The marines’ unexpected challenge made the Russians falter, so that a last ragged volley smashed through the leading ranks before the bayonets lunged, and sabres clanged as both groups hurled themselves together.
The Russian officer had dismounted and was brandishing his sabre to urge his men forward. He was a huge, handsome
man, and Blackwood saw him cut down a marine apparently without effort.
But his eyes were on Blackwood, and Ogilvie’s senior sergeant leapt forward to join him and gasped, ‘Watch that un, sir!’
The sergeant reeled back, a Russian bayonet jammed through his teeth and jaw as he was hurled bodily into the trench.
Blackwood parried the sabre aside. It was like hitting a plough with a broom-handle. He saw the officer’s eyes harden as he raised the great sabre for another cut, then the astonishment as he fired Ogilvie’s revolver directly into his chest.
The Russian attack waned, and as they began to run back towards their lines the marines knelt down on the rampart to speed their retreat.
There was a wave of wild cheering along the trench, and as a bugle blared the order to cease firing and fall back, Blackwood heard the additional commotion of light cavalry charging from the flank to catch some of the enemy stragglers.
He vaulted down on to the firing-step and stared breathlessly at the men nearest him. A few were down, several either killed or so badly wounded they would fight no more. He glanced at Ogilvie’s bloody face and was grateful for his revolver.
Otherwise
. . .
‘Stretcher bearers, quickly!’
Blackwood wiped his face and throat and saw blood on his wrist. He was almost afraid to move away from the rampart in case his legs gave way. He felt as if he was shaking all over, as if the old fever had returned.
Smithett was wiping his bayonet on a piece of rag.
He asked, ‘They comin’ back, sir?’
Blackwood looked at him while his senses recovered.
‘I think not. Later, I expect.’
A rumble of gunfire shook the air and shots whined over the trench to burst on the support lines in the rear.
Blackwood took a quick glance across the battle-field and saw that the enemy had disappeared. Swallowed up.
He watched the smoking, blackened holes which marked their advance, the scattered bodies and some crawling wounded. A solitary horse cantered through the carnage to rejoin its army. Blackwood leaned over and saw the officer he had shot sprawled beside a dead marine. The horse would need a new owner.
He heard feet pounding along the trench and saw Harry running towards him.
‘You’re safe,
thank God
!’
Blackwood climbed from the step. Every muscle ached.
He said, ‘Ogilvie’s dead. I’m not sure about the rest.’
Two marines with a stretcher hurried past and a pain-filled face stared at the officers as the wounded man was carried away.
A lieutenant, hatless, his sword still in his hand, came from the far end of the trench. He stared at Ogilvie’s body as if he could not believe it.
Blackwood said, ‘Take command here, Mr Frere. I must report to the colonel.’
Together they walked along the trench until they found Fynmore in his command post.
Brabazon looked at them and nodded gravely. ‘Rotten about Ogilvie.’ It was all he said.
Fynmore had spread his map on an upended crate.
‘Just had word from General Richmond. The army is on the move. This sector is the only one under threat.’ He looked up, his eyes red from strain. ‘That redoubt must be taken.’ He nodded firmly. ‘No other way.’
The adjutant said, ‘The army have already tried, sir, several times.’ He seemed to shrink under Fynmore’s stare.
‘All the more reason!’ He returned to his map. ‘Anyway, it’s an order from Richmond himself, damn him.’
Outside the guns roared and crashed and the sky was hidden in drifting smoke, and yet in spite of it Fynmore’s concentration seemed to hold the war at bay.
He said suddenly, ‘The Russians were expecting to break the line. We would have had to call for support, and that
would have held up the army’s advance. In view of the weather, the general might even have postponed it.’
Brabazon said, ‘I expect the Russians were surprised at their hot reception.’
‘
Exactly
, Major!’ Fynmore smiled at him. ‘Don’t you see? They’ll bide their time, sit it out.’ He folded his map with delicate care. ‘If we let them. They’ll not expect an attack so soon, eh?’
The others exchanged glances.
‘By us, sir?’ Brabazon sounded doubtful.
But Fynmore was thinking ahead. ‘Speak to me like that, would he? I’ll show him what the Marines can do, blast his eyes!’
They were dismissed.
Outside the dug-out the air quaked from the gunfire, but it was directed on to another sector. There was a lot to do. Bury the dead. Repair the defences. Send the wounded down the line when it was safe to do so.
Brabazon took Blackwood aside and said quietly, ‘I’m speaking out of turn. You may know anyway, Philip. But the colonel heard from his wife.’
‘Yes.’
‘He blames young Harry. He’s eaten up with jealousy and anger. Richmond’s rudeness didn’t help much either. Just thought I’d let you know.’
He walked towards his own company, his face prepared for what he might find.
Blackwood went to his tiny dug-out and squatted on a box. Then he took a pad from Smithett’s capacious bag and after a further hesitation began to write.
My very dear Davern
. . .
It might be all that he could send. But at least she would know he was thinking of her.
Corporal Jones waited squatting on his haunches while Blackwood yawned and stretched himself awake.
‘What’s the weather like?’
Blackwood wiped his face with a damp cloth which Smithett had placed beside a mug of coffee and felt the chill in his bones. Beyond the rough curtain it was pitch-black. Another hour before dawn. He shivered.
Jones grunted. ‘Snowing, sir.’ Even in the frail glimmer from Smithett’s candle he looked crumpled and unshaven.
We all look like that. Blackwood glanced round the tiny dug-out and tried not to compare it with a ship’s ordered surroundings. A whole day had passed without incident after the Russian attack. Even the artillery had fallen quiet but for an occasional exchange between the two sides. Waiting. Holding their breath.
This was the day. They had gone over it a dozen or more times. It was risky, fatal if anything went wrong before they could cut down the distance from the enemy line. Blackwood patted his pockets and then picked up Ogilvie’s fine percussion revolver. If he was to die he would take five of the enemy with him. He smiled grimly at his stupid reasoning.
‘Time to go.’
Outside the dug-out the air was like a knife. Every man was wide awake and ready to begin the attack.
He found Fynmore and the adjutant in the command dug-out, the map folded and put away. If they had overlooked anything, it was too late now.
Fynmore looked at him dully. He seemed to have aged terribly in the last few days.
He said, ‘If the enemy suspects you are using the sap-trench you must try to draw their fire. Major Brabazon will continue with the attack from the opposite side.’ He tugged out his watch but put it away without examining it.
Blackwood nodded. He had hand-picked every man, knew each one of them either by sight or reputation. Curiously enough, the lieutenants were the only inexperienced ones. That too would soon be remedied. Except for Harry.
He looked round and asked, ‘I thought Mr Blackwood was with you, sir?’
‘He was.’ Fynmore examined his pistol and held it to the light of a lantern. ‘I’ve sent him on a special mission.’ He looked up and added, ‘He volunteered, of course.’
Blackwood stared at him and tried not to think of Brabazon’s warning. Not here surely? Not today?
‘May I ask what it entails?’
A sergeant peered round the curtain and said softly, ‘All ready, sir.’ He was whispering.
Fynmore remarked, ‘He’s gone ahead of your company.’ He tried to appear casual. ‘Grenade attack.’
Blackwood thought he had misheard. ‘But he knows nothing about grenades, sir!’
Fynmore blew out the lantern and watched him through the sudden darkness. ‘Good chance to learn then. Being related to you does not make him a special case.’
Blackwood felt strangely calm, even his voice sounded flat, unemotional.
‘It’s because of your wife, isn’t it? You’d go to these lengths just to get your bloody revenge on my brother.’
Fynmore’s voice sounded cracked with anger. ‘How
dare
you! I’ll have you court-martialled for this, stripped in front of the battalion, God help me, I will!’
There were many men waiting for the order to move, to discover if they would live or die, but Blackwood could only see Harry’s face when he had told him about Fynmore’s wife. Like the day when he had left him at the inn while he had gone to visit her at Fynmore’s house.
‘That can wait, Colonel. Ogilvie’s dead and the major can’t manage all on his own.’ He turned away. ‘What the hell did it matter anyway? She’d have done it whatever you said or did!’
Fynmore almost screamed, ‘I’ve not finished with
you
! Stand still when I’m addressing you! You’ve gone too far this time –’
Blackwood stepped into the icy wind and felt the snow trying to cool his anger and despair.
‘Go to hell,
sir
!’
The marines nearest the command post parted to let him through. Blackwood heard his boots squelching through the slush in the trench and waited for Fynmore to put him under arrest, but nothing happened.
It was a long walk to the other end of the sector, past where Ogilvie had died and on to a tumble-down heap of shattered rampart and torn sandbags, now almost serene beneath their layer of snow.
Two lieutenants, Frere and the willowy Fitzclarence, would be with him, and he saw M’Crystal and Quintin etched against the pale backdrop with the others.
Quintin said harshly, ‘All mustered, sir. The packs an’ spare gear ‘as bin stowed away in a cave. Just weapons an’ ammunition.’
The marines were not even wearing greatcoats. Nothing which would hamper their movements.
M’Crystal murmured, ‘We heard about Mr Blackwood, sir.’ He stared at the drifting flakes. ‘He’ll be out there by now.’
Blackwood did not answer. There was nothing anyone could do. Harry had Frazier and the new corporal, Fellowes, with him. Two good men. He thought of Harry’s smile. No, three good men.
‘Let’s get on with it then.’
He clambered over the wrecked defences and slithered down a slope, his feet feeling for firm ground as he pictured the little pattern of sap-trenches.
It took all of twenty minutes to find the first trench. The marines flopped into it and began to crawl on their knees, their backs barely covered by the shallow sides.
The snow was a blessing, Blackwood thought. There was an awful stench, and he felt his hands fumble across things which were better unseen.
Once, where the trench was sheltered by some wooden planks, he felt his heart leap as he saw a solitary figure framed against the snow, watching their slow approach.
Quintin swore savagely and pushed the corpse aside with a
musket, and another marine retched as the weapon sank into rotten flesh.
‘Pass the word. Absolute silence.’
They would not need telling, but someone might cough or sneeze.
Blackwood raised himself very slowly until his head and shoulders were above the trench. The hill was just to his right, and apparently quite close. He wanted to look back to see how far they had come but dared not move. He could smell burning, or charred wood, and his stomach rebelled as he heard rats squeaking as they did their nightly hunt on the battle-field.
The enemy did not have to rely on trenches here. The redoubt was somewhere on the hill-top, with plenty of natural cover for defending infantrymen.
He looked down and saw his hands on the edge of the trench, the sleeve of his uniform already showing a hint of colour. It would be dawn at any moment.
He wondered if Brabazon with the bulk of the marines was advancing from the other side. If they were all caught in the open they would not even get the chance to run.
Run
? Fynmore would never allow it. He would rather die. Or was he back in his empty command post? Missing, like that day aboard
Tenacious
?
Lieutenant Frere wriggled up beside him and whispered, ‘Mr Blackwood’s party have three grenades each, sir. I watched them leave. They will throw them all together in some nets which the adjutant found.’
Blackwood bit his lip. Grenades with their unpredictable, hazardous fuses were always a menace to those who handled them. Three in a net would be even more dangerous.
Where were they? Perhaps they had been captured and were tied up somewhere, helplessly waiting for the sound of their attack.
‘Can’t wait any more!’
He dragged himself out of the trench and gripped Ogilvie’s revolver in his left hand. He heard the others
preparing to follow him and strained his eyes to measure the last piece of open ground. Less than a hundred yards now. It seemed like ten miiles.
He darted a glance at the first men to join him. Quintin and Jones, Doak and Bulford. As Doak brushed past him he smelled the heady aroma of rum. Bayonets were already fixed, while their shakos and scabbards, and any other useless equipment, were piled in a cave like a memorial.
‘Now!’
Blackwood moved away from the trench and, part walking, part trotting, the marines hurried after him, fanning out on either side, the sound of their feet growing as more and more clambered from the trench to follow.
They had been told what to do. Keep the pace down until the last moment. It was a hard order to obey or enforce without making more noise. They were moving quickly already, their eyes wide to pierce the shadows, their bayonets glinting occasionally while the snow eddied around them.
There was a startled cry and a figure seemed to rise straight out of the ground at their feet. Blackwood got a blurred vision of a levelled musket, then saw the man fade into the snow as someone drove him down with a bayonet.