The Valley of Death Read online

  ‘Troika? That’s a three-horse Russian carriage.’

  ‘It’s their name for a triad of assassins – the carriage is implicit – it’s an invisible hearse. So far as they’re concerned, it’s Sergeant Crossman’s peloton against the Cossacks, and they’re determined to get you.’

  ‘But,’ protested Crossman, ‘it’s simply bad luck that we run into Cossacks all the time. Damn it, they’re all over the place, like cockroaches. You can’t take a breath of fresh air without running into Cossacks. What am I supposed to do, wave at them and send them on their jolly way?’

  Lovelace shrugged and poured himself a glass of wine.

  ‘I’m just warning you, that’s all. They’re after me too. There’s a price on both our heads.’

  Wynter and Devlin were now back in the room.

  Wynter said, ‘And on our’n, surely? We must ’ave got a price on us too? It an’t fair if we’ve not.’

  Crossman could not believe his ears.

  ‘Good God, Wynter, why would you want troikas coming after you? Don’t you understand it means fighting the war on two fronts? It’s all right to meet the enemy face to face, but when they’re hunting you down in packs in the middle of the night, well that’s plain victimization. If you want to be assassinated, I’m sure one of your fellow soldiers would do it for you – I’ve heard them threaten often enough to do so.’

  Wynter looked round at his ‘fellow soldiers’ in a shocked and angry fashion. ‘Who? Who wants to turn me off?’

  ‘Just about everyone,’ growled Devlin, ‘when you’ve got a snoring fit on you.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Crossman. ‘All of you get some sleep – you’ll need it.’

  Grumbling at each other, the men went back to their beds on the floor of the hovel. Crossman and Lovelace remained at the small rickety table in the centre of the room. Major Lovelace turned the lamp down low. He offered Crossman a glass of wine and the sergeant took it. They sipped in silence, each lost in his own contemplations.

  The men were just beginning to recover from the flank march down through the Crimea to Balaclava harbour in the south. Having won the first battle at the River Alma against the Russians, the British, French and Turkish allies, numbering some 36,000 men, had set out too late to turn the Russian retreat south into a rout from which they could not recover. French insistence that they go back for the knapsacks their soldiers had left on the ground before the battle, and their Commander-in-Chief, Marshal St Arnaud’s, illness, had prevented following up their victory. Now the Russian army had escaped to the east and were probably preparing for another attack on the allied forces.

  The southern harbour city of Sebastopol, on the west coast of the Crimea, was the prime target of the allies and they had marched south to take it. However, St Arnaud argued they should not attack the north of the city, but skirt round it and attack the underbelly from the south. He was supported in this by Sir John Burgoyne, the chief engineer of the British force.

  Lord Raglan, Commander-in-Chief of the British army, allowed himself to be persuaded to fall in once more with French plans. It was a fact he could not do without the French, for his army was not powerful enough to take on the Russians alone. The British had lost over two thousand men at the Battle of the Alma: three hundred or so left dead on the battlefield, and many dying of wounds later. Injured survivors were shipped across the Black Sea to Scutari Barracks Hospital outside Constantinople.

  Raglan’s grumbles – for he still favoured attacking the north of Sebastopol while the Royal Navy pounded the south from the sea – filtered down to the troops. The regimental officers and soldiers of the line felt a little frustrated. Most thought a quick attack on the north would finish the war, but General Canrobert, now in command of the French as they reached the city, agreed with the dying Marshal St Arnaud’s strategy.

  Even as the British were settling in and around the southern harbour of Balaclava, which they had taken with only a few rounds of mortar, Raglan was still pressing for an immediate attack. Burgoyne and the French now argued that Sebastopol’s defences should be levelled before an attack took place on the south. The British forces had to spread themselves thinly between Sebastopol and Balaclava, a distance of approximately six miles.

  Meanwhile Prince Menshikoffs Russian army had gathered itself together and now lurked somewhere in the eastern hills.

  Most of the British officers, and indeed many among the ranks, felt a chance had been missed and that the war looked like being a protracted business because of it. The Christmas of 1854 was approaching and though some still cared whether the Russians took over the Turkish Empire, many thought they were on a hiding to nothing. They wanted to be home with their loved ones when the New Year was celebrated.

  Thus the siege had begun. While the Russians daily applied their feverish brains and hands to the task of reinforcing Sebastopol’s defences, the allies dug themselves in and failed to make an early assault. They simply watched the fortifications getting stronger and higher, the rank and file growing restless with frustration at this lack of initiative by their commanders. A short war would have been in everyone’s best interest, even that of the losers, whoever they might be.

  Now, while Crossman and Lovelace drank their wine in silence the dawn began to penetrate the hovel, entering with grey fingers through cracks in the door and through the glassless windows. Crossman made some coffee by roasting the beans in a frying pan, then placing them in a six-inch shell casing and grinding them with a cannonball. It was not good coffee, but it helped to clear the head before the start of the day.

  ‘Well done, Crossman,’ said Lovelace, ‘you make the best of a bad job.’

  ‘I feel like your fag,’ Crossman replied wryly. ‘Making you toast and tea of a Sunday afternoon.’

  The two men had both been to Harrow before fortune took them in different directions. Crossman, whose real name was Alexander Kirk, remembered the more senior Lovelace, but the other man had only Crossman’s word for it that he had been at the famous school. Older boys rarely remember younger ones, who look to those above as heroes or bullies, and, either way, recall their elders well.

  ‘If you are, you made yourself so. You have never told me why you chose to join the ranks under an assumed name – oh, don’t look at me like that, I’ve made a few enquiries and there was no Crossman at Harrow, ever. Why did you not purchase yourself a commission? Could you not afford it?’

  Crossman turned away, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice and not succeeding. ‘I had some trouble with my father.’

  ‘Ah, I see – the old man wouldn’t put up the money for a commission, eh?’ murmured Lovelace, coming to a natural but false conclusion.

  But Crossman’s father was Major Kirk of the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders, and Crossman’s older brother, James, served in the same regiment as a lieutenant. He, Crossman, could have joined his brother with a commission purchased for him by his father, but he hated the old man, who had been an utter bully to his wife and sons. When Crossman found out he was illegitimate, the son of a maid whom his father had seduced and then had committed to the workhouse where she subsequently died, he left home and joined the ranks under an assumed name.

  A sudden banging on the door saved Crossman replying.

  ‘Enter!’ cried Lovelace.

  A company sergeant from the 44th Foot opened the door and peered inside.

  ‘Major Lovelace, sir?’ he called.

  ‘What is it, man?’

  ‘You’re to report to General Buller, sir.’

  Lovelace raised his eyebrows, knowing there was more to come. He had just left Brigadier-General Buller, the commander of the Light Division’s 2nd Brigade. Something must have happened rather unexpectedly for him to be called back to see the general so soon after reporting.

  The company sergeant continued, ‘Marshal St Arnaud died of his illness in the night. General Canrobert is meeting with General Raglan at this moment.’

  Lovelace sighe
d. ‘Thank you, Sergeant. I’m on my way.’ He turned to Crossman. ‘So the old boy has rattled his last breath and we have Bob-Can’t permanently in the saddle. Sad. Arnaud was a grand warrior. One of the old school, of course, not like you and me, Sergeant. We’re the sharp new men under Buller’s command. Lord Raglan doesn’t like us. He thinks we’re “skulkers”.’

  ‘Maybe he’s right. Maybe battles should be fought in an honourable fashion, with no skulduggery.’

  Lovelace pulled on his boots. ‘You think there’s no honour in spying and sabotage? I think it’s part and parcel of war, Sergeant. I would rather sneak around a bit in the dark, find out a few facts, and thus prevent several regiments from marching into slaughter, than just throw them against an unknown force and hope for the best. Wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Isn’t it fate when a man dies in battle?’

  ‘No, Sergeant, it isn’t. When a man stumbles into a previously undiscovered cave and a ten-million-year-old stalactite falls from the ceiling and kills him stone-dead – that’s fate, my dear fellow. When a man dies on the battlefield, that’s lack of knowledge and planning. Now, hand me that sword, there’s a good chap.’

  Crossman had to agree that Lord Raglan seemed to have no plan whatsoever before the Battle of the Alma. He had marched his troops to the top of the heights, then marched the remnants down again, without any real understanding of what they were up against or how they were to defeat the enemy. Only the fortitude and initiative of the men in the field had won the day for the British and their allies.

  Planning.

  The whole war was a shambles as far as planning was concerned. Many of the men were wearing threadbare uniforms with holes, some were shirtless, some were even bootless. Any tents the soldiers had were so old they were rotting at the seams. Now that the British held the harbour of Balaclava it was expected that supplies would come from England, but there were appalling delays due to masses of paperwork and red tape.

  Not a blanket could be ordered without the request going through seven independent departments for approval back in England. Even when something arrived in the Crimea, a certificate was needed to allow it to be unpacked, which often did not accompany the goods and so had to be sent for back to England.

  The ambulance wagons so desperately needed on the battlefield of the Alma had been off-loaded at Varna and were still not in the Crimea. Surgeons had very little equipment, even lacking candles so they could not work after darkness fell. It was an appalling mess.

  Crossman had seen severed limbs tossed carelessly away by surgeons after the Alma. Because of the lack of wagons the dead were dragged by their heels to open pits and thrown unceremoniously in. Wounded men were left out all night on the slopes, pleading for water. This is how the men who had fought at the Alma, heroes every one, had been treated.

  The lack of organization and the insensitivity of the high command made Crossman grit his teeth in anger as he entered the downstairs room.

  ‘Stop grinding your jaw, whoever that is,’ growled Wynter from under his blanket. ‘There’s people tryin’ to sleep.’

  ‘Time you were up in any case,’ snapped Crossman. ‘Come on, you lot – up, up, up. The dawn’s been with us for some time now. I’m expecting orders for a fox hunt today. I want you men ready, willing and very able.’

  The two men and the woman rose, grumbling to themselves, but it was tiredness and discomfort that caused their low spirits, not the prospect of dangers ahead.

  2

  Once again there was a hammering on the door of the hovel and this time it was the major’s batman who was the caller.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Crossman. ‘Do you want Major Lovelace?’

  ‘No, Sergeant,’ grinned the soldier. ‘It’s you.’

  ‘Well, out with it, man.’

  ‘It’s the Connaught Rangers, Sergeant,’ said the soldier cheerfully. ‘There’s a brawl. Your regiment’s Grenadier Company was sent down from Careenage Ravine to forage for wood, but they got to the orchard at the same time as some Scotchmen. They’re still fightin’ now, out by the orchard wall. Some kiltie made a remark about the 88th’s colours still being encased after our bash at the Alma River and an Irishman hit him. That started it goin’, and it went on from there. There’s hell to pay.’

  The men with fearful oaths, from Counties Mayo, Galway, Clare and Sligo, raised in Connaught by Lord Clanrickarde, were at it again!

  ‘The damn colours were still encased after the battle,’ grumbled Crossman. What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘He said it like an insult, Sergeant, like you was ashamed to show which regiment you was from. And that’s the way the Irish took it.’

  ‘They damn well would. And I suppose that’s good reason to give a man a facer. It would be the Scots, of course. They enjoy a fight as much as men from my regiment. Why am I sent for? Aren’t there other people there to sort it out? Where’s the company sergeant-major?’

  ‘He’s there,’ grinned the corporal, who seemed to be enjoying himself. ‘It’s him what sent me for you.’

  Mystified, Sergeant Crossman hastily made his appearance as smart as possible and then accompanied the corporal to the orchard, where there were still men in trousers punching men in kilts, and vice versa, with NCOs trying to part them and catching blows themselves. The company sergeant-major was standing nearby, watching and fuming, holding a private by the collar so that the man’s toes hardly touched the ground.

  ‘Sarn-Major?’ said Crossman. ‘You sent for me?’

  The big, barrel-chested Irish sergeant-major’s eyes glowed with a strange light as he beheld Crossman. There is nothing so terrifying in the army as a sergeant-major in a cold fury. Such creatures have power emanating from them surpassing even that of God. The mind dwells on the summary stripping of rank . . . swift justice on the wheel – and even hanging does not seem to be out of the question. Crossman quailed inside.

  ‘Ah, ’tis the wayward sergeant, come to see us, is it? Where have you been, my fine rooster? Canoodling with your officer friends, is that it?’

  Crossman came to attention before the company sergeant-major.

  ‘I came as quickly as I could – but I have no idea why I’ve been called.’

  The sergeant-major jerked the soldier he was holding by the collar like an angler shaking a freshly caught fish.

  The man had a bloody nose, a visibly swelling ear, and a piece of yellow facing had been torn from his red coatee. He looked a sorry mess.

  ‘You don’t, eh? Well, you see this piece of rag I’m holding here, with some useless lump of lard inside it? This belongs to you, Sergeant. I believe they call it Private Clancy in moments of enlightenment. You know who Private Clancy is, Sergeant?’

  ‘My new man,’ sighed Crossman.

  ‘Ex-actly. And do you know why I’m just a little displeased with this slug in uniform?’

  ‘It’s my guess, Sarn-Major, that Clancy started the fight.’

  ‘Be-Jesus, you’re a bright man, to be sure, Sergeant. No wonder the officers in the staff tents love you. It’s your fine brain they’re after, I’m certain of that, for your common sense is nowhere to be seen. Get this snail’s shit out of my sight quickly, before I nail him to the nearest apple tree and make a martyr of him before my battered troops.’

  ‘Yes, Sarn-Major.’

  Clancy was released. He quickly grabbed his forage cap from the ground. Crossman took his sleeve and led him away.

  Clancy was a handsome young man with a dark complexion and thick black hair. He was probably not more than nineteen. Something about his bearing and demeanour told Crossman he was born and bred in the city. Most of the men in the Army of the East had been recruited from the countryside, from farms and villages, but the odd one from the city was there too.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ said Clancy, in a strange accent. He sniffed the blood running from his nose back up his nostrils where, miraculously it seemed to Crossman, it stayed. Then he tenderly felt a split lip bef
ore finishing his statement. ‘That Scotchman shouldn’t have remarked on the colours. They were just forgot, that’s all. It wasn’t a purposeful thing, to keep them cased. I hate Scotchmen.’

  ‘It’s Scotsmen – and I’m one myself, Clancy.’

  The dark man gave Crossman a sidelong glance.

  ‘Well, I didn’t mean posh Scotch – Scotsmen. I meant them Glasgow soldiers. You can’t even understand what they’re saying, half the time. They’ve got mouths full of marbles.’

  ‘You seem to have understood that one all right.’

  ‘He made it plain with his laugh,’ growled Clancy, recalling the incident. ‘I had to hit him, Sergeant. None of the other lads would have spoken to me again if I hadn’t. You understand that?’ His next remark was a little mournful in tone. ‘They don’t speak to me much anyway.’

  ‘Is it because you’re a gypsy?’ asked Crossman, with a little sidelong glance.

  ‘I’m no gypsy,’ cried Clancy indignantly. ‘I was brought up in Dublin, I was. I’m Anglo-Indian. My father was an Irish merchant who married a lady when he was in India. I’ve had an education, Sergeant. I can read and write.’

  There was just something in the tone of this man’s speech which caused Crossman to question him.

  ‘Your father, a merchant, married an Indian lady?’

  The young man hung his head a little. ‘I suppose he wasn’t exactly a merchant – he was a merchant’s clerk. And they weren’t really married – but, when my mother died,’ he added with fierce pride, his head coming up again, ‘my father took me back to Ireland with him and sent me to school.’

  ‘You’re hardly Anglo-Indian then, are you? More like Irish-Indian. There’s a mixture to conjure with. What was your mother? Afghan? Sikh?’

  ‘Just a lady from Bombay. An untouchable, my father told me. She expired of a lung disease some time before he was sent back to Ireland.’

  ‘A very fine lady, I’m sure,’ said Crossman. ‘One’s mother is always fine. My own was – in a sense – an untouchable. One of the English untouchables . . .’ He stopped there, realizing he had already said too much.