Into the Valley of Death Read online

  A lump rose in Ryder’s throat, then he swallowed it away. It was too soon to be celebrating. The Grenadiers might have beaten a couple of columns, but he knew how many others he’d seen on the slopes and that they were really no more than an island in the middle. There was their artillery too, and he was hearing even more of it now, big guns out west towards the sea.

  ‘British, aren’t they?’ said Ginger. ‘British guns?’

  Ryder stared at him, then strained his neck to look. There was that rocky hill with the telegraph, clustered over with the sky-blue and scarlet of France, but below it was another knoll thrusting into the enemy’s own ranks, and from it came the fire of two field-pieces hammering at the Russian artillery. It was too far to see who was with them, but the little white dots looked like the plumes of British Staff, the entourage of Raglan himself.

  ‘See?’ said Ginger. He was dribbling a little and had to stop to wipe his mouth. ‘British. We’re going to win.’

  Ryder grinned dutifully, but began to reload. Two guns weren’t much. It was good they were penetrating to the west, good the Guards had smashed through the centre, but there were still those Russian columns he’d seen in the east, and they’d be here any minute. As he greased the third chamber he could already hear the rattle of gunfire in the distance and looked up to see another body of the familiar grey figures starting to form on a far ridge. More of the bastards, and coming this way.

  ‘Listen,’ said Ginger, and his face had changed. ‘Do you hear it? Listen.’

  He heard only gunfire and the shouting of Guards in the redoubt, but little by little the voices hushed as if they too were becoming aware of another sound drifting towards them through the hills. He heard it himself now, high and piercing above the banging of the guns, he heard it and knew what it meant. From the hills in the east came the skirling of pipes.

  He looked to follow it, and now he saw men appearing on the crest above the enemy, men in red coats and black headgear who might have been Guards but were not. They were firing steadily down into the grey mass, scattering it, driving it back, then advancing to fire again. They were making the Russians run.

  The music grew louder, and his eyes prickled as he let his gaze drift away over the field. The sound seemed to wash over all of them, the Second Division fighting their way up either side of the Post Road, the French swarming over the telegraph hill, the British guns firing beneath, the Russians limbering up artillery to withdraw from the Causeway, the tall bearskinned Guards standing motionless on the skyline of the redoubt. The Highlanders were coming. There had been Russian columns on that flank, he’d seen them himself, but now there was only the glory of pipes in the hills as the Highlanders marched to join them at the turning of the tide.

  8

  20 September 1854, 5.00 p.m. to 10.00 p.m.

  The cheering from above sounded like victory, but to Oliver the road looked like defeat. Bodies lay beneath their hooves as they climbed, and men were dragging corpses out of the way to allow the gun carriages to trundle past. There were more on the slopes around, grey and red all piled together, and some still moving and moaning.

  The cavalry passed them in a silence too deep for anger. A huge, an epic battle had been fought here, and all they’d done was sit in their saddles and glare at Russian cavalry over the river. Lord Lucan had finally led them across anyway, but the Cossacks had gone, and their only orders were to escort guns up to a battle that seemed already over.

  By the time they got there it certainly was. The big redoubt was ringing with cheers, flags were being waved and hats thrown, and a bronze howitzer was being hauled away in triumph. Some of the fellows started hurrahing with the rest, but Lieutenant Grainger snapped, ‘What have we got to cheer for? We’ve done nothing.’ His usually good-tempered face was hard and unsmiling, his cheek flushed with shame.

  Oliver felt it too. The Bulganek had been awful, but at least no one else had died in their place. Here they were surrounded by dead men they might have saved, by living ones who looked at them like dressed-up children in an army of men. Infantry glanced up as they passed, and turned away with smiles of derision. The useless cavalry who sat on their rumps while soldiers fought and died. Oliver clenched his reins till the leather bit his hands, and swore he’d die before he let this happen to him again.

  Even the officers weren’t immune to it, and Sir George Brown trotted over to say ‘Good view across the river was it, Cardigan?’ and grin as broadly as one of his own rankers. Oliver hated Cardigan, everyone did, but just for a moment he longed to smack Sir George Brown clear off his horse.

  ‘Meaning what, my lord?’ said Cardigan dangerously, drawing up his scrawny frame in the stirrups.

  ‘Oh, nothing, my lord,’ said Sir George, smirking insufferably. ‘And at least one of your men did his bit, eh? A Lilywhite wanted a bit of action, so he came along with the Lights.’

  Cardigan’s eyes bulged, and Oliver suddenly remembered he had a reputation for duelling. Perhaps Sir George remembered too, for he added hastily ‘Jolly good show too, or so Codrington tells me. Does you credit, old boy,’ then turned and trotted away.

  Cardigan was left saying ‘What? Hey – what?’ and Lord Lucan scowling like a thunderstorm, but Jarvis’s brows lowered and Oliver suddenly understood.

  He whispered to Bolton, ‘Ryder, it must be, no one else was down. He’s alive.’

  ‘Was, perhaps,’ said Bolton mournfully. ‘The Light Division’s here, Ol-Pol, do you see a dragoon among them?’

  Oliver looked quickly up to the smaller redoubt ahead, hunting desperately in the sea of red for the sight of a blue coat. ‘He could be wounded.’

  ‘He could,’ said Bolton doubtfully. ‘If you think that’s a good thing.’

  Oliver looked back at the piles of bodies behind them, the two bandsmen loading a man on a stretcher, one man out of a thousand on just this one slope. The arabas could pick up men on the flat, but how many were there? How long would it take to carry each one all the way down to the sea and the ships? Even the heaps he could see were already murmuring, crying, reaching out, and a steady mumble growing into a single word, the feeble plea for ‘water’. The sun was still warm, and the flies were moving in.

  Ryder inserted the bayonet into the rim of his boot. There wasn’t a spare in the whole army, but he was going to pass out with pain if he didn’t cut it off right now.

  ‘You can get another,’ said Ginger. ‘Lots of dead men here. They won’t need them now.’

  ‘Cheery little sod, aren’t you?’ said Ryder amicably. He gritted his teeth, sliced up through the leather, and looked in disgust at the foot that flopped free. The thing was the size of a melon.

  ‘You won’t walk on that,’ said Ginger. His voice was weaker now, and his breathing hoarse. Ryder had dressed his wound with the dead Russian’s shirt, but it was already soaked right through.

  Ryder hauled himself onto a rock. ‘If I put my weight on the other …’ A spike of pain shot through his right thigh, and he ground his palm into the rock to stop himself passing out.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ said Ginger. ‘It can’t do the slightest good.’

  He knew it. Even if he crawled the mile back to find help, no one would come for one wounded man in two thousand. He slumped back down and looked about the slope in despair.

  The only bandsmen were heading down with full stretchers, but others were picking through the bodies now, soldiers and camp followers looking for friends and husbands. Some were looting, and he grimaced at the sight of a drummer boy tugging epaulettes off the shoulders of a fallen officer, but others offered water to those who asked. Perhaps there was hope there.

  Or would be if they were visible. He eased Ginger out of the grey coat and said, ‘Can you move if I help you? No one’s going to see us in here.’

  ‘Can I move?’ said Ginger, with the faint echo of a London sneer. He swivelled on his bottom, easing round the rock to face out and towards whatever help there was. ‘Get yourself out here, you
r blue coat might attract the tourists.’

  Ryder crawled to join him, and when Ginger offered his hand he took it. The boy’s fingers were clammy in his own, and he squeezed tighter to bring them back to warmth.

  ‘Here comes one,’ said Ginger, nodding his chin to his left. ‘He’s got water, look.’

  Ryder turned to see a pair of infantrymen working steadily through the carnage. One stooped to offer his barrel to a moaning Russian officer, but as he turned away the Russian’s hand came up with a pistol, and Ryder’s shout was lost in the bang as the linesman fell. His companion screamed obscenities, and bayoneted the Russian officer twice, three times, shouting, ‘You bloody bastard, he was trying to help you!’

  Ryder’s mind whirled in the maze of his own pain. What kind of fanatic would shoot a man who’d just tried to save him? He remembered the smell of the dead man’s clothes, the scent of incense. Was that what they thought? They were Christian saints against a devil’s empire? Well, it was too late to ask that one, he was as dead as the redcoat who’d helped him. Beside them the fallen canteen bubbled life-giving water into the grass.

  But it was a reminder they were still among the enemy, and he let go Ginger’s hand to finish reloading his revolver. The lad watched a moment, then said, ‘The shot just now. It sounded different.’

  Ryder rammed another ball. ‘We’ve got better guns than they have. That wasn’t a revolver, just a single-shot pistol.’

  ‘But …’ said Ginger. ‘But …’

  Ryder looked sharply at him. His breath was rattling and there was definitely more blue in his face. ‘Don’t talk. It’s better if you –’

  Ginger made a chopping motion with his hand. ‘Colonel Chester. The officer up there. He was shot twice.’

  Ryder remembered it, the man waving his sword and crying ‘No!’ ‘That was a rifle, we weren’t in pistol range.’

  Ginger coughed. ‘But …’ He sucked up another bubbling breath, and coughed again.

  Ryder watched him helplessly, then began to arrange the coat back round his shoulders. ‘The red still shows at the front, and you’ll need this when it gets dark.’

  Ginger turned his head to look at him directly. ‘No, I won’t.’

  Ryder saw how dark his eyes were, how grey the freckled skin, and knew the boy was right. He himself would survive, he was sure of it. The bayonet wound in his side wasn’t serious, and if they got the ball out soon enough he’d probably keep his leg. He looked at his younger companion and felt ashamed.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Ginger. He needed another breath after just three words. ‘I ain’t got anyone. At home. Have you?’

  Ryder said just ‘No.’

  ‘It helps,’ said Ginger. ‘Death or glory. Doesn’t matter which. In the end.’

  In the end. Ryder gazed over the crowded bodies, most now mercifully still. Some still moaned feebly, one was crying deep jagged sobs like a child’s, and somewhere behind him a faltering voice was murmuring the Lord’s Prayer.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing matters in the end.’

  Woodall eased the last body off his aching shoulders and let it roll down into the pit. A poor end for a Christian, but a chap couldn’t leave fellow Grenadiers lying out in the open like rubbish. Some would have to wait for morning anyway, but at least he’d done his bit and volunteered with the others.

  He stepped back from the grave to let Truman take his place, but was jolted to see the body in his arms was Jones. ‘Ought we to do that? His brother might want …’

  ‘Brother’s dead too,’ said Truman. ‘Parsons spoke to a fellow of the 23rd.’ He slid the body to the lip of the hole and Jones moved for the last time, rolling lazily onto his back while his upraised arm flopped down on another man’s face. Woodall looked away.

  ‘What’s it to you, anyway?’ said Truman, wiping his hands down his trousers. ‘It’s not like he was a chum of yours.’

  He could have been. ‘Common decency, Truman. What’s so odd about that?’ Behind him Parsons muttered something, and someone else laughed.

  ‘Woodall!’ called a voice. Two men were walking up from the bank, one a tall Highlander, the other a slim figure in cavalry blue.

  His fellow Guards were staring, and the knowledge gave an added heartiness to his greeting. ‘Mackenzie!’ he said, striding towards them. ‘And Oliver.’ He gave the lad a kindly nod, man enough not to let the cavalry’s absolute disgrace of a battle make a difference.

  ‘Can you spare us some time?’ asked the Highlander. ‘Are you on duty?’

  He was missing the point. ‘Just lending a hand, you know. Can I help you with anything?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Mackenzie, unmoved. ‘Ryder’s missing, me and Polly are for finding and bringing him in. There’s a sore number of bodies, we could do with a hand.’

  Woodall’s back ached but his fellows were watching, Mackenzie was asking, and something else was digging at him like a memory of Jones and a chance lost. He raised his voice and said, ‘Of course, Mackenzie. Anything for a pal.’

  They hadn’t much time. The gloaming was well advanced and the bodies on the hillside losing colour, every minute making it harder to tell a blue from a red from a grey. The heat of the sun was already gone, and Mackenzie shivered at the thought of wounded men lying exposed through the chill of the Crimean night.

  By the time they neared the hill men were calling the Greater Redoubt it was black they were seeking, black rather than dark mauve. He stopped short at the sight of one leaning against a rock, but when he stooped he saw the soldier was red as the others, only shadowed by a grey mantle round his shoulders. He was glad of it, for the boy was dead as stone.

  He started to straighten, but something in the lad’s posture struck him as strange. One arm was thrust out to his side, and Mackenzie’s gaze stopped with a jerk when he saw the hand joined to another’s, a second man curled up in the shadow of the rocks. This one looked black in the dark, but Mackenzie knew the colour as well as he knew the face.

  He knelt back on his heels and let out his breath in a long sigh. Harry Ryder looked younger than he remembered, and only the wee beard-growth marked him older than the laddie who’d died with him. The sight of their two hands seemed to pierce him somehow, and he reached out his own to touch them in benediction.

  And jumped. The redcoat’s hand was cold as the Carron in February, but Ryder’s had in it a faint warmth. He’d felt the touch too, for the body stirred, the face turned, then the eyes opened and saw him. For a second they stared at each other, then Ryder’s mouth smiled.

  ‘Took your time, didn’t you?’

  Mackenzie grinned. ‘Next time we’ll leave you all night.’ He called to the others ‘I have him!’ then watched as Ryder struggled to sit up. ‘Where are you hurt?’

  Ryder raised his eyebrows and glanced down.

  Mackenzie studied him. There was a bloodied piece of linen wrapped round his waist, another round his thigh, and one swollen foot stuck naked out of his overalls. His face had the pale, stretched look of a man fighting pain, and another hour or two of blood loss would be the death of him, but he was a wonderful tough laddie, and when Oliver panted up he broke into a broad smile. ‘Hullo, Polly. You made it all right.’

  ‘Course he did,’ said Woodall, strolling up behind. ‘He only sat and watched, didn’t you, Polly? Me and the Scot have been right in the thick of it.’

  Mackenzie suppressed the uncharitable urge to kick the Guard in the groin. ‘Aye, and yesterday we did nothing while these laddies sat under fire. Now take my piece, will you, whiles I carry him down.’

  He clambered into a crouch and reached out his arms, but Ryder hesitated and looked at his dead companion. ‘I don’t want … I can’t …’

  Mackenzie remembered the clasped hands. ‘A friend of yours, is it?’

  Ryder seemed confused. ‘Well … in a way. I just …’

  Mackenzie looked from one to the other, unsure what to do, but a pair of boots stepped between them and Woodall�
�s voice said, ‘I’ll take him, Ryder. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’

  Ryder looked up, and the smile lit his face. He said simply, ‘Thanks, Woody,’ and reached out his hands to Mackenzie.

  He was no more a weight than poor Andrew Murray had been, and Mackenzie hoisted him easily. Woodall carried the redcoat, Oliver followed with the muskets, and together they retraced their steps down to the river. There was a makeshift hospital in the village, but Ryder didn’t fancy the butcher’s slab and when Mackenzie saw the pile of amputated limbs in the courtyard he was inclined to agree. The man only needed a ball hoiking out and a few decent dressings; he’d be better off in his own camp.

  The cavalry bivouac was only a few fires and a great pile of bodies cleared to the edges, but there was a commissary officer dishing out rations and a medical orderly with a proper tent, so they laid the redcoat with the dead, carried Ryder in to the orderly, and set about making a home. Food was what they needed most, but ‘G’ Troop’s butcher was flaying a bullock, and when Oliver told him the First Division men had brought in one of their wounded he gave them a nice piece off the rump for their own suppers. Firewood was the next thing, with not a twig to be found on the barren hillside, but Mackenzie gathered fallen muskets to get them started, while a suddenly tireless Woodall walked back to the river to hack off branches from the trees used to line the bank.

  The night was chilly, but Mackenzie borrowed an axe from a farrier and warmed himself by breaking up the musket stocks. His shoulders were weary when he finally sat down by the fire, but it was the grand sort of tiredness that comes from a day’s work well done. For himself, he liked the campaign life. Back in the barracks now they’d be parading before watch-setting and being locked in the dormitories, but here was a whole night ahead of them to be their own selves. He watched Oliver queuing at the wagon for his rations, wondered if there might be a drop of rum in them somewhere, stretched out his legs and sighed with sheer contentment.

  A woman’s voice said, ‘Excuse me, soldier.’