Windrush: Blood Price (Jack Windrush Book 3) Page 5

  'I'll bloody rattle them all right,' Logan rasped his bayonet from its scabbard. 'Gi'e me two minutes, sir, and I'll get rid of that Yankee Ruski fellow.'

  '113th; 113th … are you there? Is Major Snodgrass still alive, 113th?' The voice ended in a long laugh. 'Not for long, 113th; we're coming for him.'

  'Come now you Russian bastard!' Thorpe shouted. 'We're ready for you!'

  '113th! You will all die, men of the 113th! Why not desert to us now? We will give you fair treatment, hot food and more comfortable beds than mud and a wet blanket.'

  'Aye, and your Ma was a hoor!' A Scottish voice up the line shouted, with his comment followed by a chorus of cat calls and jeers from the British lines, and a couple of rifle shots for good measure.

  Jack smiled grimly. 'The Russians may be expert at burrowing in the ground and holding a town,' he said, 'but they don't know the temper of this army.'

  O'Neill grunted, 'Aye, sir, but unless Lord Raglan does something soon, there won't be many of us left. The men are dropping like flies from dysentery and the cold.'

  Jack said nothing. He knew that O'Neill was correct.

  The first cannon-ball raised a fountain of wet earth a hundred yards in the rear of the 113th positions. The next landed short, bounced on a stony outcrop and spread deadly splinters across the ground. Now veterans of the trenches, the men of the 113th ducked beneath the parapet.

  'We're bracketed, by God,' O'Neill said. 'Keep your heads down, boys; the next should be smack on top of us.'

  The Russian gunners were not as expert as O'Neill predicted. Although the third and fourth shots did come closer, it was the fifth that thudded into the trench parapet, sending half a dozen sandbags toppling to the trench floor and throwing a mist of sand into the air.

  'Can I fire back, sir?' Fletcher crawled along the bottom of the trench, rifle in hand and anger in his face. 'Our artillery don't support us.'

  'You, Fletcher?' Logan laughed. 'You couldn't hit a bull's arse with a banjo! You're more likely to put a hole in the moon than in a Russian!'

  Jack grunted. Logan's language may have been colourful but his facts were right. Fletcher was notoriously the worst shot in the regiment, prone to fire high whatever the target.

  'Yes, Fletcher;' he said. 'Aim at the base of the wall. The Russians have rifle pits there.'

  If Fletcher aimed for the base, his shots may well hit the embrasures on the Redan, fifteen feet or so higher up.

  Fletcher grinned, settled down and rested his rifle between two sandbags. 'Right, you Russian bastards, I'll pink the lot of you.'

  Jack watched as O'Neill pushed Fletcher's rifle barrel lower.

  'On you go, son.' O'Neill said. 'The angels are safe now.'

  Fletcher took his three shots, carefully aiming each one at the base of the wall.

  'Good man!' Jack said. 'Now everybody, take three aimed shots in turn. We'll never know the result but we might make the Russians hesitate.'

  'Me next,' Williams said. The men were happier now; the prospect of striking back as opposed to sitting in a trench in miserable discomfort animated them.

  Williams' three shots were slower, without any response from the Redan.

  'My turn,' Smith said, and swore as a burly man named Thatcher shouldered him aside with took his place. 'Out of my way, Smithy; let the real men in!' Thatcher thumped down behind the sandbags, levelled his rifle, aimed and fired, with the muzzle flare momentarily lighting up the trench.

  The Russian sharpshooter had been waiting. He fired only once, with the bullet entering the side of Thatcher's head and taking the top of his skull off in a welter of blood, bone-splinters and mushy brains.

  'Jesus!' Smith ducked low, catching Thatcher's body as it fell.

  'Heads down, lads,' O'Neill barked. 'Johnny Russ has our range.'

  'Did anybody see where that shot came from?' Jack stared into the dark.

  'I never saw nary a thing, sir,' Fletcher said. 'They can see us like they had the eyes of an owl!'

  'No they haven't' Jack knew it was best to quash such rumours before they began. 'They aimed for the muzzle flash; that's all. We fired from the same spot and they aimed at that. In future we alter our firing positions so the Russians don't get the chance.' He looked down at Thatcher, a man he had barely spoken to.

  'Thorpe, you and Coleman take this poor fellow back down the line.'

  Having a dead body in the trench was bad for morale and Thorpe and Coleman would have shaken nerves after their escapades against the Cossacks. An officer's life was a succession of non-stop decisions, and each may mean the difference between life and death for one man or a hundred men. If he had not agreed to Fletcher's request to fire on the Redan, Thatcher may still be alive. Or perhaps the Russian artillery would have been more accurate and he could have lost half a dozen men. He would never know. He did know that if he pondered the possible consequences of every decision he had ever made, he would be consigned to bedlam.

  Coincidentally with Thatcher's death the Russian artillery ceased. In the uneasy hush, the night passed agonisingly slowly. A biting wind dragged clouds away from the moon so for an hour or so a ghostly white light smiled on the no-man's land between the Russian and British positions. A skein of late geese passed over head, their cries heart-achingly melancholic as they reminded Jack of long evenings by the Malvern Hills. He shook away the memory, heard a plover call away in the distance and wondered at man's crass stupidity to invent war when nature provided such beautiful sounds and sights for all to appreciate.

  The birds vanished in the night and silence pressed upon them. They listened for any Russian raiding parties, with Jack wondering if the Russians were doing exactly the same thing in their rifle pits. Thorpe and Coleman returned, bringing a bottle of rum lifted from some unsuspecting sailor. They passed it around surreptitiously so that Jack would not notice. He pretended ignorance, watching the Russian lines, wishing he could have a sip of the warming liquor, knowing that an officer must always keep some distance from his men, even when he had fought and suffered with them through two campaigns.

  The crack of a Russian rifle shattered the fragile silence, although Jack did not know where the shot had gone. He toured his length of trench.

  'Rule…' the voice was little more than a whisper. 'Rule…'

  'Britannia,' Jack remembered the hastily created safe word and helped the engineers back into the line. They were chilled and scared, with drawn white faces and deep-set eyes.

  'Good man,' Wolseley spoke through cold-numb lips and walked stiff-legged down the communication trench toward the British lines.

  Dawn broke grey and chill to the east. A Russian cannon fired; nobody flinched. The men were used to them now; they were becoming inured to stray cannon shots.

  'If it's your time,' Coleman said, 'it will kill you. If it's not, then it won't'

  'Here comes the relief,' O'Neill said. 'Careful now lads; this is the right time for Johnny Russ to strike, when we are beginning to relax and the next unit has not yet taken over.'

  They filed out slowly, acknowledging the company of Royal Scots who filtered in to take their place. It was routine, it was normal life in the trenches during the siege of Sebastopol. Yet Jack knew that with Anderson and the Plastun Cossacks on the opposite side, life was going to become even more uncomfortable.

  'How was it?' A stern faced Royal Scot lieutenant asked.

  'Fairly quiet,' Jack said. 'We lost one man to a sharpshooter and there are Plastun Cossacks on the prowl, so be careful.'

  'We will be; thank you.'

  Jack nodded; he had done his duty and that was all. The siege would continue. Yet he knew that the shadow of John Anderson darkened his future.

  Chapter Four

  December 1854

  'The latest reinforcements are arriving now.' As always, Elliot was first with the news, greeting Jack as he staggered out of the trenches. After spending five days out of seven in the front, Jack was as haggard and exhausted as his men, with frost r
imming his incipient beard and mud caking him from feet to shoulders.

  'Stand to attention, men,' Jack said quietly. 'Look like British soldiers.' As the newcomers marched into camp, Jack's men filed up behind him. He inspected them: O'Neill had lost about three stone in weight so he was as gaunt faced and skeletal as the rest; Thorpe with his saturnine face and lowering expression looked fit to drop, although Jack knew he would continue until he died. Fletcher was pensive; his mouth drooped open with fatigue. Looking like a disreputable scarecrow, Riley was the smartest there, while Logan, his constant companion, glowered his hate at everything and everybody including himself. All were filthy with Crimea mud, all were infested with lice, all had tattered uniforms; the soles of Fletcher's boots flapped open so his toes peeked out with every step. Yet they were veteran soldiers; men who would fight to the end.

  The reinforcements marched past. Their tunics were brilliant scarlet in the winter sun, their brasses gleaming, their trousers black and, God help them Jack thought, creased to a bayonet's edge. They carried their Minie rifles at the slope, had polish on their boots and wore their shakoes at the regulation angle.

  'What are they?' Williams asked in wonderment.

  'They are British soldiers,' Smith spoke from the side of his mouth so that the officers and sergeants could not hear. 'Like what we used to be.'

  'Oh,' Williams said. 'Were we like that once?'

  'Not you, Williams. You were never like that. You were always a bloody disgrace,' O'Neill growled.

  Jack said nothing. He also found it hard to think of the old British Army to which he had belonged; the army of scarlet and brass, of parade-ground discipline and Brown Bess muskets, of order and barrack rooms and unrelenting smartness.

  'Stand to attention when an officer passes!' The speaker sat erect astride a chestnut horse. He was tall and inclined to stoutness, with a fine set of whiskers and eyes like gimlets. 'What sort of discipline do you keep; where are your uniforms, damn it?'

  Jack recognised him at once. 'These men are standing to attention, Major Welland. They are returning from five days in the trenches and these are the only uniforms they have after four months in the field.'

  'It's Colonel Welland, damnit, and who the devil are you?' Welland stared down at him from the saddle. 'I don't know you.'

  'My apologies sir, and congratulations on your promotion. I am Lieutenant Jack Windrush.' Jack said. 'We met briefly at my father's funeral.'

  'Your father … oh.' Welland started. 'Oh I see. You are that Windrush, and what regiment do these tatterdemalion skeletons belong to?'

  Jack could feel his men stiffen in anger behind him. He had a choice of being insolent to a superior officer from a regiment in which his family had always served, or being loyal to men who he had fought beside in two gruelling campaigns. 'These men are from the 113th Foot, sir. They are veterans of Inkerman and the siege.'

  'Oh good God.' Welland stopped to stare as his men, the Royal Malverns, continued to march past in all the glory and splendour befitting one of the finest regiments of the British Army. 'You joined the Baby Butchers.'

  'The 113th, sir; who held the line at Inkerman and I am proud to be associated with them.' Jack remained at attention, knowing he was probably committing professional suicide in thus addressing a superior officer from a regiment so much further up the social scale, and equally aware that his men – his men – were listening to every word he said.

  'You are insolent, Windrush,' Welland kicked in the shiny spurs attached to his shining boots and walked his horse further into the camp. The long column of men continued, with some already staggering after the march from Balaklava. Jack watched them file past, knowing that this should have been his world; these splendid soldiers should have been under his command.

  A lieutenant on a glossy black horse stared at him, mouth open. Jack started; he had not expected to see that man here of all places.

  'William…' Jack called out.

  William Windrush gave the briefest of nods and flicked his reins so his horse walked on. He did not look back. Jack felt a surge of emotions, with disappointment uppermost among frustration, anger and sick despair. He turned around, and realised that his men were all watching him curiously.

  'What the devil are you standing there for?' He growled, 'go and find something to eat and grab some sleep. We're on duty again in a few hours.'

  They broke formation, with O'Neill and Riley lingering for a second longer than the others, possibly hoping to speak to him. Both moved away when Jack frowned at them.

  'I noticed you talking to the officers of the Royal Malverns.' Elliot leaned against the tent pole, smoking the largest cigar that Jack had ever seen.

  'I was,' Jack crouched over a tiny wooden tub, trying to cleanse himself of the worst of the Crimean mud.

  'You knew those fellows?' Elliot puffed blue smoke into the interior of the tent, coughed and looked hopefully inquisitive.

  'I used to; once.' Jack said.

  'You knew them at Sandhurst, perhaps?' Elliot waved his cigar around as if it was a pointer and he was a lecturer at the military college.

  'Sandhurst is a place I have never visited in my life,' Jack admitted. He looked at the filthy water in the tub and wondered what his body was like beneath the uniform. He would not find out for some time; it was too cold to wash properly. He scratched absent-mindedly as the relative warmth of the tent stimulated the lice to new activity.

  'Then how, if I may ask?' Elliot sat beside him. 'Pray stop admiring yourself in that muddy water. Your reflection will not improve through wishful thinking; you are destined to be an ugly cuss throughout your life and that is all there is to it.'

  Jack dried his face on a dirty rag. 'At one time I thought I would join the Royal Malverns,' he said. 'That had been my ambition until circumstances decided that I should go to a different regiment.'

  Elliot puffed on his cigar. 'And what was this strange set of circumstances that made you decide to alter your choice from one of the most select regiments in the army to, what is frankly one of the least desirable.' He raised his eyebrows. 'You should try a cigar, Windrush; the smoke may deter the lice a little.'

  Elliot could not have been older than eighteen yet already the Crimea had aged him. Deep lines creased his mouth while his eyes were sunk in dark sockets above cheekbones made sharp by hardship and hunger.

  'Family,' Jack said briefly.

  'Ah,' Elliot nodded sagely. 'Tell your uncle Arthur old boy.'

  'Who? Oh… I did not know you were Arthur.'

  'Named after the Duke himself; my parents had hopes that I would rise to great heights and challenge the fame of Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington.' Elliot pulled on his cigar until the end glowed bright red. 'Unfortunately I don't have the tin to purchase promotion or the idiocy to make a suicidal dash to gain instant fame and be made up, so a lieutenant I will remain until they put me out to grass, or dig me under.'

  Jack grinned. He was not used to such frank admissions from his fellow officers. 'You're an honest chap, Elliot.'

  'And you are a taciturn, close- mouthed devil, Windrush.'

  'Thank you. I am also a bastard.'

  'Oh everybody knows that…' Elliot began, and then saw Jack's expression, 'oh I see, a legitimate illegitimate; your father neglected to marry your mother.'

  'He was already married to a woman I thought of as my mother,' Jack faced Elliot squarely, ready for contempt, or instant rejection. 'I found out the day of my father's funeral. My younger brother, or half-brother rather, was posted into the family regiment and I was sent in disgrace to the 113th.'

  'Some men may think of that as bad luck,' Elliot said, serious faced, 'but after seeing those two Malvern officers, I am not so sure. The Colonel is a snob and that other fellow, the one you called William…'

  'My half brother,' Jack said. 'That was William, my half brother.'

  'In that case old chap, you need a shot of this,' Elliot produced the small hip flask from beneath his bed. 'H
ighland whisky, no less.'

  'Where did that come from?' Jack accepted the flask and had a tentative swallow. It exploded like a Russian shell within his stomach. 'God! What is this stuff?'

  'I think the 93rd made it themselves, distilled from the corpses of Russian horses and flavoured with sea water and gunpowder.' Elliot tipped back the flask. 'It tastes vile but it does the job … more?'

  'Oh undoubtedly,' Jack accepted the flask again. He felt Elliot's unspoken sympathy, and realised that they were forming an incipient companionship. He was not sure if he wanted a close friendship, not with the shame of his parentage.

  'Life is never as you think it will be,' Elliot's words were slurred, as if he had tasted more of what he called whisky than he could cope with. 'Here we are, sitting on mud within a tent in the Crimea, a place I had never heard of a year ago, fighting the Russians, a people I have no quarrel with, in the ranks of the 113th, a regiment I would have crossed the town to avoid.'

  'As would I, once,' Jack admitted. 'Is that disloyal, speaking about men I have fought with and who have stood by my side in battle?'

  'It is the truth,' Elliot sipped some more of the whisky and passed the flask over to Jack.

  Either the liquor was improving with age or Jack's palate was growing used to the taste for he had no qualms about swallowing more of the kill-me-deadly. 'My step- mother threw me to the wolves and hoped they ate me,' he said.

  'There are wolves out here,' Elliot said. 'I've heard them, great ugly grey things with slavering jaws that would bite you in half.'

  'Have you seen them?'

  'Never,' Elliot said.

  'Nor have I,' Jack said. 'Horrible creatures.' He tasted more whisky, enjoying the now-pleasant warmth.

  'You're all right, Jack,' Elliot said. He leaned closer, his face slightly blurred. 'It's all right if I call you Jack isn't it? I know you are senior to me and all that, but we're the same rank.'

  'Jack's my name,' Jack said. 'Lieutenant Jack the Windrush bastard.' He tried to stop his hiccup, failed, and laughed instead.