Until the Colours Fade

by Tim Jeal

  ‘Why did you come to see me?’

  ‘I didn’t want you to find out I was here and hadn’t told you.’

  ‘That was all?’

  Tom stared at the patchy grass at his feet.

  ‘We can’t go back, Magnus …. I can’t separate you from your family. I wish I could.’

  ‘Can’t separate me from them?’

  ‘Unless I forget her I’m done for. You didn’t understand then; how can you now? It isn’t your fault…. Charles, Helen … your father. You’re part of the pattern. Nothing can alter that.’

  ‘Part of the pattern,’ echoed Magnus quietly, then with bitter anger: ‘Was I part of any pattern when I came to Charlotte Street; when we went to the workhouse? On election day? Strange I never knew it. I thought I was myself.’

  ‘Nothing was your fault. I said that. If Goodchild had lived … if I’d never painted her portrait…. Just chances.’

  Magnus gazed across the plateau towards the Light Division’s white sprinkling of tents.

  ‘I suppose you saw her in Turkey?’

  ‘Yes; once.’

  ‘Will you again?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Charles knows you were in Constantinople. He says he’ll tell father about last summer. Do you want to stop him?’

  ‘Do you think your brother would believe a word I said?’

  ‘The truth can be quite persuasive. I told him you’d see him. I don’t think he believed you’d have the guts.’

  ‘I don’t care what he believes.’

  ‘Nor do I.’ Magnus paused. ‘But then I don’t much care what happens to Helen.’

  Tom bowed his head.

  ‘All right. I’ll see him.’

  Magnus got up and kicked over the box he had been sitting on.

  ‘I’d like to know what happens … to complete the pattern, you understand. I’m sailing with the Azov squadron and’ll be away for a week. Perhaps you could meet me here on New Year’s Day? Easy to remember. Say eight in the morning?’

  ‘All right.’ Tom moved away and then stopped. ‘I’m sorry, Magnus.’

  Magnus walked a little way with Tom towards the col. They paused at the brow of the next hill and saw the forest of masts in the distant inlet, and, beyond the black rocks at the mouth, the brilliantly sparkling sea. Far out, a warship under all plain sail was gliding across the bay, a cluster of signal flags below her ensign at the mizzen-peak. When Tom moved, Magnus remained where he was.

  ‘I’m glad we were friends once.’

  Tom turned as though about to reply but then walked on.

  48

  From H.M.S. Curlew’s poop, Magnus watched the sharp rise and fall of the foreshortened bowsprit as the small corvette’s blunt bows thumped into the short choppy waves combed up by the freshening wind. The jarring thud that accompanied each sudden drop into the narrow troughs made every timber shudder and hurled up clouds of spray which flicked in foaming streaks across the forecastle. The bow wave rolled outwards on each side, its breaking crests whipped off into the air by fierce squalls racing like dark clouds across the grey broken water. Seas, which would scarcely have wetted the middle-deck ports of a three-decker, were seething in the low-lying Curlew’s scuppers and hissing ominously by, a few feet below the main-deck rail. The light was slowly seeping out of the sky, changing the identifiable shapes of the accompanying vessels into dark smudges; their presence only revealed by the plumes of smoke arching astern and the faint gleam of their navigation lights. Darkness came quickly and with it flurries of snow, lashing faces already wet and caked with brine. Behind the spokes of the wheel, the face of the steersman stood out grotesquely, lit by the glow of the binnacle lamp. His eyes stinging and watering. Magnus clambered down the deck-ladder and paused a moment under the break of the poop before going into the commander’s cramped battened-down cabin.

  By the light of a smoky lamp hanging from a beam, Commander Hislop, his Master and First Lieutenant were staring at a damp-looking chart spread out on the central table; Hislop looked up irritably as Magnus came in and then forced a smile. Magnus sympathised with him; to be taking a journalist as passenger was bad enough, but to be responsible for a journalist who was also the admiral’s son was an even worse burden for a man to carry when he had many other thoughts on his mind. But since the little Curlew had no wardroom, and the gunroom was occupied by sleeping marines, the commander’s cabin was the only place where Magnus could reasonably be expected to go. Hislop called him over to the table and explained where the squadron’s first rendezvous was to take place, just before dawn the following day. Latitude 44° 54’ Longitude 36° 28’: a position a few miles south of the straits of Kertch. Now, a few minutes before 1.30 a.m., they were steaming past Sebastopol in the opposite direction WNW, within sight of land, all usual lights displayed, to give the enemy the impression that they were bound for Odessa and not the Sea of Azov. In an hour’s time, just below the horizon, with lights extinguished, they would alter course.

  Until reading his father’s detailed instructions to his commanding officers, Magnus had neither understood the risks of the operation, nor had he known that his father intended to go in with the gunboat flotilla deputed to silence the batteries commanding the straits. Half-an-hour of explosive violence would produce success or virtual annihilation. If the batteries survived the gunboats’ attack, the marines, following in their open boats, would be blown out of the water before getting within five miles of the bridge.

  Sitting on a slatted locker-lid, while the Master checked the chronometers for the last time before giving orders for the alteration in course, Magnus felt a rush of emotion. His father’s note had said nothing about the chance that they might never meet again. His request to him to accompany the squadron had combined reconciliation with a challenge: an insistence that he finally recognise the worth of the service he had often derided in the past. Magnus suspected that if in the end he had to write an account of an important action, which was also Sir James Crawford’s obituary, this possibility would have been foreseen by his father.

  As Curlew’s movement changed to a steep roll on the new course, Magnus reproached himself for past misunderstandings. With relationships, no reversal, however seemingly conclusive, should be taken as final. If true of his dealings with his father, why not of his friendship with Tom? While the wind harped in the ship’s rigging, Magnus resolved that whatever else he might achieve before leaving the Crimea, he would heal the breach with Tom; and this determination, above all others, absorbed him as Curlew steamed on remorselessly through the night towards the rendezvous.

  49

  Although Tom had visited the Naval Brigade’s camp on the day after his conversation with Magnus, he had not found Charles; and, not wishing to prepare him for their meeting, had left no message. On the day Sir James Crawford’s squadron sailed, Tom had returned once more to learn that Charles was down at Balaclava and unlikely to return until evening; but Captain Crawford, he had been assured, would be on duty in the ‘Right Attack’ the following morning. On this second visit to the camp, Tom had called on Commodore Lushington – one of the officers on his list – and had arranged two sittings. He had already managed to get provisional dates out of Generals Pennefather and Estcourt, and felt pleased with this progress. If he satisfied Estcourt and Airey, he would be better placed to approach Lord Raglan’s A.D.C. While not enabling him to forget his coming encounter with Charles, making these plans had done something to reduce Tom’s anxiety.

  On the morning when Tom first visited the batteries, the icily penetrating wind, which had been howling for two days, had dropped considerably and the clouds seemed higher, but the ground was still frozen hard and occasional sharp gusts from the north brought sudden showers of hail. There was no firing anywhere along the line and the men in the Naval Brigade’s batteries sat crouched listlessly behind traverses or huddled together for warmth in the larger of the two bomb-proofs.

  A bluejacket led Tom into a shallow trench behind
the battery and asked him to wait there, while he ducked down between two posts into a low oblong hole cut into the side of the hill and banked up on each side with sandbags. Less than a minute later his guide reappeared and told Tom that Captain Crawford would see him. As Tom entered, an officer was leaving, and Charles did not acknowledge the presence of his new visitor until the old had departed. The shelter was dark and smelt of damp earth, stale sweat and cigar smoke. By the light of two candles Tom made out thick timbers supporting the earth above, and a crude turf ledge along one wall, covered with sacking. Charles did not get up from his camp-stool on the far side of a small table.

  ‘A pity, Mr Strickland,’ he said, pointing to a chair, ‘a pity you should see us so idle – a little activity makes better pictures, I daresay?’

  ‘Magnus told you I would come?’

  ‘He did.’ Tom saw the hatred in Charles’s brisk smile. ‘Briefed you well, has he, Strickland?’

  ‘I’m here under no obligation,’ replied Tom, glancing towards the door to emphasise his point, noting as he did so the effort of control Charles needed to stop himself arguing.

  ‘I’ll not interrupt your piece.’

  When Tom had finished his account of what had happened at Orta-Köy, he read the same hatred in Charles’s face – hatred mixed with contempt for the upstart who had sullied the purity he had once prized in Helen.

  ‘But why stop there?’ snapped Charles. ‘Having willingly seen you once – why not again?’

  ‘She did not see me willingly.’

  ‘You carried her from the Embassy by force?’

  ‘I threatened to call there in person unless she agreed to meet me. She came to avoid scandal, not to cause it.’

  ‘And why pray did that convenient blackmail not compel her again?’

  ‘I wanted to see her once more – something you denied me in England.’

  ‘Forgive my lack of consideration.’ Charles rested his elbows on the table and cupped his chin in his hands. ‘It’s a strange story, Strickland. You come three thousand miles to spare yourself the temptation of seeing a woman – yet when you discover your honourable attempt has proved a sad error, what do you do? Take the first ship home? Sail at once for the war?’ He cast up his eyes at the roof timbers. ‘Quite the reverse. Suddenly all the inconvenience and expense you put yourself to count for nothing and you actually seek out the very person you had taken such extravagant precautions to avoid.’

  ‘Chance can change the strongest resolution.’

  ‘Chance be damned, sir. You knew quite well she was in Turkey and came specially to see her.’

  ‘There’s little point, but I’ll tell you what happened. There’d been a ball at the Embassy. A number of people at my hotel were invited. That’s how I found out she was still there. Do you want to know the date and the name of the man who told me?’

  Charles sighed deeply and stared for some seconds at the ammunition returns on the table. He looked suddenly tired and apathetic. At last he murmured:

  ‘I accept your word. After all you came, and I never thought you would…. To tell the truth I don’t think I care. You don’t matter any more. Everything changes. I’ve other things to concern me.’ He got up and put on his greatcoat. ‘A sad and sordid liaison.’ He looked past Tom at the shafts of light admitted by the sacking curtain at the door. ‘You should have come last week, Mr Strickland. You could have painted men dying. Did you see the “artists’ impressions” of Inkerman? Colonel So-and-So planting the colours on the parapet – that sort of thing … as though they were trees. Too bad most of the line-regiments hadn’t time to get theirs out of their cases. Watch us from Cathcart’s Hill when we attack the Quarries. You should be quite safe there. You won’t see much; not at dawn with the mist and the smoke. But you’ll use your imagination, I daresay.’

  ‘I suppose you could arrange a better view for me?’

  ‘My dear Strickland, a thousand men are going to die. You wouldn’t want to be one of them. You stay on the hill.’

  ‘You’d like me killed, wouldn’t you, Crawford?’

  ‘With so many dying, one more death wouldn’t break my heart. Magnus ever tell you he was with the pickets at Inkerman? Russell and Kinglake went forward at the Alma. You please yourself, Strickland.’

  ‘I don’t care what you think of me.’

  Charles looked up from the beaten earth floor and smiled.

  ‘I’m sure you don’t. I knew from the start you’d never think of putting yourself in danger. That’s why I taunted you; no risk of having you on my conscience. If you see some blue coats with the red, we’ll be the ladder parties – to bridge the ditch. Don’t draw too many ladders though. Perhaps three or four will get as far as the works.’ He lifted the sacking. ‘Goodbye, Strickland.’

  ‘Didn’t you hear me? I said I didn’t care what you think. I wouldn’t risk a button on my coat to gain your good opinion.’ Tom walked towards Charles; his heart was beating fast but his head felt quite clear. ‘That’s why I’ll come. You’ll go because you have to … your duty, your honour, this code and that…. I’ll go for nothing. So who’s the hero, Crawford?’

  Charles stepped away from the door.

  ‘Don’t be a fool.’

  ‘You thought you’d humiliate me … have me crawl away feeling a coward. Either that or you want me killed. If I knew which I’d do the opposite, but I don’t know, and you won’t tell me. So I’m pleasing myself instead.’

  ‘You’re trembling, Strickland.’

  ‘I’m scared. Aren’t you?’

  ‘I’ve learned to live with it. Habit takes the edge off everything. You’ve had your gesture. Now go.’

  ‘If you don’t send me word where to go, I’ll find out somewhere else. I want to see Colonel So-and-So planting his colours and the blue coats among the red.’

  Minutes later Tom was breathing the sharp fresh air in the trench. Like an angry child, he thought, as he started back towards the camps – like a child. But he did not care; it made no difference at all. Afterwards, he said, I shall have nothing to regret. Afterwards I will be free of them all; free of their valour, their two-faced honour, and their miserable pride. Yes, afterwards.

  50

  At five in the morning the twenty-seven ships of Sir James Crawford’s squadron lay at anchor in the Sea of Azov three miles off the town of Genichesk. The Admiral’s final conference was over now, and all the commanders ready to leave the flagship for their own vessels. Having shaken each one by the hand, Sir James returned to the quarter-deck utterly drained by the hour he had just spent inspiring confidence and concealing his personal doubts from his officers. Above him, between the tall swaying masts, bright stars seemed to hang suspended like jewels in the spidery web of topping-lifts and halyards. Already, almost two hours before dawn, a slight glow of light was discernible to the east. Soon the stars would begin to pale. The squadron was to attack at sunrise.

  With his glass Sir James could make out an insignificant looking break in the long line of coastal sandhills. This narrow opening separated the northern shores of the Crimean peninsula from the Russian mainland. Through these straits lay a hundred miles of shallow water and marshes, crossed ten miles inland by the Tchongar Bridge. The size and number of the batteries commanding the straits bore witness to the bridge’s strategic importance. Just north of the sandhills was the town of Genichesk, defended by a garrison estimated at two battalions.

  Immediately after anchoring, Sir James had sent two cutters inshore to sound the approaches to the narrow channel. The news their crews had brought back had been bad. Although there was no boom obstructing the entrance, the water was not deep enough for the steam-frigates to stand in closer than two thousand yards. The squadron’s six shallow-draught gunboats would therefore have to destroy the batteries without significant assistance from the larger ships. If they failed, the marines following in their open boats would never get through to the bridge; before leaving the straits, every single launch and pinnace wo
uld be smashed to matchwood. He had thought of using the gunboats themselves as transports, but the vulnerability of their magazines had ruled this out. With a total marine force of six hundred men, he could not afford to lose many before the landings. In forcing the straits, he expected at least two of the gunboats to be sunk or crippled. Because the whole operation depended on their success against the batteries, Sir James intended before the action started to transfer his flag to H.M.S. Hesperus, the gunboat which would lead in the flotilla.

  Apart from silencing the batteries, one other objective would have to be achieved to avoid disaster: the town’s garrison must be prevented from marching to the defence of the bridge until after the marines were well on their way to it. Loath though Sir James had been to contemplate splitting his small landing force, a diversionary attack on the northern side of the town seemed the only way to pin down the garrison. This attack would therefore begin the action, Sir James’s hope being that it would not only occupy the garrison, but also give the main attack on the straits an element of surprise.

  At the end of the middle watch the admiral went below and sat down at the small table in his cabin. Sampson, his temporary flagship, was a very different vessel to Retribution, having but a single gun-deck and no admiral’s quarters. Sir James was occupying the captain’s cabin which was half-filled by a 32-pounder – an indispensable part of the steam-frigate’s broadside.

  In front of Sir James lay the pages he had written to Helen earlier that afternoon.

  ‘My dearest,

  If you receive this letter I will be dead, and the overland telegraph will already have brought you that news. This is a sad and solemn thought, but that is not my mood as I write. I see myself as an overcautious man who takes an umbrella with him on a sunny day. You see I do not believe I will die tomorrow and this belief robs the possibility of all fear. Death only terrifies those due to die at a fixed time. I have no such inexorable appointment….’