The Valley of Death

by Garry Douglas Kilworth

  Eggerton put him at his ease, saying the sergeant-major was in good hands, also being led back by one of the Heavies.

  ‘You stay in the saddle, boy,’ said Eggerton. ‘We’re not so far from home now. You’ve been hit bad, eh? What a charge! But it was folly, cousin, sheer folly, for you’ve all been shot to pieces. I don’t know what them generals are thinking of, sending you in there like that. I never heard of nothing so foolish before today.’

  ‘I make you right on that one, cousin,’ replied Feltam, still gripped by a wooziness. ‘But you’re wounded yourself. I can see the pad of blood on your shoulder. Did you follow us in?’

  ‘I got this wound in the Heavies’ charge. Don’t you worry about me, I’ll live. No, we only came part-way for you. Lord Lucan got hit in the leg and several officers killed, so we stopped. I heard Lord Lucan say, “They have sacrificed the Light Brigade, they shall not have the Heavy,” and we halted and retired out of range.’

  ‘Good thing too. It was sheer folly. I’ve never heard of a charge being made right into the guns. I could see down the barrels, cousin. It was hell.’

  ‘You did glorious deeds out there,’ said Eggerton, ‘but I have no envy for you this time.’

  20

  Only the two spots of colour on her otherwise pale cheeks indicated that Mrs Durham was feeling emotional. Her eyes were fixed on the valley below, where bloody men and horses were staggering back: the remnants of her beautiful Light Brigade. It seemed impossibly tragic. Captain Durham knew what she was thinking. How could such an order have been given without the consequences being obvious?

  ‘My dear,’ he said, taking her hand, ‘it was a mistake – a terrible mistake.’

  ‘Of course it was a mistake, Bertie,’ she said, turning on him and giving vent to her passion. ‘Who could have called such a massacre anything else?’

  ‘No, I mean it really was a mistake. The message was misread or something. Lord Raglan is beside himself. He intended that the Light Brigade should attack the Russians carrying away our guns from the redoubts on the Causeway Heights, not that they should charge the guns at the end of the valley. It’s all been a ghastly error.’

  Her face showed that she now understood.

  ‘But surely Lord Lucan, and Lord Cardigan, could not have misread such a message. If they had been told to attack the Russians on the Causeway Heights, they would have done so.’

  ‘I think the tone was a little more vague than that – and the messenger was so full of zeal he did not take the time to explain it properly – indeed he may have been under a misconception too. I’m inclined to think, though I dislike criticizing my betters, that the missive was poorly phrased. I heard General Airey repeat it to another officer. It sounded something like “The Light Brigade is to advance quickly and stop the enemy carrying away the guns.” ’

  ‘But that could mean anything on a battlefield with guns all over the place.’

  ‘As I said, my dear, I do not think the communication was of a very high standard.’

  She shook her head in bewilderment. ‘What do we have these people for, if not to lead competently? They all speak of Wellington, indeed they seem to worship his memory, yet none of them tries to emulate him. Those boys have died for nothing. What happened to Captain Nolan?’

  ‘His body lies down there on the plain. Lord Cardigan rode past without a glance. I think that’s Captain Morris kneeling by the corpse now. If I’m not mistaken, Captain Nolan was the first to die, when the shells began falling.’

  Mrs Durham said nothing in answer to this information. She simply stared down at the tattered remains of the pride of the British army. She could see Lord Cardigan, sitting on a knoll, wiping his face with a handkerchief. He was staring miserably down into the valley at his precious cherrybummed troopers, the 11th Hussars. He had equipped them, drilled them. They had been his pride and joy.

  Even Cardigan must be feeling dastardly, she thought, though she knew from her frequent contact with him that he was a very selfish man.

  Lord Lucan was speaking with Lord Raglan, expostulating, waving his hands in the same manner which Pontius Pilate used when shrugging off all responsibility for the crucifixion of Christ. General Airey looked distressed, pacing up and down near the two arguing men. What would they make of it back in England? The Light Brigade, destroyed. How the Russians must have been laughing up their sleeves.

  But the Russians seemed to have had enough. The 1st and 4th Divisions, the former under the Duke of Cambridge and the latter under a dilatory General Cathcart, were now in the battle area. The Duke’s division had come along the Woronzoff Road to the head of the valley and Cathcart’s division had descended the col and now marched along the Causeway Heights round to the redoubts.

  ‘It’s all of a piece,’ said Mrs Durham, shaking her head, the tears forming slowly in her eyes and then rolling down her cheeks.

  ‘My dear,’ said a shocked Captain Durham. He put his arm around her, thus proving that each of them could still surprise the other. ‘Please – you will distress me too.’

  After the stand of the 93rd Crossman spoke to Lieutenant Dalton-James.

  ‘Sir, if there’s going to be some action in the North as well as here in the South Valley, perhaps we could get some men up on the Causeway ridge, between the two. It’s a very commanding position.’

  Dalton-James stared at the man he so disliked for a good full minute, but here was something which transcended petty feuds. Here was a chance to get some free-handed action. The 93rd had to stay where they were in case of another attack on Balaclava, but Dalton-James with his few riflemen and Crossman and his walking wounded could do some fighting on their own. They were at that moment under no one’s direct command.

  ‘What about the redoubts up there?’ asked the lieutenant, briskly. ‘The Woronzoff Road has been cut and there’s Russians all over the Causeway ridge. We’d be going into a hornets’ nest.’

  ‘We could go up in skirmishing order,’ replied Crossman. ‘Follow those goat paths, using the boulders for cover. Even worm our way over the ridge on our bellies. It could be done.’

  Dalton-James studied the landscape with a keen eye.

  ‘The rifles,’ he murmured. ‘We could use the Fergusons. That way we might stand a chance going up on our bellies, Sergeant. One doesn’t need to kneel or stand up to reload a Ferguson as one does a Minié.’

  ‘But where are the Fergusons, sir?’ asked Crossman. ‘Are they close by?’

  The lieutenant smiled smugly. ‘Follow me,’ he said. ‘Bring your men with you.’

  They were not Crossman’s men, but the soldiers who had been in the hospital for minor wounds and illnesses sensed a battle. They heard the order and formed up behind Crossman, who led them after Dalton-James and his riflemen. The lieutenant took them to a house on the edge of Kadikoi village, not far from the place where the 93rd had made their stand. He went in the house with two of his men and emerged with two long crates. These contained fifty (or rather forty-nine, since Ali had stolen one) breech-loading Ferguson rifles and ammunition. These, along with boxes of gunpowder, were issued to the invalids and to his own riflemen.

  Crossman quickly showed the men how to load and prime the weapon, demonstrating the sequence of actions twice. They were soldiers. They knew how to use weapons. All but the most dense of them got it the first time round. Soon they were ready to make the jogging run across the South Valley to the ridge. It was just over a mile to the bottom of Causeway Heights.

  Dalton-James led the way, full of his own importance, but eager for action. Crossman followed with some of the slower invalids. When they got to the foot of the ridge they suddenly came under heavy fire from above and scattered for the rocks. One of Crossman’s men fell with a bullet in the neck. A rifleman was wounded in the thigh. Most, however, were behind a rise and out of the line of fire.

  ‘Where are they, sir?’ called Crossman to Dalton-James. ‘Can you see them?’

  ‘Canrobert’s Hill,’ c
alled the lieutenant.

  Crossman studied the landscape to his right. Canrobert’s Hill, so named by the troops, was a hill which was close enough to the Causeway Heights to be almost part of it. He could see Russian infantrymen up there now, defending a redoubt they had captured earlier from the Turks.

  Crossman signalled to his men, pointing.

  ‘How we goin’ to get up there, Sergeant?’ asked a private with a bandage around his head. ‘Can’t see a way up.’

  Crossman was in a better position than this man to see a dry watercourse snaking up the hill. The rocks on the sides of this channel, deposited by flash floods in the winter, were not the best cover but they would have to do.

  Crossman indicated that his men should follow him and began crawling forward on his elbows, lizard-like towards the watercourse. Others followed him. All around there were shots zinging from the rough ground, ricocheting off stones. A tiny piece of flint struck Crossman on the cheek, drawing blood, but he managed to make cover without being hit. He started to return fire with the Ferguson. It was an ideal weapon for this terrain. Load and fire, load and fire, load and fire, with no real exposure of the body.

  Once the Rifles and Crossman’s men began returning fire, the Russians up on the top of the hill, there in great number, began to shoot down on the skirmishers with merciless if a little wanton fervour. Dalton-James lost two men in reaching the sergeant.

  But the Fergusons were taking their toll too. The Russian soldiers had to lean over the brow of the escarpment to aim at the British, during which time it was like shooting ducks at a fairground. A head and shoulders would pop up and half a dozen Fergusons would blaze away. Russian bodies began to roll over the brow, dropping several feet on to the slopes. Crossman noted that they were wearing the uniform of the Azov Regiment.

  ‘That’s the mark, lads,’ cried Dalton-James. ‘Keep it up. Keep it up.’

  Crossman was not satisfied with shooting ducks. It was in his mind to reach the top of the ridge where they could pick off more Russian soldiers by lying with their bodies down the slope, looking over the rim. He began to edge forwards, shuffling prone along the watercourse, the higher banks keeping him hidden from the Russian sharpshooters. Two or three of his men followed him while the others remained with Dalton-James, covering the sergeant’s ascent.

  The Russians were having to expose themselves from time to time, to ram home ball and powder, but Crossman and his men could stay down flat in the watercourse and reload in safety. Then the Fergusons could be poked between rocks on the bank of the dry stream, the rifleman exposing only part of his head to aim, and with luck another Russian infantryman was killed or wounded.

  Splinters of stone flew everywhere as the intensity of the fusillades from above increased. Crossman’s eyes were smarting with the dust. Gunpowder smoke from the weapons irritated his nostrils. The pangs of craving for the laudanum were returning accompanied by a raging thirst. At that moment, as he lay in a dust bowl at the bottom of the dry stream bed, Crossman wanted to be anywhere but where he was now. There were too many enemy rifles above him. It was a foul-weather storm of lead they were sending down the slopes. He almost decided to stay where he was until the action was all over. The weariness was such that he just wanted to fall asleep.

  The man next to him, a private in the 44th, lifted his head just a little too high. A bullet hit him smack in the forehead. He fell back over Crossman with a last sigh. Crossman rolled the soldier from him. This incident was enough to put more energy into the sergeant’s tired bones. Once more he began to tackle the upward climb, only one man left with him now. The pair of them snaked through the dust, the air above them humming with deadly bees. Then came a shout from above.

  Clearly the commander of the forces on Canrobert’s Hill had had enough of these attackers. He was frustrated by those whose bodies remained hidden while they still managed to reload their weapons. He gave an order to attack. Russian infantrymen began to come down the escarpment from above. Crossman and his last man were about to be overrun.

  ‘Here they come, Sergeant,’ cried the soldier, a young corporal. ‘Let’s make ’em work for it.’

  The two of them sprawled on the edge of the watercourse, loading and firing as fast as they could manage, the barrels of their weapons becoming red-hot to the touch. The sound of rapid fire came from below too and Crossman could hear Dalton-James yelling at his men to keep up the fire power. Russians began to tumble as they were hit, the momentum of their descent sending their bodies flying down the slope. One man, wounded but still on his feet, managed to reach Crossman.

  The expression on the soldier’s face was one of intense determination. His bayonet glinted as its point bore down on Crossman. The sergeant flung himself sideways as he was struck, the point of the bayonet going through the collar of his coatee. There it lodged, the cloth twisted round the blade. The Russian gave himself a firmer footing so he could yank it out. In doing so he fell backwards a pace or two. This gave Crossman the opportunity to recover his balance.

  Crossman’s Ferguson was not loaded at the time. He went up on one knee and used his rifle like a club, going not for the head, as he might have done if standing, but for the legs. The stock of the Ferguson struck the Russian on his shins, making him scream with agony. Then the man’s feet went from under him and he slid headfirst down the slope. Shots were picking holes in the dust all around him, but he made the bottom without being hit again. Wisely he lay still, being now unarmed and virtually helpless.

  Crossman continued up the dry watercourse with his last man, the first wave of the enemy having been massacred by the rifles of Dalton-James’s men below. Dalton-James began to ascend with his Rifles now, zigzagging amongst the boulders. When Crossman reached the brow of the hill, the lieutenant and his men were about three-quarters of the way to the top. All the opposition seemed to have melted completely away.

  Crossman crept below the slight overhang of the lip of the hill. Working his way along he found a spot where he could pull himself over to a gentler slope above. From here he had a view of the plateau on top of the hill.

  He discovered that the Russian infantry had dropped back to the redoubt, where the guns were firing on the British cavalry below. They were obviously unsure of how many foe were coming up the hill. Their commander had decided, giving due consideration to the fact that he obviously did not want to put his head over the edge of the overhang to look for himself, to use his discretion and fall back to a safer and more defendable position, and there to await any further attack.

  Glancing to his left Crossman had a view of the North Valley. He was astonished to see the ground littered with bodies of men and horses. They were not yellow-grey-coated figures down on that bloody plain, but the bright colours of British regiments. It was a second or two before he realized some awful tragedy had befallen the cavalry.

  ‘Oh my God,’ he murmured. ‘They’ve slaughtered Cardigan’s cherrybums.’

  It looked very bad indeed. The Russian cavalry were at that moment riding down knots of the Light Brigade, who if they were able to fight themselves free, were taking the route back along a valley flanked with Russian infantry. It was like a rabbit shoot down there. Crossman could see small figures dragging saddles, or just themselves, back to the north-west end of the valley. Many were in tatters. Horses lying on their sides, their legs striking air. On the far side the French Chasseurs d’Afrique were battling with Russian lancers.

  The guns of the redoubt had now stopped firing. Crossman guessed the Russians had panicked and were busy spiking the cannons, to prevent them falling back into British hands in a useful condition. Crossman wondered if Russian culture knew about irony. They were at that moment beleaguered by only two men! If they had spiked their guns they would be kicking themselves later for panicking so quickly.

  A hail of shots whined around Crossman and he looked up to see that the Russians had fired a volley at him.

  In the next few moments, as he fired back, Dalton-Jam
es crawled up beside him.

  ‘What’s the position, Sergeant?’

  ‘There’s too many of them, sir. We’ve given them a good pasting but they’re massed around the redoubt itself. I can see one – no, two – of the officers – look . . . good God!’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Dalton-James irritably. ‘What’s the matter, Sergeant?’

  Crossman thought he recognized one of the officers. The younger man was an infantry captain, but the older was a staff officer, a major. Crossman watched as the major turned again to look in his direction. Yes! It was the man responsible for torturing Crossman while he was a prisoner in Sebastopol.

  ‘Major Zinski,’ murmured Crossman with some satisfaction, as he loaded his Ferguson under cover of the overhang. ‘Major bloody Zinski.’

  ‘Look,’ cried Dalton-James, pointing down the slope. ‘Here come the 4th Division!’

  Indeed, a British battery had begun to open fire on the redoubt. The 1st Battalion of the Rifle Brigade were coming up the slope in skirmishing order, with two companies of the 63rd West Sussex Regiment behind them. General Cathcart’s 4th Division were winding their way along the far end of the Causeway Heights and recapturing redoubts from No. 6 to No. 3. Some of his men had been detached to storm Canrobert’s Hill.

  Crossman looked over again towards the North Valley and saw that the French were now on the plain with men of the Guards and Highland Regiments descending from the hills towards the valley floor. The Russians there had fallen back a little, as if awaiting another attack like the charge of the Light Brigade. After such a crazy action, anything was possible.

  Thanks to Crossman and Dalton-James the men now coming up the hill met with no resistance. The two companies of the 63rd reached the brow intact and began to engage the Russians around the redoubt. However, it was not long before the Russian infantry received reinforcements from the Woronzoff Road and the British were under pressure to retreat. They still had not enough men to hold the position against a concentrated Russian attack. Finally, as the Russians began to swarm around the redoubt, massing for a charge, a captain of the 63rd gave the order to fall back down the slope.