Into the Valley of Death

by A L Berridge

  He rummaged in his haversack and produced the brandy. ‘Would anyone like … ?’

  ‘You wonder, Polly!’ said Ryder, sitting up fast. ‘I thought you’d let that go back in your valise.’

  Three mugs together were thrust at him and as he poured a generous tot in each he thought of Ronnie and how happy he’d be to see the pleasure his gift was giving. He said, ‘I thought we might want it. With a battle tomorrow …’

  They were quiet a moment, and all their heads turned to the horizon, the dark forbidding slopes and gleam of the Russian fires as they waited on the heights above the Alma.

  Mackenzie said, ‘I wonder what they’re thinking tonight. Are they doing like us, do you think, sitting by their wee fires and wondering how it will go on the morrow?’

  ‘Well, we’re not,’ said Ryder. He looked strong and confident and the firelight played orange on his unshaved cheek. ‘Build up the fire, Woodall, and let’s get that kettle on. Now if only we had the cards …’

  But they did. Oliver had kept them, and he dug feverishly in his haversack to bring them out in triumph. ‘We have, look.’

  Ryder gave a sigh of pure satisfaction. ‘Brandy, fire, coffee on the way, and a battle in the morning. Cut the cards, Polly. Let’s play.’

  6

  20 September 1854, 3.45 a.m. to 3.30 p.m.

  Reveille was silent that morning. Men shook their sleeping neighbours and dragged themselves to horse without the aid of either drum or trumpet. It was black dark and two hours before dawn.

  The troop groomed their horses in eerie quiet. Ryder listened to the swish of brushes and jingling of bits and felt the sensuousness of ordinary actions performed perhaps for the last time. It was there in the warm velvet of Wanderer’s flank under his hand, the slippery smoothness of a buckle, his own quickened heartbeat and the sense of something coming.

  It was in the village too, when they went to complete forage. The wind was up, an empty bucket rolling and clattering over the farmyard cobbles, and a dog in the corner barking at nothing. Lamps were lit in the Post House and staff officers passing in and out with a banging of doors, while from out toward the sea came the distant sound of trumpets. ‘Oh damn and blast the French,’ said a harassed quartermaster, clutching his hat against the wind. ‘Do they want everyone to know?’ He caught Ryder’s eye and scowled.

  The sky was lightening behind them as they took their beasts to water. It made dark silhouettes of the long line of motionless horsemen, and spread colour over the muddy Bulganek until the whole river seemed to gleam deep red.

  Woodall was determined today would be different. He’d little in common with his own mess, of course, and common was the right word for most of them, but last night had left him with a lingering feeling that a battle might be better if you went into it with the support of the men around you. He got up earlier than anyone, started the only fire in the bivouac, and made coffee for the lot of them.

  ‘No, thanks,’ said Truman, walking straight past. ‘Don’t think so, comrade,’ said Parsons. ‘Teddy Lloyd died in the night, didn’t you know?’ Jones said nothing, but he’d been a chum of Lloyd’s and his silence was somehow worse. Woodall drank coffee by himself and felt sick.

  But he’d tried, and when they ranked for the march he told himself it was for the best. A man needed to be hard in a battle, and all that mattered was that he was surrounded by a wall of Grenadier Guards. Jones was still quiet and Truman gave him his shoulder, but Woodall stared at the dirty neck of Parsons in front, and tried to think only of his duty.

  He listened to the tramping of feet as the first section of Rifles led off the column, thin blocks of green before their own triumphant red. It should have been themselves next, same as yesterday, but there were line regiments falling in now, the wretched Light Division taking the place of the Guards.

  ‘Cannon fodder,’ said Parsons, spitting tobacco juice on the grass. ‘Think they’ll let the Guards in first against cannon? Let the light-bobs take it, then the Guards can move in and mop up.’

  The trumpet at last. Woodall stiffened his spine, waited for the ranks in front to loosen, then his own left foot came smartly forward and they were off. No bands today, which was a pity, but the dark blue legs marched in perfect step, the bearskins added feet to men’s height, and he remembered how the rioting mobs back in London had turned tail and fled at mere sight of them.

  But were the Russians rabble? ‘Cannon,’ Parsons had said, and last night Oliver had talked about 32-pounders in the field against them. He shrugged the thought away, but somehow the rifle on his shoulder felt lighter and frailer than it had, and he couldn’t help wishing for Ryder or Mackenzie at his side. He marched as he’d wanted in a column of Guards, but even in the middle of it he felt completely alone.

  They were awful late starting. Mackenzie was sure there’d be good reason for it, but they found the French sitting in the road waiting for them, drinking their morning coffee to while away the time.

  Still there was no hurry, and it was a grand feeling to be marching all together, and the fleet keeping pace with them in the sea beside. The great guns of the ships had a longer range than any they trundled with them, and it was barely gone ten when Mackenzie heard them fire for the first time. He could not see what they fired at, but it would surely mean the Russians held their position all the way west to the sea. There was to be no going round.

  They halted a mile and a half short of the river. He couldn’t see much of it behind the village of Bourliouk straight ahead, but the dark belt of gardens and vineyards marked its path, and here and there he’d a glimpse of shining water. Not what he’d call a river himself, born and brought up by the Carron, but maybe the hot weather had shrunk it.

  ‘It’s a bonny name, mind,’ he said. ‘The Alma. Do you not think?’ He turned for Murray’s answer, but there was only gloomy Davey Farquhar in his place.

  Farquhar never even looked round. ‘Ask me after the battle.’

  His words dropped clear and hard as pebbles, and for the first time Mackenzie realized how quiet it was. The whole army was silent, twenty-six thousand British soldiers and as many again of the French, all staring ahead with never a word to say. He looked back to the river, then lifted his gaze to the heights beyond and saw.

  The Russians. He had thought them rocks at first, those dark grey patches like crags in the folds of the hills, but they were men, thousands of them, enough to blot out the green of the grass. Some were spread like a fringe across the crests and ridges, others clustered in great squares, some gathered behind what looked like little walls and earthworks, and here and there the patches hardened into rigid shapes like teeth. The single white road of the Causeway ran right through the middle of them, and Mackenzie’s eyes followed it down from the heights, across the river, and right up to the feet of their own first column of red.

  He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘Man, that’s a pretty position.’

  Farquhar didn’t answer. No one did, and when a nearby horse let out an angry neigh thousands of heads turned towards it. Mackenzie gave up the idea of conversation, and studied the ground ahead with a stalker’s eyes.

  It was not so bad. The Russians had the high ground of them, they had cover in the folds of the hills, but there was not so very much in way of fortification. He let his gaze scan slowly from the road ahead westward to the sea, and noted a hill with a dark seam cut across it, earthworks thrown up in front of it like a redoubt, and maybe another smaller glacis up the slopes behind. Way off to right of it was a high crag with a half-built turret on its crown, maybe meant for a telegraph if the Allies had been slower getting here, but no earthworks, no wall, and not so many Russians on it either. Maybe they thought themselves safe there, with nothing to west of them but tall cliffs and beyond them the sea. Maybe they were afraid of the guns of the fleet. Twice it had fired now, like an honest man showing the enemy he was there. He wondered why it didn’t fire again.

  A voice called ‘Loose cartridges!’
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  Mackenzie’s heart leaped like a deer on a gun. He plunged into his pouch, tore open a packet with his teeth and shook the cartridges loose in the bag. They were all doing it, the rattling so loud it was a wonder the Russians didn’t hear them. He grinned at Farquhar and said, ‘We’re doing it now, aren’t we, Davey? This is really it.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Farquhar, his face queerly white. ‘This is it.’

  He wondered what they were waiting for. Maybe the commanders were still ordering the battle, for Lord Raglan himself was meeting with the French commander right in front of their lines. He was a poor, wizened creature, this St-Arnauld, men said he was sick and dying, but he’d the flag of their allies and the men cheered him as he came. It seemed to please the old fellow, for he doffed his own hat and quavered the words ‘Hurrah for old England!’

  Farquhar snorted. ‘England, is it, ye fool? Who d’you think we are then – a bunch o’ lassies?’

  Mackenzie sighed sadly, and watched Lord Raglan adjusting his little telescope to study the heights. ‘What will be the plan, do you think, Davey? What will we do?’

  Farquhar snorted. ‘The French are to the right, they’ll go to the right, any fool can see that. We’re for the left and centre, my man, we’re for the big guns and the redoubts and the whole unholy Russian army.’

  ‘Head on, you think?’ Mackenzie looked at the wide slope descending gently ahead of them, open and clear all the way to the vineyards and the village. ‘But there’s no cover.’

  Farquhar’s face seemed to have no expression in it at all. ‘There is not.’

  The hooves of old St-Arnauld’s departure seemed suddenly very loud. Mackenzie watched him travelling the full length of their own front line, past the Light Division, past the Second Division, past the first lines of the French, becoming no more than a tiny speck in the distance followed only by a cloud of dust. He took a surreptitious nip from his canteen but a flash of colour moved by the French lines and he paused with the water still in his mouth. Surely there were men marching forward down there, right on the edge of the sea. Were the French to try the cliffs?

  He plugged his canteen, smiling at the canniness of the plan. That was why the fleet were silent. The French had seen the emptiness of the Russian left and were sending an attack force to take them by surprise. Maybe the French would take out the guns and there would be no need for themselves to march right in the face of them. Maybe the British were to wait and follow west, and there would be no advance at all over the open ground. Maybe …

  Captain Cornwall’s voice called through the silence. ‘The regiment will load. With ball cartridge – load.’

  Their musket butts struck the ground with a single decisive thump. Mackenzie stretched away the barrel with his left hand while his right dived for the cartridge, numbing his mind in the familiar drill. Other voices shouted ahead, a trumpet calling somewhere, but his business was with the Minié and the loading of it. Only when it was done did he look up to see the leading divisions already marching away toward the river, while the green-jacketed Riflemen spread into skirmish order at the fore. The Light Division, beyond them the Second Division, the whole front line was going in. There was no cover, the Russian guns were right above them, but Farquhar was right and they were still going in.

  Into the space in front of them rode a single horseman. One look at the lined forehead, curly brown hair and obstinate jaw, and Mackenzie was at once at quivering attention. Sir Colin Campbell was of a different clan entirely, but he commanded the entire Highland Brigade and today he was Mackenzie’s chieftain.

  ‘Now, men, you are going into action. Remember this. Whoever is wounded – I don’t care what his rank is – whoever is wounded must lie where he falls till the bandsmen come to attend him.’

  Off to the sea came another muffled boom from the fleet, but Sir Colin never turned his head, and neither did Mackenzie.

  ‘Don’t be in a hurry about firing,’ said Sir Colin, and Mackenzie’s hand crept furtively back from his Minié. ‘Your officers will tell you when it’s time to open fire. Be steady. Keep silence. Fire low. Now, men, the army will watch us. Make me proud of the Highland Brigade!’

  A bright calm settled over Mackenzie like a fall of snow. The 42nd started forward, his own 93rd followed as easily as parade, and he knew without looking the 79th would be right behind them. The Guards were advancing beside them, the whole First Division going in, and as their feet tramp-tramped into the grass Mackenzie’s spirit seemed to take off and fly out of the top of his own head, soaring like a lapwing into the clear blue sky.

  Woodall knew he was going to die. It was madness, walking downhill towards those great guns without so much as a bush to cover them. He watched his own polished boots marching on in perfect step as if they weren’t his own feet any more but some terrible machine impelling him forward to mutilation and death.

  It was ahead of him already, the dull bark of muskets and sharp ping of the Minié as the skirmishers engaged in the vineyards. There was more of it in the village too, bangs and whining noises as balls ricocheted off walls. He risked a look up, but something like a black ball crashed into the Light Division ahead, earth flew up, smoke blew over, and when it cleared there was a hole in the line, a great ragged gap where men had been. He could see clear through it to the red debris on the grass.

  He tore his gaze away and marched on, but this wasn’t a column of Guards he was in any more, it was just a bunch of men. Jones’s arm brushed against his as it swung, human and vulnerable as his own. Parsons’s neck was sunburned and in the centre was a boil. A strange whizzing sound above the Lights, another loud crump, and … dear God, that thing flying through the air was a man’s arm. Jones said ‘Whew, that looks hot,’ and his voice was suddenly precious, another man at his side. Woodall whispered, ‘I’m sorry about Lloyd, Jones,’ then said it louder and didn’t care.

  Two more strides, another ball smashed into the Lights, but as the boom faded he heard Jones say, ‘Ah, it was cholera. Not all the water in the world could have saved him. Cholera, that’s all.’

  His feet faltered, found their step and marched on. Not his fault, just cholera, not his fault at all. He said ‘Thanks, Jones’ and meant it, and Jones turned to him and smiled.

  The ground shook, the sky cracked like thunder, and the world in front was blotted out in a great whoosh of flame. Woodall’s feet stopped, his ears went silent, then popped back into sound as men around him yelled ‘The village, they’ve fired the village’.

  Smoke billowed back over them, greying out the Light Division ahead. Musketry banged in the gloom, and then a deeper boom as a shell exploded in the midst of it, hurling out fragments of iron and a spray of crimson that seemed to hang in the air before splattering wetly on the men underneath.

  ‘Canister,’ said Corporal Gleeson. ‘The nasty bastards, that’s canister.’

  Their feet were still moving, gleaming black boots striding bravely over the grass. Then trumpets sounded the halt, Woodall’s toe knocked into Parsons’s heel, and the whole column shuddered to a stop on the very edge of the carnage ahead. Relief trickled through him. The generals had seen this was mad, they were going to find another way round.

  Voices ahead yelled in the smoke, ‘Lie down, the 7th Royal Fusiliers, lie down!’

  Lie down? But they were doing it, the whole Light Division, and off to their right the Second were doing the same. Woodall stared in disbelief as the whole assault line ducked to lie flat under the smoke, a prone and helpless target for the artillery above.

  Then it was their turn. The Division was deploying into line, and Woodall moved in mindless obedience as the safety of the column split open and spread over the grass, leaving him at the front of a line only two ranks deep. He looked ahead at smoke and helpless men, he saw fire and blackness burst in the middle of them, and when the Guards too were ordered to lie down he did it almost thankfully, closing his eyes and pressing his forehead against the coolness of the grass. If he stayed very s
till maybe it would all just happen outside him. Maybe it would all just stop.

  Oliver stared ahead and thought of the strength of the line. His file was almost on the end, but Bolton was his left-hand, Ryder his right, he was safe in the strength of the line.

  Beyond Ryder he didn’t dare look. The Light Brigade were only on the edge of fire, drawn up on the far left of the British front, but the infantry lay full out in the open to be pulped by the Russian guns. For over an hour now Oliver had sat useless in the saddle, hearing only the explosion of shell to his right and seeing only glimpses of movement as men jumped from the ranks to drag mutilated comrades to the rear.

  He guessed what they were waiting for. Everyone did, and all along their line heads were turned towards the distant artillery thumping away down by the sea. The French advance attack had gone in, they were getting a foothold on the cliffs, but surely then it would be their own turn. Surely they wouldn’t just be left here, watching the helpless infantry slaughtered right in front of them.

  A boom and crash as another roundshot ploughed right into the support line of First Division. He said wretchedly, ‘Woodall’s in there. And Mackenzie.’

  Ryder’s head turned sharply. ‘That’s a block of our soldiers, that’s all. Get any closer and you’re done.’ He looked away moodily, but after a moment Oliver heard him say, ‘Mackenzie’s all right, anyway; they’re as far out as we are.’

  It was true. When the infantry spread from column into line the ranks had bulged outward, shoving men further and further out to the east. The Highlanders were on the very far left of the First Division line, little black-and-red specks on the edge of Oliver’s sight, surely out of range of the Russian guns. But the Guards weren’t, Woodall wasn’t, those were British Grenadiers lying on their stomachs like a carpet of red for the Russians to fire into as they pleased. Perhaps the commanders thought the smoke from the village would cover them, but the red must be showing through anyway, and Oliver bit his lip hard to stop it trembling.