To Do and Die

by Patrick Mercer

  ‘Scuse me, gennelmen, got Captain Morgan, Colour-Sar’nt McGucken an’ an ‘atful o’ new ‘uns for you.’ Pegg had to speak up to make himself heard above a sudden burst of firing over in the western French sector.

  Sergeant Whaley was instantly on his feet, the light reflecting off his smiling face.

  ‘Bloody ‘ell, sir, Jock, we’re right glad to see you.’

  ***

  The first grey of dawn was showing before Morgan felt more comfortable about the layout of his new command. Ten days had passed since Davidson-Smith had disappeared, moaning, on a stretcher during which nineteen-year-old Ensign Parkinson, the ink not yet dry on the cheque that had bought his commission, had nominally been in command. The boy had done his best, taking the company out of the line, going through all the tedious administration and carrying parties that consumed their ‘rest’ period before bringing them back into the same stretch of trenches the day before. In reality, though, the experienced but increasingly weary Sergeant Whaley had been in charge. The strain showed: thank God he had McGucken.

  Parkinson ran him round the trenches all night, showing him the new traverses that they had dug the last time the company had been there, the place where Davidson-Smith had been struck by a splinter, the feeding areas, the collection point for digging tools and other gear—in short, all the paraphernalia of trench warfare that hadn’t changed one iota since he’d experienced it last: even the wet sandbags stank just the same.

  ‘Thank you, Parkinson, that all looks very satisfactory...’ lied Morgan. It all looked very like it did almost half a year ago when he’d last seen it, ‘...though we don’t seem to have got very much closer to Sevastopol, have we?’

  ‘Difficult to say, I haven’t been here very long. We improve the trenches as much as we can, but Russ is very active with both his guns and his raiding parties and it’s my impression that we’re sitting back a bit and letting the French do most of the work,’ replied the ensign.

  Morgan had certainly noticed that very few of the troops or wagons moving behind the lines were British, most of them were French and a few of the latest nation to join the Alliance—the Sardinians. Whilst he had been in Malta, Morgan had seen how the papers had been lamenting Britain’s inability to send more than a handful of reinforcements to the Crimea whilst French troops were flooding in and that seemed to be the truth.

  ‘If you just listen to the French guns, Captain Morgan, you can hear how much more firing they do than our batteries and, it’s got to be admitted, the Frogs have got all of the major Russian fortifications now as their responsibility except for the Redan.’ Parkinson must have thought about things much more clearly than Morgan did before he was wounded. ‘The problem is keeping the men interested. The old hands are awfully tired and don’t want to take risks—I don’t blame them—but they don’t set the best of examples to the new’uns.’

  ‘Well what d’you expect? If you’d been through Alma and Inkermann you’d feel that you’d done more than enough,’ snapped Morgan, immediately realizing how defensive he must have sounded.

  ‘Oh no, quite...quite...’ Parkinson was taken aback by the rebuke, ‘...I don’t mean any disrespect to the senior men, but it would be a lot easier if we had a full Company, if we had more men to share the work and the danger a bit more evenly and the Staff would let us get a bloody move-on rather than just hanging about making mud pies all day and night.’

  ‘Aye, I see your point...’ Morgan regretted his outburst, ‘...but I wonder if we’ll have the same conversation when you’ve been out here a while and seen more of Russ?’

  ‘I have no doubt you’re right, sir, and I’m keen to find out. If you want to know the truth, whilst it’s a fine thing to have someone like you in charge of the company, I would have loved more time in command of it myself.’

  Morgan smiled at the lad’s earnest enthusiasm, but two things worried him. First, Parkinson was very vague about exactly where the Russian rifle pits and trenches were and, secondly, the youngster knew none of the names of the sentries they met. Most of the men were trussed up in their blankets, snoring on the fire-step or in shallow dugouts, but when Parkinson spoke to a sentry there was no warmth. He merely wanted to know that the soldier was alert, could remember the password and was conscious of any patrols that were out, but he made no attempt to find out things about the man, to help pass the long hours of his duty, to talk of home or women or blacken the name of another regiment.

  In return, the men were short and slightly sulky with the young officer. They answered his questions with just a ‘sir’, or the briefest of explanations and when Morgan spoke to them—and he found that he knew only one or two—they were barrack-formal with him, standing stiffly to attention, barely meeting his eye. For everyone’s sake, things would have to change.

  Blinking with lack of sleep, Morgan watched his men stand-to. As blankets were shaken and packed away, damp greatcoats buttoned up before belts were pulled on over the top, oily rags taken from pouches and quickly rubbed over rifle barrels, they were brisk and thorough enough. As ammunition was checked, slings tightened and, just before they stepped up to the parapet, bayonets fixed, they were business-like and commendably quiet, but there was none of the whispered chaffing, the suppressed, familiar quips and muffled laughter that he would have expected. The men were flat, efficient but without any spark: obedient but with no spirit.

  The dawn inched up. Gradually, the dark forms took on shape and features, the shuffling, gently stamping, quietly coughing bundles becoming individual men. They all kept their caps and heads just below the top of the sandbags, mittened hands held their rifles carefully, making sure that no bayonet tips showed above the top of the parapet to serve as an aiming mark for a lobbed grenade. As soon as they stood-down and returned to breakfast in the headquarters dugout, Sergeant Whaley briefed them about the new skills that the enemy had developed whilst McGucken and Morgan had been away.

  ‘Russ has got these grenades he bloody juggles wi’nasty, round, metal things just like a small shell, an’ glass ones that go off with a real bang. He uses them close up when ‘e’s in the trench with you: stuns, but they don’t throw any splinters out - safer for the attacker.’ Sergeant Whaley’s picture of the Russians diverting themselves by scampering about the English trenches was new to both of them and rather daunting.

  ‘Oh, aye, they’ve got right bold over the winter, the cheeky sods. They’re usually after us rifles: the few they do ‘ave ain’t much good, so if they can cotch one of ours or a Frog’s an’ a pouch full of rounds, they’re dead pleased. Trouble is, they’re bloody good shots with ‘em. Mr Parkinson will show you The Quarries in daylight, sir—stiff wi’ Muscovites they are—an’ they creep forward at night, dig themselves in an’ snipe like buggery. We lost Parker two weeks ago like that. Right vexing they are.’ And there was worse.

  ‘Watch out for the fougasses an’ all, sir.’ Morgan was just familiar with the archaic term—they’d had a lecture from the sappers at Chatham once about them and petards as well, horrid devices that were designed to explode underfoot. ‘There’s a little pop an’ a short fizz when you step on ‘em and then a flash and bang. They haven’t done any harm yet, but Russ sticks ‘em on likely approaches to his rifle pits an’ they don’t half put the shits up you when you’re wandering about between the lines at night an’ someone sets one off.’

  But this morning, the Russians were much more predictable. Just as the light improved enough for the enemy’s artillery observers to see clearly, a shell exploded far too high over their heads and fifty yards short. Morgan looked up into the dawn-grey sky where a bruise of smoke was drifting down the wind. He could imagine the gunners now cutting a slightly longer fuse, adjusting the elevation of their barrels and carefully ramming home the next round.

  ‘Right, boys, there’s a wee ‘good-morning’ on its way. Just think o’ them sandbags as a Weedon tart an’ cuddle in tight.’ Morgan’s mouth was dry: he tried to make light of the forthcomi
ng ordeal, but the men were already taking what cover they could and those whose faces he could see looked uncomprehendingly at him. He’d forgotten, of course, that none of the new draft had been anywhere near their pre-war barracks in Northamptonshire, for they had all been trained at Aldershot. Here was another bond that had gone.

  The next round was more accurate. It buried itself with a heavy thump and a great shower of grit just beyond the parados at the far end of the company’s position. It failed to explode and an audible sigh of relief swept down the trench.

  ‘If they’re any bloody good, the next lot’ll be right on top of us.’ Morgan knew he was telling the men nothing they hadn’t worked out for themselves. Eyes were screwed tight shut, heads pulled down hard between hunched shoulders, bodies wedged between bags and gabions. ‘Keep down, lads.’

  The time dragged—the Russians would be making their final adjustments. A distant ripple of fire announced that the French were getting similar treatment, before half a dozen bangs—almost together except for one a fraction of a second later—came from much closer to them. Every man was counting the seconds as the rounds flew.

  ‘For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful.’ Someone had to say it—and it had to be Pegg.

  Another wit just had time to say, ‘Amen’, before the salvo arrived. Furious orange flashes frilled with coal-black smoke cracked about twenty feet above them, neatly straddling the trench, splinters and shrapnel balls kicking-up the soil like lethal rain. Morgan pushed himself hard against the wall of the trench. He’d pulled his unlit pipe from his mouth when the first, ranging round exploded: now its stem snapped in his tightly-clenched fist. He felt that horrible, itching contraction of his bladder as he waited for the cries of the wounded.

  But none came. The Russians had made what the gunners would call ‘good practise’, but the company, so far, had been lucky. It was almost a relief when the shells exploded, although waiting between salvoes was unbearable. When Morgan had last experienced such a bombardment, the men’s dark humour helped to relieve the tension, but this new generation just huddled and shrank. Lance-Corporal Pegg’s one quip had helped a little—but it was the only one he had.

  Another batch of misery arrived and detonated, but, again, they all survived. A further dreadful lull had to be endured whilst Morgan searched vainly for words of encouragement and fought his desire to reach for his flask. The only thing that he could think of to say was that the enemy usually fired only three such harassing patterns—but he dare not say this to the men in case he was proved wrong. Then, just as he’d predicted to himself, the guns fired again, this time admirably together, and they all counted as destruction winged towards them.

  Again, a wave of violent noise and the chemical smell of burnt powder enveloped them. But even as he pressed his cheek against a now warm sandbag, Morgan was aware of something different. A few yards to his right, just this side of where the trench bent away in a zig-zag, there was a giant thud, a scrape and an ominous fizz. How the round missed the cringing troops Morgan couldn’t say; it had skipped off the front of the trench between two soldiers, playfully throwing a dozen sandbags about, before spinning merrily on the floor of the trench, its fuse spitting sparks and a jet of smoke.

  Both men looked around white-faced, glimpsed the gyrating horror and threw themselves onto the earthy floor with a shout, shielding their heads with their arms. But they were only a few feet from the thing: an exploding twelve-pound shell that close would injure or kill the pair of them. In the fraction of time that it took Morgan to absorb the scene, he realized that he was centre-stage in one of those heroic, naval paintings that hung on the walls at home: sputtering shell comes bounding aboard man-o’-war; barefoot tars recoil in terror, hands raised to protect themselves; quick-witted officer plucks it up as he might do a cricket ball on a summer’s afternoon, before lobbing it casually over the side. Ship and sons-of-toil saved, young gallant shrugs it off as all part of a normal day’s work.

  But in the second that it took Morgan’s brain to grasp all this and realize that he had to act, his body did nothing. He just stood there gaping, frozen, as inert as the shell was dangerous. Mercifully, others weren’t. A stocky, older little man threw his rifle aside, grabbed a drinking-water pail that stood on a specially-cut ledge at the back of the trench and doused the ghastly thing as easily as if he were snuffing a kitchen candle. They all stood transfixed as the iron globe instantly stopped its dance, rocked a couple of times and then was still, a wisp of steam sighing gently from its unwinking, black fuse-hole.

  ‘Holy God, man, well done...’ Morgan stammered as the others lifted their ashen faces from the dirt, amazed to be unhurt, ‘...what’s your name?’

  ‘Camay, sir.’ He was small for a Grenadier, deeply tanned below his beard and probably in his late twenties. Keeping below the parapet, Cattray tried to crouch yet still stiffen to attention, the empty pail swinging in his hand against the tatty skirts of his greatcoat.

  ‘That was well done, Cattray: these two have got something to thank you for.’ Sheepishly the pair were lifting themselves up, brushing down their coats and reaching for their abandoned weapons. ‘Why don’t I know you?’

  ‘Transferred in from the Light Company, sir, when I got busted in January,’ Cattray said quietly. ‘Only joined the regiment just before we left Weedon.’

  ‘Where were you before, Cattray, and why were you reduced?’ Morgan was surprised that he hadn’t noticed this unusual man before.

  ‘Eight years with the Saint Helena Regiment, sir. War was coming so I volunteered for this lot: wish I hadn’t now.’ Cattray smiled ruefully, ‘I was a lance-corporal with a good conduct stripe. Captain Thomas took both of ‘em off of me an’ chucked me out o’ his company just ‘cos I got a bit lashed one night on picket. Most expensive grog I’ve ever ‘ad: cost me eighteen pence a day, it did.’

  ‘Well, you’ve more than made up for that now, Cattray, we’re glad to have you.’ Morgan replied. ‘That’s just the sort of quick thinking I need.’

  ‘It was nowt, sir. You’ll get used to the bangs and wallops after a while.’

  Get used to the bangs and wallops...get used...What on earth, Morgan wondered, did Cattray mean, get used? Didn’t the man know that he’d been out here from the beginning? That he’d been at Alma? Didn’t he know that he and McGucken had held the whole bloody show together at Inkermann? True, he’d missed the winter in the trenches but that hardly counted...or did it? Morgan began to realize that his company’s collective memory was a short one, that only a handful of them had been together in last year’s fighting and the common experience of most of his men was the cold misery of the trenches and impersonal little incidents like the one he had just experienced. It was as if nothing he’d done before counted and that this new set of men would need to be convinced just like the last lot did. Fine, if that was the case he’d find a way to do it.

  ***

  Sleep, even in daylight with the odd shell whistling about, wasn’t too hard if you were tired enough. Peters had his bed roll prepared and some food and drink in the pit where the officers and senior non-commissioned officers messed, and he soon fell into a deep, dreamless stupor. But he awoke confused. His shoulder was gently shaken before he opened his eyes to find a familiar face leering at him. How many times at Weedon or Glassdrumman had this been the first sight he’d seen in the morning, his former servant, James Keenan? But now he was no longer a servant: now he wore the three white worsted tapes of a sergeant, one of the most senior and trusted men in Morgan’s command. And the fact that the face smiled at Morgan, that the eyes danced with pleasure at seeing him again suggested that he still didn’t know the truth behind the relationship between the officer and Mary, his wife—thank God.

  ‘Well, your honour, it’s good to see you. Last time was on that goddamn hill full o’ Russians.’ Keenan laughed. ‘Left it with a bit of a sore Croat, so I did.’

  ‘You did that, Sergeant James Keenan.�
� Morgan rolled from his blankets, grabbing the man by the hand. No matter how bad his conscience was about Mary, he was pleased to see his former servant. ‘I thought that sharpshooter at the Alma had killed you dead; let’s have a look at the scar.’

  Keenan opened the hooks of his collar for the officer’s inspection, showing a shiny, newly healed gash beside his windpipe. ‘It’s not bad, sir, is it? An’ they say you’ve got a good ‘un too, let’s see.’

  Quite forgetting himself and the dignity of their new positions, Morgan pulled his overalls down to show the purple dimples on both sides of his right thigh.

  ‘Holy Jesus, sir, bit too close to himself for comfort, I’d say,’ said Keenan, pricking Morgan’s conscience even further.

  As they stood there, Morgan’s pants about his ankles, Sergeant Keenan studying him closely, Peters walked round the sap’s entrance, pulled aside the strip of canvas that served as a curtain and stopped dead, his face a picture, ‘Oh...oh, sorry sir, I, I...’ The poor man was clearly appalled.

  ‘Come here, Peters, an’ look at the company commander’s wounds: wonderful they are,’ said Keenan.

  But the unblushing familiarity between the two Irishmen was too much for the Englishman, who just blanched and stammered, ‘Sir, commanding officer an’ adjutant’s coming up to see you,’ before fleeing the shocking scene.