‘Attend to the commanding officer once you’re formed-up, if you please, and listen out for his bugler, if you can hear anything at all in this bourrach.’
‘Sir’ replied Carmichael meekly as the adjutant rode away.
With a few crisp commands McGucken had the company on its feet, faced to the left and doubling away up the slope of the hill, rifles ‘trailed’ parallel to the ground. To the men’s right trotted the two officers and Pegg as their bugler. Morgan watched Carmichael’s back as they ran. The confrontation with the colour-sergeant had changed everything—for whilst Carmichael had always been able to depend on the regulation loyalty of the men, after the last scene he could never command his company’s respect again. Despite everything that had happened, Morgan had a sneaking sympathy for his brother officer.
***
The 95th were well in-hand. The Grenadiers were the last company to form up with the rest of the battalion behind the British gun positions on Home Ridge. There, as the mist rolled around him and the Russian balls skipped and bounced Major Hume sat on Charley, his charger, waiting for his company commanders.
‘Ah, Carmichael, glad the Grenadiers are with us. Now, gentlemen.’ A shell cracked blackly overhead, hot iron splinters kicking the dirt up all around Charley’s hooves, yet Hume was unruffled. ‘There are rather more Muscovites than we might have hoped for and we’re the only reserve that General Pennefather has. The three companies of the Left Wing are to move off immediately to reinforce the left flank. I’ll command the Right Wing: we’re to remain here with the guns until the general orders us forrard. Colours stay with me, Grenadiers to take the right of the line. Any questions?’
The six officers knelt in the grass and brush, notebooks and pencils (sharpened at both ends as they had been taught) ready, looking up to their commander. Things couldn’t have been clearer: they had practised operations by Wings many times—the difference was that after the Alma and the last Russian sortie none of them was under the least illusion about the blood and death that hovered about them and their scruffy, exhausted, much-loved men. Carmichael swallowed heavily.
Almost immediately the Left Wing was ordered to reinforce the breastwork they called The Barrier. Brisk musketry could be heard from there through the mist, but the three companies moved off without a backward glance leaving Major Hume’s wing of the 95th lying down amidst the flying metal and grit, awaiting orders. This really wasn’t the best place for infantry to wait. Whilst there was some cover from the sandbag and gabion positions of the Division’s artillery, the flashes of the British guns were obvious, even in the fog, and the Russians concentrated their fire upon them. A cocktail of roundshot and shrapnel bounced and burst all about, wounding and killing gunners and infantry alike.
Morgan hated this inaction more than anything. Looking around him he could see how all the others pressed their bodies into the ground more earnestly than they ever had with a woman, yet none seemed to shake like he did. He felt as if everyone knew that the ground trembled not with the guns but with his terror. To his front a nine-pounder crew went about their business. The gun crashed regularly as it replied to the half-seen Russian flashes on Shell Hill opposite, each belch of smoke thickening the mist. But in an instant the rhythm of the gun-team collapsed. A thump and spray of dirt saw two gunners clutching at their faces whilst a third jerked, kicked and twitched on the ground, a bubbling choke coming from his mouth. A fraction of a second before he had been a husky, muscled lad, sweating as he swabbed and rammed at the gun’s bore. Then the round had caught him on the right hip, just as he was turning, almost cutting him in two, throwing the remains to the ground. Morgan saw the great smear of blood on the grass between two piles of torn cloth and flesh and he noticed how the boy’s eyes, even with injuries like this, blinked for a few seconds before death arrived.
‘Come on, you.’ Morgan grabbed the men either side of him by their cross-belts and pushed them up towards the gun. But their surprise subsided as soon as they realized that they were being made to do something useful rather than just wait for death. ‘Get up to the gun—lend a hand with the ammunition.’ Both soldiers slung their rifles and ran over to the lance-bombardier who was preparing rounds and charges at the limber. Morgan lifted the long, wooden rammer from besides the dead gun-number and reported to the bombardier in charge. ‘Just tell me what to do, Bombardier, I’ve got a bit of an idea.’ Morgan could see how wise Major Hume had been in insisting that all officers knew something about gunnery.
‘Right, sir.’ The NCO looked a bit bemused at the events of the last few minutes, but the wallop of another passing ball soon reminded him of reality. ‘Just poke the next round down the bore when it’s offered; push it right home, sir.’
Two flushed, whiskery gunners came trotting up, looking surprised to see infantrymen at the gun-line but clearly glad of the help. One placed a cotton bag of gunpowder—the charge—just inside the muzzle before the other pressed the black, glistening ball and wooden sabot on top of it.
‘Right°, sir, ram as ‘ard as you please.’ The smooth tempo of the team had gone, but with an awkward grunt Morgan thrust the stave down the barrel until it could go no further. ‘Now, sir, get yer sponge wet there,’ the gunner pointed to a bucket full of oily water and the young officer dipped the woollen ‘sponge’ that was attached to the other end of the ram into it, ‘...now just stand clear whilst we fire.’
As soon as the charge was home, the bombardier stuck a metal pin down the touch-hole to expose the charge before fitting a copper initiator on the end of a lanyard. Now he squinted down the barrel towards the enemy, twitched the elevation wheel minutely before hopping to one side and dropping his hand, the signal for the lanyard to be snatched tight. A fizz at the breech was instantly followed by the gun’s great bark as the recoil pushed it back several feet.
‘Come on then, help to get her back in position,’ the bombardier chaffed at the infantrymen good-humouredly, ‘...and sponge her, sir, if you please.’ Morgan pushed the soggy wool down the barrel knowing how important it was to extinguish any smouldering bits of lint before fresh powder was introduced. ‘Well done, you lot, we’ll make gunners o’ you yet.’ The Bombardier was humouring them as they bumbled around the gun position. But whilst their efforts were better than nothing they simply couldn’t compare to a properly trained and practised crew.
It could have been minutes or it could have been hours. Morgan seemed to be ramming and sponging for ever, twirling the great staff around him as men dashed about with powder and shot and shrapnel rained down. Eventually a Gunner officer came puffing up with three new men.
‘You’ve done well here, we’re much obliged to you .’ The man was dismounted and very flushed. Judging by the mud all over his legs and back, he’d already had excitements of his own.
‘I’m damned if I can count the enemy’s guns, can you?’ To Morgan it was now just one long ripple of fire.
‘Not accurately, there’s too many of them now—at least fifty or sixty.’
‘Dear God, that many? I hope Pennefather’s got some more reinforcements a-coming.’ Morgan was genuinely surprised by the gunner’s estimate—ten times more guns than the enemy’s last sally.
‘Don’t think so. Seems that they’ve held Russ over there,’ he pointed to the left of the fog-shrouded field, ‘...but I’ve just come from the Sandbag Battery—the Muscovites are over it thicker than fleas on a dog. My guess is that you’ll be needed down there soon enough.’ He gave a worried little smile; ‘Hope your pouches are full.’
Indeed: the idea that the Russians were already in one of their main defences and that three depleted companies of the 95th were all the reserves that remained chilled Morgan. He reached for his flask.
TEN
The Sandbag Battery
‘Pegg, go on picket, Pegg, get the brew on, Pegg, duty-bloody-bugler—is it the only bastard name they know?’ The four of them loped down a sheep-track in the brush towards the shouts and firing, the chubby drumm
er hard on his officer’s heels.
‘I can take any amount of misery from the Russians, Pegg, but your moaning murders me—will you please hold your tongue?’ Morgan was hollow with fatigue, hunger and fear. He’d also had quite enough of Pegg for one day. ‘Wait, get down you two.’ Pegg and Carlton squatted in the bushes beside the track, weapons ready, whilst Morgan walked back past them to speak to Sergeant Ormond.
‘Just like the Alma again, sir, thee and me.’ The NCO grinned a solid, re-assuring grin. Now he waited to see what the officer would tell him to do.
As the company on the extreme right, the Grenadiers had been told by the adjutant to send a patrol out to the flank and investigate the situation at the Sandbag Battery. With Carmichael commanding there hadn’t been much choice about who would lead it. So Morgan, with the gunner’s words that the Muscovites were ‘thicker than fleas on a dog’ at the front of his mind and a sinking stomach, had taken the duty bugler—Pegg—and the trusted Sergeant Ormond and Private Carlton to find out exactly how bad things were. As they left Home Ridge there had been shouts and shots, volleys of high-pitched cracks from the rifles of the 41st and the flat boom of Russian muskets to guide them through the fog.
But as they got closer, the firing died down to just an occasional bang. Things seemed to be under control until, when they were even nearer, they could hear the low rumble of grunts and curses, the clash of metal on metal, ragged cheers and a great collective gasp and thump of bodies more like a rugby scrum than a fight.
‘Why’s all the firing stopped, Sar’nt Ormond?’ Morgan found himself whispering despite the noise all around them.
‘Dunno, sir. Must be at each other with the steel. They’re only just ahead, sir, want me to go an’ ave a look?’
Morgan’s eyes narrowed. Had he given the impression of hanging back, of being ‘sticky’ as the current argot had it? ‘No, thank you, Sar’nt Ormond.’ The Sergeant wouldn’t think that of him, would he? Not after all they’d been through together, surely? Perhaps he’d smelt the Dutch courage on his breath. As he moved to the front of the patrol he cupped his hand to his mouth and nose and breathed out to check: he had. Pulling his pistol out with all the confidence he could muster, Morgan said, ‘Follow me,’ and pushed the branches to one side as the bestial, furious noise grew louder.
There, just where the ground fell away to a much steeper slope and the brush grew less thickly, was the Sandbag Battery. Thirty feet wide and twelve feet high, it had been designed with embrasures for two heavy guns. Morgan could remember the sweat of helping to build the thing and everyone’s bemusement when no guns were ever placed there (Carmichael had warbled some damn nonsense about its being built ‘just in case Russ placed guns on the other side of the valley’), but it did have its uses. Anyone who had been on picket on that flank had been grateful for its shelter and the bogus reassurance that the hessian and earth walls gave. Still, it served no tactical purpose that he could see.
The gunner had been right: the enemy was bitterly determined to take the battery. A few on both sides tried to reload their weapons, but most, just as Ormond had thought, were at it hand-to-hand, toe-to-toe. There seemed to be no more than a couple of dozen of the 41st on the home side of the battery, though there must have been more, for Morgan could see both Colours in their great varnished leather cases—they bobbed about in the hands of their ensigns like two big, black rockets. The rest of the 41st stood like a wall stabbing, clubbing, butting any Russian who dared to jump into an embrasure or to sweep around the side.
The Muscovites swarmed like wasps, their bayonets clashing on the barrels and blades of the defenders who resisted madly. There were a handful of dead or wounded within the Battery and as Morgan watched, a young Russian leapt from the top of the wall, lost his footing and was seized by his belts by one of the 41st who tripped him to the ground. Another held him still with a boot on his chest before deliberately, slowly, positioning his bayonet on the side of the boy’s neck before jabbing it firmly through the flesh and arteries as the blood spurted from his nose and mouth as from a slaughtered sheep.
The British just sucked for breath and swore, the occasional word coming from the NCOs, whilst their enemies yelled as they rolled forward. Then to the left the Colour party was suddenly in trouble. A mob of snarling Russians dashed forward at the subalterns and their escorts, bayonets levelled and Morgan saw one Colour grabbed by a Russian, but the ensign clung to the pike with both hands and the struggle developed into a tug-of-war between the two of them.
The pair circled and jerked until a Colour-Sergeant stepped in with his rifle-butt—just as McGucken had done at the Alma. The Russian fell back, clutching his face, whilst still more flooded into the ruck.
‘Come on, lads, we can’t let Russ take British Colours,’ Morgan beckoned with his pistol whilst Pegg and Carlton looked on blankly.
‘No, sir, this ain’t our fight.’ One of Sergeant Ormond’s arms was thrust restrainingly across the young officer’s chest. ‘Besides, look there.’
A clutch of silent 41st charged to save their own honour. An officer led, slashing the head of a Russian corporal with his sabre. The enemy fell back from the onslaught, both Colours were lifted up high as around them bayonets found their mark and rifles rose and fell, with the distinctive thump of brass butt-plates meeting fragile, yielding flesh. On the edge of the melee, Morgan saw one soldier pull a bayonet twisted at right angles from a Russian stomach—he hurled the now useless weapon away but still kicked viciously as the man went down. In moments the threat had evaporated. A blanket of Russians lay moaning or still amongst their foes. In the tangle of limbs one hand was raised up, its fingers slowly opening and closing.
‘Sir...sir, we know enough now,’ Morgan was transfixed by the carnage, but Ormond pulled him away, ‘...if we don’t get our lot up here damn quick, the Forty-First will be overrun.’
‘You’re right, Sar’nt Ormond,’ Morgan replied, ‘lead on.’ Whilst he lingered watching the fight, the NCO and men needed no more encouragement and set off uphill as fast as they could on the path through the thicket. In no time Morgan was alone and he found himself running to catch up with them. He’d just caught sight of Carlton’s cross-belt when a bugle, invisible in the brush, blared a few dozen yards in front of them. It was distinct, each note well-formed but it sounded a call that none of them had ever heard before. Ormond brought the two privates up short as Morgan puffed-up behind. Now, despite the artillery overhead, Ormond also whispered:
‘Whose was that call, sir?’ British units started each bugle signal with a few bars unique to them. ‘Never ‘eard it before.’
‘I don’t know, it’s new to me, too.’ The urgent notes came again, just to their front. ‘Might be reinforcements from another Division...push on, but be careful.’ Morgan was caught between an overwhelming desire to get back to the comparative safety of his own battalion as fast as possible and the need for stealth, but no sooner had they started off again than Ormond stopped, Pegg and Carlton bumping into him.
Morgan just had time to see a clutch of figures on the path a few yards in front of him. As he stared over his own men’s shoulders, one of the strangers turned to look at him, the green at his collar and the black cross-belts instantly recognizable as no regiment he knew.
‘Russians—fire for God’s sake!’ Why did he have to keep tripping over the enemy at such close quarters, he wondered; it never seemed to happen to any of the other officers. But the thought was snatched away as all three of his men fired almost as one.
It was good shooting. Three great-coated figures sprawled beside the track whilst the others scrambled away into the woods, hastened on their way by a round from Morgan’s pistol.
The British ran forward.
‘I got that fucker, din’t I?’ Pegg pulled the forage cap from his dying victim and stuffed it in his pocket, whilst Carlton merely looked down sadly at his torn, broken man. Ormond’s bullet, though, had only wounded the third Russian, a younger soldier w
ho lay on his back, kicking at the earth, pushing himself away from the British, uncertain whether to pray for mercy with both hands or to keep one clapped to his heavily bleeding ear.
‘Nyet, spaceba, nyet!’ A bugle trailed from one of the boy’s black belts and as Sergeant Ormond raised his bayonet to finish the job he shrieked, ‘Christos, Christos, nyet!’
Now it was Morgan’s turn for restraint. ‘No, Sar’nt Ormond, don’t. Take him prisoner.’
‘Aye, yer right, sir.’ The blood-lust had instantly gone from the Sergeant. ‘Stop buggerin’ about you two an’ reload. Come on then Russ, on yer feet.’ The boy jumped up and, propelled by an almost playful jab from Ormond’s blade, skittered up the path, blood soaking into his collar.
***
As they reached the 95th, the companies were already preparing to move. Morgan told Sergeant Ormond and Carlton to return to the ranks as he and the prisoner escorted by Pegg playing the victor for all that he was worth, went in search of medical aid and the adjutant.
‘Here, tell him to hold this on his ear,’ Mary passed a wad of bandage to Pegg, pointing to the Russian, ‘...I’ll deal with him when we’ve dressed our own lads.’
All softness had gone from the girl as she knelt next to an unconscious man whose shoulder was gashed and bleeding hard. The enemy’s artillery had taken a toll of the men as they waited. Most had been wounded by splinters and they all sat or sprawled, some moaning quietly hut most just pale, shocked and silent. To one side lay a half-dozen men whose shoulder-capes had been pulled over their faces. Their dead fingers were still curled as if around their now absent weapons.
‘Mary, are we about to move? D’you know where to?’ Morgan saw the same hands that he had kissed tearing and knotting the dressings expertly.
‘How should I know, Mr Morgan, sir, I’m not the commanding officer, am I?’ The answer came back hot and tart. ‘They say there’s to be a general attack with the Guards to retake the Battery. Have you just been there?’
To Do and Die Page 23