The Valley of Death Read online

The Russian soldiers, probably some of them of the same mind as the British but unable to go against group pressure, were yelling and screaming now. No doubt bets had been placed on the outcome.

  The humans gradually became worse than the animals in their bloodlust and fury, as they urged either dogs or bear to the slaughter. When a dog tore the bear’s left ear, there was an insane scream of delight from the spectators. When the bear bit the foot off one of the hounds, another such cry rent the air with horrible banshee notes.

  The dogs finally became too incautious, however, thinking they had the bear at bay. First one was slashed from neck to belly, its innards spilling on the ground before the bear, the rank smell of gore drifting up with the evening fire smoke. It lay thrashing and convulsing on the ground as a second dog died with a yelp in its throat. A third had its backbone broken by a massive pair of jaws that wrenched it from the bear’s wounded chest. One managed to turn and slip through the ring of bayonets, biting an ankle on the way and causing a soldier to fall to the ground yelling.

  One of his confederates ran after the hound and bayoneted it, pinning it struggling to the mossy earth of the spinney floor.

  When all the dogs were dead, the bear was still raging and fuming, swiping at nothing. It was covered in blood and flecks of foam. In its blindness the poor creature was full of nightmares which would never go away.

  It was at this point Peterson was horrified to see the Russians untie Yusuf Ali and push him forward, towards the frenzied beast. They were going to sacrifice the Bashi-Bazouk to the bear. The lance corporal’s heart raced. She snatched up her carbine and aimed it at the beast, intending to kill the creature before its claws ripped open the Turk.

  Strong arms pinned her to the earth, not allowing her to use the weapon.

  Wynter and Devlin held her down, a hand over her mouth.

  ‘No, Peterson,’ whispered Devlin. ‘You’re endangering the whole of us. We’ll be slaughtered if we attack now. We got to wait for the advantage . . .’

  ‘I’ll kill you,’ cried Peterson, her words muffled by Wynter’s big calloused farmhand’s palm. ‘I’ll kill you.’

  But no matter how she struggled, they kept her pressed beneath them.

  Crossman put his mouth to her ear. ‘Calm down, Peterson – Ali would have done the same if it were you.’

  Down in the grove, Ali was being prodded towards the bear. When he was almost within reach of the creature’s swiping claws he suddenly grabbed the barrel of a rifle. Although the soldier who owned the weapon did not let it go, in a few quick deft movements Ali had freed the bayonet and held it in his hands. The Russian soldiers backed away now, yelling and shouting at him with hoarse voices. Ali ignored them.

  He turned and faced the bear with the blade in his right hand.

  ‘By God,’ whispered Wynter, in admiration, ‘he’s goin’ to have a go. He’s goin’ to fight the beast.’

  Now that Ali had a chance, they let Peterson up, knowing that she had calmed somewhat. Fearful for the Turk’s safety, the group watched in silence as Ali half-circled the bear, looking for an opening.

  The Russians were quiet too, witnessing this battle between a great bear and a man. No doubt they believed the outcome would favour the beast. Only the Tartar looked agitated, voicing some opinions to the Russians, as Ali went in swaying and dodging the bear’s blows.

  The bear obviously did not know what was going on. No doubt it believed that more dogs were going to be unleashed, since the scent of the creatures was still in its nostrils, their bodies lying all around it. Suddenly, the watchers on the hill caught their breaths as Ali rushed inside the bear’s arms.

  The beast, unable to slash at him with its terrible claws, hugged him close, picking him off his feet. Crossman could imagine what it was like in those powerful forelegs, being slowly crushed to death. He knew Ali did not have long to make a killing blow, if he were to make it at all.

  ‘He’s done for,’ said Clancy. ‘He must be.’

  But Ali had kept his arms high, so that the bear gripped him only around his chest, and his limbs were free. With both hands he plunged the point of the bayonet into one of the bear’s blind eyesockets, pushing it in and up so that it penetrated the brain. The bear let out a wail of despair. It fell crashing on to its back, releasing the Turk. There it convulsed for a few minutes, the blade still protruding from its skull. Finally it gave out a long sigh pregnant with hopelessness, and died.

  One or two of the Russians let out a cheer, but their impetuousness was soon quelled by their comrades.

  Another terrible wail went up now, worse than that of the doomed beast. It came from the Tartar, whose living had depended upon sacrificing hapless dogs to the magnificent creature he had blinded with a red-hot poker: the great beast which now lay dead and useless at his feet.

  The local man rushed screaming at Ali, tearing at his clothes and clawing at the Turk’s face, intent on trying to scratch out his eyes. His fury and despair was enormous, since in a few moments he had been made virtually penniless.

  The Bashi-Bazouk was well able to deal with such an attack. He struck the Tartar a blow on the brow with his thick fist and felled the man like a tree. Silence ruled the glade after that, as the Russian soldiers moved to secure the Turk again.

  ‘By God, he’s some fighter, that man,’ muttered Wynter. ‘Don’t ever let him hit me, Sergeant.’

  Peterson said, ‘He did the bear a favour. Someone had to put it out of its misery. Even if we let it go, it would’ve died of starvation, being blind.’

  ‘I expect you’re right, Peterson,’ said Crossman. ‘But you nearly gave up the whole pack of us away to the enemy. Next time I’ll have your skin.’

  ‘Skin? Better’n losing your stripes, eh, Peterson?’ said Wynter quietly. ‘Better’n being stripped down to a private. I wouldn’t want to be a private again like young Clancy here – bein’ nothing again, so to speak.’

  Clancy muttered, ‘I may be the only private here, but I’m not nothing – I’m still a gentleman.’

  ‘A what?’ sniggered Wynter. ‘You an’t no gentleman.’

  ‘Keep your voices low,’ ordered Crossman. ‘We may be a long way downwind, but err on the side of caution, if you please, sirs.’

  The two men continued to glare at each other, until Clancy spoke again.

  ‘That’s because you’re an ignorant lance corporal, Wynter,’ whispered Clancy. ‘If you weren’t, you’d know that “private” is an ancient and honourable title, stemming from medieval times. In those days it would have cost you a fortune to become a “private”, or man-at-arms. It actually means “private gentleman”, if you did but know it.’

  ‘Sergeant?’ whined Wynter, calling on an arbitrator.

  ‘He’s right, Wynter. Now get some rest before nightfall. You’ll need to be alert when we go down to get Ali away from those devils below.’

  4

  Despite Crossman’s orders that his men should get some sleep, Crossman himself was restless. When evening came round he found himself looking up at the stars and speculating on the progress of the war. That he was playing his part he did not doubt. Sometimes, he admitted to himself, he hated being in the ranks. The manners and habits of the common soldier were far removed from his own. He had been raised by patrician parents, had had ingrained in him all the social graces necessary to one of his class. He had abandoned many of these, of course; one could not be too finicky amongst contemporaries the likes of Wynter, Devlin and even Peterson, if one wished to be taken seriously as a senior non-commissioned officer.

  Had he been raised a clergyman’s, or even a squire’s son he had no doubt he would be closer to such men and could have borne it all without the distaste he sometimes felt for people below his station. But he was the son of a laird and had been taught all his childhood that men of the lower classes were for the most part contemptible and there only for the use of the upper class. He knew these thoughts were unworthy, but could not help slipping into them during time
s when he felt low. They dragged him down and confused his motives.

  Then again, there would be circumstances where men of the rank and file would act in a far more noble and intelligent fashion than most aristocrats, and Crossman would be proud to be wearing sergeant’s stripes on his arm, rather than being festooned with gold braid and tassles. These contradictions and the complex feelings associated with their origins plagued him when he allowed himself to think of them.

  The senior officers, the old men who led them, raised other questions in his mind. Like many, Crossman was not convinced of the necessity of the war or the manner in which it was being fought. There seemed to be no deep forethought or planning in the generals’ strategy. Conversations with Rupert Jarrard and Major Lovelace had confirmed his own misgivings about the general staff who were leading them in this campaign. Lord Raglan was too well-meaning, too much the gentleman to be an effective commander-in-chief in modern warfare.

  Lord Raglan’s idea of war was riddled with schoolboy scruples. One did not spy on the enemy, one did not argue with one’s fellow commanders, one played fair with everyone including the foe. Those officers around him who were soldiers first, gentlemen second, like General Buller, secretly did those things which made common sense to the ordinary soldier. To Buller war was not a game, but a necessary evil, victory to be achieved as quickly and as expediently as possible.

  Crossman agreed with this view. He was mostly disturbed by the appalling logistics which flourished in Lord Raglan’s army. A few days before the fox hunt Major Lovelace had been visited by a friend, Staff Assistant Surgeon Lawson, who used Lovelace’s table to write a letter home to his parents. He had left the letter to be collected by one of Lovelace’s friends, who was going back to England. The single page had been left folded on the table, there being a shortage of envelopes, and while it was there it uncurled itself and lay open to view. Crossman could not but help read part of it as he sat writing his own missive home.

  The letter read: Dear Mother, Will you be kind enough to send me a map of the Crimea with forts well marked out in Sebastopol? You can obtain them from Wylds in the Strand . . .

  When men had to write home to their mothers to obtain maps of the area in which they were fighting from London shops there was something seriously wrong with the prosecution of the war.

  Crossman remained wide awake, thinking of these things while he waited for the right time to go down to try to rescue Yusuf Ali from the Russian camp.

  When the camp below was still and only the sentries moved restlessly around on the perimeter of the wood, Crossman woke his dozing men.

  ‘Peterson, you take the south-west corner. Wynter, the north-west. Devlin, south-east. Clancy, north-east. I’m going into the camp to set Ali free and bring him back here. If there’s a disturbance, however, I leave it to you to pick your targets and pour fire down into the camp. I know it’s dark, but do the best you can. If you hit either Ali or myself, then put it down to bad fortune, not to your own incompetence. I want no guilt left around afterwards—’

  ‘Sergeant,’ interrupted Clancy. ‘I’m sorry, Sergeant, but I think you should stay here and I should go down there.’

  Crossman was a little irritated by the interruption. As well as briefing his men he was psychologically preparing himself for the descent into the enemy camp. It was not a job he relished.

  ‘Why do you say that, Clancy?’ he snapped.

  ‘Because I’m good at it.’

  Crossman was a little mystified. ‘Good at what?’

  ‘At that kind of thing, Sergeant. You remember Major Lovelace told you I was a member of the Thugs at one time? That is why he thought I’d be useful to you.’

  ‘You mean you really were a Thug?’ said Devlin.

  ‘We didn’t call ourselves that, but yes, I was an assassin. I was a member of a secret society, dedicated to ridding India of the British Raj. I was recruited by my Indian schoolteacher and I killed my first man when I was twelve years of age.’

  Wynter snarled. ‘You killed an Englishman?’

  ‘That was then. I was on a different side.’

  ‘You’d do it again, wouldn’t you?’ said Wynter, his voice thick with righteousness. ‘You’re just a murderin’ bastard, you are. I knew it from the first time I laid eyes on you. By God, you didn’t have me fooled. One of these . . .’

  Crossman snapped. ‘Quiet, Wynter. Clancy, how do you propose to set Ali free?’

  Clancy reached inside his sheepskin coat and pulled out a short piece of thick cord strung with knots.

  ‘I’ll throttle the two sentries, then sneak in and untie the Bashi-Bazouk.’

  Crossman recalled why Major Lovelace had thought Clancy would make a good replacement for the dead Skuggs. Lovelace had told Crossman that although Clancy had spent some of his time in Ireland, where he received an education of a kind, he had also been back to India. The young man was typical of many who were torn between two nations, his loyalties confused. Because of his connection with Britain he had been recruited by the Thugs, who thought he might be able to get close to their enemies.

  Just when the youth was steeped in the dark and bloody mysteries of the Thugs, however, his father’s brother – a colour sergeant in the Indian army – sought him out and persuaded him to return to Ireland. At that time Clancy was becoming fearful of discovery after being involved in the murder of three sepoys. He returned to Ireland, where having become restless, he joined the 88th Connaught Rangers as they passed through the village where he was staying with one of his aunts.

  Here in the Crimea the enemy was Russia, which did not place any strain on Clancy’s mixed loyalties, and therefore Lovelace considered him to be an asset to any clandestine group out to cause havoc amongst the foe.

  ‘Are you sure you can do it?’

  Clancy smiled. ‘It’s why Major Lovelace recruited me for this platoon. He knew my uncle in India. He knows what happened there.’

  ‘All right, Clancy. Get to it. The rest of you, to your positions. When Clancy and Ali are out of the camp, you’ll hear an owl hoot from me. We meet back here. Understood?’

  The soldiers slipped off into the night.

  ‘Good luck, Clancy,’ Crossman said. ‘I hope your talents are all Major Lovelace believes they are.’

  ‘Sergeant,’ said the baby-faced Irish-Indian, ‘you might even be amazed.’

  So Crossman took the north-east corner of the camp instead of Clancy. There he watched as a dark shadow slipped down towards the glowing embers of the fires. Then suddenly it vanished completely. Crossman blinked, wondering if there was something wrong with his vision. Clancy had simply disappeared into the shades of night.

  Crossman kept his eyes on the sentry to the west. He waited for what seemed like an extraordinary length of time, wondering whether anything was going to happen. Then, just as his impatience was becoming frayed, he saw the sentry stiffen and drop his rifle to the ground. The man’s hands went up to his throat as his head jerked backwards. Then after a few seconds he slid limply to the mossy floor. For a brief moment Crossman saw a dark shape standing over the body, then it was gone, like a wisp of mist into the interlocking shadows again.

  A few minutes later there was a tight gargle from beyond the trees, very short, very muffled. Then silence again. Another Russian sentry had gone to his maker. Crossman could not help but feel a chill at the efficiency with which Clancy was doing his job. A shy, boyish individual, who looked as if he should still be at home with his mother, was in fact a cold-blooded killer.

  Crossman waited for quite a while after the second sentry had been despatched. Once again he began to grow impatient. He was craning his neck, trying to see what was happening down in the enemy camp, when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

  ‘Wha . . .’ he jerked round, to see a smiling Clancy with Yusuf Ali at his elbow.

  ‘You’re not paying attention, Sergeant,’ said Clancy.

  ‘The hell I’m not,’ replied Crossman, ruffled.

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nbsp; He let out an owl hoot and very shortly the rest of his men were back with him.

  Yusuf Ali was saying, ‘Thank you, Sergeant, for coming back for Ali. I think you should not have come, but I am happy you do so. And this man,’ he turned to Clancy, ‘he is like myself. I see my young self here. He moves like a snake through the night, then he strikes, so quick. Ah, yes. A man of my own kind, Sergeant. He kill without a sound.’

  ‘I heard a sound,’ Wynter said. ‘I heard some poor bugger gargling a final prayer a few minutes ago.’

  Wynter stared across at the enigmatic Clancy, fingering his own throat as he did so, as if he could already feel the garrotte tightening around it.

  ‘I an’t going to sleep again, with him near,’ added Wynter. ‘You can’t trust people like that.’

  ‘Clancy is one of us,’ said Crossman. ‘Whatever he’s done in the past is over. He’s Buller’s man now. You treat him as such, Wynter. I won’t tell you again. I’ll ask Major Lovelace to send you back to the regiment and you’ll be digging trenches before you know it. If that’s what you want, just say so, and you can join the rest of the 88th now.’

  Wynter was not at all contrite.

  ‘You may be in the trenches yourself, Sergeant,’ he said, a nasty tone to his voice. ‘You’ve gone and let that caravan get away, to save the Turk. We’ll all be back on the line for this, you wait and see. Buller’s men, my backside.’

  Crossman had the feeling that Wynter was right. He would be in deep trouble, for the mission was supposed to come first, the lives of the men after. Lovelace was not going to be happy with him, of that he was sure, unless they could somehow find the caravan. It seemed very likely that the caravan would have passed through the Fedioukine Hills by now though.

  ‘I don’t like your tone, Wynter, but I have to admit you’re probably right,’ said Crossman.

  Ali stepped forward. ‘Not so, Sergeant. There was no caravan. The information of Major Lovelace was wrong. The rifles of which he spoke are near to us now.’