Until the Colours Fade (53 page)

As Charles walked towards his tethered pony, Magnus went on gently: ‘Before you do what you spoke of, you ought to ask yourself whether it’s because you hate Helen, or care for father.’

‘I don’t have to ask myself that,’ replied Charles, as he
mounted
.

Magnus watched his brother for a few seconds and then walked slowly back to his hut.

*

When Charles stepped into the Brigade’s No. 2 Battery, shortly before midday, he hoped that the constant activity there, and the tense, almost claustrophobic atmosphere of suspense and fear, would divert his thoughts; but, almost immediately he was aware of Humphrey’s piping unbroken voice rising above the crash of the guns and the roar of the trucks on the platforms, and noticed the smiles of the gunners: not smiles of condescension but of
admiration
for the dash and high spirits of their youngest officer. Charles could easily understand their feelings. The sight of a slender boy, with flushed powder-stained cheeks and long fair hair curling about his temples, striving all the time to make his voice sound gruffer and lower than it was, made men twice his age feel that war could not after all be so terrible if a young aristocrat, straight from his mother’s care, could endure it so readily. As Charles thought of what he had finally decided upon, during his conversation with Magnus, his heart was torn with pity for the boy.

Humphrey was calling out the positions of shots, steadying his right hand, holding a telescope, on the muzzle of an eight-inch gun not in action, and his left on the shoulder of John Crawley, First Class Boy. Charles had been surprised from the outset by Crawley’s immediate devotion to a youth two years younger than himself, with prospects so entirely different from his own, and one moreover who had replaced him as youngest sailor and darling of the battery. Humphrey’s other most devoted follower was Daniel Pascoe, a massive barrel-chested man, a tin-miner before joining the service and now undoubtedly the best No. 1 in the battery.

As Charles watched, Pascoe was priming the gun whose shots Humphrey was observing. A man was handing round grog to the gun crews out of action. When Crawley was offered the
pannikin
, he asked Humphrey to move his elbow, so that the telescope was not jogged while he drank. As Crawley stood up to drink, Pascoe fired his gun, and the shock made the boy spill most of his
precious grog down his monkey-jacket. Humphrey was laughing at Crawley’s grimace of displeasure, when he heard the whoosh of a round-shot; and, too late to yell a warning, saw the flashing iron decapitate his friend, hurling his headless body to the ground at his feet.

Since Humphrey was plastered with blood and brains, Charles thought that he too had been hit, but, seeing him move, enjoyed only momentary relief; with an electrifying shock he took in the fact that at the very moment Crawley had died, Pascoe had been stopping the cannon’s vent. Like Humphrey, Pascoe was red from head to waist with the contents of the boy’s skull; if he moved his finger from the vent, even for a moment, Charles knew that the current of air admitted would fan to life any sparks remaining in the barrel after the previous firing, thus
igniting
the fresh cartridge and killing the loader and sponger then ‘ramming home’. Charles leapt forward, but Pascoe did not flinch. Keeping one hand firmly on the vent, he calmly wiped the brains from his eyes with the other and shouted to the loader:

‘Are you home, Bill?’

‘Yes.’

‘Run out then.’

The crews strained at the side-tackles, and when No. 2 cried: ‘Ready,’ Pascoe jerked the firing-lanyard sharply.

The silence following the report was broken by Humphrey’s hysterical sobbing. A number of men were standing gazing at Crawley’s bleeding trunk as if mesmerised.

‘What the hell are you looking at?’ shouted Charles. ‘If he’s dead take him away.’ Then he led Humphrey back to the shelter of the traverse screening the entrance to the magazine. He stood for a while with an arm round the boy’s shaking shoulders, while deep choking sobs wracked his thin body. Another round-shot thudded into the parapet showering the battery with flying earth and dust. When Humphrey seemed a little calmer, Charles said gently:

‘Go up to the camp and tell Commander Chapman to bring down his crews at six bells and not at eight.’

‘A seaman should do that.’

‘I want
you
to.’

‘I’ll stay.’

‘I’m ordering you, Humphrey. Then go to the right siege train magazine and find out how many rounds we’re likely to get
tomorrow
.’

‘I’m all right,’ murmured the boy, immediately starting to sob
again.

Several minutes later, Charles dipped a handkerchief into a tub of water and handed it to him. Still shocked and dazed, Humphrey took the cloth without seeming to know what to do with it.

‘Your face,’ whispered Charles, looking at the thick dark clots drying on his cheeks.

Half-an-hour after Humphrey’s departure, Charles was still upset by Crawley’s grisly death and Humphrey’s grief. He longed to be able to get away from the dust and smoke and the crash of the guns so that he could wrestle with his now violently
conflicting
emotions.

Ten minutes earlier he had sent up to the main magazine in the rear for more powder and, seeing the first cart arrive, he went over at once to supervise the unloading. As he began giving orders, he saw a round-shot smash the wheels and rear-axle of the following cart, pitching its lethal load onto the ground in full view of the Russian gunners in the Redan. A glance was enough to tell him that there were at least two dozen of the zinc-lined hundredweight boxes out there: enough powder, if hit, to send up half the battery. A second later a shell crashed down onto an araba heaped with 68-pound shot, tossing the heavy iron balls high into the air, as if no more substantial than a child’s marbles. Another mortar bomb struck a mule full in the chest, and, exploding, ignited the powder kegs roped to the animal’s flanks, hurling the disintegrating carcase thirty yards to the right, showering the surrounding ground with shredded flesh. In an instant Charles made up his mind not to give a direct order to a junior officer to bring in the hundredweight boxes with his gun crews, but called for volunteers. When none stepped forward, Charles roared:

‘Come on Daniel Pascoe, the devil looks after his own,’ and, without looking back, ran out into the hail of shell and shot
falling
around the ammunition boxes. As soon as Charles and Pascoe had sprinted from the shelter of the parapet, a dozen others streamed after them, and the powder was quickly brought to safety at the cost of one man wounded.

Afterwards, still panting, Charles sat with his back to a
traverse
feeling his entire body suffused with a delicious throbbing weakness – a sensation as pleasurable as any he had ever known – his quiescent limbs tingling after the brief burst of violent physical exertion. Waves of relief lapped through him after the ending of the nerve-splitting tension. He breathed deeply, enjoying
the memory of that gasping dash through the bouquets of flame, relishing the feeling of the sweat growing cold on his face; he felt exhausted but completely fulfilled, almost wishing to live through the same danger again.

But the after-glow faded quickly. Why had he asked for
volunteers
instead of issuing a peremptory order? Had it really been because he had feared resistance, which would have damaged discipline and morale? Or because he had known all along that none would come forward and that he would
therefore
be able to shame his officers and men by going himself?

Some officers gained a loyalty based on affection, but he had never been able to do that. Instead he had learned to rule by exacting a forced respect bordering on fear and resentment. It had taken him years to acquire the necessary self-discipline. As a midshipman at the storming of Sidon, fifteen years before, he had led twenty marines across a bridge enfiladed by a battery of six guns; his men had hesitated but, although
terrified
himself, he had gone on and, when a shot had thrown up a cloud of dust just in front of him, he had stopped, and coolly pulling a handkerchief from his pocket had dusted his boots, before waving on his marines.

Charles clambered slowly to his feet and stepped up onto the banquette. As he gazed through the smoke towards the broken shell-pitted ground in front of the Quarries, the last vestiges of his elation ebbed away. The thunderous detonation of the guns jarred his ears and dulled his mind. A shell burst thirty yards short of the ditch but he did not move. In a few days the Quarries would be stormed; he was sure of that. Perhaps the Naval
Brigade
would take part, perhaps not. He felt an icy detachment; others would make that decision and he would merely carry out orders.

In one way he was glad. The coming attack made it far easier for him to tell his father about Helen’s betrayal, since its
imminence
compelled him to act without delay – a few days and death might stop his mouth forever. The thought buttressed his resolve. Through courage his father would survive the truth – if not, to live in despair would be better than to remain a lascivious woman’s fool. In time Humphrey would forget his mother’s
disgrace
. Time and courage would save them. Nothing would save the first men to stumble up the slope beneath the Quarries.

Because of its elevated situation on the cliffs midway between the French and British supply ports at Kamiesch Bay and
Balaclava,
the Russian Orthodox monastery of St George had been occupied by the allies within days of their arrival south of
Sebastopol
, as an ideal headquarters from which to concert operations involving the combined fleets and armies of both nations. But with the fleets doing little more than blockading, councils of war had become purely military and had therefore taken place more often at Lord Raglan’s or General Canrobert’s inland
headquarters
. On 18 December however, St George’s was once more the setting for an important conference attended by senior officers from both services.

At noon the same day, Charles Crawford received a note from his father asking him to come to the monastery.

At no time during the three days since his conversation with his brother had Charles been able to get away from the batteries for long enough to go to Balaclava and from there to
Retribu
tion
’s
anchorage. Yet although his father’s note now spared him that inconvenience, Charles was far from certain that he was pleased. During his brief periods away from the pandemonium of the batteries, his former sang-froid about revealing Helen’s
behaviour
had given way to acute anxiety. While such a disclosure might be accepted philosophically enough by a man with shells bursting around him, it would be most unlikely to strike an
admiral
living in enforced idleness on an anchored warship in the same mercifully distanced light.

By mid-afternoon Charles’s pony was picking his way between the jagged rocks and loose stones littering the precipitous track leading from the camps to the monastery. Below him on the far
side of a marshy valley, Charles could see the blue and gilt dome of the monastery chapel, framed by the dark leafless branches of the surrounding trees and the lead-grey sea beyond. With
mounting
nausea at the thought of the brutal disillusionment awaiting his father, he rode on across flatter ground dotted with broken vine-stumps.

Challenged by the zouaves on sentry duty outside the main archway, Charles showed his pass and was admitted to a large courtyard. To the right was a low block containing the monks’ cells, and next to it a two-storied house flanked by
rhododendrons
and myrtles. In front of the vine-covered colonnade the Tricolour and Union Jack were flying from neighbouring
flagstaffs
. Only the archimandrite and a dozen other monks out of the hundred strong community had remained after the allied landings, and now the tall stove-pipe hats and black robes of these bizarre prisoners-of-war contrasted strangely with the more numerous military uniforms.

Since the council of war was still in progress, Charles was taken by an A.D.C. to a room where he was expected to wait. The walls were whitewashed and a bright coal fire was
burning
in the grate. Beside the single recessed window hung a small icon. Charles sat down on a carved oak chair.

*

By four in the afternoon, the arguments for and against a full-scale assault on the Quarries had been resolved in favour of immediate attack – Lord Raglan as usual giving in to the French generals for the sake of the alliance. Sir James
Crawford
appreciated his dilemna very well. After the British Army’s catastrophic losses at Inkerman, there had always been a real risk that the French, with their greater numbers, would act independently, and so cause furious indignation in London.

Sir James and Admiral Lyons – the new naval
commander-in-
chief – had learned from Raglan before the conference started that they would be asked to authorise the Naval
Brigade
’s participation if the French were to press for an assault. Knowing too, from an earlier conversation with Lushington, that Charles would be picked to command any naval contingent committed to an attack, Sir James had summoned his son to tell him in person. His own view was that the Quarries would be taken, but not held long enough for the storming party to throw up new parapets – vital not only for successful resistance of
counter-attacks, but also as cover from the heavy guns in the Redan. Whatever the outcome, the casualties would not be light.

When Sir James, along with others, had voiced this fear,
General
Pélissier – the French second-in-command – had murmured to Lord Raglan: ‘On ne peut pas faire des omelettes sans casser des oeufs.’ Since Charles was likely to be one of the eggs, Sir James had not relished the analogy. It was as well that he had other preoccupations besides his son’s probable fate. During the morning session of the conference he had at last gained support for a venture of his own; one in his opinion likely to have a greater impact on the course of the war than the capture of the Quarries.

In the earlier more optimistic days of the campaign, Sir James’s plan for a naval raid on the narrow isthmuses
connecting
the Crimean peninsula with the Russian mainland had been rejected by Admiral Dundas. With Sebastopol expected to fall within weeks, an exceptionally hazardous attack on the town’s military supply routes had held scant appeal – especially since only one of the two essential roads could be reached by water, and even then by no vessels larger than paddle-sloops, corvettes and gunboats. To cut this road, at the point where a long wooden bridge linked two spits of land, these small ships would have to enter the inland Sea of Azov and then navigate a shallow channel under the guns of powerful shore batteries. If the squadron succeeded, all the grain at present reaching Sebastopol from the east would be delayed for two to three weeks, causing the defenders of the town as much hardship as a bombardment of similar duration. After approving the operation, the allied admirals had lost little time in choosing a flag-officer to command the squadron.

As commander-in-chief, Lyons could not appropriately
transfer
his flag to a ship in a small detached squadron; nor, given the French fleet’s deficiency in shallow draught steamships, could either of the French admirals advance a claim. Rear-Admiral Sir James Crawford, the author of the plan, had been their
inevitable
choice.

*

With nothing more to divert him than the chimes of the
monastery
bells and the harsh echoing tramp of the sentry’s boots
passing
and re-passing outside the window, Charles’s nerves were badly strained by the time his father made his appearance. Sir
James’s troubled and sympathetic eyes made Charles’s heart sink within him when he thought of what he had to say. The
admiral
stared into the fire and said softly:

‘There’s to be an attack on the Quarries…. You must know why I asked to see you?’

‘How many men will I be leading?’ asked Charles after a brief pause.

‘Two hundred. The Brigade will be providing the ladder
parties
. Five thousand men will be attacking the Quarries and two thousand more used in diversionary sorties. I’m afraid it’ll be a hard business.’

Charles could imagine clearly how it would be – the shouting, men falling, the crash of gun-fire. In recent days he had thought of the assault so often that at times he could hardly believe that something so vivid in his mind had not already happened. He shrugged his shoulders.

‘It won’t be worse than Inkerman.’

After this matter-of-fact reply, his father said in a thick emotional voice:

‘You mustn’t think the choice had anything to do with me. That was Lushington’s doing.’ He put down his cocked hat on the chair Charles had vacated and sighed. ‘At least there’ll be no question of Humphrey being in on this. I’ve never known such anxiety as during this bombardment. Never.’

‘Three weeks and he’ll be back with the fleet.’

‘And you too, Charles.’

‘Me too,’ he murmured, painfully conscious of the doubts underlying his father’s confident tone. He braced himself to tell him in the heavy silence that followed, but drew back unable to speak until Sir James was less bowed down. When he is more composed, not thinking about the war or death … tell him then.

At first when his father began talking about an expedition to destroy the Tchongar Bridge on the eastern military road, Charles listened only fitfully, supposing it to be some distant
project
: a device to set them both thinking about the time after the attack on the Quarries; and because Charles wanted to draw his father’s thoughts away from that area, he was glad to encourage this new topic. After this is finished, he told himself, I will say what I must; but wanting to delay a little longer, he began to ask questions. Yes, a squadron might pass undetected into the Sea of Azov, but how could it possibly enter the approaches to the bridge in the same way? The channel at Genichesk was barely a hundred yards across. Even the most ineffectual batteries could
inflict terrible damage on ships trying to force the straits. Wasn’t there a risk too that the shallow water in the area of the bridge would already be frozen over? In any case the operation would involve landings from ships’ boats and an overland march to the target.

Charles himself had often thought of methods for interrupting Russian supplies and so knew the difficulties well; but as he
listened
to his father’s detailed answers to his questions and noted suppressed excitement breaking through the calm surface of his speech, Charles felt his heart begin to pound.

‘When do you sail?’ he asked in a numb small voice.

‘Four days.’

‘Four days?’ he cried. ‘Assemble your marines, equip the boats, give orders to the commanders of the escort ships … in four days?’

‘I think the officers of a navy which landed thirty thousand men at Kalamita Bay can manage it.’

Charles knew that he should show excitement, should say that the plan was excellent, inspired – that it presented a chance for distinction which few flag-officers ever dared hope for – that the prize far outweighed the danger – that…. But Charles found himself unable to say a word. How could he speak of Helen now and thus mar what could well be his last meeting with his father? He might die at the Quarries, his father under the batteries at Genichesk. And, if his father were to die, what futility it would then prove to have told him needlessly. Yet matters might fall out quite differently; Charles himself might be killed and his father survive, to learn from others that his favourite son had known of his wife’s betrayal but had deliberately concealed it from him. His mind a tumult of doubts, Charles forced himself to think. The attack on the Quarries was set for dawn on New Year’s Day. His father could have returned by then, assuming that Genichesk could be reached in three days under steam; but there were many imponderables: perhaps too many.

*

Seeing the expression of dismay and sadness on his son’s face, Sir James felt keen pangs of sympathy. He himself dreaded the possibility of returning from the Sea of Azov to find Charles dead, and knew that Charles would be feeling similar fears for his safety; and he thought: how typical of Charles to shrug off his own peril so lightly, and then to be plunged into a black depression because I face an equivalent risk. Wanting to tell Charles how he admired him for this, Sir James could not find
the words. For years they had been bedevilled by this same
incapacity;
their mutual affection only hinted at by looks and
gestures,
by what was left unsaid rather than by what was openly admitted. And after every failure, Sir James had told himself that next time he would finally break the barrier of reserve and reticence which they had allowed their own natures and the
traditions
of their service to impose upon them. But in the past there had always been the promise of future occasions on which to achieve this closeness. And now? Sir James asked himself. And now? A brief silence.

‘Do you remember, ever so many years ago,’ Sir James began hesitantly, ‘how we walked round looking at the ships building in the Gosport yards before your exam?’

‘I hardly saw a thing,’ murmured Charles, with the ghost of a smile.

‘Then it was my turn to get into a state – though God knows I’d told you a thousand times there’d just be some simple
dictation
and a few rule of three sums; but you wouldn’t have it.’

‘I thought they’d slip in some Euclid or something quite beyond me.’

‘There I was pacing about waiting for you to come out ages after all the other boys had finished.’

‘I checked everything twice.’

‘I should have known…. Oh dear, such years ago.’ Sir James reached out and took Charles’s arm. ‘You remember the journey? All the way I was thinking of how I first came down by coach on that same road when I’d been on my way to sit the exam, and now it was you. I remembered my own feelings so
vividly
, my father beside me, just as I was next to you and I couldn’t believe the time had gone….’

Sir James paused hopelessly, knowing that he had utterly failed to convey what he had tried to put into words: the long dusty journey and the sense of personal loss at the memory of his own departed boyhood; all this added to his protective longing to delay his twelve-year-old son’s entrance into that harsh austere world of ships and men. The evening before Charles had gone aboard his first ship, they had dined with the port admiral; Charles immoderately proud of his new uniform, and Sir James remembered so clearly the precise expression of fury and dismay on his face, when, after the cloth had been removed, Lady
Erskine
had taken him out with the ladies. Sir James still felt a blush of embarrassment that he had not asked that he should be
allowed
to stay. Then next day, after a night at the George, they
had taken the boy’s chest, bedding and carpetbag to the
Sally-port
and gone out to
Electra
in Talbot’s gig. Poor boy, he held up so well all the way out in the boat, but the handshake on the main deck had been the last straw; to spare him, Sir James had gone straight down into the gig before saying anything he had meant to, but as they shoved off and pulled away from
Electra,
he had seen Charles running aft on the upper deck to cry on his own. Sir James found himself blushing fiercely as he said: