Until the Colours Fade

by Tim Jeal

  ‘George seems to think he’s been in Stamboul for some time.’

  Magnus bit the end off a cigar and removed a few strands of tobacco from his lips.

  ‘I doubt that. Otherwise he’d have sailed with me.’

  Charles looked at him intently.

  ‘He seems to have preferred to be alone there.’

  ‘That’s certainly possible.’

  ‘What reason did he give for rejecting your suggestion?’

  ‘Professional pride.’

  ‘What?’

  Magnus laughed at Charles’s confusion.

  ‘Artists can be very fastidious. He thought it would be hackwork.’

  ‘Strange that he changed his mind. War doesn’t alter much.’

  Magnus lit his cigar with a candle, puffing and sucking slowly to make it burn evenly. His expression softened.

  ‘I can’t help you, Charles. Perhaps he went to Turkey to see Helen, perhaps he didn’t. If he did I can’t understand why he should have waited so many months.’

  ‘He waited until father had sailed for Sebastopol.’

  ‘You could be right.’

  ‘And that’s all you have to say?’

  ‘With men dying like flies, I have to admit that the thought of a few Embassy attachés sniggering at father’s expense doesn’t pose an immediate threat to my sanity. Obviously I’d rather it didn’t reach his ears, but I should imagine Helen will do her best to see that it doesn’t.’

  Charles got up and lifted the flap. Magnus followed him out into the open. The guns were still firing. Charles straightened his sword-belt and sighed.

  ‘Couldn’t stand it in there. I’m sorry.’ He turned to Magnus with sad care-worn eyes. ‘I know we all have other things to think of. It isn’t all fun in the batteries at the moment…. I know you don’t understand father’s feelings for her; but you ought to try. If there’s any sort of scandal the humiliation would finish him, and I don’t mean his career.’ A ragged company of men were marching from the Light Division’s Camp in the direction of the trenches, their boots making no sound on the damp earth. Over the brown treeless plateau the sky was darkening with a definite hint of sleet or snow. Charles looked at Magnus imploringly. ‘Couldn’t you go to Stamboul for a few days … write something about the hospitals so your time’s not wasted. Do that and talk to Strickland. I’m in no position to go.’

  ‘Suppose I go,’ murmured Magnus, ‘and suppose he tells me he’s seeing her, do you really expect me to tell you? You’d never betray a friend’s trust, so you can’t expect me to.’

  ‘Then I’ll have to go to father. I can’t leave him to find out through casual rumours.’

  ‘You may be wrong.’

  ‘How can I be? One week he refuses to come with you and the next promptly changes his mind when he knows the fleet’s sailed. Did Catherine tell you he once went looking for Helen at Hanley Park?’

  ‘Why not wait till he gets here? He’s sure to arrive in a week or so. Talk to him then. He’ll tell the truth.’

  ‘And betray her?’

  ‘Why not? If you wanted more than a casual flirtation with a married woman wouldn’t it serve your interest if her husband cast her off? He’s nothing to lose; no position to protect.’

  While Charles considered this, Magnus blew on his fingers to warm them.

  ‘It won’t do, Magnus. All you’ve proved is that neither of us would know whether he was telling the truth. The plain fact is that I ought to have told father months ago and was a coward not to.’

  ‘Wait, Charles.’

  ‘There’d be no point. You can’t even be sure Strickland’s coming out here.’

  ‘And you can’t know whether father will ever hear anything.’

  As Charles walked towards his tethered pony, Magnus went on gently: ‘Before you do what you spoke of, you ought to ask yourself whether it’s because you hate Helen, or care for father.’

  ‘I don’t have to ask myself that,’ replied Charles, as he mounted.

  Magnus watched his brother for a few seconds and then walked slowly back to his hut.

  *

  When Charles stepped into the Brigade’s No. 2 Battery, shortly before midday, he hoped that the constant activity there, and the tense, almost claustrophobic atmosphere of suspense and fear, would divert his thoughts; but, almost immediately he was aware of Humphrey’s piping unbroken voice rising above the crash of the guns and the roar of the trucks on the platforms, and noticed the smiles of the gunners: not smiles of condescension but of admiration for the dash and high spirits of their youngest officer. Charles could easily understand their feelings. The sight of a slender boy, with flushed powder-stained cheeks and long fair hair curling about his temples, striving all the time to make his voice sound gruffer and lower than it was, made men twice his age feel that war could not after all be so terrible if a young aristocrat, straight from his mother’s care, could endure it so readily. As Charles thought of what he had finally decided upon, during his conversation with Magnus, his heart was torn with pity for the boy.

  Humphrey was calling out the positions of shots, steadying his right hand, holding a telescope, on the muzzle of an eight-inch gun not in action, and his left on the shoulder of John Crawley, First Class Boy. Charles had been surprised from the outset by Crawley’s immediate devotion to a youth two years younger than himself, with prospects so entirely different from his own, and one moreover who had replaced him as youngest sailor and darling of the battery. Humphrey’s other most devoted follower was Daniel Pascoe, a massive barrel-chested man, a tin-miner before joining the service and now undoubtedly the best No. 1 in the battery.

  As Charles watched, Pascoe was priming the gun whose shots Humphrey was observing. A man was handing round grog to the gun crews out of action. When Crawley was offered the pannikin, he asked Humphrey to move his elbow, so that the telescope was not jogged while he drank. As Crawley stood up to drink, Pascoe fired his gun, and the shock made the boy spill most of his precious grog down his monkey-jacket. Humphrey was laughing at Crawley’s grimace of displeasure, when he heard the whoosh of a round-shot; and, too late to yell a warning, saw the flashing iron decapitate his friend, hurling his headless body to the ground at his feet.

  Since Humphrey was plastered with blood and brains, Charles thought that he too had been hit, but, seeing him move, enjoyed only momentary relief; with an electrifying shock he took in the fact that at the very moment Crawley had died, Pascoe had been stopping the cannon’s vent. Like Humphrey, Pascoe was red from head to waist with the contents of the boy’s skull; if he moved his finger from the vent, even for a moment, Charles knew that the current of air admitted would fan to life any sparks remaining in the barrel after the previous firing, thus igniting the fresh cartridge and killing the loader and sponger then ‘ramming home’. Charles leapt forward, but Pascoe did not flinch. Keeping one hand firmly on the vent, he calmly wiped the brains from his eyes with the other and shouted to the loader:

  ‘Are you home, Bill?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Run out then.’

  The crews strained at the side-tackles, and when No. 2 cried: ‘Ready,’ Pascoe jerked the firing-lanyard sharply.

  The silence following the report was broken by Humphrey’s hysterical sobbing. A number of men were standing gazing at Crawley’s bleeding trunk as if mesmerised.

  ‘What the hell are you looking at?’ shouted Charles. ‘If he’s dead take him away.’ Then he led Humphrey back to the shelter of the traverse screening the entrance to the magazine. He stood for a while with an arm round the boy’s shaking shoulders, while deep choking sobs wracked his thin body. Another round-shot thudded into the parapet showering the battery with flying earth and dust. When Humphrey seemed a little calmer, Charles said gently:

  ‘Go up to the camp and tell Commander Chapman to bring down his crews at six bells and not at eight.’

  ‘A seaman should do that.’

  ‘I want you to.’

 
‘I’ll stay.’

  ‘I’m ordering you, Humphrey. Then go to the right siege train magazine and find out how many rounds we’re likely to get tomorrow.’

  ‘I’m all right,’ murmured the boy, immediately starting to sob again.

  Several minutes later, Charles dipped a handkerchief into a tub of water and handed it to him. Still shocked and dazed, Humphrey took the cloth without seeming to know what to do with it.

  ‘Your face,’ whispered Charles, looking at the thick dark clots drying on his cheeks.

  Half-an-hour after Humphrey’s departure, Charles was still upset by Crawley’s grisly death and Humphrey’s grief. He longed to be able to get away from the dust and smoke and the crash of the guns so that he could wrestle with his now violently conflicting emotions.

  Ten minutes earlier he had sent up to the main magazine in the rear for more powder and, seeing the first cart arrive, he went over at once to supervise the unloading. As he began giving orders, he saw a round-shot smash the wheels and rear-axle of the following cart, pitching its lethal load onto the ground in full view of the Russian gunners in the Redan. A glance was enough to tell him that there were at least two dozen of the zinc-lined hundredweight boxes out there: enough powder, if hit, to send up half the battery. A second later a shell crashed down onto an araba heaped with 68-pound shot, tossing the heavy iron balls high into the air, as if no more substantial than a child’s marbles. Another mortar bomb struck a mule full in the chest, and, exploding, ignited the powder kegs roped to the animal’s flanks, hurling the disintegrating carcase thirty yards to the right, showering the surrounding ground with shredded flesh. In an instant Charles made up his mind not to give a direct order to a junior officer to bring in the hundredweight boxes with his gun crews, but called for volunteers. When none stepped forward, Charles roared:

  ‘Come on Daniel Pascoe, the devil looks after his own,’ and, without looking back, ran out into the hail of shell and shot falling around the ammunition boxes. As soon as Charles and Pascoe had sprinted from the shelter of the parapet, a dozen others streamed after them, and the powder was quickly brought to safety at the cost of one man wounded.

  Afterwards, still panting, Charles sat with his back to a traverse feeling his entire body suffused with a delicious throbbing weakness – a sensation as pleasurable as any he had ever known – his quiescent limbs tingling after the brief burst of violent physical exertion. Waves of relief lapped through him after the ending of the nerve-splitting tension. He breathed deeply, enjoying the memory of that gasping dash through the bouquets of flame, relishing the feeling of the sweat growing cold on his face; he felt exhausted but completely fulfilled, almost wishing to live through the same danger again.

  But the after-glow faded quickly. Why had he asked for volunteers instead of issuing a peremptory order? Had it really been because he had feared resistance, which would have damaged discipline and morale? Or because he had known all along that none would come forward and that he would therefore be able to shame his officers and men by going himself?

  Some officers gained a loyalty based on affection, but he had never been able to do that. Instead he had learned to rule by exacting a forced respect bordering on fear and resentment. It had taken him years to acquire the necessary self-discipline. As a midshipman at the storming of Sidon, fifteen years before, he had led twenty marines across a bridge enfiladed by a battery of six guns; his men had hesitated but, although terrified himself, he had gone on and, when a shot had thrown up a cloud of dust just in front of him, he had stopped, and coolly pulling a handkerchief from his pocket had dusted his boots, before waving on his marines.

  Charles clambered slowly to his feet and stepped up onto the banquette. As he gazed through the smoke towards the broken shell-pitted ground in front of the Quarries, the last vestiges of his elation ebbed away. The thunderous detonation of the guns jarred his ears and dulled his mind. A shell burst thirty yards short of the ditch but he did not move. In a few days the Quarries would be stormed; he was sure of that. Perhaps the Naval Brigade would take part, perhaps not. He felt an icy detachment; others would make that decision and he would merely carry out orders.

  In one way he was glad. The coming attack made it far easier for him to tell his father about Helen’s betrayal, since its imminence compelled him to act without delay – a few days and death might stop his mouth forever. The thought buttressed his resolve. Through courage his father would survive the truth – if not, to live in despair would be better than to remain a lascivious woman’s fool. In time Humphrey would forget his mother’s disgrace. Time and courage would save them. Nothing would save the first men to stumble up the slope beneath the Quarries.

  46

  Because of its elevated situation on the cliffs midway between the French and British supply ports at Kamiesch Bay and Balaclava, the Russian Orthodox monastery of St George had been occupied by the allies within days of their arrival south of Sebastopol, as an ideal headquarters from which to concert operations involving the combined fleets and armies of both nations. But with the fleets doing little more than blockading, councils of war had become purely military and had therefore taken place more often at Lord Raglan’s or General Canrobert’s inland headquarters. On 18 December however, St George’s was once more the setting for an important conference attended by senior officers from both services.

  At noon the same day, Charles Crawford received a note from his father asking him to come to the monastery.

  ‘I am sending,’ the admiral wrote in conclusion, ‘by the bearer of this message, a request to Commodore Lushington enjoining him to see (other duties notwithstanding) that you are free to come. I make no apology for the lack of prior warning since the matters I wish to acquaint you with were not finally resolved until this morning.’

  At no time during the three days since his conversation with his brother had Charles been able to get away from the batteries for long enough to go to Balaclava and from there to Retribution’s anchorage. Yet although his father’s note now spared him that inconvenience, Charles was far from certain that he was pleased. During his brief periods away from the pandemonium of the batteries, his former sang-froid about revealing Helen’s behaviour had given way to acute anxiety. While such a disclosure might be accepted philosophically enough by a man with shells bursting around him, it would be most unlikely to strike an admiral living in enforced idleness on an anchored warship in the same mercifully distanced light.

  By mid-afternoon Charles’s pony was picking his way between the jagged rocks and loose stones littering the precipitous track leading from the camps to the monastery. Below him on the far side of a marshy valley, Charles could see the blue and gilt dome of the monastery chapel, framed by the dark leafless branches of the surrounding trees and the lead-grey sea beyond. With mounting nausea at the thought of the brutal disillusionment awaiting his father, he rode on across flatter ground dotted with broken vine-stumps.

  Challenged by the zouaves on sentry duty outside the main archway, Charles showed his pass and was admitted to a large courtyard. To the right was a low block containing the monks’ cells, and next to it a two-storied house flanked by rhododendrons and myrtles. In front of the vine-covered colonnade the Tricolour and Union Jack were flying from neighbouring flagstaffs. Only the archimandrite and a dozen other monks out of the hundred strong community had remained after the allied landings, and now the tall stove-pipe hats and black robes of these bizarre prisoners-of-war contrasted strangely with the more numerous military uniforms.

  Since the council of war was still in progress, Charles was taken by an A.D.C. to a room where he was expected to wait. The walls were whitewashed and a bright coal fire was burning in the grate. Beside the single recessed window hung a small icon. Charles sat down on a carved oak chair.

  *

  By four in the afternoon, the arguments for and against a full-scale assault on the Quarries had been resolved in favour of immediate attack – Lord Raglan as usual giving in
to the French generals for the sake of the alliance. Sir James Crawford appreciated his dilemna very well. After the British Army’s catastrophic losses at Inkerman, there had always been a real risk that the French, with their greater numbers, would act independently, and so cause furious indignation in London.

  Sir James and Admiral Lyons – the new naval commander-in-chief – had learned from Raglan before the conference started that they would be asked to authorise the Naval Brigade’s participation if the French were to press for an assault. Knowing too, from an earlier conversation with Lushington, that Charles would be picked to command any naval contingent committed to an attack, Sir James had summoned his son to tell him in person. His own view was that the Quarries would be taken, but not held long enough for the storming party to throw up new parapets – vital not only for successful resistance of counter-attacks, but also as cover from the heavy guns in the Redan. Whatever the outcome, the casualties would not be light.

  When Sir James, along with others, had voiced this fear, General Pélissier – the French second-in-command – had murmured to Lord Raglan: ‘On ne peut pas faire des omelettes sans casser des oeufs.’ Since Charles was likely to be one of the eggs, Sir James had not relished the analogy. It was as well that he had other preoccupations besides his son’s probable fate. During the morning session of the conference he had at last gained support for a venture of his own; one in his opinion likely to have a greater impact on the course of the war than the capture of the Quarries.

  In the earlier more optimistic days of the campaign, Sir James’s plan for a naval raid on the narrow isthmuses connecting the Crimean peninsula with the Russian mainland had been rejected by Admiral Dundas. With Sebastopol expected to fall within weeks, an exceptionally hazardous attack on the town’s military supply routes had held scant appeal – especially since only one of the two essential roads could be reached by water, and even then by no vessels larger than paddle-sloops, corvettes and gunboats. To cut this road, at the point where a long wooden bridge linked two spits of land, these small ships would have to enter the inland Sea of Azov and then navigate a shallow channel under the guns of powerful shore batteries. If the squadron succeeded, all the grain at present reaching Sebastopol from the east would be delayed for two to three weeks, causing the defenders of the town as much hardship as a bombardment of similar duration. After approving the operation, the allied admirals had lost little time in choosing a flag-officer to command the squadron.