The Street Philosopher (11 page)

Leaving the water, he staggered up the riverbank through a light fall of musket-fire.

‘Over ’ere!’ called a voice somewhere ahead. ‘Oi, cock, over ’ere!’

Grasping at this sound, Cracknell weaved towards it, flopping down under the lip of a long rocky ledge some ten yards beyond the Alma. Several companies of redcoats were hunched there, awaiting their instructions. They were, he saw, from the 99th; it was one of these men who had called out to him.

It soon became clear which one. ‘These bastards can’t shoot for bleedin’ toffee, can they, cock?’ shouted a sallow, sunken-featured fellow who crouched close to where he lay. Incongruously cheerful, he turned to the man next to him, who was praying under his breath, and poked him in the ribs. ‘Only time you’ve got to worry is when they’re
not
bleedin’ aimin’ for you! Eh, pal?’ The praying man did not react. His garrulous comrade returned his attention to Cracknell. ‘You’re one o’ those newspaper blokes, ain’t you?’

Cracknell, panting hard, looked up at the soldier and gave a quick nod. He took off his cap and flicked it against the pale stones of the bank, darkening them with a heavy spray of river water.

‘Well, be sure to mention of Private Dan Cregg in yer tellin’ o’ the battle, Mister Reporter, as a right bleedin’ brave an’ upstandin’ soldier!’ This obvious untruth drew a snicker from the men around them. Cregg leant forward and prodded Cracknell with a dirty forefinger. ‘Did I really see the
Lieutenant-Colonel take a ball back there in the river with you, cock?’

Cracknell, still too breathless to talk, nodded again.

‘Ha!’ Cregg slapped his palm against the stock of his minié. ‘Serve the bastard right! Serve him bloody well right! Bleedin’ Boycie–got what ’e deserved, an’ no mistake!’

‘Enough of that talk, Cregg! D’ye want yet more punishment, man? D’ye
enjoy
it, perhaps?’

Major Maynard was striding along the row of crouching soldiers. Sight of him brought Cracknell immediate cheer. Maynard was a solid cove, and a soldiering man through and through–the very fellow for this situation. Laudatory phrases began to form in his mind.

‘No, sir, Major!’ replied Cregg with a crooked smirk.

Maynard squatted down next to Cregg. He was about to speak to the soldiers when he noticed the sopping, panting correspondent stretched out amongst them. ‘Mr Cracknell!’ he cried out in surprise. ‘How the devil did you get so far forward?’

With some effort, Cracknell sat up, spat out some thick mucus and reached inside the wet flap of his jacket for his cigar case. ‘Grit and–and determination, Maynard,’ he replied haltingly. ‘Yourself?’ He opened the case, releasing a trickle of water and a handful of mashed tobacco.

There was a crashing salvo of cannon-fire somewhere above them. The Major ducked, a half-smile on his face. ‘I’ve heard you boast long about your commitment to your task, Cracknell, but that, I suspected, was brandy talking. I see now that I misjudged you.’

Cracknell, casting the cigar case away with a frown, felt his strength returning. ‘Shame on you, Major, for ever thinking such a thing! Now, do you have a comment about the progress of the battle?’

Before Maynard could answer, something happened further along the line that sent a murmur of animation through the soldiers. Cracknell turned around to look. Major-General Codrington had eased his grey Arab charger up on to the ledge, and now shouted hoarsely, ‘Fix bayonets! Get up the bank and advance the attack!’

As the men unhooked the long blades from their belts
and started attaching them to the barrels of their miniés, Maynard began firing out questions. ‘The Lieutenant-Colonel is down, yes? Where is Major Fairlie? Captain Pierce? Does Lieutenant Nunn still have the colours?’

‘Major! I say, Major!’ It was Captain Wray, perhaps the most obnoxious of Boyce’s creatures, pushing his way purposefully through the soldiers. Cracknell had crossed paths with him on several memorable occasions in Varna and Constantinople. Seeing the
Courier
man, Wray turned furiously to Maynard. ‘What in God’s name is that blackguard doing here?’

‘You have left your company in the middle of an engagement, Captain,’ Maynard said sternly. ‘This had better be good.’

Cracknell let out a low snigger. Military authority, for once, was on his side.

Wray’s eyes bulged out amusingly from his plum-coloured face. ‘I only wished to say,
Major
, that we should dispatch some of our skirmishers to discover the fate of the Lieutenant-Colonel, and lend him whatever assistance they can.’

Maynard’s brow darkened. ‘A respectful tone is called for, Captain Wray, when addressing a superior officer–you would do well to remember that. And you are fully aware of our orders. We cannot break the battalion at this time. Return to your post–we must press the attack.’

As the chastened Captain retreated, scowling at Cracknell as he went, Maynard rose and looked over the 99th. ‘Here we go, my lads,’ he said, his voice loud but calm. ‘We’re to proceed up this here hill. Now these Russians will learn exactly who they’ve been firing on this day.’

Cracknell was left lying on the stones as the redcoats got numbly to their feet. Some began striking at the ledge above them with their rifle stocks, knocking loose rocks and earth in an attempt to make it more scaleable. He glanced along the line. The 19th and 23rd were already on the bank, advancing up the Heights behind Major-General Codrington in open order, their bugles sounding.

Then Major Maynard appeared atop the ledge, his cheeks flushed. ‘Advance, men!’ he cried, waving his sword like a
semaphore flag. ‘Forward the 99th! Forward the Paulton Rangers!’

The
Courier
man reached for his pocketbook, thinking to make a record of this stirring scene. Like the cigars, however, it had been utterly destroyed by the waters of the Alma. Several fine passages, including a masterful account of that morning’s preparations that he had penned whilst visiting the French camp, were lost. Cracknell let the book fall to the ground, where it landed wetly, spreading open like the wings of a dead duck. Ye Gods, he thought, I need a bloody drink.

The senior correspondent had been gone only a minute or so when Styles recovered. After wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he pulled his felt hat back decisively on to his head and declared himself ready to continue.

‘My apologies, Mr Kitson,’ he said, ‘it will not happen again, I swear it. We must find Mr Cracknell.’

Getting up, they made their way out on to the shell-blasted riverbank. The Alma was clogged with dead, floating face down, bobbing steadily towards the sea. On the other side of the river, beyond the advancing Light Division, loomed the rough crenellations of the Russians’ forward redoubt. Kitson could see that the men inside were working with urgent speed, trying to tilt their cannon so the barrels once again faced the approaching British. Musket-fire continued, somewhat ineffectually–the enemy’s accuracy was thankfully poor. Styles, keen to atone for his momentary lapse, had taken the lead; raising his folder of sketches above his head, he plunged into the Alma and started to stride through the waters.

The cannon-fire from the forward redoubt began just as Kitson reached the river. It was immediately clear that it was different somehow. Instead of a string of deep, low bangs, followed by the sonorous howl of the iron balls, there was now a more ragged, loose sound, like something being dynamited, and its pieces being thrown in all directions. Then the shout went up–‘
Grape!
’

Kitson suppressed a powerful urge to run for cover. He
fixed his eyes on Styles’ black jacket, and was wading up behind him when a second round of grapeshot was fired. Three privates from the leftmost company of the 99th were caught by it; their pulverised bodies were swept back over the ledge, almost into the Alma itself. Fragments of metal and flesh splashed all around. Without thinking, Kitson ducked underwater, his hands scrabbling through a ridge of smooth pebbles as he tried to force himself down as deep as possible. He surfaced a few seconds later to the sound of anguished, rasping shrieks, coming from somewhere up on the hillside.

Styles had vanished. There was no trace of him on the gore-strewn riverbank, or in the Alma itself. Knowing he could not linger, Kitson left the water, stumbling a few steps before falling heavily on the stones. He crawled behind the shattered remains of a waterside willow and checked himself for injury, quickly confirming that, besides a few paltry cuts, he was unscathed. As he recovered his breath, he wondered if by some deadly chance Styles had been struck down by grapeshot and then dragged beneath the water by a hidden current. This would account for his companion’s sudden disappearance; it would also mean that he had certainly perished. Kitson wiped the grit from his eyes and gazed back dismally over the ruined valley.

Something pale flashed in the corner of his vision, floating in the shallows. It was a sheet of paper, bearing a loose sketch. Styles’ folder had been dropped nearby, in amongst a cluster of large stones at the water’s edge. Landing on its spine, the folder had fallen open, and was slowly spilling its contents into the bloody Alma. Cracknell’s first Crimean confrontation with Boyce, the collapsed soldiers from the march, Madeleine Boyce on board the
H. M. S Arthur
–all were being carried away on the red river.

Despite Madeleine’s best efforts, the bay would not be controlled. She believed herself to be a good horsewoman, having ridden regularly throughout her youth. Never before, however, had she attempted to traverse a landscape like the charred and bloody one she found herself in that afternoon; and never before had she been atop such a horse. The bay’s hide was very dirty, and as Madeleine stroked his neck, she could see her gloves blackening with grime. She murmured softly in both English and French, but nothing seemed to be working. Indeed, the beast was becoming more agitated by the moment.

After a short distance, the horse had turned towards the coast. It took Madeleine a few minutes even to think of becoming worried. She had brought disobedient horses to heel on plenty of occasions. It gradually became apparent, however, that the bay was not going to stop, or slow, or pay any attention to her whispering and caressing whatsoever. What worked on pampered ponies was proving completely ineffective on this brutish warhorse. She looked down at his flanks. They were scarred and scabbed by frequent spurring. He probably can’t even feel my hand, she thought, a bud of fear bursting inside her. The British line, the 99th, Richard, were all being left behind. She was now heading into French territory.

There was only one course open to her. The bay wasn’t travelling that fast, having slowed to a brisk trot, and the
grass flashing by beneath them looked soft enough. The important thing, she told herself quickly, is to launch yourself away into the air, to ensure that you don’t get trampled by the rear hooves. She gathered up the beige folds of her dress as best she could, held on to her bonnet, and jumped.

She landed badly, her left foot at an angle, caught between two clods of earth, the ankle then twisting hard as the weight of her entire body was dumped awkwardly on top of it. Her dress ballooned around her as she put out her arms to prevent herself from pitching face-first into the mud. One elbow gave way; her shoulder hit the ground, and she rolled on to her back, suddenly still, staring up at the sky. She could feel the bay’s hooves pounding the earth, a dull rhythm that grew rapidly fainter as it continued on towards the sea.

Barely pausing, Madeleine propped herself up and moved her elbow. It seemed to be fine–unbroken, at least. More hesitantly, she climbed to her feet. The left ankle was already starting to swell inside her boot. She tried to stand on it; the pain was so intense that she cried out. She could feel the different parts of the ankle grinding together horribly, and was tempted to sit straight back down again and wait for assistance.

But then the sound of bugles over on the Heights made her look around. Redcoats could be seen in the forward redoubts, filling the batteries that had so frightened her before the battle began. The British had made contact. She fumbled with the purse that hung on her belt, and took out the opera glasses. A white crack ran across one of the lenses; but from her new position on the plain, the glasses now afforded an excellent view of the fighting. Awful things were happening up there. She saw a rifle pushed straight into a man’s face and fired; she saw the blood spurt from a Russian’s belly as a redcoat stabbed at him mercilessly with his bayonet. And these were but two incidents in a hundred.

Madeleine forced herself to search for Richard amidst the turmoil. It quickly became clear, however, that this was futile. How could she possibly find him when she didn’t even know where to start looking? He might be up there on the Heights, in the worst of the combat, but then he might also be safely
back in the camp, or crouched under cover on the banks of the river, or even lying dead in a ditch. She felt an absolute, helpless despair gathering inside her.

‘
Non
,’ she said out loud, as sternly as she could. ‘
Non, je
n’y
renoncerais
pas. Je le
retrouverais.’ Ignoring the burning friction in her ankle, Madeleine started for the river.

Styles clutched at a handful of grass, pulling himself from the Alma and up on to its opposite bank. He slumped exhaustedly onto his side, feeling the cold water run out from the tops of his boots, murmuring thanks to God for his safe delivery.

An enormous explosion roused him abruptly from this torpid prayer. He sat bolt upright and took a startled glance around him as the booming knell rolled around the valley. Up in the heart of the Russian positions, a gigantic fireball was expanding into the sky, an incandescent orange sphere laced with black soot. The British artillery, he quickly surmised, must have somehow struck a powder magazine. The battle was now surely won.

A thick trunk of smoke sprouted from the main redoubt. Styles could clearly see Russian soldiers fleeing their positions, their will broken by the seemingly divine blow that had been cast down upon them. Pressing the advantage, British infantrymen promptly surged forward into the abandoned fortifications. Rows of miniés were levelled, emptied, reloaded and emptied again. Retreating Russians fell in waves, as if tripped by long cables, their grey coats flapping as they tumbled on to the hillside. Styles, beholding this fearsome carnage from afar, felt a dark, irresistible fascination take hold of him. Unthinkingly, he reached for his drawing materials, and cursed when he realised he’d lost them in the Alma; but he continued to watch nonetheless.

It took a woman’s scream, a piercing, incongruous sound, to break the illustrator’s morbid gaze and finally make him assess his immediate surroundings. After diving into deeper water to avoid the second round of grapeshot, he had become caught in a fast-flowing channel from which he had only just been able to free himself. It had plainly carried him a
good distance downstream, far from his colleagues. There was a low stone bridge a short way to his left–it was from this direction that the scream had come. Scrambling to his knees, he crawled quickly to the top of the bank.

To his astonishment, standing at the mouth of the bridge was none other than Madeleine Boyce, the lady who had so pervaded and tortured his imagination over the past weeks. She was sobbing with terror, trying desperately to reach cover but impeded by a severe limp. A musket fired nearby, the bullet chipping against the stone at Mrs Boyce’s feet; shocked, she tripped on her skirts, wailing as she fell. Styles followed the path of the shot with his eyes. He saw a group of bearded Cossack horsemen, presumably part of a raiding party that had been missed somehow by the line of Allied advance. They were firing upon Mrs Boyce from their saddles as they made their escape back up to the Heights, all laughing as if it was great sport.

Without another thought, Styles leapt forward and ran over to the bridge, scooping Mrs Boyce up and then rushing back to the bank. Further shots were aimed at them as they went, but none struck close to their target. Once they were safe, the illustrator attempted to drop to his knees and set Mrs Boyce down; but the combination of his depleted strength and her apparent desire not to let go of him meant that they ended up landing on the grass together, still wrapped tightly in each other’s arms.

They stayed in this pose for several minutes. Beyond them, up on the Heights, the battle seemed to be coming to an end, the rifle fire becoming sporadic, and interspersed with occasional cheers. Styles barely noticed. He was absorbed instead by Mrs Boyce’s thudding heartbeat and frantic breathing; by her trembling hands, clinging to his sodden jacket; by the hard bands of her crinoline as they rubbed against his shins.

‘Oh sir,’ she gasped tearfully, her face laid upon his chest, ‘you saved me. You saved me from them.’

As they lay there, Styles’ happiness was so complete that he did not entirely trust it. The situation was simply too perfect–too much like one of the hundreds of fervid fantasies
he had composed whilst huddled sleeplessly in his cot. And sure enough, it soon came to an end. ‘I could not do otherwise,
Madame
, believe me. I—’

At the sound of his voice, Mrs Boyce started, as if suddenly waking. She withdrew from his embrace with a promptness that made him ashamed not to have moved himself away from her first; then she stood quickly and began smoothing her damp, rumpled gown.

He rose as well, making himself talk on. ‘That–that those beasts, those
demons
would fire on a lady–well, it defies my understanding, to be perfectly frank. Might I ask what you are doing out here, Mrs Boyce?’

She retied her bonnet, which had been knocked loose, and looked him up and down. ‘
Mon Dieu
, Mr Styles!’ she exclaimed in feigned amazement. ‘You are soaked through! I fear that your fine velvet jacket is quite ruined. Where is your hat? Have you been in the river?’

Styles almost smiled at this crude, oddly charming piece of evasion. He was about to reply when someone further up the river shouted her name furiously. They both turned, Mrs Boyce covering her mouth in dismay. ‘Oh no,’ she whispered. ‘Not
now
.’

It was her husband, striding rapidly along the bank towards them. The Lieutenant-Colonel was drenched, and his head was bare–like Styles, he had obviously taken an unexpected plunge into the Alma. When he was still about twenty yards away from them, he stopped. His eyes were staring wide, his face purple; he seemed quite apoplectic with rage. ‘Come here, you little fool!’ he spat.

Mrs Boyce was not in the least cowed by him. Refusing to hurry, she took one of Styles’ hands in hers. ‘Mr Styles, you have my most sincere thanks for what you did. I shall not forget this, sir.’

The sweet tenderness of her voice was almost painful to hear. Styles looked on helplessly as she went to Boyce’s side. He seized hold of her as one would a disobedient dog, and then dragged her back the way he had come.

The illustrator did not attempt to deceive himself. It was all but certain that she was out there searching for Cracknell,
for the man she loved. But he felt a measure of triumph nonetheless. After his humiliating failure in the vineyard, he had managed to show true courage. He had saved her. Amongst the horrors of that day, the many nightmares that had been unleashed upon him, this was one shining consolation. Cracknell may have her heart; she may have risked everything just to see him once more; but he, Robert Styles, had saved Madeleine Boyce from death, and held her in his arms as she sobbed with gratitude.

He looked to the Heights, his eyes lingering on the slew of bodies that littered the redoubts. Several union flags and regimental colours now hung above these grim charnel-houses–a British victory had been declared. Thinking to locate his colleagues, Styles began to climb the hill.