To Do and Die

by Patrick Mercer

  Shattered trenches led everywhere. British and French fire had cratered the earth so thoroughly that scarcely a sandbag was in place or untorn. Splintered, broken gabions lay anyhow and there was hardly a plank or stake of the revetments that hadn’t been knocked askew. It was almost dark now, but the light of burning stores showed bodies dotted here and there—Morgan noticed the dark belts of riflemen and the knotted scarves of sailors—mostly outside the entrance to dugouts and shelters. Shell splinters had done their scything worst, slashing and slicing at soft Russian flesh. Morgan guessed that they had been caught by the shells as the garrison pulled out and if they’d withdrawn without a fight then, as sure as the Pope lived in Rome, there would be a counter-attack.

  ‘Get ‘em into file, non-commissioned officers.’ The Company gaggled about, gawping at the destruction, one or two picking for loot, but the plan was to penetrate deep into the centre of the fort through the maze of trenches. The men responded to the barked orders, quickly forming into two thin ranks, crouching down and waiting to be led forward.

  ‘Here’s the guide, sir.’ McGucken waved through a lad from the 49th, just as three shells banged hard and high at the back of The Quarries, the first serious enemy fire they’d heard. They all shrank and ducked from the noise.

  ‘Major Armstrong’s compliments, sir, follow the route I’ll show you, he’s secured the left part of the main sap, but needs you up in support, sharpish.’ The lad coughed as thick, tarry smoke drifted across them all. Four more 49th soldiers, one with his head bandaged, another being supported by two comrades came shambling past.

  ‘Dressing station’s just being set-up over yon,’ Colour-Sergeant McGucken pointed the way for them, ‘...see there, by the Fifty-Fifth’s leading troops.’

  As they bundled and tripped their way forward with only the light of the fires to guide them, more shells burst on the other side of The Quarries where shouts and bugle calls showed that the other column was making its way. Rifles stabbed in the night, there were flashes of grenades, but the Russians were being driven out.

  All the training paid off. The men moved well and quietly, needing no more than the occasional word to get them to respond quickly. Once they’d found the flank of the 49th and occupied their own stretch of trench, the troops were set to reversing the defences by piling sandbags and digging fire-steps at the back of the saps. Again, they’d been taught well, picks and shovels flying in the flame-lit dark.

  ‘Colour-Saent, this is too good to last. We need to find out what lies over that lip.’ Morgan and McGucken were standing looking over the back of a Russian trench towards ground that fell away steeply into the old diggings. ‘Can we get a patrol out to have a look?’

  ‘We can, sir. If Russ boils up a counter-attack from there we’ll get bugger-all warning and our flank will be in the air…’McGucken was just as uneasy as his Company Commander, ‘...so we might want to put a standing patrol there once we know what’s going on.’

  ‘Prime idea. Who’ve you got for the patrol?’ Morgan asked.

  ‘Well, Mr Parkinson ought to lead it and, don’t say no, sir...’ in the dark McGucken’s voice had automatically dropped to a needless whisper, ‘...but Corporal Pegg needs the experience as his second-in-command. I suggest that they take a reliable. pair with them, if you please?’

  ‘I agree, Mr Parkinson would never forgive me if he didn’t go and Pegg’s doing well, just make sure they all know the pass word and give them enough signal rockets—if they’re not all pissed wet through and useless by now.’

  ***

  ‘Right, sir, come back in through this point when you’re done.’ McGucken showed Ensign Parkinson through the sentry point and out into the dark. The men had put on greatcoats against the cold of the night and now edged up and over the parapet, Parkinson and his pistol outlined starkly for an instant as a Russian star-shell burst.

  ‘Oh, ow, you clumsy fuck, be careful.’ One of the men had accidentally given Pegg’s ample rump a ‘shamrock’ as they clambered up the wooden ladder that the Russians used to get in and out of their deep trenches. His outraged whisper carried on the night air.

  ‘Shhh, Corporal Pegg. Have a care, Cooper.’ Parkinson was almost quivering with excitement, his first night patrol in enemy territory.

  ‘Good luck, sir, don’t be all bloody night,’ whispered McGucken hoarsely as they slid away into the dark.

  The Russian guns were beginning to respond. Shell and mortar fire was now falling at odd intervals all around The Quarries, whilst star-shells lit the night.

  ‘This noise helps to cover us, Corporal Pegg,’ Parkinson muttered.

  ‘Aye, sir, but Russ is ranging with those rounds, he’ll be back to chuck us out if he can, I’ll be bound.’

  ‘You’re right, that’s why Captain Morgan doesn’t want us too far forward,’ the subaltern replied. ‘How about here?’ The four men had slid over a shell-churned lip, falling out of sight of the company one hundred and fifty yards behind them. Parkinson had found a shelf in the old diggings where they could look down onto the floor of The Quarries. As the light flickered and fled they all saw three abandoned medium mortars with a litter of dead horses and smashed wagons around them. ‘D’you think they’ve been spiked, Corporal Pegg?’ The young officer had immediate visions of laying claim to the capture of three enemy mortars, why, there’d be a brevet in that...

  ‘Shh, look there, sir.’ Pegg held Parkinson by the arm, slowly raising his hand in the gloom and pointing.

  The young officer sat back on his haunches as both private soldiers stiffened and cautiously raised their weapons. Stealing quietly through a scatter of bushes came a handful of dark figures, short, blunt rifles at the ready.

  ‘Skirmishers, sir...’ Pegg rasped, ‘...main body probably behind. Got that fuckin’ rocket to ‘and?’

  ‘I have, it’s just here.’ The subaltern moved the long, wax-paper-covered light slowly from his belt and laid it carefully on the ground next to him. ‘Make ready, men, but don’t fire unless I tell you.’ Parkinson would fire the rocket to alert the Company to the presence of the enemy, meanwhile, the hammers of their three rifles and that of his own pistol were thumbed gently back into the fully-cocked position.

  A dozen skirmishers fanned out round the mortars, then turned in their direction and disappeared from sight as they began to climb up the slope.

  ‘Right, sir, fire that bleedin’ light an’ let’s fuck-off,’ Pegg whispered, as conscious as the rest of the group of the Russians whom they could not now see and who would soon be between them and the company.

  ‘No, not yet, Corporal Pegg. If that’s just a patrol they don’t know we’re here and we can get some of them as they return. But if there’s more coming we need to count them and let the captain know how many.’ Parkinson made his point as quietly as he could.

  ‘Aye, sir, but we’ll be bugger-all use if them Russians cut us off. There’s bound to be more a ‘coming, let’s get out of it whilst we can.’

  ‘No, Corporal, we’ll just wait a moment,’ Parkinson whispered back firmly.

  With a muttered, ‘Bloody officers,’ Pegg settled back down on the earth whilst both privates pretended not to have heard the altercation.

  Both officer and NCO were soon proved right. Filing quietly onto the gritty, level ground below them came columns of Russian troops, grey coats and caps black in the shadows, muskets held upright, the light catching their bayonets whenever a star-shell burst. Whatever orders they received were covered by the noise of the guns firing on the Redan and the Malakoff, making the columns look like automata as they wheeled, formed and halted below the patrol. They stared down at the Russians, their featureless faces just showing as pale discs. As one, responding to some silent order, they jerked their weapons across their bodies, slid ramrods from beneath barrels and reached behind their hips for cartridges.

  ‘Coom on, sir, you’ve seen enough, let’s be off,’ Pegg urged as quietly as he could.

  ‘Right, jus
t let me count them,’ replied Parkinson.

  ‘Sir, will you give over...’ Corporal Pegg was almost at his wit’s end, he’d had a bellyfull of skittering around in the dark surrounded by the enemy, ‘...there’s fuckin’undreds on ‘em, that’s all the captain needs to know.’

  Infuriatingly, Parkinson delayed yet more, his finger tracing its way along the ranks, his lips counting silently.

  ‘You’re right, two companies, about one hundred and fifty, I’d say. Now, where’s that light?’ Parkinson groped around at his thigh in the dark.

  ‘Here, sir, here, for pity’s sake, just fire the sod.’

  Parkinson seized the big cardboard tube, pointed it skywards, firmly gripped the wire loop, pulled—and nothing happened. ‘Damn, it’s wet. Where’s the other one?’

  ‘How the fuck should I know, sir, you had it last.’ Pegg was bubbling with silent frustration—why did officers always have to do things the hard way? Couldn’t this young gentleman see how perilous their position was? And now the silly little bastard had left their spare light behind. ‘Let’s just get back to the company, sir, we can tell ‘em what’s cracking off.’

  ‘You’re right, Corporal Pegg. Right, follow me, quietly now,’ and Parkinson slid off into the gloom, pistol at the ready.

  The men trailed after the young officer towards the featureless pool of darkness; somewhere there was their trench line and the haven of the company. But they had hardly gone thirty yards before Parkinson stopped, dropped to one knee and hunched over, trying to find their position against the constant flicker of the guns.

  ‘Where d’you think our entry-point is, Corporal Pegg?’ Parkinson whispered as the patrol closed around him.

  It would be so much safer if they could come back into their trenches at the same point that they left them, for the sentries—always jumpy when so close to the enemy—would be expecting them and, in theory at least, so much less lethal to their own side. Pegg thought back to the endless narrow scrapes he and his mates had had courtesy of their people and shuddered: it didn’t help him one jot, though, in picking out one bit of shadow from another.

  ‘Over there, sir, I think.’ Pegg pointed confidently in the darkness, trying to hide his complete ignorance.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Parkinson rasped back. ‘When we left our trenches I lined up St Catherine’s...’ a black dome was just visible on Sevastopol’s skyline, ‘...with a star in Orion’s belt which must mean that it’s more over there.’ The subaltern pointed in quite a different direction.

  ‘Sir, I haven’t a fuckin’ clue where Onion’s belt or even his bloody garters are. If you know, why don’t you just say?’ Pegg’s voice rose in irritation, almost drowning out the nearby scrape of boots and soft words in the night.

  Private Cooper’s hand rose and grasped Pegg who was instantly silent. The debate was cut short as all four men sank lower in the grit and coarse grass, as two, shapeless figures were seen crouched between themselves and the Company’s lines, just visible in the light of a distant star-shell. Four barrels swung gently towards the Russians: two short rifles rose towards the British.

  ‘Skarfitii pajalsta?’ Whatever was being whispered, it wasn’t in English.

  Parkinson straightened his arm, pointing his pistol at their foes and yelled, ‘Fire!’ The night lit up with the flash of his revolver.

  The other three fired simultaneously, great tongues of flame spitting towards the Russians. One heavy Enfield bullet struck a Russian no more than ten paces away, the man groaning, throwing back his arms and falling as his weapon rattled to the ground. Even above their pumping hearts, the patrol could hear the thump of the other Russian’s boots as he hared off. For an instant, they all looked at each other before the darkness was peppered with shots from every direction.

  ‘Damn me, we’re right in the middle of their bloody skirmishers,’ said Parkinson, hugging the earth.

  ‘I told you fuckin’ so, dint I, sir?’ It was difficult to tell the difference between the terror and the triumph in Pegg’s voice.

  ‘Yes, all right. Listen, when I start firing, you lot just run back to the company as hard as you can and tell them I’m coming. Try not to get shot by our sentries. Any questions?’ Parkinson reeled off his orders as the bullets continued to fly. ‘Go on, then, run!’ Parkinson rose and snapped off a round from his pistol.

  Ask him to compete in the regimental cross-country or to help to whip-in the officers’ beagles and Pegg would puff, wheeze and cough his excuses, but when he was given an order that was very much more to his taste, he became an athlete of rare distinction. Both lean, fit private soldiers were hard pushed to keep up with their porky superior whose boots positively skipped over the rough ground, scabbard and water-bottle banging.

  ‘Beef, beef,’ the three of them panted as they raced towards their own lines. ‘Pie!’ bellowed by the company as every man tumbled into his battle position on the parapet as the rumpus grew in front of them.

  The three of them dived and slid into the deep trench, Pegg barking his shins on the wooden revetments in his eagerness to get under cover.

  ‘What have you done with Mr Parkinson, Corporal Pegg?’ Colour-Sergeant McGucken towered over Pegg as he lay on the floor of the sap rubbing hard at his bruised limbs.

  ‘E’s coverin’ us in, Colour-Sergeant, ‘e’s just behind.’ Instantly, McGucken was on the fire-step yelling, ‘Mr Parkinson, sir, over ‘ere, sir, over ‘ere.’

  A well-bred, breathless voice replied, ‘Here, Colour-Sar’nt,’ as bullets still ripped from the darkness. Then that sound. Once heard, never forgotten, the deep, bass thump of lead meeting flesh and no more hammering boots.

  ‘Mr Parkinson, sir,’ McGucken shouted, but there was no reply except for a low, whimpering moan seventy or eighty paces in front of them.

  ‘E’s bin ‘it, Colour-Sar’nt, I know ‘e ‘as.’ Corporal Pegg had heard what everybody else had heard. ‘I’ll go out an’ get ‘im, shall I?’ There was more dread than determination in his voice.

  ‘No, you bloody won’t, Corporal Pegg, we’ll lose you as well.’ McGucken groped for a flare on the lip of the trench, found one and launched it hissing into the sky. As it burst into light, they all saw, quite plainly, a group of jostling men clustered round a dark bundle in the grass, their butts and bayonets falling and jabbing at the object in a horrid frenzy.

  A clutch of Grenadiers were quick enough to fire at the Russians before the light fizzled out, two, three, falling to the British bullets before the others sped back into lower ground and to safety. In the last, dying seconds of light, Pegg thought he saw Parkinson’s arm reach briefly upwards to the sky before it fell across his torn chest.

  ***

  ‘Right, Corporal Pegg, tell the company commander what ‘appened.’ Once the company had been stood-down, sentries posted again and those that could had wrapped themselves in their blankets, McGucken had taken Corporal Pegg along to Morgan.

  ‘Well, sir, we got oursen ‘bout two ‘undred paces out in front where the land drops away an’ we just got settled down when a star-shell lit up this sort o’ saucer-shaped bit o’ ground. Right in the middle o’ it was three mortars, all their ‘orses dead...’

  ‘Any idea what calibre, Corporal Pegg?’ Morgan interrupted.

  ‘Not really, sir, but decent siege pieces, sir, not them little fart-arse ‘uns that they drag around on carts: big wooden bases, ‘bout three foot high an’ bloody great bronze barrels—fourteen or mebbe eighteen inchers, I guess.’

  ‘Probably the bloody things that gave us such problems last time we were in the line, Colour-Sar’nt.’ Morgan took the pipe from his mouth, smoke trailing from his nose as the three of them huddled in a dugout cut into the side of the Russian trench. ‘What then?’

  ‘Well, sir, we must ‘ave crept up so sneaky that the Russian skirmishers ‘oo was coming to poke around our position didn’t know we was there. Anyway, whilst we was hunkered down with all these Muscovites milling about, couple o’ compan
ies of line infantry came up, shook out and made ready. That’s when we took off, sir. Mr Parkinson an’ me covered each other back, but ‘e got ‘it, sir, an’ e’s still out there.’ Pegg’s inglorious retreat had quickly been re-ordered in his own mind.

  ‘Yes, I know that Corporal Pegg, and I’m very sorry, we’ll get him as soon as we can, but let me get this right, you reckon that there could be as many as two hundred Muscovites and three mortars ready to counter-attack, just a couple of hundred paces in front of us?’ Morgan pressed the lad.

  ‘Sir, that’s about the size on it. I counted the Russ infantry like we’ve been learnt to—might be a few less than that, but they was preparin’ to attack just when we saw them skirmishers off.’ Pegg could almost see the second chevron and the one and tuppence a day extra.

  ‘Well done, Corporal Pegg. Thank you. Right, Colour-Sar’nt,’ Morgan pulled his watch from his fob-pocket, ‘we’ve got about an hour before first light—that’s when Russ will counter-attack, but we’ll hit him before he can hit us. Start getting things ready, please, we attack at dawn.’

  FIFTEEN

  Victory

  No shouted commands, no whistles, just the soft scrape of sixty men edging forward in the dawn. The long line had levered itself from the trench, shivering without their coats as the first hint of light showed in the east, guiding the Grenadiers towards their waiting foes. Morgan knew it was a gamble—if the Russians had stood-to for the last hour or so, ready to move at their officers’ first words then they would meet far greater numbers and have to fight for their lives. But if most of the enemy infantry had been allowed to relax, to grab some sleep cuddled around their weapons, then they might just have the edge on them.