A patrolling brig met them while they were still out of sight of land, and after a brief exchange of signals Tobin ordered a change of course. They would make their final approach by night, Blackwood was told. It would be safer. It did not sound quite so straightforward as Fynmore had indicated.
Blackwood was in his shared cabin when he heard the murmur of voices on deck. He pulled on his greatcoat and hurried up the companion and saw that the deck seemed to be filled with marines and many of the ship’s company.
He found Tobin with the captain by the compass, his powerful shape just one more shadow on the crowded deck.
‘Shall I order my marines below, sir?’
Tobin was puffing at a massive pipe and shook his head.
‘Let ’em watch. It might help later on.’
Blackwood saw the commodore’s features light up, and as he turned saw the sky alive with flashes which seemed to stretch from bow to bow.
He heard the sullen boom of artillery fire, and that too was unbroken, like thunder at the height of a storm.
Tobin bit on his pipe. ‘Poor devils. It’s like this every night, bombardment and artillery duels, shot and shell, they get no rest.’ He touched his face as some sleety rain splashed from his cap. ‘Then in daylight it starts all over again.’
Blackwood moved among his men, feeling their uneasiness, their surprise at the war’s intrusion.
He found the sergeants in a tight bunch by one of the paddle-boxes.
Quintin recognized him in spite of the shadows and said, ‘Bit more soldierin’, sir?’ The others chuckled as if it was a private joke.
Blackwood smiled. ‘They need us to show them how it’s done.’
He felt someone touch his sleeve and saw Harry’s face pale in the reflected flashes.
‘Philip, we must talk.’
Blackwood pulled him from the crowd of jostling marines until they shared the warmth of the tall, sparking funnel.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s Colonel Fynmore. His wife wrote to me. She’s having a baby, had it by now, I’d think, unless something went wrong.’
The words just tumbled out of him, as if he could no longer bear to carry his secret. ‘I think she’s told him about it, that I used to . . .’ He dropped his eyes and added brokenly, ‘Well, you know.’
Blackwood exclaimed, ‘But it can’t be yours . . .’ He nodded slowly. ‘But the blame will rub off, I can see that.’ He gripped his half-brother’s arm, wanting to show anger but feeling only concern for him. ‘You idiot, Harry. I should have guessed, I suppose. I was thinking too much of someone else.’
Harry whispered fiercely, ‘It might bring disgrace on the whole family, you know what Fynmore’s like.’
Blackwood felt his stomach tighten. Suppose Fynmore knew or guessed about Marguerite Blackwood’s affair, he would be far more likely to use that against them.
He said, ‘I’m glad you told me anyway. Perhaps nothing will happen.’ He turned as an extra loud rumble thundered across the black water. It was no time to be worried about things like that. ‘Try not to antagonize the colonel.’
Harry made a weak attempt to grin. ‘That should be easy.’
He raised his head and ran his fingers through his hair.
‘It’s been driving me insane, Philip. I feel better now, telling you. My big brother. I think it must run in my side of the family.’
Blackwood started and asked sharply, ‘What do you mean by that?’
Harry was still thinking of something else. ‘Georgina, didn’t Mother tell you? She sent her to Paris to keep her out of trouble with some fellow from the Foot Guards.’ He sighed and gulped at the cold air. ‘I’m going to turn in.’ He hesitated. ‘And thanks for putting up with me. I’ll not let you down again.’
Blackwood waited by the guardrail until he realized he was half frozen and that the deck had quietly emptied.
It was getting worse, not better, he thought.
The eventual landing at Balaclava was completed almost without incident, and the last marine and piece of equipment was ashore before dawn finally opened up across the black terrain.
An army major met Fynmore and Brabazon while the other officers inspected their men and ensured that nothing had been left aboard ship.
Blackwood stood slightly apart while he waited for the lieutenants to report. In just a matter of hours the marines seemed to have changed in some way. They were on edge, unsettled by the constant murmur of gunfire, the scene of incredible desolation. Shell-scarred houses and fallen rubble, among which small areas of order and planning made a stark contrast. Army huts and tents, guns and limbers, supply waggons and great piles of crates and casks for an unseen army.
But the army was evident here too. Maybe that was the cause of the uneasiness among the marines. The soldiers looked tired out and gaunt, their uniforms stained and often ragged. Many wore beards, something unknown in the Corps. Even the major who was speaking intently with Fynmore and making grand gestures with a walking-stick was a far cry from any parade-ground.
Blackwood looked at his men. Uneven red lines beside the pitted road. Some were staring longingly at the anchored ships, others watched the sky, or tried not to listen to the guns. Each man seemed weighed down by his weapons and equipment. Apart from his Minie rifle and bayonet, every man carried a full knapsack which contained three days’ rations, extra clothing, the additional pair of boots, plus blanket, greatcoat and sixty rounds of ammunition and caps which were tightly packed into a black leather pouch. When they finally moved off, each would be carrying nearly seventy pounds in weight on his back.
‘A Company ready, sir!’
Sergeant Quintin grimaced as some soldiers shouted, ‘Wot ’ave we got ’ere then?
Sea
-soldiers?’
Quintin muttered, ‘Sea-soldiers indeed!’
‘B Company ready, sir!’
An extra loud explosion shook the earth but the soldiers took no notice. It was a part of their lives.
Fynmore came over and snorted, ‘Five miles march to the line. No horses for the officers either, would you believe?’
He glanced at the lines of marines. ‘The army have scouts out to guide us. We will head north-west.’ He handed his notes to his orderly. ‘It will be night again before we can settle down.’
Captain Ogilvie asked mildly, ‘May I ask what we are to do, Colonel?’
Fynmore’s pale eyes followed Harry Blackwood’s figure along the leading platoon. He pulled himself together and snapped, ‘The enemy has a strong redoubt in that sector. Open ground. Heavy artillery.’ Each phrase was short and terse. ‘Lot of casualties.’
Brabazon pulled on his gloves and stamped his boots on the ground.
‘What a way to begin. Like a blind man joining the cavalry.’
Nobody laughed.
Blackwood saw M’Crystal with his colour-party, the cased flag carefully laid over his massive shoulder. Sailor one day, infantryman the next.
The lieutenants took their places, the marines shouldered arms, and without further ceremony they marched away from the harbour.
There was little talking along the ranks even when they were marching at ease. It was like nothing Blackwood had ever seen, so he could imagine how much worse it was for the young recruits.
Craggy, broken hills, treeless and hostile, while along the rough, winding track they came across signs of the war they had come to join.
Great puddles which were already crusted with thin ice hid the holes where enemy shells had exploded. Broken and charred waggons, discarded tools and unfilled sandbags marked every yard of the advance. Here and there were little cairns of stones, some marked with a crude cross, others with a man’s head-gear or sword. It was probably too hard to dig a grave here, Blackwood thought.
Then there were the wounded. As the guns grew louder and more personal the wounded seemed to grow in numbers. Arm in arm, hopping on sticks, or being carried on stretchers by bearers, they passed the marching marines with barely a glance.
Blackwood quickened his pace to join Harry at the head of the first platoon. He glanced at the men’s faces as he strode by. Most were like stone, some looked afraid of what they might see next.
He asked, ‘All right, Harry?’
Harry turned his head to stare at a man who lay on his back, his hands upheld like claws. Corporal Jones broke
ranks but soon rejoined them as he cried, ‘Dead, sir!’ The soldier must have died even as he made his own lonely way to a dressing station.
Harry murmured, ‘Did you see those soldiers back there? They’re still in summer uniforms.’ As if to emphasize his remark his feet crunched through some of the wafer-thin ice.
Blackwood had noticed. The marines might complain about their heavy packs, but at least they had greatcoats and blankets.
A runner scampered past. ‘Halt the column!’
Fynmore strolled to the head of the marines and tapped the ground with his stick. ‘Bloody army,’ he muttered.
There was a clatter of hoofs and two field officers, followed by their orderlies, trotted around the next bend.
The senior officer, a grey-haired major-general, reined in his horse and studied the marines for what felt like an eternity.
‘’Tenant-Colonel Fynmore?’ He had a thin, incisive voice. ‘Your men are two days late.’ He did not dismount. ‘Arrangements have been made for you to support the line.’
Fynmore stood like a ramrod, his mouth twitching with barely contained fury.
‘We were ordered to stand off because of a bombardment, sir.’
The major-general turned to his companion who was smiling hugely.
‘D’you here that, Percy?
Bombardment!
Talk about the giddy limit, what?’ He touched his hat with his riding crop and then spurred his horse into a gallop.
Brabazon bit on his chin strap and said, ‘
That
was General Richmond, God help us!’
‘Royal Marines, by the right . . .’ They were on the march again.
The closer they got to their allotted sector the flatter the ground became. Low hills with tracks and gullies, some man-made, which wound through them like a maze.
The army pickets knew their job well. They seemed able to
smell if a shell was about to crash down on the jagged rocks, even allowed the extra seconds for the marines to get accustomed to the need for instant movement. Down on their faces, then scrambling up again to continue towards the gunfire. Quick, nervous glances to seek out friends, to reassure, to hope.
Then they were crouching and scrabbling along endless zigzag trenches, ducking and waiting as shots crashed into the ground or murmured spitefully overhead.
They came into a cleared, saucer-shaped gun emplacement and somebody gave an ironic cheer as the first of the marines panted past.
Blackwood saw the familiar blue coats around the massive guns, the cheerful grins. It was like a home-coming, in spite of the danger. They were a detachment of the Royal Marine Artillery, and as he looked at their faces he saw a big lieutenant running, arms outstretched, towards him.
Fynmore rasped, ‘Fall out the column, Sergeant Quintin. Ten minutes rest, no more.’ He glared at the grinning lieutenant. ‘And who are you, sir?’
Blackwood shook the man’s hand. ‘This is Lieutenant Dick Cleveland, sir. Used to be my second-in-command in
Audacious.
’ He studied the lieutenant warmly. What a place and a way to meet after all these months and months. ‘I see you’ve changed to the gunners, Dick.’
Cleveland chuckled. ‘I thought it would be safer.’ He looked round as the ground shook to another shell. ‘Wrong again.’
Blackwood looked at his half-brother. How long was the arm of coincidence. It never lost its grip. But for Cleveland breaking his leg after a drunken party at Spithead, Harry would have been sent elsewhere. He might even be at Hawks Hill with their father.
He said, ‘Dick is the chap who got you into this mess, Harry.’
Fynmore snapped, ‘Enough of this time wasting. Rouse the men.’ He tugged out his watch. ‘It looks like snow.’ He strode back towards Brabazon and the others.
Cleveland pursed his lips. ‘I pity you,
sir.
’ Then he said, ‘This really is odd, meeting you like this.’
‘I was thinking the same.’
Audacious
, the summer balls and regattas seemed like part of history.
‘No, it’s not that.’ He had to raise his voice above the din of shouted commands and the clatter of weapons as the marines fell into line again. ‘I’ve been here from the beginning. They couldn’t have managed without our battery. But a week or so back we received a lot of new supplies and medical stores at the base camp. You could have knocked me down with a feather, Philip, er,
sir.
Women, out here in the bloody Crimea, well, I ask you.’ He put his head on one side and smiled. ‘The prettiest one of the lot came straight up to me and asked if I knew
you
of all people!’
The marines shuffled into single line for the next length of trench, but Blackwood could not move.
‘Tell me, Dick, for God’s sake!’
The lieutenant nodded. ‘I should have realized how it was. Her name is Davern something-or-other. You must have marched right past her!’
‘Captain Blackwood, sir!’
Sergeant Quintin’s boots crunched towards them.
‘The colonel wants you to take the lead.’
Blackwood grasped the lieutenant’s hands. ‘Thank you. Thank you
very much.
’
As the twisting line of marines entered the trench a second lieutenant clambered from a gun pit and joined Cleveland by the track.
‘Who was that?’
‘That was Blackwood. The best I ever met.’ He stared bitterly at a far-off patch of smoke from an explosion. ‘Still a captain. He should be in
command
of these bunglers!’
He swung round and thought of the dark haired woman by the harbour. Already they were being called angels of mercy by the wounded and sick from the battle-front. Another great boom of falling shells shook the emplacement and he tried not to think of Blackwood and what was waiting for him.
Two hundred troops had already died there in less than a fortnight.
‘Prepare to fire. On the hour, by the hour, right?’
The second lieutenant nodded and hurried away.
The marines repeatedly took shelter as directed by the army scouts and pickets. Breathless and often dazed by the crashing roar of gunfire from both directions, they eventually arrived at their allotted sector. The soldiers had dug holes into the ground and along the side of the trenches and lined them with stout props and timbers. An army captain assured Fynmore that there were also deep caves in the nearest hills where a whole platoon could find shelter and prepare its rations. If they took shelter during each bombardment there was little risk unless someone got buried under falling rocks, he explained. Like the others, the captain looked worn out, his eyes ringed with dark circles to reveal the strain of daily survival.