Crimea

by Malcolm Archibald

  'Well done, Coleman.' Jack slipped the tunic on. It was tight across his shoulders. 'Keep close men and keep quiet.' He removed his forage cap and donned the fez, finally slipping the baggy silk trousers over his own and barely sparing a thought for the unfortunate French soldiers who had to endure the chill of the night undressed and uncomfortable.

  Feeling a lot less confident than he hoped he appeared, Jack stepped forward into the wagon park, nodded to the sentries, and threaded his way through to the far side, where a hundred or more horses were tethered nose to nose in two long lines.

  'Any of you men know anything about horses?'

  'I do, sir,' Hitchins sensibly kept his voice low. 'I was a ploughman.'

  'And a poacher, eh Hitchie?' Coleman added.

  'Good man.' Jack ignored Coleman's contribution. 'You and I will select the best horses then. These are two-horse wagons, so I want eight horses; sufficient for two wagons plus spare horses.'

  Hitchins nodded, 'very good sir.' He hesitated; 'if you don't mind me saying, sir; these are two-horse wagons, but one horse can manage them, sir when they are unladen.'

  'Do you know about the arabas?' Jack tried to hide his surprise.'

  'I know nothing about Arabs, sir. I know about wagons though.'

  About to explain that the wagons were called arabas, Jack closed his mouth. 'What are you suggesting, Hitchins?'

  'We can take more horses than eight sir if you want them.'

  'How many can you get?'

  Hitchin shrugged. 'As many as you wish, sir.'

  'Twenty?' Jack plucked a number from the air.

  'All right, sir. Who is getting the wagons, sir?'

  'Corporal O'Neill will do that.' Jack saw that O'Neill already had the men organised and was selecting the two most robust vehicles.

  'Spoked wheels now,' O'Neill said, 'it gives a lighter ride, and for God's sake try and find wagons with some suspension. These things will be carrying wounded men.'

  'Carry on, O'Neill,' Jack left him to it while he and Hitchins stepped to the horses' lines.

  They moved among the animals, looking at teeth, coats and legs, with Hitchins sighing and cursing in turn. 'Some poor quality rubbish here, sir,' Hitchins did not try to disguise his disapproval. 'Trust the Frenchies to steal everything first and have no idea about horseflesh.'

  'Select the best, Hitchins and keep your voice down.'

  'Do you know about horses, sir?'

  'I've been riding since I could walk,' Jack said and closed his mouth. He had to keep distance between himself and the other ranks. He was their officer, not their friend.

  'Qui est ce?' The challenge rang out loud across the restless horses.

  'Ami!' Jack thought it best to answer at once. He did not want a nervous sentry firing a shot and starting a battle. Stepping forward, he allowed the French to see his uniform. What was the penalty for an officer stealing from an ally? Probably cashiering at least, plus a hefty jail sentence.

  'They're loose, sir.' Hitchins whispered in broad Shropshire. 'Eighteen of the best.'

  'Wait until this Frenchy has gone.'

  'The wagons are ready,' Logan kept back from the horses. 'If that thing kicks me I'll do for it!'

  'It's harmless, Logan,' Jack said, 'as long as you watch for the hooves and teeth. Keep your voice down! There's a Frenchman just over there.'

  Logan glanced over. 'Do you want me to do for him, sir?'

  'No, I want you to keep quiet!'

  'Qui est ce?' The Frenchman repeated, louder. He shouted something else, and two more French soldiers joined him.

  'Here's trouble,' Logan sounded happy at the prospect. His right hand strayed inside his tunic.

  'Keep quiet and keep your heads down!' Jack hissed. What was best to do? Keep still and hope the French walked away? Or try to bluff them?

  He realised that neither was possible as the French approached. There was a dozen of them in the long blue coats of line infantrymen, some fitting bayonets with ominous clicks and all talking, gesticulating and very dangerous.

  'Come on, you bastards,' Logan muttered, pulling his bayonet from underneath his tunic.

  They came from two sides, yelling loudly and probing with their bayonets. Hitchins was first to run, with Ogden close at his heels. 'Come on, sir,' O'Neill tapped Jack on the shoulder, 'there's no reasoning with men in that mood.'

  'You too!' Jack hauled Logan back as he glowered at the French, muttering curses and threats.

  'They're in front of us as well,' O'Neill shouted as another surge of Frenchmen cut them off from any retreat.

  'Run!' Hitchins yelled, high-pitched.

  'Which way?' Ogden asked.

  Jack felt a flicker of something like panic. This situation was worse than facing the Burmese: then he had been a soldier doing his duty, and he could legally shoot his way out of trouble. Here he was breaking every law known to man, looting from an ally. If the French caught him, he could expect only disgrace; worse, he had led his men into a situation where they faced the cat. The best he could do was to give himself up and say his men were following his orders.

  Jack stopped running and stood upright. 'Gather around me, men.'

  'We'll fight the bastards,' Logan flourished his bayonet, apparently prepared to take on an unknown number of Frenchmen for whatever reason.

  'No we won't,' Jack pushed his hand down. 'Put that away, Logan. The French are not our enemies.'

  The sudden clamour came from the northern fringe of the French lines, accompanied by one shot, then two, then an irregular crackle of musketry. A bugle called, and then another and the French soldiers turned away.

  'The Russians have attacked,' O'Neill said. 'Saved by the Ruskies!'

  For a moment Jack wondered if he should lead his men to help the French, but common sense told him that his handful, minus their muskets, would be more hindrance than help.

  'Hitchins, get these horses back; hitch them onto the wagons. I want four wagons. O'Neill, Ogden, help him. Logan, you and I are the guards.'

  The shooting intensified, coming closer as the unseen Russians pressed forward their attack. Jack flinched as a stray musket ball zipped past him to bury itself in the dirt a yard away, then he swore as one of the horses screamed high pitched.

  'The bastards are after the horses,' Hitchins raised his voice. 'Bloody Russian brutes!'

  'Keep working,' Jack shouted, 'never mind the shine!'

  More musket balls whined around them while the acrid reek of burned gunpowder tingled their nostrils. Unsettled by the noise and despite all Hitchins' efforts to calm them down, the horses were panicking.

  'That's two wagons hitched, sir!' Hitchins shouted, 'I'm working on the third…'

  The sudden surge of men took Jack by surprise. He looked up as a body of French infantry ran past him, with one or two throwing away their weapons in their urgency to escape. Behind them was a troop of Russian cavalry, dimly seen in the intermittent light of the camp-fires. Jack saw bearded men with shaggy hats, long lances or long straight swords, riding hard through the French lines.

  'Hurry it up, men!' he shouted, 'The Russians have broken through.'

  'That's three wagons ready,' Hitchins yelled. 'One to go!'

  'Leave it,' Jack said. ''We'll settle for three. Get out of here!'

  The Russian cavalrymen were slashing right and left, hacking at the running French, doing what cavalry were intended to do. Jack lifted a musket from the ground, hauled back the hammer and levelled it. If any of the cavalry threatened his men he would fire. Otherwise, he would not draw Russian attention.

  A movement amidst the cavalry caught his eye. Three men had stopped, with the light from a campfire flickering over them. Two were apparently officers, tall men shouting orders. The third wore a darker uniform, but Jack instantly recognised his face. He was broad in the shoulders with a neat blonde moustache.

  'What the devil!' For a second Jack had him in the sights of his musket and pondered pulling the trigger. The last tim
e he had seen that man had been in Dar-il-Sliem in Malta. What the deuce was Stevensen doing as part of a Russian cavalry unit in the Crimea?

  'Sir!' O'Neill shouted.

  Jack glanced over his shoulder. O'Neill was gesticulating to him. 'We're ready, sir!'

  When Jack looked back at the Russians, the group of officers had moved, and he could not see Stevensen.

  'Sir!' O'Neill sounded desperate.

  A bugle sounded shrilly and a formation of French infantry moved forward, fired a volley and advanced against the cavalry. All around Jack's men the horses were panicking; the French fired again, the muzzle flares bright against the dark, the sound of their musketry loud and the clouds of powder smoke drifting in an acrid haze. For an instant Jack saw Stevensen once more, his figure steady amongst the prancing horsemen, his sword raised. Slightly behind him rode the tall man with the eye-patch.

  'The French have the situation well in hand,' Jack said, 'let's go, men!'

  Chapter Five

  Crimea

  September 1854

  'You say that there was a renegade Englishman with the Russians?' Colonel Murphy frowned across his desk. Unlike the men, he had set up a tent for himself, with the Colours in their cases behind him.

  'He is distinctive sir; he is tall and wears an eye-patch. Not the sort of fellow you could lose in a crowd.'

  'You tangled with a renegade Englishman in Burma if I recall, Windrush. It would be a bit of a coincidence if you met another here.'

  'Yes, sir.' Jack hesitated. 'He might not be English sir. He may be a colonial: Australian perhaps.'

  Murphy pushed himself erect. 'I see; thank you Windrush. You brought back three wagons and seventeen horses I hear. I only expected one araba and a pair of horses.' He nodded. 'That was good work.'

  'We were lucky sir. If the Russians had not raided, we would have been caught.'

  'In the Army, Windrush, luck matters as much as bravery or skill. I'd prefer a lucky officer over an unlucky one.' Murphy nodded. 'The Russians were raiding for prisoners. They captured a French officer.'

  'Would that be for information, sir?'

  'I presume so, although there is no knowing the Russian mind. They are as much Oriental as Occidental.' Murphy turned aside to cough. 'I'll pass on your intelligence to General Cathcart. He commands the 4th Division, as you know.' He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. 'Now get your men ready; we are following the army today.'

  'Are we going to Sebastopol, sir?'

  'I hope so, Windrush, I certainly hope so.'

  Jack looked through the open tent flap; discarded packs and equipment littered the path of the advancing Allies, with the occasional dead, sick or exhausted man lying supine. Inland, smoke soiled the brightness of the autumn morning.

  Murphy nodded, 'yes, Windrush. The Russians are burning all the farmhouses and are destroying everything that could be useful to us. They are using the same scorched-earth tactics they employed against Bonaparte.'

  'Yes, sir, but we won't be advancing as deep into Russia as the French did.'

  'Nor do we have as many men,' Murphy said quietly. He looked at the neat line of graves dug by the 113th. 'Pray for a short war, Windrush. I don't think we can stand a long one.'

  Beyond the muddy river, the Heights rose before them, steep and smooth and deceptively lovely. It was twelve o'clock on the 20th September with birdsong sweetening the bright morning air, audible even above the slither and thud of thousands of boots through the grass and sheaves of newly harvested wheat, the clatter and chink of cavalry harness and the martial sounds of military bands. From somewhere ahead came the barking of dogs. When the allied army crested a small ridge that looked down upon the valley of the Alma, they halted to eat while the commanders discussed their next move.

  'Lunch?' Coleman's voice was distinct through the ranks.

  'Of course, don't you know?' Riley affected an even more educated drawl than normal. 'The generals must all eat before sending the men to slaughter the enemy. Port and brandy and chicken for the officers, stale water and bone and gristle for the men, God help us.'

  Jack stood on a small knoll and surveyed the valley. Gentle but heavily wooded slopes descended on both sides of the river, partially masking the recently- deserted villages of Almatomak on the right and Bourliouk in the centre. Jack ran the names around in his head; they sounded flat, ugly: without any character. Like everything else in this God forsaken country. He scanned the slopes on the opposite side of the Alma; there were dark patches of some vegetation about half way up and no sign of a civilian population. The Russian scorched earth tactics were working. For a moment he wondered if a Russian officer was watching him right now, focussing the lens of his telescope on him and planning his imminent death.

  'There must be thousands of them waiting for us!'

  Jack had not noticed Captain Haverdale struggle up the knoll, panting for breath as he eased his protuberant belly before him. 'Can you see them, youngster?' Haverdale passed his telescope over and pointed, 'about halfway up the hill?'

  Rather than vegetation as Jack had believed, the dark patches were Russian infantry, rank upon rank, thousand upon thousand of fighting men in solid phalanxes, with the powerful sunlight now reflecting from a myriad bayonets, buckles and badges.

  'I can see them.' Jack felt his heartbeat quicken; this was nothing like hammering at stockades in Burma or chasing dacoits through the jungle. This was a real war, European style; the meeting of massed armies in open battle. Honest, honourable, bloody: the kind of warfare that he had dreamed of as a boy.

  'Can you see them?' Haverdale's voice was as tired as his face. He coughed, twice, and looked up. 'Now look in front of the infantry.'

  Jack did so. At first, he saw nothing, until Haverdale murmured advice in his ear and he focussed his attention and saw the long snouts of cannon behind stout defensive walls.

  'Jesus!' There were two earthwork redoubts a short distance apart and about halfway down the forward slope of the Heights. As he focussed the lens, he saw the barrels of a dozen cannon in the nearer redoubt, with infantry massed on either side. The slopes in front of each stronghold had been cleared of trees so that any infantry advancing to attack would be utterly exposed. While the Allies had been marching to lively music and dropping with cholera, the Russians had prepared to meet them with blood, iron and massed artillery.

  'I hope Lord Raglan has something planned,' Jack said. 'That's a strong position the Russians have there.'

  Haverdale's grunt was as cynical as anything Jack had ever heard. 'Don't expect anything clever from Raglan; or from any other British general.'

  'The Duke of Wellington was a genius…' Jack began, but Haverdale interrupted.

  'The Duke of Wellington is dead,' Haverdale said 'and we can't live in his shadow forever. Raglan is a fool. There he is, talking to the Froggy general; what was his name?'

  'St Arnaud,' Jack said.

  'If you say so; don't know why they are bothering to talk. Raglan will just go for a frontal attack and trust to the bayonet and the bravery of the soldiers. Damned fool.'

  'He'll need the 113th then,' Jack said. 'When will he call for us?'

  'You know better than that' Haverdale's tone hardened. 'They don't want us there. They don't trust us and who can blame them after Chillianwalla.' He shrugged, 'Anyway, let somebody else take the casualties.'

  Elliot broke in. 'But we need the glory to get the regiment's reputation back…'

  'There's no glory, youngster.' Haverdale took off his cap and wiped sweat from his bald head. 'There's no glory in war: just blood and hardship and sordid death.' He glanced at Jack. 'You were in Burma, Windrush; you know something of the reality.'

  Jack looked at the tens of thousands of allied infantry forming up and the formidable Russian positions on the far side of the River Alma. 'Nothing like this, sir. I was at the attack on Rangoon and the siege of Pegu, but the numbers were penny-packets compared to this.'

  Haverdale grunted. 'Nob
ody outside the Indian Army has seen numbers like this since Waterloo,' he said. 'We're witnessing history; God help us. Three major powers, four if you include the Turks, all battling it out over some tom-fool dispute that nobody cares a damn about except the politicians.'

  'Something's happening!' Jack tried to keep the excitement from his voice as the allied generals gave orders and gallopers set off along the massed armies. Jack watched enviously as the horsemen moved from regiment to regiment and the British Army began to reform into long lines. The Light Division was on the left, the Second Division on the right, with the First and Third Division in support. The Fourth Division, including the 113th, was at the rear. Despite their recent harrowing experiences of cholera, despite the weakness of many of the men and the disorganisation of the landing, despite their disheartening wait before the campaign began, the scarlet-coated men moved and looked like soldiers. They wanted to fight.

  Jack felt a surge of pride. He wished he was there, poised to advance against a brave and stubborn enemy. He had waited all his life for this kind of battle.

  'When do we get our orders?' Jack looked down at the 113th. They sprawled in an untidy heap in the rear of the British lines, some flat on their backs with exhaustion, others grouped, talking and smoking. The Bishop was reading his book, Logan, Riley and Hitchins were playing cards, Coleman staring into space while Ogden slept in a crumpled heap. Even further back, behind the Fourth Division, the wives and women of the army were making a din. Presumably, Charlotte Riley was there with the others, plotting her revenge on Snodgrass, or tending to her day- to- day chores.

  'When do we join the battle?' Jack looked at the officers; Murphy was slumped against the back of an araba, round-shouldered and old. Snodgrass was erect, concealing a silver flask behind his hand as he gave himself Scotch courage. Fleming looked terrified, and the ensigns were just terribly young, schoolboys out of their depth in this place that would soon be a scene of carnage.

  Despite his memories of the battles in Burma, despite the horrors he knew would be unleashed in a few moments, Jack still wanted to be in the attack on the Russian positions. He looked down on the 113th and his own thirty men and wanted to lead them forward, knowing some would die, some would be horribly maimed, but he was a British soldier. He belonged here as he belonged nowhere else. This place, for all its ugly, sordid monstrosity, was home.