***
‘Can you hear that, sir?’ As with most of the rest of the Number Three Company men, Morgan recognized the speaker’s face but didn’t know his name. Now one young lad cupped his gloved hand to his ear, opened his mouth to amplify the sound and listened intently.
‘No, I can’t hear a damn thing.’ Morgan was jaded after another broken night and impatient with the freshness of men he hardly knew. ‘What d’you think it is? I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.’
‘Yarrow, sir. There, listen, can you not hear harness and horses?’ The other sentry strained hard into the breeze, all three men breathing as lightly as possible, trying to catch the slightest noise.
The new picket had arrived, been posted and eaten a meagre breakfast before Morgan had rolled himself in his blankets and dozed a little. Now it was late morning on a cool, sunlit, late October day that, for once, was dry. But with a snatch of sleep and a cup of red-hot coffee straight from the watch fire warming his stomach, Morgan began to feel semi-human again. There wasn’t much that could be called beautiful on the slopes of Shell Hill, but as the oak and brush that dotted his view began to turn brown and the wind caught their leaves in the gentle sunlight, he was reminded of the hills near home where they ran down to the sea. Now he didn’t need some recruit from another, half-tried company jumping at shadows, ruining what should be a quiet morning. Only last week the 30th’s pickets had started firing at nothing—the whole of the 2nd Division had stood-to and there was a dreadful fuss—Carmichael was just waiting for him to preside over a mistake like that.
‘Yarrow, you’re away with the fairies.’ Morgan had done his best to humour the boy, played the dutiful, interested officer, but he could hear nothing. ‘Still, I’d rather have you alert than...’
‘Fuck sake, look there!’ The other sentry, standing just behind Morgan, yelled, raised his rifle to his shoulder and instantly fired.
The muzzle was only inches from the young officer’s ear when it exploded deafeningly. Morgan ducked away, head ringing, cursing the man for an inexperienced fool when Yarrow fired as well, the smoke from both weapons fanning back into their faces and obscuring everything just when they needed a clear view.
But there they were. No more than seventy paces away, half-hidden by the brush and bushes was a great phalanx of pasty-faced, moustachioed, silent troops. For a fraction of a second Morgan thought they were British for they wore the same, grey greatcoats—perhaps a stray company, badly lost. But there was red at their collars and their cross-belts were polished black and now at least a hundred of them just stood and gazed at the three Englishmen. One man had fallen to Yarrow’s bullet—a couple pawed at him with looks of surprise on their faces—but the rest dithered, musket barrels and bayonets shining dully.
‘Jaysus! Russians, bloody thousands,’ said Morgan, ‘reload, quick!’
‘Said summat was up,’ replied Yarrow dryly whilst both sentries calmly rammed fresh rounds into their rifles.
‘You get back and get the rest of the picket now, Yarrow and I will hold them,’ Morgan pushed his telescope into a deep coat pocket and hauled at his leather pistol holster.
‘No need, sir.’ The nameless soldier carelessly spat a twist of cartridge paper whilst answering Morgan. ‘The lads are coming now, look there.’
The two rounds must have been fired just as the main body of the picket were standing-to, for up ran two dozen or so men, all strapped and belted and ready for the fight. But the NCOs had them well in hand, for none fired—despite the closeness of the enemy infantry—as they scrambled up to form a firing line. Their job was to buy time for the guns and the mass of the 2nd Division, three-quarters of a mile behind them on Home Ridge, to stand-to and ready themselves to counter-attack. The Sergeant and corporal at their head had reacted well and quickly but they were clearly delighted to see Morgan—an officer—who would take command and the responsibility that went with it.
‘Well done, lads, up here, swift now.’ The Russians had stalled and if Morgan could put a volley into them they might just fall back and give him time to think of something else.
But as the first of the men arrived blown and puffing next to him, a Russian officer came barging through the ranks opposite, waving his sword. He planted himself in front of his supine command, turned, yelled and set off at a sprint towards the English. For a second the enemy didn’t respond, then the spell was broken. With a harsh, high-pitched yell, their faces creased, the whole mob came rolling forward, bayonets levelled, one or two firing as they ran, the grey tidal wave sweeping down the slope.
‘No, don’t wait, for God’s sake get into line and make ready.’ Morgan instinctively knew that there was only one thing for it. If the troops did as they were trained to do—every other man firing before falling back covered by his mate—all would be lost, for every bullet was needed now.
‘Ready...aim low...wait for my word.’ The men scrambled into a rough, ragged line amongst the bushes, some kneeling, some standing, all gasping to get their breath, the smell of sweat and last night’s rum all around them. One man jerked backwards crashing into the branches that, for a second, supported him before he slithered to the ground. He was ignored as butts were cuddled hard against cheeks, wavering barrels curbed and steadied.
Morgan aimed his pistol just below the cross-belts of the leading Russian, an NCO judging by the way that he was shouting and pushing the others on. At fifty yards he could see every button on their uniforms and, quite detached, he noticed how the skirts of their flapping coats were hooked up at the waist to make movement easier.
‘Fire!’ All around him the heavy rifles banged and kicked, every man’s shoulder jerked backwards with the recoil, as if pulled by some invisible string. Instantly they were enveloped by greasy, grey powder-smoke, but none came from his Tranter. His father’s present sat mute in his hand, the trigger unmoving and the hammer jammed solid.
Pulling his sword from its damp-swollen, leather scabbard, Morgan pushed through the smoke. ‘Come on, get at them!’ He launched himself into a patch of clearer ground, his boots scrabbling on the grass and grit. If he could blunt the enemy and break their momentum, his men might just survive.
As the smoke cleared they could see the effect of their volley. At point-blank range the Minie bullets had ripped into the enemy infantry, bowling over a dozen or more and leaving others dazed, holding their wounds or hopping and limping to the rear. Most had stopped, stunned by the fire, but others came on hard down the slope, whooping and yelling. It was just like a ruck at school except for the steel—and the fear. He knew raw, physical contact with other men on the playing field and in the ring, but this was different. It was the same sensation that he had had with that young skirmisher at the Alma—the desperation in his scratches and blows before his head was broken open by McGucken. Here it was again, screaming, spitting hate, no rugby ball or gloved hands now, just death or survival.
They met at a run. Morgan dreaded the hesitation that had nearly cost him his life at the Alma—a hesitation born of a cultured, Christian society—a hesitation that had no place on the battlefield. But it had gone, all his weight and strength were behind his sword as he thrust at his enemy’s belly. With a heavy, awkward parry, though, the Russian slammed his musket down, catching the sabre on the socket of his bayonet, both blades skidding into the earth as their owners cannoned into each other, the shock sending them reeling back.
All around men crowded into each other. Bitter, lethal contests with butts, barrels and bayonets eddied over the hillside, bushes trodden under foot, twigs and branches snapping, the moans of the wounded harsh above the grim silence of the contestants.
Winded, Morgan sucked for breath. The Russian’s mouth dropped open, his eyes round with fear and indecision, his feet rooted to the ground. With that clumsy, over-arm swipe that he knew was wrong from the moment it was launched, Morgan chopped at his enemy’s head. Shocked as he was, the boy had all the time in the world to bring his musket up to guard h
imself—the blade rang on the barrel, sparks flew as it snapped in two.
There was no time to think. Morgan punched hard at the lad with the hilt of the broken sword, swinging his shoulder behind the blow exactly as he would in the ring. But just as the punch connected, something glittered across Morgan’s chest, ripping at his coat, cross belt and cape, throwing him off balance, making him stagger, barge, half-fall into one of his own men in the melee.
A furious Russian NCO now had Morgan on the end of his musket and bayonet just as surely as a gaffed salmon. The long, thin, spike of a blade had missed his body by fractions of an inch but now it was firmly snagged in his clothes and the wide leather of his sword-belt. The more the Russian tried to wrench his weapon free, the more he pulled Morgan with him: the more he pulled the more they both cursed. The pair windmilled and swung through the other fights, smoke in their nostrils, Morgan almost pulled off his feet by his enemy’s frenzied tugs.
In the chaos the stub of his sword had gone. Morgan reached for his jammed pistol as a club, but as his clothes tented out in front of him as the Russian tried to free his blade yet again, all he could find was his telescope. He had just enough sense to hang back as the NCO pulled again, launching himself as the Russian jerked, hammering at his enemy’s head with the brass tube as their chests thumped together. As they fell so Morgan struck. There was no weight to his telescope, but he beat time and again at his enemy until his palm was numb. Under the rain of blows the Russian finally gave in, dropped his musket and shied off up the hill with the rest of his running troops.
Then all was quiet. Morgan looked around him in the brush. A few of his men sprawled on the ground, but bleeding, crawling, torn Russians were everywhere. The clutch of 95th puffed and wheezed, some reloaded but most just stared in disbelief as the scrub swallowed up the great mass of their foes.
‘Fuck me, sir, you showed that Russ how to fight. You’ll have to send back to one o’ them smart London shops for a new glass, though, sir.’ A freckled, stubbly boy, cap right on the back of his head, greasy hair jutting out, grinned at him. ‘It’ll cost you a bob or two.’
Morgan’s buckled telescope was still in his hand, the lens shattered, a smear of blood over its leather sheath. It was a good one—it had cost three guineas. He dropped it to the ground next to an equally buckled man and, trembling uncontrollably, tried to pull the bayonet from his clothes.
The guns thumped and the Russians broke. The pickets and Morgan had done their job—some said they had done it too well. By fighting so stubbornly and so far forward they had prevented their own guns on Home Ridge from getting into action sooner, but really it made little difference. Six Russian battalions had come forward with the guns that Yarrow’s sharp ears had heard under the command of a colonel, but when he fell to a British nine-pounder, all the steam went out of the attack and it collapsed.
So Morgan sat on a sandbag amongst their own artillery as the shells cracked and clawed at the enemy. Two British battalions whooped across the saddle up to Shell Hill, driving all before them and he was more than content to let them get on with it. He’d drunk half his flask of brandy on watch last night, sharing a bit with the men, now he gulped greedily at the rest. Twice, now, he’d grappled hand-to-hand with Russians, smelt their breath, felt their spittle on his face and seen their eyes as scared as his own. Would he have to do this again? Could he take it? Then a small, warm thought came to him—what was it that soldier from Three Company had said—‘You showed that Russ how to fight’ wasn’t it? He smiled to himself and emptied his flask.
The hillside opposite was dotted with Russian dead and wounded, but his own men had got off lightly. A handful of stretchers bobbed back towards the regimental hospital—he ought to go and visit the injured before finding Carmichael and reporting to him, he would need to know how many men were down. Strange, though, he’d not seen Carmichael since their argument the day before—perhaps he’d just not noticed him in the chaos of the fight.
***
‘Mrs Polley, I’m glad to see you. How many of our boys are here?’ A wisp of hair had escaped the iron clutches of her bun, now she brushed a wrist across her forehead, turned and bobbed a curtsey to Tony Morgan.
‘Why, sir, it’s good to see you too, sir.’ She was bandaging the hand of a Russian who sat, quite bemused on a wooden stool looking about him at the inside of the big hospital marquee, oblivious to any pain. ‘Less than a dozen all told, sir, two of our Grenadiers, Tommy Baxter and young George Clarke—but they’re all right. Word to the wise, Mr Morgan, sir, the Sergeant-Major caught one. Might be a good move to wish him well, he’s yonder,’ she pointed with her bony chin to a trestle bed in the corner, then, dropping her voice, ‘just don’t ask where he’s wounded,’ then much louder and staccato ‘now hold still, Tsar Nicholas, we’ll soon have you mended.’ But the Russian looked no better informed.
The regiment’s senior non-commissioned officer, Sergeant-Major Roger O’Connor, lay face down on the straw-filled mattress. At forty-four his curling hair and beard were starting to grey, lines of pain etched the corners of his closed eyes, his bottom stuck up below a blanket, supported by a pillow. His scarlet coat, muddy trousers and sword hung on a peg beside the bed, whilst a pair of shockingly dirty feet hung out over the end of the mattress. With only an issue shirt on, though, the imposing, muscular man had lost none of his authority.
‘Sar’nt-Major, it’s me, Mr Morgan; how are you?’
‘Fine, sir, I’ve never been better, so I haven’t.’ The big, Belfast man rose on his elbows, opened his eyes, grimaced and almost smiled through the pain.
‘A good fight today, wasn’t it, and I see we’ve got more prisoners than we can feed.’ Morgan tried not to ask the obvious question.
‘I’m not sure that Mrs O’Connor will be as pleased as we are with it, but they call that the fortunes of war, sir, don’t they?’ O’Connor half-joked, ‘I hear you did well today, sir, though you’ll be needing a new sword and glass. Keep your thieving, Orange hands off mine, sir.’
They both laughed. But how could the Sergeant-Major already know about his scrimmage—his palm was still tingling—and could that awkward, bruising tussle really reflect well on him?
‘Sir, the commanding officer’s well pleased with things and will want to speak to you.’ The last time that Major Hume had spoken to Morgan had been when he’d torn a strip off him at the Alma for shooting a Russian rifleman. He’d avoided him ever since. ‘But, sir, what officer’s up with your company? I’ve just seen Mr Carmichael and there’s only the pair of you now, ain’t there?’ Even in his pain, O’Connor was still the Sergeant-Major, always worried for his flock.
‘I didn’t know he was here, Mr O’Connor, I must find him.’ Morgan was instantly suspicious. Why had Carmichael left the Grenadiers when he was the only officer with them? Or was he trying to find fault with Morgan again?
He stopped to see the company’s wounded. Both had been grazed by shot and would return to duty soon enough, but neither had seen Carmichael.
‘He wasn’t with us when we leathered them Muscovites today, sir. Jock...er, Colour-Sar’nt McGucken was in charge,’ added the youngster, Clarke. He wandered back to Mrs Polley who was sticking plaster on yet another Russian.
‘Oh yes, sir, he was here just before you arrived. He’s always here in the hospital, most attentive to his duties he is...well, attentive, anyway,’ she added flicking him a glance.
‘So where is he now?’
‘Why should I know, sir?’ Mrs Polley busied herself about her patient, hesitated then added, ‘Mithering poor Mrs Keenan at the wagon, I shouldn’t wonder.’
Morgan caught the note in Mrs Polley’s voice straightaway. Carmichael had never made any secrecy of his lust for Mary and now, as acting company commander, he would have every opportunity to visit the sick and wounded in the regimental hospital daily. Morgan was only too aware of his own frailties to expect anything better from Carmichael—a check on exactly what his elder and bett
er was doing was in order, he thought.
Whilst he’d been in the hospital tent, though, he’d become aware of the din of voices nearby. A noisy crowd had gathered by the horse lines and now, as he left the tent, there were fifty or so men jostling in a circle, talking excitedly, one strident voice dominating the others, shouting a litany that Morgan couldn’t quite hear.
‘Harry ‘Otspur, what’s the odds? ‘Oo fancies Sevastopol Sam?’ A big private with a bandaged hand—Morgan thought he recognized him as a Light Company man—had a sheaf of notes in his good hand. He was standing on a straw bale, part of a ring made from the horses’ bedding. There was no formality here, not even a hint that the men recognized an officer, for the excitement was running too high. Morgan pushed through a gap in the bodies to see two men crouched in the straw circle, both holding cock-birds tightly so that they couldn’t flap their wings. The birds had their necks outstretched, beaks straining, as the men pushed them at each other, tauntingly. The cocks clucked horrid little rasps of hate, their legs drooping below where their sharpened, iron spurs shone.
‘Five bob on Hotspur, please.’ Morgan dug in his pocket for the few coins he kept on him. He’d always wondered how sensible this was when he remembered the boy from the 7th at the Alma who had been struck by coins propelled from another’s pocket by a roundshot, but he needed some money, if only to chance his arm like this when the opportunity arose.
‘Hello there, sir. Five bob on Harry’s beak it is, three-to-one, note it down, Jem.’ The bandaged private had to yell above the rumpus to his partner. ‘Check their gaffs, handlers,’ he called to the men in the ring, who tugged at the spurs’ leather bindings, making sure that the two-inch-long spikes were secure, ‘...and loose!’
Both birds fluttered onto the ring’s floor, wings outstretched, beaks trembling and eyes alight. The crowd fell silent, the birds circled and circled again.
‘Chicken, they’re bloody chicken,’ Get at ‘im, can’t yer.’ ‘Must be a Turkey,’ the crowd was impatient until both cock-birds flew at each other, all feathers, wings and furious, black eyes. They clung in mid-air, inches above the ground, scratching, pecking for a few seconds before falling back to the floor. As Sam flapped and steadied himself, a cascade of grain fell from his crop where a spur had caught him. The seeds rolled across the ring, Hotspur’s backers cheering with delight, until Sam came back on guard, apparently oblivious to the wound.
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