Windrush: Crimea (Jack Windrush Book 2)

by Malcolm Archibald

  'Yes, sir.' Riley said.

  Jack sighed. He was their officer; he had led them into captivity out of honest concern for the life of an officer. He could not honourably leave them to rot while he escaped. 'Damn it, man, of course, we will try and get them out.'

  'Thank you, sir,' Riley said. 'I knew you would agree.'

  Military life seemed to be composed of long periods of waiting for something to happen and then very intense sessions of wishing it had not. Sitting on a stone shelf, hoping that no Russian would enter, Jack was aware of an occasional tremble underfoot.

  'Can you feel that, sir?' Riley asked.

  'That's the artillery firing,' Jack said. 'Either their's firing at us or ours at them; I don't know which.'

  'Do you think the siege will last much longer, sir?'

  Jack shook his head. 'I really could not say. The Navy took a pounding the other day when they tried to bombard the walls, so it may be longer than we expect.'

  They were quiet, listening to the rumble of the guns. Jack broke the tension with a direct question. 'You were a public school man, were you not, Ryan?'

  There was a moment's hesitation before Ryan replied. 'Yes I was, sir.' He hesitated as faint voices floated to them, the words obscure but Russian. 'I think they've discovered that we've gone, sir.'

  'Let's hope they don't come here.' Jack scanned the room for weapons. There were none; the place was stark. 'What made a man from your background take the Queen's Shilling?' He had no real desire to probe into Ryan's private life, but he was curious as to his motive for joining the ranks.

  Ryan leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. 'Adventure, sir. I was always a bit wild and liked to test myself out. After I left Eton I followed quite a few careers including cracksman and in the theatre; that was where I met Charlotte.' He shrugged. 'Eventually, it was a toss-up between joining the Army or John Company, but Charlotte had a bad feeling about India, so I chose the army instead.'

  'It's a hard life for a woman,' Jack knew that there was a great deal left unsaid.

  'So is the theatre, sir,'

  Jack nodded. 'I can imagine,' he said. He felt the trembling as Sebastopol's artillery fired again and he stood up. 'It's been quiet for over an hour now, Riley. I think we should try something.'

  'Yes, sir.'

  They left the room silently, with Riley closing the door behind them, and moved back up the stairs, one careful step at a time. The higher up the stairs he climbed, the more apprehensive Jack felt until he had to stop and take deep breaths. What would Helen think of you? Scared of your own shadow.

  'Are you all right, sir?' Riley asked.

  'I am perfectly all right,' Jack tried to sound like an irritable officer rather than a nervous man.

  The door to the torture chamber was shut. Jack did not look in as he passed and moved upward and upward to the corridor in which lay the cells.

  'Sir,' Riley put a hand on his arm. 'Voices.'

  Jack glanced around for somewhere to hide. 'Back down the stairs,' he said.

  'In here, sir,' Riley slipped something into the lock of the nearest door and pushed it open. They moved in; a long shady room with a table and six chairs overlooked by a single round-headed window. There were six glasses on the table and three decanters of clear liquid, presumably vodka, with two large ash-trays in the middle. Two maps hung on the wall; one of the world, the other of the Crimean peninsula, while six lamps hung from hooks on the wall. A small door in the far wall indicated a cupboard.

  'It is some kind of office,' Jack said.

  'Yes, sir,' Riley agreed. 'Listen!'

  The voices grew louder and stopped just outside their door. 'They're coming in here,' Jack looked around quickly. Hiding under the table was not possible. 'Through that door!'

  It was a store cupboard, as Jack had thought, a small room with a foot-square window and long wooden shelves on the wall, filled with papers, bottles of ink and a tray of pens. Jack eyed the half dozen bottles of vodka and hoped Riley was not a drinking man. 'There's no way out,' Riley sounded surprisingly calm.

  'So we stay here and hope they don't come in.' Jack looked around for a weapon. Once again there was nothing. He heard people enter the office next door. There was the sound of footsteps, the scuffing of chairs on the wooden floor, a cough, a laugh and the low murmur of voices.

  Riley was on his knees, probing at the lock. 'I've jammed the door, sir,' he whispered. 'They'll need a skilled locksmith to open that.'

  'How do we get out?' Jack asked.

  'Oh I can get us out again,' Riley said.

  'Good man. Now we keep quiet and hope they leave soon.'

  Another hour passed, with the voices next door rising and falling, punctuated by the occasional laugh. Tobacco smoke drifted under the door into the room, aromatic at first and then thickening to become stuffy and unpleasant.

  'Privateers.'

  The single English word within the guttural Russian caught Jack's attention. He looked up; privateers, he knew, were private ships converted to carry guns and licensed by a government to attack an enemy's merchant shipping. It was a method of nautical warfare that maritime states had used for centuries, and during the wars with France and the USA in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, had made some serious inroads into British merchant shipping. Did Russia possess any privateers? The Royal Navy had pinned the Russian navy into harbours, and if they emerged, they would be engaged and defeated.

  'The United States would make hay with the British shipping.'

  The words and the accent startled Jack. That was the man with the eye-patch he had seen in Dar-il-Sliem in Malta and at the battle of the Alma. Jack had thought he might be from Australia or some other colony. Now the words indicated that he was from the United States. What on earth was an American doing talking with Russians in a besieged town in the Crimea?

  As the conversation switched from Russian to English, Jack made out an occasional phrase, none of which made much sense to him. He heard the words 'Alaska' and 'whaling fleet' as well as other mentions of privateers. He listened without understanding and hoped that nobody discovered them in their small room. There was a sudden outburst of laughter, the sound of chair-legs scraping on the floor and the noise level rose and then fell. Jack heard the door close. Silence descended.

  'I think they've gone,' he began until Riley shook his head violently and put a finger to his mouth.

  There was a faint shuffling, and somebody tried the door to their room. Jack stood back, ready to attack anybody who came in. The door shook and held. The handle turned again, and somebody made a sound of impatience. The outer door banged impatiently.

  'That would have been a servant clearing away,' Riley said. 'He's gone to look for a key for this door.' Bending to the lock, he opened it in seconds, 'we'd better leave quickly.'

  The stairs were empty as they hurried to the level where the Russians held the 113th prisoners. The corridor was as broad as before, with lamps casting pools of yellow light over the rough stonework. There was an empty vodka bottle on the floor. Jack's mind was busy; he would like to try and analyse the conversation he had partially overheard, but that would have to wait. At present he needed all his attention to survive. Pushing the words to the back of his mind, he concentrated on trying to escape from this labyrinth of a place.

  Two guards were on patrol, both sturdy looking men in the uniform of Cossacks, complete with musket, long khanjali knife and a whip. They paced back and forward, dark uniformed, grim-faced, with the distinctive shasqua sword with its lack of guard loose at their waists and an old-fashioned musket in their right hands. They looked fierce and eminently capable of disposing of a single tired British officer and an old-Etonian cracksman private soldier.

  Jack took a deep breath. If Logan or O'Neill were here, he had no doubt they could deal with these Cossacks, but he lacked Logan's aggression or O'Neill's muscles. He knew Riley was skilful in opening locks; he had no idea how he was in the nitty-gritty boots-and-
bayonets reality of soldiering.

  'Sir; if I may.' Ryan said, 'We'd be better to watch the guards and see if they have a system, a routine before we do anything. They might have regular patrols like policemen on their beat.'

  About to comment on Ryan's personal knowledge of such things, Jack nodded instead. 'Good thinking, Ryan.'

  Standing in the deep recess of a doorway, Jack watched the guards pacing the length of the corridor and back, with their boots ringing on the floor. Big men with fierce moustaches, they moved slowly and slightly erratically; one kicked the empty vodka bottle and watched it skittle across the floor. Ryan is correct; they have a fixed routine, crossing the path of each other every three minutes; they have also been drinking, which could help us.

  'We take them one at a time,' Jack said. 'And when both are out, we'll let our men out.'

  'We've no weapons,' Ryan sounded more anxious than Jack liked. 'I wish Logie was with us.'

  'He'll be here in a few minutes if this goes well.' And if it goes ill, we'll either be back in a dungeon or dead.

  The nearest Cossack looked every bit as bored as any British sentry would in similar circumstances. He glanced vaguely at the door behind which the 113th prisoners were held and moved on.

  Jack removed his tunic, had a last look at Riley, waited until the Cossack had taken two steps past him and launched himself forward. The Cossack turned, mouth open to shout a warning until Jack threw his tunic over his head to muffle any sound. Riley pulled the Cossack into the doorway and tried to draw the man's sashqua, gasping with effort. The Cossack was strong, determined to win and very dangerous. He twisted in Jack's grasp, lashing out with fists and feet in his attempt to escape until Riley finally wrestled the sashqua free and thrust it into his body. Wickedly sharp, it entered easily, spurting blood.

  Although Jack stuffed the left arm of his tunic hard into the Cossack's mouth to stifle his roar of pain, sufficient noise escaped to alert the second guard, who dropped his musket, drew his sashqua and charged forward with what Jack took to be a war-cry.

  Riley stared at him, holding the first Cossack's sashqua but apparently unsure what to do. Jack swore, grabbed at the fallen musket, missed, scrabbled on the ground and lifted it just as the Cossack made a viciously angry slash at Riley.

  Jack saw Riley close his eyes and parry by pure luck. As the Cossack recovered to thrust forward, Jack swung the musket butt, swore when he missed and nearly overbalanced. The Cossack returned quickly and cut underhand, only to land the blade with a juddering thud in the stock of the musket.

  Riley saw his chance, lifted the sashqua and plunged it into the Cossack's side. The man stiffened, turned around and grabbed for the khanjali at his waist.

  'You blaggard!' Riley tried to withdraw his blade, failed as it stuck within the Cossack, let go the hilt and jumped back as the khanjali stabbed underhand at his groin. Jack swung the barrel of the musket across the Cossack's head, heard the satisfying crack of contact and saw the man stagger.

  'Sir!' Riley kept out of the way of the Cossack's blade as Jack swung the musket again and again until the man at last fell.

  Jack felt himself panting. 'Thank God for that,' he said.

  'Sorry sir, I was not much use there.'

  'You pinked them both,' Jack said. 'Now hurry and open the cell door. All that noise will have alerted the rest.' He looked around. 'How the devil will we get out of here?'

  'You'll think of something, sir,' Riley lifted the bunch of keys from its hook on the wall. His hand shook so much that they rattled. 'Which key?'

  'Try them all one by one.' Jack lifted the Cossack's sashqua; it was light and beautifully balanced. He moved to the door that led upstairs. 'The Russians will be here in a second.'

  'Yes, sir.'

  Jack could hear the nervousness in Riley's voice. The cracksman who was so calm when robbing a house was obviously less happy killing people.

  There were voices from above, the bark of orders and feet on the stairs. 'Here they come!'

  There was a clatter, and a curse as Riley dropped the keys, the scuff of metal as he picked them back up and then Jack had other things to worry about as half a dozen Cossacks roared down the stairs toward him.

  Jack knew he was outnumbered by fresh, fit and angry men while he was nearing exhaustion after a night without sleep and a nerve-stretching day. But as the Russians bunched at the foot of the stairs he realised that they were too angry to fight with their customary skill. Their very numbers on a narrow staircase would hamper their movements, while the high wall on their right would make it harder for them to wield their swords. They were also born and bred to the steppes, out of their depth in these confined spaces.

  'Hurry with that door for God's sake!'

  Pushed from behind, the first Cossack stumbled on the bottom stair, and Jack sliced at him, opening the back of his head. The man yelled and fell in front of his colleagues, blocking their path, so they had to lift their feet to step over his body. That gave Jack the opportunity of a vicious upward swing that sliced open the man's thigh and had him fall back among his colleagues, shouting in pain. Jack followed through with a serious of lunges that thrust his sword into at least one more man, and then he had to defend frantically as the Cossacks pushed past their wounded colleagues to get at him.

  'Riley!'

  'I'm going as fast as I can! I can't find the right key!'

  'Pick the blasted lock then!'

  As Jack fought one Cossack, others struggled past, so three were in the corridor, slashing at him but still getting in each other's way in their eagerness to kill.

  'Riley!' Jack heard his voice rise high as two Cossacks came around him, their sashquas probing for an opening.

  At last, the door opened, and a press of redcoats burst out. They had not wasted their time in captivity and O'Neill, and Logan carried bludgeons fashioned from bed frames. Without any hesitation they jumped on the Cossacks, dodging the swords as they launched their furious counter-attack. The noise was appalling as Logan jumped into the air to swing his chair leg while O'Neill lifted a discarded sashqua. He was no swordsman, but the blade was so well balanced it needed little skill.

  Taken by surprise, even such expert fighting men as the Cossacks were overpowered by the sheer aggression of the British soldiers. One by one they fell, with the last trying to run until Logan grabbed him by the leg and dragged him back down to O'Neill, who thrust downward between his shoulder blades.

  Jack looked at his men as they stood, panting with exertion.

  'Right lads; there are eight of us here. There may be more British held in these cells; Riley, open the doors. I don't know how we will get away but let's try it.'

  'Here, Riley, how come you got out?' Logan was examining one of the Cossack sashquas.

  'Leave him; he's busy,' Jack said.

  Most of the cells were empty. Two held civilian prisoners who cowered away as soon as the doors opened. One man, heavily bearded and naked, was chained to the wall.

  'There's been the devil's work here,' a soldier of the 118th said.

  'How do we get out, sir?' Coleman lifted a Cossack musket, checked the lock and tested the balance. 'Poor stuff this,' he said, 'and I thought our muskets were bad.'

  'Windrush! Is that you?' Colonel Maxwell burst out of his cell. 'Good man!' He looked around. 'Now let's get out of this hellish place. How many men?'

  'Eight British sir, plus you and me, and sundry Russians.'

  'Forget the Russian prisoners, man. They are criminals, looters and murders.' Maxwell nodded to the man from the 118th. 'Ah, Black, it's a pleasure to see you.'

  'Thank you, sir.' Black threw a sharp salute.

  'Now then,' Maxwell seemed quite calm. 'How best to proceed, eh? Do you have any idea where we are, Windrush?'

  'I only know we're in a building in Sebastopol, sir,' Windrush said. 'I don't know any more than that.'

  'Nor do I,' Maxwell said. 'Perhaps one of these Russian fellows could be of assistance after all.' Mo
ving to the nearest of the prisoners, he lifted him by the hair and spoke in rapid Russian.

  The man cringed and replied. After a few moments, Maxwell let him fall back to the ground. 'He thinks there is a way out over here,' he said. 'Tell you what, put on these Russian uniforms, eh? That could be interesting. You and me and some of the men. Choose the least bloody of the Cossack uniforms and the least British looking of the men.' He laughed. 'That red-headed sergeant of yours looks as much like a Cossack as I look like a Chinaman.'

  Jack slipped on one of the Cossack coats and watched as Riley and Coleman did the same. Riley looked like an actor in a coat while Coleman's saturnine, now unshaven face fitted the uniform exactly.

  'We'll have to grow quick moustaches,' Logan's small body looked swamped in the Cossack coat.

  'It won't do, I'm afraid Logan,' Jack said. 'You will have to continue as a prisoner.'

  'Aye, sir.' Logan threw the coat on the floor. 'This thing's crawling with lice anyway.'

  'Don't worry about the itch,' Maxwell said cheerfully, 'lice come with the territory. Come along, Windrush. Bring your men with you.'

  Surprised that there was no second wave of attackers, Jack followed Maxwell to the far side of the corridor, where another flight of stairs led upward.

  'If we meet anybody,' Maxwell said. 'You let me do the talking. We are Cossack guards taking the wicked British prisoners to another place to interrogate them, damn their hides.'

  'Yes, sir.' Jack agreed.

  They moved quickly, with Jack warning his men not to speak as they ran upwards on flights of stone steps that seemed to go on forever. Eventually, they came to what Jack took to be a side door guarded by a single Cossack sentry.

  'What now?' Jack reached for the sashqua at his belt.

  'Leave it to me,' Maxwell said and spoke sharply in Russian.

  The sentry immediately slammed to attention. When Maxwell spoke again, the man saluted and drew the bolts on the door. Maxwell stepped outside the door, Jack ushered his men outside, checking he had not left anybody behind. He was encouraging the last man when the sentry looked directly at him. The Cossack's face was badly burned, with fresh bandages covering the entire left side, Jack and the Cossack recognised each other at the same time. This was the man he had taken prisoner after the dummy had exploded.