The Valley of Death

by Garry Douglas Kilworth

  Young infantrymen, dark-skinned from a life under a harsh sun out in the open, stared dropped-mouthed at everything going on around them. These boys had been recruited from farms and outlying districts of the Turkish Empire, as well as from Istanbul shops. They were as much awed by the hard-drinking Zouaves, the belly dancer and the gambling, as any farm boy back in England would have been by some famous London brothel. This was sophisticated life for them. They would remember it for their grandchildren, up in the hills of nowhere.

  Crossman found his men, clustered around a carpet seller who was trying to get Devlin to part with his money.

  ‘Go on Devlin,’ Wynter was urging. ‘Knock him down lower. Show him how an Irish can haggle.’

  ‘You cuta-my-troat,’ said the carpet seller. ‘You starva-my-chillen. I give you good price. I lose money for you, because I like you, Englishman.’

  ‘Irish, damn you. I’m Irish,’ said Devlin, ‘and I’ll give you a shillin’ and not a penny more.’

  The carpet seller, who looked as if he had just come out of some backyard desert, shook his head sadly. He rolled up his wares and tied them with a filthy piece of cord. Then he humped it on to his right shoulder.

  He started to walk away, then turned at the last minute.

  ‘Two-shillin’ – here, you take. Two-shillin’. I must eat tonight.’

  Devlin, now feeling ashamed of himself for having led the carpet seller on, flipped a coin his way.

  ‘Here, I don’t want your damn carpet – there’s a shiny silver thrupence for you, to buy some grog.’

  The carpet seller looked at the coin in the dust at his feet and curled his lip. Then he marched on, carrying his tube of heavy carpets as if they were feathers. Crossman shook his head at Devlin.

  Devlin said, ‘Sergeant? Well, I gave him the coin.’

  ‘He has his pride too, Devlin. Never mind, pick up the money and let’s go. I want you all back at the house, before Wynter and I leave on a fox hunt. If I don’t find something for you to do, Lieutenant Parker will be down and have you working with the sappers and pioneers, digging trenches.’

  The Rangers exchanged glances.

  ‘What’s this?’ said Wynter, obviously not sure whether to be pleased or annoyed. ‘Just you an’ me, Sergeant?’

  ‘Yes, Lance Corporal Wynter, just you and me. Now let’s get moving.’

  The others trailed after Crossman, who set a quick pace back to the hovel.

  ‘So what’s all this, Sergeant? Just you an’ me? Don’t knows as I like that,’ Wynter whined as they followed him inside.

  ‘Don’t knows as you’ve got much choice,’ Crossman said, copying Wynter’s accent and tone. ‘You’ll do as you’re told, or go back to the regiment. You and I, Wynter, will be going into Sebastopol. We’re to become prisoners of the Czar. Once we are incarcerated, we shall rouse the other prisoners to revolt and, if need be, die in the ensuing riot. Any questions?’

  Wynter made a face. ‘You asked for me, din’t you!’

  ‘Yes I did. You’re the only ex-convict amongst the group. You’ll be there to teach me how to act like a criminal.’

  ‘Me, a blagger?’ cried Wynter in a hurt tone.

  ‘You know damn well you were. I need your expertise, blagger. We have to get arrested first, then survive amongst the convicts. You’ll know how to do both.’

  ‘Oh, I will, will I? And what happens when they find out we’re Englishmen? They’ll shoot us.’

  ‘Only you,’ murmured Crossman, silkily. He was enjoying himself enormously at Wynter’s expense. ‘You see, I speak German and French, so I’ll pretend to be one or the other. You, I’m afraid, will be shot dead once they discover who and what you are, and there will be nothing we can do about it.’

  ‘And won’t we be sad?’ said Peterson, cheerily. ‘We’ll all hang our heads in sorrow.’

  ‘Eh?’ cried Wynter, looking at the ring of smiling faces around him. ‘Eh? Oh yes, don’t worry about poor old Wynter, he’ll just be shot. That’s rich, that is. That’s all the thanks you get in this man’s army. You’re ready to lay down your life for your country and they just laugh at you.’

  And they did, quite heartily, much to Wynter’s further consternation.

  7

  At the last moment Crossman had decided to take Ali with him. It seemed sensible, since the Turk could converse in one or two of the local languages. In any case once Ali had found out about the fox hunt he was hard to reject, insisting that Crossman take him too. The three men were unarmed, since as prisoners they might be searched at any time. Crossman had decided it was better they went without weapons.

  They were dressed as seamen, with rough, bleached clothes and cotton caps. On their feet they wore canvas sandals made from sailcloth. If they were questioned they were to say they were Icelanders whose Norwegian ship had set sail without warning, due to fears of an immediate allied attack, leaving several men on shore. Lieutenant Dalton-James had chosen Iceland as their country of origin because it was less than likely that there would be other Icelanders around to challenge the lie.

  ‘I don’t speak any of the lingo,’ Wynter had muttered while they were being briefed. ‘How am I s’posed to seem real? They’ll take me off somewhere an’ shoot me soon as look at me, sir.’

  ‘Just babble,’ an irritated Dalton-James had suggested. ‘Who’s going to know what you’re saying?’ The lieutenant did not like having his schemes questioned. ‘Leave it to the sergeant to tell your interrogators in broken English how you came to be there.’

  Once they were ready a map of the city was produced – perhaps the same one the young surgeon had requested his mother buy at Wylds of London? – and under candlelight the three men attempted to memorize and absorb the layout of the place. They had been into Sebastopol before, to rescue some 93rd soldiers who had been captured and incarcerated there. However, they wanted to familiarize themselves with every corner. Major Lovelace also briefed them on what he knew of the city, its weak points and its strong areas, naming major buildings and the purposes for which they were currently being used. By the time they set out, Crossman thought himself as well briefed as he could be in the circumstances, but he knew success relied on a huge element of luck.

  The three men reached the Woronzoff Road and began walking towards Sebastopol. It was the middle of the night and they encountered no other persons on the road. There were small encampments some way off it, but whether they were Russians or the allied armies, Crossman did not know.

  Opposite the village of Chorgun they crossed low ground to the banks of the River Chernaya, and followed the river’s narrow gleaming path towards Sebastopol where this waterway flowed out into the harbour.

  As they were scrambling along, Ali said suddenly, ‘The man who bring the Cossacks – I kill him yesterday.’

  ‘You found him? I’m amazed. You’re sure it was the right man?’

  ‘A Greek. Yes, he do it for money. I cut his throat while he sleep. He feel nothing.’

  ‘What man?’ asked Wynter. ‘What’s all this?’

  Crossman explained. ‘You remember the death squad? They didn’t find me by accident and I doubt a Cossack would know me if he saw me. There are plenty of tall, dark, handsome sergeants in the Connaught Rangers . . .’

  Wynter snorted.

  ‘. . . and someone had to lead the bloody Cossacks to me and point out my whereabouts. Ali has found that man and despatched him.’

  Wynter said, ‘Ali would kill Greeks just for fun.’

  That aspect did worry Crossman. The age-old antipathy, nursed since the times of the Battle of Marathon, Thermopylae and Alexander the Great, was in the blood of almost every Turk and Greek. They killed each other on the flimsiest of excuses.

  ‘You sure it was the right man, Ali?’ asked Crossman. ‘You’re certain?’

  ‘I watch him, I follow him, he go to more Cossacks in the night. I only kill him when I see him take more money. I kill two Cossacks also.’

  Crossma
n was relieved. ‘You caught them all together and killed all three?’

  ‘Four Cossacks. Two get away.’

  ‘That’s all I need to know, Ali. I’m sorry I doubted your integrity. Wynter, you heard what he said.’

  ‘I’m impressed,’ sniffed the lance corporal.

  They reached the outskirts of Sebastopol without encountering any problems. Ali led them through some dark ruins until they were inside the city. It was remarkably easy, but then it was a well-known fact that Sebastopol was not sealed, from either side. Both armies were stretched. Prince Menshikoff hoped to alter this balance with an attack from the interior, but when that would happen was anyone’s guess.

  They found the doorway of a large house and slept in the portico. It was cold but their sheepskins kept the worst of the night airs from making them too uncomfortable. Crossman could not help but think of the men on the other side of the city walls, trying to sleep in trenches half-filled with water, clad only in the threadbare uniforms they had been wearing when they left England over a year ago. He felt he was lucky, despite the nature of his task.

  In the morning the three men were woken by the house owner, who demanded to know what they were doing on his property. They left without answering, throwing sulky glances over their shoulders in the manner of gypsies who believed that all property-owning was a plot to keep them from living the life they were destined to follow.

  They stalked through the town. As soon as it was light, gangs of workers appeared. Within a short time there was massive, feverish activity everywhere: digging gun emplacements; dragging large guns up from ships in the docks; carrying fascines and gabions to bolster the perimeter defences; building new walls and pulling down old ones. It seemed that the citizens of Sebastopol were determined to keep the enemy out of their city at all costs. They had, after all, been repelling invaders since the days when ancient Panticapaeum landowners on what was then the Cimmerian Bosporus fought off Scythian raiders with the help of their serfs and landworkers.

  ‘Let’s casually survey the town first,’ said Crossman. ‘We need to gather as much information as possible, before submitting ourselves.’

  Wynter said, ‘How about some food? I’ve eaten what I brought in me pockets.’

  ‘Why, Wynter, we’re expecting you to steal some for all of us. Give it one or two hours more, though. You might not be as good at blagging as you think you are.’

  They continued to reconnoitre the town, keeping out of the way of officers who looked as if they might ask them why they were not on some work party or other. Their prior-learned knowledge of the streets and roads allowed them to keep to alleys where they were unlikely to meet Russian soldiery.

  Ali pointed out the prisoners, being brought up from the jail under guard. They looked a weak, half-starved set of creatures. Crossman had little hopes of finding any captured British soldiers here. Most of them had been taken along with Menshikoff’s army, into the interior.

  Crossman discovered, as no doubt Major Lovelace had found out on his clandestine visits, that the strongest points among the outer defences of Sebastopol were the Malakov and the Redan, both of which would have to be taken before the town would fall. They wandered over the Mamelon and the Karalbelnaya suburbs, including the magnificently engineered dockyards, which it was the intention of the allied armies to demolish in order to remove any threat from a future Russian navy in the Black Sea, the door of which led to the Mediterranean.

  At around ten o’clock, Wynter went on a thieving exercise, leaving Crossman and Ali tucked amongst some large mooring buoys, which were stacked on the dockside. Since the harbour was now blocked with scuttled ships, there was little activity around the wharfs. Wynter came back with bread and meat.

  ‘Well done, Wynter,’ said Crossman. ‘But what about the wine?’

  Wynter’s sly face broke into a grin and with a flourish he produced a bottle from inside his coat.

  ‘I knew you’d say that,’ he exclaimed triumphantly, ‘so I made sure I got some.’

  Sergeant Crossman nodded and inspected the bottle.

  ‘But, Wynter,’ he said, in a tone of disappointment. ‘This is a Chardonnay. One needs a nice full Claret to wash down such fulsome meat. Either go out and steal a bottle of red, or change the meat for green fish, if you please.’

  ‘You know what you can do, Sergeant.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I do,’ Crossman said. ‘Eat and drink, or go without.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  The Bashi-Bazouk said nothing, well used to this kind of banter between British soldiers, and finding it neither amusing nor boring. It was simply conversation to keep up the spirits, and he let it go over his head.

  When they had finished their meal they went to where they knew the prisoners were working, on the outskirts of the city. Huge blocks of stone were being cannibalized from both ruined and complete buildings, to make walls around the perimeter. Trenches were being dug. Stanchions were being driven into the ground to form the backbones for fences. Bags of sand and mortar, rocks and debris were piled high to form barricades from behind which the citizens could fight.

  While the Turk distracted the guard, the two British soldiers slipped in amongst the convicts and began labouring with them. One or two of the men and women looked askance at Crossman and Wynter, but then shrugged and carried on working. Crossman had decided it was best to keep Ali on the outside, with the two of them inside, in case something went wrong.

  They worked for the whole day, under a benign sun, carrying rocks and stones, buckets of earth, and other materials, building a dyke around the city. It was backbreaking work, punctuated from time to time with alarmingly close shots from the picquets on the other side.

  ‘I’m not so sure I wouldn’t rather be in the trenches with the 88th right at this minute, Sergeant.’ complained Wynter. ‘I should’ve gone for that, instead.’

  ‘Perhaps you should have,’ agreed Crossman. ‘I’m almost of that mind myself.’

  A bullet, probably from a Minié, whined close to Wynter’s shoulder, making him jump back.

  ‘I bet that was one of Parker’s sharpshooters,’ growled Wynter, staring in the direction of the British army. ‘He knows we’re over here and he’s got all the best shots in the regiment looking for us. He ’ates me, that man does.’

  ‘Lieutenant Parker hates everyone, Wynter, so there’s no call to feel special. He hates his commander, his men, and especially his mother and grandmother. You are quite a long way down his hate list, so get on with your labours before we attract attention to ourselves.’

  The guards were not over-zealous, being mostly naval ratings put to the work. They lounged around, smoking pipes, talking with one another, sometimes chatting with the prisoners. From the tone of the conversations the prisoners themselves seemed quite keen on the defences, since they believed they would be marched away en masse by their captors and shot if the British, French and Turks ever entered Sebastopol.

  The whole atmosphere was remarkably relaxed. Occasionally an enemy ship was sighted out beyond the harbour and work would pause for a moment while the convicts discussed its intentions.

  ‘One day they’re going to start blasting us,’ said a Pole to his companion in German. ‘Then all hell will be let loose.’

  There was a general murmur of agreement amongst the prisoners and guards, as the words were passed on in different languages, and then work began again with renewed vigour.

  In the evening a copper sun melted into the sea and the prisoners were marched back to the jails. Wynter and Crossman found themselves sleeping amongst flea-infested men crowded into a courtyard. Crossman gave a blessing that they were at least out under the stars, chilling as it might be, and not packed into some hellhole of a dungeon.

  The facilities were of course wanting, in that there was one bucket between seventy men, but the British soldiers made sure they were in the far corner, away from its stink as it overflowed from too much use.

  In the morning the
y were given some maggoty slop which they were told was food. Crossman ate his without a blink, but Wynter refused to touch it. Another prisoner took it from him and ate it, maggots and all. Once again they were marched out to the perimeter of the city and set to work. Some time in the morning a priest came and blessed such defences as had been raised over the past week.

  There were also visits from officials from time to time, come to inspect what they themselves had designed. Admiral Korniloff himself dropped by with a retinue of Russian naval officers trailing behind him. He praised the efforts of the convicts, saying there would be a review of their cases once the war was over, with a general amnesty certain.

  This speech was greeted with cheers from the workers.

  Crossman saw that he had a difficult task ahead if he were going to rouse the prisoners to rebellion.

  He probed his fellow convicts with gentle questions during their rest periods. They were made up of dozens of different nationalities: Greeks, Poles, Ukrainians, Germans, Dutch and many others. He spoke mostly in German, but sometimes in French. No one seemed suspicious of him, and why should they? He was a prisoner like themselves, caught in the pincers of a war between several nations, all of which regarded individuals as expendable items in their endeavours to win.

  Wynter worked only on those who spoke some English, keeping to Dalton-James’s story that he was an Icelander, at the same time praying he did not meet one of his own ‘countrymen’.

  Ali came to see them one night, re-establishing contact. He was able to slip in and out almost at will, for what could not be done without the guards knowing, could certainly be effected with a well-placed coin. He enquired about progress and said that he had a hideout for them if there were any problems once the riots were started.