:
a. Forecasting and capacity planning to match supply and demand.
b. Process Management
c. Managing variations
d. Monitoring and controlling costs and productivity
e. Managing the supply chain
f. Location planning, inventory management, quality control and scheduling
5. a. The Industrial Revolution began in the 1770s in England, and spread to the rest of Europe and
to the U.S. in the late eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century. A number of
inventions such as the steam engine, the spinning Jenny, and the power loom helped to bring
about this change. There were also ample supplies of coal and iron ore to provide the
necessary materials for generating the power to operate and build the machines that were
much stronger and more durable than the simple wooden ones they replaced.

1-5
b. Frederick W. Taylor, who is often referred to as the father of scientific management,
spearheaded the scientific management movement. The science of management was based on
observation, measurement, analysis, improvement of work methods, and economic
incentives. Management should be responsible for planning, carefully selecting and training
workers, finding the best way to perform each job, achieving cooperation between
management and workers, and separating management activities from work activities.
c. Parts of a product made to such precision that each part would fit any of the identical items
bring produced. It meant that individual parts would not have to be custom made because
they were standardized.
d. Breaking up a production process into a series of tasks, each performed by a different worker.
It enabled workers to learn jobs and become proficient at them more quickly, avoiding the
delays of workers shifting from one activity to another.
6. a. The service sector now accounts for more than 70 percent of jobs in the U.S. and that figure
continues to increase.
b. Manufacturing is important in that it supplies a large proportion of exports and many service
jobs are dependent on manufacturing because they support manufacturing.
c. Farm products are an example of non-manufacturing goods because there is no production
and the products naturally grow without human intervention.
7. Models provide an abstraction and simplification of reality. Mathematical models are the most
abstract and most used in operations management. These models are used to assist in various
decision-making scenarios. One of the main reasons for building mathematical models is that the
experimentation with the model enables the decision-maker to analyze the model and make
inferences about a problem without actually manipulating the real situation or problem.
Therefore, the experimentation with the mathematical model rather than the actual problem or
situation is less time consuming and less expensive.
8. The degree of customization has important implications throughout a business organization.
Generally, higher degrees of customization involve more complexity in terms of production or
service, involve different forms of layout (arrangement of the workplace), require higher worker
skills, and have lower productivity.
9. a. Initial cost, convenience, parking, taxes, time, repairs, upkeep, etc.
b. Cost, technology, productivity, convenience, software applicability, etc.
c. Initial cost, repairs, warranty, upkeep, monthly payments and interest, dependability,
insurance costs, etc.
d. Control of the situation, class participation, perception, image, etc.
e. This would depend on the nature of the product or service being offered as well as the type of
customer. Computer literate customers might seek a web site. If customers are strictly local,
newspaper advertising might be a reasonable choice, especially if potential customers were
not actively seeking out the business. In addition, if the business is seasonal, newspaper
advertising might be preferred.

1-6
10. Craft production: involves producing high variety of customized goods, low volume output with
skilled workers, and utilizing general-purpose equipment. The main advantage is the flexibility to
produce a wide variety of outputs providing many choices for the need of customers. The main
disadvantage is its inability to produce at low cost. Examples: tailoring, machine shop, print shop,
and landscaping.
Mass production: involves producing a few standardized goods at high volume of output with low
skilled workers utilizing specialized equipment. The main advantage is low cost, efficient
production. The main disadvantage is that it does not allow easy changes in volume of output,
product, or process design. Examples: automobiles, computers, mail sorting, appliances, paper,
soft drink bottling, etc.
Lean Production: involves producing more variety of goods than most production at moderate to
high volume of output. It requires high skilled workers, quality, employee involvement,
teamwork, and flatter organizational structure with fewer levels of management. It combines the
advantages of both mass production (high volume, low cost) and craft production (variety,
flexibility). Examples: similar to mass production.
11. Workers may not like to work in a lean production environment because there are fewer
opportunities for employee advancement, more worker stress due to higher levels of
responsibility and greater variability and expansion of job requirements.
12. a. Matching supply and demand is an important objective for every business organization.
Undersupply can result in dissatisfied customers, potential loss of business, and opportunity
costs. Oversupply can potentially result in additional cost to store the excess, the need to sell
the excess for a reduced cost, or the cost to dispose of the excess.
b. Managing a supply chain is important for several reasons, including matching supply and
demand, reducing transportation costs, achieving a competitive advantage, managing
inventories, and achieving supply chain visibility.
13. There are four basic sources of variation:
1. The variety of goods or services being offered: The greater the variety of goods and
services, the greater the variation in production or service requirements.
2. Structural variation in demand, such as trends and seasonal variations. These are generally
predictable. They are particularly important for capacity planning.
3. Random variation. This natural variability is present to some extent in all processes,
is present in demand for services and products, and generally cannot be influenced by
managers.
4. Assignable causes of variation: Variation caused by defective inputs, incorrect work
methods, out of adjustment equipment, and so on. This type of variation can be
reduced or eliminated by analysis and corrective action.
Variations can be disruptive to operations and supply chain processes, interfering with
optimal functioning. Variations result in additional cost, delays and shortages, poor quality, and
inefficient work systems. Poor quality and product shortages or service delays can lead to
dissatisfied customers and damage an organization’s reputation and image.

1-7
14. The reasons for doing unethical things vary from person to person and from one situation to
another. Some of the possible reasons are listed below:
a. The decision-maker cannot recognize his or her action as unethical because of a lack of
morals or understanding or lack of sensitivity towards a given issue.
b. Even though the decision-maker recognizes his or her behavior or action as unethical, he or
she justifies it based on self-rationalization that involves justice theory. For example, the
decision-maker may think that the consequences of his or her decision is not going to hurt
other people or organizations in the short run but the potential long term effects may be
devastating.
c. The decision-maker knows that his or her action is unquestionably unethical. However, the
type of ethical behavior required is not in the personal portfolio of the decision-maker and
ethics in general is not important to him or her.
d. The decision-maker does not think he or she will be caught.
e. The self-interest of the decision-maker outweighs the ethical considerations.
15. Value added is defined as the difference between the cost of inputs before the transformation
process and the value or the price of output after the transformation process. In a manufacturing
process as the inputs are transformed to outputs, value is added to products in a number of
different ways. The value adding can take many different forms. For example, value can be added
by changing the product structurally (physical change) or transporting a product (a product may
have more value if it is located somewhere other than where it currently is).
16. Outsourcing can result in lower costs, the ability to take advantage of others’ expertise, and allow
businesses to focus on their core business. Outsourcing generally results in layoffs and some loss
of control. In addition, outsourcing to companies in other nations may result in problems due to
cultural or language differences, and increased shipping times for products.
17. Sustainability refers to service and production processes that use resources in ways that do not
harm ecological systems that support both current and future human existence. Business
organizations are increasingly facing sustainability regulations as well as pressures from
environmental groups to act responsibly toward the environment. Some organizations are
capitalizing on their “green” efforts in their advertising.
Taking Stock
1. When we decide to take an action there are usually consequences of that action and advantages
and disadvantages of taking that action. In other words, before we make a decision, we must
weigh the pros and cons of that decision. Trade-offs involve weighing of pros and cons regarding
a particular decision. For example, if a decision-maker decides to increase the level of inventory,
he or she has to consider the trade-off between increased level of customer service and the
additional inventory carrying cost.
2. It is important for the various functional areas to collaborate because collaboration will lead to
improved communication among the departments (functions) that in turn will improve the
performance of the firm. Collaboration will reduce the chance of sub-optimization by a functional
area due to the possibility that a particular functional area does not have enough information
about the other areas and their constraints or decisions.

1-8
3. Product and service technology allows a company to develop new products faster. Process
technology enables a company to improve methods, procedures, and equipment used to produce
goods and to provide services. Information technology enables companies to process large
quantities of data quickly, to identify and track goods, to obtain point-of-sale data, and to
communicate documents electronically to suppliers and customers.
Critical Thinking Exercises
1. There are many implications due to the differences between delivery of services and production
of goods in manufacturing operations. For example, in a service firm, because the degree of
customer contact is high, we have to make sure that employees are better trained in customer
service than employees in a manufacturing industry. In a pure-service industry firm, we will build
a lot of slack in scheduling because of the uncertainty of input.
2. That would depend on whether supply was too large or too small. If there is over capacity, try to
increase demand through advertising and/or price reductions. If output (goods) can be stored, and
future demand is expected to be higher, store excess output for future demand. If supply is too
small, options might be to outsource, work overtime, or hire temporary workers. If there are few
or no competitors, increase prices.
3. Innovations might be product or service related, or process related. These typically
involve added cost and time for training and possibly new equipment or equipment changes, and
potential changes for the supply chain (e.g., new suppliers, new delivery requirements, etc.).
Process innovations can be disruptive to the workforce due to lower labor or machine time
requirements, which may result in job loss, retraining, and/or lower worker morale. New products
or services also probably will involve new advertising campaigns or other promotions, and the
need for consumer education. Consumers will have to adjust to new products or services, and
may have some difficulty if innovations entail increased complexity.
4. Managers should strive to find solutions in the best interests of all stakeholders. Technological
change such as automation, robotics, and AI may increase productivity and lead to lower
production costs. It may also replace human workers, which is a cost to the community and
workforce. Applying an ethical framework can help with ethical decision making.
5. a. Business people make unethical decisions for a variety of reasons including the following:
1. Pressure from superiors
2. Pressure for stakeholders
3. Not being informed
4. Keeping the company afloat
b. Their risks for unethical behavior including the following:
1. getting reprimanded
2. getting fired
3. losing reputation
Case: Hazel
1. a. Number of yards, number of mowers, number of workers, time to mow a given area, regular
maintenance, weather, length of growing season, time between necessary mowing.
b. Mowers, parts, fuel, lubricants, fertilizer, chemicals, tools, etc.
c. 1) Lawns, type of work, regular maintenance, workers.

1-9
2) Weather, illness, overloads, emergencies, breakdowns.
d. Very important. Repeat business would be greatly affected and new business depends on
word of mouth and reputation.
e. Oil change, blade sharpening, motor tune-up, mower and filter clean up, etc.
2. a. Timing: not too late but not too soon.
b. Coverage: does not leave streaks.
c. Length of grass: not too long but not too short depending on the weather and time of year.
d. Trimming and clean-up (details).
3. a. Responsibility, possibly security, fringe benefits, regularity of work hours, cannot pass the
buck to someone else, decision-making, etc.
b. Responsibility, financial investment, work load, hiring of more employees, possibility of
greater government regulation, personnel problems tend to increase and a general increase in
all administrative work.
c. Risk involved in starting a new type of business using new technology and making it
successful, learning curve involved in the area of e-commerce, additional workload, hiring of
more employees in the area of Web design, computer programmers, etc.
4. Hazel has two options:
(1) Hazel could leave grass clippings on customers’ lawns.
Advantages: Decreases her time per lawn. Grass clippings serve as a natural fertilizer. Hazel
will not have to raise her prices.
Disadvantages: Customers may not like the mess left behind. In addition, over time,
customers’ lawns may build up thatch and have to be de-thatched.
(2) Hazel could take grass clippings to a landfill in a nearby city.
Advantages: Customers’ lawns will not build up thatch. Customers will appreciate the
appearance of their lawns.
Disadvantages: Hazel will need to raise prices due to her increased driving time and fuel
expense.
5. Yes, since Hazel promised the part-time workers a bonus of $25 for good ideas and since this idea
appears to hold promise, Hazel should honor her promise and pay the student $25. However, in
the future she might want to make the bonus offer contingent on continuing employment at the
time of implementation of the idea because after becoming aware that the idea was successfully
implemented, the idea may become an attractive option for the competitor. In addition, she might
want to include a confidentiality clause or a statement in the employment contract of the workers
regarding not sharing proprietary information that may be useful to competition.
6. a. Weather, worker absences due to illness, vacations, extra requests from customers,
new customers, and lost customers.

1-10
b. At times she will have excess capacity while at other times she will have too little
regular capacity to handle the workload.
c. Revise schedules, work overtime if regular capacity is insufficient and/or hire
additional workers, if capacity exceeds demand layoff workers or find something else
productive for them to do such as maintenance of equipment, training, etc.
7. Use hand tools instead of power tools, and recycle grass clippings. Factors to take into account
include cost savings, quality, risk of injury, job completion times, training, reduction in pollution
(air and noise), and energy savings.

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Brother John's ring had been an Open Sesame to their hearts,
and they vied with one another in the repayment in kind for all that
the absent one had received at Jim's hands.
Madame Greski and Tatia devoted themselves to Jack as if he had
been brother John himself. No single thing that could make for his
comfort and well-being was lacking on their part. Never was
wounded man tended with more loving and unremitting attention.
And when Jim thought of the bleak miseries of the camps up
there on the hill-sides, and the long-drawn horrors of the passages
on the hospital ships, he thanked God in his heart that Jack was
where he was.
For himself, although the rôle of prisoner of war was little to his
taste, it was still mighty interesting to be inside Sebastopol after
gazing at it so long from the outside. There was so little doing
outside that it seemed to him that he was not missing much; in due
course they would probably be exchanged; and meanwhile the
difference between the mud-and-canvas life of the camps and this
warm and cheerful home in the town was somewhat in the ratio of
hell and heaven.
In view of the abounding comforts with which they were
surrounded, it was indeed difficult at times to realise the actual and
astounding fact that they were undergoing a siege that would rank
as one of the great sieges of the world's history; that this
comfortable town was an almost impregnable fortress; and that
England and France, outside there, were bending all their energies
to its reduction.
For they lacked nothing. Supplies were abundant. They were
warm and well-fed, and, beyond the dull boom of the distant guns,
they heard nothing of the siege. Through that unclosable northern
door, by night and by day, long strings of carts brought in to them

everything that was necessary, and much besides. Contrary to
custom, it was the besiegers who suffered, not the besieged.
And Jim, when Tatia drove him away from Jack's bedside, to seek
exercise and fresh air lest she should have another patient on their
hands, quietly observing everything--the rude strength of the
defences, the unlimited, even wastefully profuse stores of guns and
ammunition, the teeming barracks full of men, and that ever-open
door though which the limitless supplies could still be drawn upon--
said to himself that the siege might go on for ever.
Jack, however, was in most distressing condition. The slightest
exertion, any movement almost, brought on painful fits of coughing
which seemed to shake his wounded chest to pieces. Speaking was
out of the question, for even breathing was difficult to him; and all
Jim could do, to show him what he felt about it all, was to sit by his
bedside, holding his hand at times, and at times forcing himself to
unnaturally cheerful talk lest the dreadful silence should bring him to
foolishness in other ways. For he felt certain, from Jack's appearance
and the doctor's manner, that his case was hopeless and the end not
far off, and the thought of it was terrible to him.
Of the consequences--of the results to himself, at Carne and
Wyvveloe--not one thought. The fluttering of the shadowy wings put
all other considerations to rout. This that lay so still on the bed was
dear old Jack, and the fear that he was going filled all his heart and
mind.
But Tatia, pretty as she was, and of a most vivacious disposition,
possessed so much common-sense.
Again and again she insisted on Jim quitting the room and the
house, and threatened him with penalties if he came back under a
couple of hours. And when her brother was available she would send
them off together, begging them only to beware above all things of

pointed shells and to turn up again in due course whole and
undamaged.
"I would nurse you with enjoyment," she said, her soft dark eyes
dwelling appreciatively on Jim's sorrowful long face, in which they
seemed to find something that appealed to her strongly. "But, for
yourself, you will be better to keep well. If you come back in less
than two hours you shall have only half a dinner. Louis, you will see
to it."
And Greski would march him away to the harbour front where
walking was safe, since the shells rarely topped the hill, and they
would discuss matters from both sides as they went.
On that side of the town there was little sign of the siege beyond
the activities of the quays, and an occasional roar from the man-of-
war moored under Fort Nicholas. But when they strolled along the
front, and came round the hill, and up by St. Michael's church and
the tower whose clock bore on its face the name of "Barraud,
London," then all the grim actualities met them full face.
Up there, across the Admiralty Harbour--whose head ran up into
the gorge wherein lay the fatal Ovens out of which they had come
into captivity--beyond the great barracks and the hospital, up there
on the hill-side lay the huge works which Jim knew as the Malakof
and the Redan, but which Greski spoke of as the Korniloff and No. 3-
-very different in the rear from what they were in front, grim and
forbidding, but crude and rough and unfinished-looking. And those
little zigzag piles of earth just beyond them were the British
trenches, and up on the plateau beyond were the tents, which shone
so white in the morning sun, but were so horribly thin and cold of a
night, and so dirty when you got close to them.
He could see the Picket House, and knew just what the usual
crowd about it would look like; and he could see the gunners moving
about the platforms inside the Russian works, and now and again

white clouds of smoke rolled over them and the angry roar came
bellowing across the quiet waters of the harbour, and the mole-
heaps on the hill-side spurtled out in reply.
Now and again a shell came hurtling into the town from the
Lancasters or the French batteries, but did little damage on that
side, since there was little damage left to be done.
Up there to the right, as they went on past the Admiralty
buildings and the cathedral, the houses were mostly in ruins, the
streets were already barricaded in anticipation of assault, and the
whole scene was one of dismal desolation.
And at times they would meet stretchers carrying broken men,
and again, strings of carts carrying rough red coffins up to the
cemetery.
But Jim deemed it wise, from every point of view, to keep, as a
rule, away from the actual scene of operations. It was slow work
watching at a distance the very leisurely operations, and it gave him
little to report. But he had an idea that if he showed too great an
interest in their concerns the authorities might perhaps tighten his
tether, and that might mean separation from Jack. Now and again,
however, the desire to see for himself how things were going on got
the better of him, and he would creep into some deserted corner of
the hot side of the town and endeavour to estimate the possibilities.
And from such observations he always came away downcast and
disheartened, for, as far as he could see, the besiegers made no
progress whatever, while the besieged toiled unremittingly at the
strengthening of their defences, and blocked every possibility of
entrance with their mighty earthworks. Up that side of the town
went an unceasing stream of men and carts carrying fascines and
gabions and shot and shell, and strings of straining horses dragging
big guns from the arsenal; and new works, fully equipped, sprang up
like mushrooms in a night.

But there were dark days also, when Greski was on duty in the
bastions, or nominated for a sortie. And then madame and Tatia
went about very quietly and nervously, and started at any unusual
sound, and showed their fears in their faces.
But he was very fortunate, and came home each time to their
joyful welcome with his tale of catastrophe to others whom they
knew, but himself escaped unhurt, and they all breathed freely till
his turn came round again.
Christmas slipped by almost unnoticed. When he did, by accident,
awake to the fact that it really was Christmas Day, the difference
between this and other Christmas Days gave Jim an unusual fit of
the blues.
He thought of them all at Wyvveloe, and wondered if Gracie had
decked the church with holly. He knew they would all be thinking
about them, probably in great distress of mind. What news
concerning them had reached home he could not tell. After much
discussion with Greski, who assured him it would be useless, he had
requested permission from the authorities to write home, subject to
their inspection. But his request was returned to him with a brief
inscription in Russian, which Greski translated as "out of the
question."
So he could only hope that Colonel Carron would have been able
to make inquiries under one of the occasional flags of truce, and had
sent word home. But operations were slow at the moment; there
had been neither assaults nor sorties of any consequence, and so
flags of truce and opportunities of communication were of rare
occurrence.
Yes, he knew it must be a bitter, sad Christmas for them all at
home--for the many who had already got their fatal news, and for
the more who awaited theirs in fear and trembling. And he knew too
well what a shockingly thin and sore one it must be for the gaunt,

shoeless, half-starved and ill-clad men in the thin white tents on the
heights over there.
And when, through the weight of their colouring, his dismal
thoughts plumbed deeper depths than was his wont, the grim irony
of this most unchristian Christmas sat heavily on him. Christmas!--
bristling with raw yellow earthworks, shattered with bursting shells,
ghastly with crawling processions of broken men and more peaceful
red coffins! Christmas!--peace on earth and goodwill----! And yet,
after eighteen hundred years, here were so-called Christian nations
at one another's throats, tearing and rending the image of God into
raw red fragments, and with no thought but for destruction.
They were, many of them, very good fellows, these Russians.
They would stop him in the street--those whom he had met that first
morning, those who were left--and greet him cordially, and ask after
his brother, and express their regrets, and he had no more desire to
kill them than he had to kill Lord Raglan himself. And yet, set him on
the hill-side up there, and all his thought would be towards their
destruction.
Truly it was a queer world, and there must be something wrong
somewhere! But it was all beyond him, and he could only brood and
wonder.
Their New Year was ushered in on the night of the twelfth with
great illuminations, much ringing of church bells, and a solemn
service in the cathedral--by a terrific bombardment of their fellow
Christians on the hill-side, and two furious sorties, which effected
nothing beyond an increase in the tally of broken men and in the
cart-loads of red coffins creaking away to the cemetery.
"Absolutely useless," acknowledged Greski, when his mother and
Tatia released him from their warm embraces on his return. "But the
Chief thinks it does the men good to go out occasionally after all
their dirty work on the new bastions."

CHAPTER LXI
WEARY WAITING
"Nothing yet," said Sir Denzil to Eager, on his twentieth anxious
call after further news of the boys. "I am surprised Denzil has not
written. But so many things may happen out there. His letter may
have gone astray. There may be difficulty in communicating with
Sebastopol. He may be wounded himself. He may be dead. We can
do nothing but wait. I will send you word the moment I have any
news. Miss Gracie well?"
"Quite well, sir, but sorely troubled about the boys."
"Ay, ay! That is the woman's part--to sit at home and nurse her
fears."
"No news, Charlie?" asked the Little Lady hopelessly, from her
chair by the fire.
"No news yet, dear. Sir Denzil promises to send round the
moment he gets anything."
"I'm beginning to fear they're all lying dead in that horrible
Crimea. This waiting, waiting, waiting, is terrible."
"Yes, it's hard work, the hardest work in the world. But we can
only wait and hope, dear. Whatever is is best, and we cannot alter
it."

It was a weary time for all of them, and all over Britain and
France and Russia the same black cloud lay heavily. The only ones
who were happy were those whose warriors had come home
maimed, so long as the maiming was not absolute and irretrievable.
For such were at all events safe from further harm.
So the slow dark days dragged on until at length one night, when
Eager had just got in from his rounds and the usual fruitless call at
Carne, there came the long-expected knock on the door, and Gracie
ran to answer it.
"Is it you, Kennet?"
"Me, miss. Sir Denzil would like to see Mr. Eager."
"He has got some news at last?"
"Ay, some papers just come in. But I don't know what it is. Bad, I
should say, from the looks of him--he was so mortal quiet."
"We will come at once. Let me go alone, Charlie. You're tired out."
"Not a bit of it, my dear. I feel like a hound on the scent at the
word 'news.' Don't you think you'd better wait here till I bring you
word?"
"I can't wait," she said breathlessly. And they went along
together.
Sir Denzil met them with ominous impassivity.
"I trust Kennet did not raise your hopes," he said, with the
corners of his mouth drawn down somewhat more even than usual,
and a glance that never wavered for a moment. "This arrived just
after you left, Mr. Eager. It explains, of course, to some extent----"

It was a letter from General Canrobert, informing Sir Denzil, with
many complimentary phrases as palliatives to the blow, that Colonel
Carron had met his death while gallantly repelling a sortie on the
night of the 12th January. He had left instructions, in case of need,
for word to be sent to Sir Denzil and it was in pursuance thereat etc.
etc.
"That, of course, explains why he has been unable to pursue his
inquiries after the boys," said Sir Denzil, in an absolutely unmoved
voice.
"I need not say our deepest sympathies are yours, sir----"
"It is the boys I am concerned for," said Sir Denzil, with an
impatient double wave of the hand, whose finger and thumb held his
pinch of snuff. "Denzil put himself out of the running twenty years
ago. This is only an incident. But"--and he snuffed very deliberately--
"it may not be without its consequences in the other matter. There is
no one out there now who has any special interest in them, you see.
And, under present circumstances, they may quite easily be
overlooked and lost track of. Personally, I should not be in the least
surprised to learn that they are both dead. This war seems to me to
be carried on in quite unusually wasteful fashion."
Gracie never said a word. The callousness of the old heathen
chilled her heart, though it was boiling with many emotions. If she
opened her mouth she feared it' would all come out in a torrent that
would astonish him for the rest of his life.
"We can only go on hoping for the best," said Eager quietly. "Sir
George is making inquiries for us----"
"He is quite outside things," said Sir Denzil brusquely, and gazed
at Eager with thoughtful intensity for a moment, as though on the
point of offering some other suggestion. "However," he said abruptly,
at last, "at the moment, as you say, we can only wait, and see what
comes of it all. If I hear anything I will send you word at once." And

they left him and went soberly home, feeling death still a little
nearer their dear ones in this new loss.
"What a terrible old man he is!" said Gracie. "I think he must have
been born without a heart."
"It is mostly assumed, I think. Inside, I have no doubt he is
feeling his loss bitterly, but he prides himself on not letting it be
seen. It is the old fashion. Thank God, we have come to recognise
the fact that a man may be a strong man and yet have a heart! It
makes for a better world."
And as the slow weeks dragged on, and still brought them no
news of the missing ones, their hearts were heavy with fears.
CHAPTER LXII
FROM ONE TO MANY
The great heart of the nation at home had been wrung with pity
and indignation at the altogether unnecessary sufferings of the men
who had gone out to fight her battles in the East, and who, through
miscalculation, muddle, and incapacity, had died like flies, of
sickness and want.
The roar of anger with which the news was greeted shook the
mighty in their seats and hurled Ministers and Cabinets into the dust.
Still more to the purpose, the sympathy aroused set itself promptly
to the cure of official abuses by the administration of private charity;

which word is used in its high apostolic sense, for private
munificence and public subscription provided the miserable, gallant
remnant of our army only with those things which were theirs by
right, and of which they had been defrauded by sheerest stupidity
and the inexorcisabie demon of Red-tape.
The Times fund was a mighty help; Florence Nightingale a still
mightier, in that noblest attribute of personal service and sacrifice
which touches all hearts to higher things.
But there were also many private benefactors, who set to work at
once on their own account to do what they could, and among them
was Sir George Herapath.
When the dreadful disclosures of the camps and hospitals came
home, he was still bending, almost broken, under the weight of his
own loss. His son's death had beaten him to the ground and
shortened his span by years.
But the thought of the miseries of those other brave fellows, out
on the bleak hill-sides above Sebastopol, stirred him out of the
depths of his sorrow. He sent for Charles Eager.
"Eager," he said, "I can't get any sleep for thinking of it all."
"He died as a gallant man should die, Sir George."
"It's the others I'm thinking of--the poor fellows who are
mouldering away out there for want of everything that has been
forgotten or sent astray."
And a spark came into Eager's eye, for here was sign of grace and
hope after his own mind--a sorely stricken heart rising superior to its
own loss in helpful thought for others.
"Yes, they're having dreadful times. What were you thinking of?"

"Helping, if you'll take a hand."
"I'm your man, sir, and God be thanked for your good thought! I'll
thank you in my own way."
"Help me to make a list of the most necessary things, and I'll
charter a ship to take them straight out. Will you go with her and
see to it all?"
"Will I?" blazed Eager. "Will I not? It's almost too good to be true.
I want to find out what's become of those boys too."
"I wouldn't like it all to go astray like the rest, you see."
"I'll see to that. It may be the saving of hundreds. God bless you,
sir! George's death will be a blessing to many through you. It is just
what he would have done himself."
Sir George shook his head sadly. The wound was too raw yet.
"Let's get to work!" he said; for in work, and especially in such work,
there was something of healing.
So they formed themselves into a committee of four, and Sir
George insisted on Eager and Gracie coming to stay with them at
Knoyle so that the work might go on without interruption.
He went down to Liverpool, and with difficulty secured a
steamship--the Bakclutha, 1,000 tons burden, James Leale, master,
at a very high price, for Government charters had made a tight
market.
He went over all their lists carefully, knew just where to lay his
hand on everything, and the work went forward rapidly.
Eager had secured a locum and was keen to be off, for every
day's delay meant so many wasted lives. Gracie was to stay on at

Knoyle with Margaret. And so the very last night came, and found
them sitting round the fire in Sir George's study after dinner.
"You must all give an eye to my people while I'm away," said
Eager. "Breton is a good sort, I think, but it'll take some time for him
to get to know them; and the vicar----"
"The vicar is resigning as soon as you come back," said Sir
George quietly. "The South of France is the only place where he can
live, Yool says. I want you to take it when you get home."
"That is very good of you, sir. I want you to give me something
else too"--and he slipped his hand inside Margaret's arm.
"I know," said Sir George. "Meg has told me, and I could not wish
her better."
Gracie flung her arms round Margaret and kissed her heartily.
"Oh, I am so glad!" she cried. "That is what I have been wanting
all the time."
"So have I," laughed Eager. And then more soberly, as he lifted
Margaret's hand to his lips--"And truly I am grateful. My cup is full--
almost to the brim----"
"I wish I could go with you," said Margaret.
"So do I," said Gracie eagerly.
"Yes, I know, but----"
And they knew too that the "but" must keep them at home.
"You'll find out all about the boys, Charlie," ordered Gracie.
"I'll do my best, dear, you may be sure. It all depends on what
there is to find out and what an outsider can do. The possibilities are

so tremendous. All we can do is to hope for the best and keep our
hearts up. I have letters from Lord Deseret to Lord Raglan and
several others, and I have no doubt they will give me all the help
they can."
And next day he sailed, very happy in his mission, happier still in
what lay behind and before him; troubled only on account of the
boys who had disappeared into the smoke-cloud, and of whom for
many weeks they had been able to obtain no tidings whatever.
The master, the supercargo, and the crew of the Balclutha were
all of one mind in the matter, and so she made a record passage,
was through the Straits fourteen days after she hauled out of the
Mersey, and two days later lay off Balaclava Bay awaiting official
permit to enter.
The Bay was crowded, but a corner was found at last, and Eager's
wondering eyes travelled over the amazing activities and manifold
nastinesses of that historic port, though these last were nothing now
to what they had been.
He landed at once, introduced himself and his business to Admiral
Boxer and Captain Powell, found favour in their sight, and made
arrangements for the unloading and forwarding of his cargo.
Sir George had furnished him with ample funds and the best of
advice. He organised his own transport, saw to it himself; with the
hearty assistance of Leale and his two mates and some picked men
of the crew, and drove things forward at such astonishing speed that
the harbour-master broke out one time.
"Man! Was it a parson you said you were, Mr. Eager? It's head of
the Transport you ought to have been. You get more out of those
lazy scamps than any man we've had here yet."
It was the same wherever he went. His strenuous cheerfulness,
his masterful energy, his unfailing good-humour--in a word, his

Eagerness infused itself into all with whom he came in contact and
carried him royally through all difficulties. He was an object-lesson in
what might be done when Officialism and Red-tape had no fingers in
the pie.
To tell all he did, and saw, and thought, during those days, would
take a volume. He cheered and comforted, and lifted from misery
and death many a stricken soul, both in the hospitals and in the
camps.
He came across old Harrow and Oxford friends, who welcomed
him with open arms and tendered him advice enough to sink a ship.
And when he had finished his distributions, and so eased the ways
of all the needy ones within the range of his powers, he turned with
keen anxiety to that other quest which lay so near his heart.
He paid a visit to British Head-quarters, in the low white houses
on the road leading from Balaclava to Sebastopol, delivered Lord
Deseret's letter to an aide-de-camp, and intimated his intention of
waiting there till he could see Lord Raglan in person.
When at last he was admitted, he found the Chief sitting at a
huge table heaped with papers, and two secretaries writing for dear
life at tables alongside.
Lord Raglan had already seen him about the camps and hospitals,
and had heard of his good works, and received him with courteous
kindness. Eager was struck with his thin, worn face--the face of a
brave man wrestling with unwonted problems and innumerable
difficulties.
"I don't know what we can do to help you in your quest, Mr.
Eager," said his lordship, with Lord Deseret's letter in his hand, "but
anything we can do we will. I am sure you will understand that it
has been through no intentional neglect that these young friends of
yours have slipped out of our sight. The demands upon one's time
from the people at home"--with an expressive glance at the

mountainous heaps of forms and papers before him--"have afforded
one small chance of attending to individual cases. The last we know
was that they were prisoners in Sebastopol."
"I thank your lordship, and I am very loth to trouble you," said
Eager; "but there is so much dependent on these two boys that I
must do all I possibly can to learn what has become of them. One
could not ask by letter, I suppose?"
"Did I not write to Menchikoff, Calverly, soon after they were
taken? I seem to remember----"
"You did, sir," replied one of the overwrought secretaries, without
stopping his work for a moment. "And we got no answer."
"Would it be possible for me to get in under a flag of truce?"
asked Eager.
"Quite possible," said his lordship, with a faint smile; "but
decidedly risky, and you certainly would not come out again."
"There are occasional truces for picking up the wounded, are
there not?"
"We have never asked for one, As a rule the Russians request it
after one of their big sorties. If you wait a while--one never knows
what night they will come out. What was your idea?"
"Simply to inquire among the Russian officers. There could be no
objection to that, I presume?"
"Not the slightest. You might learn something. It is just a chance."
"Then I will wait for that chance, with your lordship's permission."
"By all means, Mr. Eager, and I wish you all success; also please
convey to Sir George Herapath our thanks for all he has done for the

men here, and accept the same yourself. They have suffered
grievously. His son's death was a great loss to us. He was a fine
young fellow."
And Eager bowed himself out.
CHAPTER LXIII
EAGER ON THE SCENT
Eager's lean and lively face became well known in the camps and
trenches. He was keen to see all he could, and was everywhere
welcomed with acclaim, but perhaps the greetings he most enjoyed
were the rough grateful words of men whom he had helped and
heartened in the field hospitals, and who had recovered sufficiently
to get back to their work. These would do anything for him, and
from morning till night he was all over the place, seeing everything,
mightily interested in it all, and leaving, wherever he went, a trail of
uplifting cheerfulness which was a moral tonic.
He watched the perpetual fierce little fights over the rifle-pits, and
went down into them and tended the wounded when chance
offered. He mingled with the frequenters of the Picket House, and
watched the effect of the somewhat desultory pounding of the
batteries by the big guns. He crept cautiously through untold miles
of muddy trenches, both French and British, and viewed with
wonder the gigantic tasks which prepared the way for the second
bombardment. And in the hospitals he soothed many a sufferer's

passage to more peaceful quarters, and put fresh heart into those
whose lot it was to go back to the front.
In the officers' tents and huts he was hail-fellow-well-met
everywhere, and the only fault found with him was that he could not
be in many places at the same time.
He heard matters discussed there with an outspoken freedom
which would have set ears tingling at home; and when he asked
how soon it was going to end, was told, "Never, my boy. It's going
on for ever and ever." And an irreverent one added, "As it was in the
beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen!"
"End, my dear fellow? Why should it end?" said still another,
waving an old briar at him, with the smoke curling like a flag of truce
from the stem. "They've got unlimited supplies to draw upon, and an
open road to get 'em in. As fast as we kill 'em they bring in fresh
ones. As fast as we knock down their earthworks they build 'em up
again----"
"Faster!" growled another.
"Yes, faster. I don't see why it should not go on till the year 2000-
-going on as we are. It's not a siege; it's a discipline--a chastisement
for our sins: I only wish----"
"Hear, hear!" grunted another, who had heard that wish many
times before.
"What do you wish?" asked Eager.
"I wish all the Red-tape and Routine people at home could be
driven into the trenches here and kept there for a month. They'd
learn a thing or two."
"Die . . . never learn," growled the other.

"If we'd gone right in when first we got here, it would have been
a most enormous saving, even if the cost had been heavy. For some
reason we lost the chance, and it's never going to come back. We're
like a prize-fighter pummelling away at the other fellow's leg and
hoping to break him in time that way. We may tire him out, of
course, but its a deuced slow business."
"Do they never exchange prisoners?" asked Eager.
"We never take any worth exchanging. It's only the ruck we get,
and they're mostly dead."
"Their boots are the best part of 'em," said the other. "Our men
are always better shod after a sortie. Gad! sir, it would have made
you blaze to see our fellows--Guardsmen and all--tramping about in
mud and snow with no soles to their rotten boots! I hope the man
who made 'em will spend his eternity in a snowy hell with raw bare
feet!"
But one night they were all out in haste, at the sound of heavy
and continuous musketry down in the trenches on the left attack;
and Eager, tumbling out and rushing on with the rest, found himself
where a noncombatant had no right to be.
He had gone plunging downwards with the others, in order to see
all he could, till he fell bodily into a trench. He picked himself up and
joined the stream of men hastening towards the firing, and found
himself suddenly in the thick of things--bullets humming venomously
past his head, men falling with groans and curses by his side, and a
big man, standing just above him on the rough parapet of the
trench, shouting to his men to "give it 'em hot with the steel," and
meanwhile picking up the biggest stones he could find and hurling
them at the oncoming Russians in front.
The men clambered up and swept away into the darkness with
shouts and cheers and clash of steel, and Eager was left alone in the
trench with the fallen ones. Up from below rose an awful turmoil, lit

now and again by receding flashes, then a final British cheer, and
one more sortie was repulsed.
It was only next morning that he learned the size of it.
"They say there were about fifteen thousand of them out last
night," said one of his friends. "One lot went for the French over by
the Mamelon, and the rest came up here."
"Gordon's men say he was on top of the trench chucking stones
at the beggars as they came up----"
"I saw him," said Eager. "He was standing just above me,
shouting to his men and flinging stones as hard as he could. Then
they fixed bayonets and went downhill like an avalanche."
"You'd no right to be there, my boy."
"I suppose not. I went to see what was up, and fell into a trench,
and ran on with the rest. Was the Colonel hit?"
"Couple of bullets in him, but not deadly."
"It's amazing to me that any one comes through alive."
"Yes, it feels like that at first, but you get used to it."
"Did we lose many?"
"Pretty heavy; but there are four or five Russkis to each of ours.
Ground's thick with 'em. They'll want an armistice to clean up, I
expect--generally do."
And, sure enough, the Russians presently requested a truce to
pick up their men; and before long the white flags were flying on the
batteries, and the men of both sides streamed out into the open,
picked up their dead and wounded, and took stock of one another.

This was the chance Eager had been waiting for, and he went
down to the debatable ground between the lines with the rest.
It was a horrible enough sight--a couple of thousand dead and
wounded men strewn thick in that narrow space; but the stretchers
were busily at work, and he had his own inquiries to make.
A number of Russian officers were strolling about, dressed in their
best and smoking their best cigars, and quite ready for a talk.
He approached one, lifted his hat, and asked in French:
"I wonder if monsieur could afford me some information?"
At which the Russian smiled, and his blue eyes twinkled.
"With pleasure, monsieur. We have at this moment one hundred
thousand men in there and five thousand guns, and provisions for
fifteen years, and when they are used up we have five times as
many more to come."
"If you could give me a satisfactory word about two young
officers, prisoners in your hands, you would ease some very sore
hearts at home, monsieur. That is all I ask. I have come all the way
from England to get news of them."
"If I can, monsieur. What are their names?"
"Carron; two brothers--one in the Engineers, the other in the
Hussars."
"Tiens! Yes--Carron! I know them. Some of our guns have the
same name. They are well, monsieur. I saw them only yesterday."
"Thank God for that! And I thank you, monsieur, most gratefully."
"It is nothing. One of them was sorely wounded, but the Grand
Duke sent his own doctor, and he is recovered. They were walking

together yesterday, and we spoke. I shall tell them of your inquiry.
What name, monsieur?"
"Eager--Charles Eager. Will you tell them all are well at home and
very desirous of seeing them. If only this terrible war would come to
an end!"
"Yes, indeed; le Malheur! But I assure you, monsieur, we will stop
fighting at once if only you will all go home."
"I wish I could make them," said Eager. "It is terrible work." And
he looked round at the broken men lying so thickly all about.
"It is rough play. Whether the omelets are worth all the broken
eggs, I cannot say. Have you any idea what we're fighting about,
monsieur?"
"General principles, I suppose."
"Ah, he is a costly leader, this General Principles," said the other,
with a twinkle. "Permit me to offer you a cigar."
"We will exchange," said Eager, producing some of Sir George's
extra specials. "Let us smoke to a speedy peace."
"With all my heart." And they parted friends, and both went their
ways wondering why such things must be. And if the Russian never
delivered Eager's message it was not his fault, for he was killed by a
shell that same afternoon in Bastion No. 4.
The ground was cleared at last. There was a moment's pause.
Then the white flags came fluttering down, and a gun from the
Redan sent a shot hurling up the trenches, to show that playtime
was over.
Eager was much comforted in mind by his interview with the
Russian. He had seemed a good fellow, and could have no object in

deceiving him. He wrote long letters home, and resolved to wait on
and see if the great bombardment, to which all efforts were now
directed, would bring the end any nearer.
And so it came about that he stood with the rest on Cathcart's
Hill, in the misty drizzle of that bleak Easter Monday morning, and
watched the opening of the second bombardment of Sebastopol.
They could hear enough up there. All round the vast semicircle
more guns were crashing than had ever roared in concert before.
But they could see very little. The gunners themselves could not see.
They knew Sebastopol lay over there and they were bound to hit
something.
And Eager strained his eyes into the chill white mist to see all he
could, and felt sick at heart at thought of the destruction any one of
those wildly flying shot and shell might wreak.
CHAPTER LXIV
THE LONG SLOW SIEGE
It was the most trying time Jim had ever spent. He had had no
experience whatever of sick-beds, beyond his own short spell after
Balaclava, and even that was as different from this deadly monotony
as well could be. But he stuck to it valiantly, and was only saved
from physical and mental collapse himself by Tatia's arbitrary
oversight.

If there had been anything going on outside he might have found
the change from the sick-room bracing, but both besieged and
besiegers were too busy girding their loins for another struggle to
waste time or powder on useless display.
The Allies had found the nut too hard to crack, and were working
hard on preparation for the next blow; and those inside, fully
informed of everything that went on in the camps, were straining
every nerve to resist it.
So big guns and mortars went toiling up to the heights from
Balaclava Bay, and mountains of gabions and fascines and more big
guns went toiling up the heights inside to face them, and for days
hardly a shot would be fired on either side.
It was towards the end of February that Greski said to Jim, one
day when Tatia had turned them out-of-doors--"Come, and I will
show you something new." And they went round to the eastern
slope, looking out towards the Karabelnaia suburb and the Malakoff
and Redan--all of which Jim knew by heart.
And at the first glance Jim saw a change in the look of things.
A new fort had sprung up in the night between the Malakoff,
which till now had been the foremost Russian work on that side, and
the French trenches--a fort of size too, all a-bristle with gabions and
fascines round the crown of the flat hill. The thousands of men still
working at it made it look like a great ant-heap.
"French!" said Jim, after his first quick glance, with a feeling of
exultation, for the new work must seriously menace, if not
command, the Malakoff.
"French?--no, my friend!--Russian! Truly your people are not very
wideawake. Todleben has been expecting them to seize that hill ever
since they crept so close, and it would have been bad for the
Korniloff Bastion, you see. So, as they did not, and it seemed a pity

no one should use it, he occupied it last night, and ten thousand
men have been busy on it ever since."
"Hang it! What fools we were to let it slip!"
"Undoubtedly! And without doubt you will now try to recover it,
and it will cost you many men, and us also, and so the game goes
on."
And that very same night, when Jack had at last fallen asleep,
Greski said to Jim, as though he were inviting him to a theatre party:
"At midnight we will take a little walk, and you will see your
friends attempt to recover the new fort, the Mamelon.
"You seem to know all about it," said Jim incredulously.
"Of course. That again is where we beat you. We know all your
plans. We have plans of every trench you cut with every gun you
place in it."
"Not from any of our men," said Jim, with heat, for underhand
work such as that struck him offensively.
"Oh no. But your men talk too much among themselves, and our
spies are through your camps night and day. They all speak French,
you see, and uniforms are easy to get, whereas none of your people
speak Russian well enough to pass muster for a moment. I can even
tell you that the attack will be all French--Zouaves, Marines, and
Chasseurs, under three thousand in all, and the General Monet will
be in command. They will walk right up into the trap and will all be
killed or captured."
"It is sheer murder."
"What would you? It is war; and after all, though I hate Russia,
one cannot help remembering that she did not invite you to come

here. We will wait here. It is not yet time."
"Why aren't you up there yourself?"
"I was in the last sortie and it is not my turn, Dieu merci! for it
will be hot up there to-night. There are plenty of us, you see, and
we take fair turns."
All was dark and still up along the distant hill-side, so void of
offence that Jim began to wonder if Greski had not made a mistake.
But after several impatient glances at his watch by the glow of his
cigar, he said at last:
"Now--it is time! Watch!--over there!"
But the minutes passed--long, long minutes, almost the longest
Jim had ever lived through.
"Doesn't seem coming off," he jerked.
"Wait!" jerked Greski, at tension also. "They were to start at
midnight. They have a quarter-mile to cover, and they will go
cautiously because the ground behind there is bad. We are to let
them come right up and--ah--voilà!" as the darkness behind the new
fort blazed and roared and became an inferno of deadly strife;
terrific volleys of musketry and the hoarse shouting of men--no big
guns, and presently even the firing became desultory, but the
turmoil waxed louder and louder.
Greski danced with excitement.
"Mon Dieu! but they are fighting!--hand to hand! They are devils
to fight, those Zouaves. I wish--I wish--but it is not safe here to
wish."
The turmoil came rolling round this side of the hill; the Russians
were falling back. Then flaming volleys broke out on each side of the

turmoil.
"Ah--ah--ah! Supports from Korniloff," jerked Greski.
And then suddenly the Malakoff and Redan big guns blazed out,
and poured an avalanche of shot and shell and rockets on the
gallant attack, and it withered and melted away.
"Two--three thousand men in pieces, and as you were!" was
Greski's summing up.
"Infernal butchery," growled Jim, much worked up.
"What would you, my friend? It is war." And they went soberly
home, thinking of the horrors of the red hill-side and all the broken
men who lay there, while all the church bells in the town clashed
pæans of victory overhead as they went.
The one bright ray to Jim, in this time of gloom, was the fact that
Jack was without doubt slowly improving, to the great satisfaction
and greater surprise of his wearied but unwearying nurses and the
Grand Duke's doctor.
"He has no right to live," said the latter, "and yet he lives, and
may live. It is marvellous." But then he had not known how the
open-air life on the flats prepared a man for contingencies such as
this.
It was long before Jack could speak above a whisper without
suffering, and then at last he was able to sit propped up with pillows
and to take an interest in things in general, But the gardens were
full of hyacinths and crocuses, and there were even patches of them
on the troubled hill-sides, among the white tents and muddy
trenches, before he tasted fresh air again.
Then Jim would lead him on his strong arm, very slowly and with
many a rest, to a sheltered place whence he could see what was

going on, and so keen was his interest that it was no easy matter to
get him home again. And the officers they met on the road would
stop them, and politely inquire after Jack's health, and express their
pleasure at his recovery, and discuss matters with them, and
gallantly express their conviction that the siege would go on for ever,
but admit all the same that if it could honourably end they would not
be sorry.
They had another ray of hope when the news came of the death
of the Tsar. Would it mean an end of the terrible struggle, and
release, and home? Their hearts--and not theirs only--beat high with
hope, and fell the lower when the word came that the fight was to
go on to the bitter end.
CHAPTER LXV
THE CUTTING OF THE COIL
With the better weather things quickened somewhat--the things
of Nature, to life; the things of Man, to death. Man strove with all his
might to end his fellow man, and drenched the earth with blood:
and the spring flowers pushed valiantly through the blood-soaked
sods and seemed to wonder what it was all about.
The boys learned from Greski that the chief bones of contention
now were the rifle-pits.
The lines and burrows of attack and defence had by this time run
so close to one another that in places you could almost throw a

stone from one to the other. No smallest chance of harassing the
enemy was lost on either side. Both sides had learnt by experience
what damage and annoyance to the working parties could be
effected by small bodies of picked marksmen hidden in sunken pits
in advance of the lines, and the struggles over and round and in
these tiny strongholds were endless, and furious beyond description.
He told them how sixty Russians had held their pits near what he
called the Korniloff Bastion, but which Jack and Jim knew more
familiarly as the Malakoff, against five thousand Frenchmen, until
reserves came up and the Frenchmen had to retire. And how some
crack shot in one of the English pits was potting their men even in
the streets of the town, twelve hundred yards away, so that passage
that way was no longer permitted.
He told them that the Allies were mounting more and more big
guns, and prophesied hot work again before long, and feared that
this time "he"--by which simple comprehensive pronoun the Russian
soldiers always referred to the hundred thousand men out there on
the hill-side--the enemy--just as Jack and Jim had always used the
term to designate Sir Denzil in their early days--Greski feared that
"he," out of patience with the long delay and the sufferings it had
entailed, would no longer confine his efforts to battering the forts,
but would probably try to make an end of the town itself.
"In which case," he said, "we may have to move over to the other
side of the water. He can knock down the bastions to his heart's
content; we can build them again faster than he can knock them
down. But the town--that would be another matter."
All the streets leading in from the hill-sides were barricaded, and
a new line of huge entrenchments sprang up among the houses
inside the town, half-way up the slope on which it was built.
From their chosen look-out on that eastward slope the boy
watched all that went on, inside and outside, with hungry anxious

eyes. They noted the immense activities on both sides, and it
seemed to them, as it had done before to Jim that things might go
on like this for ever.
"If we are really going to try another bombardment," said Jack
slowly--he always spoke slowly and quietly now, a way he had got
into through fear of straining his chest--"and if they keep it to the
earthworks, it is all wasted time. The only way to end it is to smash
the town and rush it over the pieces. It is doubtful kindness to spare
it. Far better end the matter for all concerned. Then we could all go
home and become human beings again. I've no fight left in me,
Jim."
"A couple of months on the flats will make you as sound as a
bell," said Jim cheerfully. "The air here is full of gunpowder and dead
men. What you want is Carne."
"I've thought a good deal about it all while I lay there and
couldn't talk," said Jack. "You'll have to take it all on, Jim. I shall be
a broken man all my life--I feel it inside me; and Carron of Carne
must be a whole man. You must take it on, Jim."
"Don't let's talk about it, old man. We're not home yet. Time
enough to go into all that when we get there. I wish to goodness
Raglan would come right in and make an end of it."
"It would be an awful business. But I don't see how we're going
to end it any other way. And truly I wish it were ended, for I long to
get home. All I want is to get home."
Their friend Greski had so far escaped the dangers of his
unpalatable duties in a manner little short of marvellous. He shirked
nothing, and took his fair turns with the rest. And, though he hated
Russia with all his heart, he laughingly confessed that when he was
in the thick of things he forgot it all in his eagerness to win the fight.

But such phenomenal luck was too good to last. He went out one
night to join in a sortie, and the morning came without him, and
found his mother and Tatia in woeful depths, certain he was dead.
Jim went off at once for news, and found him at last in the
hospital, with a bullet in the thigh and a bayonet wound in the
shoulder.
"It is nothing, it is nothing," said the hurrying surgeon. At which
Greski made a grimace at Jim, and said:
"All the same, if it was only himself now! And the way he hacked
that bullet out! We are getting callous to other folk's sufferings."
"Why, you hardly felt it," said the surgeon. "You said so."
"When one's helpless under another man's knife one says what he
wants. It hurt like the deuce."
"When can I take him home?" asked Jim, in stumbling French.
"After two days, if he behaves and goes on well."
So Jim went home and comforted madame and Tatia; and two
days later they were happier in their minds than they had been since
the siege began, in that they had him there all the time and safe
from further harm.
He grizzled somewhat at being shelved "just when the fun was
going to begin," for he felt assured in his own mind that "he,"
outside, was preparing for a general assault, and he would have
liked to see it. And so the boys did their best to keep him posted in
all that went on.
They were wakened at daybreak one morning by an uproar
altogether out of the common--one vast, unbroken, terrific roll of
thunder, so deep, so ominous, so far beyond anything they had ever

heard in their lives before that it sounded as though the whole of
heaven's artillery had been mounted on the hill-sides, and brought
to bear on the devoted town, and was bent on battering it to pieces.
Greski called them from his room, and they went in.
"Hurry, hurry, or you'll miss it all! We knew it must be soon, but
could not learn the day. They will come in on top of this, I think.
Keep under cover, and come back and tell me all about it. Oh, ----
this leg!"
It was a bad morning for any conscious possessor of a chest--
heavy with mist and thick with drizzling rain; a black funereal day,
sobbing gustily, and drenching the earth with showers of bitter tears.
The chill discomfort of it told even on Jim.
"Jack, old man, I wish you'd go back," he said, before they had
gone a hundred yards. "I'll bring you word as soon as I can. They're
not likely to come in at once, and you'll have plenty of time to see all
that's going on. They'll probably hang away at the forts for the
whole day. Do go back."
"Get on!--get on!" coughed Jack. "I want to see." And they
pushed on through the gloomy twilight.
The streets were alive with all the others who wanted to see, and
long compact lines of gray-coats were pressing stolidly towards the
front, to strengthen the lines against the expected onslaught.
Jim was doubtful how far they should venture, but Jack was
intent on seeing. This was history. This was the consummation of all
the hopes, and the weary days and nights, that had gone into those
mighty zigzags up on the hill there. This was his own arm striking as
it had never struck before since time began, and he must see it at its
best.

But, though they could hear enough, they could not see much,
because of the mist and the rain and the dense clouds of smoke
rolling down the hill-sides.
The Russian batteries were only beginning to reply, by the time
the boys reached their usual look-out on the eastern slope near the
cathedral, and then the uproar doubled, and the very ground
beneath them seemed to shudder under it.
Jim helped his brother to his usual seat in a niche in the broken
wall of a garden, and tucked his cloak carefully about him, for
between his boiling excitement and the rawness of the morning, he
was all ashake and his teeth were chattering.
"Every gun we have," gasped Jack . . . "hard at it!"
"If they can't see more than we can, they're going it blind,"
growled Jim, as he strode about to get warm.
And then, like a bolt from the sky, without an instant's warning,
out of the chill white mist in front came a great round black ball,
which dropped with a thud into the ground almost at Jack's feet. It
lay there, hissing and spitting like a venomous devil gloating over its
anticipated villainy, and Jim rushed at it with an unaccustomed oath
of dismay. It was sheer instinct. He had no time for thought. The
devilish thing was close to Jack, and Jack could not move.
He got his right hand under it to hurl it down the slope. His feet
slipped from under him as he heaved. Then with a splintering crash
the thing burst. . . .
And the Coil of Carne, cut by a stray British shell, lay shattered
about the eastern slope of Sebastopol.

CHAPTER LXVI
PURGATORY
Jim came to himself in purgatory. It seemed to him that he came
slowly out of a dead black sleep into a horrible wakening dream.
He was in a vast room, low-roofed, with massive arches which
obstructed his view and lay like weights on his brain. Small, heavy
windows let in a murky light. All about him were dismal groanings,
and mutterings, and curses, and a most evil atmosphere, which
turned his stomach.
He tried to move, and was seized with grinding pains up his right
side and arm and shoulder.
He tried to grope back into the meaning of it all, and suddenly he
remembered the shell.
It must have burst and wounded him. His right hand shot
suddenly with burning pangs.
He wondered how Jack had fared. He could not remember
whether he had succeeded in pitching it down the slope or not. He
had done his best; but he remembered that the fuse was very short.
. . .
Was he really alive? . . . or was he dead, and this hell? . . . The
groans and curses . . . that awful smell of blood and dead men! . . .

Solution Manual for Operations Management 14th Edition William J Stevenson

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