Patrick Mercer - To Do and Die

‘Aye, well just think about what you repeated to me, don't just chant it like some magic bloody Papish prayer: understand it and keep practising.’ McGucken discovered that the boys from the land and the plough had picked the idea up quite quickly, whilst townies like Luff had taken much longer to grasp things. So, he'd taught them the words of the manual by rote, but whether they understood it properly was quite a different matter.

‘S'pose that pair yonder were Russian infantry …’ McGucken pointed across the fields to two elderly peasants who were digging in a field, ‘… what would you set your sights at to hit them, Luff?’

The boy held his hand up to shade his eyes against the sun, revealing a great wet patch at his armpit. The troops had been allowed to parade for training in their grey shirtsleeves to spare them from the heat and to save their already shabby scarlet coatees from further wear. They had just received the order to cease shaving as well, apparently in an effort to save water, but as far as McGucken was concerned, it had just given the men an excuse to let their smartness and turnout drop off even further.

‘'Bout four 'undred, I'd say.’ A general mutter of agreement greeted Luff's estimate. ‘But are we ever goin' to shoot at any bastard, or will we just arse about 'ere gettin' cholera, Colour-Sar'nt?’

‘A very good question, son.’ McGucken had been having just the same discussion in the Sergeants' Mess last night. They had arrived in Bulgaria fully expecting to be in action alongside the Turks in no time at all, but they had done nothing for weeks now except train and move camp every time there was another outbreak of cholera. Some said the Russians had surrendered and the whole shooting match would be packed on its boats and sent home, but the papers insisted that the Allies would sail against the Russian ports in the north. ‘I reckon we'll be off for Sevastopol once the high-ups can get the politicos to make their minds up.’

‘See … vas … tow … pol…’ The men played with the word, liking its exotic sound.

‘Where's that then, Colour-Sar'nt?’ Luff voiced all of their thoughts.

‘Couple of hundred miles that way.’ McGucken pointed out to sea where three French men-of-war smoked past. ‘It's the Russians' great big bastard anchorage for their fleet and the papers say that there's no point in comin' this far an' then goin' home without a fight. So, you'd best learn how to estimate range then, hadn't you?’ There was a tepid hum amongst the men.

‘Now, how far away's that haystack … Shortt?’ McGucken was as bored with the lounging about as his men were, but as he looked around their downy, sunburnt faces and their earnest, furrowed brows he wondered just how many of them would live to tell their mothers and fathers what a Russian infantryman really looked like.

‘They've got to land us south of Sevastopol, it makes no sense to go to the north.’ Carmichael seemed very sure of himself as Eddington and both his subalterns pored over a chart showing the coast of the Crimea.

‘Well, you'd think so. All these rivers that flow into the Black Sea will be perfect defensive positions and the captain tells me that there's no really suitable beach much south of here.’ Eddington's manicured finger hovered on the map just south of Eupatoria, thirty miles at least from the Allies' target, Sevastopol. Like a stepladder, the rivers bisected the coastal plain, each one a major obstacle to the 60,000-strong French and British army.

‘But if we go to the south we'll be that much closer to Sevastopol and we might catch Russ off guard?’ Morgan saw how unlikely that was from the deep, coloured contours of the map. There were only a couple of points where a landing from the sea would be possible and those, according to the chart, were well-established ports.

‘Closer, certainly, but we would have to force either Balaklava or Kamiesch and the Russians will have made that very difficult indeed. No, the captain reckons we're for the north – that's where the only suitable beaches are – and then we'll have to tramp down parallel to the sea. There's so little cavalry that we won't be able to go too far inland and the colonel says that if we do land northwards then the plan is to hug the coast. That way we've got the fleets to victual us and we can march under the lee of their guns. The only question is, who gets to march closer to the ships?’ Eddington looked at the pair with a slight smile.

‘It'll be the bloody French, pound to a penny. They'll turn us inside out every chance they get, you see. My uncle, sir George Cathcart, says his people almost came to blows with them in Turkey.’ Carmichael was never slow to remind people of his connections, nor to criticize the French. Only the Turks had proved more unpopular with the troops than the French so far and all but a handful of the officers followed the fashion of berating Britain's ally whenever they could.

‘Yes, my father got a boatload of 'em in Bantry back before Waterloo. They said they were ship-wrecked but they turned out to be spies. Hanged the lot.’ Morgan could hear the relish in his father's words as his only bit of real service against Napoleon was rehearsed time and again during long dinners at home.

‘Just be glad that the French are with us this time, they've had much more recent experience of campaigning than most of us and what I've seen of them so far looks pretty businesslike. We'll see how they fight, but my father learned to respect them in Spain and at Waterloo, so hold your scorn for the Russians.’ Eddington could be infuriating, sometimes.

The fleets surged on across the Black Sea. A pall of black coal-smoke hung with them on the following breeze, the steamers deliberately slowing to stay abreast of the sailing ships. The coast of the Crimea was distantly sighted, a lookout in the masts far above assuring the captain that what they could see was Sevastopol.

‘And if we can see them …’ Eddington snapped shut his glass, ‘… then they can see us. We must be heading north, and there'll be no surprise for Russ. So, gentlemen, we land tomorrow and must be ready to fight. Inspect every weapon, every round of ammunition and take a good look at feet, socks and the men's shoes. Colour-Sar'nt, please check that Braden has enough leather and nails with him for running repairs once we're ashore.’ Eddington had gone over all these fine details a dozen times already, Braden, the company's cobbler having his scraps of leather and hobnails scrutinized more times in a week than in the last five years.

As dawn broke, there it was. The armada rode at anchor almost a mile off shore, gazing at a low line of dunes topped with grass in a crescent-shaped bay that the chart told them was known as ‘Kalamita’. The lead-grey sky loured over a scene that few would forget for the rest of their days and when the papers subsequently dubbed it ‘Calamity Bay’, most agreed.

‘Just remind me what our good captain had to say about this wretched landing?’ Major Hume had squelched up to the Grenadier Company's three officers as they lay in the grass-studded sand-dunes. ‘“Still as a mill-pond” and “dry as a bone” wasn't it?’

The captain of the Himalaya had told them all how smoothly the landing would go and how they would all be ashore in no time, simply stepping from the improvised landing rafts onto the beach.

‘Are all your men as soaked as I am, Eddington?’ Hume had been scurrying about between the companies checking the state of equipment and ammunition at the commanding officer's request.

Eddington's company was amongst the last to land and, like the others, they had first been thrown about by a boisterous surf and then floundered into three feet of chilling water, despite everything the navy had promised. Now they all sat amongst the tussocks, boots off, wringing the salt water out of their socks.