The Valley of Death Read online

  Crossman said, ‘Now that you’re with my little peloton, you’ll behave yourself, is that clear?’

  ‘Peloton? What’s that?’

  ‘It’s French for “little ball” – it’s what Major Lovelace calls our small band. Lance Corporal Wynter and the other soldiers are not as familiar with French as they might be – they pronounce it “platoon”. That’s by the by, Clancy. You will behave yourself, understood?’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant.’ He took another quick look at Crossman as they walked along. ‘You’re – you’re the one they call Fancy Jack, aren’t you? The gentleman in the ranks.’

  Crossman halted and Clancy halted with him.

  ‘I’m the one they call Sergeant Crossman of the 88th Foot, Connaught Rangers – and don’t you ever forget it.’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant,’ replied Clancy in a small voice. ‘I won’t forget.’

  When they reached the hovel Crossman went in before Clancy and announced to the others that they had a new man, a private, who would be part of the team. Clancy came in then, smiling shyly. The others stared at him for a moment. Then, predictably, Wynter spoke.

  ‘A bloody Fuzzy-Wuzzy! What are they sendin’ us black men for? An’t we got enough trouble without havin’ to babysit smoothy-faced Anglo-Banglos?’

  The smile immediately left Clancy’s face and he stepped forward ready to strike Wynter a blow.

  ‘Clancy,’ cried Crossman, ‘remember what I told you! Wynter, if you want to keep that stripe you’d better learn to watch your tongue. I won’t have that kind of talk amongst my men, is that clear? You raggedy-arsed country boy, what makes you so superior to this man? The colour of your skin? I’ve just seen Clancy here fell three Glaswegians with one blow. He may look bookish, but he’s a brute underneath. He’s half-Indian. His uncle was a Thug, which means he’ll cut your balls off while you sleep if you mess with him too much. I’ve seen it done. These men don’t draw their blades without letting blood. Be very careful of Clancy, Wynter.’

  ‘Yeah?’ said Wynter, in a failing voice.

  Major Lovelace came through the door at this moment, having heard the exchange from just outside.

  ‘Yes, Wynter. The sergeant’s right. The Thugs are a secret society in India – assassins born and bred. They also use the garrotte to deadly effect – which is why I requested young Clancy here. He’s a past master at throttling men, awake or asleep, it makes no difference to him.’

  Wynter’s eyes were round and wary and he went back to his corner of the room to study this knife-wielding strangler from a distance. Clancy quietly thanked Crossman for playing up his role in the fight with the Scots, and the sergeant noted his modesty, for he knew that what he and Lovelace had claimed for the young man was otherwise true.

  ‘Leave it for the moment,’ he said. ‘Accept a little respect for nothing – you can earn it later.’

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant.’

  Crossman went to the door of the hovel to smoke his chibouque, his long Turkish pipe, which helped to calm his nerves despite the harsh nature of the Tartar tobacco. He fell into contemplations on a range of subjects from natural history to engineering. Crossman had a lively mind when it came to science, though he was the first to admit his enthusiasm could be boring to others.

  He and his American friend, Rupert Jarrard, the war correspondent for the New York Banner, often fell into discussions over the latest inventions and discoveries, be they farm implements or new medicines. Jarrard, an ex-frontiersman, took men as he found them, whether they were sergeants or colonels. There was nothing of the snob in him and he often sought Crossman’s company.

  Of course, Rupert Jarrard was forever looking for a good story, and he knew there to be a peach of a tale somewhere inside Crossman’s family history. There had to be a pocketful of secrets in the trousers of a gentleman joining the rank and file of a rough Irish regiment like the Connaught Rangers. However, there was genuine friendship between the two men and Jarrard hadn’t pressed unwanted questions.

  Rupert was up at the front today, watching Sebastopol from a distance as the enemy built their defences, making barbettes, constructing earthworks with soil packed in gabions and baskets, right before the very eyes of the allies.

  Everyone on the allied side was screaming for an assault on the city – everyone but the top generals – and the frustrations amongst the regimental officers and their men were growing daily. It seemed madness to give the Russians so much time to prepare for an attack, but the French would not make an assault without a bombardment first, and for some reason they claimed they were not yet in any position to use their guns. Along with the battle casualties the British army had been severely depleted by disease, and Raglan felt his troops could not make an attack alone.

  Crossman sighed. The whole war was faltering. The allies could have struck fatal blows on several occasions over the past few days, but had failed to do so. It was madness.

  Suddenly he almost choked on the smoke from his chibouque, and quickly ducked inside the doorway.

  Past the hovel ran the mud road down to Balaclava, which had been churned to a quagmire by the araba carts, wagons, batteries of field artillery, cavalry and other traffic using it. The British had again come off badly in their choice of ground. They were now on the right, a position of honour relinquished by the stronger force, the French, but it was a bad one, stretching Raglan’s thin lines and plaguing him with long supply routes from the harbour to his troops.

  Down this long boggy track came a young woman on horseback, riding sidesaddle and wearing a charcoal-grey dress. On her head was a pretty riding hat tied with a white chiffon scarf. She was the wife of Captain Durham, a quartermaster, and her name Crossman knew to be Lavinia Alice. She rode her bay well, using the whip only to tap the beast’s flank when its hooves slipped in the mud.

  She sat tall and confident in the saddle, exchanged sunny smiles with those subalterns and generals who passed her on the road, and looked for all the world as if she were hacking in St James’s Park of a Sunday afternoon. It was said she had something of a reputation, had many followers, and was fond of a bloody battle. To get to the Crimea, which had been forbidden to ‘ladies’, she had to disguise herself as a common soldier’s wife. Lord Cardigan had invited her to stay on his yacht and had loaned her the horse.

  ‘Why are you duckin’ out of sight?’ asked Wynter, peering over Crossman’s shoulder. What’s out there?’

  ‘None of your business,’ said Crossman testily. ‘You look to cleaning your weapon.’

  Wynter shook his head thoughtfully. ‘It’s that woman, an’t it? Mrs Durham, the Vulture . . .’

  ‘You keep a civil tongue in your head,’ snapped Crossman. ‘If an officer catches you talking of a lady like that, you’ll have your back skinned on the wheel.’

  ‘Sorry, Sergeant, I’m sure,’ replied Wynter, not at all contrite. ‘I’m just repeating gossip. You know what they say about her. Anyway, what’s interestin’ is that you seem scared of her seeing you. Why would that be, I wonder?’

  ‘It’s not her,’ lied Crossman. ‘It’s the corporal, walking the other way. I owe him money, if you must know. A gambling debt.’

  ‘You owe gambling money? I don’t believe it. All right, I an’t going to say nothing about her. I just think it’s interestin’, that’s all. I mean, I know why some young lieutenants might well need to duck down behind doorways when the Vulture comes along – but a sergeant in the 88th Foot? Now that’s something to think about.’

  At that moment Crossman was saved by the appearance of Lieutenant Dalton-James, who strode up to the doorway. The lieutenant peered within the hovel. He curled his bottom lip in distaste of the interior.

  ‘Ten-shun!’ cried Crossman, ‘Officer in the room.’

  Dalton-James, of the 2nd Rifle Brigade, stepped inside. He was dressed in one of his immaculate green uniforms, which appeared black in the dimness of the hovel. Since arriving at Balaclava Dalton-James had acquired his travelling trunks, full o
f such necessary kit as a silver egg timer and an ebony walking stick with a bone goosehead handle – and his gentleman’s wardrobe, of course. The whole had come by sea from Constantinople and Crossman could not help but wonder what important cargo had been left behind in Turkey to make room for the lieutenant’s fripperies.

  Still looking around him Dalton-James remarked, ‘You have yourself some fine quarters here, Sergeant. There are men up on the line who are still bivouacking in the open.’

  ‘We’re extremely lucky, sir.’

  ‘I should say so, even though the place smells like a pigsty.’

  ‘That would be Major Lovelace’s socks,’ muttered Wynter. ‘He’s left ’em out for an airing.’

  Normally the wrath of Dalton-James would have fallen on Wynter for this insubordinate remark, except that the lieutenant had been so taken aback to learn his senior officer was a member of the household he actually lost his colour.

  ‘Major Lovelace? Here?’

  ‘Not here at the moment,’ Crossman said, ‘but he keeps a room above as his emergency billet.’

  ‘Oh,’ replied Dalton-James, still a little ruffled. ‘That remark I made referred only to this room, you understand. I want no tattle-tales running to Major Lovelace with elaborate stories.’

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it, sir,’ said Crossman, suppressing a smile. ‘Did you wish to speak with me?’

  ‘Yes, yes. A fox hunt, Sergeant. Gather round the table, you rabble.’

  Crossman and his men learnt that they were to go out into the hills to intercept a caravan on its way from Sebastopol to St Petersburg.

  ‘A cargo arrived by ship in Sebastopol from the Americas,’ explained Dalton-James, ‘just prior to the arrival of our fleet. This was a shipment of arms which we understand the Russians are keen to get to St Petersburg. They cannot transport it by sea now, since the port is blockaded, so they’re trying to convey the consignment overland to Yalta by caravan. You must find this caravan. If you can convey the goods it carries back here, then by all means do so, but if there’s any chance they will get back into enemy hands, destroy them.’

  ‘What are these goods?’ asked Crossman.

  ‘Rifles,’ replied Dalton-James. ‘Fifty of them. Ferguson rifles. On no account are they to reach St Petersburg. These are breech-loaders which have fallen into Russian hands. If they get them to St Petersburg they’ll copy the design and be turning out weapons superior to those we ourselves use.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Peterson, who thought her Minié rifle was better than any other weapon in the world.

  ‘It’s called irony, Peterson,’ Crossman said to her. We make a breech-loading rifle, the Russians obtain it and use it against us, while we continue to use our inferior barrel-loaders.’ He turned to Dalton-James. ‘Why do we still use barrel-loading weapons if we’ve invented a breech-loader?’

  ‘Breech-loaders are expensive weapons,’ replied the lieutenant. ‘We’ll get them one day.’

  ‘How will we recognize these particular rifles?’

  ‘They’ve 35-inch-long barrels, 15 bore, 8 grooves in the rifling.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of a Ferguson,’ said Peterson, ‘and I know my rifles.’

  Dalton-James said, ‘Your job is to follow orders, Corporal, not to question them.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ muttered Peterson sullenly.

  ‘What about the carriers?’ asked Crossman. ‘What do we do with them?’

  ‘Execute them.’

  Peterson said, ‘Can’t we take some of them prisoner, sir, them that give up? I mean, it’s not a battle. It’s a bit like murdering someone in cold blood.’

  ‘This is war, Corporal. There’s no room for sentiment. Now down to details, Sergeant . . .’

  An hour later Crossman and his four soldiers, plus Yusuf Ali, the Bashi-Bazouk irregular fiercely loyal to Crossman, were taken to a spot south of the Woronzoff Road, which ran over the Causeway Heights. Ali had managed to scrounge a mule and cart with its driver, another Bashi-Bazouk, to convey them this far. They had a lot of walking and climbing to do and needed to save their boot leather.

  They were a rough-looking bunch.

  Lance Corporal Wynter was a surly Essex farm boy, a bit too knowing for his own good, inclined to disobey orders from time to time. Of medium height, he was lean and strong, and good enough in a battle. Corporal Devlin was a married man from County Kildare, much more reliable than Wynter, which was why Crossman had chosen to recommend him for corporal over the others. Then there was Lance Corporal Peterson, square-jawed and slight, a brilliant shot with a rifle. Private Clancy, the new man who had replaced Skuggs, had yet to show Crossman his worth.

  With them, but not of them, was the Turk. Yusuf Ali had been described by Wynter as looking like ‘a renegade Santa Claus’ with his white beard, his multi-coloured waistcoats and pantaloons, and his corpulent appearance. He was, however, all muscle and a walking arsenal, carrying several pistols, a carbine and more knives than the regiment’s Officers’ Mess cutlery box.

  Dalton-James had explained that a caravan of mules had last been seen climbing behind the Fedioukine Hills above the North Valley. Major Lovelace, out on one of his spying missions, had discovered that this was the caravan carrying the Ferguson rifles. Lovelace enjoyed the cloak-and-dagger side of the work, leaving people like Crossman’s band to execute the plan.

  The soldiers were dressed like the Bashi-Bazouk, in an odd assortment of local apparel, such as the Tartars would wear. They had scrounged and purchased these items from various friends of Yusuf Ali, having learned quickly that a red uniform is not the best mode of dress for guerrillas scouring enemy hills. Crossman himself looked even more fierce than Ali, in a sheepskin jacket, baggy black trousers held up by a blue sash and a ragged turban hiding his black hair.

  His men now carried Victoria carbines, obtained for them by Major Lovelace, to replace the unwieldy Miniés. The carbine had a 26-inch-long barrel, as opposed to the 39-inch-long Minié rifle.

  Peterson hated the Victoria carbine, pronouncing it a ‘pig’s snout’, but she knew that dragging a rifle through the hills was the greater of two evils.

  ‘It’s worse than the Brunswick, this thing,’ she said. ‘I bet the dragoons hate it too.’

  ‘They detest it,’ confirmed Crossman. ‘I was talking to a trooper the other day who said George Lovell should be put up against a wall and shot with his own inventions, except that the firing squad would probably miss with them.’

  The evening came in over the western hills, splendid in its autumn cloak. Ali found a cave for the group to rest in during the night, but Crossman posted his men up on high points until the darkness fell, hoping for an early sight of the caravan they sought. When nothing was seen, the men were brought down and sentries posted. Crossman sat up with Ali, discussing the possible tracks the caravan might use.

  It was cold up in the heights, with a chill wind coming from the north, and when he finally retired Crossman slept fitfully. His half-awake thoughts were of a woman in a charcoal-grey dress. Guilt promenaded through his dreams.

  3

  They’re called dragoons, said Clancy to Wynter, ‘because they once carried Dragon firearms.’

  ‘Oh, is that so, Mr Clever Dick? So why was the firearms called Dragons?’

  ‘Because they had a picture of a dragon etched on them, that’s why,’ replied Clancy. ‘I thought everyone knew that. It’s pretty common knowledge.’

  Crossman half-listened to these exchanges between the handsome baby-faced Clancy, and Wynter with his pocked and pitted skin, his turnip complexion, with some amusement. The new man was beginning to find his feet amongst his fellow soldiers. They kept testing him in various ways, as such men will do, to find his weaknesses and his strengths.

  Wynter foolishly kept challenging him on points of knowledge, giving the Irish-Indian a clear advantage in every conversation, for Wynter knew very little about anything except staying alive and keeping his money to himself.

  ‘Wynt
er, Clancy, we need water. Take the water bottles down to the stream at the bottom of the hill and fill them, if you please,’ ordered Crossman.

  ‘I just come off picquet duty,’ cried Wynter.

  ‘And Peterson and Devlin are still on duty, which leaves you and Clancy,’ Crossman snapped. ‘Get to it, man, before you feel the toe of my boot.’

  Wynter began to collect the water bottles – wooden kegs bound with metal hoops that held half a gallon of fluid – still grumbling like mad.

  ‘What about the Turk?’ he muttered. ‘Don’t he have to do his share?’

  ‘ “The Turk” is out scouting the territory ahead so that you and I don’t walk into an ambush,’ growled Crossman. ‘I’m not going to tell you again, Wynter.’

  Clancy had gathered his share of the bottles and stood by the entrance to the cave, waiting for Wynter. The pair of them went down the slope together. Crossman could hear Clancy telling Wynter that it was a shame the sergeant always picked on him, for he was in Clancy’s opinion, a fine fellow of a man, and willing as well, if left to his own choice.

  Wynter would be lapping up this flattery, Crossman knew, and as the sergeant in question he did not mind being the target of Clancy’s criticism, if it meant that it bonded the two men together. Sergeants were supposed to be the bogeymen. Crossman would rather his soldiers got on well together than praise him for his fine leadership and qualities of supervision.

  Alone in the cave, he began to pack his gear in the leather bag that served as his knapsack. He tightly rolled his sheepskin coat, used as a blanket at night, securing it with a piece of cord. It would be hot on the march through the hills, even at the end of September. Then he lit his chibouque, took out a notebook and pencil, and began to add to his journal, parts of which he reused in letters to the woman he had always known as Mother.

  I have never known so many qualities of rain as they have here in the Crimea, he wrote. You have your thin rain, usually in the early morning and your heavy afternoon rain which falls down directly as if it were poured from buckets. There is a side-swiping rain, which drenches one’s front or back, but leaves the other side of the body irritatingly dry. There is a kind of Irish mizzle, visible as drifting clouds of moisture, which fills the whole atmosphere around, soaking one to the very marrow of one’s bones, filling one’s lungs with every damp breath. There is rain which comes down as hard as nails and soft plopping rain which comes out of a clear sky, each huge drop of which spreads on one’s greatcoat like a blob of ink on blotting paper. Sometimes the rain washes and floods over the ground, gushing over it to form wide rivers of muddy water. On other occasions it drums on the hard earth arousing musty odours but nothing more. It can be freezing cold, or warm and insidious. It can come at a moment’s notice, or it can grow slowly in volume and pace over a number of hours. The Crimean rain is not to be taken for granted. It insists on being regarded . . .