‘We’ll let him go, later,’ he said. ‘Finish the meal.’
‘I think we should kill him,’ said Ali, sensibly.
‘Me too,’ said Gwilliams, ‘but I don’t want to do it. Look at his blue eyes.’
‘I can do it,’ Ali murmured.
‘I wouldn’t wager against that,’ added Wynter. ‘You’d kill your own brother if you had to.’
The goatboy said something in tremulous tones. Ali snapped back at him. Crossman sighed.
‘What did he say?’ asked Wynter. ‘Is he askin’ us to let him live?’
Crossman replied, ‘He said his grandmother will be angry with him if he’s late bringing the herd down to water.’
‘So?’ muttered Ali. ‘Every man has a grandmother. If we worry about grandmothers we kill no one in this war.’
But Ali needed a reason not to murder the boy, this was it, and he said no more. He was annoyed with the youth. But the decision lay with the sergeant and the choice had been made. The risk, as Crossman had said, was not great, especially if they took the boy with them for part of the way.
As the men now continued to munch away on the meat the young man became irritated. He said something.
‘What now?’ growled Wynter.
‘He’s berating us for killing his goat,’ said Crossman. ‘He tells us it is a crime to take another man’s property.’
‘Well, gee, we didn’t know that,’ snarled Gwilliams. ‘Tell the kid he’s lucky to be alive himself, sergeant.’
But the young man somehow knew he was not in the hands of bandits and he continued to mumble away about thieves and how they would have hung if his father had been alive. Crossman asked how the boy’s father had died and was told he had been killed by the French and British army at the Alma, when he was delivering produce to the Russian troops. A shell had exploded overhead and showered his father with red hot metal. His father had been a peaceful man, but the foreigners had not cared about that. They had killed him anyway. His mother had gone to fetch the body and bring it home, but had been caught up in the general retreat back to Sebastopol. She had not emerged since then and the boy and his grandmother had not had any word from her. Either she too was dead, or she was being held against her will.
‘Your father was not killed on purpose,’ Crossman argued, ‘it was just the fortunes of war. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The British do not kill civilians if they can help it.’
‘Then why do they bombard the city?’
‘Well, that’s different. They’re aiming at the city’s defences, but some damage is done to the buildings and streets beyond. That can’t be helped.’
‘I don’t understand any of it,’ said the youth, sullenly. ‘We just look after our goats and the cabbages we grow.’
He understood the boy’s argument of course. The Tartars were simply caught up in a conflict not of their making or wanting. But then who had wanted this war? Politicians and kings, perhaps, in the pursuit of power. Certainly not the common Russian conscripts. They would rather be at home too. Crossman had to admit the British and French soldiers had not been against the war at first. They had been puffed up by cheering, waving crowds as they left the shores of their countries, destined, they were sure, to be great heroes. But since then disillusionment and a loathing for war had crept in, once they found it was not simply a single glorious moment, but many ugly months that turned into ugly years, dying in wet trenches of gangrene, cholera, hypothermia, and sometimes of a bullet to the heart or brain. Wars seemed to happen whether most people wanted them or not. Human beings and war seemed to rush at one another and collide, no matter that there were more peacemakers than warmongers on the earth.
Once the meal was over they got to their feet. Wynter buried the ashes of the fire. Gwilliams did the same with the bones. They had dug a shallow latrine which they now filled in. Ali brushed the area with branches. In a short while the camp needed very close inspection to reveal any evidence of their presence.
The boy got to his feet, ashen again, convinced they were going to shoot him before they left. Ali went to him and took his face in his big callused hands, staring into his eyes. He held the youth’s head as if it were a pumpkin he was going to crush with his palms. Crossman called to him, from the edge of the track. Ali answered.
‘He will slow us up, sergeant.’
‘Leave him here then.’
Crossman told the youth to collect his goats and take them down to his grandmother.
‘We should kill you,’ Ali told the boy, ‘but I am a kind man. Do not speak of this to anyone for at least a month. Then you may tell your grandmother you met a descendant of Suleiman the Magnificent, who destroyed the castles of the Knights of St John and spread the power of the Ottomans. You have heard of this man? I am his great-great-great grandson, a worthy successor to my grandfathers, for I too am a warrior of splendid renown. You have been touched by the hands of greatness. Good fortune will follow you now to the ends of your days, if you keep your tongue.’
Ali went to his mount. The harnesses the Turks used were always decorated with horse brasses. There were three main symbols: the crescent moon, a star and a heart. Ali kept his own brasses polished to perfection, even though their shine was sometimes dangerous. Crossman had seen such brasses on British draught horses, such as Clydesdales and Shires – and one he had first seen just a few days back, the Suffolk horse. He knew that in England they were intended to ward off the evil eye. The English might have been Christians since the seventh century, but they still held to certain pagan ways. They prayed to Jesus and the Lord God, but they also kept their horse brasses, as insurance against those who did not believe in Christ and still practised witchcraft.
Ali removed one of the horse brasses from his mount’s harness and took it to the boy.
‘Keep this,’ he said, pressing it into the youth’s hand. ‘This will keep you safe from bad people. Never tell anyone who gave it to you, or it will not work. Secrets are sacred. Keep them, and you will flourish.’
The youth’s eyes bulged at these words and he nodded dumbly, before going to collect his charges from the mine.
Crossman shook his head at the Turk. ‘I don’t know where you get it all from, Ali.’
‘How do you know it is not true, sergeant?’
‘I don’t – but then I don’t think you know, either.’
Ali’s broad face broke into a smile.
‘These stories my aunt tell me, to get me to sleep at when I was six years old. They come in useful.’
‘Come on, you old rogue, we need to be somewhere else.’
The trek began again, as they wended their way through shallow valleys, after hitting the flatlands to the north of the mountains. Here they had to rely on dips and dives in the landscape, to mask their progress over the wide area through which they were travelling. It was a hot coming they had of it, the horses sore of hoof and bad-tempered.
‘Could you afford that horse brass, back there?’ asked Crossman of Ali. ‘You leave yourself unprotected against the evil eye.’
‘I have more,’ replied Ali. Crossman felt he detected a little nervousness in the Turk’s tone. ‘I will replace it. One cannot have enough, it is true. The evil eye is everywhere.’
‘Too true,’ muttered Wynter. ‘I’ve always had bad luck and I put it down to an old woman back home. She put the evil eye on me, that’s certain, or I would’ve had more luck.’
There were many Englishmen, and those from neighbouring countries, who would had nodded their heads sagely at this remark.
Wynter had fallen back and was now riding beside Crossman, who suddenly felt the need to talk to the one man whom he could not get to like, no matter what good deeds Wynter performed. Surely there was more under that sallow skin of Wynter’s than just base greed, idleness, ignorance and surliness. There had to be more. After all, Wynter had a mother, was once a babe in arms and an adorable infant, wasn’t he? Crossman set himself a task to draw out the Wynter behind
the Wynter. He was hoping to find, if not a rough diamond, at least a semi-precious stone. Perhaps the soldier had been the victim of tragedies and misfortune all his life?
Crossman said, ‘I was thinking, back there, of the Suffolk heavy horse, Wynter. Someone pointed out a pair of them the other day on the siege railway, drawing a carriage. Chestnuts, these were. It’s the first I’ve seen of them. Do you know of the Suffolks?’
‘Oh, yes, sergeant. You don’t get no other colour but a chestnut – or as we say, sorrel – with a Suffolk. Good tempers, they’ve got. My uncle was a horseman. He used to say a Suffolk had the face of an angel and the arse of a farmer. No featherin’ round the ankles, like him there, that mount of Ali’s, but sort of stocky and tough. Beautiful beasts.’
Wynter’s voice was full of animation, just as Gwilliams had been, when he had been talking to Ali about horses. It was a manly subject and men did love to talk of the muscle and grace, the speed and might, of horses. Now that railways were transporting people and goods, the horse was appreciated even more. You couldn’t take a personal pride in a railway engine, unless you owned one, and very few men did that. Horses were worked between the shafts of cart and wagon, used for recreation, for battle, for racing, for fox hunting – for just about everything manly and heroic. You could be the most insignificant idiot in the country, but if you owned a good horse, you were somebody. Tattersall’s sold prime horse flesh, but you could pick up a fine quadruped in a gypsy market in Lincoln if you knew your stuff. And there wasn’t a man worth his salt who didn’t think he knew his equine stuff.
‘Yes, sir,’ continued Wynter, dreamily, ‘lovely cart horse, the Suffolk.’
‘I was thinking so, when Lovelace brought them to my attention. I’m sure they’d go well on my father’s Scottish estates . . .’ He stopped, for he had been absently musing, and regretted those words. Wynter didn’t need more ammunition than he already possessed as regards Crossman’s genteel background. He took a quick glance at the soldier, but Wynter was looking straight ahead and with nothing but a sweet expression on his face.
‘Well, then,’ said Crossman. ‘Thank you for your advice, Wynter. I – I shall pass it on.’
‘Well, then, sergeant. You can use it yourself, can’t you? When you inherit them estates off your daddy?’
He might have guessed he was not going to get away with it.
‘Wynter, it might disappoint you to learn than I am a younger son and am therefore entitled to nothing under my father’s will.’
‘A bastard son, too, so’s I’ve heard, sergeant.’
Crossman flushed. ‘I’ll thank you to keep . . .’
Wynter crowed over him. ‘Oh, don’t you worry none about that, sergeant. I just heard it, is all. Can’t help hearin’ things, can I? Never mind. My mum and dad weren’t married neither, not under law. So we’re sort of bastards together, an’t we? Brothers, so to speak, of natural ways.’
Crossman seethed. Why couldn’t he learn not to offer sprigs of friendship to Wynter? The lance-corporal was simply not worth it. One day soon there would be reckoning between the two of them. It had to come.
‘Sergeant?’
Ali had drawn up alongside him.
‘What is it?’
‘I think we must swing round. Head towards sea. Then back again. Just to be sure.’
Ali was talking practical matters here. Throwing off any scent. Approaching the farmhouse from an unexpected direction.
‘Right. You lead the way.’
The stars came out. It was a clear night, the moon a very pale object just above the horizon. They had travelled, first east, then directly north, so that they had been northeast of their destination. Now they were heading directly west and would then turn back heading southeast. There was a ridge at that point, about a half-mile from the farm. It was Crossman’s intention to use this ridge to hide behind while they studied the farm.
When morning came they could see the Black Sea shining in the distance. It looked remote and uninviting, yet at the same time every man in the peloton was drawn to it. Soldiers in foreign lands view such waters as the road to home: a place of comfort, love, and blessed peace. Yet the liquid pathways were forbidden, until the last knells of war had peeled. The sight was frustrating, causing pain and anguish in every breast. It was with some relief that they turned away from the shoreline and began heading inland again, away from the temptations of that distant refuge from hell.
After two years away Britain was a land of strangers to veteran soldiers like Crossman. He could not even remember the face of his mother, let alone his friends, no matter how much effort he put into it. He felt detached from that land, with its distinct seasons, its once familiar sounds, sights and smells. He felt as if he had been in the Crimea for most of his life and that other faint part of it was just a peculiar dream. This was real and that other strange life he had experienced was a kind of fantasy.
‘The ridge, sergeant.’
Ali again, reining him in from his thoughts.
‘Thank you.’
They kept the horses at the bottom of the slope, hidden in a crop of boulders. Yorwarth took charge of them. Wynter and Gwilliams remained at the bottom, while Crossman and Ali climbed to the watershed. Using bushes they carefully remained concealed while they studied the buildings below. Crossman put a glass to his eye and was immediately staring into the face of Peterson. Shocked, he whipped down the spyglass quickly, his heart beating fast.
‘What is it, sergeant?’ whispered Ali, concerned.
‘She’s there on the porch, dammit!’
Ali used his own glass. ‘I see her. She sits in a chair. Wait, I see the leather strap. She is tied to the chair. They offer her to us, to come and get.’
Crossman looked again. Peterson’s face was expressionless. He could not see if there were bruises on her cheeks, but he guessed there probably would be. She simply sat there, unmoving. For a moment he wondered if she were actually alive, then he saw her flinch, when a fly settled on her lip. Yes, she was alive, but her spirit had been broken. She looked like a sack of meal, tied there. She sagged forwards, bulkily.
The two men then studied the farm itself. There were around twenty blue-frocked Cossacks in and around the yard. Some were attentive, staring at the hills, watching the single winding dust track that led to the farm gate. Others were busying themselves with various tasks, mostly to do with their precious horses. If the horse was king to an Englishman, it was God to a Cossack. They would spend endless hours grooming their mounts, polishing their tack, training the animal in various tricks.
Next, the landscape around the farm. Again there were Cossacks posted in several key positions. Most dangerously there was another ridge forming a T shape with the British escarpment and two Cossacks had been left their to watch the main ridge. They were looking directly at the bushy strip behind which Crossman and Ali were hiding. The Bashi-Bazouk indicated this watch and Crossman nodded to show he had seen it.
The sergeant intended to do nothing for a while. Peterson was still alive, if very miserable. They left her on the porch the whole while, only releasing her so that she could eat her food and go to the latrine. It was evident they wanted Crossman and his men, when and if they came, to see that she was alive. In that way the British would not go riding home without a showdown of some kind. That was what it was all about: a meeting between the Cossacks and the British crew who had been giving them so much trouble over the last few months. They wanted revenge. They wanted the sergeant, they wanted his men, and they wanted them dead.
So Crossman waited. He could afford to.
‘We should’ve brought a regiment with us,’ grumbled Wynter, later. ‘We could’ve marched right in there and took her.’
‘If we had, she would not be there to take. They’ve got eyes and ears, Wynter. And be sensible. Would they let us have a whole regiment to save a single soldier?’
‘Well, a company then.’
‘Same applies,’ said Yorwarth. ‘Th
ey won’t give the sergeant no company. It’s up to us, ain’t it?’
‘So we’re just goin’ to ride down there and snatch her up, eh? Just like that. An’ they’re goin’ to let us.’
‘That’s not a bad idea, Wynter,’ said Crossman, who had been playing with certain thoughts for a few hours now. ‘We’ll just ride down there and challenge them!’
‘Eh?’ cried Wynter. ‘I an’t going to, that’s sure.’
‘You’ll do what you’re told,’ growled Gwilliams. ‘Me, I’m all for it. Famous charge. Five against fifty. Sounds good to me.’
‘Famous last charge,’ spluttered Wynter.
Yet this was the plan. However, Crossman did not intend to go all the way to the farmhouse. The scheme was to make the charge, down the slope, and straight at the enemy. When his riders were three hundred yards from the house, Crossman and his band would turn and run, drawing the Cossacks away from the farm. Not all of them would come, of course, but certainly most of them would want to be in at the kill. Once the fox breaks cover the whole hunt takes up the chase. It’s the excitement of the thing.
Only one or two reluctant and disgruntled warriors would remain to guard the prisoner. Crossman and the others would take off over flatlands, pulling the Cossacks well away from their base. Afterwards, Ali, who would remain behind, would go down and despatch them, take their captive, and run for home. Once the Turk had Peterson the Cossacks would be pursuing a lost cause: Ali knew all the secret places, all the hidey-holes in the landscape. He would dart from one to another, by day and by night, and the Cossacks would be left sniffing his dust.
The raid would be at dawn. Crossman told his men to get some sleep.
‘For tomorrow we die,’ whispered Gwilliams in the ear of Wynter, just to see him look pained.
Attack on the Redan Page 8
