The Winter Soldiers

by Garry Douglas Kilworth

  At the bottom of the staircase they flung themselves out into the night. A few seconds later the charge went off. A mighty clanging followed the explosion as one of the great bells came hurtling down the staircase in the wake of the two men and shot out of the same doorway, to bounce and clatter over the rocks. Debris from shuttered windows came in like hail. When the pitter-patter of falling chunks of wood and splinters had ceased there came shouts from the cadets’ school. Shots were fired, but it was probably panic firing, at no real target, for none came near the peloton.

  ‘Follow me back,’ ordered Crossman. ‘Nobody gets in front of me. Quickly now.’

  They had hoped to be past the picquets by the time the explosion took place. Now the Russian sentries would be on the alert, watching fearfully in every direction, but certain that something grave had happened to their clock tower. Crossman whispered to Ali and the pair of them set out together with the others close behind. Near to the picquet hole they fell onto their bellies. Crossman went out on the right flank and Ali on the left. They now had to kill the two men they had heard talking, just a short while before. It was an unpleasant but necessary task.

  Crossman came in from his direction, knowing that Ali would be doing the same. On reaching the fortified hole he drew his hunting knife and threw himself over the soil parapet. Scrabbling around in the darkness he found himself grappling with a strong figure. At first he thought he and Ali had grabbed each other, but the smell of the other man told him he was wrong. He had not the same odour as the Turk: not worse or better, just different.

  Hoping that Ali had his man too, Crossman began a life-and-death struggle with his opponent. Earlier clouds had passed over and the stars were now visible above. A weapon in the other man’s hand flashed in the light thrown down by these stars. Both combatants had gripped each other’s right wrist, almost by instinct, so it was a matter of who managed to free his weapon hand first. Crossman tried to roll his man over, so that he could bear down with his weight on his knife and thus force the blade into the Russian’s chest. Before he could do this, the Russian spoke.

  ‘Damn ye, ye bloody bastard. I’ll tear yer heid off and piss down yer neck, so ah will!’

  Crossman gasped. ‘Jock? Is that you?’

  ‘Whut?’ He felt his opponent relax a little. ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Jack. Jack Crossman.’ Feelings of alarm went through Crossman. ‘Ali – don’t kill anyone,’ he called. ‘They’re friends.’

  A dark lantern was thrust into Crossman’s face, which had been blacked just like that of his adversary.

  ‘Is that really you, ye bloody idiot?’ cried a shocked and apologetic Jock McIntyre. ‘Whut are ye doin’, attacking a man without warning? I nearly had ye there.’

  ‘Nearly had me,’ scoffed Jack. ‘I was a second away from putting you in your tomb.’

  ‘Like hell ye were. My sgian dubh was all but sticking in yer ribs, Jack Crossman.’

  Jack was released and stood up, at the same time he stepped on something soft. An arm. Jock and whoever was with him had obviously already killed the sentries. The next moment more bodies came tumbling into the hole, followed by shouts and shots from the churchyard. The Russians had isolated their problem now. They knew a raiding party had been and was on its way back to the British lines. They would be firing at everything and anything: sights, sounds, even smells.

  ‘Couldn’t wait for you, sergeant,’ said Yorwarth. ‘The buggers are swarming about out there.’

  ‘Whut? More of them? Is it the whole bloody battalion you’ve brought with ye?’

  ‘Only five of us,’ explained Crossman. ‘How many of you, sarn-major?’

  ‘Three,’ said Jock in a very satisfied tone. ‘It only takes three kilties to do the work of five Sassenachs.’ Jock was the sergeant-major of the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders, they who had stood in the thin red line tipped with steel and repelled the Russian cavalry at Balaclava. He was an old friend of Crossman’s. The pair had shared many a whisky together in the canteen and respected one another. Neither had much admiration for Wellington’s ‘Secretary to the Master General of Ordnance’, their commander-in-chief, Marshal Raglan. There was still rivalry between them, however, when it came to operations in the field.

  ‘What are the Highland Brigade doing out here?’ asked Crossman. ‘You should be guarding Balaclava.’

  ‘Spiking guns, when we’re permitted to do it, and not stopped on the way by the 88th,’ explained Jock, with some chagrin. ‘It’s a raiding party, ye ken. We got bored, back there.’ The Highland Brigade was still situated just north of Kadikoi and just occasionally some of them got into high spirits after a few drams of malt liquor and felt they just had to break out. Raiding parties were just the thing to get the heart racing again.

  ‘Is this an official raid?’ asked Crossman. ‘Or a whisky raid.’

  ‘Och, a bit o’ both. Never mind that now. Whut are we goin’ to do? We could make a run for it, but then we’ll maybe be shot by our own lads. We can’t stay here till dawn and that’s a fact. If we get caught in the daylight we’ll not be able to cross to the Heights without getting picked off by sharpshooters.’

  At that moment there was firing coming from another part of the Heights. It sounded as if the French were making a sortie. The British section of the siege line was quite short now, since they were down from 34,000 to 11,000 men, with 23,000 lying sick and wounded. Thus it happened that the French sortie was close by. Shots were whistling around the picquet hole, now that the Russians had guessed their men out on sentry-go were either dead or captured. A grenade exploded with a bright white fizz of light, just in front of the hole. It was time to take their chances and vacate the area.

  ‘We’re off,’ said Crossman to his men, and to Jock McIntyre, ‘are you coming?’

  ‘Lead off, sergeant.’

  They scrambled out of the hole and began running across the rough ground, yelling to their own picquets, ‘Wellington’s boots! British patrol returning – British, British, don’t shoot. Wellington’s boots!’

  Wellington’s boots was supposed to be the code to ensure a safe return, but very often officers forget to tell the picquets the words had changed, or the picquets subsequently forgot them. This was not deliberate. When men had been cold and wet, and without sleep for up to seventy-two hours, they tended to become less efficient and more forgetful. Shouting ‘British’ in a strong British accent was the best way of ensuring that you were not shot by your own side in mistake for an enemy sortie.

  Crossman ended up rolling into a trench and scattering a makeshift table on which there was a lamp, a deck of cards, and some drinks.

  ‘What the bloody hell . . .?’ cried a young ensign. ‘We’re trying to pass a peaceful night here.’

  Crossman was joined by others tumbling into the trench, Jock McIntyre along with them. ‘Sorry,’ said Crossman, automatically, and then he became a little miffed. ‘Actually, there is a war on. We’ve just risked our lives to get rid of that damn clock tower for you!’

  The ensign cocked an ear. ‘You’re right! I haven’t heard “Widdicombe Fair” for a while now.’

  Another officer said, ‘You really did it?’

  ‘Blasted it to pieces. One of the bells went whizzing by my ear,’ replied Crossman. Gwilliams added, ‘It’ll take a long Thursday to fix that pile of junk.’

  ‘I say, well done,’ said a lieutenant to Crossman, ignoring Gwilliams. ‘Listen, I don’t know you, do I? Are you 88th?’

  Once again, Crossman knew that in the darkness, in the muck and mire, with his uniform in shreds and what was left of his rank and facings hidden beneath his fur coat, he had been mistaken for an officer. It was true a lot of officers had country accents, or regional ones, and not all of them were recognizable as gentry by that alone, but there was something in the range of vocabulary and the delivery which marked one. Clearly the way Crossman spoke gave others the impression that he was an officer. He rarely bothered to put them right.
/>   ‘We’ve never met. I’m, er, special duties. One of Lovelace’s.’

  ‘Oh, him,’ said a third officer, whose epaulettes told Crossman he was an officer, but his rank was not evident. ‘Lovelace. Colonel Hawke’s pet.’

  Resentment flared in Crossman. ‘Yes, well, I’m one of Hawke’s pets too.’

  ‘No offence, old chap.’

  ‘None taken.’ Crossman turned to Sergeant-Major McIntyre. ‘Sorry to have spoiled your raid, Jock.’

  ‘Och, we had our excitement. That’s what we went looking for in the first place. There’ll always be guns to spike. Let’s leave these sirs to get on with their game of cards. I’m for mah bed. I’ll be seein’ ye again, Sergeant Crossman. Ye’ll be happy to hear yer father is talking more of going hame. Scotland’s aye on his tongue these days, though in truth it’s nae warmer there, than here.’

  ‘Goodbye, Jock.’

  McIntyre having let the cat out of the bag with his ‘sergeant’, the card-playing officers were looking at Crossman rather askance. He gathered his men together and set off with them, back towards Kadikoi, pleased with the night’s events. As they neared the hovel they saw two women leaving. Wynter had been indulging himself, spending his pay on whores, while the house was empty. The peloton all trooped in to find him lying on his back in the shared cot with his head cupped in his hands.

  ‘Enjoy yourselves, did ya?’ he said, as they flung themselves wearily into their beds. ‘I did.’

  Crossman barked, ‘You’re on firewood duty, Wynter. Get out there and find some.’

  The lance-corporal’s head came off the bed in a flash. ‘What? Why me?’

  ‘Because you’ve never learned not to crow. You’re a blamed fool, Wynter. If you’d have congratulated us on a good fox hunt, or even just asked how we did, I’d still have chosen you, but I’d have felt less satisfied with my choice. You find us some firewood, and some water, or there’ll be Hell to pay.’

  Wynter remained on the bed.

  ‘NOW!’ shouted Crossman.

  Grumbling, Wynter rolled off his cot and began to put on his battered, split boots. He caught Gwilliams grinning at him.

  ‘Bloody Yankee-doodle,’ snapped Wynter. ‘You ain’t even got a country to call your own.’

  ‘America’s my country,’ retorted Gwilliams.

  ‘America ain’t a country, it’s a continent, like Africa. We’ve all got a continent. Europe’s mine. America’s yourn. But you ain’t got a country to speak of. Just a collection of States.’

  ‘The United States is a country!’

  ‘No it ain’t at all. It’s a bit of the continent of North America, an’ the smallest bit at that. We’ve got the biggest bit, which is Canada.’

  With that Wynter marched out of the doorway, before Gwilliams could riposte, leaving the American fuming. Crossman took this opportunity to take Gwilliams upstairs with him, where he could talk to the barber in private. He explained to Gwilliams that Colonel Hawke wanted him to spy on General Enticknap, while he was cutting the latter’s hair, or shaving him, or fixing his bones, for Gwilliams maintained he had learned the art of bone and muscle manipulation from the Algonquin Indians in Canada, and often offered to walk on someone’s spine, or to massage them with his large, strong hands. There were those who swore by Gwilliams’ skill with bones. It was another reason why Hawke had wanted him for the peloton, since the colonel believed someone who could fix bones could unfix them just as easily. Indeed Gwilliams could dislocate a man’s arm or leg in a moment, with a clever twist. It followed then, that he could break his neck with the same ease.

  Once the talk was over, Gwilliams agreed to listen and learn the secrets of General Enticknap. ‘It don’t bother me none.’

  ‘You don’t see it as, well, distasteful? Spying on an officer serving in the same army? One of your own?’

  ‘See, that’s where I’m useful, sergeant. This ain’t my army. The general, well, he ain’t my man, so to speak, he’s yours and that blamed idiot Wynter’s. Now if you asked me to spy on Wynter, why I’d do it for nothing, without pay or found. If there’s any person gets my goat around here, it’s him.’

  ‘He goads you on purpose. You shouldn’t rise to it.’

  ‘Can’t help it. In my blood. I swear I’ll swing for him, one of these days.’

  ‘And swing you will,’ warned Crossman, ‘if you kill a soldier in this man’s army. They’re very fond of hanging criminals. Murder’s the perfect excuse for them. They sort of look upon it as proper poetic justice. You can’t steal money from a man who has stolen the same. That doesn’t happen. It’s not in the book of law. But you can kill a man who has killed. This kind of rounded justice – events turning full circle – seems to satisfy something in the breasts of certain senior officers. They are often those who continually smoulder, like a slow match, nursing grievances of some kind or another. Perhaps they were passed over for admiral, or failed to get a deserved knighthood? Who knows. But they’re out there waiting for men like you, so they can soothe the savageness in those superior breasts, if only for a short time.’

  ‘Can I go now, sergeant?’ asked Gwilliams, clearly bored.

  Crossman indicated he could. Once Gwilliams had descended the stairs, Crossman sighed and shook his head. Perhaps he talked too much, about things of little interest? Was he a driveller? Well, clearly men like Gwilliams thought so.

  Crossman felt something crumple in his fur coat pocket as he removed his outer layer. The letter! He took it out, now soiled and dirty along the creases. It was one sheet with some beautiful handwriting, clearly that of a feminine kind, though the loops and twirls were economic in their use. It read:

  My Dearest Cousin Alexander – I met a friend of Lavinia Durham at a ball just yesterday fortnight who told me an extraordinary thing. It was said that you are serving as a common soldier in the Crimea under an assumed name. Strangely, I could believe it of you. You were never a conventional person, but I am not sure if I should disapprove of this character trait, or admire it. Since I know that your brother James is also in the Crimea, along with your father, I wonder how you all fare under these circumstances.

  He paused in his reading to trim the candle. Jane obviously had not heard that James was now at home. The candle burned brighter. He continued the letter.

  Do you have to salute them when you see them and beg their pardon? It really does mystify me. I would so much like a letter from you, Alexander. We were so close as children, in the same house, the same nursery, for six years and sharing the same governess. Do you remember all, or do you select the best memories? I think I rather follow the latter course. I remember, for example, the day you threw a plum at me under the tree house, when I called you a coward for not wishing to remove a fish from your father’s fishing line. You missed of course. You never were very good at hurting people. I wonder at you now, having to shoot Russians. Do you shoot Russians, Alex? (There, I’ve used your pet name at last!) I shall send this letter to Lavinia, in the hope of it reaching you. If anyone knows who you are and where to find you, it is she. She loved you deeply, you know, and she is one person you hurt without compunction.

  The letter was signed, ‘Your most affectionate cousin, Jane.’

  Crossman sighed again. They sought him out! Why couldn’t they just leave him to do as he would? Lavinia had brought him the letter in some triumph, also of course hoping that he would open it and read it in front of her, so that she could learn its contents. He did no such thing and she went home to her Bertie, a quartermaster, still in ignorance.

  Cousin Jane. Yet, not really a cousin, since the ‘uncle’ who was her father was actually one of those very good friends of one’s parents who were merely termed as uncles. Jane Mulinder, of Derby. Of course he remembered all. He had been five when she had come to live with them in Scotland and eleven when she left. By that time he had been desperately in love with her, as only an eleven-year-old could be with a pretty cousin. Of course he had showed none of this at the time, it bei
ng a period of making faces, sticking out one’s tongue, and generally showing contempt for the weaker sex. But he had missed her dreadfully, once she had gone, and often dreamt of dark ringlets falling over a heart-shaped face which glared back at him when he sneered.

  He didn’t know whether he was going to answer the letter. It had been stuffed inside his tunic for a week now. It was unlikely. There was no time. Inclination? No, no time. This was war. Frivolities would have to wait. Lavinia should have known better than to reveal his presence to his cousin. It was very bad of her. Very bad.

  2

  Freezing sleet had been falling all night long, but by the morning it had gone, replaced by a cold hard wind. All along the lines the cannons were silent: not because the artillery units were apathetic, or because their officers were already drinking, smoking and playing cards with cavalry officers, or even because the more artistic of them were painting or writing poetry. Not even because NCOs and common serving men were sitting, staring into space, recalling the Sunday sermon which spoke of Hell being a torment of fire and brimstone and thinking that under present conditions such a place would be more like Heaven. These could have been put forward as the reasons for the silence, since this was what was happening all along the firing line, but the real reason for the inactivity was that what little water they had, was frozen in the wells, streams and of course the buckets, standing by the cannons where it was used to sponge out the barrels after firing. Without water the cannons could not be used. They had to be cooled before being reloaded, or the next charge down the barrel might explode as it was being rammed home and some luckless soldier would lose his arm, or worse.

  Crossman and Lovelace were walking through Vanity Fair after having been up to high ground to view part of the Russian line which stretched from Sebastopol to south of Chorgun village, a wavy six miles which vaguely followed the upstream direction of the River Chernaya.