It took time to get on our way, what with the confusion and the lack of visibility. When finally we were ready Myrtle clambered up beside me. Potter couldn’t find his horse; instead, he hung a lantern on the back of the cart and said he would walk behind. Now we could hear the rumble of the heavy guns, theirs and ours, and closer, the staccato snap of musket fire coming from the slopes above the ravine.
Our progress was slow and lurching. The planks of wood laid down by the picquets had mostly been torn up to be used for firewood, and those that remained had long since sunk into the mud. In places the oak bushes grew thickly, impeding the wooden wheels of the cart. At intervals the mist cleared and the grey columns of marching men could be seen slipping and sliding through the grey daylight.
Myrtle was trembling. I told her not to be afraid, and she retorted angrily that it was cold not fear that made her teeth rattle. Occasionally she shouted out to see if Potter was keeping up, and for perhaps an hour we heard his called response. Then he didn’t answer any more, and I reckoned he’d turned back or else lost his way.
Frequently, Myrtle urged me to go faster, and even leaned dangerously forwards, pummelling her feather fists against the rump of the stumbling horse in a vain attempt to make it speedier. She wanted to find George. I wasn’t against it, for now I reckoned the hell that awaited was in some degree preferable to the one left behind; at least I wouldn’t be alone.
I tried to make an adventure of it, pretending I was a child again, sneaking through Ince Woods hoping to snare rabbits, but the trees were too small and the frantic crack of the guns blew away the black crows of my boyhood.
Once, when the fog shifted to reveal a fountain of flame spurting upon the horizon, I conjured up the sunset spreading across the sky beyond the humpbacked bridge, and in the puffs of gory smoke belching along the rise imagined I glimpsed the eucalyptus leaves quivering above the stream.
Dreaming thus, suddenly there came a crackling and tearing of undergrowth somewhere to our right, and there burst into view a triangle of men in greatcoats and bearskins, rifles held at the hip, bayonets fixed. Then broke out a clamour of such ferocity that my eyes started in my head. I thought it was all up with me, for above the frenzied grunting and shouting and caterwauling came the whine of shot. The cart trundled on, the horse straining and panting to be out of the din.
It was over in less than a minute and we were through it, unharmed, and it grew quiet again, as though a door had slammed shut. It might have been a dream, but for the bodies lying all around. When I turned to look back I saw one of our Fusiliers sitting upright in the mud, eyes wide open and the top of his head sliced off like he was a breakfast egg. Behind him stood a Russian holding a pistol at arm’s length; it was aimed at my heart. Even as his finger tightened on the trigger the cart lurched sideways and toppled over, flinging me into the bushes. Miraculously, Myrtle fell alongside.
After what seemed like hours I lifted my head and peered through the fretwork of branches. The seated soldier had fallen on to his back and the Russian had gone. Then the firing and the shouting began again, but this time at a distance. My lids were clamped shut but still the detonations flashed behind my eyes.
I stretched out and pulled Myrtle close. Quiet as a mouse she curled against me. Her cap had come off and her hair, stiff with dirt, spiked my cheek. I didn’t succeed in penetrating her. She let me stroke her cleft but bridled when I attempted greater intimacies. I didn’t persist, it not being a matter of importance. All I’d ever wanted, as regards Myrtle, was the recognition that she and I were of a kind, seeing that fate had tumbled the two of us into Master Georgie’s path.
After a while I stood and tugged her upright. Magpies swooped about our heads. The mist had all but cleared and drizzle spattered the ground. The horse lay on its side, haunches pinned down by the cart. It was still alive though I suspected both its hind legs were broken. I loosened the fingers of the dead fusilier and took up his rifle. When I placed the muzzle against the animal’s forehead Myrtle turned away. The gun didn’t go off; possibly the powder was wet. Searching through the other corpses I chanced on a revolver and dispatched the horse without further delay. I decided to keep the rifle too, for its bayonet was in place and I reckoned that in close combat steel was superior to lead.
A dozen or more Russians were spilled round the cart. I opened the coat of one to see if there was anything of value inside, but Myrtle was watching me, so I tugged it off altogether and struggled into its folds. There was a leathery smell and the homely odour of sweat. For good measure I jerked free the metal canister that hung at his belt and downed his vodka ration in one swallow. For the first time that day the blood ran warm in my veins. I would have worn his bearskin too if I hadn’t feared I might be mistaken for the enemy.
What to do next - that was the puzzle. For all I knew the Russians were in the rear as well as ahead. From the ridge a mile distant came the roar of cannons and the pitter-pat of musket fire. There was nothing to see from the top of the rise save for the sky burning red in patches. The fog still rolled across the valley, covering the road and the stone barrier. Beyond the unseen river, steep walls of rock jutted out of the mist and soared sheer to the ruins of Inkerman.
Myrtle settled it. She said, ‘I’m going on. I have to find Georgie.’
I said, 1 doubt you’ll ever find him.’
She shook her head stubbornly. ‘I will...I must.’
‘He’s probably dead by now,’ I told her.
At this she fairly trembled with passion. ‘He’s not,’ she ground out. ‘I know he’s not.’
Dollops of mud had dried across her face, lending her skin a ghastly pallor - yet her eyes glittered, as if she was greedy for something.
It was a grisly walk we took, by-stepping dead men and bits of men. There were wounded horses, heads lowered, standing with the blood leaking out of their bellies. I would have used the revolver if I hadn’t felt it would be a feckless waste of ammunition. Once, we heard a groan and running in that direction came across a middle-aged man in the uniform of the Rifle Brigade. He lay on his back, hands clasped together as though in prayer, spectacles still balanced on his nose. There wasn’t a mark on him, save that the glass at his right eye was fractured into a spider’s web. He groaned again and I knelt and lifted his head, and at that precise moment his throat gave forth a death rattle. I withdrew my hand and it was sticky with bloody pulp. I wiped my fingers on his trousers and hurried on.
*
I left Myrtle in the siege camp below the ravine. I would have skulked there in her shadow if an officer hadn’t come up and, taking me for a soldier, what with my greatcoat and rifle, ordered me to refill my ammunition pouch and proceed towards the Sandbag Battery. I had no notion of where that might be, but the drink had made me compliant. I gathered it was almost midday; I hadn’t eaten since six o’clock the evening before, and that only bread gone mouldy with the damp.
I fell in with a column of the 4th division and duly marched off, watching torpedoes of fire blazing through the misty heavens, a silly smile on my face.
We toiled in an easterly direction towards a spur of rock encircled by a wall some ten foot high, erected from stones and fortified by burst sandbags. It had been fashioned in the hopes of trundling up heavy artillery, but was in fact empty. Quite why it was deemed necessary to defend such a nothing place was never explained. Our ascent along sheep tracks was enlivened by the whistle of shells streaking down from the Russian batteries, and had us bounding and weaving like hares.
Shortly, we were pounced on by Russians looming up in looking-glass reflections of ourselves, eyes dilated with horror, bearskins bristling like brushwood. It was hand to hand encounters and my bayonet proved its worth. After that first sickening thrust into flesh and muscle -1 swear the steel conducted a discharge of agony - it became ordinary, commonplace, to pierce a man through the guts. I didn’t look at faces, into fear-filled eyes, only at the width of the cloth protecting the fragile organs from the daggers of death.
I witnessed an extraordinary happening, a confrontation between an officer of the 21st and his equal on the enemy side. They went to it with swords, circling each other, apes on the prowl. At which their men, of both sides, formed a ragged ring about them, cheering and uttering oaths.
I stood at the back, watching the cut and thrust of their dance of death. When they fell, each mortally wounded, the circle broke up and hacked away with a vengeance.
I engaged with a boy with a pimple at the corner of his mouth. He was clumsy with terror, flicking at me with his bayonet as though warding off bees. He shouted something in a foreign tongue, and I said I was sorry but I didn’t understand. I wanted to spare him, but he caught me a slash on my brow which got me cross and I jabbed him in the throat. He fell away, gurgling his reproach.
I didn’t know what cause I was promoting, or why it was imperative to kill, though I reckon Potter could have told me.
The carnage was horrid. Men died posed like the statues in Mr Blundell’s glass-house. I saw a horse crumpled on its chest, its rider with his arm held up as though he breasted a river. I saw two men on their knees, facing one another, propped up by the pat-a-cake thrust of their hands. On the wall, stuck to the steps of a ladder, a grenadier clutched at the steel that pinned him like a butterfly.
Soon an officer charged up on his horse and ordered us to retreat from the Battery to defend the Regimental Colours. In my head I questioned the necessity of coming to the aid of a tattered square of silk, but did as I was bid. I’d turned into a circus animal and would have jumped through hoops if called upon. As we ran down the slope the smoke from the guns whirled about us as though a giant kettle was on the boil.
We had to rush past the poor wretches surrounding the Colours and attack the Russians from behind. Those who were out of ammunition or had left their bayonets in flesh screamed like madmen and hurled stones and debris. Enemy reinforcements stole up and shot us in the back.
Impossible to say how long it lasted; time stood brutally still. There was a moment, staring down that avenue of slaughter, when I swear I saw Potter sauntering towards me. Behind him, a ball from a heavy pounder bounced in pursuit like a stone skimming water. I opened my mouth to shout a warning, and just as it leapt to tear him apart he swerved aside as though pushed; it hurtled on and took off the head of a man in front. I reckoned an angel kept watch over Potter.
I was still alive when it ended. The Russians retreated up the hillside, leaving their dead and wounded where they’d fallen. The cessation affected the living in different ways; some lay down and slept, others walked about in a trance, plucking at their faces. For myself, I shook all over and could barely stand. It was the silence that was unnerving.
I found George two hours later, plying his trade at the Quarry end of the valley, Myrtle at his side. He was bent over a man with a hole in his chest. I tapped his wrist and he glanced up and didn’t know me, but then, so altered had we grown I only knew him by his blood-spattered apron. He took in the gash on my forehead and said dismissively, ‘It’s only a scratch. Move on.’ Then I spoke his name and he sprang upright; for the first and last time he took me in his arms.
I helped dig trenches to bury the dead. The ones who had perished lying flat were dragged away by the heels. Those that sat upright we lifted under the arms, if arms remained. We found six men, comrades and foes, linked together, bayonets quivering in a daisy chain of steel.
George was fetched to see to an officer who had lost both feet, his stumps stuck in a barrel of gunpowder to staunch the bleeding. I was sent to find a stretcher and we laid him on it, barrel and all, and set off towards the hospital table, George leading. Myrtle followed, as she had always done.
We had got no more than twenty yards when Myrtle called out George’s name. She said later that she’d hurt her foot on a stone. He stopped and wheeled round, still holding the stretcher. Behind him, a wounded Russian, propped against sandbags, lifted up his musket and fired. George let go of the stretcher and the barrel rolled away trailing grey powder. He was looking at me, eyes wide with surprise. ‘You’re a good boy,’ I thought he said; then he fell down.
*
Potter was in the hospital tent when we arrived at the camp. He said he’d turned back earlier that morning owing to the fog settling on his chest. The photographer had returned and was preparing the plates. I was to hurry because the light was going.
I said, ‘George is dead.’
‘You’ve a cut on your forehead,’ he replied, and tearing some pages from the book on his knee, stuffed them into the stove.
Myrtle was outside, dry-eyed, cradling George in her arms. She was crooning to him.
I walked back to the van and found the photographer nearby with his camera set up and five men slouched before him.
‘What we want,’ he said, ‘is a posed group of survivors to show the folks back home.’ Squinting down the lens he called out, “The balance isn’t right. I need another soldier. Fetch one.’
I walked back to George. Myrtle had gone and he was lying in the mud. I humped him over my shoulder and carried him to the camera. The men were now standing and I propped him between them. He slumped forward and the soldier to his right supported him round the waist.
‘Smile, boys, smile,’ urged the photographer.
Behind, on the brow of the hill I saw Myrtle, arms stretched wide, circling round and round, like a bird above a robbed nest.
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