by A L Berridge
22
5 November 1854, 6.00 a.m. to 8.10 a.m.
Bleeding fog. Bloomer peered through the floating mist of the White House Ravine and decided it was coming on a regular thick ’un. The fresh rag tied round his Minié lock was damp already, and he could have squeezed a quart pot out of the one over the muzzle. How was a man meant to keep his powder dry in this?
Lieutenant Butts hadn’t even bothered with a rag. The poor flat was prowling round the picquet in proper charley style, barking-iron in his hand and open to the wet. Bloomer wondered how long before he gave up and just stood and shivered his heart out with the rest.
A dull report popped to the north, high up the Careenage, then more of them, a regular banging match starting up at West Jut. The sharpshooters, must be, and Bloomer’s fist was already shoving the rags off his gun. They’d seen something, the flash-barkers, and it might be coming this way.
‘I can’t see …’ said Butts uncertainly, standing on his toes like a bleeding dancer. ‘I can’t …’
Bloomer ignored him. This was his world, the Limehouse murk in the lonely hours, ears strained for the padding feet of Lascars or a peeler’s whistle. Then he heard it, the rattle of stones in the gully, men running down the Careenage Ravine towards them.
‘Take your cover!’ he bellowed, and dived for the nearest boulder. ‘Russkies in the gorge!’
In it and on them, and a ball splintered into the rock as he ducked behind it. A damp body thumped against his side as Morry slid in next to him, and young Peachy was diving for the shelter of a ruined wall, but there were plenty in the open still and the balls whining in like death out of the clouds. Donnelly down, Stevens, and Christ, little Pilchard shot in the back and screaming like a woman. Bloomer looked for a target, but these were grey men in thick fog, nothing to see but muzzle flashes, and nothing to do but stay down.
Not Butts. He was rallying a dozen to the white house above, but they’d hardly took three steps when a crowd of ghostly figures oozed round the ruins to take them from behind. Bloomer fired and got one, that was no ghost, that was a Russian in grey coat and white cross-belts, but when Butts spun round with his pistol it just went click with no bang. The thing was damp as a whore’s muff, and their officer good as unarmed.
Bloomer wasn’t, but he’d got to reload and the beggars were coming from all sides. Morry got his piece in, but same story, click and no ruddy bang. Then they were all at it, everywhere clicking and cursing, and Peachy crying ‘Corporal, my rifle won’t work!’ with a shock in his voice like a child’s. The Minié, the gun that had saved them at the Alma, the one big edge they’d had over the Muscovites from the start, the Minié was letting them down.
Bastard fog, it would be the death of them all yet. He was loading fast as he could do it, Morry firing cap after cap to clear his own charge, but the Russians were picking them off like rats in a barrel. The sergeant was down, so was Dawson and old Bandy, and others legging it as riflemen swarmed down on them from behind. Butts’s lot was surrounded and surrendering, so was another down the Careenage end, only a few managing to bowl off into the wilderness of the Uplands. Time for a wise man to consider his options and hook it.
He heaved round to face Morry and Peachy. ‘Back up the slope at the double, find cover and wait for me.’ He dug in his pack for his NCO’s spanner and handed it to Morry. ‘And draw your bleeding charges while you wait.’
Peachy had eyes round as pennies. ‘Aren’t we meant to delay the enemy before we fall back? Fight and give our side time to bring up the guns?’
Gawd help us. ‘We have bleeding fought,’ he said patiently. ‘We’re more than half dead or took, and the rest already cutting. Now look fly, and leg it when I tell you.’
He turned to face front. The Russians were done skulking now and running into the open to mop up with the bayonet. Bayonet meant they’d fired, these would be first rank and already empty, now was the time and ‘Now!’ he whispered. ‘Bloody now!’
Morry took off like a scared cat, and that scrabbling of stones would be Peachy following. Flat-capped heads turned at once, and one upping his piece, blast him, he’d one up the spout after all. Bloomer settled his own and fired. Down and hallelujah, but he himself was up and out of it, panting up the rocky slope for the cover of the brush above.
A couple came scudding across to block him, bayonets set to lunge. He bashed one away with his barrel and thrust hard in the other, the man screaming at him open-mouthed. The blade caught in the pull-out, it was up with the old Marylebone kick, boot in the belly to shove the man off, then turn panting for the other. Young and nervous, this one, weapon ready but hands trembling, Bloomer swiped at his mug and yelled ‘Yah!’ The kid stepped back wobbly, and Bloomer hadn’t the heart, he really hadn’t, he turned again for the crest and raced for the top. When he looked back down the boy hadn’t moved.
Bloomer laughed. His blood was up, the warmth driving the fog from his bones, and there were Morry and Peachy waiting for him in the brush like a little gang of his own. ‘Charges drawn?’
Morry passed him the spanner. ‘Back to the battery, friend?’
Bloomer looked north towards their base. He couldn’t see a blasted thing, but there was gunfire on the east side of the Careenage, and a moment later the boom of one of their own Lancasters. ‘Nix on that,’ he said, and turned to reloading. ‘We’d be between the Russians and our guns. We’d best go straight to the battle, wherever that …’ He stopped at a low, deep-throated roar rumbling off to the north-east.
‘Shell Hill,’ said Morry. He’d a compass in his noddle, that one, find his way home with a bag over his head. ‘It looks like the twenty-sixth of October all over again.’
Bloomer snorted as he snapped on his cap. ‘Let’s hope this time there’s enough to go round.’ He slung his rifle and turned to grin at them as he strode forward into the brush. ‘Here we go, boys. This way for Inkerman and all the fun of the fair.’
Woodall stirred his socks in the pan and listened uneasily to the sound of the guns. The next boom sent a circle of ripples over the surface of the water.
‘Whew,’ said Parsons, crouching and straightening as if it would help him see better in the fog. ‘This is big, comrades, the buggers have got guns on Shell Hill.’
‘Not just any guns,’ said Truman, sitting up sharp. ‘Hear it? Crown to a guinea that’s Whistling Dick.’
The long whining whistle of the 32-pounder howitzer was unmistakable even before the crump that shook the ground. This time the Russians meant business.
Truman reached for his boots. ‘We’re for it, old sons. The Second will never handle that lot on their own.’
Woodall looked in horror at his soaking socks. Impossible to wear them like that, his feet would swell. The wood and water fatigues had already gone out, everything normal, it could still be a normal day …
‘Stand to your arms!’ bellowed an NCO, and he had time only to thrust his naked feet inside his boots, grab his rifle and run to fall in. No breakfast, no sleep, they were being marched out without even time to check their equipment.
A moment later it came, ‘Left four deep, quick march!’ and off they went to the Post Road, heading towards the roar of the guns. A scruffy lot they looked, and he could have wept to remember those splendid red and black lines marching in perfect order at the Alma. Now they were huddled into grey coats, bearded, ragged and filthy, and even their bearskins were gritty and matted. He was as bad himself, and it was only when he saw the blaze of artillery on the heights ahead that he realized something else was different too.
It hadn’t even occurred to him to be afraid.
As they walked into camp Ryder saw only craftsmen and anxious women, all standing in silence as they looked towards the roar of the guns. What was left of the Light Brigade had already moved out, and was drawn up in long blue lines nearer the Col.
The reason was standing at the head of the valley. The fog lay thickly there, but the shifting clouds revealed a dark grey
mass of men and horses behind, a Russian army right at the base of the Causeway Heights. They weren’t doing anything, just watching and waiting, but their presence was a weapon all its own.
‘Pinning us down,’ he said. ‘If we go to help the infantry they’ll swoop on Balaklava.’
Mackenzie shrugged. ‘It could be worse. Had we all sped to the harbour they’d be through the Col this minute and falling on our infantry from the rear.’
The harbour seemed irrelevant now; everything did in the voices of the great guns. Even the deserted camp seemed to scream with urgency and the sense of being left behind. Oliver dashed to the tent to fetch their swords, but Mackenzie stayed with Ryder as he led the horse with Jarvis’s body and wondered what the hell he could say to Sally.
He didn’t need to say anything. Oliver had warned her they’d been going into action, and as soon as she saw their burden she stopped and covered her mouth. He hardly dared look at her as he explained, but she was an army wife, she only thanked them quietly and said, ‘Leave him with me now. You’ll need to stand-to with the others.’
He did, and was ashamed that she knew it. ‘He saved me, Sal. He wasn’t even armed. He was a hero.’
Her skirt rustled as she knelt beside her husband. ‘He would have liked that. It’s all he had, you know, really. The army.’
Ryder looked down at her bent head. ‘He had you.’
‘Yes,’ she said, and looked up at him with sadness in her eyes. ‘He had me.’
The guns roared again from the Uplands, a ragged salvo of boom-boom-boom. He said inadequately, ‘I’m sorry. I’d better …’
‘Go,’ she said, and smiled softly. ‘He would have. Go.’
He turned and fled for the horse-lines, but was startled to find Mackenzie still keeping pace with him. ‘I’m going for my horse, Niall, I’ve got to join the regiment.’
‘I ken that,’ said Mackenzie calmly. ‘I’m coming with you.’
He wouldn’t break step for something so ridiculous. ‘Don’t be a fool, you can’t ride with the Light Brigade.’
‘Then I’ll run after you,’ said Mackenzie. ‘Do you no see it, Ryder, what kind of battle this will be?’ He gestured at the greyness of the plateau, the thicker fog clumping at the base of the Sapoune. ‘How will a man know even his own commanders in this?’
Ryder stopped. Mackenzie was right, it was the perfect setting for Angelo, for any man whose business was confusion and misdirection. ‘But I wounded him. He’s hurt.’
‘So are you,’ said the Highlander. ‘You should be under the surgeons right this minute, but you’re going into battle and so will he. And I’ll be biding right along with you, since in all this grand army there’s just the four of us know his face.’
Woodall’s ears hurt from the nearness of the guns. He couldn’t see the ruddy things, only distant flashes in the murk, but the ground trembled under his boots and the mist carried black specks that stuck on his lips and eyelashes.
And this was Home Ridge, their main base on the Uplands! He’d have thought the so-called British Heights would be safe, but Russian artillery was pounding at them from Shell Hill, great big beasts of cannon that made their own 9- and 12-pounders sound like pop-guns. He wasn’t too impressed by their defences either, the dry-stone and mud crestwork that in places was no more than two feet high.
But they weren’t to stay here. The Line had obviously got themselves in trouble somewhere, scouts were talking to the Duke, and a moment later came the call ‘The Brigade will advance!’ Brigade indeed. The Coldstream hadn’t come in from picquet yet, there was only themselves and the Scots Fusiliers and both woefully under strength. Seven hundred exhausted men the lot. But they were needed, the Guards never let the army down, so off they tramped, round to the east and Fore Ridge, the other prong of the V-shaped prominence that comprised the British Heights.
It wasn’t much quieter. Dark shapes solidified in the fog as they passed the Hill Bend, another British battery and firing for dear life. The gun-captains were in charge here, each alone in the little world of his gun and his team, and quite oblivious to the Guards marching with such dignity a few yards to their rear. Their hoarse voices competed in savage desperation, ‘Ready!’ ‘Ball!’ ‘Sponge out, damn your eyes, you want to blow us all to hell?’ In Woodall’s opinion they were already in it. Fog and smoke hung over them, guns black against the grey as they belched out orange fire. Every recoil rolled the monsters back like living things, and men rushed to haul them forward again, sweating slaves to their own machines. The images stayed with him as they tramped on past, and the voices followed him all the way. ‘Load!’ ‘Stop your vent!’ ‘Fire!’ ‘Fire, damn it!’ ‘Fire!’ ‘Fire!’ ‘Fire!’
As they toiled up Fore Ridge the ground opened in front of them like a widening pit to offer a first real glimpse of the battle. Fog clouded tantalizingly over the valley floor, but shapes were moving in it, yelling and spitting fire like a miniature version of the battle of the giants overhead. No red coats, Woodall noted sadly, it was British grey against Russian grey, but the ground was heaving with them, and where it thronged closest the orange bloom of rifle fire was replaced by the white flash of steel.
A ball flew overhead and crashed into the earth beyond. In range. A minute later a shell, iron fragments whizzing at them out of the fog and slashing a jagged tear down his sleeve. He’d have to ruddy sew that up when they got in. He marched on in the ragged grey column, horribly aware of his bare feet chafing in the discomfort of his boots.
They were heading for Mount Inkerman. He wondered if they were for the Barrier, that bit of wall the picquets used to shelter under in bad weather, but they went on west towards the slopes of the Kitspur, and he saw what it was they had to do. There was only the Sandbag Battery up there, a useless redoubt they’d long ago taken the guns out of, but it was a British outpost and those were Russians swarming over it, some even standing crowing on the parapet. Right then. Right. The enemy had taken it, and the Guards were here to take it back.
Another shell whizzed into them, and one of their officers’ horses was down. ‘Coo!’ said Parsons, holding his bearskin hard on his head and grinning round at them like a street urchin. ‘Coo!’ Woodall ignored him. Orders were being given, the Scots Fusiliers halting behind, the Grenadiers were to go in first and they were going in now.
They turned downhill. Smoke and flying earth mingled with the deepening fog, but crimson and gold flashed in the greyness ahead of him, the colours being carried aloft. Lieutenant Turner held the Queen’s, rich and red as their own hidden uniforms, but Lieutenant Verschoyle carried the Regimental, red, white, and blue of the Union with that golden III to mark the Third Battalion of Her Majesty’s Grenadier Guards. Woodall’s chin came up. Every movement of his swinging arms, every stride of his boots in step with the others, these things were suddenly precious in a way he’d never understood until now. They were a Brigade, the Guards Brigade, and by God, they were going in.
Ryder couldn’t wait any longer. Inkerman was blowing to hell from the sound of it, but still the Light Brigade stood uselessly at their horses’ heads while Lord George Paget lit cheroot after cheroot from the stub of the last. Ryder thrust his bridle at Oliver, said, ‘Hold her, Polly,’ and strode up to Lieutenant Grainger.
Grainger smiled wearily at him. ‘Hullo, Sergeant, come to tell us how to run the war?’
‘I have to be there, sir. You know why.’
Grainger turned to the Russians still waiting on the cusp of the South and North Valleys. ‘They’re pinning us down, can’t you see? The picquets say it’s Gorchakoff himself.’
Ryder cleared his throat. ‘I understand, sir. I’m asking permission to go alone. Just me and Oliver.’
‘Outrageous,’ said Grainger, and looked directly at him. ‘But the Uplands are no good for horse, we may never be ordered out at all. Take Oliver and go, I’ll tell the colonel.’
Ryder saluted and started to turn, but Grainger’s voice arrested him. ‘Oh, and
do take that Highlander, won’t you? If his lordship condescends to leave his yacht he won’t take kindly to an apparition of that kind.’
Ryder understood. A man in a kilt didn’t look his best on horseback, and Cardigan would probably faint at the sight of Mackenzie. There were only sick horses left for him to choose from, and the beast he’d got was poor Bolton’s mare, her back protected by a soft blanket but her height dwindled by the size of the man astride her.
He said, ‘I’ll take him, sir. And thanks.’
The tiredness fell away as he waved at Oliver and Mackenzie to join him. This was more like it, this was the thing, no officers, no orders, no one but the three of them riding together up the Col to a battle that called like the beat of a drum. Their hooves hit the track together, and the fog parted and closed behind them like the smoke of war.
Woodall kept his eyes on the colours and tramped steadily down. Musketry now, balls spitting and whining in among them, and in front a man sagging to his knees, but their line was broken by brushwood, the fog could hide a Grenadier as well as a Russian, and Woodall felt no more than a twitch at his sleeve as a ball whipped by.
Faster and faster they went, and now the fire was hotting up, shot, shell and musket balls pelting at them like driving rain. Men were falling, and nothing to do but elbow past them and go on, get through it and at them. Then Sergeant Norman yelled, ‘Give it them, my lads!’ and up went the Minié, tight to Woodall’s cheek as he picked a Russian on the parapet and fired.
Click. Nothing. Horror smacked him as others exclaimed with the same discovery. What had possessed him not to draw his charge as soon as he got in? The crisp volley that ought to have swept the Russians clean off the hill was no more than a few ragged shots and a lot of ruddy cursing. His cheeks burned with his own stupidity – and the Scots Fusiliers watching from above! He was already lowering the barrel before Captain Tipping called it, his voice high and agonized, ‘Give them the bayonet, my boys! In with the steel!’
