Into the Valley of Death

by A L Berridge

  ‘You’re right, Poll. He’s a prisoner, we’ll tie him up and take him to Raglan.’

  The Russian’s eyes burned in the wreck of his face. He lifted his head in a grotesque parody of dignity, and said, ‘Better to finish it now, damn you. The game is over, and I dislike post-mortems.’

  It had never been a game. ‘No post-mortem. Just a good, honest British trial.’

  Angelo’s jaw was broken, but still the lips smiled. ‘Do you really think Lord Raglan will allow the world to know what fools the British have been? There will be no trial, only a quiet exchange as is usual between gentlemen.’

  ‘Not for spies,’ said Ryder. ‘We hang those.’ He turned to Oliver and said, ‘Help me with him, Polly, we’ve got to get him –’

  Oliver’s mouth was opening, eyes wide in panic, and Ryder swung back round. Angelo had flung sideways and in his hand was the revolver retrieved from the grass. Ryder leaped forward, but the barrel was already flashing orange and the bang came with Oliver’s cry. Oliver, standing shocked and white, hands pressed above his belly and thick red blood oozing out between his fingers. Ryder whirled round at the Russian, hacking down at the hand, the arm, then slicing across the exposed throat. Dead, but he slashed back again just to be sure, and only then did he see the little smile of victory on the Russian’s face. The bastard had played for this and won.

  He flung away the sword and turned back to Oliver, but the boy was on his knees, hugging his body as if trying to hold it together. Ryder seized the dead Russian, rolled him over and ripped off the clean back of his shirt. Fine, white linen, unsullied by Angelo’s blood, he wrapped it round Oliver’s torn side and took the Russian’s cloak to tie the dressing in place. His fault, his fault, Angelo hadn’t given a damn about Polly, he’d only shot him to make Ryder give him a clean death.

  ‘We did it though, didn’t we?’ murmured Oliver. ‘We got him. He won’t be betraying anyone else.’

  It didn’t seem much of a victory, not now. He was becoming aware again of the world outside their own little pocket in the fog, the rumble of artillery and rattle of musketry, the business of war that the death of a single spy couldn’t stop. But there were nearer, sharper sounds in among them, shouting and the pounding of feet running this way. He looked across at the Quarry Ravine and glimpsed white cross-belts in the fog, more Russians pouring out to assail the Barrier and the British Heights behind.

  ‘Time to go, Poll,’ he said casually. He slung Oliver’s arm round his shoulder, gripped tightly round the waist and hauled him carefully to his feet. ‘All right?’

  Oliver looked at him dazedly. ‘You can’t, you’ve got to leave me. That’s the rules.’

  Ryder thought of those wounded men being scraped off Russian bayonets. ‘Not me, I want one of those medals you were talking about.’

  Oliver looked steadily at him. ‘You said they were only for officers.’

  ‘Maybe they’ll make an exception. Now get moving, or there’ll be nothing left to pin the medals on.’ He took the weight and eased him gently forward, manoeuvring them step by step back from the Quarry Ravine. It would be safest to head for the Barrier, but the Russians were going there, they’d have to slide round them and look for British help near Fore Ridge.

  ‘Mackenzie,’ muttered Oliver, as Ryder paused to lift him bodily over a rocky outcrop. ‘We must go back for Mackenzie.’

  ‘He’ll be all right,’ said Ryder, praying desperately it was true. ‘There were all those French there, they’ll look after him. It’s probably only a scalp wound.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Oliver. ‘Yes.’ His eyes were wide and dark, and a tiny line of pink saliva was dribbling down his chin.

  Ryder cursed under his breath and hurried them on. The Russians weren’t close enough to be worrying, they were too intent on the fierce fighting round the Barrier, but Oliver was going to die if he didn’t get a surgeon fast. It shouldn’t matter, he’d be just another dead soldier like Woodall, like Jarvis, like Bolton, Fisk, Marsh and Hoare, like Ginger long ago, but still he pushed himself harder across the bumpy ground, lifting Oliver, half-carrying him, all but dragging him over the scree, anything to save this stupid, ignorant boy who’d been fool enough to believe Harry Ryder could be a hero.

  They were back at the slopes leading to the Sandbag Battery, but there were no lines of defence here, no doctors or reserves, no British soldiers to protect the British Heights. Even the French had disappeared, and when he looked up he saw glimmers of turquoise round the Battery and more stringing out along Inkerman Tusk. A few British troops were wandering in the fog, but they were refugees like themselves, turning in hope to the sound of footsteps then seeing only wounded cavalry and looking away. Ryder laid Oliver down on the soft grass and looked about him in despair.

  ‘Isn’t there anyone on Fore Ridge?’ said Oliver, craning to see. ‘Surely there’s …’

  There were Russians on Fore Ridge, still massed round Mount Head, and now Ryder knew how they’d got there. The ground was empty of British forces from the Barrier to the Sandbag Battery, a gap in their defences a quarter-mile wide.

  He said, ‘It’s no good, I’ll have to get you to the Barrier. The Russians will be pouring through here any minute.’

  Oliver’s hands were moving restlessly over the grass. ‘They’ll get to Fore Ridge. Behind it. Our guns, the camps. Balaklava.’

  There was no point pretending. ‘Yes. Come on, I’ll carry you.’

  Sweat was breaking out on Oliver’s forehead and he screwed his eyes shut. ‘We’ve got to stop them. If this is the gap, we’ve got to hold it.’

  If it hadn’t been Polly he’d have laughed. ‘What – you and me?’

  Oliver retched, a racking, bubbling sound that brought Ryder’s head up fast. ‘You can. At least a bit of it. You always said …’

  Ryder crouched in front of him and seized the flailing hands. ‘Don’t you bloody die on me, Polly, I won’t have it. Where’s my medal then?’

  Oliver’s mouth stretched in a little smile, then drooped and relaxed while his eyes closed in a parody of sleep. His breathing was very faint.

  Ryder clutched the limp fingers, then gently let them drop. Unconsciousness took the boy out of pain, but he’d die without help, and Ryder couldn’t reach it. It wasn’t going to come to them either, not while that gap remained, inviting the Russians to pour in and take it, win the battle and the war, drive the British and their incompetent commanders all the way back into the sea.

  Hold it, said that voice in his head. Hold it. You can.

  Trust Oliver to believe in him only when he was talking utter rot. Yes, one man could make a difference, but it would take a regiment of them to hold this gap. A regiment …

  He looked again into the swirling fog. Footsteps, movement, occasional voices, groups of one or two, maybe three, but if he added them all together? But that was stupid too, he couldn’t make them, he was no one, just a …

  He glanced down at the bright yellow chevrons on his own dark sleeve. They were meaningless bits of cloth given to him for nothing more heroic than being flogged, but to people like Oliver they meant something, and to men like Mackenzie too. Jarvis had used them to make things happen at the harbour.

  He turned into the fog, saw shadowy red figures in front of him and shouted, ‘You men! Here to me, at the double!’

  They came. Four linesmen, running with eagerness, glad of the presence of authority. ‘Yes, Sergeant?’

  Fourth Division, the 68th. ‘Are there any more of you?’

  They could only shrug and look vaguely about them. A lance-corporal said, ‘Our officers were killed, up by St Clement’s Ravine. The general’s dead, Cathcart’s gone. We’ll be rallying somewhere, but I don’t …’

  ‘We’ll rally here,’ said Ryder, gesturing an arc to spread round the slope. ‘Spread out, find yourselves cover, and hold back anything breaking through to Fore Ridge, got it?’

  He didn’t wait to see if they had, there was more movement ahead of him, a
wounded man being supported by two companions, three more bodies to fill his gap. He leaped after them, calling, ‘You, back here! I need you in this line.’

  There was no line, he was making it as he went along, but it helped them believe in it as a proper plan. The next group came unasked, a bunch of Connaught Rangers drawn to the sound of activity, then some Coldstream Guards who burst enthusiastically from cover at the sight of organization. In two minutes he had a score of them, then two dozen, throwing out the line to cover more and more ground. It was still pitiful, more of an outpost than a line, but it would block a whole column trying to break through, and could harry the flanks of anything smaller slipping by.

  It might even do more, and as he brought in a trio from the 49th he realized how little their weakness showed. The fog curled thickly about the base of the slope, showing only the shapes of men moving among the rocks and the occasional glint of a bayonet. The Fourth Division were most visible of all, and as he watched his new recruits take their places he realized suddenly the value of what they had.

  ‘Coats off!’ he yelled down the line. ‘Never mind the cold, get your coats off and show Ivan who he’s bloody fighting.’

  A heavily bearded private of the 20th looked at him squint-eyed. ‘But they’ll see us, Sergeant, we’ll stand out like blazes in red.’

  ‘Of course!’ he said, and laughed at the simplicity of it. ‘We can’t beat them, so we’re going to bloody scare them. Come on, spread out, make them think we’re twice as many, they’ll run all the way back to Odessa!’

  The difference was magical, a thin red line appearing out of the mist. Nothing as a fighting force, but it needn’t be if it only stopped the Russians realizing how weak they were. The idea was catching now, and men began to improvise their own improvements, heaving rocks into the line, wedging discarded muskets into forks of trees, sticking shakos on the top of boulders, making a ghost army that would be all the oncoming Russians needed to see.

  ‘They can still come round us,’ said the corporal of the 68th, as he scavenged for cartridges in the pouches of the dead. ‘We haven’t the firepower to stop them.’

  Ryder began to load his revolver. ‘It won’t be for long. Lord Raglan must know about this, he’s bound to send reinforcements.’

  ‘Already did,’ said the corporal. ‘He sent us, didn’t he, only then he changed his mind. We had a staff officer come after us, I saw him talking with old Cathcart.’

  Ryder’s fingers froze on the ball, and the memory of that last smile on Angelo’s face filled him with icy understanding. The bastard thought he’d defeated them even in death. Well, not yet. Thanks to Oliver there’d be one last round, the very last, and this time Ryder was going to win.

  He rammed the ball cleanly into its chamber and gave the corporal a confident grin. ‘Doesn’t matter. We’ll just hold here till he sends someone else.’

  The corporal seemed content as he took his hoard of cartridges back to the line, but Ryder walked back to where Oliver lay on the grass. The boy was still alive and his eyes were open, but his face was grey as the Russian coats and the end couldn’t be long.

  ‘Listen, Polly,’ said Ryder, and saw the blue eyes fix on him as if he mattered. ‘I’ll hold here if you hold on. Is that fair?’

  Oliver was actually trying to answer. He kept his eyes on Ryder’s and whispered ‘Is that a challenge?’

  Poor kid. The poor, dying boy who still believed in rules. He touched his fingers to the cold face and said, ‘Put in a word for us, will you, while you’re just lying there? We never needed it more than now.’

  Now. Someone yelled, and here came the Russians already, hundreds of them pouring up the side of the Quarry Ravine. He was still loading frantically as he ducked back to the shelter of a twisted oak, caps on, and no time for grease. Men were waiting on him, he called ‘By sections from the left, fire in turn!’ then pointed the revolver and yelled ‘Fire!’

  Bloomer crammed his shako lower on his head, and cautiously raised his eyes above the brushwood. They were still in the middle of a battle, he could hear it from all sides, but at least the ground in front seemed clear. It had been Russian till they’d hooked them out of it with Captain Bellairs’s lot, then the Russkies again, swooping round from behind the Barrier to drive them back, then the Frogs came charging in, then the Russians again, and Gawd knew who had it now. What he needed was a bit of land that did what it ought and stood still.

  He stooped to help Peachy out of the brush. The kid had a nasty pale look to him and the bandage over his eye was slipping, but he still seemed game for whatever scrap was going. Morry looked the same as he always did, solemn as a rabbi, adjusting the bloodied rag round his neck and saying, ‘Back to the Barrier, my friend? That at least will not move.’

  ‘Sez you,’ said Bloomer. ‘Where is it, then?’ Everything looked the same in this fog, grass and rock and dead men.

  Morry hesitated. ‘My nose says west, my ears say east. There is firing that way too.’

  Bloomer regarded him without favour. ‘Well, my head says we go for the nearer. East it is.’ He pulled Peachy’s arm over his shoulder and set off with determination to find the source of the firing. Someone was making a stand somewhere, and given the pair of crocks he was stranded with, that was worth twenty of the dashing-about game.

  The gunfire grew louder as they made towards it, and there was a sight of yelling too. It was coming from the base of the rise to the Sandbag Battery, but Bloomer could have sworn there’d been no one there an hour ago. There was now though, a great curved line of men taking shape in the mist, a whole outpost of them, and most in the proper red of the Line.

  He nipped higher up the slope to see what they were firing at, and creased his brow at the mass of Russians advancing from the Quarry Ravine. Hundreds of them, easy, but when he looked down to the rear of the British line he felt his own jaw drop. From above and behind there was no hiding its weakness, and he saw now it was only the patches of red that were men, no more than fifty the lot. The rest were rocks and bundled top-togs, and some just piles of stones, a galloping piece of fakery to humbug the Russians to their front.

  He let out a sigh of pure enjoyment. ‘This is the place for us, boys. They’re not going anywhere, not a bunch of lunatics like that.’

  Morry looked more doubtful. ‘They can’t hold long, my friend. The Russians will see their firepower is too small for so big a line.’

  ‘So we’ll boost it, won’t we, you cake,’ said Bloomer without heat. ‘Two more guns we’re bringing them, and even Peachy will be another lobster coat.’

  ‘I can shoot,’ said the lad, sliding his arm from Bloomer’s shoulder. ‘The left eye’s all right, you can’t keep me out of a scrap like this.’

  Bloomer eyed him with pride. ‘All right then, tiger-cub, let’s get stuck in.’ He bustled forward to the next knoll, then paused for a closer squint. He saw bearskins among the line, a couple of coves in the green of the Rifles, and standing at their left flank a dark blue figure he recognized, but shouting in a voice he did not. ‘Hold them, boys,’ he was calling. ‘That’s it, you’ve scared them, watch the bastards run!’

  Ryder. Harry Ryder, but not as Bloomer had ever seen him. There was nothing relaxed about him, none of the usual ‘be damned to you’ cockiness, he was running from man to man in the line, cheering them on and crying ‘Shout! Shout, you beggars, let them bloody hear you!’ He’d a barking-iron with him and was pausing to fire from every gap between his soldiers, spreading the fire to make a whole line of shots that came from just one man.

  ‘Dear oh dear,’ he said admiringly. ‘Mark that, will you, Peachy, that’s no way to die old in your cot.’

  But it was working. The Russkies weren’t up to it, not they, they were on lower ground and in fog, they were seeing a row of bangs and flashes, a line of shapes and red coats with men moving fast behind it, they were hearing enough shouting for a regiment. They dithered, dallied in confusion, then began to back away.

&
nbsp; ‘That’s the game,’ he said, unslinging his rifle. ‘Come on, let’s puzzle them some more.’

  If four dozen men could pass as a regiment then three flashes of fire from the hillside could look like reinforcements. He flipped the sights to a careless three hundred yards, pointed the barrel at the oncoming Russians, and fired. So did Morry. So did Peachy. Bloomer started reloading, but there were only backs to peg away at now, the Russians were out of it and off.

  They’d be back, they always were, but there’d be three men of the Royal Fusiliers in the line to meet them. As they set off down the slope Bloomer was filled with a comforting sense of coming home.

  Ryder fought on. His pistol was empty and no more balls for it, but it was iron in his fist and he’d a sword in the other, he could punch and slash all he needed till there was time to pick up a rifle.

  He never doubted there would be. He’d lost count of how long it had been, how often the Russians had charged, but always they held them back and the line had never broken. The sky was lightening overhead, the sun nearly at its height, but still they were fighting and he knew in his heart they were going to win. The fog was clearing, their weakness laid bare to the enemy, but there were more of them than there had been, linesmen, Guards, Riflemen, even stray French infantry, men swelling their ranks from all over, and every one determined to die before they broke.

  This was what Oliver had wanted, and Ryder put the thought of it into the next blow of his sword. Polly was part of this too, so was Woodall, so was Mackenzie and even Sally, all the little band of them who’d seen what Angelo was and made it their mission to stand up and fight him. Well, they were doing it now, and as he smashed his pistol into another man’s face it was Angelo he was seeing, Angelo he was killing, die, you bastard, die.

  But they were backing off instead, veering round their flank to easier pickings on the British Heights beyond. He’d known he couldn’t hold the whole gap, hundreds got past every time, but still the frustration made him curse aloud.