The Scarlet Thief (22 page)

Jack halted his men well short of the confusion. They sank to their knees, their chests heaving with exertion, and watched the chaos in silence and growing dismay. Redcoats were pushing, punching and battering each other when they should have been fighting the enemy.

Jack was exhausted and stood doubled over, his hands on his knees, panting like a hound following a long chase after the fox. Finally, he got enough breath into his tortured lungs to allow him to stand up.

The retreating men from the Fusilier Brigade were clawing their way clear. More and more won through, while officers, both on foot and mounted, tried to re-establish control, their bellowed orders adding to the pandemonium.

Like a rock stuck in the middle of a river in flood, the colour party from the Scots Fusiliers stood firm. The routing redcoats were sensible enough to keep a safe distance from the fearsome halberds wielded by the sergeants who guarded the battalion’s colours, defending them even from men from their own side. The colours had become a rallying point for the guardsmen and pockets of men made their way towards the twin flags that flew with pride in the heart of the battalion.

‘OK, let’s go,’ Jack ordered his men. He had no option but to make for the one part of the Scots Fusiliers that still had some integrity. ‘Make for the colours.’

The easiest route was to move up the slope before turning back to follow the last of the retreating Fusilier Brigade down the incline.

Flanagan loped along beside Jack like an overgrown puppy. As they ran, Jack was forced to keep twisting his neck, trying to keep the colour party in sight while also keeping a sharp watch on the Russians in the redoubt lest they take it into their heads to take advantage of the confusion and push down the slope.

Jack feared a Russian advance. If the Russians moved fast, they could hit the unformed guardsmen and sweep them back over the Alma with all the ease of a Tartar peasant woman cleaning the dirt from her doorstep. The survivors from the Light Company would be caught between the two groups, a morsel certain to be snapped up by the devouring Russian horde.

‘Sir! Beware right!’

Dodds’s shout made Jack turn his head sharply. Two battalions of the Vladmirsky Regiment had jerked into motion. Jack’s fears were about to become reality.

Don’t stop! Run, damn you, run!’ Jack bellowed at his men, urging them to increase the pace. They were still fifty yards short of the colour party. Jack saw with relief that the Scots Fusiliers were aware of the danger. The guardsmen were forming a line across the path of the Russian advance, their ranks reassuringly steady. But there were pitifully few of them to stand against two fresh Russian battalions. No more than two dozen redcoats and a handful of officers and sergeants remained of the Scots Fusiliers’ ordered ranks, far too few to stop the Russians.

Jack’s company covered the last few hard yards with their breath coming in tortured gasps. They staggered to a halt in front of a young guards captain who was waving his sword and roaring for more men to rally to the colours. If he was grateful to see Jack and his ragtag company, he did not show it.

‘Who the devil are you?’

‘Sloames,’ Jack stammered, his breathing still tortured. ‘King’s Royal Fusiliers.’

The captain ran a professional eye over the bedraggled men and Jack’s bloodstained and filthy uniform. Whatever he saw must have met with his approval; he reached out a hand and clasped Jack’s shoulder in a firm grip that made him wince. ‘Good fellow. Have your men join the line.’

Jack looked anxiously towards the redoubt. The Russian column had been halted while its officers fussily dressed the ranks which had become disordered because of the numerous bodies that littered the ground. The Russian officers’ pedantry gave the British a precious few moments to try to organise their own men and allow more redcoats to rally to the colours.

Jack’s men took their place in the formation, adding another twenty rifles to the line. Digby-Brown and Sergeant Baker stood behind the Light Company, helping to dress the line, reaching down to grab ammunition or percussion caps from the many corpses that had been dragged unceremoniously out of the way. More men joined and the line slowly extended across the slope. Jack’s hopes rose. If the Russians delayed much longer and if more men could be rallied, then there was every chance the British could hold the advance long enough for more fresh troops to be brought forward. There was still a chance to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Major Peacock staggered down the slope among the last of the retreating Fusilier Brigade. His bald head was slick with blood that flowed freely from a deep wound on his crown down into the thin rim of his hair. The fall from Colonel Morris’s charger had done little to settle his terrified wits and the fusilier major shouted continuously as he tottered drunkenly down the slope.

‘Fusiliers, retire! Retire! Save yourselves!’

Redcoats who had been making for the Scots Fusiliers’ colours heard the new order and stopped in their tracks. In the midst of the confusion, there was no voice to countermand Peacock’s orders. In the absence of any other instructions, the men did as they were told and moved away from their colours towards the river.

Jack watched in horror. Men desperately needed to block the Russian advance were joining the rout and making their way to the rear.

‘Digby-Brown, stay here!’

From somewhere, Jack found the strength to run back up the slope to where Peacock staggered along, his braying voice still urging the men to retreat.

‘Sloames!’ The single word exploded from Peacock’s lips, an astonished squeak of recognition. He must have seen the rage in Jack’s eyes, or perhaps the sight of his blood-splattered captain bursting through the retreating mob was too much for his scattered wits. Whatever the cause, Peacock let out a yelp of horror and turned to flee.

Jack flew at the major, hitting his shoulder against Peacock’s back with such force that both men were knocked off their feet. Jack’s rage drove him on, the pain of the impact barely registering. He flung himself on top of the major’s body, flattening him and driving the breath from his body.

‘Sloames, no!’ Peacock raised his hands in terror. ‘Please!’ he begged. ‘Don’t kill me! I don’t want to die! Please!’

Jack slapped the major’s hands away in disgust and stood up. It would have given him great satisfaction to beat Peacock to a bleeding pulp. But to do so was to stoop to the level of someone like Slater. Jack had embarked on his long charade to lift himself out of the gutter, to prove that whatever the chance of his birth he was capable of so much more than society allowed. Beating Peacock would condemn him as the brutal ruffian the world expected him to be, the kind of vicious creature he so despised.

Jack reached down and snapped the buckle that held Peacock’s holstered revolver around his waist. He picked up the weapon and turned and walked away. He withdrew the revolver from its holster and snapped the gun open. The weapon had not been fired that day and Jack greeted the sight of the fully loaded chambers with a grunt of satisfaction.

He did not look back at Peacock lying on the ground. He thrust the revolver into his own holster replacing the one he had lost when he fled Smith’s devastating injury. He made his way back to the line of redcoats, the weight of the revolver against his hip reassuring.

He risked a glance towards the Russian column. He was relieved to see that they were still halted. The Russian officers were running around the flanks of the columns like sheepdogs worrying a flock of sheep. He had time to rejoin his men. The makeshift British line looked desperately feeble in the face of the two Russian columns but Jack’s mind was clear. He needed to be with his men, whatever their fate.

The captain from the Scots Fusiliers saw him coming and waved him in, a wry smile on his face.

‘Thought you might have left us, old man.’

Jack grinned at the plummy voice. It would once have caused him to bite his tongue with anger. Now it did not matter. The guards captain was willingly facing the same grim fate he himself was, his privileged birth no protection against the power of a Russian bullet. Here, at least, two men from vastly different backgrounds were equals.

‘Never.’ Jack smiled, ‘I wouldn’t miss this for the world.’

The Russian infantry stirred into life and the drummers at the centre of each column settled into the hypnotic rhythm of the march.

‘Here they come,’ Dodds announced.

‘Thank you, Dodds.’ Jack was glad of the chance to speak and break the foreboding silence that had gripped his company. ‘Aim low, men. Hit the bastards in the guts. Make them hurt.’

The officers of the westernmost Russian column, seeing what lay ahead, aligned their attack so that it would swamp the redcoats who bravely but foolishly contested its passage.

The second column, further to the east, bore to the left of the redcoats’ flank, ignoring their futile resistance, seeking an easier route to the Alma. It would keep them away from the fight, leaving the redcoats to concentrate their fire on the western column.

Jack prowled up and down the section of the line where the remnants of the Light Company waited for the enemy, offering his few words of advice and encouragement. His feet scuffed against discarded equipment, the detritus of the Light Division’s attack littering the ground. Mercifully, the bodies of the dead and wounded had been dragged to one side so at least he was spared having to walk over their torn flesh. The captain of the guards had moved to the left flank of the line, leaving Jack to command the right. The unspoken agreement to share the command left Jack absurdly pleased with himself.

There were less than sixty redcoats in the line, facing more than ten times their number in the Russian column. In the centre of the line the colours of the Scots Fusiliers barely stirred in the light breeze. The two colours added a touch of grandeur that seemed out of place in a scene of such appalling human devastation.

‘When they come, stick them with your spikes.’ Jack was still patrolling the line. ‘Make those bastards bleed.’

To the right, Jack saw Digby-Brown draw his sword. The bright afternoon sunlight flashed from its blade. The lieutenant looked dreadfully young, flecks of dried blood standing out like engorged freckles against his pale face. He offered a tight-lipped smile when he saw his captain looking at him, his young eyes reflecting a world-weary sadness more suited to someone much older than his tender age.

Jack would have liked to go to his lieutenant’s side, to offer a word of comfort or to show a shred of compassion. But the advancing Russian column made that impossible. All Jack could do was return Digby-Brown’s brave smile with a nod of encouragement.

‘At one hundred yards, volley fire!’ The guards captain’s voice was firm, every syllable enunciated with care, as if the officer was aware these could be the last orders he was ever going to give.

‘Present!’

The line of rifles steadied as the men braced themselves to fire.

‘Fire!’

The volley crashed out, spitting sixty Minié balls into the packed ranks of the Russian column. Many in the front rank crumpled, as did some behind them as the powerful bullets ripped through living flesh and on into succeeding ranks.

‘Reload!’

The guards captain called out the orders calmly, as if conducting a company drill rather than a desperate final defence that would likely see his whole command destroyed within minutes. The men obeyed without conscious thought. To Jack’s shame he realised that he had not taken the time to find out the captain’s name. He would fight this last battle under the command of a stranger.

‘Present.’

More than one redcoat fumbled his ammunition or dropped his firing caps, exhaustion and haste making his fingers clumsy.

‘Fire!’

A second volley exploded across the slope, following by the crackle of tardy shots form the men who had not been ready.

The front of the column had been butchered. Dozens of Russian soldiers had been struck down, their bodies blocking the way of the men behind them.

‘Charge! Charge!’

This was the time for the exhausted and bedraggled redcoats to unleash their terror on the stalled enemy. A ragged cheer erupted from their parched throats and they surged forward, sixty men emerging from the cloud of powder smoke to charge six hundred like the very hounds of hell.

Jack drew his sword as he ran, the long steel edge rasping from the scabbard, its balanced weight snug in his hand. The blade felt alive, as if a vital force of energy was flowing into him, filling his aching muscles with a new strength. With his sword held high in his right hand, he tugged Peacock’s revolver free from its holster with his left.

The redcoats closed on the Russian ranks, their wild screams freezing the blood of the enemy conscripts. The Russian officers yelled orders, the air full of their foreign words and unintelligible commands. The column jerked into motion once more. The leading ranks hefted their own bayonets and braced themselves for the impact of the charge. Their movements were ponderous, the Russian conscripts clearly terrified of the screaming redcoats.

The redcoats closed the distance quickly and hammered into the leading Russian ranks. The first Russian conscripts died in an instant, wholly unable to deflect the violent assault. The leading redcoats pulled their bayonets out of the flesh of their first victims and moved on to the next, pounding forward, stepping over their victims, stabbing and gutting without pause.

Jack went with his men, his whole body thrilling to the insanity of the charge. There was a wild joy in the madness that he savoured even as the terror and the fear cascaded through his soul. Nothing mattered except the desire to smash his sword into the enemy, to fight and hack at anyone who dared to stand in his way. It was irresistible.

A gap appeared between Dodds and Taylor, the two redcoats fighting directly in front of Jack. He pushed into the opening, thrusting his sword forward eagerly. Its razor-sharp point pierced the flesh of a Russian soldier who had been about to stab an unsuspecting Fusilier Dodds in the side. The Russian’s head whipped round with a scream as Jack’s blade slid between two of his ribs. Despite the agony of the wound the Russian twisted his hands on the musket so he could bring it round to stab his attacker. The bayonet snagged on the corner of Dodds’s jacket, which gave Jack an opening. He raised his left hand and jammed the barrel of his revolver into the face of the wounded Russian.

Without hesitation, Jack pulled the trigger.

The Russian jerked backwards as if an invisible rope had tugged him. The bullet punched his body free of Jack’s sword and sent him flailing into the soldiers behind him.

Jack steadied his wrist, changed his point of aim and fired again, repeating the action until all five chambers were empty. The storm of bullets struck home with appalling violence and cleared a space between him and the nearest Russians. Without a second thought, he stepped forward, relishing the opportunity to flay his sword at the enemy, heedless of the risk. As he moved, he threw the now empty revolver into the face of a Russian conscript and swung his blade wildly. To his frustration the sword sliced into the wood of a Russian musket. Jack’s arm rang with the impact but he recovered quickly and swept the blade forward once more. This time the tip took the throat of the Russian whose musket had blocked the first wild attack.

The enemy were all around him, his mindless attack had driven him deep into the Russian ranks. Bayonets thrust at him from every angle and it took all his speed to bring his sword round in a desperate, sweeping defence. One bayonet slipped past his blade and tore into the hem of his jacket where it stuck fast. The horrified look in its owner’s eyes barely registered in Jack’s mind before he swept his sword across the Russian’s face, taking the man’s sight in a heartbeat.

Jack’s men pressed forward and were soon fighting close around him once more.

The redcoats had thrust hard and fast into the Russian ranks but the column was deep and the wedge of redcoats converged into an ever finer point. At its tip, Jack and the men of the Light Company fought like men possessed, dozens of Russian conscripts dying under their dreadful assault. Yet redcoats, too, were falling. Steadily their numbers dwindled and the assault slowly ground to a halt against the sheer number of enemy soldiers.

The Russians moved round the point of the attack, forcing the British soldiers on the flanks to give ground, bending the attacking line back on itself. It was only a matter of time before the redcoats were surrounded.