Crossman felt he should slip away now, but the Polish soldier had grasped him by the hand.
‘You are a man like me,’ said this enthusiastic gentleman, as full of elation as the rest. ‘I am from W Battery, Foot Battery, you know? I fight with you British against the hated Russian. I stand with you against the damn hussars.’
‘The bloody hussars,’ grinned Crossman. ‘We lifted their coat-tails, did we not?’
The Pole shook his hand vigorously.
‘By God, yes. We made them show their arses. I killed that one out there. I saw him fall. He is as dead as flint. They killed my family in Poland. Now they are paying.’
One or two of the sick men, taken from their hospital beds, now sat on the ground, exhausted. Even they looked happy, though some of them were on their last legs. Crossman hoped they were not too ill, that they would live a little longer and be able to enjoy having survived this action.
‘Well done, my Highland boys!’ cried Sir Colin Campbell. ‘Good shooting.’
‘I need a drink of water,’ said a Highlander. ‘I’ve a thirst on me now.’
‘Ye need a dram, more like,’ cried another, ‘but yer nae about to get ane.’
Laughter went up where there had been anxiousness and anticipation just a few minutes before.
Crossman detached himself from the Pole and stepped back from the line, to sit on a hummock. From there he could view the rest of the battlefield. There was activity again amongst the Russian cavalry who were now advancing along the valley. Coming up to meet them was the Heavy Brigade. The RHA were also in evidence on the field.
C Troop, under the command of a Captain Brandling, was swinging into action again. Crossman knew the tall, gentlemanly Brandling by sight, having bumped into him when that officer was accompanying Major Lovelace one evening, and now recognized Brandling, even at a distance, by his neat little charger and his frock coat.
The RHA officers wore short jackets with gilt frogging, but Brandling had come to the Crimea as part of the siege train and therefore looked a little incongruous in his long-tailed coat. Sickness amongst the RHA had given him command of C Troop. His particular troop of the RHA had already been shot up several times, but was still in the fighting. Brandling brought C Troop around behind the Heavy Brigade, to its right flank as they were moving forward to engage the Russian cavalry.
‘By God they’re going to have a go,’ said Crossman to Jock McIntyre. ‘The Heavies are going in!’
‘Lord help them,’ replied the sergeant-major. ‘They’re outnumbered by far. Look, the Scots Greys are out front, wi’ the Guards and Royals just behind . . .’
‘And the Inniskillings,’ added Crossman.
‘There’s General Scarlett, leading ’em on,’ cried Lieutenant James Kirk. ‘Go to it, my lads – go to it!’
The 93rd watched and held its breath. They had done their part and were now spectators. They had stopped a full cavalry charge of four squadrons with only a single battalion of foot soldiers and no casualties. It was an astonishing and incredible victory. They had saved Balaclava from being overrun and the many supply ships in its harbour from being destroyed. In their hearts they were thanking God for deliverance and hoping the rest of the battle would go as well for others.
17
There was a kind of suppressed energy in the air, which was translated into movement by the bustle of the cavalrymen and the agitation of their horses. Here and there a wild creature darted from behind the safety of one rock, to the greater safety of another. Up above a hawk hovered, still as a paper bird on a piece of thread, watching the activity below it.
‘Into line, left wheel!’ came the command. Then, ‘Rest easy.’
Men relaxed in their saddles. Horses nodded and shook their heads, made flapping sounds expelling air through loose lips, and found a more comfortable footing with their hooves. The eyes of both men and horses were still alert, however, glancing this way and that, seeking the enemy.
Although there had been many false alarms and the men had been roused unnecessarily more times than they cared to recall, the cavalry somehow sensed that this was their hour, the day on which they would either distinguish themselves, or be humiliated. They were certain it was the former and that future historians would pen their achievements in admiration.
Overhead, a few dark clouds rode lightly across a pale sky. There was a wind gradually growing in strength, coming down the South Valley. There might have been birds to hear, if the guns had not been pounding all around. There might have been the scent of herbs, if such smells had not been overpowered by the gunpowder gases. There might have been horses to admire – bays, chestnuts, greys, piebalds, others – if these creatures had not been encumbered with the trappings of war.
Rough-rider Eggerton, of the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons, known as ‘the Skins’, cousin of Private Feltam of the Light Brigade’s 17th Lancers, was part of the Heavy Brigade led by Brigadier-General Scarlett.
Sir James Scarlett was a large, bluff man in his mid-fifties, genial of manner, held in affection by his troops, and generally liked by his peers. He had no battle experience, but the ADC he had chosen, Lieutenant Elliot, had been on campaign in India. Sir James enjoyed being the commander of the Heavy Brigade and had designed his own helmet to suit that post. Rough-rider Eggerton could think of no better man for command of the Heavies than Sir James.
Eggerton himself was an excellent horseman, his position as rough-rider confirming that, for it was one held by the NCO who assisted the regiment’s riding master in his duties. Thus, he in no way felt inferior to his cousin in the dashing 17th Lancers, who rode in a swirl of colour and whose military élan might have been the envy of a lesser man. Rough-rider Eggerton, in his stolid but dependable way, was just as proud of the Inniskillings as Feltam was of his dapper Lancers.
Eggerton suffered the jokes from his cousin about plough boys riding cart horses with a benign smile on his country boy’s face, since he had grown up riding cobs and shires and thought no less of them than a master does of his hunter. He was big-boned and muscular enough to hammer his slim cousin into the ground like a fence post had he so wished, but merely ruffled his hair in front of his friends, which was enough to halt Feltam’s jests.
At the same time as Crossman was in the 93rd’s line, facing the Russian cavalry, the Light and Heavy Brigades were just south of No. 6 redoubt, behind a vineyard. Then General Scarlett gave the order for the Heavy Brigade to lead off around the vineyard and out into the South Valley proper. Right behind General Scarlett were the Scots Greys on their distinctive white horses and Eggerton’s squadron of the Inniskillings.
Eggerton gave his cousin Feltam a brief wave.
‘We’re off,’ he called. ‘Look to yourself, lad.’
Feltam, who was afraid of attracting attention from his own brigade commander, the feared, bad-tempered General Cardigan, simply nodded.
‘I hope to get a chance to prove myself too,’ Eggerton had said to him when he had learned of his cousin’s exploits with the Cossacks. ‘I hope the Heavies get a go.’
‘We’ve both got to get a proper go yet,’ Feltam had said. ‘I mean, I’ve charged just by myself, but you need to have your fellow troopers with you – a full-blooded charge with the dust around you and your pals all cheering like mad, eh?’
‘I’ll say,’ Eggerton had grinned.
The difference between the Heavy and Light Brigades was in their respective weights and heights. The Heavies had heavier horses, heavier weapons and some said, heavier men. Where the Light Brigade jingled, the Heavies jangled. Where the Lights were magnificent, the Heavies were impressive. The latter’s mounts were tall as well as stocky. They did not fly as fast on their hooves, but they got there, and when they did the enemy were usually knocked out of the way like sacks of straw.
Eggerton felt comfortable on his mount, a four-year-old charger of nineteen hands, called Brackish because he liked a touch of salt in his drinking water. Brackish was solid and dependabl
e, did not shy at the guns blazing all around him, was careless of the round shot landing with great thumps on the ground, and could be relied upon to keep his head pointing in the direction indicated by his rider. He was a good battle horse.
Once they were moving off and wheeling around the vineyard, Eggerton could see what was holding General Scarlett’s attention: the fight between the Highlanders and the hussars.
‘Look at that, will you?’ he said to his companion. ‘The infantry are always getting first go.’
‘Good old 93rd, though,’ said Sergeant Kilcrannock, the man to whom Eggerton had spoken. ‘They’ll lick ’em all right.’
Two seconds later Sergeant Kilcrannock spun round in his saddle, struck by a cannonball. He was left twisted and facing the wrong way on his mount which had halted in its tracks, knowing there was something the matter with its rider.
The sergeant’s sword arm was missing. His face registered his bewilderment at finding himself back to front on his horse. ‘Rough-rider Eggerton,’ he said slowly, ‘I think I’ve been hit, haven’t I?’
‘Go back,’ said the shocked Eggerton, turning Kilcrannock’s horse. ‘Go back to the camp, Sergeant.’
The sergeant was distressed as his men filed past him, sympathy in their eyes, while he remained in that undignified position on his saddle. His horse had begun to plod in the direction which Eggerton had pointed it, when Kilcrannock was cut down by fire from skirmishers coming down from the Fedioukine Hills. He slipped quietly to the ground, his charger standing by his body, seemingly unperturbed by the whole affair.
Eggerton glanced back and saw what had happened. He shook his head. He felt he should experience some kind of sorrow at that moment, because he and the sergeant had been more than acquaintances, but the battle was beginning to boil around him, and he could feel churnings of fear and excitement in his stomach instead. He turned his attention to the hills and the valley, wondering where General Scarlett was taking the Skins.
At that moment the general was staring at the 93rd, but Lieutenant Elliot touched his arm and pointed to the high ground on the left, where a horde of Russian hussars and Cossacks were cantering down. The whole slope was a forest of lances. Weapons and metallic pieces of tack glinted in the early weak sunlight. Over two thousand horsemen began to descend like dark phantoms out of the dawn mists upon the leading three hundred of the Heavy Brigade, consisting of the Greys and Eggerton’s single squadron of the Inniskillings.
Previously the men had complained to each other of fatigue. Now they had the real enemy before them their tiredness was swept away like darkness at dawn.
Eggerton’s heart began beating faster as the order was given to wheel into line to face the enemy.
‘By God, we’re going in,’ he whispered to himself. ‘Hard luck, cousin – I’m to be first.’
Lord Lucan came pounding past the Greys on the far side from Eggerton, to have a quick word with General Scarlett.
Colonel Dalrymple White, commanding the Skins, and Colonel Griffith of the Greys, both began to dress their men.
The officers had their backs to the enemy, but the men themselves could see the Russian cavalry floating down upon them, almost certainly to envelope them and smother them with their greater numbers. More than one trooper felt as if they were staring at death drifting down the hillside. These were no mean enemy, but Cossacks who had thundered over the plains of Russia in savage hordes for centuries, putting men, women and children to the sword; and Russian hussars, admired and copied by most other modern armies in the world, including the British.
However, like those of the regiments of foot at the Alma, the colonels of the Greys and the Skins wanted the maximum of impact from the kind of blow a solid, compact squadron gives when it hits the enemy en bloc. Despite the gravity of their position, they were going to have their straight line. They knew that though it was a dangerous manoeuvre it was necessary and would serve them well in the end.
To those who were watching from the Sapoune Ridge – the French and British observers – this seemed like sheer madness. It was as if they were witnessing some ceremony in a park. Finally, just as the Russian cavalry was throwing out wings, intending to encircle them, the Skins and Greys were ready.
C Troop of the RHA galloped by, seeking higher ground for their guns. They yelled encouragement to the Heavies, telling them to give the enemy what for. Eggerton’s broad farmer’s boy face broke into a grin as he thought to himself: There’s nothing like a British soldier for pepping up his pals.
Eggerton looked up at the Russians, to see that they had halted for no good reason. Even if all strategy and tactics had fled the minds of their commanders, common sense should have dictated that they hurl themselves down on the Heavy Brigade in their large numbers and annihilate them before they could get themselves into a gallop. Yet here they were, doing quite the reverse.
‘Here we go,’ said Eggerton to Brachsh. ‘Don’t let me down, sir, and I’ll not let you down.’
‘Charge!’
With swords drawn the Greys and Skins went at the enemy, the Inniskilling Dragoons cheering like mad, while the Greys let out their famous moan of delight. The Russians looked startled to see only three hundred men charge towards them, though there were other squadrons behind, not yet formed up, some of them not even around the vineyard yet. The 4th and the 5th Dragoon Guards were to come, and the Royals, and the 2nd squadron of the Inniskillings.
Eggerton saw General Scarlett, fifty-five but still impetuous, strike the wall of Russians fifty yards ahead of the line, to be swallowed up immediately by the enemy. Eggerton could see the general’s long sword whirling, hacking, slicing the air. On a tall horse the general was visible above the mêlée. His aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Elliot, was next to the fray. The lieutenant was wearing a cocked hat and this seemed to excite the Russians far more than the general’s helmet. An enemy officer could not contain himself and came out to meet Elliot, slashing wildly at the lieutenant with his sword.
Elliot, still at full gallop, was clearly worried about the isolation of General Scarlett and wanted to go to his aid. He cleverly avoided the cut by the Russian officer and drove his own sword point first into the man’s breast as he passed. Such was his charger’s speed the whole blade went through up to the hilt. Elliot’s momentum twisted the officer round in his saddle and lifted him up, then dropped him like a butchered carcass of beef on the ground a few yards from his horse.
The Cossacks and hussars were now making a bizarre sound: the same kind of noise a child makes when blowing through a comb wrapped with tissue paper. It sounded like a million angry insects to Eggerton, and chilled him to the marrow. If before he had thought the Russians were farm boys just like he was, he now looked on them as very strange creatures indeed.
Finally Rough-rider Eggerton was upon the Russians, who fired their carbines into the three hundred. A horse went down next to Eggerton, its legs kicking as it screamed in pain. Hooves struck Brackish in the stomach and he too whinnied shrilly and shied at this pain from an unexpected quarter. Eggerton fought to stay in the saddle as a Russian cavalryman came at him, slicing the air with the honed blade of his shaska.
‘Come on, old fellow, don’t let me down now,’ said Eggerton in as gentle and firm a voice as he could muster. He was afraid he was going to be one of the first down and not get a good go at the thing.
The Russian was left-handed and came to his wrong side, so that as well as struggling to calm Brackish, Eggerton was having to reach over his mount to parry blows. Private Grype, who had already despatched one Russian, came to Eggerton’s assistance and almost severed the head of the Cossack with a strike to the back of the neck. Then Grype himself was down, his horse wounded in the belly by a lance, one arm and one leg trapped underneath the animal as it thrashed on the ground. Eggerton, now in full control of Brackish, reached down and pulled him free.
Private Shakespear of the Greys came up then and took Grype by the arm and hauled him up on the back of his h
orse.
Eggerton was now being pressed from all sides, the battle one mass of heaving mounts, all crushed together. Some of the Russians at the back had turned and galloped away, but it hardly relieved the centre of the mass. Eggerton struck out and down time and again, only to see his sword bounce maddeningly off the thick Russian greatcoats. It was no good using his weapon as a sabre unless he could get a good cut at an enemy’s head, so he attempted to use the point in the way that Lieutenant Elliot had done, but in fact there was little room for thrusting either. Troopers were closely hemmed in, restricted in their movements, some could not even strike with their swords.
Eggerton felt a burning pain as a lance went through his mouth and out of one cheek, tearing a hole he could put his tongue through. Luckily the Cossack withdrew the lance for a second attempt. The Russian’s shako looked formidable, as though it would withstand even a heavy blow. The rough-rider managed to knock the man’s headgear to one side and then split his skull twice with the edge of the blade. Brains and blood splattered Eggerton’s tunic, covering his hands and face with tiny specks.
Eggerton felt both horrified and exhilarated by his feat. Around him there were screams of wounded and dying men. Troopers struggled to release themselves from the heaving mass of arms, legs and bodies. Horses went down, never to rise again above the thrashing waves of human shoulders and arms. Men disappeared from saddles, lost below the surface of this terrible heaving sea of flesh. It was at that moment that the Royals hit the west wing of the Russian column, driving even more of its members into the struggling throng.
The Valley of Death Page 18