by A L Berridge
‘Yes,’ said Broomfield meaninglessly. ‘Yes. Now which?’ He looked down the rows of masts and licked his tongue along dry lips.
The corporal had his wits about him. ‘She’ll be a small craft, sir, they’d have to take her out under sweeps or we’d see them setting sail. What about the cutters? Persimmon and Starling, they’re both in.’
‘Yes,’ said the captain, and seemed steadied by the names of craft he knew. ‘Yes. Show him, Corporal. Take three men and show him.’
‘Aye, aye, sir,’ said the corporal, and turned swiftly to the marines. ‘You, you, and you – fix bayonets. If there’s powder about I don’t want no shooting, right?’
Five should be enough to tackle six Bulgars, but not if those Russian sailors managed to join up with them. He muttered to Mackenzie, ‘You’ve got our backs, Niall. They mustn’t get to a ship, all right? They mustn’t get past.’
The Highlander was already tucking himself into the wall and bringing up his rifle. ‘Aye, I ken.’ He looked up for a second, steady blue eyes in a taut, pale face. ‘They’ll not get past Niall Mackenzie.’
God help them, they wouldn’t. Ryder turned and ran after the redcoats already sprinting down the quay. A dark blue shape came pounding up on his right, and he marvelled at Jarvis’s tenacity. Far too conscientious to break camp under arms, he hadn’t a single weapon to defend himself but was coming on anyway.
A rifle cracked behind him, then another, the Russians already in range and the marines shooting to keep them back.
‘Persimmon,’ gasped the corporal, pointing ahead at a single-sailed ship no more than thirty feet in length. ‘Gawd, she’s weighing!’
Ryder heard the steady grinding of the capstan as the anchor was hauled up. The Bulgars weren’t waiting for the sailors, they’d heard the shots and were taking her out right now. He tried for one more spurt, but his bloody ripped-up back was refusing to give him the thrust. The marines were all ahead of him, and there was the cutter, anchor already slithering over the hull in a loud cascade of water. Only a single taut mooring held her to the quay.
‘Over you go, lads!’ sang out the corporal, throwing himself at the ship. The tide was down, the wooden side no more than shoulder height from the quay, and the marines swarmed over it with the ease of long practice. Ryder caught up with them, but the corporal yelled back ‘Not with that pistol, Sergeant!’ and disappeared over the top.
He was right, damn it, and Ryder could only stand uselessly at the quay with a pistol he’d carefully reloaded and now couldn’t afford to fire. One spark wouldn’t just destroy the cutter and all aboard her, it would take out the frigate beyond. He could hear the fight going on above him, thumps and yells, and a crash against the side that rocked the whole vessel. How many Bulgars were there? ‘Five or six’ to start with maybe, but how many had joined them after the guards were killed?
And how many sailors coming? The shooting behind was fast and furious now, and he swivelled round to see grey figures already ducking and weaving among the stores as their guns blazed fire at the marines.
‘Look out!’ roared Jarvis, and he whirled back to see a man leaning over the cutter’s side. Something white flashed in the murk, a knife in his hand, he was reaching over to cut the mooring and take the cutter out to sea.
He had to risk it, had to. He crouched to give the highest trajectory, nothing behind the man but harmless sky, pointed the Colt and fired. Too high, damn it to hell, and the knife already swooping at the rope, but a pole flashed past Ryder’s shoulder, a boat-hook crunched down to pin the cutter to the quay, and the man skipped back with a yelp. Ryder’s thumb scraped back the cock, again bang, and the Bulgar slumped forward, draping over the prow like an obscene figurehead. The knife landed tinkling on the quay.
Ryder turned and stared at the sight of Jarvis holding grimly to the boat-hook. ‘Where the hell did you find that?’
‘Where do you think?’ said Jarvis, jerking his chin at the pile of stores behind them. ‘And it’s “Where did you find that, Sergeant-major?” ’
For the shortest of seconds their eyes met. Then a ball struck the stone between them, a tiny white flash and a flying chip of stone, and Ryder swung the pistol round to see Russians on the quay itself. Grey coats, black belts, sailors from the Black Sea Fleet, the men he’d fought with the sharpshooters, and some of the best fighters in the world. He fired at the nearest and yelled, ‘Damn it, Mackenzie, where are you?’
Mackenzie’s fingers were slippery with sweat as he reloaded. They were good, these Russians, but they were also grey men in darkness and fog, picking off redcoats standing in lamplight as if they were so many ducks at a fair. They’d all the cover in the world too, threading between the stores and houses like mongrel dogs, not fighting in a line like men. He adjusted the sights, picked a big man thundering towards the cutter, and fired.
‘Hold them, marines!’ bawled the sergeant beside him, the complacency gone from him like a cast-off coat. ‘For God’s sake, hold them!’
They couldn’t. The marines were grand shots, men said they could pick off an officer on a ship five hundred yards away, but there were o’er few of them now, struggling to find cover in the bright light of the quay. And here came more of the grey devils hurtling down to the ships, and himself not loaded, his fingers too slow, and he’d given Ryder his word.
And he would keep it. He snatched the gun from the dead marine, pointed it blank at the nearest Russian and fired. Only a smooth-bore, no precision to it at all, but at this range it blew a hole in a man’s body, and down went the front man, down. Two others just behind, but that marine sergeant fired and took another, there was only the one man still ahead of the pack and Mackenzie would stop him himself. He stepped from the office into the frightening nakedness of the open, but in his hands was the musket and at its end was a blade.
The sailor skidded to a stop, levelling his own bayonet, and Mackenzie lunged straight at him. The coat was thick, the belt tangled his blade, he’d done no more than scratch, and had to use the barrel to knock away the man’s own thrust. He stabbed at the neck, the man down and decently dead, but two, three others were springing at him now, teeth bared in that chattering snarl he remembered from the Alma. But he’d an oath to keep, he scythed round with the bayonet to keep them back, and he’d a snarl of his own to make too. ‘Tulach Ard!’ he roared at them, battle-cry of the Mackenzies for centuries before he was born. ‘Tulach Ard, and take that, you bloody heathens!’ He sliced one cheek to shoulder, punched his left into the jaw of the next, and gashed at the arm of the one looking to sneak up on him. He was tingling from head to foot with the joy of it, ready to take on them all.
A volley, beautiful, clean and loud from above and all three of them falling right there on the quay. It could never be the reinforcements, there hadn’t been time, and then came a great roar that brought round his head like a man hearing a miracle.
‘Stand, 93rd! You’ll charge when I say so, and not before!’
Mr Macpherson. He’d maybe a dozen men with him up on the bank, Farquhar, Lennox, men from his own tent and the sergeant’s, he’d trusted Mackenzie and brought them himself. For a moment his eyes blurred, and he turned in haste back to the shack and his own Minié.
‘Bloody hell,’ said the marine sergeant, grinning as he brought his musket back to the present. ‘You Sawnies are all mad.’
Mackenzie grinned back and found his hands were steady again on the rifle. There was shouting behind, more trouble at the ships, but Ryder was there, he’d deal with it. There were more of the Russian devils running towards them, but the 93rd would deal with that. They had the enemy on the run now, and the business was as good as done.
It was Jarvis who was yelling, his voice calling ‘There, there!’ Ryder squeezed off another shot at the advancing Russians, then turned and saw it, a second cutter further along, its anchor already whooshing clear of the water.
Two! Of course there’d be two, one would never be enough for all these sailors.
He cursed and pelted after Jarvis. Behind him the corporal was yelling, ‘Back over, boys, there’s a second!’ and he guessed the first cutter was secured, but the one ahead was bigger and could do massive damage if the Bulgars managed to take her out.
And one was already leaning over to cut the rope. Ryder kept running, but Jarvis was ahead and whirling his boat-hook like a dervish, slamming it over the cutter’s side even as the rope parted to the knife. There were three Bulgars on the deck above him, and bloody Jarvis was trying to hold the ship firm with just the strength of his own body.
Ryder yelled ‘No!’ and swung up the Colt, wavering, wobbling, impossible as he ran. He stopped to fire but the bang wasn’t his, the shot wasn’t, one of the Bulgars had fired a pistol, and Jarvis sunk to his knees as the hook clattered down on the stone. The cutter was moving out under oars, shoving away into clear water, but Jarvis was down and Ryder’s own steps trailed to a halt as the marines shot past in pursuit of a ship already out of reach.
Voices babbled about him, ‘Follow in the dinghy’, ‘There’s no point’, ‘Blow her here’, ‘We can’t, we’ll hole the Ajax!’ He knelt on the quay as Jarvis’s body slumped towards him, with a hole in the chest he could have stuck a fist through. The gold braid was blackened and blown apart, and the man was dead. Ryder lowered him to the ground, careful not to jar the broken ribs Jarvis himself had ignored, and for a second he closed his eyes.
‘Sergeant,’ said the corporal. ‘Sergeant. She’s gone, what shall we do?’
Go to hell. ‘Can we get a ball in her once she’s clear of the ships?’
‘Not here,’ said the corporal. ‘If we sink her she’ll block the harbour entrance. I’ll tell the captain to ask the battery.’
Of course. Captain Barker’s ‘W’ on the slopes above. They could get her as she went round the headland, still a good safe distance from the fleet. The visibility would be very poor in this fog, but it was still a chance.
He climbed slowly to his feet, and became aware the gunfire behind him had ceased. The quay was teeming with the red coats of Captain Tatham’s reinforcements, and he even saw a few kilted Highlanders in the crowd. A cluster of sullen Bulgars stood under heavy guard, but the only Russian sailors he could see were sprawling on the ground or scrambling away back up the hillside towards the Genoese fortress. He looked in sudden concern at the harbourmaster’s office, but Mackenzie was already strolling towards him, bloodied from head to foot but apparently his usual calm self. Everything looked like victory, except for the dead man at his own feet.
‘That’s a sore pity,’ said Mackenzie, looking down at Jarvis. ‘He was a bonny fighter at the end. Did you see him with yon boat-hook?’
He had. ‘Will you help me take him back, Niall? Sally will want to see him.’
‘I’ll do that,’ said the Highlander. ‘My sergeant’s given me a free hand whiles this business is over.’
Brisk footsteps sounded behind them, Captain Broomfield arriving with his aide. ‘Well, you were right, Ryder. Persimmon’s crammed with powder, absolutely crammed with it. She’d have taken out a steamer or two if she’d got close enough.’
Starling might do it yet. ‘Will Captain Barker help us, sir?’
‘Well, I’ve sent to him.’ The cutter was already nearing the first bend, oars pulling strongly through the still water. ‘We’re flying a signal to warn the fleet just in case, but I’m afraid they won’t see it in this damnable murk.’
The aide coughed. ‘We could ring the church bells, sir. It’s the Balaklava signal, but it would warn the admiral something’s up.’
Ryder turned in horror, but the captain brightened. ‘Worth a try. At least it’ll call senior officers on the watch instead of some damn snotty who won’t see a thing till it blows up in his face. Off with you, my lad, report to Captain Tatham and ask to ring the bells.’
‘Wait,’ said Ryder. ‘Sir, please wait. The bells will bring reinforcements, Lord Lucan, Sir Colin Campbell, everything the Russians wanted to draw us from the main attack. The fireship was meant as a distraction, we can’t let it succeed.’
Broomfield’s irritation returned at once. ‘Now look here, Sergeant, enough’s enough. Captain Barker’ll do his best, but it’s damn foggy out there, he’ll be shooting almost blind, and I can’t risk it. We’re going to warn the fleet.’
‘There’s time,’ said Ryder desperately. ‘Can’t we at least let Captain Barker try?’
The captain wavered. ‘This other attack. Where is it, is it far?’
Ryder heard the flatness in his own voice. ‘We don’t know, sir. We don’t know anything at all.’
Broomfield’s spine stiffened. ‘Well, I know my duty, and that’s to do everything in my power to save our ships. Off you go now, Bennett, and look sharp about it.’
The aide set off at a sprint, and Ryder turned hopelessly away. They’d tried all they could and Jarvis had died for it, but Angelo’s plan was going to succeed after all.
Mackenzie pulled a rag from his coat and began to clean his bayonet. ‘It’s maybe no so bad. If it’s Kadikoi again then it’s only minutes we’ll be losing before we can get the men back.’
‘And what if it’s not?’ he said. ‘What if it’s the Uplands, Niall, what then?’
The relieving picquet turned up at five, by which time Woodall was chilled to the bone. His rifle was heavy with moisture, and he’d have to draw the charge before it was fit to fire, but he cheered himself with the imminent prospect of fire, breakfast, and washing his socks.
He marched briskly with the rest, pausing only as they passed the windmill to wonder what had happened last night with Ryder and the spy. Surely he’d have heard something if they’d caught him, gunshots or shouting or something, but the night had been quiet except for the bells and those ruddy wheels on the Woronzoff Road. The Russians always used the night to move their supplies around, safe from the attentions of the British marksmen.
The odd thing was he was still hearing them. He glanced at Truman, wondering if he should say something, but no one else seemed bothered. It was the fog, that’s all. The Russians knew they were still invisible no matter what the time was. That was all.
He shouldered his rifle more comfortably and marched on towards the Guards’ camp and home.
Ryder lifted his head at the muffled bang from the headland. All about the harbour men fell hushed as they listened for the explosion they hoped would follow. Seconds ticked, but there came only a sound like a faint, distant splash, and Ryder’s heart sunk with the dispirited murmur that spread round the quay.
‘Hopeless, you see,’ said Broomfield, with a kind of dismal satisfaction. ‘What else could you expect in this fog?’ He looked back at the town and said petulantly ‘Where the hell are those bells?’
Maybe Captain Tatham was hesitating. Maybe he’d do it a little longer, and give ‘W’ Battery another chance. That might have just been a ranging shot, and the next …
Another bang. Again the hush, and again only the faint splash followed by the low rumour of a sigh.
‘Sir!’ said an agitated voice, and the aide was back at Broomfield’s elbow. ‘Sir, Captain Tatham says no bells. This man brought a message from Lord Lucan.’
Ryder turned in astonishment and saw a horseman clopping casually down onto the quay to join them. He had fair hair and rode a grey horse, and wore the overalls of the 13th Light Dragoons.
Ryder felt himself grinning stupidly. ‘Hullo, Polly. The Old Man came good, did he?’
Oliver nodded solemnly. ‘He took me to Lord Lucan himself.’
Broomfield’s eyes darted between them in frustrated suspicion. ‘Oh, so we’ll have you to thank, will we, when Her Majesty’s ships are sunk and we haven’t given –’
Another bang, and then the sky split in a giant flash of lightning. Even the fog shimmered with sparkling yellow dust, while the harbour shook and reverberated to the roar of a thunderous explosion. Ryder spun round with his hands clamped to his ears, and saw a thick column
of black smoke rolling and spreading beyond the headland like a deeper, cleaner darkness in the murk. As the rumble subsided, he heard little distant splashes as if flying debris were falling back down to the sea.
A marine shouted and threw his shako in the air. Someone laughed, another whistled, and above the quay men cheered and clapped, waving their caps in salute to the invisible ‘W’ Battery on the headland. Oliver clapped too, eyes wide with awe, and whispered, ‘Oh, well played, the battery. Well played!’ Ryder shoved away a sudden sharp memory of Hoare, and sat heavily on the harbour wall. His bloody legs were shaking.
A red figure thumped down beside him, Niall Mackenzie sitting to reload his precious Minié. His sleeves were rolled up to expose forearms smudged with blood, but when his eyes met Ryder’s he gave a gentle smile.
Oliver dismounted, and took off his shako to wipe the hair from his eyes. ‘You’ve done it, Harry. You were right all along. No one’s ever going to doubt you now.’
Maybe. He looked up and saw Broomfield still standing there, fidgeting uncomfortably and jingling what sounded like coins in his pockets. ‘Sir?’
‘Oh, it’s well enough,’ said Broomfield quickly. ‘Fleet’s safe, and that’s what matters. Pity about the cutter though. Nice little craft, the Starling.’ He gave an awkward little nod and wandered rather hastily away.
‘Ah, forget him,’ said Mackenzie comfortably, sliding out the rod to ram the ball. ‘You’ve saved two, three Her Majesty’s ships there, to say nothing of the men aboard them. Your Angelo would no be so happy about that.’
No, he wouldn’t, the bastard, and Ryder allowed himself a first savage surge of triumph. They’d saved the fleet, and thanks to Doherty no one had left their posts to come to their help. The distraction had failed too.
The reminder sobered him. What had happened here was nothing, and the main attack was still to come. He watched Mackenzie calmly slotting his rod back into place, then looked out at the sky over the harbour. The glow of the burning cutter had faded, but the fog still seemed paler than before, and behind it gleamed the first pink tinge of dawn.