by A L Berridge
He’d give them steel all right, shaming them like that, he was charging with the others and roaring as he went. The balls were nothing now, one clipped Truman in the shoulder but he was coming on anyway, they all were, on the slope to the Battery, up, up, up, and there was one in front of him, in and twist and out. The coats were a puzzler, thick and foiling the blade, but ‘Faces!’ shouted someone. ‘Blow the coats, go at their beastly faces!’ That was the stuff, and as he leaped up onto the ledge his rifle was already high over his shoulder to slash down the skull of the cowering Russian in front of him. Down and thrust him aside for the next, but there was no one there and his rush sent him thudding into a wall of sandbags. The Battery! They were there, and he hurtled through the embrasure into the space behind.
It was empty. Beyond the centre mound he saw flat-caps racing for the opposite embrasure, fleeing down the hill to the safety of St Clement’s Ravine below. ‘After them!’ yelled Parsons, and the cry was taken up all round, ‘Gone away, gone away!’ ‘Tally-ho!’ Then Captain Tipping was in front of them with a revolver in his hand, shouting ‘Stand, Grenadiers! Stand and hold your ground!’
Woodall lowered his rifle. The officer was right, of course, they’d won the high ground and it would be mad to abandon it for a few fleeing Russkies. He sat down on an overturned gabion and pulled out a new cap for the Minié.
‘Here,’ said Truman, passing him a thin metal tool. ‘It’s Sergeant Powley’s, pass it on when you’re done.’
Woodall took it gratefully and began to unscrew the nipple. ‘We’ll be all right here, won’t we? We can hold this against anyone.’
Truman wriggled his wounded shoulder. ‘Russians didn’t, did they?’
He tore open a cartridge to sprinkle dry powder over the wet charge. ‘They’re not the Guards. They haven’t our guts, nor our guns.’
Musket fire crashed on the far side of the battery. ‘They’ve got something,’ said Truman, and ran for the wall.
Woodall made his fingers work faster. Nipple back on, new cap, fire into the ground, and the relief of the bang, his gun back in order. He chucked the tool to Parsons and started to load, but he was hearing other noises over the yelling and gunfire, men near him shouting and cursing in frustration. He snapped on his cap, made for the wall, and then he understood.
The sandbag walls were eight to ten feet high, but there was no banquette, nowhere for a man to stand to fire over the top. It was lower at the shoulder-joins, but there was only firing room for half a dozen at each and men were already clustering back round the embrasures to find space for their guns. A couple of idiots were clambering up the mound of the derelict magazine, but Captain Higginson had hardly yelled the warning before a musket cracked and the first man crashed heavily to the ground.
Woodall stared frantically round him. A working gun was no use if he couldn’t fire the ruddy thing; he needed height to reach over that wall. He seized the nearest gabion, wrestled it to the sandbags, and furiously scraped up more earth to fill it solid. It took his weight, it would do, and he was up on it in an instant, lifting his head over the top layer of sandbags.
Fog and Russians. A thick mass was charging up the hill towards them, only the red cap-bands and white steel of bayonets picking out men from mist. He fired at the nearest, and propped his elbow on the sandbags while he struggled to reload from his precarious perch.
‘Watch it!’ yelled an NCO from the embrasure. ‘There’s the Scots Fusiliers down there, don’t be firing on our own chaps.’
About ruddy time those Scots turned up. He could see them himself when he next got his rifle up, the black bearskins picking them out clearly from the enemy, but they weren’t coming up to support the Battery, they were turning off and charging at something else. ‘Hoi!’ called someone. ‘Over here, you stupid Sawnies!’ Woodall heard men guffawing round him, but his own mouth was suddenly dry. From his height he could see what they were up against, two dense columns of Russians emerging from the Quarry Ravine, a whole army against a couple of hundred of their own Guards.
And the Grenadiers couldn’t help them. Stuck behind these stupid, blinding, good-for-nothing walls, they could only pour a fraction of their real firepower into an enemy that seemed to be growing as they looked, more and more of them materializing out of the fog and the earth. The Fusiliers were turning them all by themselves, the Grenadiers useless spectators, and it wasn’t to be borne a moment longer. Others were already breaking for the embrasures, and he was with them, with them, empty rifle but a bayonet on the end of it which was all a Grenadier Guard would ever need.
Jostling, shoving, elbows jabbing, he was through the bottleneck and out on the freedom of the slope with baying Russians right there in front of him. Stab the first, stamp and out and slash the second right across the mouth, another looming, give him the butt smash on the jaw. Another man near, but it was Truman beside him, the two of them together against the whole grey hordes.
But not alone. They were all out now, all of them, and swooping on the Russians with vengeful fury. Back the beggars went, driven down the slopes like whipped dogs, but the ledge was a kind of overhang giving cover for them to lurk and regroup, they’d got to be booted out of it and quick. He was charging after them, so was Truman, so was Parsons, so were all of them, the Russians screaming defiance as they backed off step by step.
And then another yell, another howl, this time of triumph and from behind. Woodall stopped, scrubbed his sleeve across his mouth, and turned to look back.
The Battery. The Sandbag Battery they’d taken so gloriously was swarming with Russians again, at the embrasures, at the joins, one of them crowing from the mound itself. They’d lured out the Guards and taken it from the other side.
Oliver was shivering. Ryder had insisted on returning his cloak, but the clamminess of the fog turned to moisture on his hands and cheeks, and chilled his lungs as he breathed. The cold seemed almost visible in the whiteness of the air, giving even the rocks and trees an alien quality as if they were riding into another country far away. The guns grew louder with every step.
‘Home Ridge,’ said Ryder, turning left off the road. ‘There’s reserves up there, let’s find out what’s going on.’
Oliver thought of the enormous reserves at the Alma, and was shocked at how few men remained on Home Ridge. A Rifle battalion was drawn up in readiness on the lower slopes, and sections of the 20th and 95th Foot stood with the frustrated expression of dogs kept on a leash, but otherwise there seemed only to be little parties of stragglers wandering round aimlessly in the fog, looking for orders, for an officer, for a unit to which to belong. Picquets driven in perhaps, wounded looking for a dressing station, but an Irishman was bellowing ‘The 88th! Has no one seen the Rangers?’ and a group of bewildered privates from the 77th sat huddled on the grass like abandoned baggage. The only other unit of any size was the 30th, and they were bundled up against the lower crestwork, half of them asleep. Their clothes were blackened and bloody, and it was clear they were survivors rather than reserves.
There was no need to ask where the rest were. A group of senior officers were examining the field through telescopes, but musket and artillery fire seemed to boom from everywhere, the whole Uplands engulfed in the smoke of battle. Oliver looked down over the field, and slowly felt his blood warm. They were part of this, or soon would be. They might not be fighting in the line, but if they won out today they could save a regiment, a battle, perhaps even a war.
‘Well, cock your leg and cry “Sugar,” ’ said a familiar voice. ‘If it ain’t the bleeding cavalry come to save us.’ Bloomer, of course, sprawled on the grass with a mixed group of refugees, sucking a piece of grass and grinning up at them with knowing eyes.
Ryder dismounted at once. ‘Bloomer, you old warrior. Seen any fight yet?’
Bloomer took the grass from his mouth and spat. ‘Regular wallflowers, that’s what we are. We’ve been told to play with the 95th, but they’ve packed half of them off already with His Nibs
the Duke of Cambridge.’
‘Cambridge?’ Oliver couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice. ‘But surely he’s …’
‘The Guards, right,’ said Bloomer. ‘Give that man a coconut. But there’s a row on at the Sandbag Battery, and he’s sent for the peasants to help.’
He mustn’t think about Woodall now, they were here for something bigger. ‘What else is going on? Have you heard anything?’
Bloomer tilted his head. ‘Anything in particular, young Polly? Or should I say anyone?’
‘Someone,’ said Ryder. ‘He got away from me, Bloomer, we’re here to finish the job.’
‘Ah,’ said Bloomer in a long exhalation of breath. ‘Well, I told you, didn’t I? Going to come to this in the end.’ He stroked a fat finger lovingly up and down the barrel of his rifle.
Mackenzie looked startled. Oliver remembered how he’d felt himself when Bloomer first suggested it, but that was before the North Valley. Now if he saw in front of him the man who’d murdered the Light Brigade he knew he wouldn’t hesitate.
Ryder clearly wouldn’t either. ‘Of course. If we can find him.’
Bloomer pulled a face. ‘I’d leave the nags if I was you, it’s legwork down there.’ He heaved round his bulk to face the other linesmen and said, ‘Right, cullies, lend us your lugholes. These coves need to find a staff nob, black nag, green spread, cocked felt. Anyone copped a sight?’
Oliver blinked, but nobody seemed to see anything odd in the question. A ragged private from the 49th said, ‘Not many on horseback today, they’re too much of a target. They got General Adams that way.’
‘Oh, I’ve seen a few,’ said a corporal of the 41st. ‘Duke of Cambridge is up. Don’t know about the others, though, they all look alike.’
‘Not this one,’ said Ryder. ‘He’s been wounded, face and head. There might be a dressing.’
The corporal’s face cleared. ‘Oh, him. Nose like a Sunday morning and bandage round his neck? He was nipping between us and the Barrier all the while.’
Ryder’s voice sounded deceptively casual. ‘And where were you, Corp? In the thick of it, obviously.’
‘Oh, nowhere important,’ said the corporal. ‘Just that hill above the Inkerman Tusk. You know – the one you were just talking about. The Sandbag Battery.’
Woodall stuck down his head and charged. They’d got reinforcements arriving, Coldstream and all sorts, he wasn’t having them retake the Battery under their noses when the Grenadiers had already done it twice.
The last yards were always the worst. It was so ruddy steep they were all puffed out by the time they reached the Battery, a bunch of gasping wrecks the Russians could pick off at leisure. Well, not this time, oh no, Woodall was going all the way. He threw himself forward, yelling as he ran, and by his side Truman was yelling too. For a second their eyes met, both open-mouthed and roaring, then they grinned, looked away and ran on.
And here was the Ledgeway, he would not stop, he was pumping his legs over it right to the embrasure, Russians backing off and away, then he was in, ruddy well shoved in by the force of the men thrusting behind. Some of the Russians were making a fight of it, backing away with bayonets levelled, and the crowd of Guards were driven right in after them. Parsons was going it like a terrier at the front, and the whole crush between them, but when the Russians turned to bolt there was Parsons down with more cuts than a man could count. Woodall pulled him away to the wall and turned back to the fray, but the fight was over, both their own colours coming in, and the Battery was theirs. They’d been in and out so many times it was hard to tell, but the flags were the one thing that never changed.
He went back to the wall. Truman was bending over Parsons, but he stood as Woodall reached him and simply shook his head. Shame. Poor old ‘Nasty’, he’d never had much going for him, but he deserved a better end than that.
He leaned back against the sandbags to reload, and felt an odd sinking sensation as his fingers encountered one lone cartridge in his pouch. He vaguely remembered it now, opening the last packet, but that had been nine shots ago and this was all that was left.
‘Me too,’ said Truman grimly. He groped for Parsons’s pouch, but that too was flat and empty.
Woodall felt in his coat, and breathed in relief at the familiar touch of paper, the packet he always made sure to keep hidden. ‘There’s another ten here. Five each.’
Truman’s face split in a long, slow grin. ‘Thanks, chum.’ The hand he held out was calloused and dirty, the nails broken and blackened, but Woodall shook the cartridges into it without a qualm. Six shots each in all, say the Russians came again three times …
Gunfire again, blast them, and he wasn’t loaded. Someone was, a Scots Fusilier firing blindly into the grey, but there were scores of Russians thrusting forward and at the parapet before his cap was even on. He threw himself at the gap, slamming and smashing out with the gun that was now no more than a club, yelling ‘Get out of it, get back!’ A bayonet stabbed at his face, but he was already ducking and felt it only slice the top of his shoulder as it passed. His left fist closed on the heaviness of the top sandbag, and up it came, swiping right, left, knocking them down like ninepins, and his voice hoarse in his own ears screaming ‘Get back, you bloody bastards, get back!’
The fog thickened as they descended into the valley, but Ryder never doubted the scale of what lay beneath. The thumping of artillery was familiar, so was the brittle hammering of musketry, but not even at the Alma had he known such yelling, such clashing of wood and steel. Little skirmishes roared up at them out of the gloom, bands of stragglers locked in hand-to-hand combat, while distant voices rallied invisible armies, ‘To me, 21st!’ ‘Come on, 63rd!’ and somewhere far behind them the war-cry of the 20th, the distinct deep ululation of the Minden Yell.
The slopes of Fore Ridge grew thick with brush, some of it four and five feet high, and they kept in cover as long as they could. The big guns couldn’t tell friend from foe down here and were fighting it out overhead, but musket balls cracked from trees and rocks, they flew blind in the fog and ricocheted from all sides. Mackenzie’s red coatee was the big danger, the only splash of colour in the whole monochrome world, and Ryder insisted on wrapping Oliver’s cloak over it before they emerged onto the valley floor.
It was safer than it looked. They were only three fleeting shadows in the fog, of no interest to men watching out for whole battalions that leaped up out of nowhere and fell on them with fixed bayonets. When foreign voices and the tramp of boots warned of a Russian column passing ahead, they had only to crouch against a jutting crag to melt into the black-fissured grey of the stone.
But the Russians weren’t just passing, they were prowling with muskets low, bayonets fixed to make spears pointing at the earth. Then one jerked, stopped and stabbed down, not at earth, not at ground, but at a grey shape that lifted horrifyingly with the blade only to be scraped down off it again with a high black boot. These were men they were spiking, British wounded and dead lying on the valley floor, the bastards were butchering the dead.
Mackenzie made a choking noise and turned his face to the stone. ‘Heathens,’ he said. ‘Heathens.’ His knuckles were white on the barrel of his gun.
Another stabbed, and a man squealed, a wounded soldier being hacked to death in front of them. Ryder dug his nails deep into the palms of his hands, but there were just three of them, they could only hide and watch as helplessly as children. Above them was the world of Alma and Balaklava, of open lines and heroic charges, but here beneath the shrouding fog was the terrible underbelly of war.
There was another reality too, and the stone felt cold against his back as more and more of the marching figures loomed and passed in the mist. Even this one little column was numbered in the hundreds, and he’d seen scores of them from the heights of Fore Ridge, maybe thirty or forty thousand coming against their own seven or eight. The guns too, a never-ending line of them blasting out all along Shell Hill and beyond, eighty, ninety, maybe even a hundred w
hen the British must have less than forty.
‘The French,’ muttered Oliver, and Ryder knew he too was starting to count. ‘They must know we’re in trouble, they’ll come.’
There was no sign of them yet. The only colour Ryder could see was a distant glimpse of red coats vanishing round the flank of the Kitspur. That must be the Fourth Division, he’d seen some discarding their greatcoats to fight in red, but why were they going round there? The frail defence of the Barrier was all that stood against the enemy pouring out of the Quarry Ravine, so why were the Fourth ignoring the wide open gap to march east?
But everyone was, even the Russian column finally coming to an end in front of them. The fighting was hottest on the Kitspur, a fierce shouting and frenzy of movement, with even the stragglers catching the infection and following the hordes turning for the Sandbag Battery.
‘Why?’ said Oliver wonderingly as they stood and rubbed their limbs after the crouching of concealment. ‘There’s nothing there.’
‘Is there not?’ said Mackenzie, and pointed through the fog at the distant slopes. ‘See it? That’ll draw every British soldier on the Chersonese, aye, and every Russian too.’
Ryder followed his finger to the rounded hill of the Sandbag Battery and felt something move in his throat. Two little patches of colour flew above its crown, one as red as Mackenzie’s coatee, and both standing out like beacons against the greyness of the sky.
There was no ruddy end to them. Woodall could hear the Coldstream firing busily on their right flank, the Scots Fusiliers on their left, he knew there were wings of linesmen in support either side, but still the Russians kept coming, wave after wave, as if the Quarry Ravine was bottomless and they were boiling up from the centre of the earth.
They weren’t even Russians now, just moustached faces thrusting forward one after the other, open-mouthed and screaming. They were musket balls thudding into men’s bodies or spraying up earth from the ground, bayonets jabbing over the parapet, hands clutching at the sandbags, legs trying to climb over, flat-capped heads to be clubbed and bellies to be stabbed. Woodall’s feet were sliding in his boots, but he dug in his heels and fought forward, bashing and hacking and yelling with the best.