Soldiers in the Mist

by Garry Douglas Kilworth

  ‘Those trees,’ Crossman said.

  ‘Good, sergeant,’ said Ali. ‘We fight from there.’

  They reached the trees and hid themselves, waiting for the four Cossacks to emerge over the rise from the beach.

  Before they appeared, Crossman heard the sound of hoof-beats. As he had thought, more Cossacks were coming on horseback. Without waiting to be told, Ali covered the track down which the horsemen were coming. He sat there, behind a pine trunk, a pistol in each hand. A moment later however, the Turk whispered in excitement.

  ‘Only one, sergeant – leading four horses.’

  Crossman took his eyes from the beach and stared in the direction of the oncoming horses. Ali was right. One horseman, leading four mounts, no doubt those of the Cossacks chasing them along the strand.

  ‘Forget the boat, corporal,’ he said to Devlin, pointing. ‘We ride out of here instead. You take him. My shoulder’s too sore.’

  ‘I’m no sharpshooter, sergeant. I might miss.’

  Ali said, ‘I shoot him. Give me musket, Corporal Devlin.’

  Devlin passed the old musket over to the Turk, who wet the sights and took careful aim.

  ‘Get ready to take horses,’ Ali whispered. ‘Or they bolt into the hills.’

  He waited for the Cossack to get closer.

  The indigo rider looked for all the world as if he were out for a jaunt. He was casually trotting his mount, holding the reins of four others: two in each hand. He was a big man with a large crooked nose. The only small thing about him was his eyes, which glinted like gems in the daylight. They peered this way and that as he came on, though not with any urgency evident. It was as if he expected his brother Cossacks to come up from the beach laughing and joking, dragging either dead bodies, or herding prisoners before them.

  Ali shot him just above his big bent nose, between the jewel-like eyes. For an instant his expression was one of puzzlement. He swatted at the hole in his forehead, as if it were a bee sting. Then the big man’s muscles collapsed and he slid from the saddle, dead as driftwood.

  The shot had momentarily startled the horses, but had not alarmed them unduly. They were used to the sound of gunfire. Two of them shied and backed away from the three men who came running out of the copse. But when the other three horses merely stood, shuffling around the body of the Cossack, they stopped a little further up the trail.

  Crossman heaved himself up into the saddle of his chosen mount. Ali and Devlin were already on their horses. A shot whistled by from the beach. Excited men in blue were running towards them, firing carbines. Crossman knew there would be great emotion raging in the breasts of the Cossacks, not because the three infantry soldiers had killed their comrade, but because they were stealing their precious horses. A Cossack’s charger was more dear to him than his own son.

  Ali fired two shots in the direction of the running Cossacks and then rode forward, yelling at the two spare horses. He drove them into a panic and they bolted down the track, away from the men on the beach.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ cried Crossman. ‘Up into the hills.’

  The three men rode north, while the furious and frustrated Cossacks were reloading their carbines. Looking back, Crossman could see tears of helpless anger streaming down the face of one man. To have his mount stolen from under him was nothing less than a complete disaster, a terrible and shameful thing: it was no wonder he wept in misery and rage.

  He and his fellow Cossacks would take out their anger on the dead Cossack, kicking the body of the man who had lost their horses for them, before the ignominious walk back to their camp to face the wrath of their commander and the ridicule of their comrades. They must at that moment have considered themselves among the world’s unfortunates. They were probably praying to God to give them a second chance at the thieves.

  ‘We’d better put a good distance between us and those four back there,’ said Crossman, as they rode on. ‘If they catch us they’ll spit roast us slowly over a low fire.’

  ‘Did you see their faces?’ grinned Devlin. ‘I swear if looks could kill there’d be nothing left of us but skin and bones, sergeant.’

  Crossman did not answer his elated corporal. His shoulder felt as if it were on fire. It seemed as though the bleeding had stopped, but the wound was raw. Pain seared through him with every step the horse took. Ali saw his discomfort in his eyes and said, ‘We stop in a minute, sergeant. I make good the wound with some herbs.’

  Ali had done this sort of thing before, when the men had received wounds and injuries. The Turk had a wealth of natural medicines at his fingertips. It was the sort of knowledge a young man’s grandmother might have, back in Britain, but an art which was not passed on to the young men themselves, simply because they were not interested in learning it.

  The Bashi-Bazouk, however, had obviously listened to the older generation in his family, and he had inherited the techniques of poultices made from moss and the leaves or roots of wild plants.

  ‘Thank you, Ali,’ said Crossman. ‘You’re invaluable.’

  Those on board the Antigone had almost given up on those members of the Connaught Rangers who had gone on the expedition. The first officer scoured the coastline and the seas with his telescope, but could find no sign of the missing 88th. He reported to Captain Collidge late in the morning.

  The captain, hands behind his back, stared at a chart on the wall of his cabin.

  ‘What’s your impression, Mr Sanders?’ the captain asked the first officer. ‘Should we wait any longer?’

  ‘Sir, I have the feeling they’ve been caught. We believe their mission to be successful, because we heard the explosions, but that was in the early hours of the morning. If they escaped, they would be here by now.’

  ‘What if they’re hiding out in some cove, avoiding detection, and plan to continue once their pursuers are gone?’

  The first officer nodded. ‘That’s a possibility, sir.’

  ‘At the same time,’ the captain turned to face Lieutenant Sanders, ‘we could be needed elsewhere. We missed the 17th of October, lieutenant. I should hate to miss another such action.’

  Lieutenant Sanders replied, ‘Yet there was no real glory in that day, captain. Not for our side.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I should like to have been on board the Vengeance or the Sanspareil, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Or even the Agamemnon, but forgive me, captain, not the dear old Antigone.’

  Captain Collidge sighed. ‘I suppose you’re right.’

  The two naval officers were speaking of the cannonade of Sebastopol, when eleven British warships and fourteen French warships took up positions near the entrance to the harbour and bombarded the city. The British ships were all towed into battle by steamers lashed to the port side. Over a thousand guns boomed and bellowed at the Russian forts that day, but the end result was poor. Hardly any damage was inflicted on the Russian defences, while seven British warships were seriously damaged.

  ‘Go back to the bridge, Mr Sanders. Please send me one of those soldiers the sergeant left behind.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The lieutenant left the cabin.

  The captain sat in his chair and tapped on the desk top with a pen. He was troubled. That sergeant had made a favourable impression on him. Dependable. Reliable. Good head on his shoulders. Harrow too. It would be a shame to leave him to the enemy. The captain’s orders had been to wait until midday. It was already two hours past noon. When he spoke to the admiral he could blame his tardiness on the previous day’s battle with the Russian warship. There had been some repairs to carry out, to make the ship totally seaworthy, but it would not do to wait very much longer. The admiral was not a patient man.

  There was a tap on the cabin door.

  ‘Come!’ the captain ordered.

  A slim, wiry soldier stood before him. The soldier was ashen-faced and looked very ill. Of course, the sergeant had left him behind because of seasickness.

  ‘Ah, yes, who is it?�
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  ‘Lance-Corporal Peterson, sir, of the 88th Foot.’

  ‘Yes, of course, lance-corporal. I take it being a foot soldier, you don’t carry a lance.’ Peterson stared at him blankly, and he saw that his joke had gone well wide of the mark. He got down to the unpleasant business in hand. ‘Well, I’m sorry to have to say we can’t wait for your comrades any longer. I’ve stretched my time to the limit. What’s your best guess as to their whereabouts? You know the sergeant quite well, I take it? Do you think he’s in the hands of the enemy?’

  ‘Not Sergeant Crossman. Nor the others either. They’d die before that. The Russians would hang them anyway. We’ve killed a lot of Cossacks, you see, sir. They’ve been after us for a long time.’

  ‘So, you think they’ve either been shot or blown to pieces by their own handiwork?’

  ‘Or maybe drowned away in the sea. We’re not good sailors, sir. It’s not in our work. There was that storm in the morning.’

  ‘The squall, yes.’

  The captain acknowledged this with a curt nod of his head.

  He said to the soldier, ‘So, you think they’re not coming back?’

  ‘I would hate to think it, sir, but I suppose I have to say no.’

  ‘I’m afraid I do too. All right, thank you, lance-corporal. Go back on deck. Fresh air is the best cure for what you’ve got. Stay away from the smells of the galley.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Lance-Corporal Peterson left the cabin.

  The captain stood up and put on his hat. It was a dreadful shame, he thought, to leave such men behind. But one had to assume they were dead. The wind was rising again too. It could be felt in the motion of the ship. It was best to sail now. Even if Crossman and his men were still out on the waves, those waves would soon be too high to conquer in a little canoe.

  The captain made his way towards the bridge.

  Lieutenant Sanders was still searching the horizon with his brass telescope.

  ‘Make ready to sail, Mr Sanders.’

  The lieutenant snapped the telescope shut.

  ‘Yes, sir. Now, sir?’

  ‘Now, Mr Sanders.’

  Peterson had gone back to where Wynter lay on some ropes on the deck. Wynter observed the preparations for the ship’s departure.

  ‘What’s goin’ on?’ he asked Peterson.

  ‘We’re leaving. There’s no point in staying any longer. You know that. They’re all dead. I can feel it, here.’

  Peterson tapped her stomach.

  ‘Oh, what?’ cried Wynter. ‘Can’t we wait for a bit more? If we go back without the sergeant, we’ll be sent up to the trenches straight away. Bloody chapped skin and sleepin’ in water-filled holes. Your skin rots from your bones in the stinkin’ trenches. You can smell the gangrene on the wounded enough to make you sick. Last week the surgeons made me fill a sack full of arms and legs and bury it. And I’m fed up with ducking “Whistling Dicks” and bloody Russian shells. Can’t you tell the captain we need to stay a bit longer?’

  ‘You selfish sod, Wynter. Is that all you can think about? What’s going to happen to you?’

  ‘I got to look after meself. Nobody else will, will they, eh? You know we got it good at the house. Keeps us away from the others. Almost everybody who came out with us from England on the boat is dead of disease. That, or they’ve had their bloody heads took off at the neck by some round shot. They’re buryin’ them by the cartload. Look at old Davidson. No bloody legs now. How’s he going to walk to work when he gets home? And Childers. One arm and no eyes! Where’s the future? We got it good at the house an’ I want to stay there. Maybe they’ll give us another sergeant, someone a bit softer than . . .’

  Peterson shook her head and stared out over the sea, in the direction Crossman and the men had taken. If the sergeant and the others were still alive, they were on land somewhere. If not, they had been shot, or the sea had taken them. They would never allow themselves to end up in the hands of the enemy. God help them if that were ever to happen. There were Cossacks out there who would have sold their grandmothers to get hold of the sergeant spy and his nest of saboteurs.

  14

  After Ali had put a poultice on Crossman’s wound, the three soldiers were able to make better progress. They knew they had to cover some fifty-odd miles to reach Balaclava, through rough country. One of the least worrying of their problems was feeding themselves, something they were used to doing.

  Ali shot two game birds on the first evening. These were roasted over a low fire deep in a cave. It was essential that the flames were not visible from the outside. Smoke could not be seen during the hours of darkness and scents were lost on the ground when cold, heavier air came down. They spent a comfortable night in the cave, knowing that any pursuers would be camped down too. Crossman recovered some of his strength with the hot food and a good few hours’ rest.

  In cases where a manhunt is over rough country, and in the face of ensuing winter, it is always better to be the hunted than the hunters, though this may seem a contradiction.

  The hunters always want to be somewhere else, somewhere they are not. They want to be where the quarry lies and they want to be there now. There is a certain frenetic impatience which pervades in the hunters’ camp. Night hours are spent in sleepless tossing and turning, wondering whether the prey is still on the move, or stopped somewhere, or even just a few yards away, hidden in some small hard-to-find hole.

  The hunters need, by nature of their task, to be on the move the whole time, fording rivers, climbing hills, crossing wastelands. They go up high every so often to look out helplessly and hopelessly, over the vast wilderness and think, ‘They could be anywhere. They could be near or far. They could be back on the trail, or forward on the trail, or have even left it altogether.’

  The depressed hunter usually resigns himself to fate, thinking that if he comes across the victim it will be serendipity.

  The hunted, on the other hand, merely have to stay lost. There is a certain amount of anxiety in their step, a concern in their breast, but it is not the sickness of not knowing which way to turn. So long as their hide-out is a good one, they can rest the night in comfort, perhaps even stay there the whole of the next day, and they need only move when they feel the need. If the country is broad and deep enough, they have everything in their favour.

  So, it was with good heart that the three riders set out the next day, locked in the iron fastnesses of the Crimean hills. Tight shoulders of rock protected their progress through valleys from the sight of others. Even on the open stretches of the landscape there were dark clumps of pines, through which they could weave their journey. In the more rocky areas, tall stone columns, weathered to the leanness of church spires, cast their camouflaging shadows over the bare ground.

  The three men had risen early and were heading west before the sun was up. They avoided using the roads and tracks, but followed their direction, using them as navigational aids. Ali led the way, his sharp ears listening for the enemy; his keen nose ready to detect foreign scents. They saw one or two eagles above them, circling and swooping. Ali was Crossman’s eagle on the ground. Without such a man – his guide and watch-person – Crossman would have been lost.

  Ali was a man of the earth, close to the natural world. It was not unusual for a wild animal like a fox to drift past the Bashi-Bazouk, without appearing to recognise him as a human being, and therefore dangerous. Wynter often complained that Ali smelt ‘ripe’, but the Turk’s odours were not just due to uncleanliness. Wynter himself only washed when he was ordered to. No, it was simply due to the fact that he took on the scents of the ground, the trees, the grasses, the skins of animals. He smelt of tree bark, hides, moss, clay and mountain herbs. If there ever was such a thing as a Green Man, then Ali was he.

  Twice he signalled silently that they should stop and rest the horses. On both occasions Crossman later heard the sound of bridle bits and stirrups clinking in the distance and knew that Ali had already detected the presen
ce of the enemy.

  On one rest stop, Ali mentioned to Crossman that there was an unusually high amount of troop movement along the roads.

  ‘I’ve been thinking that myself,’ said Crossman. ‘What’s your opinion of the situation?’

  ‘I think there is big build-up of forces. You remember the 4th Corp go to Sebastopol? We see this. I think these others go there too. I have heard guns and limbers. Many horses. Cavalry escorting infantry. This is not just normal traffic on the road. This is something much more big, sergeant.’

  ‘What’s he saying?’ asked Devlin. ‘Does he think there’s going to be an assault?’

  ‘That’s what I say,’ replied the Turk, who did not like to be talked about in the third person while he was actually present. ‘An attack is coming.’

  ‘We should warn the army, then,’ cried the Irish corporal. ‘We should tell them the Russians are coming.’

  Crossman sighed. ‘We already have. No one seems to be taking it very seriously. Especially not the general staff. The only field officer to take any notice of us has been Major Lovelace.’

  ‘What about General Buller?’

  ‘General Buller is concerned, but he has little influence over Lord Raglan and the general staff. They think he’s a pessimist. Buller can’t say his spies have brought back the information, because Lord Raglan would blow his top. All General Buller can do is put his own people on the alert, especially since we don’t know from which direction the assault will come.’

  ‘So we’re doing our job for nothing?’ grumbled Devlin. ‘We risk our lives to get this information which nobody takes any notice of, nobody wants to know.’

  ‘For the moment perhaps, but it won’t always be like this. Lovelace thinks that one day intelligence of this sort will be considered the most valuable weapon an army can possess.’

  They spent one more night hidden away from tracks and roads, and set out again on yet another misty morning. By midday they were approaching their own lines. Crossman, though a little woozy-headed, recalled that there was a password, or rather an historical passname, for the day. Devlin however, already had that matter in hand, as they stumbled on the forward position of two picquets of the 93rd, and were challenged.