Crimea

by Malcolm Archibald

  'We heard, sir,' Riley answered for them all. 'We blame the Zouaves. We got some of their brandy, you see.'

  'Well Riley, it is a matter of regimental honour that we get it back.' Jack guessed that his men knew more than they were saying. 'If you hear anything, you let me know.'

  'Yes, sir,' Logan's response was too quick and correct to be genuine.

  'I will get extra rum for the man or men who get it back,' Jack promised.

  'Thank you, sir,' Riley said. 'I will make sure your message is passed on.'

  'Rum will make a wee change from the whisky and brandy,' Logan said with that greasy grin that Jack had learned meant he was gloating over some secret.

  The sap zig-zagged forward, bolstered by sandbags and gabions until it ended in a sandbagged enclosure. 'Here we are,' Jack whispered. 'You know the drill; listen for enemy movement and watch for Russian patrols.'

  'What if a patrol comes, sir?' Coleman asked.

  'We kill the bastards,' Logan said.

  'Quite,' Jack agreed. 'And we try and not get killed ourselves.'

  That same northwesterly wind cut into them as if they wore no uniforms at all, causing them to crouch under the sandbagged parapets, hug their rags to them and wish for dawn.

  'If this is Russia, then they can keep it,' Coleman said. 'I wish I was back in Burma.'

  'All you did there was complain about the heat and the insects,' Thorpe reminded. 'Here it's the cold and the wind. Make up your mind, man!'

  'I hate them all,' Coleman replied, 'but not as much as I hate you, Thorpey!'

  'Keep the noise down,' Jack whispered. 'We may as well fly a flag that tells the Russians where we are.'

  'They probably know anyway,' Logan said. 'They send out their spies from Sebastopol.'

  Jack grunted: that was truer than Logan realised.

  They lay against the parapet, facing all around; fingers on the cold triggers of their muskets, hoping the dirt and damp would not prevent the weapons from firing, breathing softly as the Russians fired the occasional cannon to keep the British awake. Far above, fast clouds whisked across the remains of the moon.

  'This is your last night on picket duty sir,' O'Neill broke a long silence.

  'It is,' Jack agreed quietly. It had been a long week.

  They both heard the sound at the same time. It was only a soft chunk that would have been unnoticed in any other situation, but both men had been on picket duty in Burma as well as in the Crimea and knew what it meant.

  'That was somebody kicking a stone,' O'Neill nudged Riley and Logan to ensure they were alert.

  'There's somebody out there.' Although Jack whispered, his words sounded like a shout in a small room.

  'Over there,' Coleman lifted his musket. Already cocked, he had only to squeeze the trigger. 'I hear them.'

  As Jack focussed on the patch of blackness Coleman had indicated, he also saw men emerge one by one into his vision. 'Eight, ten, twelve men,' he said. 'Maybe more.' They moved slowly, one behind the other in a long line, spaced out and with their muskets carried in both hands, muzzles parallel to the ground.

  Jack pondered: he had six men including himself. He could give them a volley and hope to kill or injure enough, so the remainder fled, or he could allow them to pass and then report their presence to Major Snodgrass. If he fired and they attacked, he would be outnumbered, perhaps as much as two to one. On the other hand, he was a British officer and his duty was to defeat the enemy. He raised his revolver.

  'Sir!' O'Neill hissed, 'they're ours! They're British soldiers, sir!'

  'What the devil…' Jack started. 'Are you sure, O'Neill?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Stand down!' Jack passed the word in an urgent whisper. He saw the relief on Coleman's face, and the near disappointment as Logan uncocked his musket and relaxed as much as he ever could.

  Jack watched the patrol pass; he now counted fifteen men led by a slender officer with a forage cap on his head. They moved slowly across the front of the British lines and disappeared into the night.

  'I wonder what that was all about,' O'Neill whispered.

  'I wonder why nobody warned us.' Jack did not try and conceal his anger. 'We could have shot our own men.'

  The rain started half an hour later, carried by the northerly wind. It sliced at the faces of the watching men, slid under their tunics and wet them to the skin after only a few moments. 'Wish I was back in Burma,' Coleman glowered at Thorpe. 'At least the rain was warm there.' He looked up suddenly. 'Somebody's out there, sir.'

  'Christ it's like Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday night,' Logan cocked his musket.

  'Are you sure?'

  'I smell them, sir,' Coleman said, 'Garlic or something.'

  'Watch out for that wire loop, lads,' O'Neill warned.

  At that moment the Russian artillery in the Great Redan fired a salvo, with the muzzle flares allowing a glimpse of the ground between the trenches and the city.

  'Jesus!' Coleman blasphemed.

  After an instant of brightness, darkness returned, but there had been sufficient time for Jack to see a group of Russian infantry directly in front of their position.

  'How many?' He asked quickly.

  'At least ten,' the sound of Coleman cocking his musket was very loud.

  'More than that,' O'Neill added.

  'Are we sure they're not ours?' Jack lifted his revolver and pointed it into the dark.

  'Russians,' O'Neill was definite.

  'Can we fire on these buggers then?' Logan evidently resented missing the opportunity to shoot at the earlier British patrol.

  'Yes,' Jack showed the way by loosing off two quick shots.

  Logan yelled some incomprehensible slogan and fired; with the others following suit, so muzzle flares lit the front of the sap in a succession of light and darkness. There was a single long yell from in front.

  'Fire at will boys,' Jack said. 'Thorpe: get you back to Major Snodgrass, give him my compliments and inform him that we are engaging a strong Russian patrol.'

  Thorpe hesitated for only a second before he returned down the sap. Jack waited until his men had all loosed a round before he fired again, trying to fill in the gaps between the men firing and re-loading their ponderous muskets. There were shouts from the darkness and the blaze and blast of Russian musketry and the hoarse voice of an officer giving orders.

  'I can't see a thing!' Coleman complained as he thumbed back the hammer of his musket and fired in the direction of the Russian voice.

  'Neither can they!' Jack said. 'Keep firing!'

  There was a frantic yell, and somebody jumped over the sandbagged lip of the sap to land among them. Jack saw the Russian lift his bayoneted musket to strike, realised that there was little space to wield the clumsy weapon in the sap and then Logan unfastened his bayonet and jumped on the Russian's back. Before Jack could turn, there was a flash of steel, and the Russian collapsed in a welter of spurting blood.

  'That's one for Oggy,' Logan said as he calmly clicked his bayonet into place.

  'They've pulled back,' O'Neill said. 'I wonder how many we got.'

  'Anybody hurt?' Jack asked.

  'No, sir,' O'Neill replied.

  'Reload and keep watch.' It was quiet out there and with the moon now down, too dark to make out anything. A Russian cannon boomed out opposite the French position with the sound echoing and fading.

  'I can slip over and have a look,' O'Neill said quietly.

  'No; they'll expect that. Sit tight.'

  There was a minute's silence that stretched to two minutes, then five, then ten. Half an hour passed without movement from the front, and Jack was beginning to relax when the guns of the Great Redan fired again. No sooner had the volley screeched overhead when there was a loud yell in front, and a dozen muskets fired in unison.

  'Here they come again!' O'Neill roared.

  'C'mon you bastards!' Logan fired at once and rose up as if to leave the sap and charge into the Russians.

  'Get b
ack down you crazy Scottish bastard!' Riley hauled at his tunic, 'there's hundreds of them!'

  Once again Jack fired into the dark, hoping that at least some of his shots found their mark.

  'It's time that Thorpey was back with reinforcements,' O'Neill said. 'He's been gone a good forty minutes now.'

  Fire and fire again, Jack swore when his revolver jammed, banged it against his knee to clear it, heard the cartridge rattle to the ground, thrust in another with a shaking hand and fired a third time. Every muzzle flash revealed a minuscule vignette of the situation, so he had images of grey-coated Russians advancing, of men with wide staring eyes, of gleaming bayonets and open mouths, of men falling as musket balls smashed into them, and of a tall officer at the back giving orders. And then, as abruptly as the images were there, they were gone, plunged into darkness made more intense by the brightness of only a second before.

  Then there were the sounds, the abrupt crack of the muskets, the hoarse, scared yells of charging men, Logan's wild slogans and O'Neill's Gaelic curses, Riley's oaths that would fit better into Eton rather than Russia and Coleman's non-stop swearing.

  And then silence, save for the low moaning of two men somewhere in front of them. Powder smoke drifted briefly, to be shredded by the wind and vanish. Jack fumbled for cartridges in the dark.

  'Anybody hurt?'

  'No, sir, but I'm running low on ammunition.' Coleman said. 'I'm firing them like it was a full-scale battle.'

  'Me too, sir,' Riley said.

  Jack nodded. 'We're due to be relieved at three,' he glanced at his watch. Half past one; where the devil is Thorpe with the reinforcements?

  'Maybe we should pull back to the line, sir,' O'Neill suggested. 'We've done enough here.'

  Jack shook his head. 'No, Sergeant; we stay.' In any other regiment, he would have withdrawn the picket back to the main line, but he knew that the 113th was constantly under observation and always looked on with suspicion. If any of the 113th withdrew so much as a yard, military fingers would be pointing, and military tongues would be crying accusations such as 'cowardice' and 'failure'. He had to hold on for the sake of the regiment. If the reputation of the 113th was redeemed, then he might be able to hold up his head again in decent society.

  'As you wish, sir.' O'Neill said. 'All the same, I'll be happier when Thorpey brings the reinforcements.'

  Jack allowed himself a quiet nod. 'So will I O'Neill. So will I.'

  'There's something not right here, sir,' O'Neill said. 'These Russian lads know exactly where we are and by now they'll how there are only a few of us. Why don't they just toss in a couple of bombs? They could destroy us in seconds that way. Or all of them come at once, even?'

  'Maybe they don't have any,' Coleman said.

  'Maybe they want to see how good we are,' Riley said.

  'Bloody better than they'll ever be,' Logan said. 'Bloody Russian barbarians.'

  A cannon fired from the Malakoff, signalling another desultory cannonade that lasted fifteen minutes. None of the shots came near the sap. The firing ended abruptly in a silence so complete it was painful. A dog barked somewhere in the British lines. White smoke drifted, tingling sensitive nostrils, to be blown away by the chilling wind. A nervous picket in the French lines fired a musket; others followed, then silence again. The darkness closed in, cold, brittle, frightening.

  'Lieutenant Jack Windrush of the 113th Foot!' the shout came from their front. 'Are you Lieutenant Windrush of the 113th Foot!'

  'Who is that?' Jack called out.

  'I am Major Grigory Kutuzov of the Plastun Cossacks. Are you Lieutenant Windrush of the 113th Foot?'

  The name brought a shiver to Jack's spine. 'I am Windrush.'

  'I have your Colonel Maxwell.'

  Jack flinched. Colonel Maxwell? That must be Helen's father. 'What has that to do with me?'

  'Unless you surrender I will execute him,' Kutuzov said.

  'Tell the Russian to…' Logan's suggestion was crude and to the point.

  'They won't shoot him,' O'Neill said. 'The Russian officers are gentlemen. They won't act like brute beasts.'

  'The army officers won't' Jack said, 'I am not sure about the Cossacks. They have their own laws. They were the cutting edge of the Russian advance into Asia, the wild free horsemen of the steppe. The Plastun Cossacks are their infantry; they like night attacks and the knife.' His military reading had not all been in vain.

  'How do they know your name, sir?' O'Neill asked.

  'That is the man we took prisoner a few days ago,' Jack said. 'Colonel Murphy had him released.

  'I see, sir,' O'Neill said.

  'Two minutes,' Kutuzov said. 'And then we hang him like a dog, with a thin wire around his neck. There are five of you there. I want all five men to stand up.'

  There was another voice, lower and hoarse as if in pain. 'For God's sake, Windrush, don't let them execute me! Help me for pity's sake.'

  'Sir,' Logan spoke quietly. 'We could charge them and free the colonel.'

  Jack nodded. 'I had thought of that.' One quick bayonet charge would create mayhem among the Russians, but he had no idea where the Russians were or how many there were. If they succeeded, he would be a hero. If he failed, he would be probably condemning his men to death as well as Colonel Maxwell.

  'One minute remaining, Lieutenant Windrush.'

  'Windrush; for God's own sake!' Colonel Maxwell sounded as if he was in agony.

  'Will you treat my men decently?' Jack shouted.

  'Of course, I will. Your men will be cared for, and you will be placed with our other British officers. And Colonel Maxwell will be treated as my honoured guest- or hanged slowly to choke in his own blood. It all depends on you, Lieutenant.'

  There was no choice. Jack knew he could withdraw and leave a British officer to be hanged, charge forward and perhaps get all his men killed, or surrender and hopefully save everybody's life.

  Jack swore; he gave a mouthful of oaths that impressed even Logan as he made the decision that was inevitable from the beginning. He knew that he could never condemn Helen's father to such a terrible death.

  'We surrender,' he said. 'We're coming out.'

  'I never thought I'd hear you say that sir,' O'Neill sounded disapproving.

  'I never imagined saying it,' Jack felt sick. After all his dreams and hopes, after wishing that the 113th would be sent on campaign, here he was tamely surrendering without a wound or a casualty. 'Come on lads and let's hope these Russians keep their word.' What will Helen think?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sebastopol

  October 1854

  Major Kutuzov was waiting with a smile on his face and Colonel Maxwell at his side. The Colonel, bare-headed and dark-haired, stood erect with his hands tied behind his back and a gag over his mouth. As soon as Windrush led his men forward, a score of Cossack infantry, rough-haired men with dark grey uniforms, took away their muskets and unfastened their cross belts.

  'Hey, you!' Logan refused to let go his musket until Jack snapped at him.

  'Let it go, Logan. We're their prisoners now.'

  Growling, Logan threw his musket hard on the ground and glared at the Cossack who picked it up. 'We'll meet later,' he promised.

  'Our positions are reversed this time, Lieutenant Windrush.' With his uniform not mangled and his face not blackened by powder, Kutuzov looked every inch the debonair Cossack officer or the intense Swedish merchant. Above middle height and broad, he gave a little bow. 'Thank you for being sensible, Lieutenant Windrush. It would not have been an easy decision to make, but I am afraid I left you little choice.' He pointed to Maxwell. 'You will see that I had to bind and gag the unfortunate Colonel to ensure he did not spoil my plan.'

  'You said you would treat my men well,' Jack reminded.

  'We will grant them every courtesy,' Kutuzov said, 'and so will you and the so- determined Colonel Maxwell who was so very gallant as he led his raid against Sebastopol earlier tonight and so unfortunate as to get caught.'
<
br />   That explained Maxwell's capture. 'Untie him,' Jack ordered. 'He is a prisoner of war and a British officer.'

  'But of course, Lieutenant Windrush.' Kutuzov bowed, clicking his heels. 'I shall permit you to do so, and to remove that most inconvenient gag that prevented our brave colonel from ordering you to fight on.'

  'What do you mean?'

  Kutuzov smiled again. 'Colonel Maxwell would never have pleaded for his life. I had to prevent him from causing even more bloodshed.' He looked away for a second and then spoke again in a drawl so affected it could have come from the officer's mess of the Grenadier Guards. 'Oh come now, Lieutenant Windrush, did you believe that a British officer would act in such a manner? I am surprised at you.'

  'That was a low, underhand sort of trick,' Jack untied Maxwell's hands and gently removed the gag.

  'No more so than filling a dummy soldier with gunpowder,' Kutuzov's smile vanished.

  Maxwell wiped a hand across his mouth. 'Would you have hanged me, you scoundrel?'

  'Perhaps,' Kutuzov said. 'If I had to. I learned all manner of blackguard tricks in my schooling days.'

  'Some school you went to,' Jack said.

  'It was,' Kutuzov began to sing:

  'Con ci na mus;

  O so da les;

  Quid si le mus?'

  'What?' Maxwell stared at him, 'I know that song!'

  'So you should; you sang it often enough at Winchester.' Kutuzov bowed again. 'You were a senior when I was a fag. Come on; my men will escort you back to Sebastopol.'

  'You are a cad, sir,' Maxwell said calmly.

  'Perhaps so, colonel,' Kutuzov said, 'but a victorious cad.'

  The house was large, with similar green roof tiles to those Jack had admired in Balaklava and steps up to double wooden doors. Kutuzov had three Cossack infantry escort them into a large room with tall, multi-paned windows and ornate French furniture, all brilliantly lit by a crystal chandelier. Between the windows, gold-framed mirrors reflected the light into a room filled with elegant French furniture.

  'You will forgive me if I keep you two gentlemen apart,' Kutuzov said. 'I do so like it when my guests stay a while, and somehow I suspect that leaving you together might tempt you to try and escape. I assure you that I have guards all around the house and they have orders to shoot on sight. I think of my guests as family and an unnecessary death in the family is always unpleasant, don't you agree?'