Windrush: Blood Price (Jack Windrush Book 3)

by Malcolm Archibald

  'Well, he can't do any more damage now.' Jack said. 'He died yesterday.'

  'If I said God rest him,' Elliot said, 'I would be hypocritical. I can't forget all those casualties.'

  Jack tried the liquid in the bottle, coughed, gagged and swallowed. 'Jesus; that's raw even by your standards.'

  'The Sawnies drink it like water.'

  'That's the Sawnies; they're weaned on whisky from birth.' Jack tried to force a smile from Elliot.

  'Did you hear what the Russians did at the Redan?'

  'I heard,' Jack said. 'I heard all the stories.'

  'These Russian bastards.' There were tears in Elliot's eyes as he looked up from his glass. 'They stood on the parapet of the Redan, firing volley after volley after volley at our men as they lay wounded on the ground, then their ships fired broadsides as our men tried to crawl back all broken and hurt and in pain.'

  'I heard,' Jack said quietly. 'I heard.' He thought of William and said nothing.

  'We'll pay them back for this,' Elliot said as the tears dribbled down his face. 'Murdering poor shattered men. They flew the black flag and mocked us. “Come on Ingliski” they shouted as they slaughtered us. Bloody Russian bastards.'

  'Aye,' Jack said. 'It was a botched operation from start to finish. To send so few soldiers, most of them very young and untrained to attack such a stronghold…' he stopped and shook his head. 'I don't like croaking; it does no good and makes one feel worse. Come, Arthur, let's talk about happier things.'

  'They say that when we came to pick up the wounded many had died under the hot sun; their bodies had swollen and burst. Men refused to collect the casualties from other regiments…'

  'I know,' Jack tried some more of the kill-me-deadly. He could not force it down however much he tried.

  'The army needed to get rid of Raglan,' Elliot continued. 'There is only one man fit to replace him.'

  'And who might that be?' Jack asked.

  'Sir Colin Campbell,' Elliot said. 'That is the name that is on everyone's lips. Only Sir Colin can lead this army to victory now.'

  'I would have faith in him,' Jack did not give his opinion of Lord Raglan. 'He is the best general I have ever met.'

  'He's the obvious choice for the job,' Elliot said, 'but he won't get it. He's too honest and has no following at Horse Guards. He has never hid his contempt for these old muffs they call the staff and he's got no political leverage at all.' Elliot produced a limp-looking cheroot, bit into the end and looked away.

  'You and I should not worry about such things,' Jack said gently. 'We have no say in what happens. I am sure it will all be for the best. The powers that be will know what they're doing.' Although he had long since lost all faith in higher command he had no intention of revealing that to a less-than-sober Elliot.

  'If they did know what they were doing, Sir Colin would be in command and you would be a captain,' Elliot said sharply. 'We have to leave here. We have to leave the Crimea, build up the army and try again. We will need older, more experienced soldiers, maybe men who were seasoned in India; bring them here with decent officers who have actually fought a war and then we can smash the Czar!' Elliot swallowed more of his cloudy fire-water. 'We should topple the government and get the best officers to control the country.'

  Jack looked away. Croaking was widespread among the officers but Elliot was going beyond the normal and approaching treason. 'My brother has vanished,' He blurted out the words that had been in his mind since the conversation began. 'Will was in the assault of the Redan and he has not been seen since. He did not come back and is not with the dead or the wounded.'

  Elliot looked up, with the alcohol and anger clearing from his eyes. 'That would be the half-brother that you mentioned before?'

  'Captain William Windrush of the Royal Malverns,' Jack confirmed. 'The Hero of the Quarries, now missing at the Redan.'

  'I thought so,' Elliot said quietly. 'The hero Windrush.' He remembered the cheroot he had been chewing, examined it for a moment, threw it away and extracted another from his case. 'Do you think he was killed?'

  'If he was his body was never found.' Jack tried to remain neutral although he was filled with conflicting emotions. If William was dead, then his younger brother Adam would be the lawful heir of Wychwood Manor and he may be welcome back home again. Yet he did not wish William dead. Despite their estrangement, he remembered all they had shared growing up; there was still a fraternal bond, on his side at least.

  'Wounded and a prisoner then,' Elliot said. 'From what I have heard of him, your brother is not the sort of man who would run away.'

  'He is either dead or a prisoner,' Jack said. 'He may have been blown to fragments by a shell and they can't find his body.'

  Elliot nodded. 'He'll be all right, Jack. Luck always follows men like that. He will land on his feet and come back an even bigger hero than he already is.'

  Jack nodded. 'God, I hope so, Arthur.' Without thinking, he reached across to sample Elliot's rot-gut spirits. This time he swallowed it without a qualm.

  Chapter Nineteen

  August 1855

  'Begging your pardon sir,' Riley stood inside the fine new hut that had replaced the weather-battered tent. 'Colonel Maxwell sends his compliments and could Lieutenant Windrush join him at his earliest convenience.'

  'Thank you, Riley. I will come immediately.' Such a polite summons from the commanding officer was tantamount to an order.

  The stocky, impassive faced Tartar stood beside Maxwell, facing Jack as he stepped into the hut.

  'This is Ansar,' Maxwell explained at once. 'He is a Tartar, one of the men in the service of Charley Cattley. It was Ansar who gave us intelligence that led to your fine victory over the Cossacks a few weeks ago.'

  'It was very useful information,' Jack said cautiously. He tried to hide his immediate twist of unease. During the last few weeks he had eased back into regimental life and despite his desire to end Anderson's career, he had hoped to avoid Cattley and the Secret Intelligence Department. Promotion would be difficult for any officer who was tainted by suspicions of ungentlemanly behaviour. Ordinary regimental soldiering was far more honest, and certainly sufficiently dangerous.

  'You did well Ansar,' Jack nodded acknowledgement but did not offer his hand in friendship.

  'Ansar has been very helpful to Mr Cattley,' Maxwell said quietly. 'He manages to slip in and out of Sebastopol without being suspected. Don't you Ansar?'

  The Tartar nodded. 'The garrison needs food,' he said in surprisingly good English. 'And I have a farm.' Jack marvelled anew how easily foreigners managed to master a number of languages while British people rarely spoke more than one.

  'Why help us?' Jack asked Ansar directly. 'We are invaders in your land.'

  Ansar was about five foot seven, stocky and hardy looking. 'This was Tartar land before the Russians came,' he said. 'I hate the Russians.'

  Jack remembered O'Neill' suppressed bitterness and nodded; he could understand that better than any desire to help out of a professed love of the British. Ansar seemed like an honest man, if any spy could be thought honest.

  'Ansar has garnered some further intelligence that may be of some use,' Maxwell said. 'I retained him here so you can recognise each other if you meet on the field.'

  Jack felt Ansar examining him as minutely as he examined Ansar. 'I am sure we will know each other,' Jack said at length.

  'That's the spirit,' Maxwell said. 'You may leave now, Ansar; thank you for your help.'

  The Tartar gave a brief, near-Russian bow with his heels clicking together and stepped silently outside the tent.

  'Interesting fellow that,' Maxwell said. 'I can see you don't trust him, or perhaps you don't like the idea of spies and all this cloak and dagger business.'

  'I don't sir.'

  'Nor did Lord Raglan, as you know.' Maxwell said. 'However, even he came to accept that it is useful and may even save some lives, if the intelligence is genuine.'

  There was a few moments' silence
as Jack contemplated the late Lord Raglan. He had been a disaster as a commander and was blamed for much of the mismanagement of the campaign, but there was no doubting that he had been a good man, a gentleman and a brave soldier. It was not his fault that he had been ordered to do a job that was beyond his capabilities.

  Maxwell sighed. 'War is a dirty business, Windrush, and it always was. Forget all the notions you ever had about gentlemen and chivalry. It is about killing and maiming more of the enemy than he kills and maims of you. The only reason that Great Britain is predominant in this world is because we are rather good at it; we can be utterly ruthless behind our charm.'

  'Yes, sir.' Jack remembered Cattley saying much the same.

  'If you want to really help protect the country, Jack, you have to remember that. Oh keep the appearance up by all means, particularly in front of ladies and foreigners, but when it comes to war, the secret is to find out what the enemy is doing and hit him hard at his weakest spot, and keep hitting him until he cries uncle. Then you kick him a few times. Only then do you smile and become the gentleman again.' Maxwell held Jack's gaze for what seemed a long time. 'Good; that's that said. On to other, if associated matters.'

  Jack nodded; thoughts of Anderson had revived his dislike. Suddenly, rather than avoid service on one of Cattley's missions, Jack again experienced a rising desire to finish his feud with Anderson.

  'Have a drink, Jack; you look as if you need it.' Maxwell poured out two generous glasses of brandy. 'Now, our men and the 18th Foot gained some small renown,' Maxwell leaned back in the carved chair that Jack suspected had been looted from Sebastopol's suburbs, or perhaps Mrs Maxwell had purchased it in Balaklava. 'And that was the only good thing to come out of that debacle before the Redan.'

  'Yes, sir.' Jack sipped the colonel's brandy, breathed in the colonel's cigar smoke and listened to the colonel's words.

  'The Russians took a handful of our men as prisoners,' Maxwell held Jack's gaze, 'including some wounded officers.'

  Jack's heart began to beat faster. 'I have heard that, sir. Do we have their names?'

  'We do, thanks to Ansar. One of them is Captain William Windrush, the hero of the Quarries.'

  Jack felt a surge of relief that his brother was alive. Despite their behaviour to the wounded on the field of battle, the Russians treated their prisoners humanely. 'Is he badly wounded, sir?'

  'We have not been informed. Ansar told us that he was the furthest forward of any British soldier.' Maxwell paused. 'Your brother is a genuine hero, Jack.'

  'So I have been told, sir.' Jack did not have to force his smile.

  'And therein lies the rub, Lieutenant Windrush.' Maxwell stood up and began to pace the five steps back and forward that was all the space he had. 'Russell of the Thunderer and all the other gentlemen of the Press made the most of William Windrush after the affair of the Quarries. He has become well known in Britain.' Maxwell gave a small smile. 'I believe that young women in particular have taken quite an attraction to him, why even Helen…' he stopped himself. 'At any rate, your brother is better known than most officers and is becoming a symbol of the British Army.'

  Jack started. 'He's only a boy, sir. He's younger than me and this is his first campaign.'

  'So much the better. He has not had time to be tainted with any of the scandals and malpractices that mar the careers of so many officers. He has no gambling debts and has not yet fallen foul of any…' Maxwell hesitated, 'any ladies of dubious morals.'

  'Yes, sir.' Jack kept his face straight. He remembered his brother's youthful experiments with the local girls. William had never been backward in coming forward with women, and the looser their morals the better he had liked it.

  'You are wondering why I am telling you this, Jack. You will have guessed that it was not solely because Captain William Windrush shares the same father as you do.'

  'I did not think that, sir.'

  'As you know, Anderson's operations have halted recently. Your last major success against the Cossacks jolted them and your group of highly trained desperadoes are at a bit of a loose end.'

  Jack nodded. 'We have been pretty busy with regimental work sir, and the odd battle.'

  Maxwell smiled. 'I am aware of that. I have a choice now, Windrush. I could permanently return your ruffians to ordinary regimental work in the trenches, or I can once more use them, and you, for something I believe you are uniquely qualified.'

  'What is that, sir?' Jack felt the familiar tingle of mixed excitement and apprehension.

  Maxwell was not to be hurried. 'I think that returning you all to work in the trenches was a waste of talent, although you did rather well under Eyre.'

  'Thank you sir. What do you have in mind?'

  'I have a rescue mission in mind, Jack. Ansar has informed us that the Russians intend moving this batch of prisoners out of Sebastopol and deep into the interior of Russia. That is what they did to the men they captured at Balaklava and the few others they have picked up on trench raids and the like.'

  'Yes sir. The Russians confuse me. In the battles they murder the wounded, but as soon as our men are made prisoner the Russians treat them with courtesy and honour.'

  Maxwell raised his eyebrows. 'Quite so. I have never got used to the Russian mind; I am not sure if they are the furthest east of the Europeans or the furthest west of the Asiatics. They seem to be the strangest mixture of both. However, that conversation is for another time. What matters is that they have your brother as a prisoner.' Maxwell gave a rueful smile. 'I think he is probably the safest man in the Crimea at present, for with the press making such a fuss about him, the Russians can crow that they have captured a genuine British hero.'

  Jack took a deep breath. 'Sir: if the press hear that one Windrush rescued another, they might put two and two together and work out…'

  'Work out what, Windrush? That you are half brothers? Or that you are illegitimate.'

  'Yes, sir; both.'

  'Well that can't be helped. We can't allow the Russians to take the nation's darling away to captivity, to be paraded in St Petersburg or stuck in some god-awful dungeon in Siberia. It is not to be borne, Windrush, and your men are the best we have for this sort of operation. So buckle down to it; put on a stiff upper lip and do your duty.'

  Jack stiffened to attention. 'Yes, sir.'

  'And who knows, it may work in your favour, the cast-out son saving his famous brother. You may become a hero yourself.' Maxwell gave an incongruous wink.

  Jack's weak grin did not fool anybody, least of all himself.

  Chapter Twenty

  'There's another one.' O'Neill mouthed the words silently, nodding to the tall Russian who stood conveniently on the skyline. 'That's the third picket within half a mile. Johnny Russ is keeping this area as tight as a virgin in a brothel.'

  Jack nodded and crawled back down the rocky ridge. His dozen men were waiting, lying in a circle facing outward, Minie rifles loaded. After the Redan battle, Jack's request for the new Enfields had been refused; the 113th were still well down the pecking order for the latest equipment. In a way he was glad that his request had been denied; his men had trained on the Minie, they were used to the way the rifles handled and, save for Fletcher, were all as good shots as any in the army. He would retain the Minies until his men had time to train properly with the Enfield.

  They remained silent, peering into the dark, listening for anything that could signify an approaching Russian, alert for the scent of humanity.

  'There's another Russian picket ahead,' Jack said softly. 'Follow me.'

  He led them on a wide detour from this road that led north from Sebastopol; the road down which his heroic brother was being driven.

  'I've never been so far behind Russian lines before,' Fletcher whispered.

  'Nobody has,' O'Neill said. 'Nobody can come this far except us. We're the best.'

  For the first time since he heard of this next mission, Jack smiled. After being regarded as the pariahs of the army for so long, it
was good to hear the men praising themselves. Yet, Jack admitted ruefully, some of the army's distrust of the 113th may be due to the regiment's propensity to make themselves comfortable at the expense of others, or because they took part in clandestine operations, such as this one.

  'There is a lot of traffic on the road,' O'Neill grunted. 'The prisoners might be passing us right at this minute.'

  Jack had already considered that possibility. 'According to Ansar,' he said, 'they are not leaving Sebastopol until dawn, and that is three hours away yet.' He checked his watch. 'Ansar's intelligence was completely accurate last time. I hope it's as good again. Now, I want to find a convenient spot for an ambush before the prisoners come along.'

  'We could have asked the spy fellow for the best place,' O'Neill made a tentative suggestion.

  'He's a farmer, not a soldier.' Jack said. 'He would know good watering for his livestock, or the best place to plant his crops, but he'll know nothing about military matters.'

  O'Neill grunted. 'He would do well on the staff then. They know nothing about military matters either…'

  'Enough of that!' Jack snapped. It was bad enough that the officers croaked about the staff officers without the rankers joining in.

  'Who's replacing Raglan? Some other old fool.' That was Fletcher's voice. 'General Simpson isn't it? He's as bad as the last one.'

  'If they had sense they'd put Campbell in charge.' Riley did not normally give an opinion on anything. 'Sir Colin's the best of the lot of them.'

  'Silence!' O'Neill hissed. 'Listen ahead.'

  They quietened at once as their training and experience kicked in. Jack felt the tickle of tobacco smoke in his nostrils and stopped moving; his men followed his example.

  They drum-beat of marching boots sounded, together with the snarl of a non-commissioned officer and the rattle of accoutrements.

  Jack put one hand on the butt of his revolver and remained static. He was aware of his men behind him, spread out so they did not appear as a darker block in the night, each man breathing softly, ready to fight or retire at a second's notice.