‘Sergeant,’ she cried, imperiously, ‘you have no authority . . .’
‘Gwilliams, get rid of the woman,’ snarled Crossman, having had enough of her now. ‘I don’t care how you do it.’
Lavinia Durham gave out a little gasp, wheeled her horse, and rode away in great indignation.
Thus ‘rid of the woman’ Crossman could now concentrate on the ebb and flow of the battle. He could now see the British cavalry, one troop of which had detached itself, fired a few halfhearted shots at the enemy, then retired again. The Russians were now having a bad time of it and began to retreat in some confusion. This seemed to be the signal which Betsy was awaiting. She rose to her feet and began to advance, with an excited Yorwarth firing from her hump. The others walked behind, guarding her flanks against any attack from splinter groups of the Russian army. Soon she had reached the water’s edge, only to wade in up to her belly. In the middle of the river, about four feet deep at that particular crossing, she planted herself. Shots began to splash around her on the surface, but she was not deterred. She continued to hold her central position, while Yorwarth employed the gun to some effect.
The field was littered with dead and dying Russians. It was indeed a carnage. Prince Gortchakoff’s attempt at breaking through had failed and he and his troops retired to the wooded heights where the allied cavalry could not get at them.
‘Well, I reckon Betsy showed them Russ a thing or two,’ said Gwilliams, as the peloton made its way back to Kadikoi, feeling pleased with themselves. ‘Once she stood up, she showed ’em, all right.’
‘I bet Colonel Hawke is going to be happy with us,’ said Peterson. ‘I shouldn’t wonder, anyway.’
Crossman was summoned to the colonel’s office the very next day. The sergeant got himself up as smart as possible under the circumstances and went along expecting some high praise for the morning’s work, having already sent a written report to the colonel. He did not exactly approve of Hawke’s desire to further his ambitions through a camel, but was quite willing to take any merit for his actions in that direction.
The colonel looked up as he entered and Crossman felt himself under a distinctly chilly gaze. He was puzzled by this, but considered the colonel had other things on his mind, besides Betsy. Hawke was responsible for any number of subversive actions and it only took one to go wrong for him to be answering awkward questions. The colonel then turned his attention to his desk top and proceeded to shuffle through papers, until it became impossible for Crossman not to open the conversation.
‘What were the casualties yesterday, colonel?’ asked Crossman. ‘If you don’t mind me asking.’
‘Casualties? Oh, the figures,’ said the colonel, vaguely. ‘I’m told the Russians lost eight thousand men.’
‘And our side?’
‘Our side? You mean the French? Over a thousand, maybe more. The Sardinians lost only two hundred and fifty.’ The colonel looked up again now. ‘All in all the Russians were repulsed with vigour, I believe. General Pélissier regards it as a victory for the allies. I’m sure he’s right. And you did very well, sergeant, by all accounts. Good work.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Unfortunately,’ the colonel now looked away again, ‘something has come to my notice which disturbs me greatly. I am disappointed in you, sergeant, but unless you can offer me a reasonable explanation I shall have to take those stripes away from you.’
‘Sir?’ Crossman was stunned.
‘I’m demoting you to private, Crossman.’
‘I – I don’t understand.’
Hawke rose to his feet and paced the back of the room, his hands clasped behind his back.
‘You know a Captain Campbell of the 93rd?’
Crossman felt his stomach descend to his boots. His sins had caught up with him at last. Did he ever think he could get away with it? Some men would have, but not he. Even as a child his misdemeanours found him out.
‘Yes – yes, I know him.’
‘You impersonated an officer in order to play him at cards?’
At least it seemed that the abduction was not being put down to him, which was one good thing. For that he would have been flogged, at the very least. In point of fact he had had no hand in that plot. Still, his mind was in a whirl. He felt sick to the pit of his stomach. To lose his stripes! They were not much, it was true, in the grand scheme of things. He was no general. But they had been hard won. It would take years now, to get them back again, if ever he managed it!
‘I am guilty, colonel. May I explain?’
‘If you will,’ said the colonel, eagerly. ‘I dislike this situation intensely.’
‘It will probably make no difference, in the end, because I did indeed put on the uniform of a lieutenant and pose as another man. My brother was a lieutenant in the 93rd at the time . . .’
The colonel snatched at this eagerly. ‘You wore your brother’s uniform? You were in expectation of purchasing your commission? To see how it would be if ever you were promoted?’
‘No, sir, I did not. I wore the uniform of another man in order to win back the fortune my brother had lost to Captain Campbell at cards. I’m sure you must be aware that the captain is a gambler, sir? My older brother is unfortunately very gullible – a good man, but easily influenced – and Captain Campbell took advantage of that fact.’
Hawke’s face became very grim. ‘You are accusing Campbell of cheating?’
‘No, I am not. I am accusing him of drawing raw players to his table and fleecing them without regard to the damage he causes. Captain Campbell is no doubt a very skilful player, a man with great experience at cards and one on whom Lady Fortune smiles much of the time. I put it down to talent and good luck on his part, having no evidence of any deviousness. Yet men like him are not without guilt, for they ruin others without troubling their conscience. It was not my brother’s money to lose, not yet, my father still being alive and well. I knew the captain would not play a lowly sergeant at cards, so I put on an officer’s uniform.’
Hawke shook his head, sadly. ‘What a pity the man is not a cheat. That would have been something to use in our favour. But there is no law which states an officer may not play at cards, whereas there is certainly one which prevents a sergeant from impersonating a lieutenant.’
‘I would be wrong to accuse him.’
‘Of course, of course. Oh, sergeant. I had such high hopes for you – for both of us.’
‘I am very sorry, sir. The incident happened while General Buller was still here. No blame can be attached to you.’ Crossman was so distressed he could not speak without a catch in his voice. The colonel could see how he had plunged his protégé into despair and therefore forgave him for what he said next. ‘I must ask you, sir, whether you have the authority to take my stripes from me?’
‘You mean because you are officially of the 88th Foot? The colonel of the Connaught Rangers has given me power over your career, Crossman. Would you rather the demotion came from him? I am quite willing to hand the matter over to him, if you prefer. The outcome will be no different I can assure you. Perhaps he would require a more severe punishment. It would still be an ill wind, if coming from a different quarter.’ The colonel’s tone was not unkind.
‘I am happy for it to be handled by you, sir.’
Hawke sighed, deeply. He picked up a bunch of papers and then dumped them back down on the desk again.
‘The problem we have now, is how to proceed with your peloton. Who is to take charge? I am reluctant to bring in another sergeant. It would not do at this stage. He would not fit. Yet, there does not seem to be anyone in the peloton at the moment who would be worthy of a sergeant’s stripes, or indeed, who could lead the group as well as you have done. Yet we must have someone in charge.’
‘What – what about the lieutenant, sir?’
‘I have offered the position to Lieutenant Pirce-Smith, but he has declined. Of course, I could order him, but I am loath to do so. I prefer to have men about me who tak
e to their tasks willingly. This is not a line regiment, this is clandestine work.’
Crossman’s mind was in a whirl, but he was puzzled by this behaviour on the part of Lieutenant Pirce-Smith. Even in his distress he felt irked by this rejection. It added to his bitterness.
‘May I enquire as to the reason for the lieutenant’s refusal to take over my peloton?’
The reply was enough to shock Crossman into remorse.
‘The lieutenant believes you are the best, possibly the only man for the job, Crossman. He argued vehemently that we should keep you in your post. I would be inclined to do so if Campbell were not so influential. He has one cousin in parliament and another in the admiralty, both with loud voices. My hands are forced. I can assure you that you would have received a much more severe punishment – a flogging, or even a term in the stockade would not be excessive for such a crime – had I not used my own influence in the matter. But your stripes are forfeit, and must remain so. Of course, if in the future you should do some great deed, demanding that we restore you to your rightful position, then those voices might grow a little quieter.’
‘I fully understand, colonel.’
Hawke, normally a man of iron features, softened for a moment before Crossman’s eyes.
‘It’s hard, Crossman. Very hard. I can see your misery and it touches me. However, you are a tough soldier. You can bear this. There may be a battle coming soon. If you were to distinguish yourself . . .?’
‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. With regard to our present situation, may I suggest that Yusuf Ali takes command?’
‘A Turk – over British soldiers? It would be unusual.’
‘He is used to command.’
‘I will consider it. Tell your men I will inform them later this morning what is to be done.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘That will be all, serg . . . soldier.’
Once outside, Crossman gulped down air. A hot sun beat on his head from above. He felt giddy and weak. The shame of it! His father would be mortified. Bad enough to have a son who was merely a sergeant – appalling to have him stripped of that lowly rank for a misdemeanour.
And now there was the peloton to face. How Wynter would crow! Yet the news had to be broken. And Crossman was the one who had to do it.
Crossman trudged back towards the hovel at Kadikoi. His legs felt as if they contained plumbum. His heart was leaden too. For some reason his body ached, physically, as if he had sustained a beating. He guessed this was the result of the shock of the bad news. What a terrible thing! Yet he had known the risks, when he had donned that uniform. Campbell had at last recognized him. It was just like the man to demand his pound of flesh, even though he had beaten Crossman that night and taken a sizeable amount of silver coins from him: prize money earned in a raid against the Cossacks. It was certain that he would not return the money, even though his principles had spurred him to take the stripes from the sergeant’s arm. The captain was a double winner, humbling his opponent twice over. Campbell was the worst kind of officer. One who used the service as an arena in which to play his own games. Still, Crossman had ventured his arm and the consequences had finally caught up with him.
Gathering his strength together, he went through the doorway of the hovel, to give the news to his peloton.
Once he had delivered it, he sat on the edge of Yorwarth’s cot and stared at the floor. As he had expected there was silence for a while. The peloton needed time to take it all in. They stood or sat around the room and hardly a breath could be heard. Finally it was Peterson who spoke.
‘You mean, you’re the same as us now?’
‘Not the same as you, Peterson – as a lance-corporal you outrank me.’
He felt utterly depressed. There was nothing any of them could say to lift him at that moment. Gwilliams said as far as he was concerned Crossman was still the leader and what did a set of stripes matter. Ali merely shrugged and spat through the doorway, signifying that he agreed with Gwilliams. Yorwarth began scratching his eczema, muttering something like, ‘The army giveth and the army taketh away.’ Wynter said nothing at all. Instead he reached under his cot and took out his knapsack. He removed something from the knapsack and walked over to Crossman, tossing the item on the blanket beside the ex-sergeant. It was a pocket-knife.
‘You’ll need somethin’ to cut them stitches, when you take off the stripes,’ said Wynter. ‘Then after you’ve done it, I’ll see you outside, behind the lean-to.’
‘Oh for the Lord’s sake, Wynter!’ exclaimed Peterson. ‘You’ve got the brains of a donkey.’
‘You watch it too, hoyden. You an’t got the sergeant to protect you now.’
‘No,’ said Yorwarth, quietly, ‘but she’s got me, pom. I’ll stand up for her, when you like.’
Yorwarth was younger and less worldly than Wynter, but he was a lot bigger and stronger. Yorwarth had been raised on Australian sheep farms and had worked with heavy horses all his life and his forearms were thick and meaty. Wynter had always known that Yorwarth would make a formidable opponent in a bout of bare-fist fighting.
‘I got no argument with you, Yorwarth. My beef is with this toffee-nosed toad here. He had me flogged.’
‘That’s a lie, Wynter,’ said Crossman, finding these barrack-room politics sordid and dreary, ‘and you know it.’
Crossman looked up into the mean, hard eyes of Harry Wynter. Son of an Essex farmer, Wynter was a forest bodger by trade, and wiry strong. He clearly felt there were several scores to settle. Sizing him up and down, for the first time assessing Wynter’s ability to fight with his fists, Crossman saw a grim lean man with knotted muscles. The sort of man who could punch hard and fast, but with little weight behind the blows. Wynter relied on pummelling his opponent into submission within a few minutes, his arms going like steam-engine pistons, his small but flint-hard fists causing specific damage to the eyes, kidneys and genitals. He knew where to aim and did not stop raining hits until his adversary was on the ground, where he proceeded to kick him into unconsciousness if the those around let him.
Crossman on the other hand had had very little experience at bare-fist fighting. He was not like Jarrard, who had punched his way through school and beyond. He was not a man like Lovelace, who was a keen boxer. At Harrow the bullies had left him alone because of his ability with the fencing foil and the universal admiration that came from such a skill. He had not the temperament to raise his blood to fighting heat within seconds, as some men had, and found himself talking rather than fighting when it came to the point. He could count the number of serious fistfights he had been forced into on two fingers. One he had been left on the floor with a black eye, the other he had been the one still standing. They had been brief, confused affairs. Both had left him feeling flat.
‘Wynter, I have not the spirit at the moment to thrash you. It would give me no satisfaction whatsoever to knock your head from your shoulders. Choose a better time. I have just lost something which took me a great deal of time and effort to gain. I have not the heart to mill it with some idiot behind the lean-to.’
Wynter sneered and kicked Crossman’s foot. ‘Scared, eh?’
Ali walked across the room and was about to slap Wynter’s face with his large open hand, when Crossman said, ‘No – no. The man feels he has a grievance.’ Raising anger from cold had always been Crossman’s problem in these cases, but there is nothing like a violent blow to stir a man’s blood and heat it to boiling point. ‘Wynter, do not kick me again, ever. If you do, I shall be forced to give you satisfaction.’
Wynter stepped back, he believed out of reach, and spat at him. The gobbet struck Crossman’s brow. Crossman flash-fired and was on his feet in an instant. The ex-sergeant was almost a head taller than the other soldier and his reach was consequently long. He delivered a facer that sent the unprepared Wynter reeling backwards across the floor. The punch was a snake-like strike with a good deal of shoulder behind it. Wynter had not been prepared for the speed of the blow and ha
d taken the fist plumb in the centre of his features. His nose split and splayed. Blood gushed forth. He found himself broken, dazed and confused, lying in the doorway of the hovel as Lieutenant Pirce-Smith arrived. The lieutenant stepped over Wynter, looking down with mild interest as the groggy soldier tried to shake his head free of pain.
‘Old scores being settled, I see,’ said Pirce-Smith. That was all he spoke on the matter. He then addressed Crossman and the room in general. ‘Crossman, I am sorry to hear about your problems. You have done good work in the past. I hope things improve for you in the future. Now, as for the leadership of this peloton, Colonel Hawke has asked me take over. I must admit I was reluctant at first, but on reflection – remembering the good work we have done together – I decided to accept the colonel’s offer. Crossman, you will remove your bedding from Captain Lovelace’s room. I shall be sleeping there in future. You will join the other men, down here. I acknowledge there’s not a great deal of room, but you will make space for the extra man. Any questions?’
‘When are we going out again, sir?’ asked Crossman.
‘As soon as I receive instructions from Colonel Hawke,’ came the reply. The officer realized that Crossman, in his spiritual agony, needed to be doing something. It was better to be out in the field than moping around the barracks. ‘There will be a kit inspection at three o’clock this afternoon. I shall be the inspecting officer. Who’s the senior rank here now?’
Everyone looked at Peterson, who went bright pink.
‘Corporal Peterson, you are responsible for getting the men into a state of readiness for my inspection. That will be all.’
Wynter was standing, leaning against the doorjamb, holding his nose. Pirce-Smith glanced at him as he passed, saying, ‘Clean the claret from your shirt, Wynter, before this afternoon.’
Attack on the Redan Page 22
