To Do and Die Read online

  TO DO AND DIE

  Patrick Mercer

  © Patrick Mercer 2010

  Patrick Mercer has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 2001, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First edition published in 2010 by HarperCollins Publishers

  This edition published in 2014 by Endeavour Press Ltd

  To Do and Die is dedicated to ‘The Pack’

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Acknowledgements

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  THE END

  Glossary

  Historical Note

  Author Note

  Extract from Doctor Watson’s War by Patrick Mercer

  Acknowledgements

  A first novel is very special because, even in middle-age, there is so much to learn. I’m especially grateful to Natasha Fairweather, my agent, whom I steered over Crimean battlefields and then who steered me, patiently and kindly towards the finished product; to Susan Watt, my editor, whose help has been invaluable; to my long-suffering friends Heather Millican and Richard Kemp; and my wife Cait and son Rupert who have listened to every syllable with huge self-control.

  Lastly, I must pay tribute to the men and women of all nations who fought in the Crimea. Ever since I was a small boy they’ve fascinated me: I hope I’ve done them justice.

  ONE

  The Battle of the River Alma

  The chaffing and laughter stopped abruptly: shallow jokes were choked off as the troops listened intently. Every bristle-chinned man in the long, snaking ranks sweated gently into his scarlet coat, shoulders bowed under his load of kit and ammunition, hands cupped around his rifle as he strained to hear the order that would start the killing. The warm, late September breeze carried the snapping and popping of the burning village of Bourliouk to their front clearly now as every voice was stilled, then the captains stumbled over the furrows of the vineyards clutching at swords and haversacks, rushing to be first to give the order to their men. The soldierly form of Captain Eddington, their company commander, stood before them, trim, athletic, just a slight flush on his face betraying the excitement of imminent action. The run had left him almost out of breath: he fought hard to steady his voice.

  ‘With ball cartridge...load!’

  Eddington was crisp, exact, almost elegant compared with the brass-lunged non-commissioned officers who repeated his orders. Young Anthony Morgan did his best to conquer his suddenly dry throat, to stop himself sounding too Irish and utter the same command that, if truth were known, he had never really expected to say on the field of battle. Here he was, twenty-three and the junior subaltern of the 95th Foot’s Grenadier Company, about to see war for the first time and acting as if he’d never heard the words of the drill manual before.

  Almost as one, the troops spat out the cartridge paper, then the line sang as ramrods forced home the bullets that were about as big as the end of your thumb. Rifles were pulled sharply back to the order before a gulp swept down the lines—there could be no turning back now. With all forty rounds untied and ready for use in their pouches and hands sticky with sweat on the stocks of their weapons, every man knew that the browny-grey blocks of Russian infantry looking down at them on the other bank of the sluggish Alma had to be faced.

  ‘Officers, to me,’ Eddington shouted. Both of his subalterns, Richard Carmichael and Anthony Morgan ran from their places by their men to the front of the company.

  ‘Right, you two, the plan’s simple...’ Eddington turned and pointed across the river towards the Great Redoubt, the earth-work at the centre of the Russian position, howitzer barrels just visible, pointing menacingly towards the waiting British ranks. ‘The French will turn the right of the Russian position whilst we go straight at them here, across the river Alma, to take that Redoubt. The Light Division are on our left, Adams’s Brigade on our right; Cambridge’s Guards are to the rear, in reserve. Once the firing starts it’ll be all smoke and chaos, I guess, so if you get confused, just look to the centre of the Regiment where the Colours are. Any questions?’ Despite the invitation, Eddington—quite evidently—felt that everything was as clear as it needed to be.

  Neither subalterns dared ask anything, merely shaking their heads in reply.

  ‘Right.’ Eddington shook both of his officers’ hands quickly. ‘Back to your men, remember how much they’ll depend on you.’ Then, less stiffly, ‘Good luck,’ before both young men strode back to their places at either end of the Grenadier Company.

  The river twisted and coiled between low banks on the northern side and higher ones to the south, then a little shelf gave way to a short, steep climb before the land sloped gently, smoothly up to the enemy positions. The Russian commander—Menschikoff—had given his divisional and regimental officers, in this part of the field at least, all the freedom they needed to plan this position and Morgan could see that they had been thorough. When they had paused at Scutari on their way to the Crimea, they’d visited their own artillery and been told that the most lethal range for guns against infantry was about six hundred paces. He looked up to the brass muzzles that peeped down through the embrasures over clear slopes where no vines grew and the only trees were a dotted line of scrawny poplars along the course of the river: they were about six hundred paces away.

  Morgan was just able to make out the far-off rattle of drums before the first shot rasped overhead—he’d never heard that sound before: now his guts and arse tightened—just as the veterans had said. Judging by the way that the whole company ducked, there were another eighty-odd sphincters doing just the same and he fought with himself to look the men in the face and not to turn and stare at the guns whose smoke now rolled across the hillside. The round shot had still to find their mark when the commanding officer cantered forward, his own nervousness carrying to his horse—the animal pecked and sidestepped as the balls shivered through the air.

  Ninety-Fifth will advance...by the centre, quick march!’ Colonel Webber-Smith’s words were echoed down the companies and the regiment billowed forward.

  But this certainty was to be short lived—they stuttered to a halt no more than three hundred yards further on.

  ‘Bloody Seventh, just a bunch o’ bairns.’ Colour-Sergeant McGucken was one of the few Scots in the regiment. He’d transferred from the 36th a few years ago and, at six-foot and as hard as a Glasgow winter he’d soon found himself in his new regiment’s hand-picked Grenadiers. Now, he damned the battalion to their left whose cursing ranks had first collided with their own and then caused them to pause and have to be untangled.

  They’d never made friends with the ‘Old 7th’ as they called themselves, for these boys had seen no more active service than the 95th, but they would never stop bragging about their lineage and history. The 7th Fusiliers came from the Light Division—the left assault division—and there had been friction between the two regiments ever since the pause at Varna; now an uneasy file of them tramped past, all downy, half-grown beards and haphazard firewood sticking out of their blanket packs. They looked just a little too fixedly ahead, their stares pleading their innocence for this officer-botch that made them seem so clumsy in front of a ‘young’ regiment. Then the earth spurted momentarily just ahead of them and half a dozen sprawled on the ground, as if felled by some mighty scythe. A brightly-painted drum bounced, a rifle now bent like a hairpin cartwheeled away and one of the 7th sagged, his clothes, belts and blanket awry.

  Morgan saw how the jag
ged iron shards had caught the lad, for a furrow the length of a man’s finger had been opened below his ear, yet he felt nothing more than curiosity. Bruised, dark-purple ribbons of chopped flesh laced his neck as black, arterial blood soaked his collar and cross-belts, dripping into the soft earth next to his dead face.

  A further soldier sat plucking dumbly at gouges on his wrists and hands. Coins from another’s pocket had been hit and hurled by a ball as lethally as any shrapnel, slashing and scoring the man like meat on a butcher’s slab.

  The gunners now had the range. The smoke from blazing Bourliok helped to hide them a little, but in almost perfect unison shells burst above them and the 55th to their right, hurling jagged iron and shrapnel balls into the red-coated ranks below. From all around came screams and moans as the men fell with ugly punctures to their shoulders and heads whilst splinters bounced off rifles, wrenching them from fear-damp hands.

  Then Pegg was pitched heavily onto his face by a crack and angry burst of smoke above them, drumsticks, belts and shako anywhere. At seventeen, Drummer Pegg was the youngest man in the company—now he was their first casualty.

  ‘You two, help Pegg. One of you get his drum and sticks, sharp now.’ Colour-Sergeant McGucken saw the lad being dashed down, but before the others could get to him, Pegg was on his feet, ashen but gingerly feeling himself for wounds.

  ‘You all right, son?’

  ‘Fucked if I know, Colour-Sar’nt, I think so.’ Pegg continued to investigate himself bemusedly.

  ‘You’re a right lucky little bugger, yous: get your kit and stop sitting down on the job, then.’ A shaky grin played over Pegg’s face as he chased his drum, oblivious to the great gash in the blanket strapped to his back.

  ***

  As the fire intensified so the dense smoke from the village blew straight across the face of the company. Order began to be lost as the men looked for solid cover in the lee of farm walls and byres, eyes stinging and coughing as they did so. Morgan just didn’t know whether he should try to restore some form of regularity to the ranks or continue to let the men find their own shelter as they had been taught in the new style of skirmishing. But he had little choice, as the jarring noise of the shells joined with the swirling smoke to make close-order impossible.

  Then, emerging from behind a low farm wall came the senior subaltern of the Grenadiers, Richard Carmichael, but he was not his usual poised Harrovian self. Whilst his scarlet coat and great, bullion shoulder wings, even his rolled blanket, haversack and water-bottle still hung like a tailor’s plate, there was an unusual distraction about him. He darted hunted looks everywhere, he was pallid, he licked his lips, his self-assured serenity seemed to have been scraped away by the first shot.

  ‘Carmichael, where’s Eddington?’ bellowed Morgan, but only on the third time of asking did Carmichael reply.

  ‘I...I don’t know. The company’s all to blazes, I shall go and find him.’ He shrank back behind a protective piece of brickwork.

  To their front, the Light Company was fleetingly visible, thrown out in skirmish line to screen the rest of the Regiment. Morgan now realized the popping that he’d heard amidst the artillery was their rifles replying to bangs and puffs of smoke that came from the scatter of buildings and bushes that marked the outskirts of the burning village. The Russians would certainly have their own sharpshooters this side of the river, hidden, he supposed, amidst the scrub and huts, but none was to be seen.

  A scrawny little corporal—a Dublin enlistment whose name Morgan had never managed to learn—emerged with another Light Company man from the smoke. Both had thrown off their tall black shakoes and folded down the collars of their coatees: now their rifles were half in the shoulder whilst they peered intently into a tangle of walls and vines as if a rabbit were about to bolt. He couldn’t make out what they were calling to one another above the din of the guns, but suddenly both rifles fired almost together and uncertain grins showed that they’d found a mark.

  The corporal, peering through the reek, recognized the wings at Morgan’s shoulder as those of an officer and sent the private to report to him. This was another lad whom he knew but couldn’t name; even as he stumbled through the smoke and over the loose earth of the vineyard he reached behind his hip to get a fresh cartridge. The nameless soldier’s lips were smeared with powder sticking to his stubble showing, Morgan noticed enviously, that he’d already been plying his trade and there was a slight swagger about the man, his manner as unlike the parade ground as his once-white belts were grimy.

  ‘Sir, Corporal McElver says to say that we got a couple on ‘em, but there’s still Russ in the buildings and what do you want us to do now?’ How like the men to ask the first officer they saw for orders.

  Just as he was groping for something useful to say, the soldier staggered, his head jerking sharply—his weapon fell as he sat down heavily at Morgan’s feet, clutching at his mouth. Blood welled between his fingers from a hole in his cheek whilst into his palm he spat a wad of pulp and broken teeth. It was all that Morgan could do to stop himself from dropping down to help the man—but the wounded would be dealt with by medical orderlies—his job was to lead the troops forward to find the enemy.

  A gout of smoke and a flicker of movement, though, showed where the Russian sharpshooter had fired from above a wall no more than twenty yards away. All that Morgan wanted to do was to sink into the damp soil beside the casualty, but the unspoken challenges of his men were too strong. Trying to hold his equipment steady with one hand, he gripped the hilt of his sword as he stumbled over the broken ground whilst, he was sure, a hundred judgemental eyes bore into him.

  ‘Sir, wait...let me get some lads together to flush the bastard out, don’t you go by yourself...’ But McGucken’s words went unheard as Morgan scrambled forwards.

  A thin cloud of powder-smoke still hung over the low wall as he tried to vault it, but the top stones were loose and in one ugly, tripping crash, he bundled straight into someone crouched on the other side. The Russian rifleman had been concentrating on reloading his weapon and sprawled beneath Morgan’s inelegant arrival, giving the officer just enough time to regain his balance.

  Pulling his cap from his eyes and his equipment from around his groin, Morgan instinctively brought his sword around his shoulder to slash at his foe, but the once balanced, tempered blade now sagged like a felling axe—the thrill of action had immediately sapped him of all his strength. Just as he was bracing himself to strike, he remembered the advice dinned into him—always to use the point, but in changing his blow, he gave the Russian time to slither back half a pace through the slime of the yard and he over-reached himself. What should have been a decisive swipe turned into a half-spent prod that did no more than tear the cloth of his enemy’s coat and cause a yelp, more of surprise than pain, whilst the young Russian recovered fast, his scrappy moustache sticking wetly to his lips. Without a rifle, he grabbed at Morgan’s hilt, wresting the blade from his hand and pulling him off balance through the sword knot that still looped it to his wrist.

  The boy was big and bulky in his coarse, grey greatcoat and Morgan had spent enough time in the ring to know that if he were to win he had to use every ounce of weight and strength in his muscular five-foot ten and use it quickly. But this fight was in deadly earnest, it wasn’t school or regimental boxing, just cuts and nosebleeds; this time one of them would die. As he was pulled forward so he let his full weight barrel into his opponent and in an instant both men were rolling on the ground. Then blinding pain and a blast of stagnant breath—Morgan got the full benefit of the Muscovite’s fist square on the bridge of his nose. He reeled back as his enemy’s weight was swiftly on top of him.

  The pain in his face still raged when his ears, already roaring as the blood pumped round his system, almost split. Then his bruised nose was filled with the smell of powder-smoke and the Russian ceased to struggle. Thrusting the dead burden away from him, Morgan leapt to his feet, groping for his sword that dangled by his hand and desper
ately trying to rid himself of the stranglehold of the coat around his shoulder.

  Standing above him was his Colour-Sergeant—McGucken. He’d judged the shot well, for the powerful Minie round could have easily passed through the Russian’s body and hurt Morgan. Now, as if he did such things every day of the week, the Scot was finishing the job. He jabbed viciously with his brass-capped rifle-butt straight into the Russian’s face, cracking open the nose, splintering the sinus bones, reducing the flesh to a mass of purple bruises. Finally, he stood astride the body and split the skull with one great blow and a curse.

  ‘That’ll teach yous...’ before turning, lungs heaving, to Morgan. ‘Sir, will you please stop fannying around? Never do that again—always take an escort, I don’t need you cold.’ McGucken had to yell above the noise to be heard, but there was no mistaking his anger and concern for the young officer. ‘And get rid of that pox-ridden coat, sir.’ McGucken was scraping the butt of his rifle along the coarse grass to clean the bloody mess away.

  Plunging into the smoke after McGucken, Morgan found the wounded Light Company soldier propped against a mossy wall whilst two bandsmen and a girl were doing their best to bandage the awkward mouth wound without suffocating the man. A great stain spread on the snowy gauze being inexpertly bound around his jaw whilst blood bubbled from his nose.

  ‘Mary Keenan, what in God’s name are you doing this far forward?’ That his former chambermaid and wife of his batman came to be in the Crimea at all still amazed him. Now the same Mary that had changed his linen, served at table and become closer to him than any other person on earth, was crouching next to the casualty, proffering a useless canteen of spirits. The smallest pair of soldier’s boots jutted from below her muddy hem whilst the dark hair that Morgan remembered so well running through his hands was plaited neatly below a scarf.