Into the Valley of Death

by A L Berridge

  But the last gunner was already backing away as the wave of redcoats hit the redoubt. Ryder heard only a terrifying roar, then they were piling up and over, dark legs thumping past him, jarring his back and shoulder as they hurtled over the earthworks after the fleeing guns. He watched with wonder as a single captain of the Welch Fusiliers forced a gun team to stop at pistol point and leave their cannon for the Allies. He looked back at what he thought of as his own gun, a 24-pounder with a bronze barrel and pea-green carriage, and saw an officer of the 95th furtively scratching his initials on it to claim it for the Second Division. The air was thick with cheering, caps and shakos flying in the air, victory, victory, and two of the guns trophies in their midst. The big redoubt was swarming with red, but so was the grass, so were the earthworks, and when Ryder looked at his own right hand the webbing between thumb and finger was encrusted with scarlet.

  He sat down on the parapet, suddenly aware how much his foot was hurting. The bloody thing was swelling inside his boot and the leather felt solid as iron. He bent over to loosen it, but at once a blow on his shako sent it spinning back on the caplines, and he flung himself hastily down on the grass. Musket ball. Driving the Russians out of the redoubt only meant their friends on the other slopes could fire into them as they pleased.

  But not for long they couldn’t. He replaced his shako and peered over the parapet to see the rest of the battle. There was a lot of gunfire over to the west, cannon as well as muskets, hottest round a hill with a half-built telegraph tower and beyond it towards the sea. The French had made it up the cliffs and were fully engaged with the enemy’s left. They were too far away to be of help, but the British had their own supports somewhere, to say nothing of the rest of the assault line and the cavalry.

  He looked round for them. The 7th Fusiliers were further round the peak, engaged in a firefight of their own, but that still left the rest of Buller’s brigade and almost all the Second Division. The 95th were in the redoubt, but there should be another five regiments somewhere. Ryder let his gaze drift down, down back towards the river, and stop at a mass of red soldiery milling around the broken bridge and vineyards at the bottom. They’d hardly started. They’d hardly bloody started and didn’t look like moving even now. He followed the line of the river eastwards and saw only the cavalry halted in neat lines of blue. They hadn’t even crossed.

  ‘The Guards,’ he thought. The support line of Guards and Highlanders, where were they? But the grass slopes were empty of red, no bearskins, no feathered bonnets, no kilts, no bloody nothing but a gentle wind waving the bloodstained stalks of grass, nothing all the way back down to the Alma.

  Maybe they’d gone round. He forced himself to hobble to the far wall, but he already knew what he’d see there. For a few moments he’d been stupid enough to get carried away by a flag and the courage of the men around him, but this was the reality of war in this army. On this side too the slopes were bare.

  Except for the Russians. There was a second redoubt above the slopes of their amphitheatre, and guns were already being wrestled round to point at their own position. On their left flank were massed infantry, five, six battalions at least, and a hollow to their front was bristling with rows of bayonets, a glistening forest of perhaps four more. The slopes on the right were patched with grey blocks of infantry units, and beyond them the denser mass of a cavalry maybe three thousand strong, enough to swallow their own seven hundred as easily as a python takes a calf. Not that their own cavalry were there to be swallowed anyway, they were down by the river like everyone else. Apart from the 95th, Codrington’s tiny force of four regiments was completely alone.

  ‘Oh dear God,’ said a soldier in front of him. ‘Oh dear God and the Queen of Sheba, we’re dead as bloody mutton.’

  Ryder rested his back against the parapet, and began to reload.

  7

  20 September 1854, 3.30 p.m. to 5.00 p.m.

  Time had stopped for Woodall. He seemed to have been forever in that bloody field, first lying, now standing, but still just waiting and watching the roundshot roll towards them. Even the officers had tired of cricket jokes, and were lounging listlessly in their saddles, watching the antics of a Maltese terrier as it chased the intriguing black balls over the grass.

  No one was frightened any more; they were all too angry. The light-bobs had gone in, so why were Her Majesty’s Guards left hanging around like a bunch of ugly bridesmaids at a wedding? To be kept safe, ah yes, he could understand that, but they weren’t ruddy safe, they were being shot at and not allowed to so much as chuck a stone back.

  Even the guns had become familiar. They gave them all names now, Big Mary for the great 32-pounder, Phyllis for the deep-voiced cannon on the left flank, Gladys for the little howitzer that whined and fell short. But Mary hadn’t reached them in a while, nothing was coming from the bigger of the two redoubts, though he could hear them banging away merrily as ever. They had something else to shoot at now, and in the distance Woodall saw redcoats thrusting up the side of one of the slopes.

  ‘We should be there,’ said Truman, his face hard and angry. ‘They’re on their own, poor beggars. We should be there.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Jones expressionlessly. ‘I’ve a brother in the Royal Welch.’

  For a moment Woodall saw himself reaching out to lay a hand on Jones’s arm, he heard himself say ‘Don’t worry, Jonesy, we’ll be going after them in a minute.’ He practised the word ‘Jonesy’ in his head, and turned to make it real, but Jones was looking away, their own General Bentinck was talking to General Airey, and everybody hushed at once. It wasn’t dignified to listen, of course, but it was only natural to look, and if he leaned forward a little Woodall found he could hear as well.

  ‘We are supporting,’ said their general, very properly. ‘Look at us, we’re here under fire, only waiting for the word.’

  General Airey coughed politely. ‘I think perhaps when Lord Raglan said “support” he was intending you should follow the Light Division. As a support.’

  General Bentinck cleared his throat. ‘Yes, well, dashed difficult if we’re to keep three hundred yards behind. Are we to be exact, do you think?’

  Woodall thought General Airey looked rather tired. He began, ‘I don’t think you need be too particular …’ but Woodall quickly sprung back into position as the Duke of Cambridge rode up, commander of the whole First Division and the Queen’s own cousin. Now they’d see something done, and Woodall was almost surprised to find how much he wanted it.

  And almost at once it came, the order they’d joined the army for, ‘Forward the Guards!’ There was nothing of the machine in it this time, oh no, they were bustling and eager to be off. Not in a rabble like the Lights and the Second, they were going to show the army how it was done. Left foot, right foot, and off over the blood-spattered grass as if they were in Hyde Park. More roundshot came, they parted round it and marched on. More shells, they closed the gaps, and marched on. A low wall separated them from a vineyard, they stepped over it and marched on. Stakes crushed under their boots, vines fell in a rustle of leaves, but still they came on and all he missed was the band.

  ‘Go on!’ cried a hoarse voice, and Woodall saw a linesman propped against the east wall, his rifle still in his hands. Both legs were severed above the knee, and blood pumped out to join the growing pool on the ground. ‘Go it, beauty Guards! Go in and win!’

  For a tingling second their eyes met. Then the march went on and Woodall was swept along with it, but the tingle remained, rubbed into a spark and became a fire. He didn’t need a band any more, he didn’t need drums or a trumpet, the dying man had passed him something better than either. Go it, beauty Guards! Go in and win! He burst triumphantly through the last two vines onto the greensward to the river.

  And into hell. The air smashed into colour and noise as canister howled about them, musket balls crashing into the dry leaves of the vines behind. His bearskin was hit, the chain was under his nose before he grabbed it back, but the familiar
touch of it kept him steady. Forward and down the bank, slithering down the mud and into the river, rifle up and wade straight in. Water sprayed from the slash of balls and the thrashing of wounded men, earth and bark flew at them from the opposite bank as shells tore ragged furrows through the ground. Woodall blinked away the dust and waded on, stride after stride, then up again, bludgeon the broken trees aside with the rifle, and up onto the ball-pocked turf of the other side. They had crossed the Alma.

  Two steps in and he felt the difference. An overhang above was sheltering them from the blizzard of shot and shell, the ground here quiet as the eye of a storm. Other redcoats were already clustering in the same place of safety, the Connaught Rangers, the East Middlesex – why, half the Light Division were clinging by the bank in defensive squares as if they expected cavalry.

  He stared in perplexity. ‘But if they’re here, then who’s … ?’

  ‘Right,’ said Jones grimly. ‘Who’s fighting the bloody battle?’

  The first ball ploughed into the earthworks, skimming soil and pebbles off the top and burying itself harmlessly in the turf beyond. Ryder shook the debris off his shako and replaced it more securely on his head. The next would be closer.

  He turned at the smack of a hand on a horse’s flank. ‘Quick as you like, man,’ said Codrington gruffly. ‘Quick as … you like.’ The aide nodded tight-lipped, wheeled his mount and sprung over the parapet. Every head in the redoubt turned to watch him gallop away, back over the corpse-strewn ground, back down to the river and their only hope.

  Next was a shell, exploding right in the centre and spewing out metal in a fiery spray. ‘Out we get, boyos,’ said a grizzled Fusilier, skipping nimbly back over the breastwork to crouch against it on the outside. ‘Safer out than in.’ Others were doing the same, anything to get away from that open centre now the Russians had its range. Codrington shouted, ‘No, no, my boys, we must hold in here,’ but the fort that had been so impregnable from below was open as a circus ring from above, and the guns of the surrounding slopes were every one lined on it.

  Something clattered beside him, a linesman depositing a collection of rifles in a heap. Ryder watched with amusement as he sat down beside them, checking each was loaded, then propping them against the parapet as if preparing for a siege. The tears on his cheeks had dried, but Ryder recognized the ginger-haired private who’d marched up the hill at his side.

  He said, ‘Can you spare one of those? I wouldn’t mind something with a longer range.’

  The lad looked up and grinned. ‘Course. They’re not mine.’

  Ryder knew whose they were, the slopes were littered with their owners. He took one and examined it, wondering how different it was from the carbine.

  ‘Here, I’ll show you,’ said the lad. ‘Bleeding horseboys, you don’t know which end’s up.’ He was maybe sixteen years old.

  He knew the Minié, though. Another shell burst shatteringly behind them, but the lad never paused in his loading, saying ‘Like so, see?’ at every step. Ryder wondered where his friends were, then remembered the bitterness with which he’d fired at the Russians and thought he could guess.

  On an impulse he said ‘What’s your name?’

  The lad flashed him another grin. ‘Come on, what do you think?’

  Ryder grinned back. ‘Hullo, Ginger, I’m Harry.’

  The boy nodded, then abruptly thrust out his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

  Ryder shook the hand and didn’t laugh. He knew the strength of it, this need not to die among strangers. Did I do that for him or for me?

  Another shell, and they lowered their heads in unison, presenting their shakos to the spray. Again Ryder looked out over the slopes, but saw only a single horseman galloping towards them from the east, a man in the cocked hat of the Staff. Just what they needed, another bloody officer.

  The ones they’d got were all shouting orders, but Sir George Brown was so blind he couldn’t even see the enemy, and Codrington wasn’t much better. Only a colonel of the 23rd sat still and quiet in the saddle, scanning the ground with a field glass. He stiffened suddenly, and Ryder followed his gaze. Those bayonets in the hollow were starting to move.

  ‘Here they come!’ bellowed an NCO. ‘Face your fronts!’

  Men smacked down either side of them, a complete firing line. The range was too far for the pistol, so Ryder shoved it in his belt, sprawled back his legs, levelled the Minié on the breastworks and looked down. The hill was steep, and he could still see only the advancing bayonets, muskets at the slope, not even lowered to fire. They were coming on very slowly, and in a silence that was curiously unnerving.

  Gradually a dark line began to thicken at the rim of the hollow, men beneath the bayonets coming into view. Ginger fingered his beardless chin and said, ‘They look grey. Seeing colour means they’re at five hundred yards, and you set the range like so, see? No, hang on, I can tell heads from shoulders, call it four hundred.’ Ryder slid the bar to the mark.

  ‘Don’t shoot!’ someone shouted. ‘Don’t shoot, they’re French!’

  Ryder twisted round. A mounted staff officer by the far wall was gesturing with a pistol, while panicky NCOs bawled ‘Don’t shoot! Hold your fire!’ A bugler called the ‘cease fire!’ and even Sir George Brown was saying ‘Can’t shoot the French, men!’ while peering myopically at the advancing line.

  They were coming faster, thick and grey, surely grey, were any of the French units grey?

  ‘No!’ roared the colonel of the 23rd. He was nearer the front than any of them, waving his sword at the lines as if gesturing them to fire. ‘No –’

  A shot from somewhere, instantly another, and both hit the colonel. He pitched forward over his saddle, sentence unfinished, but the babble of confusion rose louder than ever. Ryder ignored it to look back at the advancing infantry, very close now, clearly grey, and with spikes on top of their helmets. He’d seen them at the Bulganek, he’d seen them close enough to be sure.

  ‘Russian!’ he yelled, ‘they’re bloody Russian!’ and fired right into the line.

  Ragged shots broke out alongside, but too few by far. Most were bewildered, all shocked, and none were ready. Officers were still shouting ‘Cease firing!’ and in the one, two seconds of silence even the advancing infantry paused. Then clear in the quiet came the note of a bugle, a trumpeter calling the retreat.

  ‘What?’ shouted Codrington, wrenching round his horse. ‘No!’ cried Sir George Brown, but the trumpet was clearer and louder, and men drilled to instant obedience were already falling back from the walls of the redoubt. Ryder stayed, Ginger stayed, a colour-sergeant was physically thrusting men back to the breastworks, but the noise was deafening, the confusion total, and at that moment the Russians charged. Down went their bayonets like a wall of spears, and from their grey ranks burst out a triumphant roar.

  Earth flew in Ryder’s face, and an elbow bashed into his cheek as men outside the parapet scrambled back in to escape the oncoming bayonets. The retreat was still sounding, men breaking and dashing for the far wall and beyond it the slopes to the river. Ryder rolled aside from the stampede, ripped the pistol out of his belt and turned to face the oncoming Russians, Bang! and got one, it was child’s play at this range. He pointed the Colt like a finger and fired.

  ‘Come on, will you?’ said Ginger, tugging at his arm. ‘We’ve got to, come on!’

  It was an order, a bloody order, and he had no choice. It looked as if no one did, and as they crossed the redoubt he saw Sir George Brown yelling at the frightened trumpeter, ‘But who gave the order, boy? Who?’ The lad looked about him, then stiffened and pointed at a horseman riding away down the far side. ‘Him, sir. There!’

  That staff officer again. He was riding encouragingly along their retreating remnant, guiding them towards an advancing scarlet line. The Guards at last, and already starting up the slope. Why the hell had that officer ordered a retreat if he knew they were so close?

  Screams behind and musket shots, the Russians had re
ached the parapet. Sir George was already turning to gallop away, and there was nothing to do now but run. Ryder’s knee had stiffened and his foot was swelling, he was hobbling like a bloody cripple, but Ginger took his arm and hauled him on for the sanctuary of the far wall. Russians were there already, swarming round their precious howitzer, but Ryder fired at the nearest and escaped with no more than a gash in his side from a swinging bayonet. Then they were at the parapet, clambering and rolling over it, scrabbling up to run like the others down the slope to safety.

  At once he felt it, the terror of a soldier turning his back on the enemy. Muskets banged behind him, balls screamed above, while ahead of him men who’d charged the hill with suicidal courage were tumbling down it like panicking rabbits. He tried to force his leg faster, stamp the ground and ignore the pain, but something barged against his shoulder, Ginger slumping forward with a cry. Ryder’s arm shot out to support him, but the boy’s legs were buckling, his weight bearing them both to the ground.

  The open slope was no more than a shooting gallery. Bullets ripped past in the endless seconds it took Ryder to steady himself, get an arm round the lad’s shoulders, and crawl with him behind a wretched little outcrop of rocks. Still the balls followed them, one snicking into their shelter to ping off a rock, and seconds later another chipping past the toe of Ginger’s boot. The coat! Ryder in blue could just be a dark stone, but the linesman was a beacon of red on the hillside.