To Do and Die

by Patrick Mercer

  ‘Aye, sir, all right, I’ll keep me gob shut. Best not keep that a-waitin’, sir,’ he added with a horrid wink as Mary’s shapely bottom floated away.

  ***

  The hut was just like Morgan’s. Inside, though, it had been divided into four by blankets that hung from the cross-timbers, Mary’s quarter, Morgan noticed immediately, being the one by the window and furthest from the draughty door. Both the Allies and the enemy had done their best to furnish the tiny space: a delicate Russian table stood in the centre of the floor—two camp chairs that looked French beside it; there was crockery that had certainly come from the baggage train they over-ran on the way to Balaklava and the issue bed was covered with a great Tartar coverlet. Thrust into the wooden walls were bayonets set at an angle, their sockets stuffed with candles whilst a sergeant’s coat lay next to Mary’s sewing basket. Three other wives and their husbands shared the place: Morgan could only guess at some of the scenes that were played out in the tiny, blanket-walled rooms.

  ‘Don’t worry, you won’t be embarrassed by anyone coming in, sir. The girls are all up at the main hospital and James is too damn busy patting his precious soldiers after last night’s high-jinks to worry about me.’ There was no affection in Mary’s voice, either for Morgan or, as far as he could see, for Keenan.

  Morgan knew this was going to be difficult. It had been months since they’d seen each other and except for the news that he’d got from the servants in Glassdrumman, he had heard nothing. But whatever had happened before, things would have to change. Mary was no longer the biddable little jewel of the Morgan household whom he could toy with as he pleased. She was a sergeant’s wife running a busy hospital, mixing with coarse men who were hardened by death and violence—and she was clearly flourishing.

  And he was no longer a love-struck subaltern whose antics might be winked at. He commanded a company and, what’s more, he commanded her cuckolded husband: he must leave her in no doubt about the fact that they couldn’t continue together. Besides, everyone had told him to drop her—everyone except Finn the groom, that is: Finn who had taught him to ride, fish, shoot and drink—Finn who knew him better than anyone at home. What had he said? ‘...and mind you come home with Mary by your side—where she ought to be.’ Some damn nonsense like that.

  ‘D’you still take sugar in your tay, Captain Morgan?’ Morgan looked at her warming the pot and he knew that they were both thinking of those early mornings back at home when she would bring him his first cup of tea—and stay in his room just a little longer.

  ‘I still do, Mary...’

  ‘It’s Mrs Keenan to you, Captain Morgan, sir.’ There was ice in her voice. ‘And how’s everything at home? I had some nice letters from the servants, one from Finn who told me all about you, one from your father, even.’ Morgan knew that tart note in Mary’s voice—it signalled danger.

  ‘Yes, I have a wee packet of letters from home, most for you and a couple for your husband,’ Morgan tried to change tack, ‘...perhaps you could help him with them,’ but he couldn’t have got it more wrong.

  ‘Help him with them? How bloody dare you—are you suggesting that my husband is some sort of eejit that can’t shift for himself? At least he hasn’t been skulking at home with some pin-prick. Oh no, he was back here as soon as his poor neck was healed, standing alongside us as we froze our tits off with Russ laughing fit to bust down there in the town. And what did I hear of you? That quim Jeanie Brennan tells me that you’re the grand man around Skib’, squirin’ Maude-bleedin’-Hawtrey whilst we all thought you’d never walk again.’ Mary’s words were made all the more vicious by the steely control of her voice.

  ‘An’ here’s me stuck with that great ox of a man who can think of nothing but his bloody soldiers. I bet he’s up there now wiping someone’s hole rather than helping his wife. An’ you come in here an’ expect to lift me off some goddamn shelf whenever you wish, tickle me a bit an’ then shove me back until I’m wanted again.’ Mary was blazing at him, chin thrust forward, fists clenched, every muscle tensed with anger. Christ, she was beautiful.

  ‘Mary, it isn’t like that, it can’t be.’ Morgan was standing opposite her, staring into her great, chestnut eyes. Then the storm broke. Tears welled down her cheeks, her face collapsed and he found himself wrapping her in his arms, gently rocking her to and fro, all resolve gone as the sobs came long and low. ‘There, my darling, please don’t cry.’

  ‘Oh Tony, you don’t know what it’s been like...’

  But he could guess. Her language, her whole posture revealed her as a woman who had endured hardship, who’d had to fend for herself amongst men whose business was death, who’d slaved in some of the harshest conditions and who had plainly mastered it. Now she clung to him like she always had, not just his bed-mate but as his lover and friend. He’d dreamed of this moment in the past few months. The rational side of him knew that they must part, that it would be a kindness to Mary and Keenan. But he wasn’t rational alone and hard in his bed at night; he wasn’t rational when he was surrounded by comfortable, mannered folk who danced, laughed and ate, whose lives were no more dangerous than a fast chase after a fox. How could those soft, powdered women compare with this girl? How could he ever hope to be happy with someone who didn’t understand all this horror?

  ‘Tony, please tell me that we’re going to be all right,’ she clung to him, pressing her cheek against the buttons on his chest, ‘...you don’t know how I’ve missed you whilst you’ve been away. The last time I saw you, you was bleedin’ like Christ on his cross an’ most of the lads that Dr Fergusson and I dressed at Inkermann didn’t even make it to Turkey. Then I heard nothing at all from you.’ Mary paused, gulping her tears. ‘I know how difficult it’s going to be, how people will talk and stand in our way. I know I’ve wronged poor, dear, simple James, but I can’t go on like this for much longer. I need you, I can’t live without you.’

  The guns rattled in the distance and they kissed. Mary’s lashes were still full of great, salty tears that Morgan brushed away with his lips, kissing gently at first and then with increasing urgency down her ears to her neck, pushing aside her shawl and the cotton top of her dress and smothering her shoulders. She felt so small, so vulnerable in his arms as she struggled to undo the ladder of buttons on the front of his shell-jacket, eventually pulling it away and gently pushing Morgan back onto the bed. With practised ease, Mary lifted first one, then Morgan’s other boot, undid the laces and pulled them off, getting hardly any mud on her hands as she did so.

  ‘Jaysus, Tony, how can you go about like that?’ Mary looked down at the dirt-rimmed big toe that stuck through his worn, grey, wool sock, ‘I’ll give you a damn good wash and darn that for you after.’

  ‘‘After’ what, darling?’ said Tony, cupping her breasts from behind with equally practised ease.

  Then they were standing on the scrap of Turkish rug, unbuttoning, unfastening, undoing, until they were both quite naked. Mary pulled Tony on top of her on the bed, the planks complaining loudly. They probed, felt, licked and teased at each other seeking pleasure and comfort in each other’s bodies, craving to be one.

  Soon they were. Mary stretched her smooth, lithe legs around Tony’s hard, muscled back as he pushed into her hungrily. Their passion swirled and rose, Tony losing himself in the love and sheer warmth of the intimacy.

  ‘No, Tony, not yet, wait.’ Mary’s arms had been clasped tightly round his neck, but now she was pushing him away, both palms flat against his shoulders. She wriggled free and in an instant was straddling him, her hair loose and cascading down over both of them. They could wait no longer. Neither cared if their moans were heard as they held each other tight, clasping, melting together into a moist warmth.

  ‘You always have to be on top, in every way, don’t you, darling?’ Tony looked up into her smiling face, her great lazy eyes sated with love.

  ‘Tony, I need you so much, please tell me that we’ll...’ But Mary was suddenly silent, quite still on top of T
ony, listening.

  A series of dull thuds came from just outside the door of the hut as someone kicked the mud and dung off their boots, then the door opened without ceremony, the blanket billowing gently as the wind wafted in. Mary lay low on Tony, bottom in the air, finger on her lips, willing the intruder to be gone.

  Feet scraped busily on the doormat: then there was silence as the newcomer detected others in the room beyond the hanging blankets.

  ‘Mary, is that you? Are you there, hello?’

  Tony looked through Mary’s veil of hair as the blanket was moved to one side by an unknown hand. Then the pinched, wind-burnt face pushed through the folded cloth, the eyes bright, intelligent, taking in the situation at once.

  ‘Oh, Mary dear, I’m so sorry to disturb you...’ Mrs Polley paused, ‘...and Sergeant Keenan, how came you by those nasty scars?’

  FOURTEEN

  The Quarries

  ‘Now, you’ve got to keep a right sharp eye out for these bastards, lads.’ Sergeant Ormond had half the company round him, just to the rear of their huts. Dug into a soft piece of ground were three Russian fougasses, taken from in front of the enemy positions with the greatest of care during a patrol two days ago. ‘All you’ll see is a glass tube lying just above the surface. They vary in length, some being as long as a good-sized cock, like these two, here...’ he pointed to two crude glass tubes, about as thick as a finger, ‘...and some being much shorter, ‘bout the length of Corporal Pegg’s todger.’

  Gales of laughter from the men who were enjoying the period out of the line, despite the intensive training that they were getting.

  ‘That’s as maybe, Sergeant, but half Wirkswirth looks just like me.’ Pegg’s reply drew just as good a laugh.

  ‘Russ makes the tubes hissen, fills ‘em with an acid that when you break it, leaks into a fulminate exploder at either end and sets off the charge. See ‘ere...’ Ormond used a long stick to point to a fougasse that had been disarmed and was lying exposed at the bottom of a shallow hole, ‘...this one’s like most we’ve seen. Made out o’ wood, probably two fists long and one wide, they’re filled with about two pounds of normal detonating powder. Some ‘ave been found with shot on top o’ the charge, but we ain’t seen any like that so far.’

  The men, soft field caps above tanned, bearded faces, brownish sea-smocks and blue-black trousers now always worn with the bottoms rolled up against the mud, listened intently. Ormond spoke softly so that all of them had to strain to learn facts that would save their lives.

  ‘Now, obviously, the thing is set off by one of yer clumsy fuckin’ boots catchin’ it. If yer lucky, the charge will have gone damp and will sound more like this...’ Lance-Corporal Carlton had been warned to expect this rib-tickler so he’d been brewing away and right on cue he let out a melodious, malodorous bubble that delighted the audience, ‘...than this.’ Just behind a bank a live fougasse had been sown with one of the men ready to detonate it by pulling a piece of string. There was a roar and a sheet of flame that made the troops mutter with awe.

  ‘Party of the Sixty-Third trod on some the other day down by Green Hill: one killed, one lost a foot, one lad badly burnt. Not much you can do about them—especially at night—except keep yer eyes peeled and if you hear the fuse fizzing, get down. But, if you do find one, mark it using one of these sticks you’ll be issued.’ The sergeant held up a two-foot-long piece of cut willow, one end sharpened, the other flying a pennon of white cleaning rag.

  ‘He should be in Drury Lane, Ormond, not in the army.’ Ensign Parkinson was walking in the blowy, early June sunshine with Morgan, watching the men train. His cheeks had done their best to grow some whiskers, but the down emphasized rather than concealed his youth.

  ‘Thank God he’s not...’ Morgan could have predicted the subaltern’s cliché of admiration for stalwarts like Ormond, ‘...we need old hands more than ever. Will you just look at the men, they’re nothing but boys.’

  And they were. Morgan remembered how callow even the old company had looked a year ago, but most of those men were a good two years older than these lads. But now they were gone. Morgan remembered how they were mown down at the Alma, cut to pieces at Inkermann, or simply spooned into a shallow pit, wasted with cholera and exhaustion.

  ‘Yes, Morgan, but they’re good men—as you know—and the company’s so much better since...well, since...recently.’ Parkinson blushed slightly as Morgan looked at him. Was he toad-eating, or was it a sincere compliment?

  ‘We’re lucky to have grand corporals and sergeants, Parkinson. Come and look at this.’ Morgan led the younger officer over to the other half of the company where Colour-Sergeant McGucken was just finishing off his lesson in gun-spiking.

  All of the men were familiar with the long shafts of soft iron that were issued for raids and the like, but no one had yet had the chance to use one. Realizing that a demonstration would be invaluable, McGucken had sent a party down to Balaklava to acquire a number of gun barrels that had been worn-out by too much firing and were about to be scrapped. Mighty had been the moaning as they were humped back up the road to the 95th’s camp, but now the heavy tubes were proving their worth.

  ‘So, that’s the easy bit.’ A spiking nail had been knocked smoothly into the touch-hole of one of the old guns with a mallet, making it impossible to fire.

  ‘But unless you knock the bastard right home, Russ will come up and lever it free like this...’ Just like an ordinary nail, the metal spike had a head on it that made it easier to knock in but, as Sergeant Keenan now demonstrated, an entrenching tool could easily be pushed under the rim and used to lever it out.

  ‘Thank you, Sar’nt Keenan. So, lads, the whole idea is to stop Russ being able to pepper us with the guns we’ve just overrun if a counter-attack drives us back again. So, think o’ that sweet, wee Aldershot whore an’ bang away ‘til the nail’s out of sight. An’ if you lose your nail, use a bayonet instead...’ Sergeant Keenan came forward to the next barrel that was lying on blocks in the grass, jammed a bayonet into the breech-end of the old gun, then stamped on its socket to drive it firmly into the soft aperture, ‘...then snap it off like this,’ knocking the bayonet at right angles with a hefty kick. This blow should have weakened the blade enough to allow it to be bent back and forth by hand a few times before it eventually broke leaving nothing but a stump that would be difficult to draw out of the touch-hole. In fact, even brawny Keenan’s tugs made little impression at first, everyone laughing when they realized how unrealistic the task would be in the teeth of the enemy.

  ‘So, lads, the lesson is, if even Sar’nt Keenan has difficulty in doing what the manual tells us to do, don’t lose yer fuckin’ spiking nail. Any questions?’ McGucken recovered perfectly, as Keenan, red with exertion, finally got the steel to snap.

  ‘By God, sir, I hope the good sergeant treats the succulent Mrs Keenan rather more gently than that.’ Ensign Parkinson was trying to gauge how far he could go with his company commander.

  His reply was just a long, hard, silent stare from Morgan.

  ***

  ‘Bloody hell, sir, the Frogs are hittin’ them hard, aren’t they?’ McGucken and Morgan watched, awestruck, as the French guns pummelled the Russian earthworks with an intensity that they had not seen before. As the company trained and the secret date for the attack drew near, everybody had noticed how the tempo of the guns had suddenly increased.

  Until the day before, the fourth of June, there had been a steady, familiar rumble as both sides potted away at one another. Then, just as the garrison of Sevastopol were lolling in the sun of a particularly fine afternoon, the crescent of Allied guns that faced the town had erupted. Morgan hadn’t been warned—nor had anyone else as far as he could gather—as the usual drumming had stepped up to an incessant, mighty roar. Morgan had had to let McGucken know what the overall plan was, but when the bombardment had increased, there wasn’t a man in the company who hadn’t realized that the ‘shave’ was true and what all the special training w
as about. Any attempts to hide future plans from the men had to be a complete waste of time, the only detail of which they were now unsure was whether the assault would be limited just to The Quarries or whether they would push into Sevastopol itself.

  So, he and McGucken had set off to see what was happening for themselves. They’d trotted down the ravines on Morgan’s pair of horses, followed by Pegg on one of the Quartermaster’s screws to act as their messenger, then they’d hacked along the corduroy tracks that led up the steep banks towards the trenches, before stopping off at a vantage point on Green Hill. Morgan had worried that they might attract enemy fire, but as soon as they arrived to the rear of a battery of eighteen-pounders, he saw that the position was thick with other spectators. Now McGucken and Morgan had dismounted, handed their reins to Pegg and were scanning the earthwork well over to the left through their telescopes.

  ‘They are, too, Colour-Sar’nt. The Malakoff’s getting a leathering, but they’re also pounding the Mamelon; look yonder.’ Morgan pointed at the fort that the Russians had thrown up in front of their main defensive position.

  They couldn’t see the pair of batteries that the French had dedicated to the destruction of the smaller position, but they were firing disciplined salvoes that arrived every three minutes or so, throwing up great gouts of earth and flame and a cloud of dust and smoke that hung in the sunny, windless air.

  ‘Look carefully, sir, an’ I reckon yous can see poor bastards getting chucked in the air every time the rounds land.’ McGucken might have been right. Each ripple of shells threw up black, solid lumps that arced away before falling into the dust and mayhem. But whether they were bodies or not hardly mattered, for the whole area was now just one shapeless mass of earth and broken gabions from which only occasional stabs of fire came in reply.

  ‘Can’t really tell what’s happening up in The Quarries, sir.’ McGucken had balanced his glass on a sandbag parapet to steady it and was now crouching down behind the eyepiece, extending it gently to get a better focus.