Windrush: Crimea (Jack Windrush Book 2)

by Malcolm Archibald

  'Yes, sir,' Jack was unsure whether to feel flattered by the attention or nervous as Campbell pushed his horse in front of the 42nd Foot, the most advanced of the Highland regiments, faced the Russian lines and said calmly and simply: 'Forward, 42nd.'

  Jack swallowed hard. This deliberate advance against entrenched European infantry and artillery was unlike anything he had experienced in Burma. He had heard that Campbell had a reputation for methodical, even ponderous movement but there was nothing slow about this advance as he led the Highland Brigade up the flank of Kourgane. They passed the 77th foot, standing in line, and the 88th foot, the Connaught Rangers, known as the Devil's Own, a regiment whose reputation for wildness was surpassed only by their fighting ability.

  The Rangers had formed square and yelled insults as the Highlanders marched past.

  'Let the Scotchmen go on! They'll do the work!'

  The Highlanders replied in kind, shaking fists and roaring their high-spirited insults in Gaelic and Lowland Scots. God help the Russians if Campbell unleashes this lot among them. Jack glanced behind him. The Highland regiments remained in echelon, one after the other and except for their response to the Connaught Rangers; they saved their breath for the advance. Jack flinched as the cannon in the Little Redoubt fired, jetting out orange flame and white smoke.

  Campbell noticed Jack's reaction. 'Never mind the shine, Windrush. Never let the men see you flinch. You are a British officer; better to die than waver.'

  Once beyond the 88th, Campbell sent forward Captain Montgomery with a cloud of skirmishers to clear the ground of any light Russian sharpshooters. 'You stay with me, Windrush. I may yet need the 113th to guard my rear.'

  'Yes, sir,' Jack tried not to duck as the Russian battery fired again. Campbell barely spared the Little Redoubt a glance.

  'We'll have the beggars out of there in a trice.' Campbell frowned. 'The Guards are in the Great Redoubt: ride ahead, Windrush and remind Montgomery that he has carte blanche to fire at will.'

  With one glance behind him, Jack saw the entire Highland Brigade streaming up the slope. Across the river and far in the rear of the fighting, the 113th stood as a solid block of red. 'Yes, sir,' he kicked in his heels and bounded forward to find Montgomery.

  'General Campbell's compliments sir, and you are free to fire at will.'

  'I know that, dammit,' Montgomery was a long-faced man who looked perfectly at home in the forefront of battle. 'There are the Russians now.'

  As the reformed Guards Brigade pushed into the Great Redoubt, the Russians split, with most retreating at speed and a few hundred attaching themselves to a vast Russian column which marched south to counter the Highland Brigade.

  'That's the Kazan regiment, I believe,' Montgomery raised his voice. 'Right my lads, there's your target. Shoot them flat!'

  'Wait!' a staff officer in finery and panic, rode across the front of the skirmishers. 'Don't fire! They're French!'

  'The devil they are!' Montgomery said.

  'Na, there's nae mistaking thon devils,' a private of the 42nd raised his Minie without a qualm and fired into the advancing mass of Russians.

  'They're French,' the staff officer nearly wailed, but as the other skirmishers opened fire on them, Campbell arrived with the main body of the 42nd.

  Jack took a deep breath. After their rapid ascent of the hill, the 42nd were panting; the Russians far outnumbered them, and their supporting regiments were still climbing in the rear. Jack wondered what the 42nd would do. What would the 113th do? They would either charge, if they had the breath, or halt, form a line and fire a volley. Neither choice was perfect; a charge may not be effective with the men blown by the climb, and after firing, the men would have to reload their rifles, which would allow the Russians time to close.

  Montgomery had no doubt. 'Watch and learn,' he said.

  The 42nd neither halted nor charged. With the red hackles bright in their bonnets and bare knees twinkling beneath the dark green of their kilts, they continued to march, presented their rifles and fired without halting. Their cheers rose high, an exultant challenge to the Gods of War, the Czar and anybody else who ever doubted the skill and courage of British infantry in general and the 42nd in particular.

  Shocked by such unexpected tactics, the Kazan Regiment flinched. As the Russians were marching in column, only the first few ranks could reply to the murderous fire of the 42nd, and they turned around and retreated.

  Jack stared. 'I've never seen troops march and fire at the same time,' he said.

  'Neither has anybody else,' Montgomery did not attempt to hide the pride in his voice, 'but we are the forty-twa, the Black Watch.'

  For a moment Jack wished he could install such confidence and discipline into the 113th, but he knew his men lacked the cohesiveness and the fine officers of the Black Watch.

  'Watch your flank, 42nd!' Campbell's voice cut through the jubilation. Jack saw another body of Russian troops emerge from behind a spur of the hill at the side of the Highlanders. If they hit the 42nd like that, they could roll up the regiment and destroy them.

  As the left flank company of the 42nd wheeled to face this new danger, the second Highland regiment, the 93rd, came up the hill behind and to the left of the 42nd. Rather than catch the 42nd in the flank, the Russians were themselves caught by the 93rd. Once more hundreds of Highland bullets ripped into the Russians. This regiment, the Sousdal, fought back. Still outnumbering the British, they returned fire, so clouds of white powder smoke rolled across the hill and men on both sides fell.

  'Stubborn buggers, these Russians,' Montgomery said. 'Keep firing my lads!'

  Jack saw the movement first. Dim through the smoke; he saw a further mass of Russians appear beyond the extreme left flank of the 93rd, with cavalry supporting the infantry.

  'If that lot take us…' Jack trotted back to Campbell. 'Sir! Shall I bring up the 113th?' He measured the distance his regiment would have to cover. 'We can catch the Russians unaware, sir.'

  'Devil take it, man,' Campbell was as calm as if he was walking the streets of his native Glasgow, 'you want to share the glory do you?' He gave a sour grin. 'There will be plenty fighting for your boys, Windrush, don't you fret. In the meantime let my Highlanders win their battle.'

  The third of the Highland battalions, the 79th Camerons, crested the rise with a cheer and a volley that tore considerable gaps in the Russians. They marched on, alternately cheering and firing, pressing the Russians before them.

  'Now there is something you won't see every day,' Montgomery approved.

  The sudden rattle of horse equipment caught Jack's attention. Two batteries of horse artillery had forded the Alma and ridden right up the hill. With the horses panting and heaving, the gunners unlimbered and fired straight into the Russians. It was a situation for which the God of battles had created artillery; supporting infantry in the field and with a perfect target of the massed enemy over open sights. Grapeshot and solid balls lambasted the Russians, who were driven back into the shelter of a dip.

  'The Russians are running!' The words ran the length of the British line.

  For a moment Jack saw the stand in which the Russian civilians had sat. He saw the panic as they realised the Allies had defeated their army and were pushing forward all along the line. The woman who had so captivated Haverdale was on her feet, gathering her parasol and baggage, and only two men remained. One was a broad-shouldered man with a shock of fair hair, the other the tall civilian with the eye-patch. Jack looked at them for a second and then gunsmoke drifted across the field, and he lost sight of them.

  'Windrush,' Campbell's voice was rough in his ear. 'My compliments to Colonel Murphy and I will not require the services of the 113th Foot this day.'

  Looking around the field, with the dead Russians either lying in heaps or in full retreat and the Highlanders reloading and laughing among themselves, Jack wondered if Raglan would ever require his regiment in this campaign.

  Chapter Seven

  Crimea

/>   September 1854

  'You're a lucky beggar,' Elliot said, 'you were involved in the battle while we had to sit here and watch.'

  'I never drew my sword or fired a shot,' Jack replied

  'But you were there!' Elliot insisted. 'You were at the most famous victory since Waterloo!'

  Jack looked around him. They stood on the Heights of Alma with the debris of battle all around them. To the right, the French were carefully shifting their wounded to covered ambulances that took them quickly to the shore. Less organised, the British carried their injured bodily. Although Colonel Murphy had graciously permitted his three arabas to be used for that purpose most British casualties jolted on litters.

  As night fell the 113th camped on the battlefield, through darkness punctured by the hideous sounds of the wounded groaning in pain and begging for water and the worse sounds that emanated from the men screaming under the surgeon's saw.

  'Another day survived,' Coleman sounded satisfied. He moved a Russian corpse to use as a pillow.

  'God bless the old 113th,' Thorpe said. 'The army doesn't trust us, so we avoid the battles. We're the safest regiment in the army.'

  Jack closed his eyes. That was the last accolade he wished to hear. Battles were hellish things, but he had to try and forge a career, and only the blood sacrifice of brave men would do that. Suddenly he hated this profession he had chosen, and that his family had chosen for generations. What evil creature had ever devised this terrible game called war?

  'A famous victory,' Jack repeated his words of the previous day. He saw one Fusilier, minus an arm and a leg, being rolled carelessly onto a litter. 'Be careful with that man, damn you!' he yelled.

  'No point in shouting at them,' Haverdale said. 'They are untrained in that sort of thing. Treat them like beasts, and they will act like beasts.'

  'You men of the 113th,' the Duke of Cambridge rode up, 'I want you to dig graves for the dead. Bury them.'

  'Yes, Your Grace,' Murphy said. His face was unreadable as the Duke wheeled his horse and rode away.

  'There we go now,' Snodgrass said, 'we have a new name. We are no longer the Baby Butchers. Now we are the Gravediggers.'

  The allies were two days working on their casualties before they could pay attention to the Russians. After that length of time lying unattended in the open, many of the wounded had died.

  'Best thing for them,' Thorpe said. He nodded to one staring-eyed Russian. He lay in a grotesque squat with his back to a stone wall and his intestines in front of him, now furred with flies. 'I mean, how could that lad have lived without his guts? What could the doctors have done for him except stuff them back inside and stitch him up?'

  'Their officers don't care a bugger for them,' Logan pushed at the corpse with his foot. 'He's stiff as a board, this one.'

  The Allies dug mass graves for the dead; twenty-four huge pits into which they placed the smashed and mutilated bodies that had once been soldiers.

  'You look after the burial detail, Windrush,' Snodgrass said. 'I am sure your men can handle that.'

  'I am sure they can sir,' Jack agreed. 'They tend to handle whatever jobs the army throws at them.'

  Snodgrass grunted. 'Get it done Windrush.'

  'Strange,' Riley paused to look at a long row of Russian corpses. 'Just a few days ago these were men like us. They ate and slept and joked and had hopes for the future.'

  'Aye; hopes to kill the British and get out of the Army,' Logan said. 'These bastards would have slaughtered us without thinking about it.'

  'As we would them,' Riley murmured. 'We are not that different.'

  'Bloody right we are,' Logan dropped his spade and glowered up at the taller man. 'We're bloody British, and they're bloody Russian. Kill the lot of them and send them to hell.'

  'Quite,' Riley withdrew a pace. 'As you say; we are very different from them.'

  'Aye; and don't forget it, Riley.' Logan stepped closer and pushed his forehead against the bridge of Riley's nose. 'Bloody Russian lover, you.'

  'Right men; enough of that!' Jack nodded to O'Neill, who pushed them apart. 'We've got a job to do here, and bickering amongst ourselves won't make it easier.'

  'Sir,' Coleman looked up from the depths of the grave. 'How are we not attacking Sebastopol yet? I mean, we beat the Russians and sent them running so how come we aren't attacking Sebastopol? I mean, that's why we're here, isn't it?'

  'We'll attack when the generals believe it's right,' Jack said. 'We don't have to worry about that sort of thing.'

  Jack could feel the disgust as the men lifted the broken bodies, some with arms or legs missing, some with faces smashed into unrecognisable pulp, some with the internal organs spilling out, some looking peaceful, as if asleep, but all covered in a black fur of flies. Flies that rose in an angry cloud, to alight on the lips and eyes of Jack's men as they worked, so they swatted and cursed and spat out insects that minutes before had been burrowing inside the rotting corpses of Russian soldiers.

  'I think that's the lot,' Jack waved a hand in a futile attempt to ward off the flies that clouded around him. 'I can't see any others anyway.'

  'You're covered in blood, sir,' O'Neill pointed out, less than tactfully. 'And other things.'

  Jack looked down at himself. Blood was the least of his worries.

  'Sir!' The Bishop called out. 'Here's another one, sir.'

  'Leave the bastard to rot,' Thorpe said.

  'They are Christians like us and deserve a Christian burial,' the Bishop said.

  'I'm not a Christian,' Coleman said. 'What's Christ ever done for me? I've never met him coming down the street.'

  'Maybe if you had, you would be a better person,' the Bishop ignored the hoots of the others as he hauled the body of the Russian from a shell hole. 'There's not much left of this poor fellow. Just his top half; both his legs are shot away.'

  'Roll him in a blanket, and we'll take him to his friends,' Jack said.

  'He's an officer,' Coleman said. 'Should we not bury him separately, sir?'

  'We're all the same in the eyes of the Lord,' the Bishop told him. 'We're all God's children.'

  The Russian officer stared up at them through wide blue eyes. He was about forty, Jack estimated, but with the uniform torn by battle, he could not even guess at the rank. They brought him to the last of the graves and added his body. Somehow that final man made more impression on Jack than all the others. He had looked utterly forlorn, a man who must have hoped for help as he lay after the battle with his legs smashed and his army defeated.

  'He looked very lonely there,' Jack said quietly.

  'Death is a lonely place,' Riley spoke quietly. 'But life can be lonely as well.'

  Jack glanced at him. 'Especially when one does not quite fit in,' he said.

  'That is so,' Riley said, then looked away. 'Sorry, sir.'

  'No need for apologies, Riley.' Jack stepped away. 'Right men, get those shovels working and cover these poor lads up. Move it: we've got a war to win.'

  With the earth piled over the eighteen hundred Russian corpses, Jack looked over his men. 'You are filthy,' he said.

  'So are you, sir,' O'Neill reminded.

  'Bathing parade,' Jack decided. 'Down to the beach and we'll get this stuff washed off us.' He nodded to O'Neill. 'The men are unhappy, corporal.'

  They stood in a hunched group, round-shouldered and tired, smeared with blood and worse than blood.

  'Heads up!' O'Neill roared. 'You are British soldiers.'

  'We're bloody gravediggers,' Coleman said.

  'Somebody had to do it; the job fell to us, and that's all there is to it,' O'Neill said. 'Now heads up and march!'

  'Sing!' Jack shouted. 'Sing out loud!'

  They were silent, stubborn as they marched, until Riley began, with words unfamiliar to Jack:

  As a fair one of England was musing by the rolling sea,

  There came a wayworn traveller and landed by her side,

  That goddess of the British throne, whose robes was
rich and costly,

  Which struck the stranger with amaze, and thus to her he cried—

  One by one the others joined in, picking up the words that they knew and humming the rest.

  'O lady fair, why wander here, haste your country to cheer,

  Your enemies with evil eyes their threats of war declare,

  So man your ships with hardy tars, they will

  Boldly gain your cause,

  Arouse up little England, and stop the Russian bear.'

  'Little England be buggered,' Logan spat. 'There's more Paddies and Sawnies here than anything else.'

  The others cat-called his words and in a few moments they were happily exchanging national insults, Scots against English, Irish against Welsh, pushing and jostling together like old friends or soldiers in any regiment in the British Army.

  Avoiding the acres of wounded who lay on the beach waiting for transport to Scutari; Jack led his men to a nearly secluded cove where the sea broke silver on a strip of shining shingle. There were no bodies in the surf, no sick men or discarded military equipment to mar the illusion of tranquillity. It seemed very peaceful, with a seabird screaming and the water pristine and clear.

  'Right men: strip, wash the filth off your clothes and bathe. We are soldiers, not Resurrection men.'

  'I'm not sure about that,' Coleman said, 'I've burked a few gulls in my time.'

  Jack pretended not to hear. For a second he wondered if it was bad for discipline for the men to see an officer undress, decided that they would see a lot worse on campaign and ripped off his uniform. The kiss of clean air on his bare skin was refreshing, and he stepped into the sea.

  'In you come, men!'

  Some of the men were shy about stripping, others blasé while most turned their backs until they got into the water. Within a few moments they were larking and splashing around, so Jack had a mental image of his school days when life was good, he believed he was rich, and he had joined his schoolfellows in the river. The accents were different, the men a few years older but the spirit was the same.