Into the Valley of Death

by A L Berridge

  Ryder stopped, saw Jordan stare at him, grinned vaguely and walked on. He was hearing it again, the Cossack’s gun as he shot the bullock, the sound echoing in the bang of a Russian pistol that Ginger said was different from the shots that killed the colonel. Ryder had dismissed it, assuming the colonel had fallen to a musket, but Oliver had known better, he’d seen the convenience of those two shots in rapid succession. What were the odds of two different marksmen deciding to hit the same relatively unimportant man at the same moment? Say one marksman then, one man firing two shots straight after the other, but there was only one gun capable of that, and it was the one he carried in his own haversack. A revolver. The kind the staff officer had been holding. The kind the Russians didn’t have, but the British officers did.

  Ryder thought of some of those officers. He thought of Marsh perplexed by anything more complex than a church parade, of Hoare afraid to give the right order because he didn’t have the authority, even of Lord Raglan’s courtesy that wouldn’t allow him to give anything so rude as a direct order. That was how the British Army muddled on, how it always had and always would. He’d seen it as bungling, inefficient, downright infuriating, but just for a moment he saw what else it was and knew it was precious.

  Had something got in? Had something crept in and infected it? He’d been so blinded by the incompetence he’d never considered anything darker, but there could be, there could, and there were two cartloads of mutilated men behind him to prove it.

  ‘Slow down, will you, chum?’ said Jordan. ‘We’re going skew, my horse can’t keep up.’

  He said, ‘Sorry, Billy,’ and steadied his pace. The plain was beginning to darken ahead of them, the ground was rough and bumpy underfoot, but he forced himself to walk slowly and evenly, and his resolution hardened with every step.

  10

  15 to 16 October 1854

  They had music in the Highlanders’ camp that night. There were pipes and drums and some of the men dancing, but Mackenzie sat at a fire on the edge of the field with two young cavalrymen and listened to a story that chilled his soul. He busied himself with making the coffee, but it was hard to keep his fingers steady with the evil of what they were saying.

  ‘It’s a very, very terrible thing if it’s true,’ he said. ‘Such a way to fight a war!’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Ryder. He’d a savage, determined look on him tonight, and his fingers were rapping irritably on his knee. ‘Ask the Light Division, they’ll tell you what kind of war we’re in. They’ve had thieves, night raids, spies pretending to be reporters, the lot. The bastards want to delay the bombardment and they’ll stop at nothing to do it.’

  ‘Ah, but those would be Russians,’ he said soothingly, pouring the coffee. ‘This is one of ourselves we’re talking about, and I canna just see it, a man to go against his own army.’

  ‘I know, it’s beastly,’ said Oliver, biting his nails like a bairn. ‘But people do things for money, don’t they? We’ve had deserters coming out of Sebastopol every day trying to sell information. I suppose this could be the same kind of thing.’

  Ryder pulled a face. ‘It’s a hell of a risk. He could have been shot by the Russians, never mind being caught by us. You don’t do that for money, Poll, you do it for an ideal.’

  Mackenzie put down the pot. An ideal now, that was something he could understand. Even in the 93rd he’d heard men say such things, that the icons in the popish Russian churches were of Christ and it was hard to war against them on behalf of heathen Mussulmen. There was still such a thing as loyalty, the salt a man ate and the oaths he took, but Mackenzie’s family had lost land to the Clearances, Highland chieftains selling their own folk for money, and if it could happen in the country of worth it could happen anywhere.

  He groped for his pipe. ‘Aye, I would no say it’s impossible.’

  ‘I know it’s bloody possible,’ said Ryder, and he was at it again, tap-tapping at his knee in an endless tattoo. ‘What I want to know is what we bloody do.’

  Mackenzie’s fingers tightened on the pipe. ‘We will not be doing anything, Ryder. We’ve no but suspicion, and bad enough at that.’

  Ryder stopped rapping and glared at him. ‘That’s why we need to work out a plan. Why do you think we’re telling you? We didn’t just want to share the bloody misery.’

  Misery was right. Doubts were a terrible thing, gnawing away at a man’s peace. He lit his pipe, but over the bowl he saw the fire of Farquhar and old Lennox, his own mess enjoying a crack as they watched the dancing. It would be dismal enough talk, but it would be clean and wholesome and just for a moment he craved it.

  He said heavily, ‘It’s a notion, no more, and to do with our officers. It’s not our business.’

  ‘It’s everyone’s business!’ said Ryder in such frustration even Lennox turned to look. ‘The bombardment will start any day, and after it a battle. What’s going to happen if …’ He stopped, looked round, and lowered his voice. ‘If there’s still a traitor giving false orders in the middle of it? This isn’t about catching the man who tried to dish us at the Alma, it’s about stopping him before he does it again right here.’

  Here. Across the field they were starting the ‘Reel of Tulloch’, and Mr Macpherson himself pointing a toe in the four, but behind the music of the pipes Mackenzie seemed to hear again the great guns of the Alma.

  ‘I wish I’d never thought of it now,’ said Oliver wretchedly. ‘I thought if it was true the officers would know, I thought he’d be sent home, but he’s still here and they’re not doing anything at all.’

  ‘How can they?’ said Ryder. ‘Mackenzie’s and Woodall’s commanders know one part, Sir George Brown another, and none of them will put it together. We only suspected because we talked to each other: a Highlander, a Grenadier Guard, and a cavalryman who fought with the Light Division. How often does that happen in this army?’

  Mackenzie looked round the camp, but Ryder was right, the only regiment here was his own. ‘You’re saying it’s just us, then. That there’s no one else in the army who sees it.’

  ‘Just us,’ said Ryder. ‘If we don’t do anything then no one will.’

  The silence was long, and in it Mackenzie listened to his own mind. A battle coming, the men in danger of betrayal, and no one but themselves who knew. He was twenty-two years old, second stalker at Strathcarron, he had no business tampering with the doings of officers, but how could he walk away from it now? If he went to dance, even if he went to chat with Farquhar and Lennox, the doubts would come with him like a chattering devil on his back. It might be false, it might be nothing, but one way or the other he had to know.

  He blew smoke gently into the night air. ‘Very well, then. What do we do?’

  Oliver put down his mug. ‘There’s only one thing we can do. We tell the officers.’

  Ryder was rubbing his palm up and down his jaw, rasping the bristles like sandpaper. ‘Tell them what, Polly? That we think one of the Staff is so awful he’s got to be working for the enemy? That’s as much as we can say.’

  Mackenzie could just imagine having such a conversation with Mr Macpherson. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘We must say nothing to anyone until we have proof.’

  ‘But how do we get it?’ said Oliver. ‘We don’t even know who he is.’

  ‘We know the horse he rides,’ said Ryder. ‘We know his saddlecloth. That’s not regulation, it’s a personal thing like Captain Nolan’s tiger skin. Someone will recognize it.’

  Oliver looked no happier. ‘No one in our troop did. We all admired it at the river, but no one knew whose it was.’

  Ryder shrugged. ‘He’s hardly come near us. It’s the infantry who’ll know him, he’s at the lines often enough to have his own nickname. We’ve got to speak to the infantry.’

  ‘Mm,’ said Oliver, still doubtful. ‘It would be a lot easier if the officers did it. We can’t just wander about asking people things.’

  ‘And no need to,’ said Mackenzie. He was picturing another man as he
spoke, pompous as a king and prickly as a hedge-pig, but a man he knew and was part of them and who he missed. ‘Woodall’s up there, is he not? We must talk to Woodall.’

  Ryder lifted his head. ‘Yes, by God, we can trust him. We’ll go and see him tomorrow.’

  Oliver hesitated. ‘But we’re patrolling all morning. By the time we’ve walked out there we’ll have to start back for watch-setting.’

  Ryder swatted the air. ‘We’ll get horses, I’ll say we’re foraging, just leave it to me. But we can’t wait, Poll. He’s our only chance.’

  ‘And we may be his,’ said Mackenzie, the urgency of it striking him. ‘It’s no just a battle we need to fear, is it? If you’re right, this officer is trying to delay the bombardment, throwing grenades and blowing up our men in the trenches. If you’re right, then Dennis Woodall is in the most dangerous place of all.’

  Woodall looked at the finished trench in satisfaction. Yesterday’s damage was repaired, proper fascines to shore it all up, everything ready for the bombardment. ‘Tomorrow,’ whispered a linesman as they formed line to march back. ‘Tomorrow,’ muttered a guard party they passed in the zig-zag. ‘Tomorrow, comrades,’ said Parsons as they arrived back at camp. ‘We’re stood down, it’s all over, the bombardment’s tomorrow.’

  And about ruddy time. Pack of scarecrows, that’s what they were, faces scratched and muddy, uniforms streaked with clay, and feet swelling in their boots from the damp. Parsons was scratching every five minutes, and Woodall had a nasty suspicion he’d got lice. Well, not for him. They’d time to sit back now while the gunners did their bit, and Woodall was going to put himself right.

  Other men dutifully piled their arms, but Woodall kept his back for cleaning. Other men queued for the rum ration, but Woodall walked all the way to the stream to get a full camp kettle for washing. Other men devoured their disgusting lumps of salt pork, but Woodall peeled off the clean white lard to moisten his hands and polish his boots. His only disappointment was to find yet again the mail brought nothing from Maisie, and he wondered uneasily if she might be ill. People said the cholera was abating in London, but Maise was delicate like himself; if there was something about she was sure to catch it.

  He returned drearily to the mess fire to find Truman had swelled the numbers with his mates from the 88th, all lounging round slurping tea and discussing the bombardment. None of his own so-called friends had come, of course; they hadn’t been near him in a fortnight. He suppressed a little prick of unhappiness, gulped grudgingly at the tea Truman offered him, and reached to put his kettle on the fire.

  It was empty. He shook it in disbelief, and glared accusingly at the others. ‘Where’s my washing water?’

  ‘You’re drinking it,’ said Truman. ‘What did you think?’

  ‘What – all of it?’ In desperation he turned the kettle upside down, but only a few drops fell out. ‘How am I going to shave?’

  ‘What do you want to shave for?’ said Truman irritably. ‘No one has to, it’s in the regs.’

  He wanted to be clean, but they wouldn’t understand that. He clutched his mug and walked away, ignoring Parsons’s ‘I’ll piss it out in a bit, Woodall, you can shave with it nice and warm.’ Animals.

  There was only one thing to be done. He sat down privately behind the NCOs’ tent, dipped his razor in the inch of liquid remaining in his mug, and proceeded to shave with cold tea. The drag on his three-day beard brought water to his eyes, but there was a manly pleasure in it all the same. He dunked the razor again, enjoying the familiar rittle of steel against tin, and swept the blade with enthusiasm down the forest of his sideburns.

  ‘You’ve tea-leaves on your chin,’ observed a voice.

  Woodall’s hand sprang from his cheek, but his heart seemed to bound as well. ‘So you’ve finally deigned to visit, have you?’

  ‘I have that,’ said Mackenzie equably, sitting cross-legged beside him. ‘Are the laddies no arrived yet? They were bringing horses, I thought they’d be here by now.’

  He went on shaving. ‘All of us? We might get a card game.’

  ‘They’ve more on their minds than that,’ said Mackenzie. ‘You mind that staff officer we talked about after the Alma? Ryder thinks he’s maybe a traitor after all.’

  Woodall stopped the razor mid-sweep. ‘What – Claret-Top? But we said it was all rot.’

  ‘So it still may be,’ said Mackenzie. ‘But there’s more.’

  It wasn’t much of a story, but Woodall remembered the sound of men screaming ‘Christ!’ and felt no inclination to laugh. ‘Oh yes, I knew all about that. We were in the Right Attack just near by.’

  ‘Were you now?’ said Mackenzie, suitably impressed. ‘Did you see him about?’

  ‘He’s always about.’ His mind was that shaken, his mug was halfway to his lips before he remembered what was in it and put it down. ‘It doesn’t have to mean anything. He always comes up to the lines mid-afternoon.’

  Mackenzie raised his eyebrows. ‘Isn’t that odd now, to be so regular? I thought they went as they were ordered.’

  ‘Well, maybe he’s ordered regular,’ said Woodall, feeling irritable. He didn’t want to think about bad things, he felt like a bit of company and a game of cards. ‘Look, it’s all perfectly open, you’ll see him yourself in an hour or so. He’ll have to pass the camp on his way to the lines.’

  Mackenzie looked thoughtfully at the crossroads, the Post Road, the Woronzoff, the turning to the Light Division camp, the entrance to the Victoria Ravine. ‘I wonder what he’ll do up there today.’

  ‘Nothing,’ Woodall said firmly. ‘We’ve picquets and guard parties everywhere, they’ll be on all night. Even Raglan couldn’t get at those trenches now.’

  Mackenzie looked quizzically at him, then reached out to pat him on the shoulder. ‘Aye, you’ve done a grand job up there, everyone says so. Has it been hard?’

  The sympathy warmed him like a blanket. ‘It’s been ruddy awful. Two miles the food has to come, we’ve been getting it stone cold with fat in a skin on top of it …’

  Mackenzie wasn’t listening. He was looking past Woodall at something else, and his shoulders were slowly rising. ‘Quick, man, is that him now?’

  He turned reluctantly. It was Claret-Top all right, bay horse, cocked hat, that red and gold cloth, cantering casually up towards the windmill. ‘That’s odd. He’s going to be early.’

  Mackenzie was rising slowly to his feet, his knees straightening and lifting him in a single fluid movement. ‘Unless he’s planning on meeting someone first.’

  Woodall looked at him in alarm. ‘You’re not thinking of …’

  ‘I’m wanting to know,’ said Mackenzie. He was turning his body to follow the horseman round, and Woodall saw his hands stray to his shoulder as if groping for a rifle that wasn’t there. ‘Send the others after when they come.’

  Woodall stood in consternation. ‘You’re on foot, you can’t …’

  Mackenzie was already moving, the kick of his shoe spraying back mud as his legs pounded into the churned-up turf.

  Damned fool. Woodall watched his red coatee streaking round the curve of their camp, then running straight for the Victoria Ravine. He was ahead of his quarry but his instinct was right. The horseman turned left at the windmill, but a moment later he took the right turn and started up the road that ran alongside the ravine towards Sebastopol. Woodall looked again where Mackenzie had been, but there was no sign of red in the waving grass.

  He chucked his razor back in the mug, slung his rifle over his shoulder, and headed for the camp perimeter. Fool he may be, but his friend needed support and it was up to him, Woodall of the Grenadier Guards, to provide it.

  Mackenzie ran on. He was at the chase again, and even the thistles that tore at his kilt and hose were Strathcarron and home.

  He was safe enough in the ravine as long as his quarry stayed on the road above. The red coatee was a risk if the man chanced to look down, but there were rocks and tangled trees in plenty, there was co
ver for a man with his wits in him, and for now the horseman kept his nose safely in front, riding steady and without hurry for the town of the Russians.

  The Highlander ran on. They covered the Victoria in no time, but as the Second Division camp came up on his right the horseman still followed the road left, cutting the corner and heading down into the Careenage Ravine itself. Mackenzie’s lungs were burning and there was no short-cut, it would need a horseman to keep up. Or a Highlander, he told himself between gritted teeth. Or a Highlander. His feet skimmed the ground, he was fair flying over it, up to the high ground of the Careenage Ridge and looking down to see what the man did below.

  He was riding deep inside the ravine, as if to keep out of sight of the Lancaster battery coming up on his left. Proof of ill-intent, maybe, but Mackenzie was puzzled how to follow him. The man was far below among rocks and gullies, and he’d heard there were caves down there too. What if he slipped inside one for a meeting and the watcher none the wiser? What if he disappeared altogether? Mackenzie could settle to bide his return, but what good would it be to watch the man ride out and ride back without so much as a glimpse of his face? No, he’d to get closer and see what there was to be seen. He’d to go in the ravine himself.

  He stripped off his coatee, as red a flag as a man could ask, spread it tidy over a thorn as a sign to his friends, then plunged on in his shirtsleeves, over the lip and down. The grass grew sparser, he was running on little more than crumbling earth, and then on stones, great loose mounds of them spread down the slope like beach shale, shifting and sliding and threatening to turn the ankle of him every step. He twisted sideways for the scree-run, jump and slide, jump and slide, the stones pouring and rattling as they carried him effortlessly down. The sound was enough to wake a deaf man, but the rider would have the clatter of his own hoofbeats in his ears, he was hundreds of yards ahead and unlikely to look back.