Patrick Mercer - To Do and Die

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 shellsburst above them and the 55th to their right, hurling jagged iron and shrapnel balls into the redcoated 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 pieceof 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 sharpshootersthis 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 boreinto 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 desperately trying to rid himself of the stranglehold of the coat around his shoulder.