Again the birds flew, again they clashed and scratched before dropping back, but this time Sam staggered. At first his wings flopped down as spots of blood dripped to the floor, then up came his beak to face his opponent, clucking his defiance.
‘He’s a game ‘un...plucky bugger,’ yelled the delighted mob, as the birds dashed together again. Now Sam stayed down; his wings flapped weakly, his head dipped and touched the grit as Hotspur strutted onto his body, pecking briefly at his neck before opening his wings, throwing his head back and crowing for all that he was worth.
Both birds’ supporters were delighted with the display. Win or lose, they’d had a grand time, now they clamoured for their money or began to drift away, Sam’s owner finishing the bird with a quick twist of its neck.
‘Old ‘ard, you lot, ‘ere you are, sir, fifteen bob an’ yer stake, that’s a quid...’ the Light Company man trickled florins and crowns into Morgan’s hand, ‘...not quite enough for a new glass, sir, but better than a bang on the bonce.’
How on earth did the men know about his telescope, thought Morgan, but even as he turned away from the soldiers, pocketing his winnings, there stood Carmichael. ‘Morgan, what are you doing here, cock-fighting?’ Carmichael was poised, he’d obviously been watching Morgan for some time. ‘Besides that, you know the sport’s illegal, not to mention the crime of taking money off the men; I’ve told you before about getting too familiar with them.’ Carmichael’s sally rocked Morgan back.
‘But I can overlook all that; what I can’t understand is why you’re down here when it’s almost time for stand-to.’ Carmichael was calm, almost conversational in his accusations. ‘Your place is on Shell Hill with the men, not trying to curry favour with them down here.’
For an instant Morgan faltered, for Carmichael was right in everything he said, but suddenly the man’s utter hypocrisy was too much for him. ‘Goddamn you Carmichael, why aren’t you with the company? You duck every fight, you neglect the men and now you’re here sniffing round someone else’s wife—and one of your own soldiers’ at that.’ He just reined himself in, ‘If I didn’t think it’s what you’d want, I’d kick your lights out here and now.’ Morgan’s chest was thrust out, his fists clenched, he’d come forward on the balls of his feet almost like one of the game-cocks.
‘Thank you, Morgan, that’s quite enough of that.’ To his credit, Carmichael showed no fear. ‘Remember where you are, who I am and who Mrs Keenan is. Now, visit the wounded and sick and report back to me after stand-down. Do I make myself clear?’
‘You do, sir,’ Morgan fought to control himself.
‘Good. I could break you for this, Morgan, and don’t forget it. You’re on borrowed time from now on.’ Carmichael turned on his heel, tucked his sword up under his arm and strode calmly away.
Morgan trembled with anger. He knew that he’d gone red with fury and that his last sentence or two had been thick with emotion, but he’d failed to notice Mary deep amongst the ponies; she had heard every word.
‘Mother of God, Tony, was that wise?’ Mary instantly dropped any formality. She bit her lip, looking towards Carmichael’s back.
‘It had to be said, Mary, I can take no more of that gutless prig. I spend my time covering for him—he despises the men, you know.’
‘And they just hate him, Tony. Here, I’ve a wee drop of rum in the back somewhere, jump up for a minute.’ Morgan hauled himself over the tailboard, pulling the canvas down behind him. Immediately the back of the wagon seemed warm, cosy and private, everything that a ditch on Shell Hill or his wretched, bleak tent wasn’t.
Mary’d lit a lantern; now it gently dappled her. She settled herself on one of the litters, smoothed her hair, made absolutely no attempt to find any rum and looked him straight in the eye.
Hypocrisy—it wasn’t a word that crossed Tony’s mind in the next few minutes. He fell on her lips, their hands tore at each other’s buttons whilst all that Morgan could think of was his horrid, coarse beard and the grime in every pore and the lice that were in all his clothes—but Mary didn’t notice for she was as hungry as he was. The exhaustion, worry, loneliness, brutality and fear of the last weeks melted as their limbs twined round each other. The same hands that had beaten at a Russian just hours before now gently stroked and probed. With a moan they lost themselves in each other, all horror, hate and dread forgotten for the moment.
‘Tony, I’m so in love with you.’ Mary lay on top of him just as she had at Glassdrumman.
‘As I am with you, my darling girl.’ They had always known it, but it had never been said. Now Tony smothered her hair, her lips, her neck, her breasts with kisses.
‘Darling, you have to know it. Bloody Carmichael’s always round me, but tonight he had some news. Poor James is quite recovered. He’s on the next draft back from Turkey and he’s to be a sergeant—it’s for what both of you did at the Alma.’ Mary stroked at his hair and cheek, smoothing the whiskers back as she always had, her eyes fixed on his.
‘So Mr Morgan, sir, you know what we have—and it’s something that Sergeant James Keenan and I will never have—and I can’t live without you.’
EIGHT
Eve of Inkermann
‘Right, together now, lift.’ All four men grunted as they took the weight of the stretcher and its corpse.
The early November morning was crisp, just cold enough to nip the men’s bare hands on the wooden stretcher and to leave their breath hanging in the air. The grey blanket that covered the dead man had been tied off with coarse, straw-coloured string at ankles, waist and head, the whole bundle now sparkling with frost in the weak sunlight. The body and those of two other men had lain outside the regimental hospital tents overnight—the cold only adding to the stiffness of rigor mortis—all three victims of a combination of exhaustion and cholera which was never far away. As the carrying party lifted Private Thompson onto the stretcher he was unbending, rigid in his blanket, hard to handle and deathly cold. Now he bounced and bobbed on the pregnant canvas as the stretcher party shuffled towards the regiment’s makeshift cemetery.
‘You’re an ‘eavy bugger, you, Tommo...’ Drummer Pegg talked to un-listening ears, ‘...you always was selfish, bet you told Jock McGucken specially to put me on your burial detail.’
Pegg was several inches shorter than the other three, so a greater proportion of the dead weight fell upon his podgy arms. He had to use both hands on his corner of the litter, puffing and blowing with effort to match the taller, older men as they plodded slowly over the rough turf and grit.
‘Steady now, watch where you’re putting your feet.’ The greatcoated, muffled group staggered over an uneven, frost-slippery bank where the limey soil broke through the grass. The senior soldier leading the party had done this many times before, but even his experience wasn’t enough to avoid the inevitable.
‘Ow...bollocks.’ It had to be Pegg who slipped. As he picked forwards with his load, his feet suddenly went from under him, his thigh struck a stone, his elbow banged into the soil before the stretcher’s handle thumped him squarely in the centre of the chest. The others were pulled down in a welter of limbs and curses, as cold, stiff Tommo first bundled over Pegg before bouncing off down the slope. As it rolled so the parcel came untied. The string undid itself at waist and then head, allowing rigid arms to poke out like oars, eventually halting its crazy progress against a line of tussocks.
‘Right, let’s get ‘im—and, Pegg can do the poor sod back up for falling when I told you not to.’ The older man tried to make light of the tasteless accident, but they all felt the indignity of their friend Tommo’s last journey. The daily exposure to death and injury left them all numb to it—the handling and burial of bodies was seen as a simple part of mortality—but few had been robbed of their humanity. Here was a friend, a messmate from Dublin and Weedon, a man who had faced danger well and who could be trusted to stay awake at a lonely post and share his rations and tobacco.
More than just that, his death took away anot
her pair of hands, making those posts lonelier and the burden of work even heavier. Now they were stuck with the tedious, arduous task of their friend’s disposal. A nuisance he might have become—his final act being to deprive them of sleep and rest—but Tommo still didn’t deserve to be chucked down a bank by a feckless boy.
‘Come on Tommo, it was an accident, stop looking at me like that.’ Thompson’s face now stuck clear of the blanket, a yellow, waxy mask that had lost all tone and definition, its skin folding back over teeth and cheekbones. Pegg had rolled him over in the grass and was doing his best to pretend that he was blind to the older men’s resentment.
‘Just get him done up again, Pegg, let’s not keep the priest waiting anymore.’ The senior soldier crossed himself, speaking with quiet contempt.
The stretcher was held on its side on a piece of level ground before Thompson was pushed back onto the canvas in a too-often practised way before the party trudged back up the slope.
‘Don’t drop the poor bastard again, let’s get him in the ground, respectable-like.’ The senior soldier chided them over the next half-mile.
Another Catholic was to be buried. As the Grenadiers drew close to the grave, three men from Number Two Company stood talking to the priest. In front of them lay a further packaged body: their rifles were piled in a triangle behind, whilst their shovels and picks had been respectfully secreted in some brush. The breeze ruffled the hair of their bare heads as they twisted their woollen caps in their hands.
The priest was a stark contrast. His black and white vestments stood out against the low bushes and the drab, grey coats of the men. His beretta looked almost tailor-shop new, perhaps due to the ribbons that held it firmly in place on his head against the Crimean wind. He smiled and nodded as the party approached, the sun winking off the tiny round lenses of his spectacles.
‘Hello, lads, another customer? Who is he, boys—you’re sure he’s one of ours?’ Father Mountford was one of the few dozen Roman Catholic priests who had volunteered to accompany the forces to the East. Only Anglican and Church of Scotland padres were provided for the spiritual comfort of the troops, despite the large number of Catholics who were serving. Housed at Brigade Headquarters, Mountford on his little pony—that now cropped the meagre grass well away from the lines of wooden crosses—had become a familiar sight to the regiments.
Normally just in sombre black, his legs squeezed into the latest India-rubber wading boots, a simple shooting cap covering his head, he could be seen well forward in the trenches or with the pickets. His greatest delight was to break two sets of rules. Without fail he could be depended upon to produce a neat silver flask and offer it (when away from prying officer or NCOs’ eyes) to the men. From his other pocket he would conjure one of the latest American Colt revolvers. What God’s view would have been of his firing on fellow Christians had yet to be put to the test—but the men loved it.
‘Right, lads, two of you jump down and catch hold of your friends. I fear it’s so much quicker to dig a double and the lads won’t mind each other’s company will they?’ It might have been a routine pauper’s funeral anywhere—the novelty for the priest in scenes like this had evaporated long ago.
One of the Number Two Company men scrambled into the wide hole, whilst Pegg had to have a bony finger pushed into the small of his back before he realized that he had much ground to make up. Both long woollen parcels were passed down with as much reverence as possible, before the other, taller soldier levered himself out of the grave with ease, brushing the soil from the waist and skirts of his coat. Stumpy Pegg tried the same, failed and found himself slithering back down the fresh-dug earthy wall where his boots came to rest on Thompson’s chest and shoulder. Sheepishly, he looked up into the appalled faces of his companions.
‘For the love of God, boy, catch hold.’ The senior soldier and one of the others grabbed Pegg’s wrists and pulled him with such exasperated force from the hole that the drummer wondered if he was ever going to stop.
‘There’s no need to pull me fucking arms off, is there?’ Pegg was shocked by the force.
‘Eh, watch your language in front of the priest!’ A lance-corporal in charge of the other party spat furiously at Pegg. The boy had run out of credit.
The priest prayed and intoned. He had a small thurible with him that he swung with gusto whilst one of the soldiers held his prayer book open for him at the right page. Pegg stood a little way apart, not because he detected a less than benign atmosphere, but out of simple suspicion for anything papist. Father Mountford’s lips were uttering the oddest of noises, he was swinging a strange, smelly thing whilst everyone else crossed themselves as if it were the second coming. Mercifully, Pegg didn’t have long to wait in the cold before the shovels were at work, spooning the chill, loose soil onto the bodies until a wide, browny-white mound was all that remained.
Wooden crosses made from ration boxes had been carefully painted with the men’s name and regiment, ‘Fidelis Usque Ad Mortem’ below the inscription. One man banged the cross into the frosty spoil with the flat of his shovel blade whilst another crouched, holding it erect, eyes closed against the flying grit.
‘Right, lads, fall in.’ The group shuffled into a straight line, replaced their caps and took their dressing under the corporal’s direction.
‘Thank you very much, Father. That was, er...very nice,’ the NCO stuttered, before, with much greater confidence, ‘May I have your leave to carry on, sir, please?’ as his hand snapped to the brim of his cap as smartly as if they were all back in the barrack-yard.
‘You may, Corporal. God bless you all, keep safe,’ replied the priest, returning the salute with a darted blessing.
There were mumbles of ‘God go with you, Father’ as the group separated into its two parts and moved off.
The four Grenadiers stepped as fast as they could to warm themselves. They were quiet, wrapped in their thoughts until Pegg broke the silence.
‘Fancy poor old Tommo having to have all that foreign lingo said over him.’
It took at least two days before the swelling round his left eye subsided. The young drummer was almost as hurt by the fact that no one seemed the least surprised by his bruises.
***
‘Bloody end’s come loose again. ‘Oo made the thing anyway?’ Private Almond cursed in flat, Thirsk vowels. ‘Old it steady, Pegg, an’ I’ll do the bleedin’ twine up again.’
Night was falling. The two soldiers stood by the edge of the regiment’s tented camp waiting to go forward into the trenches with thirty others—half of the depleted Grenadier Company. A physically hard, tedious and probably dangerous night lay ahead as they moved equipment down into the forward positions and then filled sandbags and gabions with soil. Slowly the trench lines crept forward towards Sevastopol, but each yard of digging had to be protected from the Russians’ fire by awkward, heavy kit that had to come from somewhere.
They’d spent the afternoon weaving gabions. A pile of eight-foot-long willow branches, still green and springy—that was the only thing that prevented them from becoming instant firewood for the troops—had been magicked-up by the quartermaster and the troops had set to. Weaving was a skill taught to all recruits, many of them from rural backgrounds already being familiar with it, but it was seldom practised until it was needed.
For weeks now the soldiers had spent every available moment producing these vast baskets, taller than a man and three times as wide, until they had become fast and proficient at it. But the difficult bits were the finishing touches where the end branches were bound by that universal, rough Army twine that needed deft, careful fingers and clever knotting. The troops were good at the brutish business of bending and notching branches, but the skilful bits still, occasionally, defeated them. The end product was surprisingly light and could be quite easily rolled into position before being filled with packed, protective earth. But the most frustrating sight was one that came unbound on the move, leaving its cursing handlers with a ragged, tatty rim th
at needed instant, time-consuming attention—and always in the dark.
‘Dunno, doesn’t matter who made it, just get the bastard fixed.’ Pegg held the twine in place with a grubby thumb as Almond tightened and knotted. ‘Who’s taking us up the line tonight, anyway, d’you know? They say we’re to relieve some Frogs.’
‘Aye, that’s right. Probably Paddy Morgan or Mick Whaley, Jock McGucken’s been on two nights in a row and he’s about done.’ The company was now so short of officers and senior NCOs that even the privates were noticing the uneven workload.
‘It’s them Zouaves from Bony’s Div. S’if you can rob some brandy off of them, Pegg, they call it Cog-nack. They might swap some for a bit of pork if you’ve got any left.’
The French-Algerian soldiers contained a surprising number of English-speakers and seemed to get on well with the British troops. They were older than most of their allies and with endless experience of the campaigns in North Africa. Almond, Pegg and the others admired their cheerfulness and resilience though pitied them the vast red pantaloons and white spats that they wore to which mud clung like glue. But though their platoons and companies ran an elan and derring-do that was attractive but which meant that they took more risks and casualties than their comrades from the French regiments of the Line. They also had a reputation for being impatient and sloppy in defence.
‘Why’s it always my bleedin’ pork what’s got to be swapped?’ moaned Pegg, ‘What’s wrong with yours?’
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