The Valley of Death

by Garry Douglas Kilworth

  ‘I wish we had a small cannon,’ said Wynter. ‘We’d really set ’em alight with one of them.’

  ‘Perhaps you would like to be the one to drag it over the hills?’ enquired Crossman, knowing the answer.

  The gunpowder charges were laid and the men were placed in position. Further up the dirt road a tree had been felled in case the horses drawing the wagon bolted. Ali scouted back on the trail and returned later to inform them that the wagon and its escort were close at hand. Soon they could hear the clinking of bridles and swords, the clatter of hooves on the rocks, the occasional snorts of horses. Then came the lower sound of chatter and the rumble of cart wheels on hard earth and stone.

  ‘Here they come,’ whispered Peterson.

  There were a dozen lancers leading the wagon. Crossman suspected they were mainly there to help in case the vehicle became bogged down. They wore helmets in the Prussian style, whose spikes glinted in the sunlight. Apart from lances with fluttering pennons, the lancers had horse pistols and heavy straight-bladed swords.

  On the battlefield the lancers would have been formidable, but here in rough country, with bush and rocky outcrops, they were awkward and overencumbered. Crossman knew that if they met their adversaries on the flat track they would lose. But since he had no intention of meeting them on the road, the lancers were at a definite disadvantage, especially since they were on horseback.

  The wagon lumbered through the pass. Behind it the squadron were in loose order, their discipline lax. They were chatting away to one another, clearly not expecting any sort of trouble. One or two had their helmets off and had hung them from their saddles by the chinstraps.

  The explosions startled even the waiting members of the 88th Foot, Connaught Rangers. Immediately after the rocks began falling on the unfortunate horsemen in the gorge, Crossman and his two soldiers shot three of the twelve leading escort. Two of the remaining lancers panicked and charged off ahead, galloping their horses away from the ambush. The others drew their horse pistols. One or two had clearly not loaded them, but wild shots zinging amongst the rocks confirmed that there were those amongst the Russian cavalry who had been prepared.

  Within a quarter of a minute Peterson had felled her second Russian, Crossman missed with his shot as a horse shied, and Clancy actually hit the wagoner in the arm.

  Noting now where the shots were coming from, the remaining half-dozen lancers charged their horses up the steep slopes of the valley towards Peterson and Clancy. Their horses’ hooves slipped and slid on the scree, causing at least one of the mounts to fall. Consequently his heavily accoutred rider crashed to the ground and rolled down the slope.

  Crossman shot another man from his saddle. A further rider toppled on reaching a small ridge, when his horse lost its footing. Clancy rushed out and bayoneted this man as he lay helpless on the ground. Three of the riders, realizing now that they were being shot at from both sides of the pass, turned their mounts and awkwardly descended to the road below.

  Peterson shot the last rider in the hip, the only section of him visible to her as he passed across a window between two rocks, and he groaned and slumped forward, letting his mount find its own path thereafter in the bush at the top of the rise.

  When the three remaining lancers reached the wagon, one of them grabbed the reins of the leading carthorse and urged it forward. By this time the two who had at first run had returned. Between them the five cavalry troopers got the wagon on the move, with the wounded wagoner still clinging white-faced to his high seat. They went trundling off along the track, with the wagoner bouncing awkwardly in his seat.

  This whole attack from start to finish had taken about two minutes.

  In the gorge the lancers were fighting for control of their horses, while Ali and Wynter picked them off. Five men were already dead or wounded. The officer in charge was screaming at his men to go forward to protect the wagon, but since the road through the gorge was now strewn with large boulders, the way was if not blocked, extremely hazardous.

  To the rear of the squadron some wise NCOs were leading their troopers back along the trail and out into the clear. Some were attempting to circumnavigate the gorge by riding up the slopes before the gorge became steep, to the ridges above, but it was a slow business.

  On hearing a whistle from Crossman, Wynter and Ali slipped away, and ran through the bush to join their comrades. They knew that it was a race now to reach the spot where they had felled the tree, before the horsemen could remove the barrier and gallop the wagon further out of reach. It was one of the drawbacks of being on foot. If they did not strike the enemy hard enough the first time, there was the danger that the mounted men would escape with the goods.

  The Rangers reloaded their carbines as they ran, which was a curious business involving teeth, hands and armpits. When they arrived at the place where the wagon had been halted by the felled tree, they saw that three of the lancers had managed to heave the log aside and were leading the vehicle through the gap. Giving his men a second to recover their breath, Crossman then gave the order to fire a volley. All three dismounted cavalrymen were cut down. The other two, still in their saddles out in front of the wagon, returned fire with their pistols.

  Ali slung his rifle over his shoulder, whipped two small revolvers out of the voluminous folds of his clothing, and rushed along the track blazing at the troopers. Crossman drew his five-shot Tranter and joined in the fusillade. One of the lancers fell under this less accurate but denser hail of fire, while the other wisely turned and fled along the now open road, leaving the wounded wagoner to fend for himself.

  Clancy lifted a canvas sheet on the back of the wagon.

  ‘Two boxes like sea chests,’ he called to Crossman. ‘One bigger than the other. Brass reinforced on the corners and edges. Locks on both.’

  Crossman looked for himself. The boxes were of strong, solid oak with fleur-de-lis brass corners and hinges. They were studded with pyramid-headed brass nails all over. The fasteners were massive steel padlocks holding heavy bolts in place. There would be no red cabbage in these crates, unless it were pickled in the finest beluga caviar.

  ‘Right, unhitch the horses and tie a box behind each. We’ll drag them both to the croft. Use the reins as ropes.’

  The soldiers applied themselves to the task while the dour wagoner still sat up on his seat, his right hand resting on the iron brake. He glowered at the foreigners in their rag-tag clothes. His grim expression told Crossman he was not only wounded but unhappy to be put to such inconvenience. For their part the soldiers ignored him, working round him, treating him as if he were not there. Finally, once the carthorses had been removed, the wagoner was left alone on his perch, looking like a man stranded on an island of boxwood.

  Crossman and his soldiers led the horses into the dense brush on the slope that ran down to the road. They travelled quickly, knowing that the Russian cavalry were not far behind them. One of the boxes was tremendously heavy and left a deep groove in the earth. When they had gone about a mile, Crossman ordered his men to unhitch the boxes and to tie angular rocks in their places. With a slap on each rump, the carthorses were sent on their way in the opposite direction to the goatherd’s croft, the rocks making similar marks on the earth to the boxes.

  Poles were cut and the boxes slung between them, but the smaller box was impossible for just two men to carry. Four might have managed it, but that would have left only one man for the bigger, lighter chest. Crossman found a hiding place, a crevice, where they could hide the smaller box. They continued their journey back to the croft with the other one slung between two poles, one man at each corner.

  When they reached their destination, Devlin was there to greet them.

  ‘Well done, lads,’ he said cheerfully. ‘So you did it, did you?’

  ‘Indeed begorra, it’s certain sure we did,’ cried an elated Wynter, mimicking the corporal’s accent. ‘Oh yes, indeed we did, sor.’

  Devlin grimaced at Wynter’s efforts. ‘You’ll never m
ake an Irishman, Wynter,’ he said. ‘You haven’t the musical cadence in your tones.’

  Crossman untied the goatherd and gave the man some water. He seemed anything but grateful. Then the sergeant ordered the opening of the chest they had managed to haul up to their hideout. Ali and Wynter smashed open the locks with rifle butts, though it was a difficult task. Rifle shots, however, might have brought the lancers to the hideout, since the Russians would now be scouring the slopes below.

  Finally the lid to the box was thrown back, to reveal its contents.

  ‘Paper money!’ whispered Wynter, reverently. ‘We’re rich!’

  He grabbed a handful of the bills and smelled them.

  ‘Old money too,’ he said. ‘And it’s all ours – an’t it, Sergeant? Spoils of war?’

  ‘Yes it is, lads,’ Crossman said in a low voice, as they all stared at the wads of printed cash with wide disbelieving eyes. ‘What Wynter says is true – this money belongs to us and we can divide it among ourselves.’

  26

  Crossman had smelled the interior of crofts before, when he had run away from home as a young man. Living in this croft, smelling the turf roof and the other odours associated with such a dwelling, returned memories he would rather be without. In this state of mind he fell asleep one night, failing to check on the Tartar before he did so.

  Peterson woke Crossman early in the morning, just as the shooting started.

  ‘What? What is it?’ cried Crossman, leaping up from his bed on the ground.

  ‘The Tartar slipped away in the night,’ said Peterson, grimly. ‘He’s brought the Russians. They’re covering all our escape routes. They have us trapped, Sergeant.’

  Shots were whining through the air outside. Crossman knew, however, that if the two sentries were in place, one in the rocks above the croft, and one down below, it would be difficult for the Russians to attack in force. There were only two narrow paths to the rock shelf on which the croft was perched, one from above and one from below. Both these paths were little more than goat tracks. The Russians would have to come single file down from above, or up from below.

  This they had already tried, hoping to surprise the group in the early dawn, but Yusuf Ali had already blocked the path from above with two Russian dead. Wynter had wounded another man from the party coming up. Both Ali and Wynter had been wide awake and alert, having just taken over sentry duty from Crossman and Clancy.

  Time favoured neither the Russians nor the British. The Russians had their quarry pinned down. But the British had a large food supply in the goats, and the beck ran almost through their camp. They were fairly secure, their position protected by rocky outcrops. The Russians could only fire in their direction at will, hoping a lucky aim would find its way into a British or Turkish heart. Shots zinged from the rocks all through the morning, so that it was necessary for the whole peloton to keep their heads down.

  For their part, Crossman’s men could not get a good shot at the Russians either. The enemy hid themselves behind the same rocks that were protecting the British group. It was going to be a waiting game. While the allied armies were laying siege to Sebastopol, the Russians were doing the same with a small party of allied soldiers up in the hills.

  It was stalemate for the time being.

  Devlin said to Crossman, ‘You’ll have to leave me here.’

  ‘I’m leaving no one,’ said Crossman in a determined voice. ‘If we go, we all go together. Besides, they have us locked in here. It would take a fox to get through that lot without being seen.’ He paused and collected his thoughts. ‘Fortunately we have two foxes in our group and I’m going to send one of them out for help.’

  ‘Well, I know Ali is one of those you’re talking about, Sergeant. Who’s the other one?’

  ‘Clancy. In fact I think he’s nearer a fox than our Bashi-Bazouk, who’s more like a wolf. Have you ever heard that Irish-Indian come up behind you? He has no footfall. Silent. And like Ali, he’s not afraid to kill with his bare hands. If anyone can get through, it’s Private Clancy. Also, Ali is more use to us here. He scares the Russians.’

  That evening, with Clancy and Ali guarding the paths, Crossman made one of two decisions. He, Peterson and Wynter gathered around Devlin in the croft. They had a fire there now, since it no longer mattered whether the Russians saw the smoke or not. Wynter looked a bit jumpy, probably thinking he was going to be asked to do something dangerous. Not that Wynter was a coward, but the group were in a bad position.

  ‘I’ve decided to send Clancy back to Major Lovelace, to get some help. Whether the major will think it worth sending it or not is up to him.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t he?’ exclaimed Wynter, sounding indignant. ‘We’re as important as anyone, an’t we?’

  ‘You may think so, Wynter, but perhaps the major will decide not to risk other lives in saving ours.’

  ‘Tell him about the money, then,’ Wynter said. ‘Tell him he can have a share . . .’

  Devlin and Peterson exchanged sour looks.

  Crossman said, ‘I can’t do that, Wynter, because we’re going to burn the money tonight.’

  Wynter actually jumped to his feet, his eyes wide with surprise.

  ‘You can’t do that. That’s our money. I was going to be rich. I was set for life.’

  Crossman shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, I know how you feel – I know how you all feel. I’m human too. I had the same idea as the rest of you. Once the war was over I was going to use my prize money to buy a small farm in Scotland.’ He paused to stare into the flames of the fire. ‘But we have to destroy it. If it falls back into Russian hands this raid will have been for nothing. We will be captured or die for nothing. I can’t risk it, I’m afraid. I’m sorry, men.’

  ‘Oh no – oh, no, no, no,’ wailed Wynter.

  Devlin said grimly, ‘Shut up, man. You’re making it worse. As the sergeant said, we none of us likes it. We all wanted to go back kings from this war. It cannot be. We must take it on the chin like men.’

  There were tears rolling down Wynter’s cheeks as Crossman got up and dragged the chest near to the fire.

  ‘Please, Sergeant. Let me hide a wad in me sock. Yes, yes, we can all do that, eh? Just a few notes in me sock . . .’

  ‘It’s going to be burned, Wynter, so get that through your thick head now.’

  ‘I never saw you cry for a dead soldier,’ said Peterson in disgust, ‘but you cry for money.’

  ‘Too damn right I do,’ cried Wynter, angrily rounding on her. ‘Money’s the only thing you can trust in this world. You can’t trust bloody people, that’s for sure. Oh God, I don’t want to watch this. It’s sacrilege.’

  Crossman began taking out wads of bills from the chest and putting them on the fire. They were surprisingly difficult to burn, but when they did so their flames were colourful. Wynter sat in mourning, as if before the funeral pyre of his own father, moaning softly occasionally, sometimes staring at the conflagration, at other times wrenching his eyes away to look out of the doorway into the darkness beyond.

  ‘It’s a cryin’ shame,’ he kept saying to himself. ‘It’s a bloody sacrifice, that’s what it is.’

  It took about two hours to burn the money and even then there were small pieces of banknotes left in the ashes. Wynter took his sorrow and went out to relieve Clancy, who came back in to be told what had happened. The Irish-Indian shrugged.

  ‘Easy come, easy go,’ he said.

  Crossman said to Peterson, ‘Would you relieve Ali from sentry duty? I need to talk to him.’

  Once Ali had been relieved and came to sit by the fire, Crossman informed him of a new plan.

  ‘I want you, Clancy, to try to get through the Russians tonight. You’re to get hold of Major Lovelace and tell him of our difficulties. If he doesn’t feel he can come, we’ll understand. Tell him we have wounded we can’t leave, but say he’s under no obligation. Can you do it?’

  Clancy looked at Sergeant Crossman with those dark, cryptic eyes of his.
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br />   ‘You want me to sneak through the Russian lines? I may have to kill one or two on the way out. If I do that, in the way I know best, you realize they’ll execute you all when they eventually overrun this place?’

  Crossman knew that fact. If Clancy had to throttle any of the Russians, they would be so incensed they would probably hang any survivors of an attack. It was not a pleasant prospect, but Crossman had made his decision.

  ‘You must do whatever is necessary, Clancy, to get to our lines. Use your discretion, but get through at all costs.’

  ‘I’ll do my best, Sergeant.’

  While Clancy was preparing himself, Ali came up to Crossman quietly. He looked a little hurt.

  ‘You no want Ali to go for the major, Sergeant? I do good job – better than this man. He is very good for an English soldier, but not like Turk.’

  ‘I agree with you, Ali,’ said Crossman, diplomatically. ‘You are the best man for the job – but I need you here much more than I need Clancy.’

  ‘Is this true, or you tell me this for make me feel better?’

  ‘Ali, you and I have been through much in the short time we have known each other – do you think I would lie to you?’

  The Turk shook his head slowly. ‘No, you would not lie, Sergeant. You think I more important here?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘Then I stay,’ the Bashi-Bazouk said in a firm voice, as if it were his decision in the first place. ‘We fight the damn Russians together and we die together if we have to.’

  Crossman put a hand on Yusuf Ali’s shoulder. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘You are the last man I would wish to upset . . .’

  ‘I’m ready,’ said Clancy, suddenly at his elbow. ‘Wish me luck, Sergeant.’

  Crossman turned. Clancy had blackened his face with soot from the burned money. He had also taken off the bulky sheepskin and was now dressed only in a blackened shirt, Oxford trousers and bare feet. In his belt was a bayonet. From his pocket dangled a knotted cord.