by A L Berridge
The next farm was only just up the road. He began to hope for full forage then back to camp and a chance of sleep, but as he turned the corner he saw the calm figure of Lieutenant Grainger directing the regiment to form column on the road. Their colonel was there himself, deep in conversation with an aide-de-camp, and Ryder sagged in the saddle as he realized what was happening. No camp, no sleep, they were off on a bloody reconnaissance.
But Grainger was calling ‘G’ Troop to fall in on the right flank as designated skirmishers, and at least there was a possibility of action. The troop obviously hoped so, and Oliver was visibly glowing with excitement as for the first time ever he loaded his carbine in earnest. For a moment Ryder was reminded of another boy as innocent and eager as this one, frightened only of being killed before he could achieve something worthwhile. He bit into his cartridge and the vision disappeared in the familiar taste of powder. He was a different man now.
But maybe not different enough, and when Colonel Doherty took his place at the front Ryder was careful to keep his head well down. Jarvis would probably think he was exhausted, but some things were more important than a bullying sergeant-major, and he didn’t look up until he heard the order ‘The regiment will advance … walk – march,’ and knew the colonel’s back would be safely turned.
But Doherty wasn’t alone, the ADC was riding beside him, and it looked as if this might not be an ordinary patrol. Ryder watched the two of them talking together, the ADC gesturing eloquently at the distant slopes, and was haunted by a sense of familiarity, a memory of aristocratic hands fluttering descriptively as an officer explained the intricacies of a new card game. He could see no more of the ADC than his elegantly blue-cloaked back, but the slim build was right, the forage-cap had the same gold band, it was at least possible. His saddlecloth was only regulation blue, but the horse was a beautiful grey; he thought he might know it again.
Doherty called the trot. Ryder dragged his mind back to the present and looked at the countryside about him. Some of the earlier patrols had reported groups of Cossacks, but there was nothing to see here but empty fields where the wheat had been and stretches of rough grassland dotted with ragged sheep. Two Crim-Tartar labourers mending a fence straightened as they passed, and one waved and called out ‘Buono Johnny!’ in a deep, guttural voice. ‘Buono Johnny!’
Ryder was startled. They must have picked up the phrase from their Turkish allies, but it was extraordinary to hear it out here. Buono Johnny, the one greeting the two armies used to each other, the phrase that meant anything from ‘My respects’ to ‘Over here, matey’, or even the London prostitute’s ‘Are you good natured, dear?’ The one thing it always meant was friendliness, and that was humbling in these people whose land they were so busy pillaging. The Tartars were of Turkish origin themselves, they were eager to help these foreigners drive out their brutal Russian overlords, but they must surely realize what price they’d pay if the expedition failed. For the first time Ryder felt a determination that it mustn’t. As he drew level with the Tartars he called ‘Buono Johnny!’ back, and was rewarded with a broad brown-toothed grin.
The ADC turned his head towards the voice. Ryder looked at once in hope of recognition, but caught only the blur of a clean-shaven face before the officer again faced front. Maybe he was mistaken. Maybe he wasn’t, and here was another man embarrassed by the intimacy of a card game with strangers in the rain. Maybe Harry Ryder was just too bloody tired to think straight and ought to keep his mind on the job.
It looked like taking a long time. They stopped to water at a tiny village and he hoped they’d turn for home, but the ADC was conferring with the colonel and it seemed they had something specific to look for. ‘It’ll be those Cossacks,’ said Jordan knowledgeably. ‘Cardigan’s sure there’s more about, he had us all looking two days ago.’ He popped a peppermint in his mouth and sucked complacently.
Whatever it was, it was leading them further and further inland. The farmlands receded behind them, and the grass grew longer, almost feathery, sprinkled with patches of tiny purple flowers that gave off a smell of sage as they passed. A buzzard hovered above them with outstretched wings, eerily silent as it floated down the wind. Ryder listened drowsily to the quiet, familiar sounds around him: the jingling bits, creaking saddles, and thumping of hooves in soft, deep grass.
Someone exclaimed ahead, and the ADC pointed to a distant tumulus. Three riders were watching them from its summit, soldiers in grey-brown coats and high black headgear, and all carrying lances. Not irregulars like the ones on the cliffs, not a wolf-pack, but official uniformed Cossacks, the cavalry even Napoleon had called the best light troops in the world.
‘Dons,’ said Jordan, slicking the peppermint into his other cheek. ‘See the red pom-poms on the shakos? That’s the Don Host, ain’t it? The beggars the Turks are so scared of?’
Moody sniffed. ‘Might not be. The Black Sea Cossacks are red too. So are Siberia. They’re bandits, Jordan, you can’t rely on anything with scum like that.’
They didn’t look like scum to Ryder. Doherty gave the order and the columns turned smoothly towards them, but the Cossacks seemed quite unconcerned. One turned his head to show high cheekbones, dark slants of eyes, and a bearing quite as noble as Lord Lucan’s.
Oliver whispered excitedly, ‘Do you think they’re the ones Cardigan was looking for?’ but Fisk’s voice answered, ‘Don’t be such a flat, Polly, there are only bloody three.’ So there were. Three men watching more than a hundred riding towards them, and they never moved an inch.
Ryder suddenly felt very awake indeed. He was almost relieved when they closed the distance to a hundred yards and the Cossacks turned casually and trotted away. Doherty was cautious enough to flank the tumulus rather than ride over it, but when they cleared the hump there was nothing in sight but the same three Cossacks, now perched on the crest of a second slope three hundred yards further on.
The patrol continued to advance, and again the Cossacks waited to let them come closer before turning and trotting away. They looked like sentries, a cavalry vedette, but they didn’t seem to be signalling, just watching and staying ahead.
‘Cat and mouse, by Jove,’ said Captain Marsh in front. ‘They’ll have to bolt in the end.’
But who was the cat and who were the mice? They were being lured inexorably onwards over land none of them knew. When they rode round the hump there were higher slopes ahead, but of the Cossacks there was no sign.
‘Gone to ground again,’ said Marsh in disgust. ‘Not much of a hunt.’
A hesitant voice spoke beside him: Cornet Hoare. ‘Could that be them, sir? Over there?’
Every head in ‘G’ Troop turned. Three horsemen were coming into view on one of the further slopes to their left, their lance-points catching the sun as if they twiddled them in expectation.
‘Put on a spurt, by Jove,’ said Marsh in admiration. ‘They covered that ground damn fast.’
Doherty led them onward, straight for the slope and the horsemen, but his broad back was stiff with tension and the ADC rode down the far flank of the column like a sheepdog looking for trouble. Jarvis was feeling it too, and when Moody said ‘We’ll catch them this time, won’t we, Sar’nt-major?’ he only growled ‘Quiet in the ranks’ and went on staring ahead. Ryder almost felt sorry for him. The men would be looking to Jarvis, but the poor bugger hadn’t seen action any more than they had. It was probably new to everyone in the regiment except Doherty, who’d served in India. Just himself and the Old Man.
The colonel’s head moved from side to side as he rode, and so did Ryder’s own, searching for the danger experience told him must be there. But the sun hurt his eyes, the pain in his head throbbed like blunt knives, his neck ached intolerably, and the effort of looking right, left, right, left was suddenly beyond him. His neck relaxed, his head drooped, his gaze fell on the ground, and then he saw.
Hoof prints. The ground was still soft from the recent rains, and in it were pockets of mud where horses had
passed in the last minutes. They weren’t from the column, they diverged across the main track and headed with purpose toward a hill on their right flank.
Jarvis was nearest, but there wasn’t time to waste on his vindictive games. Ryder called ‘Sir! Captain Marsh, sir!’
Marsh turned at once, and his ‘Yes, Corporal?’ drowned out Jarvis’s outraged grunt. Ryder explained, and was rewarded by a sudden exclamation from Hoare. ‘He’s right, sir, look! Those Cossacks, weren’t they much of a size before? Now look, one’s half a foot taller than the others. They’re not the same.’
‘Hmm,’ said Marsh, his face even blanker than usual. ‘So the first three are hiding about somewhere, eh?’
Ryder looked again at the ground ahead of him. The tracks had multiplied, crossing and blurring with prints so numerous they’d churned up the mud like an insane plough. Hundreds of horses had passed in the last hour, and they too had been heading for that hill.
He said, ‘Not just three.’
For a moment no one spoke. As they stared round the horizon even the three decoy Cossacks turned and disappeared down the other side of their mound. The British were alone in the valley, faced with nothing but silence and the watchful hills.
Marsh cantered up to talk to Doherty. The colonel turned his head and Ryder got his own down quick, but the inspection, if there was one, was brief, and less than a minute later Marsh was back.
‘Skirmishers to the front! First section “G” Troop to take ground on the right.’
That was more like it. The Russians wanted them to go left, so Doherty was going to damn their eyes and go right. Ryder’s tiredness was gone as the files sprang their carbines and spread into skirmish order. The men were the same, he saw it in their faces and felt it in his own, the blood rushing tingling to the skin to tell him to fight or die.
Lieutenant Grainger led them to the foot of the hill, then divided the line into three. He himself took the right flank where the tracks led, Jarvis took the centre party up the hill, while Ryder led the last six men round to the left. He strained to alertness as they started round, but heard only the soft squelching of their hooves and a faint huffing noise he realized was Fisk, breathing through his nose like a distressed horse.
‘Corp,’ whispered Oliver. ‘Corp!’
Ryder looked round, then saw he was pointing at the ground. Tracks again, two, maybe three horses. Those Cossacks they’d been following hadn’t stuck to the route of the main body, they’d gone round the other side of the hill and were –
Right in front of him. A tall ragged shako, a great bearded face with its mouth open, then a blur of metal against the hillside, a lance thrust right at his eyes. His left arm flew up blindly, blocking the haft with a blow that sent pain shrieking up to his elbow, but his right hand was already swivelling the carbine on its chain, up and bang, smoke, the acrid powder smell, a spatter of something warm and wet on his neck, and the Cossack falling away backwards with a chest smashed suddenly into scarlet. Behind him were two more.
And in a rush it was back, the old feeling, the need to be alive and to hell with anything that got in the way. His hand let go of the now useless carbine and pulled out his sword, steel flashing as he charged straight at the startled horseman behind the one he’d downed. He forgot who he was, who he was supposed to be leading, nothing mattered but killing the bastard in front of him.
But this was a Cossack, a man trained to the saddle from a child, and he sidestepped so deftly that the ferocity of Ryder’s onslaught threw him forward over Wanderer’s neck. The lance plunged over him, screeching down his arm and striking the shako with such violence the chinstrap crunched into his nose. Pain, nausea, the old box of tricks, Ryder stayed low and kicked in his spurs. Wanderer plunged forward, crashing broadside into the Cossack’s mount and jolting its rider off balance. Ryder threw his body back square in the saddle and plunged forward with the sword, forward and down – feel the bite in the shoulder, break the bone then drive fast and savage through the flesh below. The Russian wheeled aside with a yelp, but in a second he righted himself, and it was only when another carbine fired that he turned to trot away. Ryder stared at his retreating back with disbelief. What were these bastards made of?
But there’d been a third, and the soldier part of him was already turning before his mind caught up. Fisk hurtling round the slope, Bolton furiously reloading, then there was the Cossack, bloodied in the shoulder but dropping his lance to whirl out his sabre, and there facing up to him with the wobbliest carbine Ryder had ever seen was Charlie ‘Polly’ Oliver.
‘Shoot him, Polly,’ Ryder shouted, struggling to turn his horse in a fear he hardly understood. ‘For Christ’s sake shoot him!’
The bang came almost at once, but the ball went wide, the Cossack only flinched and lunged. Ryder screamed to make him turn, the bastard thinking himself brave to take on a boy barely out of school. His own sword was up again, blood dripping warm on the heel of his hand, but the Cossack reeled abruptly back, turned round and round on his horse then slid slowly down to the muddy ground. Oliver was staring at him in wide-eyed horror, but his sword was bloodied halfway up the blade.
‘Shabash!’ said Ryder before he remembered where he was. ‘Bloody well done.’
He looked back for the others. Jordan and Trotter had caught up, Bolton was ramming his carbine, but Fisk sat still in his saddle, looking over Ryder’s shoulder with blank eyes and open mouth. Grainger was shouting above them, Ryder heard the word ‘behind’ and turned.
There was the ambush. There was what they’d have walked into if Doherty hadn’t taken them round the other side. Spread over the slopes behind the hill were perhaps four hundred Russian cavalry, some mounted, some climbing into the saddle, and some already moving. Their skirmishers were trotting forward to meet the British, and it wasn’t a little party of twenty like Grainger’s. There were about a hundred of them coming right this way.
A trumpet behind sounded the recall. Good plan, thought Ryder, wheeling Wanderer to execute it. The others were already turning, but Oliver sat motionless, gazing down at the body of the Russian he’d killed himself. The sword in his hand was trembling.
‘Come on,’ said Ryder. He laid a hand on the boy’s arm and sharpened his voice. ‘Re-form, Trooper. Back to the regiment.’
Oliver nodded jerkily and began to turn. A musket cracked behind. Ryder yelled again ‘Come on!’ smacked Oliver’s horse and spurred his own to the gallop, driving them all back round the cover of the hill. Grainger’s team was doing the same, so was Jarvis’s, all pelting together after the patrol which was already turning to retreat. The Russians were coming after them, he could see the first skirmishers starting to spill round the hills, but the main body had been much further back, they’d never catch up in time. He slowed to a trot, watched the men re-form into line, took his own place at the end, and drew a long, deep breath of relief.
Jordan was laughing with excitement, Fisk saying ‘Bloody hell, bloody hell’, over and over again, but Oliver seemed shocked and half-dazed, the point missing the scabbard as he tried to sheathe his sword. Ryder hesitated, but then Jordan said, ‘Gawd, look at Oliver’s sword!’ and admiring murmurs rippled down the line at the sight of blood on the blade. Oliver turned pink, but he sat up noticeably straighter and was at least awake enough to wipe the weapon before sliding it home. Ryder smiled to himself, glanced over his shoulder to check the Russians were keeping distance, and felt his own heartbeat return to normal.
Something wet and sticky was crawling up his arm. He looked down to see his sleeve sliced through to expose a long deep gash in his forearm, and felt a sudden stab of pain that seemed to have been only waiting for him to notice it. A vague memory returned of a lance scoring up the flesh, and he realized for the first time how close it had been. One day he wouldn’t be sitting here thinking ‘Oh look, I’m wounded’, one day he’d be the body left face-down in the mud with the others. But not today, maybe not tomorrow, and certainly not now. He clawed in his
coat for a handkerchief, and looped his elbow through the reins while he bound up the wound. His tiredness had gone, and the throbbing in his arm was just another pulse like a heartbeat, a proof of his being alive.
The Russians were following. Oliver tried not to keep looking over his shoulder, but it was hard not to snatch glimpses by pretending to adjust the crupper. They weren’t chasing or anything, and if they did the colonel would simply order the gallop, but they were following steadily and surely, like a householder making sure the burglar left the premises without stealing the silver. They were just there.
And staying there. The patrol was back in the farmlands, but still the Cossacks were behind them, a mass of dark figures following in ominous silence. Oliver glanced down the line, but no one else seemed worried, and Ryder was even humming under his breath as he rode. Colonel Doherty was always calm, of course, and he was still keeping them firmly at the walk. Only the ADC kept looking back at the Russians, but even he looked annoyed rather than concerned.
Chalk track crunched under their hooves as they entered the outskirts of the first village. Doherty halted them as he gave his report to Lord Cardigan, and then Oliver had to look, he had to see if the Cossacks were gaining, but to his enormous relief they were already turning and beginning to trot away.
‘Windy buggers,’ said Fisk in disgust. ‘Don’t tell me they’re scared of Lord Haw-Haw.’
Jordan laughed. ‘Oliver, more likely. He’s in a killing mood, ain’t you, chum?’
The laughter was kind, even admiring, but Oliver squirmed inside. He’d known he’d have to kill sometime, he was trained and prepared for it, but none of that helped when he came face to face with the Cossack. The man was wounded, Bolton had shot him, but he was still coming, still coming, the sabre slashing straight down, and Oliver forgot he even held a gun in his hand, he was watching something out of a nightmare becoming real. Then Ryder had yelled, Ryder had woken him, and Oliver had done what he’d been trained to do. He’d shot at the man, and when that hadn’t worked he’d stabbed him, and then the Cossack was on the ground dead and Oliver had seen he was as young and weak and human as himself.