Victory at Sebastopol
Page 20
He died seconds later, the grin miraculously returning to his blackened, blood-flecked lips as his great body slumped to the ground.
It seemed half a lifetime afterwards that Phillip found himself, with Ranken and four of his seamen, slithering down into the ditch at the foot of the escarpment. The ramp had gone and the ditch was filled with a mass of bodies, some living but most of them dead. Somehow, still keeping together, they managed to struggle free and drag themselves out on the far side, just as a landslide of earth, smashed gabions, and broken ladders came hurtling down from the slope behind, to fill the ditch with choking clouds of dust and a fresh cascade of bodies.
The cannon fire from the Redan had slackened but the open ground was still under musket fire from the enemy reserves and a battery to the left—the one the French had been driven out of, Phillip remembered dimly—continued to vomit a deadly hail of roundshot and grape as, with a hundred or so others, he set out to cross it once more. There was a deadweight on his back and he was only able to stumble a yard or two at a time, pause for breath and then stumble on in the same direction as all the others, which he could only hope was that in which safety lay.
He lost sight of Ranken and, at times, seemed to be almost alone, until another wave of running men caught up with and passed him but he made no attempt to increase his pace. Musket balls passed overhead like swarms of angry bees and occasionally a shell burst and the ground about him was pockmarked in half a hundred places, but he felt curiously unmoved and quite unafraid and scarcely troubled to step aside to avoid the holes which appeared like magic in his path. It was as if all that he had seen and endured during the attack on the Redan had rendered him immune to such normal human emotions as fear or hatred or pity and even the instinct for self-preservation seemed largely to have deserted him.
He passed wounded men, who cried out feebly for help or water, or a bullet to put an end to their pain, and was deaf to their entreaties, but to a young ensign with a shattered leg, who was limping along supported by a rifle, he gave his arm and, before they gained the British forward trench, the contents of his water-bottle. It was only when the boy sobbed his thanks that he became fully aware of his presence and he did not realize, until someone relieved him of his burden at the trench parapet, that the dead-weight on his back was one of his own seamen, for he had no recollection of having picked the man up.
“He’s dead, I’m afraid, sir.” The soldier who had come to meet him spoke sadly and Phillip stared at him in hollow-eyed bewilderment, unable to understand either his words or the pity in his eyes.
“Who’s dead?” he asked hoarsely, choking on dust.
For answer, the soldier gestured to the limp body at his feet. “Your bluejacket, sir, the one you brought in. Shot through the head, poor sod, clean as a whistle. And I think you’ve been hit in the head too—better let me take you along to the dressing station, sir. It’s not far and they’ve shifted most of the wounded to the rear now, so you won’t have to wait too long.”
Hours later, the wound in his head dressed and conscious of no pain, Phillip set off through the darkness to walk back to the Naval Brigade Camp. He was still in a shocked state and wearier and more despondent than he had ever felt in his life. As he plodded slowly along the well-worn track, he was startled to hear the sound of a massive explosion coming from the south side of the harbour. It was followed by another and suddenly the night sky was illuminated by a succession of vivid flashes. Tongues of flame were rising from the beleaguered city and, his weariness forgotten, he ran on and upwards until he could look down on it and was able to see that the whole of the suburb of Karabelnaya was ablaze.
Explosions were coming from the anchored ships now and he watched in stunned amazement as, one after another, the powerful first and second rates—once the pride of the Russian Black Sea Fleet—started to burn. He saw the Twelve Apostles catch alight, then the 84-gun Sviatolaf and the splendid Grand Duke Constantine of 120, and finally the gallant little Vladimir steamer, which had fought many actions against British frigates during the siege. Their magazines blew up; shattered masts and spars flew into the air to vanish in the dense black pall of smoke which was beginning slowly to cover the stricken town, as the fires grew in strength and reached out to consume everything which lay in their path. Houses, the dockyard buildings, domed churches, the great bastions and forts which had resisted a year’s bombardment—all were going, in a terrible holocaust of destruction created by those who had so stubbornly defended them.
Phillip drew in his breath sharply, scarcely able to believe his ears when he heard an explosion from the Redan itself. Was he dreaming, he wondered dazedly, could this be part of his earlier nightmare? The assault on the Redan—which had cost so many lives and which he had judged an ignominious failure—must, after all, have succeeded … surely that wasn’t possible? He must be dreaming—had he not been among those who had fled from the carnage of its interior, driven back in defeat by the seemingly endless columns of grey-uniformed Russian reserves? Why, in the name of heaven, were the victors abandoning the scene of their victory?
Still uncertain whether he was awake or living a nightmare, he returned to the track. Dawn was breaking when he reached the Naval Brigade Camp and the sound of cheering, coming from the mess tent, sent him towards it at a run, his heart suddenly quickening its beat.
Captain Keppel was there, surrounded by most of his Officers, some of them wearing uniform greatcoats over their night-clothes and obviously just roused from sleep. Their faces held relief and incredulity and a strange sort of wonder as if, like himself, Phillip thought, they could not quite believe what they had seen and heard.
“Sir Colin Campbell has sent an Officer, gentlemen,” the Naval Brigade Commander was saying, “to tell me that his men are in Sebastopol and that they met with no resistance. The enemy have abandoned the city and are in full retreat to the north. They crossed by the bridge of boats, after destroying their magazines and setting fire to the principal buildings, and the ships in harbour have all been burnt or scuttled. Sebastopol—or what is left of it—is ours.”
“And the Redan, sir?” Captain Moorsom enquired. “I heard a rumour that the enemy have abandoned that also.”
“It’s more than a rumour, sir,” one of the others put in eagerly. “A patrol of the Rifle Brigade entered the Redan an hour ago, and it was deserted, save for our dead.”
Henry Keppel saw Phillip and, as another cheer greeted the announcement that the Redan had been abandoned, he strode over with hand extended. “Well done, my dear boy!” he exclaimed. “I’ve heard glowing accounts of how well you and your ladder party acquitted yourselves … but with such losses that I am thankful to see you alive.” His smile was warm as he wrung Phillip’s hand. “Let me be the first to congratulate you!”
“Congratulate me, sir?” Phillip echoed, seeing Oxtoby’s dead face, still wearing its defiant grin. “On being alive, do you mean, sir? Because I …” he choked and could not go on.
“That, too, of course. But not only that.” Keppel’s smile widened. “The Admiral has asked me to tell you that you will probably receive one of the new awards for valour, recently instituted by Her Majesty—the Victoria Cross, it’s to be called. The recommendation made by his son Jack, which Sir Edmund passed on to Their Lordships, has been approved. In view of which the sentence passed on you at your Court Martial has been reconsidered and commuted to a simple reprimand, so you will return to the command of your ship. Needless to say, I am delighted for you, my dear boy.”
Phillip could not speak. Indeed, he could hardly take in what had been said to him, save for the one thing he had wanted, above all else, to hear—he was to return to his command, to the Huntress.
“I …” he found his voice at last. “Thank you, sir. Thank you very much indeed.”
“Nothing to thank me for, dear boy,” his Commander assured him. “If poor Jack Lyons hadn’t put you up for that award, I should have done so, after today’s affair—but you go
t it without any help from me. They’ll give your brother a new command, I imagine, so there’s nothing to stand in your way now, is there? You’ll soon live down the reprimand.” He took his watch from his pocket and then glanced round the tent. “I shall be going on a tour of inspection of Sebastopol in two hours’ time, with Sir Colin. Get yourself a shave and something to eat and join me, eh? And after that, you can go back to your Huntress. We’ll all be going back to our ships in a few days, I understand, and I can’t say I’ll be sorry.” His blue, seaman’s eyes looked into Phillip’s and he added softly, “Thank God this war is all but over!”
“Amen to that, sir,” Phillip said, meaning it with all his heart. “Amen to that!”
His brain was slowly losing its numbness. He would call on Catriona, he thought, if her employers’ yacht was still at Balaclava and apologize for his churlish discourtesy. And then he would go back to his Huntress to prepare for the long voyage home …
BOOKS CONSULTED ON THE CRIMEAN WAR
GENERAL
History of the War Against Russia, E. H. Nolan (2 vols., 1857)
History of the War With Russia, H. Tyrell (3 vols., 1857)
The Campaign in the Crimea, G. Brackenbury, illustrated W. Simpson (1856)
The War in the Crimea, General Sir Edward Hamley (1891)
Letters from India and the Crimea, Surgeon-General J.A. Bostock (1896)
Letters from Headquarters, by a Staff Officer (1856)
The Crimea in 1854 and 1894, Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood (1895)
The Destruction of Lord Raglan, Christopher Hibbert (1961)
Battles of the Crimean War, W. Baring Pemberton (1962)
The Reason Why, Cecil Woodham Smith (1953)
Crimean Blunder, Peter Gibbs (1960)
The Campaign in the Crimea, 1854–6: Despatches and Papers, compiled and arranged by Captain Sayer (1857)
Letters from Camp During the Siege of Sebastopol, Lt.-Colonel C.G. Campbell (1894)
The Invasion of the Crimea, A.W. Kingslake (1863)
With the Guards We Shall Go, Mabel, Countess of Airlie (1933)
Britain’s Roll of Glory, D. H. Parry (1895)
Henry Clifford, V.C., General Sir Bernard Paget (1956)
BIOGRAPHIES
The Life of Colin Campbell, Lord Clyde, Lt.-General L. Shadwell, C.B. (2 vols., 1881)
A Life of Vice-Admiral Lord Lyons, Captain S. Eardley-Wilmot, R.N. (1898)
NAVAL
The Russian War, 1854 (Baltic and Black Sea), D. Bonner-Smith and Captain A.C. Dewar, R.N. (1944)
Letters from the Black Sea, Admiral Sir Leopold Heath (1897)
A Sailor’s Life Under Four Sovereigns, Admiral of the Fleet the Hon. Sir Henry Keppel, G.C.B., O.M. (3 vols., 1899)
From Midshipman to Field-Marshal, Sir Evelyn Wood, V.C. (2 vols., 1906)
Letters from the Fleet in the Fifties, Mrs Tom Kelly (1902)
The British Fleet in the Black Sea, Maj.-General W. Brereton (1856)
Reminiscences of a Naval Officer, Sir G. Gifford (1892)
The Navy as I Have Known It, Vice-Admiral W. Freemantle (1899)
A Middy’s Recollections, The Hon. Victor Montagu (1898)
Medicine and the Navy, Lloyd and Coulter (vol. IV, 1963)
The Price of Admiralty, Stanley Barret, Hale (1968)
The Wooden Fighting Ship, E.H.H. Archibald, Blandford (1968)
Seamanship Manual, Captain Sir George S. Naes, K.C.B., R.N., Griffin (1886)
The Navy of Britain, England’s Sea Officers, and A Social History of the Navy, Michael Lewis, Allen & Unwin (1939–60)
The Navy in Transition, Michael Lewis, Hodder & Stoughton (1965)
Files of The Illustrated London News and Mariner’s Mirror
Unpublished Letters and Diaries
The author acknowledges, with gratitude, the assistance given by the Staff of the York City Library in obtaining books, also that given by the Royal United Service Institution and Francis Edwards Ltd.
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