by V. A. Stuart
It was cold, with a chill wind from the east and a touch of frost in the air and, when the men were turned-up, an hour before dawn, Phillip ordered a double tot of rum to be issued with their morning brew of cocoa, served by the garrison cooks and brought up to the palisade in huge, earthenware containers, loaded on to hand-carts or ponies. Captain Brock was early astir, a calm, confident figure, ready with a jest or a word of praise as he made a tour of his defence lines.
“A Turkish army patrol caught a spy, attempting to leave town,” he told Phillip, after he had inspected the Trojan’s gun battery. “Though what the fellow imagined he could tell the enemy that they don’t already know defeats me! Spies are constantly coming and going—with a mixed population of Tartars, Jews, Armenians, Greeks, and Germans, as well as Russians and a number of Cossacks, it is hard to judge who is on our side and who isn’t. In general, I must confess, most of them appear to prefer our occupation to the rule of their Russian Governor. A great many actively co-operate with us, besides supplying us with quantities of meat and grain, for which, of course, we pay and most of which we send on to Balaclava to feed Lord Raglan’s troops.” He smiled, without amusement. “Another reason, I suppose, why we must endeavour to hold this place. And we shall not have long to wait now the wind has dropped and the mist is rising. Keep a sharp look-out—they’ll come silently. These are the conditions they like best for an attack and you won’t hear a bridle jingle.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Phillip acknowledged, feeling his heart quicken its beat. “I have men standing by with rockets, to enable us to see our target.”
The garrison commander nodded his approval. “It’s worth trying, though I doubt if you’ll see much if the mist is really thick.” He hesitated. “Have you seen Major Leach, by the way?”
“No, sir. But perhaps my officers have.” Phillip glanced at them but all four shook their heads. “Do you want him, sir? If so, I could send someone to look for him.”
“Don’t trouble, Hazard—I shall probably run into him myself.” Captain Brock remounted his sturdy pony. “I like your Major Leach very much indeed and it is of great assistance to have a professional soldier of his caliber and experience, on whose advice I can call when I need it … as I frequently do! My garrison consists mainly of seamen and Marines, of almost as many different nationalities as the town itself can boast, and our combined knowledge of military tactics leaves much to be desired. So I hope I shall be permitted to retain the services of the Major and his excellent Fusiliers, even if I’m compelled to let you and your Trojans return to the Fleet.” He smiled again, warmly this time, repeated his warning to Phillip to keep a sharp look-out and continued on his way.
Five minutes after his departure, the first Russian guns opened fire, on the eastern extremity of the defence works and from alarmingly close range. Phillip took his stand by one of the shoulder-high loopholes in the palisade, between Numbers Three and Four guns, peering into the misty darkness but—apart from the firing to the east—he could see or hear nothing. The sky was tinged with faint, grey light now but this served only to increase the obscurity of the swirling curtain of mist which, rising over the flat plain, completely hid any movement taking place upon it from the anxious watchers in the Eupatoria defence works.
At Phillip’s side, Anthony Cochrane said, a slight tremor in his voice, “They’re coming, sir, I could swear it. Shall we send up a flare?”
“No, not yet. Where’s the First Lieutenant?”
“Here, sir.” Martin Fox came to join him at his loophole and both listened intently. Phillip heard—or imagined he heard—the muffled thud of hoofbeats on the frost-hard ground but was unable to decide from which direction they came. More cannon opened to the right of the line but, as yet, none fired on his position. Were they, he asked himself, attempting to bring their field pieces to point-blank range, depending on the stealth and silence of their approach to take his battery by surprise? Were they hoping to maim or slaughter his guns’ crews, before they could fire a shot in reply? A flare, while it might help him to locate them, would also serve to reveal his position to the enemy and … he stiffened, hearing the chink of metal quite distinctly now and—between the spasmodic crackle of musketry and the roar of the guns to the east—another sound, which puzzled him at first. Could it be the scrape of wheels on rock? There was a patch of rough, rockstrewn ground, he remembered suddenly, about four hundred yards—three hundred and fifty, perhaps—to his left front. And if wheels were passing over this, then the enemy field guns had not yet unlimbered and his guess as to the strategy they were seeking to employ might well be right. The mist which was affording cover for their approach must also, he knew, to a certain extent confuse them. Even with their knowledge of the ground and their spies’ reports, the advancing Cossacks could not be quite sure how near to the curving line of the defence works they had come and might therefore have come closer than they had intended. Phillip gripped Martin Fox’s arm.
“Did you hear that? Wheels passing over rock?”
“That was what it sounded like, Phillip.” Fox, too, had noticed and remembered the rocky patch of ground to their front and he gestured in its direction. “There’s a hillock just beyond and to the left which would give them good cover—probably the point they’re aiming for but they’ve come too far and must wheel. Shall we open with Numbers Six and Eight and chance it? They’re both loaded with grape.” He broke off as the boom of cannon drowned his words, coming from the direction of the magazine, and then went on, his mouth to Phillip’s ear, “The range of the hillock is three hundred and seventy yards—I worked it out last evening, when we were siting the guns.”
“Very well. Tell Mr Sutherland to open fire.”
The First Lieutenant sang out the order and the alert Sutherland acknowledged it promptly, himself running for ward to lower the elevation of his Number Eight gun. The gun opened, its flash momentarily blinding them, with Number Six doing likewise a few seconds later. Neither shot was on target but the next two were and a third, firing shell, from the gun under Anthony Cochrane’s command—by what Phillip had afterwards to admit was an almost incredible piece of good for-tune—fell short, to score a direct hit on one of the enemy guns. This had been in position, ready to fire and the British shell, bursting amongst the unfortunate crew, virtually wiped them out, aided by the explosion of the gun itself—or of the piled ammunition behind it, Phillip could not be sure which. At all events, when the smoke cleared a little, he saw that the field piece had disintegrated into a heap of misshapen metal, surrounded by grey-coated bodies.
To their credit, the Cossack gunners managed, despite this setback, to bring four of their field-cannon into action. Taunted by the triumphant cheers of the Trojan’s guns’ crews, the four 12-pounder pieces fought a courageous but unequal duel with the naval battery and not until another gun had been put out of action by a direct hit did the remaining three withdraw. Even then, they unlimbered just out of range, and fired a few defiant shots before galloping back across the plain, to be swallowed up in the now swiftly dispersing mist. Their part in the battle over, at least for the time being, Phillip ordered his men to cease fire. He was on his way to offer them the praise they had earned when an elderly French naval officer, with a bandaged arm and without his shako, came running up with a breathless request for aid.
“Zey are breaking trough, Monsieur,” he stammered, in barely comprehensible English, gesturing vaguely in the direction from which he had come. “I beg you … ’elp us. We are wiz’out ammunition and ze crew of our gun all are wounded.”
“Let me go, sir!” Fox offered eagerly. “With a relief gun’s crew.” Phillip hesitated, reluctant to let him go but he could offer no valid reason for refusal and his second-in-command, taking his brief nod for consent, quickly gathered a spare gun’s crew and a munition limber and vanished with them into the smoke of battle at the French officer’s heels.
Phillip returned to his vantage point at the loophole and, able to see more clearl
y now, watched in horrified amazement as two squadrons of Cossack cavalry charged past his line of vision, to hurl themselves at what appeared to be a breach in the defensive palisade. They were too close and at too much of an angle for any of his guns to range on them but they were met by a well directed volley of musketry, and then by a resolute, line of seamen and Marines, with fixed bayonets. None got through and, beaten back, they were forced to retire, leaving their dead and wounded behind them.
“I hope, sir,” Anthony Cochrane said, leaning a smoke-blackened face close to his, “that Mr Fox’s Frenchmen are as steady as those fellows over there.”
Phillip nodded, tight lipped, fervently echoing his hope. “It will be over very soon, I think. They’ve fought well, no one can deny them that, but they’re beaten. Their two attempts to surprise us have both failed and they’ve suffered heavy losses … unless their commander is a callous madman, he must order them to withdraw.”
His prediction proved to be correct. The mist cleared and the Cossack force could be seen, retreating across the open plain. They did so in scattered groups at first, but finally in large numbers, some carrying wounded across their saddles and followed by gun limbers which moved at walking pace, piled high with other casualties.
Victory was complete for Eupatoria’s defenders and the weary men, realizing now that they had been successful in beating off the attack, expressed their feelings in spasmodic cheers as they received the order to stand down. There was no sign of Martin Fox but a jubilant Major Leach came to exchange congratulations with Phillip and his officers, and the Trojan’s gunners, recognizing him, gave him an extra cheer. He and his Fusiliers had been among those facing the Cossack cavalry at one of the points their guns had managed to breach, having, Leach confessed with engaging modesty, had to make a fifty-yard sprint in order to get there in time to form up with a line of Turkish sailors. He had no news of Martin Fox when Phillip questioned him but stated, with certainty, that at no point in the defensive line had the enemy succeeded in breaking through.
“They are savages, these Cossacks,” he observed. “And I’ve never held them in great esteem but, by heaven, Hazard, I have to admit that today they fought as bravely as any troops l have ever come across. They almost got through to our magazine, early on in the attack … you heard them, I expect, battering away at point-blank range over to your right? They brought in a six-gun battery, without a soul seeing or hearing them, until they opened up. And then it was touch and go, until Captain Brock got a howitzer over to them and reinforced the defenders with some very gallant seamen from the Leander.”
“Were the original defenders French Marines?” Phillip asked, still worried by the continued absence of Fox and his party.
“No, they were ours, I understand,” Leach answered. “Oh, by the bye”—he put his single arm about Phillip’s shoulders and smiled at him with genuine affection. “Vernon tells me that you brought young Durbanville in … well done, Hazard! I am most relieved that you did, for … oh, for a great many reasons I need not go into now. He’s lost a leg, I believe, but is expected to live—is that right?”
“I was told so, yes, sir, though I haven’t seen him since the surgeons finished with him. He’s on board the Trojan.”
“And you will be taking him with you when you leave, I suppose? Well, give him my regards, if you please. He has good stuff in him, that young man. It’s a pity about his leg—I think he might have made a good soldier, given the chance, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Phillip agreed. “Perhaps he would.”
Leach wrung his hand. “I must report to Captain Brock. Good-bye and the best of luck to you, my friend, if we shouldn’t meet again … although I hope we shall. And I trust you will find Lieutenant Fox unscathed.”
“I trust so, too. Good-bye, sir. I also hope that we may meet again.”
When the Major had gone, Phillip left Anthony Cochrane in charge of the guns’ crews, to await the arrival of Captain Brock’s admirably organized commissariat service, with its promised supply of hot cocoa and a meal, and set off in search of his missing party, accompanied by Midshipman Grey. Despite Major Leach’s assertion that the magazine at the eastern extremity of the fortifications had been defended by British Marines, he decided to walk over there. It had been the only part of the defensive line that had been in desperate need of help—or the only one that he had heard of—and so it seemed reasonable to assume that Fox had gone there. And, if the position had been badly damaged by the enemy’s guns, he decided that the Trojan’s party would most probably have stayed down there, to assist with its repair.
Half-way to his objective, Grey stopped him, pointing. “Isn’t that one of our fellows, sir, coming up from the town?”
Following the direction of the boy’s pointing finger, Phillip recognized the big Gunner’s Mate, Thompson, who had wanted to pursue their attackers the previous night. Recognition was mutual and the man quickened his pace, coming towards the two officers at a rapid jog-trot. His expression, Phillip saw, with a sudden premonition of what was to come, looked glum and anxious.
“Well,” he demanded, his tone clipped. “What happened to your party, Thompson? And where is the First Lieutenant?”
“Mr Fox was wounded, sir.” The petty officer drew himself up, passing a big, red hand over his heated brow. “I … I’m afraid he’s pretty bad, sir. He wouldn’t let us take him to the hospital—kept on saying he must get back to the ship. So we carried him down to the Trojan, and the Surgeon’s caring for him now. That’s why we didn’t report to you sooner … it took us a while, you see, sir, because it’s a tidy step from the magazine down to the wharf.”
“You were at the magazine? Was anyone else wounded?”
Thompson shook his head. “Not of our party, sir—just a few cuts and slashes, nothing to speak of—but there were two Frenchmen killed and about ten or eleven wounded.” Phillip turned towards the road leading into the town and both Grey and the Gunner’s Mate fell into step beside him. “There’s a short cut, this way, sir,” the seaman pointed out.
As they hurried down the steep, cobbled path which ran between rows of white, stone-built houses towards the wharf, Phillip endeavoured to get a coherent account of what had happened to Fox and his party. But Thompson, despite his splendid physique and his repeated insistence that he was fit and unscathed, was considerably shaken and it took much patient questioning on Phillip’s part, before he was able to elicit and piece together the full story of what had occurred.
Martin Fox, it seemed, had led his small party to the aid of the hard-pressed Frenchmen with exemplary courage, and had received numerous saber cuts and a pistol ball in the chest. “I didn’t see how it happened, sir,” poor Thompson volunteered miserably. “Though I saw Mr Fox go down once and then pick himself up. When we got there, you see, sir, a whole bunch of them Cossacks leaped their horses right into the middle of us—they must have seen us coming, I suppose. Their field-guns was right underneath the palisade, and they’d pounded away at it until they laid part of it flat. They was trying to get through to the magazine, someone told me, meaning to blow it up. We never got the Frenchmen’s gun back into action, sir—or at least, not until the Jacks from the Leander came and helped us to drive the Cossacks out. And by then it was too late, of course, the enemy were away, guns and all. That was when I seen the First Lieutenant, sir. A couple of our lads had picked him up and were doing what they could for him, which wasn’t much. I knew he was hurt bad, sir, when I went over to him.”
“You didn’t call a surgeon?” Phillip asked, his throat tight.
“No, sir.” The petty officer shook his head. “There was a Surgeon’s Mate with the Leanders but he was attending to the French lads and Mr Fox said not to trouble him. ‘Take me back to the ship, Thompson,’ he kept saying, over and over again. So that’s where we took him, sir. And when we got him aboard, he sent me to report to you, sir. ‘Go and find the Captain’, he said. ‘Because he’ll be wondering where we’ve got to.’”<
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Martin had been conscious then, Phillip’s mind registered. He had been conscious when he was carried on board the Trojan and he was now in the competent hands of Angus Fraser, who would save him, if anyone could. He clung to this hope as, with Grey and Thompson panting at his heels, he rounded a bend in the narrow, deserted street and glimpsed the Trojan’s masts rising above the line of red-tiled rooftops.
“Seems funny to think them Frenchmen ran out of powder and shot for their guns, don’t it, sir?” Thompson’s voice broke into his thoughts. “When they was right on top of the main magazine, so to speak, and you’d have thought they only had to help themselves?”
The question was now of purely academic interest, Phillip reflected wryly. To his surprise, the big Gunner’s Mate added flatly, “After it was all over, sir, one of them Frogs—Frenchmen, I mean, sir—he said as the magazine was empty, that the whole lot had been issued, down to the last keg of powder! I don’t believe that, do you, sir?”
Phillip answered noncommittally but, recalling the wrecked transports and Captain Brock’s urgent request for powder and shot from the Trojan, he was less certain than Gunner’s Mate Thompson that the Frenchman had been wrong. One, at least, of the transports had been a munition carrier, according to Lieutenant James, and very little of her cargo was likely to be salvaged from her battered hull, lying half-submerged on the rocky shore only a short distance from the Henri Quatre. Well, if the magazine was empty, it made Captain Brock’s victory the more remarkable … and the more courageous, for Eupatoria’s spies had also been defeated. Phillip stifled a sigh, his mind shying away from the thought that the defence of an empty magazine might have cost the life of his best friend. Martin Fox was not dying, Thompson had not said so, only that he was badly hurt and he had been conscious when they had carried him on board the Trojan … he quickened his pace, conscious of a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
