To Do and Die

by Patrick Mercer

  ‘I ain’t got any left, that’s what’s wrong with mine, you twot,’ bickered Almond. ‘Can’t you ever...’

  ‘Shut your grids, you pair,’ Corporal Cahill muttered before bellowing, ‘Detail, detail, ‘shun!’ Bringing silence to the whole group as they stamped to attention.

  It was almost completely dark by now. The men looked like nothing more than featureless bundles of coats, caps and belts, set about with shovels, picks and back-breaking gear. At least they had been spared the weight of their rifles and ammunition, each man carrying no more personal kit than some rations, a water-bottle and a bayonet.

  Corporal Cahill had done well to spot the tall, slender figure of the company Commander, Richard Carmichael, as he loped through the dusk. His soft, peaked cap perched on his now luxuriant hair, a cheroot glowing at his bearded lips, he’d pulled the cape of his greatcoat back from his neck to allow his woollen muffler to sit comfortably but rakishly forward. The party hadn’t expected such an august figure to lead them up to the trenches: they stiffened with expectation as he spoke.

  ‘So, Corporal Cahill, who’s in charge?’

  ‘Dunno, yet, sir, we’re waiting for one o’ the sergeants or Mr Morgan, sir...or is it yourself?’ The quietest of snorts came from the men when Cahill made this suggestion, his Irishness disguising any mockery.

  ‘Well, bejabers, Corporal Cahill, I don’t yet know who’s taking you and these broths of boys up the line.’ Carmichael appeared not to have noticed Cahill’s sally and had lapsed into one of his music-hall brogues. ‘Just wait here a wee while an’ I’ll see what’s holding your mysterious leader up, so I will.’

  ‘Knob!’ an anonymous Irish voice said quite clearly from the dark, faceless group.

  ‘Who said that?’ spat the officer, instantly English.

  ‘Said what, sir?’ replied Cahill, as Dublin-broad as possible.

  Just as Carmichael hesitated, trying to decide whether this was a confrontation that he could hope to win or not, Sergeant Whaley came bustling up through the line of tents.

  ‘Evenin’ sir,’ the squat senior NCO slapped his rifle sling in salute as he crashed his boots together loud enough for the Russians to hear it in Sevastopol.

  ‘Good evening, Sar’nt Whaley, you’re late.’ This was an easier way for Carmichael to re-establish his authority.

  ‘Not according to the Colour-Sar’nt’s watch, sir, it’s just that Corporal Cahill’s a bit early, like the good man he is, sir.’ The answer came back with the impervious confidence that seasoned NCOs reserve for officers whom they despise. There was nothing insubordinate in what he said, just sweet reasoned, disdain.

  ‘Now, excuse me, sir, but I don’t want to be late for them Froggy Zouaves, we’ll get the Company a bad name.’ Again, there was no room for Carmichael to manoeuvre. ‘Pick up your monkeys and parrots, lads, get them bloody gabions up ‘ere at the front an’ control the things. Right, coom-on then.’

  Sergeant Whaley’s Sheffield calm lent another dimension to the troops’ glee. The party had been lethargic, sullen even at the prospect of yet another sleepless night in the trenches, but now they set off with a silent chuckle in their throats.

  ***

  Sevastopol was quiet that night. The odd gun snapped at the main French works as they pushed their trenches forward towards the Flag-Staff Bastion, but up on the Left Attack they were being treated to little except for an occasional star-shell. So short-handed had disease and casualties left the 2nd Division that some of the crucial digging details had to be done by French troops—a fact that offended the officers’ pride but delighted the men. Not only were the cocky French having to do donkey work for the British, but they patently hated it. There had been some ugly scenes between the 47th and the French 6th Light Infantry in October during a trench relief and since then the French had tried to use only colonial troops with whom the British had much greater rapport.

  Now the party picked slowly forward in the dark. The big gabions wheeled along without mishap other than getting stuck in some brush just as the first, shallow part of the trenches was approached. Much to everyone’s surprise a vast Zouave corporal, their guide, was waiting at exactly the appointed spot at exactly the appointed time. Slumped full-length at the mouth of the first diggings, the hairy hood of his woollen cape pulled up over his head, his arms folded around his rifle, an enormous pair of nailed boots stuck out below his muddy leggings. His beard rose and fell rhythmically as he snored, patchy moonlight shining off his tanned, beak-like nose.

  ‘Alors, Frog, sacre-bleu,’ Sergeant Whaley did his best to wake the great Algerian by voice alone,.‘allez-vous, cog-nack ici.’ His repertoire was soon exhausted. A quick tap with the toe of his boot on the sole of the Zouave’s chaus-sure did the job, though, and the man awoke with a start.

  ‘Oh, hello, are you the detail of the Ninety-Fifth that’s to relieve my gang?’ Perfect, public-school English came from the Zouave who was instantly awake and cheerful. It took Sergeant Whaley a second or two to recover from the disappointment of not being able to display more of his patois.

  ‘Where the ‘ell are you from, Corporal?’

  ‘Algiers, of course, Sergeant.’ The Anglo-Frenchman stretched his arms, pulled his hood back and rose easily to his feet, giving a little stamp to restore the circulation. ‘It’s a chilly one tonight, Sergeant. Now, some of your colleagues seem to have chosen a narrow bit of the trench to catch up on their sleep. With all this junk you’re having to carry, may I suggest that we move over ground, above the trench? Les Russes are on best behaviour tonight and it’ll be so much quicker. Might be a bit of a squeeze when we get forward, we took a prisoner earlier and the boys are having fun with him.’

  Sergeant Whaley yielded his authority at once to the Zouave’s officer-like confidence whilst his imagination was aflame with sympathy for the Russian prisoner. What on earth was a digging party doing taking prisoners? Didn’t these savages have enough to do scraping holes for the British without prowling round terrifying decent Christians? And what could a bunch like this mean by ‘having a bit of fun’ with the prisoner? They’d all heard about this lot. A picture of the Russian pinned to the ground with bayonets whilst his captors shrieked and danced about him in the firelight brandishing their knives leapt into Whaley’s mind. Worse still, suppose poor old Russ had been strapped over one of those big water butts that the Frogs used and had been...the idea was too awful even for his hardened imagination.

  The party crept forward in a long, clumsy line over the rough-dug rear of the trench. The gabions were having to be carried now as they tried to be as silent as possible, but boots still scraped pebbles, shovel blades—despite their hessian coverings—still rang against bits of equipment and men coughed continually. As star-shells fizzed into the sky, sending shadows darting crazily from every twig and branch, so they threw themselves to the ground. There they paused, hoping that it wasn’t their crashing progress that had attracted the enemy’s attention, waited for darkness to return before hauling themselves to their feet, brushing the soil from their clothes and hoisting their ever-heavier gear for the next few yards of halting progress. They passed a group of Sappers who, just as the Zouave said, had unaccountably chosen to choke the trench with their slumbering forms—they didn’t like to disturb them—before moving on.

  Then, from the darker line of the trench just to their front; Waite, arretez-vous! Qui passe?’ An invisible sentry’s challenge saw them all sink to a crouch, equipment rested on the ground in the darkness. Their guide slunk forward, gabbled in French, and then returned to the waiting line.

  ‘Right, Sergeant, we’re in the right place. I suggest that your men jump down into the trench now, we’re only a short distance from the head of the sap.’ The Zouave pointed over the rim of the trench that, in the moonless dark, looked bottomless.

  Gingerly, the men slithered over the edge, not quite knowing how deep it was, carefully dragging their gear and tools after them. Pegg and Almond rolled their gabi
on along the lip and when they found that the trench only came up to their waists, they shouldered the big basket, holding it firm against their cheeks. But there was a price to pay for their close contact with the soil.

  ‘Christ, what’s that stink?’ Variations of Almond’s hoarse, affronted whisper were being repeated up and down the working party.

  ‘What d’you think it is? It’s shite—it’s in me hair and all over me coat.’ Pegg—naturally—had been affected more than anyone else. ‘Them dirty Frogs ‘ave been turdin’ all over the back of the trench...’ The gabion had smeared its way through the Frenchmen’s muck before coming to rest against the lad’s collar and neck, ‘...an’ it’s in me lug. They’ve got no bleedin’ discipline that foreign lot, ain’t they never ‘eard of latrines?’ Pegg scraped at his ear with a fingernail, making little retching noises as many of the others swore and rubbed at the tails of their coats with hanks of grass, merely spreading the ordure more evenly.

  Sergeant Whaley knew none of this. At the head of the column he angrily but silently beckoned his muttering party forward, increasingly aware that to his front he could hear subdued laughter mixed with the metallic rasps of picks and shovels. Out of the darkness loomed a row of empty gabions on their sides—this was obviously the drop-off point that the Zouaves had chosen for all their defensive stores. Big piles of sandbags and wooden staves showed gloomily in the dark but amidst all this equipment and draped half-in, half-out of the shallow trench were several dark figures, giggling noisily.

  ‘Ah, they’ve got the prisoner.’ The Zouave guide pointed to a shrunken figure in the middle of a knot of Frenchmen.

  Whaley expected the worst. He could just see the man’s bare head and full moustache above a red coat-collar: he lolled back, eyes closed and mouth half open. Had they tortured him unconscious? Worse, had these barbarians buggered him to death? Sergeant Whaley’s imagination was soon allowed to rest, though, for the air was stiff with ‘cog-nack’ fumes.

  ‘They’re all lashed to the gills, ain’t they?’ Whaley’s years of service had left him an expert in detecting drunkenness, but a skin-full this close to the enemy was a new one.

  ‘Well lubricated, shall we say, Sergeant? It seemed only right to give the prisoner a share of the victors’ spoils and what’s the harm?’ The big Zouave seemed to take it all in his stride—so who was Whaley to object?

  The handover between the two groups was just as informal—mercifully, the Russians didn’t interfere. Sergeant Whaley had expected the stylized pattern of one British unit relieving another—work would cease quietly, the newly arrived party would post its own sentries whilst the others were pulled in, then both groups would stand-to for ten minutes, listening intently for an enemy approach, before the outgoing detail would steal away as silently as possible. Only when they were completely clear would work start again.

  But this wasn’t the Zouaves’ way. At the word of an NCO, tools were downed with a clang, weapons picked up, the prisoner half-pushed and half-carried forward and before you could say ‘Prince Napoleon’, the whole saturnine mob had bustled away without even the 95th’s sentries being properly posted. Whaley couldn’t swear to it, but as the tail of the column merged into the darkness of the trench, he thought he saw the flicker of a pipe being lit. Just let any of his lot cut capers like that.

  Routine eventually returned. For such a forward position things were surprisingly quiet, with Sevastopol’s guns only occasionally booming and the Allies’ almost completely silent. A bomb-ketch in the harbour lofted a solitary round high over their heads at one point, lighting up the other Russian ships and the walls of the forts on the north bank of the straits with a harsh, yellow-white flash. As it crashed home far behind the lines, they all hoped that some Staff officer’s rest had been ruined.

  They had been told to lay a line of gabions and sandbags on the enemy-facing side of the sap that the Zouaves had dug. Once the bullet-proof screen was in place, the Gunner and Sapper officers would be able to come up just as daylight allowed the enemy’s positions to be seen and ranges judged accurately. If the officers worked quickly and well, they could survey and then place the markers for a new gun position before the enemy realized exactly what was going on and fired on them. Then, with the precise work done, the infantry could dig the new position under the cover of darkness, hoping against hope that the Russians would not raid them whilst they were working nor bombard them accurately enough to destroy what they had done. Now it required fast, hard digging and alert sentries.

  ‘Keep the bugger up, can’t you, son?’ Pegg was meant to be holding open the throat of a half-filled sandbag for Almond to shovel in the spoil, but a coughing sentry in the darkness at the front of the position had distracted him.

  ‘Sorry, I thought I ‘eard some fuckin’ Russian out there,’ like the rest of the troops, Pegg was happy enough not to be encumbered with rifle and ammunition when they were carrying heavy loads up to the trenches, yet he missed the familiar weight of his weapons when danger loomed. Now the earth leaked out of the bag as Pegg let its hessian sides go slack as Almond’s laden shovel came forward in the dark.

  ‘No, it’s just Dan-bloody-Shearman—he can’t get rid of that cough, he can’t. He’s a fuckin’ liability on sentry, he is.’ Almond had dropped his voice at the very mention of Russians.

  ‘The officers say that the Russians won’t just sit in ‘Pol an’ let us batter at them,’ Pegg replied quietly. ‘Mr Morgan reckons that they’ll have a go at us soon, that that sortie of theirs the other day after they took a shy at Ballyklava was meant to be some sort of warm-up for a big attack.’

  ‘Fuckin’ expensive warm-up; they lost ‘undreds of dead an’ wounded an’ we had more prisoners than we could ‘andle, ‘n they fucked off when we gave ‘em a shamrock or two.’ Almond had picked-up the strange, Irish phrase for taking the bayonet to the enemy.

  ‘Aye, I know, but you saw the dead—they was all carryin’ digging tools. Jock McGucken says they was going to tek Shell ‘ill, an’ dig a redoubt up there that would scupper our Div’s guns during an assault.’ Pegg tinkered with the mouth of the sandbag.

  Almond paused for a while, ‘You think they’ve got the balls for it?’

  ‘Balls for it? Didn’t you hear what ‘appened to Paddy Morgan last week? He had a right bloody tussle with hundreds of the fuckers: broke ‘is sword, ran out o’ shot and had to thump ‘em with ‘is glass ‘e did.’ Pegg was happy to embroider the tale of his officer’s bravery. ‘I tell yer, if Russ comes mob-’anded next time, you’d best know ‘ow to swim.’

  Almond scraped another shovel-full of earth into the now open bag, ‘Right, it’s full enough, young ‘un, tamp it down.’

  Pegg lifted the almost full bag to waist height, his cheeks billowing with the effort, before letting it thump down to the floor of the trench. He repeated it four times, settling and packing the earth, making it so much more resistant to splinters and bullets. At thirty-odd pounds, a full bag was heavy and awkward, the rough sacking being almost impossible to handle in gloves so that the men’s bare hands were soon sore and chapped.

  ‘Well, if Russ wants a fight, he can ‘ave some more of what we gave ‘im at the Alma an’ at Ballyklava—‘e dint like that did he?’ Almond had heard enough of the drummer’s black predictions.

  With all his strength, Pegg lumped the porky sack up into the triangular space on the front of the trench where two gabions met. At this point the baskets offered almost no protection at all and the gap had to be filled with sandbags which, in turn, had to be thumped down firmly.

  ‘Coom ‘ere, then, I’ll steady you.’ The trench was only three feet deep, but Almond held Pegg’s waist and the cuff of his coat as the boy climbed high onto the piled column of sandbags between the basketwork.

  ‘Bastard things,’ Pegg grunted in the dark as, perched precariously on one foot he stamped the bags down with all his weight.

  Not too much, Pegg, you’ll split the damn’ thing.’ Almond held ont
o the lad as his iron-tipped boot thumped against sacking that contained the packed earth.

  ‘I do love jumping up an’ down like a cock in front of Russ and havin’ dirty Frogs as allies,’ Pegg was blowing hard as he leaped down into the trench before returning to the muck in his ear, ‘Why, I’d do it for free, let alone ten pence a night.’ The men hadn’t been impressed by the additional field pay that had just been announced.

  ‘Aye, and we’re to ‘ave a medal an’ all, I just ‘ope they give us a new coat to stick it on.’ Almond pulled at the threadbare elbow of his greatcoat where the scarlet of his coatee was peeping through.

  ‘Want, want, want, that’s all I ever ‘ear from you, Almond. You should just be glad of the chance to serve ‘er Majesty under the inspiring leadership of that quim Mr-bleedin-Carmichael.’

  The banter flowed almost as readily as the two men sweated—British soldiers happy in their work.

  ***

  The night seemed endless. A flurry of shells arrived in the first murk of dawn and had all of them cringing in the bottom of the freshly-cut trench but, other than that, the dark hours were uneventful. Sapper officers had peered through telescopes and looked intently at charts, the contents of the earthen rum jar had been splashed into cups, sweat had cooled below their coats and boots been emptied of loose earth before their relief arrived. A smaller party of the 30th, fully armed and equipped, had come up to hold the trench and do a little sniping and harassment work during daylight hours before the grimy 95th had been allowed to hobble back down the trench.

  ‘Right, check yer digging tools and personal kit.’ Sergeant Whaley had led the party back down the deeper trench line until they were out of the enemy’s reach before parading them for a perfunctory inspection. ‘Any o’ you buggers lost owt?’ The rum had left them light-headed, sulky and unresponsive in the early morning light. Eyes red-rimmed with lack of sleep, hands sore with gritty blisters and shoulders aching from picking, digging and lifting the cloying soil, all they wanted to do was to get back to their muddy blankets. But Whaley was a tartar, there would be no corner-cutting with him.