‘Oh, yes, sir, thank you, sir,’ muttered Wynter when the lieutenant was out of earshot. ‘Never mind I’m bloody injured.’ He glared at Crossman. ‘My nose is broke. It hurts like buggery, you bastard.’
Crossman said nothing to him, not even looking up, but Peterson remarked, ‘You brought it on yourself, Wynter. And see here, if you disrupt my peloton again, I’ll have you on report. I don’t care if they flog you again. I’d like it. I think you’re a bloody pig.’
Wynter’s eyes went wide and round. ‘Your peloton?’
‘That’s right, I’m the senior non-commissioned officer here and you’ll do what I say or I’ll report you to Lieutenant Pirce-Smith for disobedience and insolence in the face of duty. See, if you’d have had the sense of a mole you’d have kept your stripe and you’d have been the one in charge. Instead it’s me who’s the heavy horse here now and you’ll do as you’re told like any soldier. I’ve a good mind to request you go back to the trenches with the rest of the regiment, and we’ll get someone who appreciates the advantages of being with us.’
‘How about I tell our brigade commander that you’re a woman?’ said Wynter. ‘How long would you be in charge then?’
Ali said softly, ‘You do that, Wynter, and I cut your throat.’
The threat was not an idle one. Wynter looked around him at the other men, whose glares told him all he needed to know.
‘Blood and fuckin’ custard!’ he cried, taking off his shirt and flinging it on to his bed in a great temper. ‘I’m a widower, I am. No one ever feels sorry for me. He just lost a few stripes. I lost my wife. You bastards. I’ll get even one day, you see if I don’t. I’ll burn the fuckin’ lot of you in your beds.’
‘The trenches!’ warned Peterson, grimly. And as if she had been a leader all her life, ‘I shall have to recommend it to the officer, if you don’t follow discipline.’
Wynter stormed outside, barechested. They heard him at a nearby horse trough, splashing, presumably washing his bloodied face. When he came back he had calmed down a little. He swept the room with a contemptuous glare and then settled on his cot to sew a hole in his shirt. In the meantime Crossman fetched his kit from the upstairs room and found himself a place on the floor, by the old stove. The stove was not used in the summer, even for cooking, which was best done outside where the breeze could take the smoke and heat away. Once winter came around again, if they were still here, he would have to find a new place to bed down.
Gwilliams came to him and said quietly, ‘You can have my bed, sergeant.’
‘Call me by my name, now, Gwilliams. I thank you, but this will be fine.’ He placed his belongings at the bottom of the blanket. ‘I suppose I’d better get the pipe clay out . . .’
The men, and one woman, spent the evening cleaning their kit. As always they paid particular attention to their weapons. Wynter remained silent throughout. At half-past ten Major Lovelace entered the hovel. He went straight upstairs without glancing at Crossman. A short time later he called down and requested Crossman’s presence. The ex-sergeant climbed the stairs, dreading the meeting. It was not that Lovelace would be censorious, but Crossman dreaded any show of sympathy. He wanted to be left alone with his misery and he had expected Lovelace to understand that. They were both from the same kind of background. Men of their stamp had an unreasonable pride, a great horror of appearing to demand pity.
He need not have worried. Any sympathy Lovelace felt was hidden beneath a layer of reserve as formidable as any suit of armour. He motioned Crossman to stand at ease.
‘The colonel has of course appraised me of the situation. How do you feel about Lieutenant Pirce-Smith assuming command of your rangers?’
‘The lieutenant is a very good man, sir. I had not thought so at first, but I was wrong.’
‘I’m glad you think that. I think it too. Have you cleared out your kit? Yes, I see you have. This must be greatly annoying for you, but as the lieutenant said, this has nothing to do with your ability as a soldier. I shall remember that and I hope you will too. It may or may not be of some consolation to learn that I would have done exactly the same thing in your place. Family first was always the Lovelace motto. One doesn’t leave one’s brother to the sharks. That will be all, Crossman.’
‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’
He descended the stairs with a feeling of great relief. The major had come close to saying he was sorry, but he had not actually uttered the words.
Crossman bedded down early. Gwilliams and Yorwarth sat up late, talking in low voices to one another. Wynter went out, but came back before midnight, knowing that he needed a clear head for the morning inspection. Peterson went round and studied the state of her kingdom before going to bed herself. Yusuf Ali had gone out early. Crossman was fearful the Turk might try to settle accounts with Campbell, but he could not control the Bashi-Bazouk’s every waking minute.
One thing Crossman was good at was sleeping. Even in his darkest hours he had always been able to put his head down and enter the realms of the unconscious. There was the misery of waking, of course, but at least he was not raggedly overtired. Everyone was up at dawn, laying out their kit. Peterson, aware that she needed to be seen to be fair, especially by Wynter, ordered Crossman to go out for the water. Crossman took the small barrel they used to store their water and, under a smirk from Wynter, went out and fetched the water from a nearby tank. While he was filling the barrel there was a commotion outside Jonnie Bread’s. It took but a few seconds to go and investigate. When he returned he had some news for Wynter.
‘Wynter?’ Crossman said, after humping the barrel across the room and placing it near the stair well. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’
Wynter stood and squared his shoulders, thinking they were going to finish the fight started the previous evening.
‘What?’
‘I’m happy to inform you that they’ve found Charlie Dobson.’
Wynter’s eyes widened. He snatched his gleaming bayonet from his blanket, where he had been polishing the blade.
‘Where is he?’
‘You wouldn’t recognize him,’ said Crossman, ‘but Jonnie Bread assures me that it is Dobson. He recognizes Dobson’s waistcoat. The corpse is bloated and horrible to view, but if you wish you can go and see it. They fished it out of the waterhole at the back of Jonnie’s place just ten minutes ago. You may recall the water was getting low in the hole? Well it became low enough to reveal the drowned body.’
Wynter shook his head. ‘How did it stay down?’
‘Apparently the man had weapons all over him, just as Ali does. Knives, pistols, a remarkable amount of ammunition. Charlie Dobson was a walking arsenal. A weighty fellow with all that iron on him. He must have struck and killed your wife. Afterwards, realizing what he had done he leapt through the back window and made off into the night, running straight into the waterhole. Like most of our sailors, he probably couldn’t swim, and if the stories are correct, he was drunk. No one will ever know for certain what happened, but if he gave any cries they were not heard – not surprising considering the amount of noise that issues from Jonnie Bread’s establishment in the early hours.’
‘Dead,’ said Wynter, lost in amazement. ‘Dead an’ no chance of me takin’ his life a second time.’
‘You will have to be satisfied that your revenge was carried out by the elements, Wynter, and be glad you avoid the gallows yourself.’
‘He was a murderer, sure.’
‘But not a tried and convicted one, and you are no paid state executioner, Harry.’
A look of indignation came over Wynter’s face.
‘Here,’ he cried, ‘who said you could call me Harry?’
‘I can call you what I like now that I’m no longer a sergeant, Harry boy. Providing it’s not insulting of course, otherwise we’d have to go to the fists again, wouldn’t we? I take it you’re not insulted by your Christian name?’
‘No, o’ course I an’t.’
‘Well, then –
and feel free to call me Jack whenever you like.’
Crossman’s delivery was so nonchalant and casual that he caught Wynter off guard. Wynter was looking for the catch the whole time. When he saw there was none, the humour of the situation finally got through to the Essex farm boy. Wynter suddenly grinned and nodded at Crossman.
‘He’s a card, eh? What? I’ll be buggered if he an’t. Now look, I’m off out to see Charlie. I want to poke him with a stick to make sure he’s dead. Bloated, eh? I want to make him wobble like a jelly on a plate. Anyone want to come and watch?’
‘I’ll come,’ said Yorwarth. ‘I’ve never seen a man drowned away.’
The pair of them left, quickly, for the inspection was due in a short time.
‘Ghouls, the pair of them,’ muttered Crossman. ‘You think he would be satisfied with knowing his wife’s killer has met his just end. But no, he needs to sate his lust.’
The gruesome pair made it back just in time for the inspection, which was thankfully just a formality. Pirce-Smith had to mark the beginning of his leadership in some way and this was as good as any. No one was brought to task, but they had to stand and listen to a little speech, about how things would be different now, not better, not worse, simply different, there being another man in charge. They listened politely, as one would to a vicar’s sermon, the words going in one ear and out of the other. Once it was all over, Pirce-Smith ordered Yorwarth and Wynter to collect his kit and carry it upstairs for him. After this had been done and the officer was left to do his unpacking, Wynter and Yorwarth regaled the barrack room with the details of the drowned man.
‘You could ’ave rolled him to his grave,’ said Wynter, ‘like a bloody great bladder full of piss. He sort of sloshed and wobbled when you kicked him, squirtin’ out of his mouth and nose. You should have seen Jonnie’s face. I mean, he’s bin drinkin’ the water all that time – ’is customers too! Bin making stews and soups, as well as bev’ridges. They’ve been havin’ Charlie Dobson for supper every night.’
Peterson’s face twisted into a mask.
‘I don’t need to listen to this.’
Yorwarth’s description of the corpse was nothing short of gruesome, he described the exact pallor of the skin, the spongy consistency of the flesh, the way the teeth fell out of its mouth when Wynter prised open the jaws with his poking stick. It was a sight Yorwarth would never forget. Something to tell his grandkiddies, God willing he had some, one day in a long future.
‘I’m sure your grandchildren will thank you for it,’ Crossman said, ‘when they wake screaming from their nightmares.’
Later that day, Crossman’s duties left him free to visit Jane. He went to see her determined to get the ugly news over with. Things were actually no worse than they ever had been, since a sergeant is no more able to ask for the hand of a lady than a private. However, he had felt a little more worthy of her attention when the stripes were on his arm. He looked at the patch where one set had been. The cloth had been protected and was much newer, the redness of the colour stark against the rest of the faded sleeve. She could not fail to notice they had gone, the moment she set eyes on him. He need say nothing, but simply stand there.
As fortune would have it, when he knocked on the door of the hut which she shared with Lavinia Durham and her husband, it was the married lady who answered. Lavinia smiled into his face.
‘Why Alex, that is to say, Jack. Do you call for Jane? She has presently gone to Vanity Fair, but will return shortly.’
Crossman stood there, waiting for the comment which never came. When he gave no reply to Lavinia’s question, a puzzled frown crossed her brow. They remained staring at one another for a moment, then she invited Crossman in, stepping aside to let him enter.
‘Is your husband not at home?’
‘No, he is out doing something with his stores. You have no need of concern. He will be away until late this evening. You know how I approve of this match between you and Jane. I must do all I can to nurture it. Jane tells me you are a slow top, but I convinced her that you would eventually come up to scratch. My mother always said . . .’
‘Damn your mother,’ said an anguished Crossman, irritated beyond reason by this chatter, ‘I’ve been stripped of my rank, Lavinia!’
Her face lost its colour for a moment, but it soon returned.
‘Dear Alex, I am sorry, but it was not much to lose, was it?’
‘It meant a great deal to me.’
She stared at the bare patch on his right sleeve, noticing it for the very first time. ‘I know, and I never understood why, but then I am only a woman. These things are beyond the ken of mere females. Bertie forever grieves that he will never make colonel. I am happy to be the wife of a captain, for colonels are never at home, having responsibilities which take them abroad at all hours. This does not trouble me at the moment, but it will once we begin a family – but you are about to be vexed with me again, I can see it in your eyes. Dear Alex, I am truly sorry, but you know it will make no difference to the way Jane feels. It is you she loves, not Sergeant Crossman of the 88th Connaught Rangers.’
He relaxed a little, entering the hut and, managing to feel wicked, sat down in Bertie’s favourite chair. In truth it was only a rattanwork chair and coming to pieces at that. He took off his forage cap and fanned his face with it.
‘I’m sorry, Lavinia. I should not have snapped. It really is neither here nor there, is it? I have lost my rank and there’s an end to it. One of the consequences of having done so is the fact that I shall not be as free as I was. As leader of the peloton, I was able to manage my own time. Now my time will be managed for me. I shall be able to get away, on the odd occasion, but there is an officer above me to please now.’
Lavinia was wearing an incredibly white dress. She looked obscenely pure and Crossman was at a loss to know how she managed to look like an alabaster goddess in a place where filth was ubiquitous. It seemed wrong somehow. She appeared to cross the room on castors, her feet out of sight beneath the hem of the dress. Reaching his chair she stood beside it, her hand on his shoulder, in a gesture of comfort.
‘Surely you had officers to please before now?’
‘That’s true, but to a great extent I was my own general. That’s all finished. I am at the beck and call of everyone in the army, except another private like myself. I am the lowest of the low.’
It was at this moment that Jane entered the room with an urchin in tow. Unlike Lavinia, Jane was wearing a dark red dress that was splattered with mud almost to the knee. Her hair was in slight disarray, but her expression was composed. To Crossman, she had never been more beautiful. Jane Mulinder stopped short however, on seeing her two friends in a scene of intimacy: the man sitting in the chair as if he owned the establishment, the other with a proprietorial hand on his shoulder. From her expression they could both tell she was unnerved. She seemed to recover almost immediately and spoke in a bright voice, as if she believed the world were full of nothing but sweet innocence.
‘What a perfect tableau! The brother returned home from the distant war, and the fond sister, her anxious wait over. What a picture you make. What is it that you are doing?’
‘I rather thought we looked like the wayward woman and the rake,’ said the mischievous Lavinia. ‘I was making love to him, my dear.’
Jane’s face turned to stone, then she laughed and said, ‘You’re bamming me – no, please, what is it? Something has happened, hasn’t it?’
The urchin, a child of some eight years, grimy from head to toe, hair stiff with dirt, was still firmly gripped by the collar. He saw fit to speak up now that there was a short lull in the speeches.
‘I don’ wanna learn no numbers!’
‘Who’s this gentlemen?’ asked Lavinia. ‘Did he try to steal your purse?’
‘No,’ said Jane, somehow managing to remove her hat and place it on a stand without letting go of the wriggling boy. ‘This is Edward. His mother is Private McGurk’s wife and this is their darling child.
She asked me if would teach him to read and write, there being no literacy in the family to date. I promised I would stuff the child with knowledge. You will of course help me, Lavinia, I know you will.’
‘Will I? Don’t set him down anywhere, Jane dear, he might infest the room. Can we do the schooling outside do you think?’
‘Don’t be prissy, Lavinia. Now, stand there young man and don’t move. If you attempt to run I shall send Sergeant Crossman after you. He will shoot you down like a cur. Sergeant Crossman has no mercy in his soul. He has killed a thousand Cossacks and scoffs that he will have a thousand more before he leaves the Crimea. A boy like you would make a good running target – excellent practise for killing Cossacks.’
‘Jane,’ said Crossman, ‘come here. I have some grave news.’
She let go of the boy and stared now, into his face, seeing the seriousness of the expression. Edward remained where he was, unmoving, cowed by this tall man who now rose from his chair in the dark corner. He was like a wild creature caught among all-powerful hunters. He seemed to sense that the dark unknown world of adult fears was about to be unleashed in the room, and he shivered in his shoes.
‘Oh?’ cried Jane. ‘Is someone dead? Your father? My father? Who is it, Alexander? Tell me.’
‘No one is dead, Jane. Please, sit down, you look as if you are in a swoon. The news is that I have lost my sergeantcy. I have been stripped of my rank. I am so sorry to be bringing you this news, but I have shamed myself and my regiment by impersonating an officer, and now I am suffering the consequences.’
‘What?’ cried Jane in an astonished voice.
‘You heard him, Jane,’ said Lavinia. ‘He has disgraced himself.’
‘And have lost my rank.’
Jane said, ‘But it is such a little thing . . .’ But she then saw Lavinia gesturing wildly from behind Crossman’s back, and added, ‘though I can see it would important to you, Alexander.’
‘Yes, yes it was.’
‘Is there nothing to be done?’
He considered. ‘No, I am guilty of the crime, for crime it was, and therefore must accept my punishment. I am back to being a private soldier, with no rank. It will take some time to claw my way back up again, but I must do it. There is one way . . .’
Attack on the Redan Page 23
