by A L Berridge
Ryder looked away. ‘Leave it, don’t touch him.’
Mackenzie studied the cliffs. ‘It’s no so much of a drop, maybe just the ten feet. You’d be sore unlucky to break your neck from such a height.’
Or stiff and in pain, dizzy from a blow to the head and unable to react quickly from a slip on wet grass. ‘He wasn’t well. He could have.’
Mackenzie scratched his head. ‘There were Russians up there. Maybe he found one.’
And maybe he didn’t. There wasn’t a wound on him, and his sword was safe in the scabbard. There was nothing but mud and grit on his hands where he’d tried to stop himself falling, nothing but grazes on his face and neck where he’d struck the cliff as he fell, nothing but death and the guilt of the man who’d sent him to it. Ryder passed the water barrels to the Highlander, slid his arm under Sullivan’s shoulders and began to lift.
‘Here,’ said Mackenzie, coming round to take the feet. ‘I’ll help you.’
‘I can take him, damn you.’ He hefted Sullivan over his shoulder, staggered, then forced himself upright. The sodden clothes added to the weight, the body slipped and lolled on his shoulder, but he moved a step forward, then another and another, plodding laboriously towards the authority of the Light Division ahead.
There was none. A section of artillery were crowding from a boat onto the sand, men fighting the black waves to drag the precious gun ashore. A bedraggled lieutenant was yelling at a medical orderly, but when Mackenzie accosted him he only waved them away. ‘We’ve our own dead to deal with, for God’s sake, can’t you dig a bloody hole?’ His eyes were wild in a wind-whipped face, a boy in a nightmare.
They took a pick and blanket from a mountain of hastily landed stores, and climbed the path to the plateau. The left side was no good, there was a big lake there and the ground would be soft, but the grass to the right was already marked with mounds of earth and Ryder guessed he wasn’t the first to be told to dig a hole. He laid Sullivan down on wet turf, his face exposed to the splatters of rain, his battered body without so much as a coat to keep out the cold. Far out in the bay twinkled a mass of little lights like a distant city, the warmth and comfort of the Allied fleet. Play your bands now, you bastards. Let me hear you play.
He shoved up his sleeves and said, ‘Give me the pick.’
‘We’ll be needing more than one,’ said the Highlander, handing it over.
Ryder smashed the axe into the turf. He was vaguely aware of Mackenzie leaving him, but it didn’t matter, he was better doing this alone. ‘Jarvis,’ he thought as he hacked at the ground. If Jarvis hadn’t insisted on that flogging. If he hadn’t insisted on Sullivan wearing his haversack. If he’d let Fisk hold the line. Jarvis knew perfectly well what Ryder was trying to do, but none of that had mattered beside losing face to a corporal. The knowledge gave a savagery to his efforts as he dug deeper into the soil. Jarvis thought this was the start, did he? Well, maybe he’d got something coming to him too.
Someone stooped beside him, Woodall with a spade. Across the hole appeared Oliver with another, then Mackenzie with a second enormous pickaxe. ‘I borrowed them from the Second,’ he said, and swung.
They worked together in a silence that was strangely companionable. The roll of the sea receded until Ryder heard nothing but the rustle of wet clothing, the bite of metal into soil, the determined grunts of Woodall and an occasional gasp from Oliver. They wrapped Sullivan in the blanket and covered him deep in the warmth of the earth, then Mackenzie said the service from memory in a voice that made Ryder think of soft streams and green places in a land thousands of miles behind them. The wind and rain still howled about the plateau, but just for a moment there was peace.
They saw movement in the Second Division when they walked back, men milling about and shouting, but Ryder was too wet and exhausted to care. There were picquets all along the beach now, more along the clifftop, and no way for an enemy to get through. The damned place was safe enough, and all he wanted now was shelter and sleep.
Rain had blown under the groundsheets of their wagon and their clothes were already soaked through, but they were soldiers and they made the best of it. Mackenzie lit a candle in a mess-tin, Woodall made more coffee, Oliver produced brandy to season it, and they huddled together to eat their rations. The ship’s pork tasted like stringy glue and Ryder wondered gloomily how long it had been in the cask. In the Culloden from Portsmouth there’d been barrels of peas chalked 1828.
He didn’t feel like conversation. Oliver was too shy, Woodall too dignified, Mackenzie seemed naturally taciturn, and they ate in a silence punctuated only by the stoic chewing of tough meat. Rain peppered the hanging groundsheets and set them crackling in the wind.
An elbow prodded his wet ribs as Oliver turned to grope in the valises piled behind him. ‘I don’t suppose anyone wants to play cards?’
Then there they were, bright in the candlelight, the familiar faces of a De La Rue set of playing cards, exactly the same in the Crimea as they’d been in England. The groundsheet rustled as everyone sat up at once, and Woodall dug out a notebook and pencil from his extraordinarily bulging coat. ‘I’ll score,’ he said importantly. ‘Whist?’
Mackenzie regarded him sternly. ‘Not for money, mind. They’re very hard on the gambling in the 93rd.’
‘Penny a thousand isn’t gambling,’ said Woodall. He’d removed his bearskin to sit upright, and his flattened hair and square face gave him the look of a hopeful otter. ‘Come on, it’s not like it’s Sunday.’
Mackenzie’s face softened. ‘Well, if you’re set on it.’ He too looked younger without his bonnet, a farm-boy on a day out at the fair. ‘I’m a canny player, mind, it’s only fair to warn you.’
‘You look to yourself, Sawnie,’ said Woodall, grinning. He licked his pencil and looked expectantly at Ryder. ‘Corporal?’
Ryder picked up the deck. They weren’t new, there was none of that alien slipperiness of cards that have never carried a man’s future on their fall, but they were clean and unmarked and honest. He smiled and said, ‘Let’s play.’
Mackenzie placed the candle between their feet so they could see the cards, and they played as faceless black shadows in the gloom. Ryder’s stripes were forgotten, so was Oliver’s youth, they were just four whist players and the only thing that mattered was the game. Even Woodall started to shed some of his pomposity, and said ‘Blast it!’ with open bitterness when his hoarded king of clubs was trumped. Oliver seemed more confident too, and his playing was first class. Ryder remembered him defying Jarvis in the water and began to think there was more to green Polly Oliver than met the eye.
‘Humph,’ said Woodall, subsiding muttering over his notebook. ‘Luck, that’s all, I never held a card. Come on, Mackenzie, we’ll thrash them this time.’
But the new game was only two tricks old when a hand jerked aside their blanket screen and a voice said, ‘Hullo, this is cosy!’
Four words, and they knew it was an officer. Woodall’s head banged against the wagon as he tried to sit to attention, and Ryder had a terrible foreboding of picquet duty.
He said politely, ‘We’re stood down, sir.’
‘Oh yes, yes,’ said the officer vaguely, and actually stooped under the blanket to join them. ‘But there’s been a little trouble, and we’re checking everyone’s where they should be.’
‘Trouble, sir?’ murmured Ryder. The officer seemed in no hurry to leave and Ryder was under no illusions as to why. His greatcoat was filthy and sopping wet, his forage cap dripping, and there are few better social levellers than rain.
‘Mmm,’ said the officer, turning his head to study their little sanctuary. ‘Sir George de Lacy Evans’s servant’s turned up with a knife in his back and a few of the general’s things stolen. Probably a local; they’ve Greeks hereabouts, same as Varna. I say, is that coffee?’
Scrounging bastard. The pot was still half full, and Ryder dutifully held the candle as Mackenzie divided the contents between the five mugs and handed Sulli
van’s to the officer. Oliver made no move for the brandy, but to Ryder’s astonishment the officer produced a silver flask from his greatcoat and poured them each a tot of his own. ‘Keeps out the cold,’ he said. ‘But come on, don’t let me stop your game. Mustn’t interrupt a whist hand, you know.’
It had been more than a year since Ryder had met an officer who understood private soldiers had feelings too. They played on self-consciously, but the officer seemed quite content to watch and sip his coffee. He was out of the candle’s range, but Ryder caught the glint of eyes under the cap brim and knew he was genuinely interested.
When the hand finished he offered him the pack. ‘Would you like to play, sir? I don’t mind sitting out.’
The officer took the cards with alacrity. ‘We might both sit out, Corporal. I’d like to show you something new.’
For the rest of his life Ryder was to remember the moments that followed, as that educated voice taught them a form of whist that would later take England by storm. He remembered the voice and the cards, and most of all the hands of the men who played, all glowing orange in the candlelight. Woodall’s, square with oddly flat fingers. Mackenzie’s, long and strong and brown. Oliver’s, young and grubby, a fourth former back from playing football. His own, earth compressed under the nails where he’d dug a grave in the dark. And the officer’s, elegant and white, moving deftly among the cards as he explained what he was doing and why. Ryder’s excitement grew as he realized the possibilities. No random turning over a card for trumps, it had to be chosen by the dealer, or the next if he passed. No unwitting fighting against your own side, the dealer’s partner exposed his cards for all to see and then sat out the rest as a dummy player.
He said, ‘It takes so much luck out of it. It makes it about skill.’
The officer turned towards him, and a flicker of the candle gave a glimpse of close-shaved jaw. ‘You understand, Corporal. Cards are like life and a man makes his own luck.’
Woodall gave a little sniff. ‘Still doesn’t help if you haven’t got the cards.’
Ryder heard the smile in the officer’s voice. ‘But at least you know what you have, Private. It prevents me taking my own trick – unless, of course, I want to.’ The graceful fingers plucked the queen of diamonds from dummy and placed it over his own knave.
‘But that’s silly,’ said Woodall, evidently forgetting he was speaking to an officer. ‘The knave was good, wasn’t it?’
‘Dispensable,’ said the officer. ‘I need to win the trick in this hand so I can draw your last trumps.’
Mackenzie sounded dubious. ‘It seems a sore waste, sir. If you’d played your wee three you could have had two tricks out of it.’
‘He still will,’ said Ryder, dazed with the intricacy of it. ‘That three’s the last diamond. When trumps are drawn it will be a winner.’
The officer laughed. ‘Bravo, Corporal. I think you will be good at bridge.’
He had a Scottish way of saying the word as if it had two syllables, and his laugh was much more natural than poor old Bog’s careful ‘haw-haw-haw’. Ryder wondered if he was new to the army, untainted by its rigid conventions, but there was nothing callow about that assured voice, and only a man supremely confident in his own authority would risk such informality with the ranks. Maybe he was one of those independent, much-travelled officers like the controversial Captain Nolan who’d brought their remounts to Varna.
Wet sand blew suddenly into their haven, the cards fluttered and fell, and another man held back their blanket screen to glare inside. His face was invisible in the dark but the stripes on the greatcoat sleeve and the gruffness of the voice were all any of them needed to know.
‘And what the hell’s going on in here?’ the sergeant demanded. ‘What d’you think …’ He stopped as the officer turned, and he saw the gold band on the forage cap. ‘I beg your pardon, sir, but …’
‘It’s all right, Sergeant,’ said the officer loftily. ‘The de Lacy Evans business, I suppose? It’s all right, I vouch for these men.’
The sergeant cleared his throat. ‘Right you are, sir, just doing my duty.’
‘Quite right too,’ said the officer, looking back at his cards. ‘Jolly good. Put the blanket back when you go.’
Ryder wanted to laugh, but the magic was broken all the same. The sergeant left, the hand played out, then their extraordinary officer crouched back on his heels to leave.
‘Thanks for the game, chaps,’ he said. ‘But I’m afraid duty calls.’
Ryder said tentatively, ‘The kettle will be full again by now. We could make more coffee.’ He wanted to learn more, every hint and strategy this man could teach them.
‘Afraid not,’ said the officer. ‘Jolly decent of you all the same.’ He looked curiously at Ryder, then seemed to make up his mind about something. ‘You’re 13th Light Dragoons, aren’t you? I think I saw you … er … land. Not too many of you, are there?’
Ryder smiled. ‘The rest have been sensible enough to stay on board, sir.’
‘Quite,’ he said. ‘But not a lot of cavalry for an expedition like this, is it?’
‘There’s still the Heavies,’ said Ryder. ‘They’ll be on their way, won’t they?’
The officer nodded slowly. ‘Still, quite a responsibility for you chaps. Till the Heavies come you’re the army’s only eyes.’
‘We can do it, sir,’ said Oliver. He’d slumped low enough to be full in the candlelight, and the pink flush of his cheek suggested the second brandy might have been unwise. ‘We can beat the Russkies all by ourselves.’
‘Oh, quite right,’ said the officer, eyes twinkling in the gloom. He backed away, said ‘Well, tally-ho’, and ducked neatly under the blanket screen into the rain outside. Ryder watched him walking away towards the crowds of the Light Division, becoming in a moment just another grey man in a beach of grey men.
He closed the flap, and they looked at each other in astonished silence. Then Woodall stretched his legs into the space left by the officer and said, ‘Rum fellow.’
‘I’d call him a gentleman,’ said Mackenzie. ‘Ken you ever the like, an officer to sit so natural, drinking and playing with the common folk?’
Woodall sniffed at the word ‘common’. ‘We’re not just anyone, Mackenzie. It’s not like we’re line regiments.’
Oliver giggled, and slumped even lower against the pile of baggage. Woodall peered down at him and said, ‘Too much brandy. Silly young ass.’
‘Silly ass,’ agreed Ryder, and was surprised to feel a twinge of affection. He dragged Oliver’s blanket from the heap, flung it over his recumbent form, and watched Mackenzie tenderly tucking him in. They were a decent bunch, really. He thought of Mackenzie helping him with Sullivan, of Woodall digging a grave despite his injured foot, he remembered Oliver trying to lift half a ton of wagon all by himself, and smiled. Silly ass indeed.
The thought warmed him as he wrapped his own blanket round the damp of his clothes and settled himself to sleep. He’d never had it before, this being part of a group, and of course as an officer it had been impossible. He wondered if that was what their friend tonight had wanted, maybe even more than the coffee. As he drifted into sleep he found himself picturing it again, that solitary figure walking away from them in the rain, as lonely and anonymous as a ghost in the dark.
3
18 September 1854
Two days later Jarvis came back.
It had been fine until then. The weather brightened, Oliver’s mare turned up safe in the Second Division, and as far as Ryder was concerned his punishment turned into a holiday. They had transport to fetch water from the villages, they had shelter and wood for the fire, and Woodall made the salt pork edible by frying it in biscuit crumbs. The rest of the troop landed next afternoon, the beach filled with men he knew, but when evening came he and Oliver slipped away to play a game called ‘bridge’ under a wagon with a 93rd Highlander and a Grenadier Guard. The next night they did it again.
Then the patrol came back
. Hoare had the disobedience charge whittled down to ‘fined five shillings and taken down six places on the list of corporals’, but the ink on Ryder’s name was scarcely dry in the Defaulters’ Book when Jarvis packed him off for a night on outlying picquet, and followed it up with a day on camp fatigues. The remounts had arrived, Ryder was free to reconnoitre with the others, but Jarvis kept him in camp collecting firewood and water, digging latrines, and cleaning boots for the captain because his servant wasn’t feeling quite the thing. When it was too dark for anything else he put him back on picquet and kept him there all night. And when Ryder finally stood down at dawn he was turned out five minutes later to go foraging with the others.
He was still doing it now. He was dizzy with hunger as well as heat, his head ached from two nights without sleep, but Jarvis was looking for a sign of weakness and Ryder was determined not to show him one. He carried his hay-net out of the scrimmage round the oat stack, replaced it on Wanderer’s back, and grasped the bridle to keep himself steady. Across the farmyard Jarvis stood watching him, tapping his whip thoughtfully into the palm of his hand.
Fisk galloped through the gate, yelling, ‘Threshed oats, boys, the 11th have found a cellar full!’ Ryder turned to mount with the others, but his foot missed the stirrup, he clutched at the saddle for balance and felt his head bang against Wanderer’s flank. For seconds he was aware only of the surprising cool of the horse’s coat against his forehead, the stitching in the leather under his fingers, and the echo in his head of his own harsh breathing. Jarvis, he thought. Jarvis mustn’t see. He dragged up his head and turned.
Oliver was staring in shocked concern. ‘You’re ill. We’ve got to get you to a doctor.’ Behind him Prosser was grinning all over his smallpox-ravaged face.
Ryder straightened quickly. ‘It’s only the bloody heat, Poll. Don’t come the mother with me.’
He swung into the saddle and turned for the gate, ignoring the guffaws behind. Oliver should know better anyway. Under the wagon had been different, four men brought together by rain and a death, but that was over now and they were back to the business of war. Woodall and Mackenzie had been fetched to their units last night, and in an army of twenty-six thousand he was unlikely to see either of them ever again. Oliver was just another soldier in his troop, and the sooner he realized it the better.