The Valley of Death

by Garry Douglas Kilworth

  ‘If it is Devlin’s blood, we must assume he has been wounded. But with what? Wynter did not mention a shot. You heard no rifle fire, Wynter?’

  The soldier shook his head emphatically.

  ‘Only a sort of cry, like I said, Sergeant.’

  ‘Then he must have been stabbed or struck over the head with something. We must assume he is still alive for the moment. It may be a trap. You three stay here,’ he told Peterson, Wynter and Clancy. ‘Ali and I will go into the orchard further and see what we can discover. If you hear shooting, come to our assistance. If we do not return, then make your way back to Balaclava and report to Major Lovelace.’

  ‘Don’t we come in after you?’ asked Peterson.

  ‘If the orchard has swallowed up Devlin and then us, you can be sure it will swallow you too, should you be foolish enough to tread in our footprints. You’re in charge, Lance Corporal Peterson.’

  ‘Aw, what?’ cried Wynter, predictably. ‘I’m a lance corporal too! Peterson’s nothin’ more than – than a sprat.’

  ‘He’s proved himself more reliable than you in the past, Wynter, despite your success in Sebastopol.’

  ‘Didn’t I do well this time? Comin’ back for you?’

  ‘Yes, but there’s more to that than meets the eye, Wynter, and well you know it. I’ll find out what it is when we get Devlin back. You can give me those sly looks as much as you like, I’ll get to the bottom of it.’

  Wynter said nothing to this, which confirmed Crossman’s opinions that the soldier had been up to something.

  Crossman and Ali entered the orchard and made their way silently through the trees. There was a heavy dew on the grass, which helped to soften their footfalls, but in fact there was no one in the orchard. The pungent scent of rotting fruit wafted up from the short grasses.

  On the other side of the orchard a tinge of hoarfrost decorated the sides of a goat track, which wound its way lower in the shade of a rugged cliff. After a while they could hear the clanking of copper bells coming from the east.

  They followed this sound.

  A short way east of the orchard, where no doubt the goats had been eating the windfall apples and plums, was a hidden gully which dropped sharply down to a running stream. At the bottom of the gully stood a goatherd’s stone croft. It was built partly into one side of the gully itself, so that its back wall was formed of natural rock. Smoke was coming from a hole in the surfed roof winding slowly up to the heavens.

  There were goats in makeshift pens out in the yard, shuffling and bleating softly, their bells making a muffled donging sound in the heavy air.

  Ali put a finger to his lips and indicated that the pair of them should squat down and wait. Crossman was impatient to find Devlin, but he did as the Turk suggested. They had not been there more than half an hour when a wooden door fell open with a thud against the stone wall.

  A man stepped through the doorway. Going by the smell which drifted up to the two soldiers, he was dressed in multiple layers of half-cured goatskins. There were knee-length home-made boots on his feet. On his head was something which resembled a dead cat, but was no doubt intended to be a hat. A weapon like a bent and battered musical instrument was hanging by a frayed cord on his back. Its stock was so worn it was merely a rounded stub of wood about three inches long.

  The strange figure went down to the bank with a hide bucket, which he filled from the rushy beck. While he was there he drank deeply of the clear running water. He smacked his lips as he did so and stared towards the croft. Crossman was in no doubt he was tormenting someone who was thirsty. There was a very smug-turned-ugly look on the man’s dirty face, as if he were enjoying a morning’s illicit entertainment.

  ‘For mercy’s sakes,’ came a croaking voice from the croft, ‘give me a drink, will you, man? I’m as parched as a bloody desert snake.’

  ‘Devlin,’ whispered Crossman.

  He had misjudged the goatherd’s hearing though, for the man looked up sharply towards the escarpment. At the same time he dropped his bucket, which collapsed on impact, shedding its load of water. With one easy movement he unslung a blunderbuss and fired a blast in the general direction of the cliff.

  Crossman and Ali dropped quickly to the ground.

  Pieces of metal showered a scraggy tree clinging to a crevice in the rock above the two men.

  Seconds later when Crossman jumped up, bent rusty nails, shards of pottery and other bits dropped from his sheepskin coat. He rushed down the steep track with Ali close on his heels, oblivious of the fact that there might be more armed men in the croft. The goatherd himself ran full pelt for the door which was hanging on its leather hinges, and slammed it shut.

  Overtaking Crossman, Ali reached the door first. He kicked it down in one motion without pausing in his stride. Crossman was right behind him. In the dimly lit room beyond, the goatherd was desperately trying to reload his weapon, pouring gunpowder down the bugle-shaped barrel from a cracked old powder horn. He looked up as Ali bore down on him, then tried urgently to use the weapon as a club.

  Ali knocked it from his grasp and pressed the muzzle of his Ferguson breech-loader against the man’s temple. The goatherd dropped to his knees with a frantic cry and assumed the genuflective position of a man at prayer. His wild eyes showed their whites as he stared up at Ali, expecting to have his head blown off.

  ‘Thank God you’ve come,’ whispered Devlin hoarsely. ‘Can I have some water, please?’

  Crossman looked to where the sound was coming from and saw his corporal trussed like a chicken ready for market, lying in the corner of the dirt-flooded room. He took out his German hunting knife and cut Devlin’s cords. The Irishman sat up and rubbed his wrists, but then pointed to his foot.

  ‘I’m not able to walk, Sergeant. This heathen bastard caught me with a mantrap in yon orchard.’

  Crossman gave Devlin some water from his bottle.

  ‘A mantrap?’

  Devlin pointed to some rusty devices in the far corner of the room. As Crossman’s eyes became used to the gloom he saw that they were gin traps, with chains and securing spikes. They appeared too small for mantraps though. He guessed the goatherd laid them for predators which might attack his goats.

  ‘Let’s see that foot out in the light,’ Crossman said. ‘Ali, take that man outside.’

  ‘Shall I shoot him, Sergeant?’ asked the Bashi-Bazouk, matter-of-factly.

  ‘No, don’t do that. I want to speak to him in a minute. I suspect he was only trying to protect his property, although he was having a fine time with my corporal here. Just get him out of my way while I attend to Devlin’s wound, please.’

  The goatherd was gibbering now and shaking in fear. Ali nudged him with the toe of his boot. The man understood that he was to go outside and indeed he believed he was going to be shot. His gibbering turned to whimpering, which Ali steadfastly ignored, lighting up an evil-looking cheroot and blowing out the smoke in a bored fashion.

  Crossman helped Devlin to hobble outside, where the sergeant saw that the Irishman’s foot was crushed at the ankle, his boot pierced on both sides by the iron teeth of the gin.

  ‘Is it broken, do you think?’ asked Devlin. ‘I’m not sure myself.’

  Crossman eased off the corporal’s boot and they inspected an ugly wound, which was already beginning to fester. It did not seem as if the ankle had snapped, but there might be chips of bone loose amongst the mangled flesh. Devlin would need treatment for the injury fairly quickly.

  ‘I’ll wash and dress it for now,’ said Crossman. ‘Then we’ll see if we can get you back to the lines.’

  The goatherd, now sitting on a rock not far away, was gabbling animatedly to Yusuf Ali, who still looked rather bored as he puffed on what Wynter called one of his pieces of ‘tarred hemp’. He nodded occasionally.

  Crossman fetched the discarded bucket and filled it with cold, clear water from the beck. He carried it back and swabbed Devlin’s ankle with it, until the dried blood and pus were gone. The
n he took out a clean kerchief and, making a pad of a piece of shirt torn from Devlin’s tails, effected a bandage and moss poultice.

  ‘There, that’ll draw the wound. Can you walk, do you think? Try it?’

  Devlin climbed unsteadily to his feet and tried to put weight on the ankle. He winced and shook his head. Crossman then went to the goat corral and found a piece of fencing with a fork at the top. He cut it to size with his knife and handed it to Devlin to use as a crutch.

  ‘That’ll be fine, Sergeant – but I’ll be very slow.’

  ‘We’ll worry about that later. Hey,’ he called the Bashi-Bazouk, ‘what’s Mr Raw-and-reeking chattering on about there, Ali? Sounds as if he’s telling you his life story.’

  ‘He tries to buy his life with information, Sergeant,’ smiled Ali. ‘He is telling me that there is another road further down, an old one, where we can rob Russians on their way to Sebastopol. He thinks we are brigands from the steppes. Says they use this old road for valuable cargo, only using the top road for not so important freight. He heard we stole the pickled cabbage. Tells me we will get far better pickings on the old road.’

  ‘How does he know this?’

  ‘Some brigands came down from the north and robbed a Russian caravan of gold. There was a battle but Russian soldiers caught and hanged the thieves. Only one got away. He told his story to the goatherd, saying the road was much used by the Russian military for carrying ammunition and precious payloads. This is interesting, eh, Sergeant?’

  This was a most fortunate and unexpected discovery.

  ‘Very interesting, Ali. Keep him talking.’ He turned to Corporal Devlin. ‘What happened to your carbine?’

  ‘It’s in the orchard. I threw it into the long grass when I got caught in the trap. I didn’t want whoever set the trap to take it from me.’

  ‘All right, we’ll send someone back for it.’

  There was a commotion from above now and Wynter appeared, followed by Peterson and Clancy. They had obviously heard the shot from the blunderbuss and had followed orders. Wynter seemed very agitated as he raced down the goat track.

  ‘It was Corporal Devlin made me do it, Sergeant,’ he cried. ‘I told him you wouldn’t like it, but he surely didn’t listen to me, so I had to go along with it.’

  ‘Made you do what, Wynter? Devlin, what’s he talking about? What have you done, the pair of you? Speak up, man!’

  It emerged that the goatherd had taken Devlin prisoner, not for devious reasons of his own, but because the Irish corporal and his lance corporal sidekick had eaten the man’s pet duck. Wynter explained in halting tones that they had set snares for rabbits in the orchard. After two hours, however, they heard a commotion and went to find they had snared a duck.

  ‘I put it out of its misery quick and easy,’ explained Wynter. ‘We was congratulating ourselves on our luck, as anyone would. How was we to know it was a tame duck? We thought it had got separated from the rest of its tribe and had wandered into the orchard.’

  ‘So, you cooked and ate it?’ Crossman said.

  ‘That we did,’ said Wynter, with a hard look at the goatherd, ‘and delicious it was too.’

  The goatherd seemed to understand what was being said, from the way Wynter smacked his lips. He flew at Wynter with remarkable alacrity, screaming in his Tartar tongue. Clancy ran forward and with Crossman managed to keep the two men apart. When the goatherd had been calmed and was left muttering to himself, casting dark glances at Wynter, and appealing to some deity in the heavens to witness his persecution, Crossman went back to Wynter.

  ‘How did you cook the bird? I expressly ordered you were not to light fires.’

  ‘We didn’t,’ said Devlin. ‘We used the old gypsy way.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘We stuck it in the heart of a haystack – you know it gets as hot as an oven in there when the hay’s damp.’

  Clancy nodded excitedly. ‘Yes, that’s right – we used to do it that way in India too.’

  ‘Cooks a bird nice and tender, you just leave it there a few hours,’ nodded Wynter.

  Crossman was satisfied he had heard the truth now, but he felt the goatherd was owed reparations. He ordered Devlin and Wynter to pay the man a shilling. Wynter started to put up a fierce argument but when he looked at Crossman’s face, he shut up. Devlin said he would pay the man the shilling and Wynter could give him sixpence later. The deed was done but the goatherd seemed far from mollified.

  He looked at the shilling in his hand in disgust and gabbled like mad at the circle of men around him, then flung the coin from him into some bushes.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ cried Wynter, diving after the coin. ‘See what you get for being kind to the old coot.’

  Crossman guessed that the man did not know what a shilling was worth. The sergeant shrugged his shoulders. Having done his best, he could do no more. The filthy old goatherd would have to sing to the moon for his lost duck. However, Clancy came forward and took some salt-pork out of his knapsack. He gave it to the goatherd, whose face brightened. He smiled up at Clancy and said something in a softer tone.

  Ali said, ‘He accepts your gift with thanks.’

  Clancy nodded at Wynter, who had retrieved the shilling and given it back to Devlin.

  ‘You owe me,’ Clancy said.

  ‘Right,’ said Crossman, ‘let’s forget it now. Keep that man under surveillance at all times, Lance Corporal Wynter. He’s your responsibility. But I don’t want to see him mistreated in any way – just prevented from running away.’

  ‘What if he runs and I can’t stop him?’

  ‘Shoot him dead,’ said Crossman, aware that kindness could be taken too far. He was after all responsible for the safety of the whole group. If it meant endangering his fox hunt or his men, he had no hesitation in ordering the execution of the grubby individual. ‘Just make sure you can justify it to me afterwards.’

  Crossman made sure Clancy took first watch on sentry duty, then asked Peterson to see him alone in the croft.

  ‘What is it, Sergeant?’ asked Peterson.

  ‘I just wanted to congratulate you on your success with Goodlake’s sharpshooters.’

  Peterson’s brow was ridged with a frown. She stared at Crossman as the sergeant took his chibouque out of his pack and began to stuff the bowl with tobacco. She too then took out a clay pipe, stained brown with nicotine juice and tar. Crossman offered her a quid of his tobacco.

  ‘Here,’ he said, ‘take a plug. ‘I’ve got plenty.’

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ she said, filling her own pipe and accepting a light from him.

  She sat down opposite Crossman on the dirt floor. Outside the goats were bleating, their bells donging dully. The pair of them puffed away together, making quite a comfortable fug in the croft. They could have been a pair of goatherds themselves, in their sheepskins and leggings. Both were aware that the time for relaxation might be all too brief.

  25

  The Turk came to Crossman in the early hours of the morning.

  ‘A wagon comes, with lancers,’ said Ali, shaking him gently. ‘I speak with the goatherd.’

  Instantly Crossman was wide awake.

  ‘The goatherd told the truth?’

  Yusuf Ali nodded. ‘I give him money,’ said Ali.

  Crossman got up and woke the rest of the peloton. Clancy was on sentry duty, but he too was called in.

  ‘We’ve got another convoy,’ said Crossman to his attentive soldiers. ‘Let’s hope this one is more lucrative than the last. We must separate the lancers from the wagon somehow. Any suggestions?’

  ‘Kill the officers, the rest will run away,’ said Wynter, sneeringly.

  ‘These Russians have more backbone than you give them credit for, Wynter,’ Crossman said. ‘I don’t think one should ever lay down plans for an assault, the success of which assumes and indeed relies upon cowardice amongst the enemy.’

  Clancy said, ‘Where are the lancers, Sergeant? I mean, in front of the wagon, or f
ollowing behind?’

  ‘Ali?’ asked Crossman, deferring to the Bashi-Bazouk.

  ‘Most of them behind, some in front – maybe . . .’ he showed them ten fingers. ‘Altogether, one squadron. Maybe five miles down track now.’

  ‘A hundred of ’em?’ Peterson gasped.

  Clancy said, ‘Wait. When I was out patrolling with Wynter, we saw a gorge back there, two miles away. You remember, Wynter? It’s quite narrow. If we could cause a rock slide while the main part of the squadron’s going through, we’d split them away from the wagon.’

  ‘That’s the kind of thinking I like in a man,’ said Crossman, excitedly. ‘Well done, Private Clancy.’

  Wynter sneered and Peterson sniffed.

  They worked out the details of the plan.

  Ali and Wynter would lay charges on either side of the gorge, using gunpowder which Ali carried for the purpose. It should not take a great amount to shift the initial boulders in order to begin the landslide. Once the lancers were cut off from the wagon, the two soldiers would attempt to keep them pinned down with rifle fire from either side of the gorge. They would have the advantage, firing down on their opponents, who hopefully would be fighting a panic in their horses and unable to organize quickly enough to climb.

  In the meantime, Crossman, Clancy and Peterson would cut down those around the wagon and attempt to wrest it from the remaining lancers. The surprise element, as always, would be most important. Even if they did not get the wagon, the supply line would have been seriously hit. Crossman and his men were there to disrupt communications more than anything.

  ‘What about me?’ asked Devlin, pointing to his foot.

  ‘You’ll have to stay here, Corporal.’

  ‘With that devil?’ He nodded at the scowling goatherd, who had been allowed to tend to his stock under guard, but was still restrained at all other times. ‘He’ll slit my throat, first chance he gets.’

  ‘Well tie him, don’t worry,’ Crossman replied.

  They left Devlin with his rifle, recovered from the orchard grasses, and the goatherd bound to a stake nearby. The Irishman said he would watch him like a hawk. The rest of the group then set off to arrange the ambush.