Where Love Shines
Authors: Donna Fletcher Crow
Tags: #Christian romance, English history, Crimean war, Florence Nightingale, Evangelical Anglican, Earl of Shaftesbury
Where Love Shines
Book 5,
Where There is Love Series
By
Donna Fletcher Crow
Where Love Shines
Copyright © 2016 by Donna Fletcher Crow
All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Publishing history
Published as
Encounter the Light
1997
By Crossway Books
A Division of Good News Publishers
Wheaton, Illinois 60187
Where Love Shines
By Verity Press
an imprint of Publications Marketing, Inc.
Box 972
Boise, Idaho 83701
Cover design by Ken Raney
Layout design by eBooks By Barb for booknook.biz
This is a work of fiction. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or used fictitiously.
Published in the United States of America
The Charge of the Light Brigade
The Complete
Where There is Love
Series
In memory of John Kendrick,
celebrating my friendship with his descendants
John Burton,
Valeri Dean,
Joan Craig,
Martin Craig,
and
Sandra Burton Barton
Where Love Begins
(1749-1750)
John and Charles Wesley
George Whitefield
William Law
Countess of Huntingdon
Where Love Illumines
(1772-1773)
Charles Wesley
John Berridge
Rowland Hill
Countess of Huntingdon
Where Love Triumphs
(1824)
Charles Simeon
Robert Hall
Where Love Restores
(1823-1825)
Charles Simeon
William Wilberforce
Earl of Harrowby
Where Love Shines
(1854-1856)
Florence Nightingale
Lord Shaftesbury
Charles Spurgeon
Where Love Calls
(1883-1885)
Dwight L. Moody
Ira Sankey
The Cambridge Seven
Hudson Taylor
“There are so few people now who want to have any intimate spiritual association with the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries…
“Who bothers at all now about the work and achievement of our grandfathers, and how much of what they knew have we already forgotten?”
—D
IETRICH
B
ONHOEFFER
,
Letters and Papers from Prison
THE CHARGEOF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson
T
his was the day. This day would live in history, The English would win their greatest victory of the Crimean War. And Lieutenant Richard Greyston would earn the glory he had yearned for all his life.
At least that was the plan. But now Greyston was required to sit—he and his fellow soldiers of the Light Brigade. Sit and eat eggs and biscuits and wait. As impatient as his master, the finely bred black stallion moved restlessly under Greyston, requiring Dick to adjust his position in the saddle.
Slowly, the chilly, misty autumn morning had turned into a day of extraordinary brilliance and clarity. Now as Greyston looked out on the long valley below the ridge of Causeway Heights, the scene was lit more brilliantly than any London stage. The lines were sharply drawn—British, French, and Turks at the west end of the valley; Russians at the east.
Although it had been less than a year since Dick, bored to the screaming point by his reading at Cambridge, had persuaded his father to purchase him a commission in the 17th Lancers, he had already proven himself a ready and able officer at the Battle of Alma. And today would bring him the advancement that would secure his career.
Anticipation made his impatience all the sharper. The goal was there—at the far end of that long, narrow valley. The Russian redoubts. Once they were in English hands, the day would be won. And all those who participated would be heroes. Dick closed his eyes and heard the shouts, pictured the waving flags.
Suddenly real shouts sounded in the distance. His head jerked up and he saw the Heavy Dragoons taking the field. Dick Greyston ground his teeth. He would win no glory sheltering on the side while this thin red line of Highlanders advanced on the enemy. It was all very well for the Scots to have their fun, but when was the Light Brigade to take up the sword? Did Lord Cardigan intend to keep them standing here forever like the wives, camp followers, and tourists on the heights above them?
Richard cracked a boiled egg against the hilt of his sword and peeled off the shell. Then, as his teeth bit into the firm, rich yolk, a miracle took place before his eyes. The vast horde of black-bear-hatted Russians bore down on the red-coated Dragoons. And the Highlanders held. A few hundred Scottish horsemen turned back the great gray mass of Russian cavalry. The watchers cheered wildly.
Now the order would come for the Lights. Greyston turned to look at his superior. Impotent rage showed on Captain Morris’s face when the order to advance failed to come. The captain dug his spurs into his mount and jerked him round to face Lord Cardigan, commander of the Light Brigade. “Sir, permission to lead the 17th Lancers in pursuit?”
Greyston held his breath. This would be the moment. Securing the Dragoons’ victory was an elementary tactic. Now. He gathered his reins and tensed his knees to spur Legend forward at the command.
“Permission denied.” Cardigan’s voice was controlled, his face red.
Richard dropped his reins in disbelief. What was Cardigan thinking? Stunned, Greyston watched while the Russian cavalry, which might have been swept from the fields of Balaclava—indeed from the entire Crimea—escaped. The soldiers muttered angrily to one another and cast dark glances at their commander. And before their very eyes, the Russians returned to the east end of the valley, taking possession of the embankments of English cannon along the way. The Dragoons’ valiant victory was wasted.
Richard’s expectations of glory withered in the October air.
He took a biscuit out of his pack and handed it to the sergeant behind him. Jamie Coke nodded his carrot-red head.
Jamie took a fierce bite out of the hard biscuit. “I’ve had enough of this sitting around waiting for orders that never come. I’m going to take up the sporting life when I get back to England. Horse racing—that’s the thing. Start a small stable with good stock. One winner can make you.”
Richard nodded, but did not speak. They ate together in silent, raging frustration.
Growing warm in his blue tunic with its white-crossed front, Richard pulled off his hat to let the desert air blow through his blond hair. And then he sat up straighter on his horse. Something was happening. In a flurry of flying gravel Lord Raglan, from his command post on the heights, sent his aide-de-camp on a madcap plunge straight down the precipice. A few moments later the rider raced across the valley and arrived with his horse blown and sweating to thrust a sheet of paper toward Lord Lucan.
The desert breeze whipped the paper as Lucan read it through for the second time. Lord Lucan, cavalry commander, lowered the sheet. Sounds carried readily on the light, dry air, and Richard heard the anger in Lucan’s voice as he turned on the courier. “Attack, sir? Attack what? What guns, sir?”
The mere aide-de-camp threw back his head and flung out his arm in a furious gesture as he cried in a loud voice, “There, my lord, is your enemy. There are the guns.”
Richard could see Lucan’s seething rage as he wheeled his horse and relayed the orders to Lord Cardigan. Richard tossed away his final bite of egg and nudged Legend a few paces to the right to watch. The two commanders reputedly hated each other.
Cardigan brought down his sword in sharp military salute. “Certainly, sir, but allow me to point out to you that the Russians have a battery in the valley on our front and batteries and riflemen on both sides.”
Lucan shrugged. “I know it. But Lord Raglan will have it. We have no choice but to obey.”
Lord Cardigan saluted again and issued his orders. A single trumpet sounded. “The Brigade will advance. Walk, march, trot.” Lord Cardigan’s quiet voice showed no sign of agitation.
But Lieutenant Richard Greyston felt the surge of excitement around him. This was the moment for which all of the Light Brigade had waited. The 17th Lancers and the 13th Light Dragoons rode first. Nolan, who had carried the orders from Raglan, requested a place in line from his friend Captain Morris. The aide-de-camp fell in in front of Richard, who was now fourth in line.