The Scarlet Thief (7 page)

14 September 1854. Kalamata Bay, Crimean Peninsula

For countless leagues, the rolling grasslands of the Crimean peninsula stretched as far as the eye could see. In places, a scattering of ancient barrows, mounds of earth that had been used as burial places in centuries long past, interrupted the undulating steppe. Elsewhere, the grass gave way to cultivation, the dark, fertile soil a rich foundation for the acres of vineyards and orchards that produced an abundant supply of grapes, pears, nectarines, apples and peaches. Pockets of snug dwellings nestled in the folds and creases of the plateau, scattered through the landscape as if the squat buildings had formed naturally, grown out of the fertile soil of the steppe.

It was a place of calm and tranquillity, a land that stoically endured the wild weather and slept through the good. It had remained unchanged and undisturbed for centuries, far from the trials and tribulations at the heart of the Russian empire, distant, forgotten, and ignored.

Then the invading armies arrived.

They had landed the previous day at Kalamata Bay, twenty-five miles north of the Russian naval base at Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula. Even now, on the second day of the landing, the inauspiciously named Kalamata Bay was a frenzy of activity. The grey waters were crammed with ships and yet more sails filled the horizon. Large, powerful men-of-war, the leviathans of the fleet, sat immobile on the cramped margins of the bay, while smaller gigs and cutters swarmed around them. The new war steamers, with their shallower draught, came closer to shore before they, too, disgorged their own flotillas of small craft, their smokestacks belching out columns of dirty grey smoke towards the dreary sky.

A thin spit of sand and shingle ran along the landward rim of the bay, separating the sea from a large, stagnant and foul-smelling salt lake. The newly landed men would have to march along its entire length before they could turn inland for the higher ground. The remote beach was normally deserted, even the local Tartar population finding little reason to visit. Now, two hundred and fifty ships were disgorging nearly sixty thousand British, French and Turkish soldiers on to it, a coalition of forces brought together to fight the might of the vast Russian army.

The landing site had only been picked the previous day, an ill-omened indication of how indecisive the combined allied command structure was. Nonetheless, the generals’ staff had done their best to plan the landing in minute detail, producing eight pages of printed regulations that listed everything from the landing timetable to which flag each troop-carrying vessel should display. Now, the sheer scale of the operation was overwhelming all that planning and the beach was descending into chaos.

Dozens upon dozens of sailors stood knee-deep in the surf, hauling in boats full of men and turning freshly emptied craft around to return to the transports for yet more troops. Newly landed soldiers gathered on the shingle in their thousands, among mountains of equipment. The officers watched in dismay as the military might of three countries was dumped in one bewildering heap on the sand.

‘Company! Form line!’

The command would ordinarily have brought the company of redcoats sharply to attention. It should have sent the sixty-three men and three sergeants moving through well-practised drill.

Should have, but did not.

Two weeks on board ship had stiffened their limbs but that alone could not explain the sloppiness with which the men responded to the order. The soldiers moved lethargically, shuffling into the semblance of an ordered line with little grace and even less military precision. Despite such a glaring lack of discipline, none of the company’s three sergeants found the energy to chastise their men. They too ambled their way to their allotted positions behind the line, every sluggish movement displaying their displeasure at being forced through the unnecessary drill.

‘I am not impressed, gentlemen. Not impressed at all. Would either of you care to offer any defence for this shameful performance?’

This was addressed to a pair of young lieutenants who stood dejectedly to the front of the Light Company of the King’s Royal Fusiliers. Behind them, the company stopped shuffling, having finally formed the two-man-deep line the British army still favoured. Modern manufacturing might have advanced the army’s weaponry but its generals still clung to the principles and tactics of their former commander, Lord Wellington, who dominated the thinking of this most modern of armies even though he had been dead and buried for nigh on two years.

Neither of the two young subalterns was willing to meet the uncompromising stare of their new commander. He stood in front of them, hands placed petulantly on his hips, his disgust at the wretched performance of his new command obvious.

The sun disappeared behind the bank of threatening, dark-grey clouds that had rolled over the hills to the south and west, leaving the Light Company standing sullenly in the sudden gloom as they waited for the next order.

Even standing still was uncomfortable for the exhausted fusiliers. The men had to keep repositioning the awkward, improvised containers they had fashioned to carry their necessities. Their generals had commanded the army to leave their familiar ‘Trotter’ backpacks on ship, issuing the men with only a few days’ worth of food and ammunition which they believed would be more than adequate for the lightning-quick raid on Sevastopol they envisaged.

To the front of the Light Company the captain waited for his subalterns to try to explain the men’s lethargic drill, something neither was keen to do. He let the silence stretch, unconcerned at his junior officers’ discomfort.

Unable to bear it any longer, Lieutenant Simon Digby-Brown, the senior of the two officers, stopped his intense survey of the ground around his boots and risked a reply.

‘Well, sir.’ He cleared his throat nervously before pressing on. ‘I know you only arrived shortly before we embarked at Varna, but even in that short time you must have been seen what a festering hole we were forced to live in. It is no wonder that the men are so out of condition.’

The captain snorted his derision. ‘You are quite correct. I understand why the men have reason to be in a sorry condition. However, what I do not understand is why you appear to have done so little to correct it.’

‘Sir, I must protest. That is grossly unfair.’ Digby-Brown’s voice rose in protest. ‘We sat in that filthy place watching our men fall sick and die. We could do nothing but nurse the sick and do our utmost to prevent more of the men succumbing. You saw the appalling condition of the camp, sir. Filth everywhere, barely any clean water and every type of loathsome insect constantly swarming over us. It was simply awful, sir, and I do not believe we could have done anything further to make such an awful situation better.’

The captain smiled at his subaltern’s impassioned reply. ‘In just a matter of days, we will be fighting the Russian army. I very much doubt they will stand and listen to your excuses as to why the men are not fit. They will happily slaughter us to the last man and if we are too ignorant, or too indolent, to prepare properly, then we will deserve little else. Do I make myself clear?’

Digby-Brown repressed the urge to continue his defence. Unable to look his captain in the eye, his replied was forced. ‘Yes, sir. Abundantly clear.’

‘Lieutenant Thomas. Do I make myself clear?’

The Light Company’s junior lieutenant nodded firmly in reply, unable to summon the courage to match his fellow subaltern’s passionate defence of their actions. At nineteen, Lieutenant James Thomas was one of the youngest lieutenants in the battalion, having only recently moved up from the rank of ensign.

‘What was that, Thomas? Did you mumble something?’

‘No, sir. I understand you perfectly, sir.’

‘Good, I hate mumbling. You are an officer. Your every word must be audible and enunciated clearly.’ The company’s new commander seemed to be enjoying himself. Indeed, he gave every impression of savouring his subaltern’s discomfort. ‘How long have you been in the army, Thomas?’

‘Nearly two years, sir.’

‘How much did your lieutenancy cost?’

‘Sir?’

‘I think I made my question perfectly clear, Thomas. Please do me the courtesy of answering.’

‘Two hundred and fifty pounds, sir.’ Lieutenant Thomas swallowed hard.

‘Plus the value of your ensign’s commission, correct?’

‘Yes of course, sir.’ Thomas’s face betrayed his anxiety. ‘With an extra consideration of twenty pounds to facilitate the transaction.’

‘Goodness me. That is a fortune, Thomas. Do you know how much your soldiers earn?’

‘Sir?’ Thomas was unsure how to answer the sharp question. As a rule, officers never discussed money. It was not a topic of conversation for gentlemen.

‘Really, Thomas. If you and I are going to get along you will have to stop behaving in such a contrary manner. It is a simple enough question. How much are the soldiers under your command paid for their service to the Queen?’

‘A shilling a day, I believe, sir.’

‘You believe or you know?’

‘Sir. A shilling a day, sir.’

‘You are nearly correct. The men are supposed to be paid a shilling a day, but that is before deductions. Deductions take away most of that pitiful amount and leave them lucky to see a few pence. Yet you, Mr Thomas, are prepared to spend two hundred and fifty pounds on a new commission. Is your family rich?’

‘No, sir,’ Lieutenant Thomas was sweating under the fierce barrage of questions. ‘Well, my parents are financially comfortable, I would say, sir.’

‘How very nice for them. Mr Digby-Brown, how much would it cost you to buy a captaincy?’

‘One thousand one hundred pounds is the current army list rate, sir.’

‘One thousand one hundred pounds. Do your family’s comfortable finances have such an enormous sum ready for you, Thomas?’

‘I do not know, sir. I would like to think they would be willing to invest such a sum in my advancement. It is, after all, the way things are done, is it not?’

‘So do you believe you are ready for a captaincy? Do you feel that your two years’ service, and not forgetting your family’s two hundred and fifty pounds, has properly prepared you to lead the men?’

‘Yes, sir. I would say I am confident in my own abilities.’

‘I admire your certainty.’ The captain let out a tired sigh before continuing. ‘As officers, the men expect you to lead them, not to pander to them. That is an art you must learn. You are not born to lead, whatever you may believe, and a privileged upbringing does not endow you with the qualities you’ll need if you are to succeed as an officer. In my company, I expect you to lead by example. To prove to the men that you are willing to share their discomfort and to fight as we expect them to fight. You do not learn to lead from a book. You do not learn it in the officers’ mess and you most certainly cannot purchase it. You learn it here. Here with your men.’

Lieutenant Digby-Brown studied his new commander as the lecture ended. Now that the captain had finished speaking, he had turned away, suddenly awkward in front of his subalterns. Digby-Brown would have judged the new commander of the Light Company to be of an age close to his own twenty-four years. They were similar in build, both standing just short of six feet tall, but where Digby-Brown was fair-haired, pale-skinned and showed the benefits of a privileged upbringing in his portly build, the captain was dark and gaunt, his face hard, his eyes uncompromising and intense. The captain sported several days’ growth of beard. Digby-Brown would never dare to do the same. He struggled to grow even a pair of sideburns, his attempts at which, to his shame, were often thin and patchy. The Captain’s face was more often than not creased in a scowl, as if he were constantly irritated by what was going on around him. Digby-Brown knew he would have to try harder to understand his new officer.

The Light Company had learnt little about the man behind the stern expression. It would take time to find out what he was like as a leader, to discover if he would prove a dynamic commander or a hopeless tyrant. The Russian army would be the harshest test of his talents and no amount of rhetoric would help when the men were called into action.

The whole army was under intense scrutiny; advances in communication would keep the home audience fully informed of events in the campaign. The British public would soon find out how good their modern army really was.

A fine rain started to fall as the men sullenly re-formed into company column and marched to join the main battalion. It soaked into the men’s red jackets and dark blue woollen trousers, adding to their discomfort and wearing away their last reserves of energy.

Wearily the fusiliers trudged into the battalion’s assigned bivouac area on the wide, grassy plain a mile inland from the beach at Kalamata Bay. The rest of the battalion had got there before them and now lay sprawled on the ground, the men already exhausted, their physical condition pitiful after months languishing on transport ships or in the fever-inducing swamps at Varna.

The captain of the Light Company buried his neck as far into his sodden greatcoat as he could while trying his best to ignore the rivulets of rainwater that dripped from the peak of his Albert shako. The stubby, six-inch plume on top of the shako drooped under the weight of the water it had absorbed, its green hue darkened to a grey-black.