‘No, Sar’nt’ the group mumbled as they half-heartedly checked their belts and haversacks.
‘This got broke, Sar’nt.’ Private Swann held up a snapped pick-helve, the broken hickory showing clean and white against the grime on the outside of the shaft.
‘No it didn’t ‘get broke’, Jimmy-bleedin-Swann, you busted it yersen, being bloody clumsy, didn’t you?’ Swann’s face fell as Whaley’s anger showed.
Why did the men always have to try to avoid responsibility for misfortunes, the sergeant wondered? Swann had just come out of the depot before they left Weedon, a decent enough boy straight from the plough somewhere up near Ashby and the pick-axe had ‘got broke’ through his honest endeavour, not through some piece of vandalism. So why couldn’t the youngster just say that? But Whaley was too tired to torture him further.
‘Right, son, just hand it in to the colour-sergeant’s stores when we get back an’ draw a new’un. If you cop one out of the dead lads’ kits and don’t need to sign for another, so much the better.’ Despite the organized chaos of the siege work and the wholesale damage to men and equipment, the old army mentality stuck. Kit had to be accounted for, but if a dead man’s gear could be pilfered and paperwork avoided, then Whaley was happy.
‘Owt else?’
‘Yes, Sar’nt, me water-bottle’s been robbed.’ Horn had cast about desperately during Swann’s pick-axe saga, wondering why he couldn’t feel the comforting weight at his hip.
‘No, Horn, the trench-fuckin-fairy hasn’t been flittin’ up an’ down all night just looking for lonely little water-bottles that are a long way from home and taken it into her safekeeping—yer’ve bleedin’ lost it. Christ-on-a-crutch, half you lot should be at your Mum’s tit—if I left you alone for a day you’d be naked, the way you chuck yer kit away.’
Horn coloured visibly under Whaley’s tirade, his head hung slightly over the collar of his coatee that had been torn by a bullet at the Alma.
‘Get a bleedin’ new’un. I’ve a good mind to send you back to look for it, Horn, ‘cept that the Thirtieth’ll rip the piss out on us. Now fall in the lot on yer an’ let’s get ‘ome.’ No one else dared to admit to further losses. The soiled, scruffy little party pushed into their ranks, thumped dully to attention and, at Whaley’s word, stumped off back to camp.
***
‘I dunno how we’ll ever get this muck out of us clothes.’ As they marched along, Pegg looked in dismay at the brown, orangey stain on the rump of his coat to which grit and bits of grass stuck obstinately.
‘We’ll just ‘ave to wash it and rub it with flannelette.’ The rolls of off-white cloth issued to the troops specifically for cleaning the locks and bores of their rifles had a thousand illicit uses. ‘Anyway, Pegg, you should be used to it, you’re always in the shit,’ Almond’s predictable joke raised some titters from the others. ‘Mek sure you’ve got all that Froggy filth off yer hands before you eat, son—me guts have only just settled down after I had the runs last week an’ you don’t want the same.’ Almond spoke matter-of-factly about a complaint that struck at the troops incessantly.
‘I’ve still got some in me lug’ Pegg whittled at his ear with a little finger.
‘Well, now you know what it’s like for us having to listen to the shite you normally talk!’ This got one of the other soldiers a better laugh.
‘Did you rob any of that cog-nack off of the Zouaves like I told you to, son?’ There were only a few years between them, but Almond always played the old soldier when talking to the young drummer. ‘Stick some o’ that into the soup an’ it won’t half brace it up.’
The men had become deadly bored with the monotonous rations. Ship’s biscuit was only occasionally relieved with bread baked down in Balaklava, green coffee beans were now being issued that the soldiers had to roast themselves, whilst salt pork was almost universal. Some had tried horse-flesh—but whilst it was said to be palatable, few dared to eat meat from an animal that had collapsed through disease or exhaustion. The fact that the French couldn’t get enough of it made the dish even more suspect to most of the men. A real favourite, though, were the endless variations of soup that the amateur cooks conjured up. Stock thickened with biscuit and flavoured with wild herbs or nettles could be warmed over a brazier on picket or in the trenches and made a welcome, warming distraction and Almond’s exotic idea of flavouring it further with brandy was an instant success.
‘No, I didn’t have time to, besides, there was only that big bugger who spoke English.’ Pegg’s recent beating had left him unusually keen to please the others, but he’d quite forgotten to try his luck with the Zouaves. ‘There’s them French guns yonder, d’you think Mick Whaley will let us go an’ see what’s what?’
Pegg scampered up to the sergeant who was setting the pace at the front of the column. ‘Sarge, is it all right if I nip over to see what I can get off of them Frogs?’ Whaley looked Pegg over. Other than his personal kit, he was carrying nothing of value that the French could steal and he did have a reputation as an expert scrounger.
‘All right, youth, but if you do get yer hands on any grog, don’t drink it yersen, we’ll all want a swat.’
The drummer trotted away as the party swung on its way to camp with Whaley instantly regretting his decision. The problem was that Pegg would almost certainly extract something alcoholic from the French and the sergeant knew that the temptation to neck the lot there and then would probably be too much for him. Only two weeks ago, a youngster from the Light Company had been found very dead in a ditch with an empty rum bottle beside him and his corporal had been bust down to private for lack of supervision.
But the lad was intent upon restoring his good name. An unexpected treat courtesy of Drummer Pegg would set the record right, so he straightened his belts and cap, rubbed a grubby hand over his wispy excuse for a beard to rid it of any imagined grime and strode confidently up to the French sentry at the edge of the gun park. Since the Russian sortie against the Inkermann position, the French had kept two of their field pieces ready for instant action on this exposed flank. The guns were hooked-up and ready to move with their ammunition caissons, the great, black muzzles of both nine-pounders peering menacingly from beneath their canvas covers. The horses had been tethered nearby where they slept standing up or chewed noiselessly at their nose-bags, great, lazy eyes swivelling towards the visitor. But this was all the interest that Pegg provoked, for the crews were wrapped in their blankets, tousled heads and beards just visible below the oilskin sheets that were pulled over them.
‘Bong-jour, mong-sewer. Avez vous any cog-nack?’ The Frenchman looked bemusedly at Pegg, merely cocking an eyebrow and muttering ‘Bonjour’ in return.
‘Votre chef, is he ici? Je needs to speak to him tray vite.’
‘Comment?’ The Frenchman knitted his brow, wondered at the smell and shifted his carbine that was slung muzzle-down against the wet. ‘Le chef est la.’ He pointed towards a row of sleeping bodies behind an ammunition caisson.
‘Mercy-buckets, mon ami, I’ll just have a look around.’ Pegg could hardly believe the sentry’s sangfroid. He’d be damned if he’d let a wandering Frog scout about his lines looking for loot—still, that was his ally’s problem, not his, and these sort of opportunities didn’t come his way every day.
The Frenchmen had obviously had a sleepless night judging by the snores in the early morning light. Their breakfast fires had been doused but were still just smoking and over by two horses that were tethered separately was a miniature folding table and two leather-seated chairs. In the middle of the table were a silver pepper and salt set and a brown glass bottle—the precious ‘cog-nack’—set for the battery’s officers, Pegg had no doubt. On the other side of a fodder wagon a French orderly washed plates and cutlery in a bucket of water, his uniform covered with a grimy white apron. He was the only person other than the sentry who was awake, but, fortunately for Pegg, his chores absorbed him. With a quick look to see that no other eyes were upon him, the lad
palmed the cruets, pushing them deep into his left coat pocket—his mum would be the talk of Wirksworth with those on her table—before sliding the bottle home on the other hip. Trying to move silently, making sure that his boots scuffed no stones, Pegg did his best to saunter back towards the sentry.
‘Couldn’t find votre chef, mon ami,’ he grinned, ‘but it don’t matter, got what I came for, mercy tray bien.’ Pegg nodded vigorously, flipped the French gunner a faux salute and added in quieter tones, ‘That’ll teach you to turd on the back of your trenches, you dozy twat,’ before walking away, a study in nonchalance.
No challenge followed, no harsh cry in French. The sentry just shrugged at the malodorous figure as it scuttled away, pulling his arms tight around him to keep the damp and cold at bay, whilst wandering up and down his beat trying to conquer his weariness.
***
‘Come on, you lot, get up for pity’s sake.’ It was an hour and a half before daybreak, time to rouse the men for the military ritual of stand-to when everyone, no matter how exhausted, dragged themselves from their blankets, put on their wet equipment and shuffled to their battle positions. Morgan had watched the Sergeants whacking the side panels of the bell-tents with their canes, heard their familiar oaths and heard the occupants coughing and cursing sleepily inside.
But, despite Sergeant Ormond’s calumny concerning the occupants’ parentage, in one canvas pyramid no one moved,
‘Devil take you, get up!’ Morgan yelled through the fabric, before unlacing the door flap and peering into the blackness inside. Four inert forms lay there, still in their blankets, a warm, smoky fug filling the place. ‘Here, you help me with this lot.’ Morgan, half-in, half-out of the door yelled to a dark, passing form, for he knew immediately what had happened.
A zinc bucket, a quarter-full of still-smouldering charcoal, stood in the middle of the tent floor. One of the soldiers had, obviously, brought it inside hoping to warm the place and dry the men’s clothes, despite the warnings that they had been given that the embers would eat the oxygen and might poison them.
‘Richardson, get that one outside, quickly now.’ Morgan dragged one of the recumbent forms by his armpits, as his companion, a nineteen-year-old from Leicester, took another by the ankles and pulled for all he was worth. In a welter of damp wool and rumpled greatcoats, the rescuers soon had the four bodies outside in the chilly air, fanning hard at their faces, pinching their cheeks, trying to detect vital signs in the dark. Three of them soon flickered back to life, trying to sit up in the soaking grass in their shirtsleeves and socks, coughing, moaning gently and holding their heads. But Prince, an older man who had re-enlisted after service as a corporal in India, wouldn’t respond.
‘Here, Richardson, push Prince’s lungs when I tell you.’ Finn, the groom, had once told Morgan how to revive a drowned man and, whilst he’d never had to do such a thing, he supposed it was worth a try now. Holding Prince’s nose, Morgan crouched over him, clapped his lips to his patient’s and blew gently, wagging his hand to Richardson to show when he should push.
‘Bloody hell sir, the bugger’s alive.’ The pair of them had massaged and blown for what seemed like an age, but now Prince’s chest was falling and rising by itself, then his eyes blinked open and he coughed as Morgan sat him up.
Unnoticed in the dark, Sergeant Ormond had realized there was a crisis; now he stooped over the litter of spluttering bodies. ‘Damn me, Prince, I know you want yer rank back, but you don’t ‘ave to kiss Mr Morgan, you know!’
***
Despite the four men who had to report sick, stand-to went as normal. Now the half of the Grenadier Company that had been allowed a night in their beds were plying their weapons with oil and rag whilst their breakfasts were prepared by every fourth man.
Satisfied that nothing more had gone wrong, that no more of his boys had ‘woken up dead’ as McGucken would have it, Morgan walked over to the central, kitchen fires where the other half of the Company, who were coming from the trenches, were having their meals prepared for them. And there were other attractions—the duty cook this morning was Mary Keenan.
‘Well, what culinary delight d’ye have for us this morning, Mrs Keenan?’ Morgan pulled his muffler right up around his ears, smiled only with his eyes whilst the troops were around and just happened to brush the sleeve of his coat against Mary’s bare forearm.
The girl stirred gently at the big, oval, soot-stained cooking pot. The fire crackled and spat below it, Mary shifting her position around the iron tripod to avoid the shifting, wafting smoke.
‘Well, I like to think it’s what Cain and Abel would o’ called a ‘mess of pottage’, Mr Morgan, sir.’ Mary didn’t catch his eye, but her arm lingered against his. ‘Well, it’s a mess, anyway.’ Morgan liked this joke a little more every time he heard it. ‘Bacon-rind, biscuit, oats borrowed from some idle matelot’s saddlebags an’ as much potato as Mrs Polley could find, your honour. It may not be much, but Ma and Da would have been glad of it back in the famine and this lot’ll swallow it rightly.’ She nodded towards Whaley’s party that had just arrived in camp.
Mary couldn’t resist a dig at him: she never missed the opportunity to underline the difference between them, but her arm continued to brush against him at every turn of the ladle. Any retort would just invite a sharper one from her, so Morgan said nothing, savoured the smell of wood-smoke and cooking and realized how odd it was not to be bone-weary.
‘Now, sir, Mrs Keenan, that smells like a bit o’ all right.’ Sergeant Whaley, exhaustion temporarily at bay, grinned at the pair of them even as his fingers touched his cap in salute. ‘Is it almost ready, love? The lads are on their chinstraps an’ need to turn in. What is it? It smells grand.’
‘Aye, Sergeant Whaley, give it ten minutes to warm right through, though. It’s one of my specials, the Frogs would call it bouillon d’intestin.’ The Sergeant frowned blankly. ‘Mrs Polley’s got some stew ready, yonder, I should get the lads over there first.’ Mary’s scrawny friend poked industriously at another steaming cauldron.
‘Corporal Parsons, leave the weapons for now. Get the lads over to Mrs Polley, snap’s ready.’ The sergeant threw his voice over to the gaggle of men without effort. He would hang back until all of them were fed, though he might just take a bit of soup to tide him over.
‘How was it, Sar’nt Whaley, lose anyone?’ Morgan held his hands to the cooking fire.
‘No, sir, dead quiet. Relieved some Zouaves ‘oo were a right bunch, and the Thirtieth took us off. I’m a bit worried about young...’ Before Whaley could finish his sentence there was an exaggerated stamp behind them as Drummer Pegg thumped to attention before throwing Morgan a magnificent, quivering salute.
‘Morning, sir, everyone.’ The boy beamed, his bruised eye now yellowing fast. ‘I got some cog-nack off of the Frogs, like you wanted, Sar’nt.’
Sergeant Whaley would rather not have the boy telling an officer that he had given orders to loot their allies—and, anyway, he hadn’t. There was no point in saying anything, though, he was just glad that Pegg was back and apparently sober.
‘I’ll stick it in the soup, sir.’ Before the cook or anyone else could remonstrate, Pegg had whipped the cork from the bottle and up-ended it over the pot. ‘By God, sir, that’ll put lead in yer pencil.’
Mary almost smiled at Morgan.
‘Don’t put the ‘ole bloody lot in, son, save a swat for us, can’t you?’ Whaley watched longingly as the pale brown liquid splashed into the soup. But it was too late, the bottle had been emptied.
‘Right, then, it’s hot enough, here’s a wee taste for you, Mick Whaley.’ Mary’s ladle found a bit of meat and some oats and a half-inch of broth before she passed it, steaming hot across to the sergeant. Pegg watched delightedly. It was his skill, his daring that had added such piquancy to the soup. Not only that, but the first to taste it would be his sergeant and his officer. Whaley blew carefully at the tin ladle’s bowl. First he sniffed its richness, then just dipped his t
ongue in the liquor to make sure that he wouldn’t burn himself, before he threw back his head and drained the lot.
‘Oh, Jesus Mary,’ Whaley half-choked and cursed as he spat the liquid across the grass, ‘...that’s vinegar, not bleedin’ cog-nack, you silly little bastard!’
NINE
Dawn at Inkermann
He was a funny little man. Pennefather, the Brigade’s pugnacious, blasphemous commanding general held his spurs to his horse’s flanks as he trotted up the scrubby slopes of Shell Hill to visit Morgan and the 95th’s pickets. In his wake followed a trail of other horsemen, Major Hume the commanding officer, McDonald newly promoted to captain and filling the post of adjutant that the Alma had left vacant, an aide and—more expensively mounted than any of them—Richard Carmichael. Even at seventy yards Pennefather’s Tipperary tongue could be heard lashing incessantly through the cool, afternoon breeze, questioning, probing, seeking answers to which he listened intently.
Carmichael had briefed Morgan and the senior NCOs of his Company the night before about Brigadier-General Pennefather’s visit. ‘And I don’t want any idleness or smart answers when the General asks a question. You all know what he’s like, he’ll look in the men’s pouches, check weapons for rust, see that they know the order of the day—be generally bloody meddlesome.’
Taken a leaf out of your book, then thought Morgan. ‘Just make sure the men agree with everything he says and don’t croak about the rations or how much sleep they’re getting. Right, I trust that’s clear. The commanding officer and adjutant will be with him—it’s important for the company that this goes well.’
Important for Richard-wretched-Carmichael’s career, more like, but Morgan kept his thoughts to himself.
The 95th had seen much more of their brigadier lately and he was gaining a reputation as a hard, brave man who spoke directly to the troops in language they understood. Not for him the detachment of the Staff nor the distant feudalism of the gentrified officers who clustered through this army. Morgan guessed that a glassy, brainless reply from the men would irritate their fiery little Irish general more than anything else and, besides, the troops weren’t like that anymore, for the doltish, thoughtless obedience of peacetime was long gone. In its place was a self-possession and confidence that had been forged in battle. If the soldiers were spoken to honestly by a senior officer they would reply in the same currency—and there wasn’t a damn thing that Lieutenant-bloody-Carmichael could do about it.
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