by A L Berridge
Mackenzie turned so fast he near ricked his neck. A woman, and a bonny one, with fair hair and a fresh face. He forgot his aching limbs and sprang to his feet with enthusiasm. ‘And can I help you, lady?’
She’d a lovely smile on her, but it didn’t reach her eyes. ‘The butcher says you brought in a wounded man. Is it Harry Ryder?’
So that was the way of it. ‘Aye, he’s with the medical man.’
She said ‘Thank you,’ but her eyes didn’t change, and he knew she’d not planned further than that first question.
He decided to help her. ‘It’s nothing. A wee ball in one leg, they’ll patch him up fine.’
Her eyes met his, then quickly slid away. ‘That’s lucky,’ she said. ‘We’ve enough on our hands without Ryder too.’
He dropped his gaze discreetly to her apron and noted the black stains that in daylight would be red. ‘Will you bide a while for him? He’ll no be long.’
‘Oh, no. No,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ve only come for more dressings. But thank you.’
She flashed him that smile again, a better one this time, and walked briskly away towards the village. That was a brave lady, to be nursing in those horrors, and to be doing it all through the night. He wondered whose wife she was.
‘Who was that?’ said Woodall, dropping an armful of branches with a thump.
Mackenzie turned back to watch her. She’d a tidy little figure, and as she passed the next fire her hair shone gold. He reached for his pipe, stuck a twig in the fire, and said, ‘That, my man, is what you call trouble.’
Merrick gave him a discarded musket to use as a stick, and Ryder was able to hobble to the fire unaided. It was agony but it was possible, and with luck they’d find him a new horse tomorrow. Oliver had retrieved his saddle and carbine from poor Wanderer, he’d kept his haversack the whole time, he had everything he needed to stay on the march with the others. Thank God he was cavalry. An infantryman whose foot wouldn’t even fit in a boot would be shipped straight off to the hospital at Scutari, and no one ever came back from there.
He knew he was lucky. Their own bivouac looked all right, the cavalry clean and untouched, but the field beyond was speckled with distant roving lights, the lamps of men still searching through the murmuring wounded and shapeless dead. The infantry camps were quiet and subdued, and from the nearest he could hear the desperate, hysterical sobbing of women. He wondered how high the ‘butcher’s bill’ would be throughout the army. How many had died lying in the field without even a chance to fight? How many in that insane retreat from the Greater Redoubt that shouldn’t have happened at all?
He sat down at the fire with the others and tried to eat beef stew. Woodall and Mackenzie were talking cheerfully in the loud voices of men who’d come through when they expected to die, and only Oliver was quiet, the boy who’d yet to fight in a battle at all.
‘What will they say about us back home, do you think?’ said Woodall. He’d finished his stew and had his bearskin in his lap like a pet cat. ‘About today?’
Mackenzie tilted his mess-tin to drink the last juices. ‘Mr Macpherson says we’ll be in all the newspapers. Even the London ones, maybe with pictures.’
Woodall snorted. ‘More than that, you ass. This is history, like Waterloo. Some of our chaps are making a pact to call their first daughters Alma.’
Mackenzie smiled dreamily and reached for his pipe. ‘Aye, I can picture a lassie called Alma.’
Alma was a muddy stretch of water bobbing with red-coated corpses. Ryder’s leg began to throb, and he massaged it with fire-warmed hands.
‘The Guards will come in for most of it, of course,’ said Woodall, stroking his bearskin affectionately. ‘And the Highlanders weren’t bad, I’d never say they weren’t. It’s the Fourth Division I feel sorry for, poor beggars, stuck guarding the baggage. They’ll be a laughing stock back home.’
His voice faded to silence, and he threw a furtive glance at the bowed head of Polly Oliver. Ryder looked at the hunched way he was sitting, remembered a frightened boy in a house at Bourliouk, and felt a tingle of returning anger.
He said roughly, ‘Not your fault, Poll, you’ve got to do what you’re told. Everyone will understand that.’
Oliver didn’t look up. ‘Will they? Telegraph Jordan says they’re already calling Lord Lucan “Lord Look-On”.’
Ryder pictured those distant blue lines sitting still and useless beyond the river. ‘Well, what does he expect? We had the Russians withdrawing, they were on the bloody run, we should have been chasing, driving them back. We should be doing it right now.’
Oliver’s head shot up. ‘We did chase when it was over, but Lord Raglan ordered us back. We even took prisoners.’ His head drooped again and his voice died to a mumble. ‘Only Lucan was in rather a bate about it all, and made us let them go.’
Ryder could see it, that stiff-necked bulldog-jawed bastard throwing a fit of pique at being called back. ‘For God’s sake, what are they – children? Isn’t there even one of our commanders who knows what the hell he’s doing?’
Mackenzie’s brows lowered. ‘I’d say they’re no doing so bad, Ryder. They’ve won a battle for us today, if you mind of it.’
His anger was beginning to throb with the ache in his leg. ‘No, you won it, coming on like you did, turning the enemy’s flank. The Guards won it, coming on through fire and steel and not stopping for anything. The 7th Royal Fusiliers won it, fighting all by themselves against that Kazan regiment to stop them sweeping us from the field. The Second won it, fighting up the Causeway. The French won it, going in first and taking that hill with the telegraph, bringing up their guns through the other village, fighting alone for over an hour before we even moved. What have our commanders to do with any of it?’
Mackenzie lowered his pipe. ‘But it was our Lord Raglan turned the battle, everyone says so. It was him brought those guns right into the heart of the enemy position.’
He remembered it, those plumes round the two cannon below the hill with the telegraph. ‘You mean Raglan was there himself?’
Woodall gave a snort of laughter. ‘Only because he got lost. Our chaps say he wanted a good view, so off he trotted behind the French position with all the Frogs gaping after him. They only brought the guns as an afterthought when he said it might be a nice idea. Silly ass.’
Ryder could hardly believe it. ‘Worse than silly. What if he’d been captured?’
‘But he wasn’t, was he?’ said Mackenzie, beaming in triumph. ‘The Russians were afraid to go near him. We had a prisoner say no commander would be so far from his army, they were sure there were a thousand more of us just behind. A wonderful brave thing.’
‘A wonderful stupid one,’ said Ryder. ‘What good was he to the rest of us out there? How could he send up-to-date orders? Carrier pigeon?’
‘That’s right,’ said Woodall, nodding sagaciously. ‘It wasn’t the Guards’ fault we were late supporting, it was lack of clear orders.’
Mackenzie’s grin disappeared. ‘There were orders, man, did you not see them? We’d staff officers all about the field.’
‘Staff officers!’ It all came roaring back, the anger and helplessness as he lay beneath a corpse and listened to the rout caused by the stupidity of one man. He told them all of it, the fatal order to retreat, the same order to the Scots Fusilier Guards, the red lines breaking in disorder. ‘I don’t know who the hell that man was, but he’s got the blood of hundreds on his hands.’
‘Here,’ said Woodall, sitting up abruptly. ‘Did he have a bay horse? Red saddlecloth with gold bits on it? We’d a man like that try it on with the Grenadiers and the Coldstream, but it was just a misunderstanding; he said “withdraw” when he meant “dress back”.’
‘Misunderstanding?’ said Ryder, and resisted an insane urge to laugh. ‘How could he mean “dress back” when we were sitting in a bloody redoubt? He meant “retreat”, he even told the trumpeter what to play.’
Mackenzie’s pipe had gone out, there was
no smoke as he sucked. ‘Well, and maybe there was reason. With the Russians coming for you and the panic that there was …’
‘There’d have been no bloody panic if it hadn’t been for that man.’ He saw it all clearly, Ginger propping those rifles against the earthworks, Ginger smiling at him, Ginger dead with his jaw dropped open as Woodall carried him slung over his back. ‘He caused the whole thing, he stopped us shooting, he said the Russians coming were French.’
Mackenzie paused with a match in his hand. ‘The same man? A brown horse, red saddlecloth?’ He cracked the lucifer and applied it to his pipe, cheeks sucking in as he forced it alight. ‘Aye, that’s a bad mistake. He made it with the 42nd too, but we’d a sergeant spot it in time. Did you not have an officer who knew better?’
He pictured that too, the colonel shouting ‘No!’ and then the shots, Bang! and then Bang!, the man falling forward in his saddle. ‘One did, but he was shot. Before he could even finish the sentence.’
The fire crackled, and a yellow spark of powder flew violently into the air. Mackenzie pulled the broken musket barrels further out of reach.
‘That’s … odd, isn’t it?’ said Oliver. He was sitting upright again, and his face looked flushed from the fire. ‘Don’t you think it’s rather convenient?’
‘Not for us, Polly,’ he said. He felt sick and tired and didn’t want to talk about it any more. ‘It cost us the Greater Redoubt.’
‘That’s what I mean,’ said Oliver. ‘It’s what the Russians would have wanted to happen, isn’t it? That officer being shot. As if they knew.’
What the hell did it matter now? ‘Luck. They couldn’t have targeted him, not from the Lesser Redoubt. They’d never have heard him anyway.’
Oliver frowned. ‘But the ones coming at you, they could have. If they knew he was warning you, mightn’t they have shot him?’
He thought of that silent, deadly advance, bristling bayonets almost gliding up the slope. ‘They weren’t firing, Poll. If they had been we’d have known they weren’t French.’
‘Yes,’ said Oliver, but his brow was crinkling. ‘Only why weren’t they? Don’t we usually fire before we charge?’
‘That’s right,’ said Woodall at once. ‘You don’t waste a loaded gun, you fire and then it’s in and at them, isn’t it, Mackenzie?’
The Highlander didn’t answer. ‘What’s on your mind, Polly?’
Oliver’s flush deepened. ‘It’s just odd to make the same mistake twice, that’s all. That staff officer must have realized he’d got it wrong, so why did he do the same thing with the Highlanders? No one’s that stupid.’
‘Why not?’ said Ryder. ‘Some of our commanders are.’
Oliver shook his head. ‘But it wasn’t the commanders, was it? You said it yourself, Lord Raglan wasn’t there. This one officer did all these things himself, and every one of them gave advantage to the enemy. That can’t be coincidence, can it?’
The only coincidence Ryder could see was the man’s stupidity. ‘What are you saying, Poll? That one of our officers is working with the enemy?’
Woodall chuckled. ‘Oh, come, Polly …’
Oliver turned on him. ‘Why not, though? How could the Russians know not to fire unless they knew someone up there was going to make that mistake? And how could they possibly know that?’
‘How could anyone know?’ said Mackenzie reasonably. ‘There was no plan beforehand.’
Oliver was knotting his hands in agitation. ‘There might have been. We saw an officer like that, too, a bay horse and red saddlecloth with gold lions on it, he was across the river before anyone else. What if he’d been talking to the Russians? He could have, couldn’t he?’
Ryder’s leg was still aching and his stomach was beginning to regret the beef. ‘Oh, don’t be an ass. All the Staff are pals of someone, that’s how they got here. They couldn’t be traitors, Poll, they haven’t enough brain.’
Oliver’s lower lip was sticking out and his chin was creased. ‘That’s what you keep saying. You keep saying they’re all stupid, they don’t know what they’re doing. Is that any better than one of them being a traitor?’
Mackenzie said soothingly, ‘They’re neither, don’t you fret on it. They’re new to this same as we are, they’ve maybe made a few mistakes, but we can trust them.’
‘I do,’ said Oliver, and for a second his voice was high and unbroken, a child fresh out of school. ‘But Ryder’s saying we’ve got one so stupid he could lose us a battle by mistake.’
Ryder thought of all the other stupidities that had led them to this. He thought of Doherty talking about the lack of equipment, the poor communication, the officers who ignored Raglan’s orders. He thought of the long wait in Varna while the newspapers told the Russians the expedition was on its way, of the chaos of the landing and the sick men who died without tents on the beach, he thought of the sitting around while the Russians had time to gather an army. He remembered the horrors of the march.
He said, ‘Never mind that, Polly. We’ve got commanders stupid enough to lose us a war.’
He heard Oliver’s gasp of shock, but couldn’t bring himself to care. Innocence had no place on a battlefield, and they’d all have to face it in the end.
‘Here,’ said Woodall, jutting his jaw. ‘Here, are you saying we’re going to lose?’ He was stroking his bearskin again, hands moving quicker in agitation.
Mackenzie put down his pipe and sat up straight. ‘Now, there’s no call to be saying that. There’ve been mistakes made, but we’ve won the battle, haven’t we? Why, the road’s clear right through to Sebastopol.’
Ryder swung round on him. ‘So why aren’t we on it? We ought to be chasing the Russians now, right now, before they get a chance to regroup behind its walls. Tomorrow might be too late.’
‘Oh, we’re not going tomorrow,’ said Woodall, faintly shocked. ‘Our officers say there’s far too much to do. There’s the Frogs, for a start, they took their packs off for the battle, they’ve got to march back and fetch them.’
‘That’s right,’ said Mackenzie. ‘There are all the sick to go back to the ships, and only a few arabas to carry them. Then there’s the burying, and only ourselves to do that, and there’s the medical supplies for the doctors, they’ve all to be landed from the ships. Mr Macpherson reckons we’ll need all of two days.’
Two days. Two whole days when Doherty said they needed every minute. The folly of it was shocking, unforgivable, and he could hardly trust himself to speak. He said just, ‘There you are, then. There you are,’ and stared at the fire in black hopelessness. What could he do? Even if he saw that staff officer again, the bastard who’d caused it all, what could he do but salute and say ‘sir’? He was nothing, nobody, the army could be destroyed around him and there wasn’t a single bloody thing he could do.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Oliver’s voice. ‘I’ve spoiled things, I’m sorry. I was upset about the battle. I do know it’s all right really.’
That poor, stupid kid. He made himself look up and say, ‘Yes, all right, Poll. It’s all right.’
Oliver smiled tentatively. ‘I know people make mistakes, but we’ve still got lots of good officers, haven’t we? Like Colonel Doherty, who saved us at the ambush?’
And Codrington with the Light Division, Percy with the Grenadiers, Sir Colin Campbell with the Highland Brigade. Another, young and friendly, who’d wished him good luck before the battle. ‘Yes, Poll. Lots of them.’
‘Well then,’ said Mackenzie comfortably. ‘Now have you the cards, Polly? Ryder’s hurt, we’re all tired, we’d be the better for a game.’
He couldn’t see the point in that either. Bridge was like war, you needed skill as well as luck, and with commanders like theirs they were doomed. Luck had saved Raglan today, luck and the courage of his men, but what in the world could save him tomorrow?
He thought of tomorrow, sitting about while the Russians regrouped. The days after that, ambling along while they turned Sebastopol into a fortress. What abo
ut the days after that? If they weren’t in the place by the end of October they’d be stuck here in the Crimean winter with nothing more than the clothes they stood up in. And if the commanders couldn’t look after them in summer, what the hell would it be like in December?
The game began. The coloured cards glowed brightly in the firelight, but in their place Ryder saw rows of scarlet and black and rifle-green, sunlight gleaming on brass as the bands played. The darkness seemed suddenly thicker outside the brightness of their little fire, and he knew that beyond its warmth lay piles of dead men stiffening in the cold.
PART II
Balaklava
‘Into the valley of death
Rode the six hundred.’
Alfred, Lord Tennyson – ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’
9
28 September to 15 October 1854
Sebastopol.
They’d seen only glimpses on the flank march south, and the troop was buzzing at the prospect of their first real sight of it. As Captain Marsh led them up the sprawling slopes of Mount Sapoune Ryder heard the sibilance of the same word whispering through the patrol like a constant ‘s’. ‘Sebastopol,’ men said. Sebastopol. The town they’d come to conquer.
Marsh halted to inspect it through his field glass, and the position gave them a perfect view. Below them the River Chernaya wound under the Inkerman Bridge into the deep waters of the Roadstead of Sebastopol, and onwards under the boom into the distant sea. There should have been a fleet there, the Black Sea Fleet they’d come to destroy, but other than a few ships at anchor there was only a dark shadow in the Roadstead mouth, and near the shallows of the northern side the tip of a single, listing mast.
Cornet Hoare’s mouth was open. ‘It’s true, then. They’ve sunk their own ships.’
Marsh’s face screwed up as he squinted through the field glass. ‘Dashed unsporting, I call it. They might have given us the fun of doing it for them.’
So they might, if the British hadn’t hung around for two days on the banks of the Alma and given the Russians time to prepare. Ryder massaged his wounded thigh and wished he could soothe away the bitterness so easily. If the Roadstead had been open the fleet could have sailed in, they could have turned into the Man-of-War Harbour and been right in the heart of the town. Now it would have to be an entirely land-based attack, and that looked a tough proposition.