Until the Colours Fade (47 page)

*

From the high ground immediately in front of the 2nd Division’s camp, Magnus had watched the horrifying shelling to which the men on the ridge had been subjected, and had been amazed at the length of time it had taken the Royal Artillery to bring up some heavy guns to silence the Russian 24-pounders on the opposite hills. Later he learned that two A.D.C.s, sent by Lord Raglan with the necessary orders to the commander of the siege-train, had been killed on their way there. Generally by the time orders could be conveyed to battalions in the fighting, the situation had changed so drastically that they were useless; and even when they did arrive in time to be acted upon, few commanders in the field were able to communicate them to their widely scattered men. In the past, the voice or trumpets had proved more or less adequate, but in the chaos of fog, broken country, and shattered formations, neither was having any effect.

Shortly after the Russians stopped shelling the ridge, Magnus positioned himself close to the commander-in-chief and his staff. Although he could not understand why the regiments defending the Sandbag Battery were not being supported, he could not help feeling a grudging admiration for Lord Raglan’s impassive almost weary manner, and his quiet unchanging voice. Staff
officers
galloped up in alarm and left apparently reassured by this pacific-looking old man in a plain blue frock-coat and black cravat – more the clothes of a country gentleman than a British commander-in-chief. Around him clustered his mounted staff with their yards of gold lace and white plumed cocked hats, which attracted a steady fire from the enemy guns; but Raglan remained staring attentively ahead of him at the smoke-filled ravines and dells below the ridge. Magnus, who now had no doubt that a Russian victory was inevitable, did not envy his
lordship
. The fate of being held responsible, and unjustly so, for the first major British defeat since the American War would be enough to make many men break down and weep; but Lord Raglan showed no visible emotion when a grey wave of Russians poured into the Sandbag Battery and rolled the British off the spur. This Magnus could see was the prelude to a series of attacks on the ridge. He wondered what plans, if any, Raglan had to save the camps and batteries, if the ridge fell before large French
reinforcements
entered the battle. Seconds later a shell burst among the staff. From the amount of blood on their uniforms, Magnus thought most had been mortally wounded. Going closer with a sinking heart, he realised that a shell had entered a horse and
exploded
in the abdomen showering blood and entrails over all
those nearby. General Strangways of the Royal Artillery was the only casualty; the lower part of his shin was hanging by a few strands of flesh. Magnus distinctly heard the old man ask: ‘Will any one be kind enough to lift me off my horse?’ He had heard many anecdotes about the stoicism of wounded men, but he was still amazed to witness such calmness. He had heard it said that when Lord Raglan’s left arm had been amputated after
Waterloo
, he had politely asked for the limb to be returned so that he could remove a ring from a finger. Only now did Magnus believe this story to have been true.

As Strangways was being carried away, Lord Raglan sent an A.D.C. galloping down towards the Brigade of Guards. Even when Magnus saw the direction in which the staff officer was going, he could not believe that the Guards were going to be ordered to re-take the Sandbag Battery. Twelve or thirteen hundred men against two divisions would have no chance at all, if logic played any part in military proceedings. It seemed
incomprehensible
that Raglan should be committing his élite troops before the ridge came under direct infantry attack. But minutes later, Magnus was convinced that this was what the
commander-in-
chief intended to do.

With a lump in his throat he watched the Guards move off in perfect column of battalions, the three regiments of the Brigade marching in echelon. Earlier some of the men had been wearing greatcoats but now these had all been taken off and the red
jackets
stood out sharply against the sodden dark brown earth. As the Brigade moved down steadily towards the spur, the regiments were advancing in three parallel squares, forming a broken diagonal across the lower slopes of the ridge. Then under heavy shell-fire they began a disciplined slow wheel to the left, the Scots Fusiliers, in the leading position on the extreme right, marking time, while the Coldstream, in the centre, marched in slow-time, and the Grenadiers, behind on the left, continued at their
previous
pace, until all three regiments were level, and the diagonal of squares had become a straight line. In this formation Her Majesty’s Brigade of Guards marched onto the spur towards the Russian divisions drawn up in a wide arc in front of the Sandbag Battery.

And once, thought Magnus, I would have laughed at the months of drill needed to attain such precision, and would have thought the time far better spent in improving marksmanship. But the slow solemnity of the movement he had just witnessed, performed on rough ground under fire, had impressed him
beyond words, and he had no doubt about the demoralising
impact
the sight of such discipline would have on the waiting enemy.

Three hundred yards from the Russians, the Guards halted to fix bayonets, and moments later, Magnus saw small puffs of white smoke spread along the front ranks, as they fired a
succession
of volleys, which were immediately answered by the enemy’s field guns. Closing ranks, and leaving the wounded where they fell, the Brigade advanced by the centre, until fifty yards from their objective, they cheered, lowered their bayonets, and charged.

*

In the couple of seconds after George’s company had formed two ranks and fixed bayonets, the Russian field guns fell silent, and George could clearly see the gunners loading again; this time with grape and canister. The momentary stillness after the roar of the guns gave him a strange and eerie feeling of timelessness. Moment by moment he expected his colonel to give the order to fire, moment by moment he predicted the next salvo from the field guns; and the intensity of his anticipation extended his awareness of the present; small sounds, the clink of a sword against a scabbard or a cough seemed unnaturally loud, as though his ears and all his senses had suddenly been sharpened as never before. Under his feet long grass, flattened by the night’s rain, above him a low grey sky, around him the last sights he might ever see. One flight of grape, one volley of musketry, and the end of all sensation. Nothing. He wanted to pray but remembered the self-disgust he had felt after his prayer on the ridge. No more hypocrisy. He gazed ahead at the dense mass of men immediately in front of him. How far across that narrow strip of grass will I get? To that bush? That rock? Or to those grey-coated ranks? Till that moment he had been certain that he would be killed before reaching the enemy. But I may not be, he thought, feeling an agonising constriction in his chest. To be shot was one thing, but to be stabbed or bludgeoned to death was very different. He clutched at memories of sword exercises which he had never fully mastered: ‘right guard’, ‘parry’, ‘cut’, ‘left guard’. Thrust and twist upwards to make the wound worse. Go for the stomach. A sharp sword properly wielded can take a man’s head or arm off at a blow. He felt the swooning numbness a man feels being beaten unconscious, when he can resist no more. Then he heard Colonel Wilson’s clear resonant voice:

‘When I give the order to fire, don’t hurry your shots. Be steady. Keep silent and fire low. Ready. Present. Fire.’

The crash of the first volley was still in George’s ears as the Russian field guns flashed out, tearing the air with hissing and shrieking metal; the musket balls did not whistle as with single shots but hummed and whirred like a swarm of bees. Men were falling on every side. From the moment the firing started, time leapt forward again and seemed to race with mad inconsequence. From the corner of his eye George saw General Bentinck’s white horse rear up and sink down, while the Adjutant-General was flung bodily from his saddle by the same round of canister. George saw Colonel Wilson a few yards away, sword in hand, his moustache looking very white against his brick-red face. He was gazing along the ranks of his battalion, as if trying to fix the sight in his mind. Then he took hold of his bearskin and placing it on the point of his sword held it aloft and yelled at the top of his voice:

‘Three cheers for the Queen….’

The cheering rapidly spread from those in earshot to the entire battalion. The Scots Fusiliers and Grenadiers were also
cheering
. George never heard the command to charge, but seeing the men in the company to his left running forward, he waved his sword and ran too, hearing his men following, their cheers rising to a blood-chilling scream and ending in a low fierce moan.

Just before the charge began, George had noticed a tangle of brambles halfway across the intervening space, and after what seemed a few strides, saw that he was already level with them. By now some of his company had overtaken him and were firing random shots as they ran. A bullet snicked against a button on his sleeve and another passed inches wide of his face, but in spite of the bursting pressure in his lungs and a paralysing ache in his thighs, George did not slow down; the fatigue of his body helped to dull the awareness of his brain. He had a peculiar sense that
he
was standing still and the ground under him was moving; the men who fell appeared to be tumbling away backwards. A moment later George came down hard and thought that he had been hit, until he realised that he had tripped over a body. Colonel Wilson’s sightless eyes were a few feet from his own. One bullet had entered the colonel’s chest and another had passed through his cheeks, ripping out his tongue and his upper teeth. Little spurts of blood still pulsed from the mess of flesh and bone that had been his mouth. ‘Be steady. Keep silent and fire low.’ Blinded with tears and retching painfully on an empty stomach,
George leapt to his feet. A faint sound came from his lips and then a sobbing roar of rage; he pulled out his revolver with his wounded hand, and gripping his sword more tightly in his right, ran on, drunk with hatred and the desire to maim and kill.

The Russians’ faces were now clearly visible, pale and
high-cheekboned
, under strange flat muffin-shaped hats, utterly unlike the spiked helmets George remembered from the Alma. George singled out a tall officer, with a sharp nose and a wiry black moustache. Before he could reach him, one of the leading men in his company, swinging his rifle by the barrel like a club, had caught the officer a crunching blow on the side of the head with the full weight of the stock. Another few yards and George was almost blinded by dense smoke and the flashes of rifles. All around him men were jabbing and thrusting at grey-coated figures with their bayonets as if mad. A wounded Russian caught one of George’s legs and held him firmly. George lashed out with his free leg, but the man tightened his grasp, glaring up with clenched teeth and burning eyes. George brought down his sword on the soldier’s skull with all his strength, splitting it from crown to jaw and splattering brains and blood all over his
uniform
. He tried to strike at another man but for a moment could not move his arm, so densely packed were the men around him. He managed to fire his revolver into the stomach of the Russian immediately facing him, noticing every detail of his face: the
curling
reddish hairs on his chin and a sore on the side of his nose. The man quivered and slipped to his knees, his face expressing surprise and fear rather than pain. A massive colour-sergeant was smashing his way forward with short sharp blows of the butt-end of his rifle, and George followed him until his burly leader fell, bayoneted in the side. A man lunged at George with his bayonet and the blade ripped through his sleeve, gashing his arm; he fired and missed, but his assailant slumped down shot with a Minié bullet. A few more strides and George realised that he had passed through the enemy’s lines. All sensation was
leaving
his left arm, so he sheathed his sword and transferred his revolver to his right hand. In front, a group of Russian gunners were trying to drag away a field gun, and doing their best to fight with sponge-staves and rammers against fully armed infantry. One by one they were hacked down.

Ahead of George was a hundred yards of open ground and then three Russian battalions drawn up immediately in front of the Sandbag Battery. The hopelessness of charging these columns seemed obvious to George, but nothing that he or any
other officer shouted, could stop the men charging on, cheering like madmen after their initial success. Then George saw that the men were right. Hundreds of Russians were hurling themselves back towards the Sandbag Battery to the security of their own lines. When these panic-stricken soldiers collided with their own advancing troops, three hundred Grenadiers and Coldstream Guards flung themselves into the disordered Russian ranks. George watched the line waver and then start to break; he saw enemy officers vainly trying to rally their men, threatening and even pleading with them, but to no purpose. Within minutes Russians were crashing away through the brushwood on the slopes of the spur and into the valley below. Two companies retreated to the Sandbag Battery and held their ground bravely. The men who had broken through the lines of the Russians’ second division had expended all their ammunition by the time they reached the battery, but they outnumbered the defenders and killed them with rifle butts and stones. From a hundred and fifty yards away, George even saw men fighting with their fists.

When he reached the emplacement, the ground was thick with dead and wounded of both sides. From every part of the battery came cries for water and continual moans of pain interspersed with screams. Guardsmen were embracing each other, shouting excitedly about what had happened to them. The air was reeking with smoke and the soldiers’ sweat-streaked faces were
blackened
with it. A Russian near George had been shot in the throat and was gurgling and spitting blood, as he fought for breath. A private from his own company was lying pressing his hands against a gaping stomach wound, trying to hold in his escaping intestines.