The Gold Seekers (44 page)

The clear, high notes echoed and reechoed from the enclosing hills; but the white-haired Scarlett’s raised sword restrained the British line, and not a man moved until, satisfied at last with his alignment, the brigadier ranged himself at their head and, turning in his saddle, ordered his own trumpeter to sound the call. Then, setting spurs to his horse, with two aides and his orderly at his heels, he rode straight at the Russians. The scarlet-clad line of the leading squadrons of Greys and Inniskillings broke into a trot, quickening their pace as soon as they were free of the tents, and thundered after their old commander.

“My God, Will,” Alexander Dunn said in a shocked voice, “they’re going to their deaths! And look at Scarlett—he’s going at them alone!”

For several agonizing minutes the watchers could see little for dust and smoke, as the Russian cavalry, still motionless in their close-packed ranks, discharged their pistols at their attackers. But when the smoke cleared, William saw to his stunned relief that the first line of red-jacketed British dragoons had cut and hacked their way through the enemy center and, led by Scarlett, were beginning to emerge on the other side.

With a wedge driven into their center, the Russians were wavering. When the second line of Inniskillings and 5th Dragoon Guards, still keeping their splendid alignment, hurtled into the melee at full gallop, the enemy broke formation, and the remaining regiments of the Heavy Brigade, charging in their turn from the flanks, completed the rout. The great mass of Russian cavalry, with startling suddenness, was driven back, reeling and thrown into confusion by the disciplined assault of the courageous Heavies.

Within a few minutes they were in headlong flight, reascending the ridge in complete disorder, pursued by a handful of Scarlett’s men. A great cheer went up from the rest, whose horses were too blown to join the pursuit, as they watched the beaten enemy streaming away over the Woronzoff Road and across the causeway, in a panic-stricken bid to gain the shelter of their guns in the North Valley.

All the while, the Light Brigade had been positioned in full view of the action, fewer than five hundred yards away, every man ready and eager to launch his own attack on the flank and waiting impatiently for the order. But it had never come; now, as Lord Cardigan continued to sit his horse, seemingly intending to remain immobile, an angry group of officers left their regiments to surround him, pleading for permission to pursue the beaten Russians.

William and Alexander Dunn, as disappointed and angry as the rest, added their voices to the urgent pleas, but Cardigan shook his head at them.

“Gentlemen, I am as anxious as you are to join the pursuit of the enemy. I was ready to attack their flank in support of the Heavies. But I received orders to post the Light Brigade where it now is and none—none, I say, gentlemen—from either Lord Raglan or Lord Lucan to bring the brigade into action. Do not blame me, devil take it! I am simply obeying the orders I was given.”

“But the enemy are being allowed to escape, my lord,” Captain William Morris, who was in temporary command of the 17th Lancers, protested furiously. “I beg you to permit me to take my regiment after them. Sir, I will take the consequences. I—”

Icily, Cardigan cut him short. “I wish to hear no more,

Captain Morris. I cannot permit you to disobey orders. Return to your posts, gentlemen, at once.”

They did so reluctantly, continuing to protest among themselves, and Morris, his face dark with rage, wheeled around in front of his regiment and, in a display of bitter frustration, slapped his overalled leg with his drawn saber, swearing aloud.

The Light Brigade stayed where it was. The Russian cavalry, with their horse artillery intact, gained the far end of the North Valley unmolested and established themselves there, behind their unlimbered guns. The officers and men of the Heavy Brigade, whose brave charge had succeeded against seemingly impossible odds, watched the fruits of their hard-won victory slip away from them and—many of them in tears—counted their dead and carried their wounded slowly back to their tents, to be delivered to the surgeons’ care.

The order came for the Light Cavalry Brigade to take up position at the western end of the causeway, facing down the trough of the North Valley, with the reformed Heavy Brigade drawn up on the slopes of the Woronzoff Road, behind them and to their right, so as to occupy the ground their earlier charge had cleared.

Thereafter nothing happened, and sensing his men’s growing frustration, Colonel Douglas rode over to seek enlightenment from Lord Lucan. Joined in his quest by Captain Morris of the 17th Lancers and followed by Lord George Paget, he conferred at some length with the cavalry division commander, only Lord Cardigan holding wrathfully aloof from their discussion.

When Douglas returned, his officers besieged him with questions, but he could only shake his head despairingly.

“His Lordship is satisfied, after talking to Sir Colin Campbell, that the enemy have been pushed back from Balaclava and that the threat to the harbor has been countered,” he told them curtly. “As to ourselves, Lord Raglan has sent an order for the cavalry division to await the arrival of the First and Fourth Infantry divisions, which are now on their way down here from the upland. With infantry support—when that reaches us—we are to use our best endeavors to recover the captured Turkish redoubts on the causeway.” He repeated his shrug, controlling himself with a visible effort. “That is all I know, gentlemen. But in view of the time the infantry divisions are taking to descend to the plain, Lord Lucan has given permission for both brigades to stand easy. Be so good as to pass that order to your men.”

Thankfully, the men of the Light Brigade dismounted, to lean against their horses, the officers sipping rum or brandy

from their flasks, and those who had them eating hard-boiled eggs and biscuits. Some of the men lit their pipes but were sternly reprimanded for smoking in the face of the enemy—a reproof that provoked wry laughter.

William had been provided with refreshment by the farsighted Bubb, but he felt so sickened by the earlier events of the day that he found himself unable to eat, and most of his brother officers were in a similar state.

“We had the chance of a lifetime, and we had to let it go, for God’s sake!” Lieutenant Palmer grumbled bitterly. “This campaign has been nothing but frustration for the Light Cavalry—frustration and humiliation!”

“I know, Roger,” Alex Dunn agreed, his tanned face taut with resentment. “I could have wept as I watched the Heavies come back in triumph this morning. They deserved their triumph, heaven knows—theirs was a truly gallant achievement. They went in like heroes, every man jack of them, whilst we—” He choked on the biscuit he was eating and flung it from him in disgust. “Damn it, they can hold their heads high, but we must bow ours in shame! Those Russian lancers were beaten, they were routed and running. All we had to do was go after them. We’d have driven them all the way back to Simferopol, with their tails between their legs! But we had to stand fast and let the swine escape.”

“Cardigan blames Lord Look-on,” young George Houghton observed. He leaned his dark head against the saddle of his big chestnut charger despondently, hiding his face. “And so do I, the devil take him!” “He had his orders, George,” William defended. “He could have used his discretion! He was on the spot— he saw what ought to have been done. No one would ‘“we censured him if he’d done it, least of all Lord Raglan. And we were ready to go, by heaven we were!”

“The day is all but over,” Dunn rasped irritably. “And what are we offered? According to the colonel, we’re to be given the chance to support the infantry, which is conspicuous by its absence. So we wait, and the infernal Cossacks jeer at us when we encounter them… . Even our own infantrymen call us gilded popinjays and worse. If this goes on, I’ll sell my commission and make tracks for home. Or for one of the colonies.”

And so, William thought glumly, would he. The humiliation they all had endured had bitten deep; the men, talking in low voices among themselves, felt it just as deeply—the Indian veterans, like Bubb and himself, perhaps most of all. They continued to wait, fretting at the delay as another half hour passed without sight or sound of the expected infantry divisions. From where they had halted, they could see the line of Russian guns at the far end of the North Valley and the troops massed behind them, and they watched in futile anger as a field battery ascended the hill to their left front and turned its guns toward them.

But suddenly a horseman in hussar uniform was seen descending from the upland at breakneck speed. He was easily recognized as Edward Nolan, for, scorning the circuitous track previous gallopers had followed when carrying Lord Raglan’s orders to the plain, he plunged straight down the steep hillside, waving excitedly, only his consummate horsemanship saving him from disaster.

He reached level ground only a few minutes later, and sinking his spurs into his horse’s sides at the foot of the escarpment, he crossed the intervening space at full gallop. As they watched his approach, the officers and men of the Light Brigade guessed, from his reckless haste, that the order he carried must be of extreme urgency, and their spirits lifted, for the order could be intended only for them.

The aide-de-camp’s route took him close to their lines, and as he thundered past, William heard Captain Morris of the 17th Lancers—his closest friend—call out eagerly, “Nolan, what’s going to happen?”

Nolan, without slackening speed, shouted back triumphantly, “You’ll see, you’ll see!”

He jerked his lathered horse to a standstill beside Lord Lucan—who was waiting, with members of his staff, between his two brigades—and thrust the order into his hand. The officers, catching the young aide-de-camp’s excitement, crowded closer as Lucan read it, but his expression, when he had done so, was one of shocked perplexity.

“Find out what it’s about, De Lancey,” Colonel Douglas

growled, and William reached the group gathered about their divisional commander in time to hear him read aloud the order Nolan had given him, his tone one of incomprehension.

” ‘Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns. Troop of horse artillery may accompany. French cavalry is on your left. Immediate.’ ” He paused, eyeing General Airey’s aide-de-camp as if wondering whether he, as well as the commander in chief, had taken leave of his senses. The only guns in any danger of being carried away by the enemy, of which Lord Lucan or the cavalry under his command were aware, were those at the end of the North Valley, behind which the defeated Russian cavalry had established themselves—in a defensive, rather than an offensive position—and William, listening as the order was read, found himself as bewildered as the rest of those who heard it.

Lord Raglan, he thought in stunned disbelief, could surely not wish the attack to be made on those guns, without infantry support and with only one troop of horse artillery and possibly belated aid from the French Chasseurs d’Afrique, somewhere on their flank. Not, that was to say, unless he wished for the annihilation of the entire British cavalry division … William’s heart sank. The men of the Light Brigade had longed to be ordered into action, .but this—this was madness! He choked down the bile that rose into his throat as he heard Lord Lucan put into puzzled and irritable words his own unvoiced doubts as to the meaning of the order.

Edward Nolan cut him short. He said in a deliberately insolent and peremptory tone, “Lord Raglan’s orders, sir, are that the cavalry are to attack immediately!”

Lucan, visibly taken aback, stared at Nolan. He must be aware, William thought, that Nolan disliked him; and in common with the rest of the division, he knew that in the past Nolan had openly criticized him for the hesitancy he had shown in his handling of cavalry in the field. But as a lieutenant general, Lucan was certainly not accustomed to being addressed so disrespectfully by a mere captain—even

if that captain was an acknowledged expert on light cavalry tactics and a favorite with the commander in chief.

There was a moment’s shocked silence, and then Lucan turned on the arrogant young aide-de-camp with barely controlled fury.

“Attack, sir?” he shouted, his words carrying to all the officers in his vicinity. “Attack what, for God’s sake? What guns, sir? What enemy am I to attack?”

Indeed, the word “attack” had not been mentioned in Lord Raglan’s order, and it was far from clear on which front the commander in chief required the cavalry to advance; still, all of Edward Nolan’s contempt for the man he had nicknamed Lord Look-on exploded suddenly. He flung out his arm in a gesture that embraced the North Valley, where the Russian cavalry waited behind their guns, and answered, with a provocative scorn he made no attempt to conceal, “There, my lord, is your enemy! There are your guns!”

To those who watched him, whether or not they were in earshot, Edward Nolan’s outflung arm could indicate only one thing—the Light Brigade’s objective lay at the end of the North Valley. The guns they were ordered to attack were indeed those sheltering the Russian cavalry. Numbly, William swung his horse around and rode back to report to Colonel Douglas.

After all the talking and speculation, a strange, unearthly silence had fallen. The men spoke in whispers, as the news passed from regiment to regiment, from squadron to squadron, from man to man, and its import sank in. Their hour had come, and there were few who failed to realize the immensity of the task that lay ahead of them.

Douglas received his brief repetition of the wording of the order in tightlipped silence and, without comment, waved William back to his squadron, his face grimly set.

“Look at Cardigan, Will,” Alex Dunn urged softly, as William pulled up beside him.

Lord Cardigan, sitting his horse a few yards from them, was reading the written order that Lord Lucan’s aide had hurriedly copied and passed on to him. An expression of incredulity was on his florid face, transcending Lucan’s own when he had received the orders from Edward Nolan. As