‘That will only leave you with, let’s see, the Turk, Wynter and Gwilliams. Will that be enough?’
‘It’s the kind of fox hunt which will work better with a small number, colonel. When we’re behind enemy lines I like a small group I can keep under my eye. We also attract less attention that way.’
‘Good, good. And don’t worry about your father. I believe we will see his retirement sooner rather than later. Oh, don’t look like that, I shan’t do anything drastic. Just a word or two in the right ear. You’ll be free to work, with him back in England.’
‘Scotland.’
‘Wherever. You look dubious, sergeant. I can understand why, but you see, in my opinion, majors of regiments of foot are odd items. We struggle to find a use for them, though many are fine soldiers and do good work. It’s the rank and position which keeps them odd. They have no real function in a regiment and are best when used for their personal talents. I often think the army would be better promoting straight from captain to colonel. Keep it in the Cs so to speak.’ This was a joke and the colonel paused for a reaction, which Crossman failed to give. The colonel gave a little sigh and continued. ‘You on the other hand are extremely useful to us. Given a choice between the two of you, the usefulness wins out. So, clear your mind of any doubt. Do your job and one day we’ll see what can be done about some sort of reward. Oh, and in the meantime, keep on that Enticknap thing, when you can.’
‘Yes, sir.’
On the way back Crossman remembered he was supposed to be taking school. He went immediately to the chapel, to find a thin, earnest-looking sergeant standing before a thoroughly-bored-looking class. The sergeant looked up as he walked in. ‘You’re late,’ said the sergeant. ‘We’re up to m-n-o-p-q.’
‘I’m late, but not for sitting out there. I was the one who taught them while you were lying sick.’
The schoolmaster-sergeant frowned and removed a pair of wire spectacles to polish the lenses on a piece of felt. ‘Well, I have to say sergeant, you didn’t do a very good job of it. They haven’t advanced in numbers or letters a single jot.’
‘Sorry about that. But I think they’ve learned about some other things. For instance . . .’
‘In my classroom, the basics come first. Once they have their numbers and their alphabets under their belts, they can look to more worldly matters.’
Crossman gave up and waved to the class. ‘Goodbye, class.’
‘Goodbye sergeant,’ they chorused, mournfully.
The goose girl with her hennaed hair watched him leave with doe eyes. Crossman wondered how long she would stay after she realized he had gone for good. Then again, she might fall in love with the perfectly presentable schoolmaster-sergeant, who after all might appear as a Greek god to a young maiden whose would-be lovers were rustic brutes with large heads and hands, large necks and feet, and few social graces. Then again, was he putting his own values in her head? Perhaps what she wanted in the end was a strong country lad with no nonsense about him?
Who could tell?
6
Peterson and Yorwarth were to remain at Kadikoi. Peterson was not too concerned by this, but Yorwarth complained bitterly in a voice severely hampered by the cage on his face. He did not see the sense in convalescence, he told Crossman. He didn’t use his jaws to shoot and he didn’t use them to walk. Crossman told him that an injury of that kind took it out of a man, made him weak for a while. Yorwarth still complained. Crossman was adamant.
‘Best you stay behind on this one.’
The seventeen-year-old finally gave in. Remain he would. But he wanted the splints off before they left on the mission.
‘Gi’ me ’at, ser’unt.’
It was the night before Crossman, Gwilliams, Ali and Wynter left on the fox hunt that Yorwarth had his strange splint removed. They began with a celebration, and Gwilliams paraphrasing the seventeenth-century poet Richard Lovelace, ‘Wires do not a prison make, nor wooden bars a cage,’ then they all had a tot of rum, toasted Yorwarth’s jaws, and removed the impedimenta from his face. Strangely there were some white streaks in his baby beard where the wooden splints had been pressing too hard. He stared at these in the mirror, then decided to shave immediately, to examine the damage more closely. Gwilliams did the service for him, then whipped off the hot towel, though he still had his back to his audience.
‘Speak!’ they all said, Wynter pouring some more rum into the mugs.
‘Let’s hear your voice,’ Gwilliams ordered. ‘The real voice, not that mooning note we’ve had to put up with for the past week or two.’
‘Listen you bunch o’ pelicans,’ said Yorwarth spinning round to face them, ‘have you saved me any of that rum? A man could die of thirst here.’
They began cheering. It was not quite the same voice as before, but it was near enough. Gradually, however, the sound of cheering died in their throats. One by one, as they stared into his unshaven face, they realized what the splints had done to him. Each in his time turned away from Yorwarth, embarrassed for the young Australian private. Only Crossman and Wynter remained staring and their expressions were so serious Yorwarth instantly became worried. There was something untoward about his mouth. He worked his jaws and found he could not make his teeth meet.
‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘Give me a glass.’
Once he had a mirror in his hand, he studied his jaws. The lower jaw, the mandible, was skewed. It jutted off to the right, while the upper jaw went perhaps slightly left. The effect was grotesque. It appeared as if some strong man had gripped Yorwarth by the top of the head with one hand, by the lower jaw with the other, and simply twisted in opposite directions. When he moved his mouth, one side of his face was chewing to the right, while the other went to the left.
‘You’ve bent my jaws, you bastard!’ he cried at Gwilliams. ‘How am I going to eat with a mouth runnin’ two different ways?’
‘It wasn’t me,’ replied the American, indignant. ‘It was the damn accident. In fact I think I put it righter than it was.’
‘Perhaps,’ suggested Major Lovelace, coming down the stairs and attaching himself to the end of the ceremony, ‘you ought to visit the regimental surgeon. He’ll no doubt straighten it for you.’
‘How will he do that, sir?’ cried Yorwarth.
‘Well, he’ll have to break it and reset it.’
Yorwarth gave a howl. ‘I don’t want my jaws broke again. It hurt bad enough the first time.’ He stared at himself in the mirror again, his expression one of horror. ‘Dust and dung, Gwilliams, you’ve slanted me in two directions. I look like a kangaroo sideswiped with a Fijiman’s club. What am I going to tell my mother? What about my drinking pals? They’ll hoot me out of the door. Aw, Christ and Bethlehem.’
‘Don’t blaspheme,’ said a shocked Peterson from her bed. ‘You might be going to your maker before this war’s over. Maybe they’ll work their way back to where they were before. The cage has only been fresh removed. Maybe it’ll be all right before the morning.’
But Yorwarth was not to be consoled. And he definitely blamed Gwilliams for the deformity. He said if he wanted to be disfigured he’d have gone into the canteen, got drunk, and got into a fight. That would have been honourable, he said. But to turn it out of shape with a bloody face cage, well that was plain stupid.
It was lucky for Gwilliams that he was on a fox hunt the next morning. He crept out without waking Yorwarth, still indignant that he was being held to blame for the misshapen jaws. Outside, the tattered remains of the morning mists were drifting away. He joined the end of the file of four men, the Turk leading. They went up past the British Left Attack and slipped down into Careenage Ravine, the walls of which were white with hoar frost where even the smallest ray of sunlight failed to reach. Stones cracked and rattled under their feet. They trod as quietly as they could, knowing that sounds carried a long way out on the Heights, but there were so many loose rocks they could not avoid making some noise. Strapped to each man’s thighs and waist was a quantity
of gunpower, which would be used by Ali to make the bombs.
It had been dewy above the ravine, the mists coming in from the warmer sea leaving droplets of water on their furs. Now they were in the colder regions of shadowland however, those same droplets froze on the soft hairs of their coats and hats. Before long each man looked as if he were encrusted with jewels that sparkled in the early morning light. They followed the ravine in the greyness almost to Careenage Bay, where Crossman was told he would meet a guide, who would take them through the Russian lines. Crossman did not like trusting anyone outside his circle, even though Lovelace vouched for them, but in this case he had no choice.
Their man was not there when they arrived at the appointed spot, a tor shaped like a dog on its hind legs. This tardiness did not add to Crossman’s confidence in the Greek, whose name he had been informed was a doubtful sounding “Diodotus”. He had been born in Cyprus and had been taken to live on Lesbos when he was ten. His father had been a maker of sandals and his mother a sewer of sails for fishermen’s boats. These, and a few other scraps of personal history, had been given to Crossman to confirm the man’s identity when they eventually met.
The group waited for two hours and then a young man came down the slope to their right. The scree slid away before him, making his descent both hazardous and swift. He almost fell the last few feet and landed in front of them. He was a handsome creature with an unblemished skin and thick wavy black hair, which hung down his back. His grey eyes looked amazingly healthy and clear as he beheld them all with a wondrous expression of well-being on his face. A fresh, clean smell accompanied him, as if he had just stepped out of a bath. On his back a thick white sheepskin coat bulked out his obviously slim form. In his hand he carried a goatherd’s staff and there was a small goatherd’s cap on his head.
‘Sergeant Crossman?’ said the youth. ‘Which is he? I am Diodotus of Lesbos.’
‘You are a small boy,’ replied Ali at once, without waiting for Crossman to answer. He trusted no one with a Greek name, especially an Adonis fresh from a wood nymph’s bower. Then, contradicting himself, ‘Only girls come from Lesbos.’
‘You are not the sergeant. You are a Turk. We Greeks and Turks do not like each other. Tell me which is the sergeant.’
Crossman stepped forward. ‘I’m Crossman. Before we go any further I have to satisfy myself as to who you are.’ Various questions were then asked of the youth, which he answered in a calm sweet voice, adding at the end that he bore no personal malice towards Turks, but his father would expect him to show his disdain for them. ‘In fact, I am very fond of the Turkish Sufi, Celaleddin Rumi. I have read the Mathnawi, which he wrote in 1248. Listen, Do the camel-bells say “Let’s rendezvouz here Thursday evening?” Of course not. They justle together all the while, chattering to each other as the camel plods on. This is very good poetry.’
Ali glowered at this idiot boy who brazenly told him he held Turks in contempt. Crossman however stood between him and the Greek, and asked the lad to lead them through the Russian defences. Diodotus said he would do so, but Ali could not resist telling him that he had a pistol pointed at the youth and the slightest indication of treachery would force him to squeeze the trigger. Diodotus shrugged and smiled, then led off towards a narrow natural passageway that snaked from the ravine towards the defences which were now in view.
The passageway eventually turned into a tunnel, which might once have been an old sewer or drain, but was now dry and half-clogged with earth and debris. They made slow progress through this brick-walled tunnel, as they had to remove branches, weed and detritus as they went. For much of the way they were working in darkness, but finally they came through to a rusted iron grille at the other end.
‘You didn’t come this way,’ said Crossman. ‘No one has been through here in years.’
‘No,’ replied the Greek. ‘I am a trusted citizen of Sebastopol. I go where I please. You, on the other hand, need to be hidden. Now, here is the most dangerous part of the journey. If we are seen leaving this tunnel whoever it is will know we have come from outside Sebastopol. Once we get into the streets however, all will be well. There are many foreigners here, many stranded merchant seamen. If we are stopped I shall tell them you are mariners who asked to be shown about the city.’
‘Wouldn’t we know the city by now?’
‘Not necessarily. There are small craft that slip in from time to time, in shallow-bottomed boats. Skiffs and feluccas. They run the blockade and skip through, as a dragonfly might avoid a pond of frogs. You must be the crew of a felucca. You understand me? If you are caught, I shall run away of course. I have no wish to be hanged or shot by the Russians. Some of the Russians are my good friends.’ He shrugged. ‘I do what I must for money to live, but I will not die for you, Englishmen.’
‘I told you he was not to be trusted,’ growled Ali. ‘See, he speaks of treachery and giving us to his Russian friends.’
Diodotus lifted his head. ‘I would not betray you, Turk. I merely say if all was lost, I would try to escape. You cannot deny me that.’
‘No,’ Crossman agreed. ‘That’s your right.’
Diodotus went to the grille and looked first one way, then the other, satisfying himself that no one was about. Then he struck the grille on one corner with his goatherd’s staff and the whole fell forward onto soft mud. The British and the Turk left the tunnel quickly. They found themselves in a narrow street with windowless walls on both sides. Hurrying along this street, following the Greek, they reached a small corner house. Here they were ushered inside by the youth. They found themselves in a kitchen where a young woman was stirring something which smelled strongly of cheese.
‘My friend,’ explained the Greek youth airily. ‘She speaks no English.’
The brown-eyed girl, very pretty with high cheekbones making a heart-shaped face, smiled at them innocently.
‘We stay here until the evening comes,’ explained their host. ‘You will eat some food, yes? There is no pork in the pot,’ he added in an aside to Ali. ‘I will not poison you with the pig meat.’
‘Better not,’ grunted Ali, ‘or next thing I eat is your liver.’
‘This is all right, ain’t it?’ said Wynter, settling on some rugs on the floor. ‘Not half bad. You got any cards, Gwilliams?’
‘Dice,’ came the reply.
Wynter looked disappointed. ‘Never mind. I don’t like dice much.’
‘That’s ’cause you can’t read the numbers,’ said Gwilliams.
‘Could be. Or could be I just don’t like dice.’
Before Crossman made himself comfortable, he removed the packs of gunpowder that were strapped to his legs and waist, and advised the others to do the same.
‘That fire is hot,’ he said, pointing to the range on which the woman was cooking. ‘It’s only got to spit a spark at you.’
Wynter had his packs off in double-quick time. They were gathered up by the Greek who took them into a cooler room. Crossman settled down to wait until nightfall, when he intended going out alone with Diodotus to inspect the crane.
‘They tried to shoot it,’ said the Greek youth. ‘Your long guns tried but failed. There is not much to hit above the wall. Only the long jib, like the beak of some giant bird. At that distance it is like trying to hit a flagpole. So here you are now, to blow it up, yes? Ah, my friend has made the food. You will dine with me? You will be our guests. She is a very good cook, you know. And there is no pork. No pork, whatsoever. Not shellfish even. Nothing to harm the soul of a Turkish soldier. Eat, please. It is our pleasure. We wish you to enjoy the benefits of our hospitality. Greek hospitality.’
Until the last two words had been spoken, Ali had been preparing himself for a feast. Once Diodotus had uttered them, however, he leaned back, spurning the bowl that was proffered. The girl placed it down beside him and nodded significantly. Wynter wolfed through his bowlful and then asked if he could have Ali’s. Ali said he could not. He might yet eat the contents of the bowl, when he had
come to a state of peace within himself. The girl seemed to understand this and smiled. Ali smiled back at her. His antipathy towards male Greeks, it was well known, did not extend to the females of the nation. Ali saw no compromise in this. Women were legitimate prizes of any conquering warrior race. They did not dilute the blood. Only when a male Greek went with a Turkish woman were the offspring considered to be dubious human beings.
When nightfall came, Diodotus and Crossman went out into the streets. The young Greek boy seemed a little over-excited, but Crossman put that down to his inexperience in such matters. The world of cloak and dagger did not suit every man. There were those whose hearts raced and whose brains were full of electricity when they were on missions.
‘If we are stopped,’ said Diodotus, ‘you must leave the talking to me. I speak Russian.’
‘So do I,’ said Crossman. ‘Enough to get by.’
‘Oh?’ The boy looked disappointed. He appeared to want to be essential to Crossman in some way. ‘Still, my Russian is very, very good. I expect yours has been learned from prisoners.’
Crossman did not contradict him.
The nearer they came to the outer defences, the more people there were around. Crossman hunched inside his coat. The Greek seemed oblivious of the Russians who went by. True, no one accosted them, but still there was always the chance that one would. There were people here who had met him. Colonel Todleben, the crane’s builder, for one. Crossman had been caught inside Sebastopol and tortured once already. He had managed to kill his tormentor, later, on the field of battle, but he never wanted to be taken again. There were terrible memories of those weeks of torture that his brain had managed to bury. He recalled his recovery in the gentle hands of Lavinia Durham, coupled with the even gentler but more possessive fingers of the opiate, laudanum, and even some hours of his imprisonment, but the actual sessions when the pain was induced were buried too deeply.
Finally they reached the area where the crane was in use. It was an ingenious affair on wide wooden wheels that seemed not to sink into the ground, although the pressure on them must have been severe. Oxen were standing by, ready to draw the crane to another spot, should it be necessary to do so. Men swarmed over the ground around the crane, assisting its handler in attaching great blocks and bales that were lifted and dropped into place along the wall. Occasionally a shell came whistling overhead and everyone ducked as it exploded, or a round shot flew and landed, but for the most part the crane was able to work without pause, rebuilding any breaches in the defences that ringed the city. Bastions and trenchworks were being reinforced along the city’s perimeter. Artillery batteries were being moved to new protected positions. Crossman could see a complicated trench system running between the Malakoff and Little Redan. The Russians were well and truly defensively organized.
The Winter Soldiers Page 19