by A L Berridge
He said flatly, ‘We’ll be lucky if they hold for an hour.’
Lucan was riding back. He took position beside Scarlett, and almost at once the Heavy Brigade began to move, advancing in column towards the beleaguered redoubts. Ryder glared at their receding backs in envy, but then the trumpet sounded and it was their own turn. ‘The Brigade will advance – walk – march,’ and in with the heels and off, following in echelon behind the Heavies, going at last towards the guns and smoke of war.
Sally stood by the empty fire and watched them go. Smoke was billowing over the Heights into the valley, and ahead of them something screamed into the earth and threw up clouds of debris as it exploded. The Russians were overshooting.
She knelt back down and went on crushing coffee beans. Jarvis would be panting for his breakfast when he got back, and there’d be others glad of a brew as well. An image of Ryder flickered into her mind, and she crunched it down hard with the pestle.
Boots and the hem of a pink skirt appeared in front of her, and she looked up to see Lucie Jordan standing irresolutely with a camp kettle. ‘Out of sugar again, Luce?’
Lucie turned to look at her. ‘They’re awful close, those Russians. Hear them? I think they’re at the Arabtabia as well.’
The firewood was damp, and Sally had to jerk her head to dodge a cloud of acrid smoke. ‘Probably. No use just attacking one redoubt, they’ll want all four.’
‘There must be an awful lot of them then,’ said Lucie. ‘I mean – to do that.’
Sally looked up. She’d never much cared for Lucie Jordan, but there was an anxiety in the voice that touched her heart. ‘Come on, Luce, your Billy’s more than a match for a cannonball. Here, I’ve plenty of coffee, I’ll make some while we wait.’
Lucie kicked her boot petulantly against the grass. ‘What good’s that? This isn’t safe, we ought to be getting out to Kadikoi.’
Sally stared at her, then turned to look back at the Causeway Heights. The Light Brigade had stopped, thank God, but the Heavies were advancing into the smoke. The men were out there, their men, and she was suddenly so angry she couldn’t speak. She bashed down again with the pestle and didn’t reply.
‘It’s no good ignoring it,’ said Lucie, her voice rising to a whine. ‘Some are leaving already.’
‘More fool them,’ she said, without looking up. ‘If our men can’t hold here, what’s the safety in Kadikoi?’
‘The Highlanders are there, aren’t they? Or we could go to the ships, we’d be safe there.’
Sally turned the beans with the spoon. ‘You leave if you like. My husband’s had to go out without his breakfast, and I’m going to be here to give it him when he comes back.’
There was a silence. Then ‘Suit yourself,’ said Lucie, with a toss of her head. ‘But you’ll look a bit silly making coffee when the Cossacks come.’ She turned and flounced away.
Sally banged down the mortar with frustration. What else was there to do? She couldn’t grab a gun and fight. The French viviandières brought the men supplies right on the battlefield, but an Englishwoman wasn’t allowed even to do that.
The firewood spat stinging smoke into her eyes and she screwed them tight shut, but the blackness was filled with the booming of guns and screaming of horses and the voice in her head crying for something she could do.
Woodall sat miserably on his blanket, listening to the racket outside. There was a flap on somewhere, he supposed, but they might have a thought for the sick men in here. Some of them were dying.
Right now he wished he were one of them. His night had been filled with dreams of his friendless youth, ignored by the gentry, despised by the working men, hated at school for wanting to better himself and be decent. Nobody had wanted him till a recruiting sergeant told him there was a place for big strong men of good character. No one till the Guards, and then Maisie.
But he had had friends, and he knew it now. Ryder, Mackenzie, even young Oliver, they’d been real pals and he’d driven them away. Last night he’d rummaged in his blanket for things to give him comfort, but the photograph of Maisie was unbearable, the shaving mirror showed him a face he didn’t recognize, and all he’d found of value was a pewter flask lent him by a friend. It was only rum, of course, but Ryder might have liked it and he’d given it to Woodall instead. He sat on his blanket clutching it like a lifeline, remembering the moment, and that Ryder had called him ‘Woody’.
But he couldn’t stay here weltering in his own filth. The noise was louder now, doors banging, Turks jabbering, something was up and maybe he could be useful. He laid down the flask, sat straighter and reached for his boots. Someone was talking in the main room, a loud voice with authority, and Woodall strained to listen. Someone was saying he was Lieutenant Colonel Daveney and demanding the attention of the wounded.
He limped to the door with the second boot still in his hand. The officer was saying Balaklava was under attack, and he needed more men to man the defence. ‘I’ve a party of invalids here, and if you can stand and hold a rifle then I want you.’
I want you. The words were medicine, and Woodall never even felt the boot drop from his hand. He stepped full into the doorway and said, ‘I can, sir. And I’ve got my own rifle.’
Across the room the officer’s eyes found his, and Woodall’s whole frame trembled with the recognition. The man was really seeing him, not that awful shameful thing he’d seen in the mirror last night, but him as he really was, him.
‘Good man,’ said Daveney. ‘Anyone else?’
Woodall didn’t stay to watch the rush of cripples looking for their chance of glory. He snatched up his boot, hopped back to his blanket, and fumbled out his rifle from underneath. He’d cleaned and kept it perfect, he’d a nearly full ammunition pouch, he was going to be the best find that officer could hope for. He yanked out his coatee and hurled his arms into it, thrust his foot into the second boot, and hurried out after the others into the freshness of the outside air.
Smoke and debris roiled back at the cavalry over the crest, and a black shape hurtled over with it. ‘Over!’ yelled the Heavies in front of them, and ‘Over!’ shouted their own ranks as they shifted their horses to dodge the oncoming ball. ‘Look out, Lord George!’ sang out a voice, but Paget skipped the wrong way and a cloud of dust enveloped him as the roundshot bounced through. A burst of laughter followed as an orderly cried, ‘Ha, look at that, right between your horse’s legs!’
To Ryder it was the Alma all over again. Russian artillery were hammering the Turkish redoubts right in front of them, while Lucan kept them sitting under fire as useless spectators. The Heavies were advancing and retreating, feinting menacingly and falling back, but that was no bloody good, they were only telling the Russians to come on and do as they liked, the British cavalry wouldn’t lift a finger to stop them.
More roundshot roared over, and Ryder heard the terrible slosh as a cannonball ripped into the belly of a living man. Riderless horses were already weaving in and out of the ranks of the Heavies, and one poor staggering beast trying to reel back to its place had only three legs. Then a lightning crack split the sky over the ridge, a blast of orange staining the blue. Black rubble flew up, a block, half a wheel, the crazily jerking body of a man.
‘Dear God,’ said Oliver. ‘That’s our battery, isn’t it? Oh dear God.’
Men hurried down from the Heights with a limp and mangled body, rushing him to the rear and the dubious safety of a road already wide open. ‘Poor Maude,’ said Lieutenant Grainger. ‘Bloody good man. Poor Maude.’
The battery wasn’t long after them. A black-faced and bleeding lieutenant ran to report to Lucan, then down came the limbers hauling the guns, every last shell expended for little result. ‘W’ Battery was still firing east of Kadikoi, but hopelessly outgunned by the Russians, and the Turkish redoubts had stopped even firing at all. The enemy infantry were going in, a grey swarm charging down the slopes and straight at Number 1, overwhelming the miserable sandbag defences like a wave. The Turks we
re running, breaking and running, abandoned by a British army who did nothing but sit and watch.
Number 2 was breaking too, the walls collapsing under the rush to retreat, while the white and gold standard of the Host of Azov broke defiantly from the flagpole on Canrobert’s Hill. ‘Oh, the bastards,’ said poor Oliver, tears trickling down his furious face. ‘They’ve taken our flag, oh, the bastards.’ It was only a bit of cloth and Turkish at that, but Ryder’s own throat tightened as if he were breathing smoke.
Musket balls pinged among them and cracked against the rocks, Russian fire from their own redoubts. Lucan yelled, a bugle called through the smoke, they were ordered to fall back. Threes about, and round we go, having done bloody nothing at all. They rode back almost as far as the camp, back to halt near the unmanned redoubts, British cavalry in retreat.
And not only British. Red-fezzed figures were pouring towards them over the plain, Turks running from the slaughter. Grey shapes trickled down the slopes after them, Cossacks on the hunt, lances sparkling in the growing light.
‘Look at the Johnnies run,’ said Fisk in disgust. ‘We should have known they wouldn’t hold.’
The Cossacks were in the back of them, bodies hurling in the air from the thrust of their lances. Ryder thought of India and pig-sticking, but these were men being tossed about like brightly dressed scarecrows, and over the galloping hooves he heard the anguish of hoarse screams. ‘How could they hold when they saw us fall back?’ he said savagely. ‘Would you?’
Not that it mattered now. The Turks were gone, and there was no one but themselves between the enemy and Campbell’s five hundred Highlanders at Kadikoi. Ryder braved the pain in his back to look round the plain, but there was no sign of infantry support yet, no one but Lord Cardigan trotting up to join them after a leisurely breakfast on the Dryad.
And a staff officer, a galloper from Raglan. Ryder looked closely, wondering if their man might have changed his horse and saddlecloth again, but the orders were genuine, they were actually being handed over on paper. Maybe this Calvert had said something, or maybe it was Angelo’s doing. Maybe Angelo had been working behind the scenes all this time, and they weren’t as alone as he’d feared.
But if the orders were genuine they still weren’t palatable, and Lucan’s response was probably audible at Kadikoi. ‘Do what, sir? Withdraw?’
It wasn’t a mistake, it wasn’t treachery, it was the sheer imbecility of Lord Raglan. A grumbling Lucan led them back north, right back to the end of the Causeway Heights and the mouth of the North Valley. The camp was abandoned, its occupants undefended, and Campbell’s Highlanders were on their own.
‘The Regiment will fix bayonets!’
Mackenzie’s hand went smack to the socket, pulling out the blade with a satisfying rasp.
‘Fix – bayonets!’
Plunge in and the little twist to the click, then bang the piece straight to his body, attenshun! Trembling with tension he awaited the next order, but Colonel Ainslie was talking to Colonel Sterling and they’d maybe a minute or two yet.
But not much more. They’d a brave view from the brow of the hill that commanded the gorge to Balaklava, but there was little to see but Russians swarming into the redoubts and panicked Turks running towards their own line crying ‘Ship, Johnny! Ship!’ A naval officer stood with arms outspread, trying to stop and re-form them, but some were beyond it, poor devils, running blindly on towards the safety of the harbour. Heathens, of course, but the red fezzes called to him like men of his own coat and he didn’t have it in him to join the calls of ‘No buono, Johnny. No buono!’ from others in their line. The Turks had fought a brave little fight down there, they’d held an hour and a half, and now it was their own turn.
‘On our own, as usual,’ said miserable Farquhar out of the corner of his mouth. ‘It’ll be the Alma all over again, my man, remember that Ranger? “Let the Scotch do all the work.” That’ll be the way of it now.’
Mackenzie smiled at the memory. ‘We handled worse that day, Davey.’
‘Oh aye,’ agreed Farquhar, with hardly a movement of his lips. ‘But we’d the whole army with us, if ye’ll recall, and none of the women to worry about neither.’
Mackenzie turned to look behind their line. The camp was as it always was, the field kitchen brewing and an old wife hanging up her laundry in the hope of better weather than yesterday’s, but the thought of Russian savages running amok in it with their bayonets was enough to cramp his bowels. And what was behind it was even worse to think of – their supplies, the hospital, the post office and escape route to the ships.
He turned back to face front. ‘So we won’t let them through.’
Farquhar looked sourly at him. ‘Oh aye, you, me and five hundred other men will hold off the whole of the Russian army, will we?’
Boots were tramping behind them, a disciplined march and a voice calling ‘Halt!’ Even Sergeant Macpherson turned to stare as thirty Grenadier Guards formed unasked on their left flank, and two young lieutenants reported to Colonel Sterling. They’d maybe just come up from quarters in Balaklava, but the sight of the familiar bearskins gave Mackenzie a twinge of sadness at the thought of a man who would not be with them.
But others were. The Navy’s Captain Tatham was re-forming the Turks on each end of their line, and behind them came a rag-tag bunch of invalids who’d maybe been on their way to the ships. There were near a hundred of them, mostly in the green of the Rifle Brigade, but a few bandaged figures from the line regiments, a couple of their own Highlanders – and one solitary Grenadier Guard in a squashed and dusty bearskin and beneath it the face of a friend.
Mackenzie’s face split in a grin, and for a moment he saw Woodall smile back. ‘You see, Davey,’ he said in sudden elation of spirit. ‘We’re not alone now.’
Something pinged in his ear, his bonnet slid sideways, and he clapped his hand hard to his neck. Musket ball, but it had only skimmed him, probably at the limit of its range. But the cannon were not, and a blast from near the redoubts seemed to belch straight at them, a shell exploding in the right of their line. Men cried out, someone was down, and Lord in Heaven, there lay a leg on the grass, white hose and scarlet bindings perfect for parade. His hands tightened on the Minié. Fool that he was, he’d been looking at the battle like a picture, but the Russians were near enough to hit them and do it with iron.
‘Fall back!’ yelled Macpherson. Others were echoing it, and back they went, back and down to re-form. It seemed strange to be asking Highlanders to withdraw, but it must not be shameful or Sir Colin would not have ordered it.
‘Lie down!’ came the order now, ‘lie down!’ Memory of the last battle plucked at him, images of men pounded to blood and bone as they lay helpless in the grass, but he kept his trust in Sir Colin and laid his nose obediently into the mud. The ground trembled under him as a shell hit the other side of the hill, and at once understanding soared through him. This was not retreat. They were lying in wait as he’d done as a stalker, waiting out of range for the moment they would spring from the earth and confound the enemy with their appearance.
‘Oh, this is grand, Davey,’ he whispered. ‘This is worth everything. This is grand.’
Farquhar seemed to convulse beside him, the man was shaking like an ague. Could he be took with the cholera? Mackenzie’s hand reached tentatively to touch his shoulder. ‘Davey?’
Farquhar turned his head towards him, and for the first time since he’d joined the regiment Mackenzie saw he was laughing. ‘Oh, Niall,’ he said, and was shook with another burst of merriment. ‘When we go to hell to fight the devil, the man I want beside me is you.’
Sally emerged furtively from the makeshift shack they called the commissary store and saw the world had changed. The camp was almost deserted, and even those women she could see were scurrying away with bundles slung hastily on their backs. She looked across at the 8th Hussars’ camp and saw only blasted Fanny Duberly with her quartermaster husband supervising servants as they struck t
he tent. ‘Where’s Whisker, Henry?’ she heard the woman say. ‘Where’s my darling Whisker?’ Sally could see the pony for herself, laden almost flat to the ground with bags of crockery and boxes of port.
She hoisted her own haversack. It was now heavy with contraband but she no longer felt any scruples. What was a drop of rum or a handful of biscuits compared with what the officers had, especially those like Captain Duberly who weren’t even fighting and dying with the rest? She turned to join the Brigade – and stopped dead.
Cavalry were spilling down from the Causeway Heights. Hussars, she thought, but the colours weren’t British, they were grey as clay. They were thundering down towards Kadikoi, and Lucie was right, there were an awful lot of them. Where were their own?
She saw them then, the Heavy Brigade rounding the ridge and starting to trot back towards the vineyards. Maybe Lord Raglan had seen the danger and sent them, but it was no good, no good, they could never reach Campbell in time. Her skirts spun like a dancer’s as she swung back round to look at Kadikoi, but there was no one there, the brow of the hill was empty, there was no defence at all.
The Russian hussars were encouraged, they were speeding up to the gallop. They could go right through, take the gorge, open the road to the harbour, then they were finished, all of them, stranded in this stinking country with no way to the ships, stranded to be picked off at leisure. She dropped her suddenly useless haversack and waited to watch the end.
And the hill changed. A rim of black then bright crimson fringed the brow, and suddenly there were men there, a long line of red-coated Highlanders standing on the crest to face the oncoming enemy. The sun burned on their coats and glittered on their bayonets like a jagged crown. ‘Square,’ she thought, army wife as she was. ‘They’ll have to form square to face cavalry.’ But the line still grew and settled, long and straight, a slender barrier two men deep, standing as they were to meet the onslaught of the charge.
Tears spilled hot down her face, blurring her vision till the Highlanders were no more than a thin red streak in the distance. She was on the strength of the 13th Light Dragoons, but at that moment she was of the whole army, and that frail line of resistance embodied everything she loved and was part of. Oh God, let them hold, let them somehow do the impossible and stand up to that charge, oh God and dear God, let them hold.