Until the Colours Fade (45 page)

The heavy rain had stopped, and now a fine dank drizzle was
falling.
From the direction of Sebastopol, muffled a little by the mist, came the clanging of church bells calling the garrison to early morning service: a dismally familiar sound to the men on night picket duty in front of the British lines.

Four o’clock on the morning of 5 November. The fog and drifting mist became whiter as dawn approached, but showed no sign of lifting.

Bored, tired and numb with cold, Magnus was tempted to abandon his original purpose of remaining with the men of the picket until they were relieved. His reason for sharing their
discomforts
was his editor’s insistence that, besides routine
despatches
on the progress of the campaign, he produce more vivid first-person descriptions of various aspects of the army’s life in the Crimea. To this end he had already spent time in a mortar battery, at the French supply port of Kamiesch Bay, and had
described
the dawn stand-to-arms in the Guards’ camp and a night in the trenches. For the past six hours he had been with members of a Rifle Brigade picket, posted half-a-mile in front of the
exposed
right flank of the British Army’s encampments.

Unlike most of the other British journalists, Magnus was not surprised that Lord Raglan had not ordered the construction of batteries and entrenchments to defend his weakest flank from attack by the Russian field army. The ground there was uneven, and so extensive that to be effective three or four miles of
fortifications
would have been needed. This would have reduced the number of guns available for the batteries firing on Sebastopol, and have diverted more men than could be spared from the
siege-works
. The rumour currently rife in British regiments was that a general allied assault on the town had been planned to take place in two days’ time. If this attack succeeded, the army would be spared the disaster of a winter in the Crimea. With this in mind, Magnus felt sure that in Raglan’s position, he too would have thrown all the resources of his small army into an early attempt to take the town, and have gambled on not being attacked first.

The previous day Magnus had taken note of the position the picket was to occupy. A hundred yards in front of them, and now
shrouded in mist, a steep slope ran down to a river valley
overshadowed
on the far side by sheer walls of rock, rising up to the ancient ruins of Inkerman. Behind the picket lay a fissured
plateau,
half-a-mile in depth, dominated by a small knoll on which the British had built a battery screened by a tall ten-foot sandbag wall. There were two embrasures but no guns had been placed in them. Several hundred yards to the rear of the Sandbag Battery, the ground rose steeply to form a long low ridge, the last natural defensive position between an attacking force and the 2nd
Division’
s camp on the British right flank. If Russian troops did manage to reach the camps on the main plateau facing
Sebastopol
, the allies could well be driven down to Balaclava and
destroyed
there.

But such fanciful thoughts were far from Magnus’s mind as he felt the damp seep through his boots and the clammy air
penetrate
his thick scarf and sheepskin coat under his waterproof cape. Better by far to endure a hard frost than this moist chilling fog. The ground ahead was covered with dense brushwood and thorn brakes, which seemed to recede and float as new swathes of mist were driven up from the valley by a light wind.

Of the fifty or so men in the picket only a quarter were on watch, while the rest lay or sat huddled together in their
blankets
. Magnus could imagine how tired a man would have to be before he could sleep with an empty stomach, under a single sodden blanket on cold wet ground; yet from the sound of quiet regular snoring, it was clear that many were asleep. In spite of the drizzle, their arms had been piled in the usual pyramids, butts on the ground, barrels pointing upwards. But nobody, Magnus least of all, expected an attack, so it would hardly matter if many of the rifles were too wet to fire. From in front, where the sentries were spread out in a wide semi-circle, came occasional sounds of movement as a man stumbled into a bush or changed his position. The lieutenant in command returned from visiting the sentries and squatted down on his haunches a few yards from Magnus with his back to him. Magnus knew that his presence was unwelcome. Earlier the young officer had asked him what possible interest the dull routine of a night picket could have for newspaper readers. Wouldn’t he be better employed collecting tales of heroism from survivors of the Light Brigade or anecdotes about the Alma? Magnus had assured him that for those who had never spent a night out of their beds, picket duties would not seem unremarkable; but now he felt bored enough to agree with the lieutenant. Down in the trenches between the opposing
batteries
,
the rival defenders had been close enough in places to hear each other talking and the atmosphere had been tense and
oppressive
. Here on the isolated right flank, it was quite otherwise. Probably he would be unable to write anything.

By half-past five the reliefs had still not come and Magnus made up his mind to leave in ten minutes whether they had arrived or not. He was picking up his folding camp stool and moving towards the lieutenant when one of the sentries came crashing through the brushwood.

‘Rooshians, sir … hundreds of ’em,’ he gasped.

‘Which way?’ asked the lieutenant, knowing that Magnus was watching him, and making a definite effort to appear calm. The sentry pointed to the front, but the fog was as impenetrable as ever.

An hour before, another sentry had reported hearing waggon wheels in the valley, but when the rest of the picket had listened, nothing had been heard. Magnus knew from his own experience in Ceylon how easy it was for an exhausted man to imagine
hearing
sounds or seeing movements through moving mist. The officer was sceptical but ordered the entire company to stand to their arms. The noise the waking men made, rolling up their
precious
blankets, and tripping over each other as they searched for their firearms, ruled out any chance of listening, and the order to load led to the additional sounds of tearing cartridges and
clattering
ramrods. Men swore as they fumbled with numb fingers for percussion caps and cartridge pouches in the half-light.

Then a sudden stutter of small arms firing came from the right: a noise no louder than rain beating against a window, but probably deadened by the fog and closer than it sounded;
absolute
silence followed these shots. It was just possible that a relief party had become lost in the fog and had surprised a picket from the valley side.

During the few seconds in which everybody listened tensely for the answering volley which would prove that the enemy was attacking, Magnus was a prey to powerfully conflicting
emotions
. For the sake of the army he hoped there would be no further firing, knowing that a general action before the predicted allied assault would make a winter campaign inevitable, but he also knew that if no more shots came he would be acutely
disappointed
. Probably chance would never again place him in a forward position at the start of what might be a critical battle. During the tedious hours of the night, he had amused himself by trying to imagine what he would do in command of the 2nd Division
in the event of an attack. Send reinforcements out to the pickets to help them contest every foot of ground? Or order them back at once, and rely on artillery to shatter the advancing columns, before counter-attacking from the higher ground of the ridge? Now he found himself desperately eager to know which course General Pennefather would choose, and what the Russians’ tactics would be. There was no doubt at all from their drawn white faces, that the men around him had no similar desire to find out such things.

Two crisp volleys followed by a spasmodic crackle of
independent
fire confirmed that a large sortie or full-scale assault had started. The firing died away and a loud roar of hundreds of voices made every member of the picket shudder; the absence of shots after the shout meant that a bayonet charge had given way to hand-to-hand fighting. Fifty or a hundred men would now be fighting against more than twice their number.

Magnus was standing a few paces from the lieutenant and saw that his face was glistening with sweat. He opened his mouth but no sound came. Magnus could not believe that he would not withdraw his men to the ridge or the Sandbag Battery; he was
irritated
with himself for not having asked him what his orders were in the event of an attack. A sergeant came over and saluted.

‘Shall I send a man back to Division, sir?’

The officer licked his dry lips and nodded.

‘And, Hill, we’ll need to warn the pickets to our left. Better ask their officers to join forces with us.’

Magnus watched the young man with his boyish freckled face and curly red hair take several deep breaths to steady himself. Then he set about forming his men into a crescent, two ranks deep, and ordered them to get down behind bushes or rocks. He took out his revolver and as he did so, caught sight of Magnus, whom he had forgotten.

‘Better go back now, Mr Crawford,’ he said with a trace of
soldierly
contempt for civilians.

‘In a minute or two,’ replied Magnus with a smile.

‘I am not responsible for you. If I’m hit I’m a hero, if you are, you’re a fool.’

‘I agree.’

The lieutenant checked the mechanism of his revolver and then loaded it. Magnus’s calmness seemed to have reassured him, and he no longer spoke with his previous gruffness as he reached in his pockets and pulled out a gold watch and two crumpled letters. He handed them to Magnus, who took them without
comment. The top one was addressed to ‘The Venerable the Archdeacon of Lichfield’.

‘My father,’ he murmured, seeing the direction of Magnus’s gaze.

‘I shall return them to you later,’ said Magnus, fixing his eyes on the lieutenant’s dark green uniform with its black frogging, not daring to meet his eyes in case his face betrayed his doubts.

Before the runners had returned from the neighbouring
pickets
a sharp crash of firing came from the left, and as Magnus turned he saw a flickering line of tiny flashes, dimmed by the mist, as the second volley rattled out. From the length of the line he reckoned that the nearest picket was being attacked by about three companies. It seemed unlikely that the Russians would attack with whole regiments and brigades until they had thrown out groups of skirmishers to discover the precise strengths and weaknesses of the units on the plateau. Then through a gap in the mist Magnus saw that he had been mistaken: barely two hundred yards away a dense mass of Russians, at least a
battalion
, were marching straight at them. Before the mist closed in again he saw their grey greatcoats and small spiked helmets quite clearly. Many of the men had not seen the enemy, but those who had, leapt to obey their officer as he waved them away to the right, preferring, as Magnus thought, discretion to suicidal valour.

Relieved by this decision, and knowing that he would see nothing of the overall pattern of the coming battle unless he got back onto higher ground above the worst of the mist, Magnus started to run towards the Sandbag Battery. He tripped in the brushwood several times but scrambled to his feet and hurried on. When he was almost half-way to his objective, he heard a stammering burst of firing in the direction from which he had come. This was followed by confused shouts and yells; then another ragged volley, followed immediately by a thin cheer. Magnus could see nothing through the mist, yet the skin on his scalp seemed to tighten and a tremor ran down his spine.

The lieutenant and his fifty men had not let the Russians pass unmolested, but had fired into their flank and then charged them with fixed bayonets. For a moment Magnus saw the forms of the sleeping men and the young officer’s glistening face and
frightened
eyes. The shouting went on, punctuated by random shots and screams. Magnus stood gazing into the wall of mist,
expecting
to see the remains of the picket running terror-stricken towards the ridge, but the confused sounds of hand-to-hand
fighting went on for two or three minutes more until an awful quietness came, broken by the shrieking of wounded men and distant firing from other outposts.

Magnus felt tears rise and a low groan broke from his lips. Then suddenly, from the same direction, more firing started; and alone in the mist Magnus cheered. One of the pickets sent for by the lieutenant had arrived too late to save him and were now firing into what would already be a badly mauled Russian left flank. Even if only half the Minié rifles and Enfields had been
effective
, they would have caused heavy casualties to columns marching in close order. Judging by the sounds coming from all round the perimeter of the plateau, it was evident that similar desperate assaults and blindly courageous rallies were taking place wherever Russian troops met with British pickets. A few hundred men were buying time for the rest of the army at the cost of their lives; delaying an enemy probably ten times their number.

Moved and shaken though he felt, Magnus’s earlier
determination
to see as much of the battle as he could, still held, and on finding that his view from the Sandbag Battery was no better, he pressed on towards the ridge below the 2nd Division’s camp, intent on discovering whether any efforts would be made to
support
the pickets on the lower ground.

*

A few minutes before six o’clock George Braithwaite was
awakened
by bugles and shouting outside his tent. The previous night he had stayed up late playing cards and losing heavily; the night before that he had been in the trenches. The canvas of the tent was sodden with rain and a drip had soaked the lower end of his blanket. His head was throbbing and he felt sick with
tiredness
; he wanted to run out and scream his anger to the whole camp. Instead he sat up and flung off his wringing blanket. With no duties to attend to during the morning, he had expected to be able to sleep till midday, but because of some idiotic sortie
somewhere
, everybody was running about like imbeciles, waking up hundreds of men when only a couple of companies would be needed to repel the attack. He looked angrily at Towers who was still sleeping, and went across and shook him.