Added to this humiliation, the Lights now discovered how terrifying it was to be an easy target, as the blocks of enemy cavalry parted to allow space for cannon. A puff of white smoke heralded the first round shot, that whizzed and thundered past them, leaping and bounding at murderous speed over the uneven ground. Most failed to hit home, but not twenty yards from Harry a horse was struck from beneath its rider, its belly burst open from stern to stem by the ball, its innards bursting from it like exotic flowers, glossy crimson, purple and black. Still with perfect discipline they withdrew at a measured pace, turning every fifty yards or so in case a charge should be launched, and lifting their rifles to return fire. The Royal Artillery had now come up into the space vacated by the Lights and the first blast of their roundshot appeared to pitch into one of the enemy guns.
The light infantry had now reached the brow of the hill and were also giving fire. The cavalry had no orders and could do nothing. The roundshot on both sides continued to fly and here and there to hit home, inflicting terrible damage. One trooper near Harry lost his leg at the knee, yet turned to ride to the back with the composure of a colour-guard, his face greenish-white with shock.
They rejoined their squadrons. The exchange of fire had lasted fifteen minutes, but had felt like hours – hours in which they sat in formation, proud and unflinching but without purpose, able only to sustain the shocks while the infantry and artillery pounded away manfully. After that quarter of an hour the enemy withdrew to their original position. The order came for them to do likewise. It was hard to know what advantage if any had been gained. A handful of wounded men had been transported, or made their own way, to the rear of the column. Half a dozen mutilated horses lay along the crest of the hill. Passing one of these – the first he had seen fall – Clemmie sidestepped and laid her ears back. Harry could feel her tremble and see the nervous gleam around her eye. The dead horse was a dreadful sight, not only because of the great scale of the injury but the look of its head, frozen in a scream of pain and fear.
After the scorching heat of the day the night brought a damp, autumnal chill which was welcome at first and then began to bite into their dog-tiredness. In the gathering darkness the Russian position was defined by the four-mile line of watchfires to the south and east.
They piled arms and bivouacked by the Bulganak in battle order, in readiness for an attack they were sure would come. When rum and meat rations had been given out the casks were broken up and used to make fires along with weeds, dry grass and nettles and whatever other kindling they could find.
The cavalry – Palliser said it was a mere sop to their professional pride – were set once more as an advance guard in the area between the stream and the melon field. They piled their equipment and picketed the horses facing inward around it. It was rumoured that Lord Cardigan had been almost overcome with rage at the command and had bawled at one unfortunate group of officers, who had only been obeying orders, that they were a bunch of old women not fit to wear the Queen’s uniform. In this respect they themselves had got off lightly, but had nonetheless been moved twice by order of their furious and frustrated brigade commander, only to end up where they had been in the first place, and in rather worse humour.
Harry, Leonard Palliser and Hector Fyefield sat next to their saddles, wrapped in their cloaks, supplementing the meat and biscuit issue with chunks of pulpy melon and some unidentifiable soup knocked up by their resourceful cook.
Harry smacked his lips. ‘Not bad.’
‘Really?’ Hector sniffed his soup doubtfully. ‘Well, I suppose we might as well risk everything, for tomorrow, God and our commanders willing, we shall be allowed to fight.’
‘That is if we’re not attacked tonight.’
‘We should have pursued them!’ exclaimed Leonard, who was personally outraged at the cup of glory having been dashed from his lips. ‘They gave way before our fire and we were obliged to watch.’ He slapped the ground in his indignation and held up his palm to show the mud. ‘God in heaven, we’re more likely to catch a head cold than the enemy at this rate.’
Harry surveyed the line of fires in the middle distance. ‘They have a good high position and unknown numbers. We’re being led on.’
‘All the more reason why we should have given it to them when we had the chance.’ Fyefield lay down with his head on his saddle, adding sarcastically: ‘Be good enough to wake me if anything happens.’
Nothing did. It was a strange night.The mood along the Bulganak was uncertain, held on a knife edge between sombre reflections on the day gone by and apprehension of the one to come. Harry could not sleep. Even had he been able to clear his mind and close his eyes, there was no peace, for all the time the wretched stragglers were coming up from the rear, in carts and on foot, calling out the names and numbers of their regiments like lost sheep, with the RSMs up and down the line bellowing like angry beldames in response.
As he sat there he was astonished to see a small group of soldiers’ wives come to the edge of the field to pick fruit. Two of them crouched down to cut the melons off the vines, and the others held out their skirts as panniers. They should not have been there but they must have walked a considerable distance on top of the day’s march just to reach the field, and Harry did not want to be the one to put a stop to their resourceful foraging. And besides, there was a comfort in seeing the women, the solid practical grace of their movements in the small light of the fires, and to hear the soft sound of their voices, murmuring together. One of them laughed: it was a daring escapade.
To advise them that they were seen he himself rose, carrying his saddle closer to the fire, and they walked quickly away. When he lay down once more it was to thoughts of Rachel, whose time was getting close.
Ben Bartlemas had become her shadow. When he was not at school he was at Bells, and when he was not in the stable he stayed close to his benefactor.When others saw Ben, they knew that Mrs Latimer could not be far away. He didn’t so much fawn upon her as maintain a watchful distance like a young animal that is finding its feet but still feels the invisible link with its parent. The head groom Oliver, a genial, gentle young man, was satisfied with his new charge, though when Rachel had first enquired about him Oliver had broken off from blacking the hooves of the carriage horses, and shaken his head in bafflement.
‘He’s a strange one, madam.’
She accepted the stool he offered her. ‘Don’t let me interrupt your work, Oliver. Strange in what way?’
‘Thank you, ma’am.’ He crouched down again, spat and rubbed at the shining hoof. ‘It’s a hard thing for me to say exactly . . . he’s not like a child, is he?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t much experience with children as yet, but when I first encountered him he was falling from a tree,’ Rachel pointed out.
‘Oh, he’s got plenty of nonsense,’ agreed Oliver,‘but it’s as though he’s lived here all his life. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I’ve worked here man and boy for fifteen years.’
‘You started with Colin, I suppose.’
‘I did, ma’am.’ He shuffled sideways on his haunches to the remaining front hoof. The horse seemed tranced by his attentions, her eyes mild and vacant, head hanging. ‘I weren’t that much older than Ben when I started out, thirteen or so, and Colin Bartlemas not a lot more than me, but a wonder with horses.’
‘And Ben? Does he have the same gift?’
Oliver smiled to himself and shook his head, not so much in denial as bafflement. ‘Couldn’t say, ma’am, that’s the truth. He’s got something about him, and I’ve got no complaints – but he’s a changeling if you get my meaning. One that doesn’t fit with the rest.’
Rachel thought she knew what he meant. Ben was in almost every respect a boy typical of his age and class, but that respect in which he did differ was strange and remarkable. He had a composure and an awareness of other people that transcended the differences between himself and others. Even the stolid Oliver recognised this, but she intuited that it was
a quality most evident to her. He slipped into her consciousness and her everyday life as if he had always been there, and when he was not, she missed him. Still it was hard to define exactly why this should be: she simply felt at ease with him. If she was out of doors, drawing or walking, or in the village, he could be at a distance of twenty yards, engrossed in some boy’s activity involving string, sticks or a penknife, but if she looked his way he seemed to know it immediately and always met her eye steadily, sometimes smiling, sometimes not. He ran errands, but didn’t pester for them. If she was sad and silent he bore her company at a respectful distance, acknowledging her mood without presuming to change it, providing comfort by quietness. If she was cheerful and energetic he’d come closer and run and cartwheel like a clown.
Not everyone understood or appreciated this odd friendship. The one who took it hardest was Cato, her faithful companion through so much, who suspected (wrongly, but with some justification) that he had been usurped and cast aside. Every muscle and hair advertised his gloom. He seemed inconsolable, until Ben in his innately sophisticated way befriended him. This seemed to Rachel to be further evidence of a sensible and sympathetic nature. For a short while, a matter of days, Ben and Cato formed an alliance that seemed not to include her, and only when the dog greeted him with an almost unparalleled ecstasy was the triumvirate gradually returned to its former balance: Cato closest in body, Ben in mind.
‘Thank you for bringing Cato back to me,’ she said.
‘That’s all right. It wasn’t ’cause of you he left, it was ’cause of me.’
‘That’s true, but you won him over.’
‘He’s a good dog. He’s the biggest I ever seen.’ He patted Cato’s broad, massive head. ‘Does he like babies?’
The wording of this question was discreet, but the meaning clear. ‘He’s never known any. But I certainly hope he will.’
‘I’ll look after him,’ said Ben, as it that took care of the matter. It was by no means clear whether he meant the dog or the infant, but Rachel strongly suspected it might be both.
The other person who was less than enthusiastic about Ben’s presence was, not surprisingly, his sister Mercy, who made representations to her in the late afternoon one day when Ben had not been there.
‘Is he being a nuisance to you, mum?’
‘Not at all, Mercy. Quite the opposite. I enjoy his company.’
Mercy looked frankly sceptical. ‘If you say so, mum.’
‘I do.’
‘Mother said to tell you to send him home if he’s naughty or tires you out.’
‘Don’t worry, I shall. Tell your mother Ben’s extremely welcome here. And that Oliver’s pleased with him. But of course if I hear that he hasn’t been attending to his school work then the arrangement will have to end. He knows that.’
‘Yes, mum.’
It was clear from this exchange that Ben’s mother and sisters took a somewhat less rosy view of the boy than she did, which was perfectly natural. Oddly, it was Maria who seemed to understand and accept the nature of the relationship. Coming round one morning to admire the nursery, she asked as they went up the stairs: ‘But, Rachel – where is your little page?’
‘He’s at school.’
‘How dull for him when he adores you so.’
‘It will be much duller for him later if he doesn’t go.’
‘Ah, you’re so sensible.’ Maria sighed. ‘And he is so like Hugo at his age . . . But be careful.’ They paused on the landing. Rain slanted on the long window.
‘What is there to be careful of?’
‘When the baby arrives, everything will change.’
‘I should hope so,’ said Rachel spiritedly
Her mother-in-law’s comment seemed to Rachel to be very like that which Ben had made about Cato. Except that in Maria’s case there was no suggestion that she would protect anyone from anything.
At two a.m. Harry slept briefly. When they were all roused an hour later by the brisk hand of the RSM (orders had gone out that there should be no trumpet reveille or drums) it was still dark, but the quality of the darkness had changed: this was morning on the day of battle.
Along the swathe of land between the small rivers Bulganak and Alma the hundreds of twinkling watchfires gradually faded, like the stars, into the opaque greyness of approaching dawn. The fires had shown them, as nothing else could, both the enormous strength of the Russian force and the commanding nature of its position on the ledges south of the Alma. But as one by one the fires were extinguished, the might of the enemy seemed to become a phantom host, numberless and mysterious, that melted away with the dawn.
Harry ate, washed, checked his weapons and equipment, and waited, conscious of the tens of thousands of other men of both sides doing these same everyday things on a day which was not like any other. Such small, inconsequential rituals were preparation for a great pitched battle as much as for a day spent sitting quietly at home. From the cavalry position the two sides could almost have called to one another or sprang a surprise attack and hacked each other to pieces – and yet they shaved, cooked, tended horses, mended carts, cleaned tack, and talked in low voices of unimportant things. What strange creatures they were, who could be so wonderfully civilised when slaughter was the order of the day.
Betts came up with Deny, because Clemmie needed resting, and the lie of the land was an unforgiving series of ascending inclines which would need a stronger horse. He was as usual cryptic in his assessment of the situation.
‘Pity you was held back yesterday, sir.’
‘We might have achieved something . . . But no doubt Lord Raglan had his reasons.’
‘Looking after you, sir,’ said Betts with his deadpan look.‘Looking after you so you can go charging up them hills today.’
‘We’ll have our orders in due course.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Watching Betts lead Clemmie away with his distinctive bobbing gait, Harry reflected that in another time and place his groom would have made a good royal fool, with his sly, droll candour.
Dawn turned into full day, bright and clear, but still no order came to advance. Outside the post-house which served as ad hoc staff HQ they could make out Raglan conferring with a number of his staff officers, all in their cocked hats, which should have meant business, but the content and conclusion of their deliberations remained a mystery. The delay spread its usual unease, not least because the climbing sun revealed once more the formidable strength of the Russian position. The grim and focused discipline which had prevailed at dawn began to crumble somewhat at the edges. A number of the TGs – travelling gentlemen civilians who were accompanying the army at their own expense and for their own reasons – grew restless and began riding about as if they were on a pleasure outing. The pony of one of them was very excitable, tossing his head, whinnying and calling like a stallion with a mare in sight, and his performance affected some of the less experienced cavalry mounts who in turn started to fuss. Palliser rode over to remonstrate with the gentlemen but his red face and bristling air on his return indicated that it had been an acrimonious exchange.
‘Fools and idiots!’ he expostulated. ‘Worse than the women and with fewer manners.’
For upwards of four hours after sun up they formed ranks, wheeled and re-formed, but for some time it was apparent that the two allied commands had lost touch with each other and so like horses being brought to the line for a steeplechase it took several unwieldy attempts before the whole combined force was assembled in battle order and ready to advance. A large part of the British force was facing east to protect the baggage train and reserve supplies against a possible flank attack, and wheeling such a huge number of men through ninety degrees was a cumbersome and time-consuming exercise. Even the phlegmatic Deny was sweated up and it seemed increasingly likely that the Russian artillery, snugly ensconced in fortifications on the Alma heights, would simply lose patience, and all sense of fair play, and blow them to smithereens as they paraded about on the pl
ateau like toy soldiers. Even Betts’s dry prediction that the the Lights would be made to ‘charge up them hills’ seemed preferable to the edgy purgatory of waiting.
But it appeared that a charge of any sort was not to be. After the humiliatingly aborted advance of the previous day Lord Raglan had clearly decided that the precious cavalry were to go back in their bandbox until further notice, and when the armies finally advanced at ten-thirty, they were placed, along with the 4th Division, in reserve. Though from time to time the Lights had felt some sympathy with Lucan’s awkward position, caught between two fires, there was scarcely a man now who did not secretly or otherwise refer to their divisional commander as Lord Look-on. All the fire and pride and brilliant turn-out in the world could not compensate for being relegated to the rear as the Light Infantry deployed from column into line in great swags of brilliant colour, and went forward to meet the enemy with trumpets sounding and colours snapping.
‘It’s a sight to be proud of,’ said Harry to Hector Fyefield. ‘Such order and discipline, and yet those men are going forward under fire.’
‘At least we can say that we have experienced some of it too,’ said Hector. ‘The discipline under fire, if not the going forward.’
We sat on our horses, Rachel, among fruit trees, and watched. It was the strangest thing imaginable to know that good brave men were going into battle in their hundreds and their tens of hundreds while we looked on. After all the miles we have journeyed and the hardships we have endured it was bitter to be held back once again. The enemy fired the village of Bulganak above our position so that the smoke drifted amongst the trees and between us and the fighting, but we could hear the terrible clamour of artillery, and glimpse the walking wounded as they came back, emerging like phantoms from the smoke, some of them so terribly wounded that only shock and the strange effects of war can have enabled them to walk at all. One man had been struck in the side of his face, and his cheek and almost all his lower jaw were gone. If he lives, I thought, what will his life be like? Is there a wife or sweetheart in England who must accustom herself to the horror he has become? Another we saw without his arm, and another holding his intestines which would otherwise have spilled out on to the ground.
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