by V. A. Stuart
“They will indeed, sir,” Phillip agreed, admiring his stoic calm. “Have you any orders for me, sir?”
His movements deliberately unhurried, Sir Colin consulted his watch, a battered silver timepiece, which he pulled from the breast pocket of his blue frock coat. “Your Admiral should, by this time, be on his way up here, should he not? He will no doubt wish to have a first-hand account of the situation here, so perhaps, Mr Hazard, you will be so good as to meet him and deliver your account? Return to me here as soon as you can, with any information Sir Edmund is able to give me as to the situation in the port.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Phillip obediently turned his horse’s head in the direction of the defile that led to Balaclava. He was exceedingly reluctant to absent himself from his post at this moment but, to his relief, his absence was in the end less prolonged than he had feared it might be. Ten minutes at a reckless gallop past the village of Kadi-Koi and down the rutted track brought him the welcoming sight of Sir Edmund Lyons and his staff approaching, and he was able to make his report as he rode back with the Admiral to the head of the gorge.
Sir Edmund listened to all he had to tell in frowning concentration, for his recital was punctuated and, at times, almost drowned by the ominous rumble of gunfire echoing across the South Valley. Several of the Marine Artillery batteries on the Heights to their right were firing almost continuously but, judging by the volume and direction of the sound, the naval guns to the left of Kadi-Koi had not yet opened … which meant, Phillip decided, that the enemy’s advance had so far been contained by Sir Colin Campbell’s judicious positioning of the Cavalry Division. He mentioned this and the Admiral nodded.
“Sir Colin knows his business. But our Marine Artillery will be in need of more ammunition at the rate they are using it,” he observed. “Supplies are being sent up but, all the same, it will do no harm to expedite them …” He despatched a midshipman on this errand. “Commander Heath is in our Number Four Battery at Kadi-Koi, is he not?”
“I understand that he and Commander Powell are both there, sir,” Phillip answered.
“Then we’ll head in that direction, Phillip. I will have a word with him before I go on to Lord Raglan’s headquarters.”
As the small party neared Kadi-Koi, skirting the tents of the 93rd, Lord Cardigan thundered past them, his aides on sweating horses, and the Light Brigade commander in such a fever to join his command that he galloped past without greeting or apology … and probably, Phillip thought, without realizing of whom the party in the dust cloud behind him consisted. Admiral Lyons looked after the tall figure in the theatrically resplendent uniform, mounted on the magnificent chestnut thoroughbred but, mopping the dust from his face, forbore from comment. Instead he instructed Phillip to inform Sir Colin Campbell that all the warships in Balaclava Harbour had men standing to their guns.
“The Sanspareil is off the port with steam up and Captain Dacres will bring her in, should this be necessary,” the Admiral went on. “That will be your responsibility, Phillip … and you must not hesitate, should the enemy carry Sir Colin’s position and threaten the harbour to ride at once to Captain Tatham—he knows exactly what will be required, I have discussed the situation with him fully since I landed this morning. In fast …” He shrugged. “An order was received from General Airey, addressed on Lord Raglan’s behalf to Captain Tatham, requiring him to load the transports and send them outside the harbour. This was delivered aboard the Simoom just as I was leaving, and I confirmed it … it is a wise precaution and, in any event, will enable Sanspareil to enter without delay. But we are not going to yield Balaclava to the Russians, Phillip.”
“No, sir. But you say that Lord Raglan …” Phillip hesitated, conscious of the Admiral’s eyes on his face. “I mean, sir, that his lordship … well, his lordship must have despatched that order before the Turks were driven from the Causeway Redoubts, sir, and—”
“I know what you mean,” Admiral Lyons put in. “His lord-ship has timid counsellors, perhaps. Captain Tatham will hold the head of the harbour with the steam frigates anchored there now. I’ve had guns placed aboard the Diamond and, if necessary, men are standing by to reinforce our seamen and Marines on the Heights. Wasp and Diamond are in position—the other steamers will join them, after towing out the transports and …” The roar of heavy and prolonged gunfire drowned his next few words and he broke off, gesturing ahead of him to where No. 4 Battery had opened with all its seven 32-pounder guns. “I shall be with Lord Raglan,” he added, when there was a brief lull in the firing. “Probably throughout the day.”
“Very good, sir.” Phillip waited for his dismissal but it did not come at once. The Admiral reined in, his glass to his eye, ranging it this way and that and asking occasional questions but, from where he had halted, there was little to be seen, so after a while he snapped the telescope shut and laid a hand on Phillip’s arm.
“Return to Sir Colin Campbell, Phillip, and do not leave your post unless it should be necessary to signal the Sanspareil to undertake the defense of the harbour. Then, as I said before, you must not hesitate, you understand? Everything may depend on the speed with which she is brought in.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Good—then back to your post. If there should be heavy casualties among our own men or the 93rd, send for extra stretcher parties from the Diamond to evacuate them … they, too, will be standing by. And you may need a galloper.” The Admiral glanced over his shoulder to give a crisp order to Cowper Coles, his Flag Lieutenant, who was riding behind him. “I’ll leave you one of the mounted orderlies the cavalry have so kindly provided me with.” He smiled, with wry humor. “Don’t forget that you are here to observe, not to fight.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Phillip saluted and, as the Admiral’s party took the left-hand track towards the village of Kadi-Koi, he trotted off to rejoin the 93rd. Passing their tents, he saw that most of the women had gathered in a silent group on the far side, from whence they were anxiously watching all that was going on. So absorbed were they that they neither saw nor, apparently, heard him ride past, his newly acquired galloper—a trooper of the 8th Hussars—cantering at his heels.
Not one of the women looked round, and, although he searched for her among their number, he could not be sure that the slim figure with the dark proudly held head, whom he imagined he recognized as Catriona Lamont was, in fact, she… .
CHAPTER SIX
When he reached the rear of the 93rd’s position, Phillip realized that several changes had taken place during his short absence and, his Dollond to his eye, he looked about him, frowning.
The Highlanders were still lying down behind the crest of the hill in their two lines, each man with his musket at his side, alert and watchful. But to their right he noticed that the Turco-Tunisian battalions—although well out of range of the enemy’s guns—were moving about restlessly as if, he thought shocked, they were again contemplating flight.
Then, with an even greater sense of shock, he observed that the Cavalry Division had withdrawn from the strategically well-chosen position Sir Colin Campbell had earlier advised them to occupy. Instead of being formed up between Kadi-Koi and their own camp in the South Valley, where they’d covered the 93rd’s vulnerable left flank, they were proceeding across the Plain of Balaclava in a north-westerly direction. Which meant, Phillip realized, his heart sinking, that if Sir Colin Campbell’s Highlanders should fail to repel the expected Russian attack then—apart from such resistance as the naval guns and the Marines on the Heights behind them could offer—the way to Balaclava Harbour would be open. And the Sanspareil was still at anchor outside the harbour entrance, with no prospect of being able to enter until a passage had been cleared for her… .
He watched, in silent dismay, as the two brilliantly uniformed British Cavalry Brigades executed their withdrawal by alternate regiments and with parade ground precision, led by the Light Brigade. Reaching the western extremity of the South Valley, they halted immediately below the
Sapouné Ridge, to form up in line of brigades, facing east. Even at that distance, they made a splendid, colourful spectacle, the sunlight striking bright reflections from lance-tips and drawn sabres and glinting on brass dragoon helmets and gold-frogged hussar jackets … yet the line of captured or abandoned redoubts on the Causeway Heights must, Phillip thought, have mocked them, and he turned away, lowering his glass.
Sir Colin Campbell, he saw, had returned—seemingly unperturbed—from his conference with Lord Lucan, and was again pacing slowly up and down between the ranks of the 93rd, on foot, his groom holding his horse nearby. To the obediently prostrate Highlanders, their commander was repeating his earlier reminder that there could now be no retreat and, as they had before, the men responded with shouted promises and subdued cheers, most of these drowned by the thunder of the guns. To their right front, Captain Barker’s nine-pounder battery was firing almost continuously, as, too, were the naval guns to their left and on the Heights behind them. Occasionally, through the drifting smoke, it was possible to glimpse the enemy guns with which they were engaged, and now and then a shell burst over-head or a round shot ricocheted between the ranks of crouching, red-coated soldiers.
A young officer of the 93rd, when Phillip questioned him concerning the withdrawal of the Cavalry Division, shrugged disgustedly. “They are, I have been given to understand, sir, obeying an order from Lord Raglan, which has just reached them—to take ground to the left in support of the Turks, who are wavering. They most certainly are wavering, as you can see …” His gesture, in the direction of the Turkish troops, was contemptuous. “But they are, alas, now with us and not, as his lordship seems to imagine, in the redoubts on the Woronzoff Road, where they should be! And from whence, I was told, sir, they pillaged the Cavalry Division’s camp during their inglorious retreat. I refer to those placed in the westernmost of the redoubts—the others were intent only on saving their skins. But judging by their previous behavior, these gentry will waver all the way to the harbour if we are attacked and it would, I’m afraid, take more than our Cavalry Division to stop them!”
His words proved unhappily to be prophetic. The Russians had brought up more field guns, under cover of the smoke and, although their infantry remained on the Tchernaya side of the Causeway Heights, these guns, escorted by Cossacks, concentrated a fierce fire on the Tunisian and Turkish battalions posted to the right of the 93rd. As if it had only needed this to decide them, the Tunisian auxiliaries broke and fled for the second time that day, their high-pitched screams of “Ship, Johnny, ship!” echoing back from the rocky heights towards which their panic-stricken flight was directed. In a matter of as many minutes—although a few held fast—two battalions had abandoned their arms and their allies and were hurling themselves in a yelling, jostling mob through the Highlanders’ camp, intent on making for the harbour and the ships they hoped were waiting there to take them to safety.
Because his attention was wholly taken up by what was happening on his immediate front, Phillip did not see the reception accorded them by the Highlanders’ womenfolk, and he did not witness the cowardly attempts to loot and pillage made by some of the fleeing Arabs. Afterwards, however, he listened with grim satisfaction to the story of how some of the indignant soldiers’ wives had set upon and belaboured the intruders with any weapon that came to hand, from tent-props to smoothing irons, until, compelled to drop their spoils and with the derisive cries of the women in their ears, the wretched mob had continued their inglorious retreat to Balaclava, a mile below them … only to be met by Captain Tatham and a party of resolute seamen, who had ordered them unceremoniously back to their posts.
“Dogs!” the officer whom Phillip had questioned exploded wrathfully. “Miserable curs! What could Lord Raglan have been thinking of, to give us such miserable scum to fight with, while retaining the rest of our brigade to do trench duty with the Guards? If the defense had been entrusted to the Highland Brigade alone, Balaclava would have been secure, but as it is …” He broke off, pointing ahead through the wreathing, greyish-yellow cloud of gunsmoke and there was a faint tremor in his voice as he said, “My God, look, sir … over there! The Russian cavalry are advancing across the Causeway Heights!”
Conscious of a quickening of his pulse and a sudden dryness in his throat, Phillip allowed his gaze to follow the direction of the ensign’s pointing finger. Dimly, through the smoke, he could discern a great mass of Russian horsemen, moving slowly but with confidence along the lower slopes of the Causeway having, apparently, crossed the Woronzoff Road from the North Valley. It was impossible accurately to judge their number but, at a guess, he put this at something in the region of two thousand, although there could have been more. There was, however, no doubt at all of their intentions and he drew a quick, startled breath. They were the elite of the Russian cavalry, the blue of Hussar and Lancer uniforms and the dark green of Chasseurs’ tunics mingled with the grey greatcoats of the ubiquitous Cossacks, and they were led, he saw, by a regiment of splendidly horsed Chasseurs, whose commanding officer rode along, some distance ahead of the leading squadron.
Although at extreme range, Barker’s nine-pounder battery—loading, on an order from Sir Colin Campbell, with round shot—did swift but momentary execution among their packed ranks. This, however, while it caused them to change direction by wheeling obliquely, did not halt their advance, and their own field guns, ranged on the 93rd’s position, afforded them cover until they vanished into the swirling gunsmoke. Phillip saw that Sir Colin was returning for his horse, and he seized the opportunity to deliver Admiral Lyons’s message to his aide-de-camp, Lawrence Shadwell, who was with him. Shadwell passed this on to his chief as he mounted and Sir Colin beckoned Phillip to his side.
“Do nothing to disrupt the Admiral’s present arrangements for the defense of the harbour, Mr Hazard, without an order from me,” the Highland Brigade commander told him. “Unless you see me fall, in which event you will have to refer to Colonel Ainslie. But if you …” He stifled an exclamation, peering ahead of him into the smoke to where some squadrons at the rear of the Russian mass—amounting to between five and six hundred men—detached themselves and made for the 93rd’s position. As they did so, a company of the 93rd, which had evidently seen the advancing enemy cavalry, rose as one man to their feet and, with bayonets fixed, moved forward towards the crest of the hill to meet them.
“Shadwell!” thundered Sir Colin, “Those men must hold their ground!” Without giving his aide-de-camp time to deliver this order for him, he set spurs to his horse and, thrusting past the offenders, turned in his saddle to wave them back reprovingly. “93rd, 93rd … damn all this eagerness! Keep your lines!”
The men, hearing him or, at any rate, comprehending the meaning of his raised arm, stiffened and at once reformed in disciplined obedience. All the Highlanders were, by now, on their feet but still concealed from the enemy by the brow of the hill behind which they had lain for so long and their officers, repeating their commander’s order, proceeded to dress them meticulously.
They were in two lines, extended to cover as much ground as their depleted numbers would allow. A party of the Guards—a fatigue party, Phillip judged, by the look of them, on their way to Balaclava—under two young officers, having sought Colonel Ainslie’s permission to do so, ranged themselves on the 93rd’s right flank, in an attempt to fill the gap left there by the defection of the Tunisians. Here they were joined by the invalids’ company, and a Turkish battalion, consisting mainly of those Arab auxiliaries who had rallied, was posted on the extreme right of the position under the command of Rustem Pasha himself, who could be seen fiercely exhorting his men to stand firm.
As the main body of Russian cavalry went on its chosen way without haste, riding in a shallow trough which, running parallel to the Woronzoff Road, concealed their presence from the British Cavalry Division at the opposite end of the Causeway, the smaller, detached force quickened its pace, coming rapidly nearer. A strange hush fell at that moment, the sile
nce oppressive and curiously ominous, as the supporting guns ceased fire to enable their own men to approach the 93rd’s position. In the silence, it was possible to hear the champing of bits and the clink of sabers as the cavalrymen rose in their saddles, advancing without attempt at concealment. They must have witnessed the precipitate flight of the Tunisians, Phillip supposed, and having deduced from this that Kadi-Koi and the head of the Balaclava gorge were now virtually undefended, they were expecting to meet with no opposition. They advanced at a brisk trot, without scouts or skirmishers and, as they started to breast the lower side of the slope some eight hundred yards from where the 93rd waited with growing impatience, Sir Colin Campbell at last gave the order to advance and open fire on the enemy when they came within musket range.
Needing no urging, the 93rd moved to the crest of the hill, two thin, widely extended lines of red-coated, kilted Scottish soldiers—seeming, to the surprised Russians, to have materialized from out of the ground. There, as their commander had ordered, they waited for the enemy to come within range of their muskets. Their steadiness was so impressive, their bearing so resolute, that the Russians did not suspect that they were unsupported—all, in fact, save for the Marines and naval guns on the Heights behind them, that stood between Balaclava and capture—and the leading squadron hesitated. Then, as the first volley of musket fire rang out in almost perfect unison, they halted.
There were few casualties among them but, in spite of this, they checked their advance and seemed on the point of retreating when, in response to a shouted order from the officer at their head, the leading squadron wheeled to the left. Followed by the second and third, the whole force swiftly gathered speed and thundered once more into the attack, with the object of turning the weakened right flank of the 93rd. Faced by a less experienced commander or by less courageous and well-disciplined troops, they might have succeeded, Phillip realized, watching them, his heart suddenly quickening its beat.