The Winter Soldiers

by Garry Douglas Kilworth

  ‘What?’ cried Wynter, clearly delighted to be the centre of attention. ‘Ain’t you pleased to see me?’

  ‘God’s breath, Wynter,’ Crossman said in a seething tone, ‘where in the Devil have you been?’

  ‘God and the Devil, all in one,’ quipped Wynter. ‘That ain’t like you, sergeant, turnin’ out profanities. I’ve bin waiting for my friend here, Joseph Bako. He’s a blackie, from Zanzibar. Got caught in Sebastopol when the back door was shut, so to speak. We was mates workin’ the barges five years back, on the canals, when I took some time to travel and see the world one summer. Joseph here’s a sailor, so to speak.’ Joseph, who had not stopped smiling, nodded furiously. ‘He was working on a grain ship, now at the bottom of the harbour out there. Scuttled by the Ruskis. I seen him go by this mornin’ and ran after him. Sorry to say, sergeant, ’cause I can see you’re working up a temper, that I lost him in the streets. So what I did was, I waited till he came back again. Hid away in some ruins of a house, guessing he was on his way to work and so would be back. Sure enough, there comes Joseph, large as life, walkin’ back down the same street, but by now it’s evening. It weren’t my fault, sergeant. I was doing things for the better, but they turned out worse. An’ that’s the whole truth of it. Sorry to be a bother.’

  He sounded so contrite that Crossman almost burst out laughing. He might well have done that had he not been so angry with the soldier. He started to give Wynter a lecture about not leaving sentry duty without informing someone, about how they could all have woken up at the point of a bayonet, but finally his fury fizzled out. Joseph Bako had lost his smile now and was looking nervously at Wynter as if he expected him to be shot for desertion. Crossman turned his attention to the other man.

  ‘So, Joseph Bako, you’re from Zanzibar?’

  The smile came back. ‘Yes, sir, from there all right. A sailor, sir. Sometimes on the English ships. That’s what I do.’

  ‘You realize we are British soldiers, caught inside the walls of an enemy city.’

  ‘Of course, sir. Yes. Harry has explained this.’

  ‘Don’t call me sir, call me sergeant. It’s more comfortable for both of us. You will not give us away, then, Bako?’

  ‘Sir, sergeant,’ said the other man, ‘I am like you. I am not on the side of the Russians. I have worked on English ships. Except for one or two times, like the last time on this Russian grain ship. It was unfortunate.’

  Crossman said, ‘I don’t see any reason why you should be loyal to the British, any more than the Russians. However, I can see that friendship means a great deal to you. I would be happier if you had chosen someone more worthy of such a noble feeling than Wynter here . . .’

  ‘Oh, sergeant!’ cried Wynter in a hurt voice.

  ‘. . . however, contrary to the popular saying, we don’t choose our friends any more than we choose our relations. The thing is, what are you going to do about us now?’

  ‘Why,’ replied Bako, his grin broadening, ‘help you of course!’

  Wynter chipped in, excitement filling his voice. ‘You see, sergeant, here’s the plum. Joseph here works on buildin’ the defences, near the crane. He could place a charge for us, if we told him what to do. You’d do that, wouldn’t you, Joseph?’

  ‘Yes, Harry, I would. You and I, we have drunk beer together, in the famous Swan Inn, outside Manchester. In Zanzibar, if you drink beer with someone, he is your friend for life.’

  ‘In that case, Harry here must have a thousand and one strangers who call him friend,’ said Gwilliams, sarcastically.

  ‘There’s no need for that,’ Wynter said. ‘Well, what about it, sergeant? He could be useful to us, our Joseph, couldn’t he? Save us gettin’ our arses shot off.’

  ‘That’s all very well, but what happens to Joseph after he blows the crane up? If they catch him, or even suspect he’s responsible, they’ll execute him. Joseph, you have no responsibility here. I want you to understand that you could forfeit your life. And forget all this about drinking beer with Wynter. I’m sure amongst your own people this is an important thing, but in our culture it means nothing. Harry Wynter would not help you, were the circumstances reversed, I can assure you of that. You could wait a lifetime on a street corner and Harry Wynter would not appear.’

  ‘Oh, sergeant,’ cried Wynter again, ‘you can’t know that.’

  ‘I am almost certain of it.’

  ‘Harry is my friend,’ said Bako. ‘We have drunk beer together. I will do it for Harry, but I will also do it for Queen Victoria.’

  ‘You drank beer with her too?’ said Gwilliams, in that sarcastic rasping voice of his.

  ‘If you do help us,’ said Crossman, ‘and I won’t deny we need someone who can get close to the crane, then I’ll try to see you are rewarded. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try. Would you want to come with us, when we leave the city? Once outside you can go anywhere. I’ll see you get passage on a British ship. I’m sure I can promise that service for you.’

  ‘I think it would be better if I came with you. The Russians pay me nothing for my work. I would like to be back on the ships. I miss my home island of Zanzibar. I would like to go back there soon, to see my family.’

  ‘In that case,’ Crossman extended his hand to take and shake that of Joseph Bako, ‘we accept your offer. Thank you.’

  They were all rather cramped inside the fishing hut and Katra and Diodotus suggested that since it was now dark they could go outside and use one of the fishermen’s braziers to light a fire. This they did, collecting driftwood on the shoreline for fuel. Soon they were sitting around a glowing fire, much like other fishermen along the sea strand. Diodotus said it was unlikely that vigilantes or the army would venture into the shanty village at night, for they were not well liked amongst the local people. They had brought war to a region which had been prosperous until the siege began. Of course they blamed foreign armies like the Turkish, the French and the British too, but they knew that the Russian Army could have taken the fight elsewhere and didn’t. Instead they chose to use Sebastopol as their fortress and brought untold misery down upon its inhabitants.

  Crossman sat with Bako and explained, by means of drawings in the sand, where he would like the two charges to be placed.

  ‘If this spar can be broken, the whole machine will crash to the ground,’ said the sergeant, pointing with a piece of driftwood. ‘Hopefully the dead weight of the fall will be enough to smash the rest of it. If luck is with us it’ll take a gun embrasure or two with it. Our guns can open up on this particular weak area in the wall and before they can repair it, the French will make an assault and breach the Russian defences.’

  ‘War is very simple, isn’t it?’ said Bako, impressed by Crossman’s straightforward explanations. ‘Perhaps I shall stay here after all. If the French come tomorrow, then it will all be over before the clocks begin striking noon.’

  ‘Don’t hold your breath,’ growled Gwilliams.

  ‘Gwilliams is right,’ said Crossman. ‘Plans like this often sound as if nothing can go wrong. In truth, something always goes wrong. Many things go wrong. It’s amazing how such simple actions get entangled in all sorts of problems, almost as if the problems were there beforehand, waiting like nets to catch the unwary planners in their folds. The war will certainly not be over by noon tomorrow. You had best come with us, as we planned, and then you’ll be sure of escape.’

  ‘Or not,’ interrupted Diodotus. ‘I shall try to lead you out safely, but there’s always the chance of being seen. You could all end up shot.’

  ‘Us,’ said Wynter, ‘and you.’

  ‘Not me. I was once taken to a fortune teller by my mother. He said I would live until I was eighty. My life is charmed. I am doomed to witness the destruction of all about me, while I endure. Now, sergeant, Katra is leaving us. She is going to her mother on the far side of the city. It is best she stays with her until this is all over. Don’t you agree?’

  ‘Of course. Please thank her for her help.�
��

  Katra left a short time later. Wynter said, once she had gone, ‘Why don’t we just let Joseph get on with it? We could stay here and wait for him. No need to go with him, is there?’

  ‘Never drink beer with Wynter,’ said Gwilliams, ‘or you’ll get the friend you deserve.’

  ‘I’m just tryin’ to be practical.’

  Crossman said, ‘We have to go with him, to make sure the job is done. Ali, are the charges ready?’

  ‘Ready, sergeant.’ The two charges had been cleverly packed inside two fascines by the Turk, who had seen that most of the workers on the city’s defences were carrying gabions and fascines from one place to the next. A gabion, being full of stones, would have been too heavy, but the bundles of sticks could be carried by one strong man on his shoulders. There would hopefully be no suspicion attached to a worker entering the site with a brace of these on his back, since they had to be brought in somehow. Admittedly, pointed out Crossman, they would normally be part of a load taken in by ox cart, but fascines often fell off the backs of carts.

  ‘I think this will work,’ he told Bako. ‘Now, Joseph Bako, Ali will show you how to set the charges. Once you have lit the fuses, leave the site immediately. Do you understand? We’ll be waiting for you in the street.’

  7

  Crossman’s idea was that his men should create a diversion near the site in order to give Bako some time and space to place the charges on the crane and ignite the fuses. For this purpose he had Ali fashion further, smaller, charges. He gave one to each of his men. To Bako he gave a portfire and told him to hide it from the eyes of his masters.

  ‘I want these to go off precisely at midnight on the last stroke of the clock,’ he told his men.

  ‘Which clock?’ asked Wynter, quite reasonably, since there were a number of church and tower clocks, and they were not accurate enough to all chime at the same time.

  ‘There’s a Catholic church near to the site – St Sebastian’s. We’ll take our cue from that. It’s the first one that strikes. It’ll add to the confusion when the others start striking a little later. Hopefully we’ll be able to divert the guards and labourers, giving Bako enough time to do his job without being observed.’

  ‘I’ll do it fine, sergeant,’ said Bako, ‘just you wait and see. Don’t leave without me though! You know, you promised.’

  ‘I’ll keep my word, don’t worry about that. Diodotus, what about you? You said you’re staying, but will you be all right?’

  The young Greek smiled, worries and fears fleeing his face like rats abandoning a ship.

  ‘Yes. I will be fine.’

  They rested throughout the day and left the fishing hut when the clocks struck eleven. All were heartily glad to be leaving their damp hideout. Soon they were back in the streets. There was no mist but an icy cold had descended upon the city. It gripped the inhabitants with iron fingers and those who could had added another layer of clothing. Crossman’s group had no more clothing to put on, but the excitement of the fox hunt was enough to warm them for the time being. Diodotus was especially eager and kept up a fast flow of talk, his words rushing out almost on top of one another, which irritated the ever calm and pragmatic Bashi-Bazouk, Yusuf Ali.

  ‘You Greeks,’ he muttered. ‘No wonder you make such bad fighters – you always talk so quick. Yak, yak, yak.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Diodotus, ‘that’s the reason we beat you in all those ancient battles – Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis.’

  ‘What’s he talking about?’ growled Ali to Crossman.

  ‘The wars between the Greeks and Persians,’ replied the sergeant.

  ‘I am Turk, no Persian,’ snarled Ali. ‘Why he tell me about such wars, eh?’

  ‘Turks, Persians, all the same,’ replied Diodotus, airily. ‘Always trying to defeat the Greeks and always getting beaten themselves.’

  ‘Thermopylae,’ Gwilliams felt he had to point out, ‘was not a Greek victory. Four thousand Greeks fell in that battle, and Xerxes and his army walked over their bodies to invade Greece.’

  ‘Three hundred,’ argued Diodotus, stoutly. ‘There were three hundred Spartan Greeks and they held the pass.’

  Here Gwilliams began to get testy. ‘No – in the end they failed to hold the pass and were stomped on. That’s the truth. There weren’t just Spartans there. There was Thespians and Thebans, and Greeks from other city-states too. A whole bunch of ’em. Thousands. Course, there was a million Asians and Africans facing ’em, but that there Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans can’t claim the whole show for themselves. That’s just a big story.’

  ‘What do you know?’ replied Diodotus, nettled. ‘You come from the other side of the world. It’s not your history.’

  ‘It damn well is,’ replied Gwilliams. ‘Yes, sir. My ancestors are from right here, alongside your ancestors. It’s my damn history too.’

  ‘Thespians?’ chipped in Wynter. ‘Ain’t they actors? What was actors doing, fighting for the Greeks?’

  Crossman let them have rein. Discussions like this helped take their minds off the mission, it was true, but he was never one to advocate honing a thing mentally. That sort of exercise led to stale thinking, whereas this sort of debate would liven them up, with lots of lies, truths and half-truths being thrust into the argument with as much spleen as a man might thrust at a hated enemy with his sword. When they reached the more populated areas of the city, where there would be people in the streets, he would stop the debate. It was then that they could start thinking about what they had to do. Time enough then for the final mental preparations.

  Crossman’s heart was beating at a brisk pace. It was ever thus just before an action. He no more liked killing than the next man, and he certainly was not yet ready to die, but duty had to be done and the idea of a running street battle – for that was what it might come to – sent his pulses racing. There was not much he could do but accept his own feelings. In fact he had been disturbed to find that there was a certain amount of pleasure which accompanied the fear induced by battle. Certainly during the Battle of Inkerman he had felt, at odd times, exalted. In fact his senses were assailed by several emotions, before, during and after action. There would be fear and exultation, and attached to these would be guilt and despair. Each had its moment, or merged with another, or was the result of another. In truth, Crossman felt a tumult of emotions, all affecting each other, all whirling and swirling within. If he tried to read any sense or reason into it all, he would certainly go mad.

  Once they reached St Sebastian’s church, Crossman said, ‘Right. Split up. You know what you have to do. We’ll meet back here immediately. Diodotus, you will remain on the steps and wait for us, before leading us out.’

  ‘I understand, sergeant.’

  Crossman himself wanted to observe the crane, when and if it came down. He made his way to the crane site, where it had already been working away, repairing the defences that had been battered by allied guns all that day. Once the crane had been destroyed, there would be concentrated fire on the walls between the Malakoff and the Redan, all next day. Then the following dawn the French would attack, take the Mamelon, then proceed onward to the weakened defences of the Malakoff. The British would likewise overrun the Quarries, then attack the Redan itself.

  Hawke had suggested that Crossman and his men might want to remain in the city and wait for that attack, which it was thought could be nothing but successful. Once the French were in, the British would follow, and Sebastopol would be in the hands of the allies. Crossman could then walk out of Sebastopol unmolested, if he so desired. He chose not to accept this idea. Attacks were prone to postponement, even cancellation. He felt he might wait longer than expected and then again perhaps the French might never come at all.

  There were hundreds of men working hard by lamp-light. The giant crane, its support timbers creaking, was lifting and lowering blocks of stone, and nets full of gabions and fascines, and spars, and other such heavy materials. Crossman looked for his old en
emy Colonel Todleben, with whom he had once fought a duel – and lost. He had a scar which was a testament to this sword fight. The great engineer was much admired by Crossman, who had been forced into the duel by duty rather than any personal reason. Crossman couldn’t help but feel that if the British Army had owned a Todleben, the walls of Sebastopol would have been down quicker than the walls of Jericho after a bugle call. The colonel, however, was nowhere to be seen and Crossman was quite relieved. Todleben seemed to have a sixth sense for disasters.

  Crossman, hidden in the shadows of a building heavily ornamented in flamboyant Gothic architecture, did see Bako though, working along with others by the wall. Just before midnight Bako put down his tools and walked towards the water butt which stood near the oxen enclosure. He took a drink of water from the tub then reached down behind an animal trough and came up with two fascines. He placed one on each shoulder, and began to stroll back towards the spot where he had been working.

  Then the worst possible thing happened. Someone stopped Bako and spoke to him. Crossman could not tell whether the speaker was a supervisor or simply a workman. A discussion took place, during which Crossman agonized. What was going on? Had they been discovered? To Crossman’s great consternation Bako lowered the fascines to the ground. The two objects would be heavy, but perhaps the man who had accosted him was demanding to inspect them? No, no, Bako was gesturing with his hands, the fascines leaning against his legs. Surely it was just a normal discussion between acquaintances? Then again, maybe it was treachery? Perhaps Crossman and his men were being betrayed? The Russians would pay Bako for such information and there was no telling how well Wynter knew Bako in any case. It was possible that Bako actually hated Wynter. A lot of men did hate Wynter. He was not the sort of man who endeared himself to others. There were those who would jump on Wynter’s grave and experience only a feeling of immense satisfaction. However, finally Bako heaved the fascines back onto his shoulders, broke away, and continued his stroll towards the crane.