Patrick Mercer - To Do and Die

Inside the Redoubt everything was in uproar. Four horses plunged and shivered, anchored at one end of their harness by a heavy howitzer and at the other by a subaltern of the 23rd who, clinging to the tack with one hand, had a pistol firmly in the ear of the Russian driver. The man was clearly terrified by the demented youngster and his revolver and he was leaning so far out of his saddle that he was in danger of falling and losing control of his horses, yet still the boy yelled and threatened.

Another gun remained. Morgan saw how Alfred Heyland, commander of Number Six Company, and a handful of his soldiers went surging towards it. There was blood all over Heyland – it dripped from his nose and whiskers and one arm hung uselessly by his side. Later, Morgan was told that Heyland had been blown over bodily by a discharge of grape just yards from the centre of the gun-line in the Great Redoubt – everyone thinking that he was dead, yet he'd risen up like a torn and bleeding Lazarus, determined to lead his men on. Now all that Morgan saw was a crazed thing, chopping at one of the gunners with his sword whilst the men dealt with the others in a mad lust for blood.

Three Russians had been surrounded beside the gun's trail. They all had short swords, but none had drawn them before their attackers pounced. None of the British had reloaded their rifles, nor were their bayonets fixed, so the Russians met death in the most brutal way as butts rose and fell whilst boots kicked and stamped, despite the cries for mercy. Eventually their victims were silent: chests heaving, the executioners looked down at the red splashes on their feet.

But the trophy was theirs. Some men cut away the hastily placed tow-ropes whilst Heyland clutched his sword by the end of its blade and scratched a crude “95” into the green paint of the carriage to confirm its capture. Faint with lack of blood, Heyland was swabbed with bandages and then led away by two of his men. Morgan remembered how well Heyland had danced at Dublin Castle last year – and how jealous they had all been of the flock of women around his elegant form. Now, how could any girl find this broken, bruised creature attractive again?

‘Good men, get those Colours up on the parapet.’ Major Hume was now commanding the Regiment. Just as collected – though even more tattered than when the pair had seen him last – he was bareheaded, quite unarmed and utterly in control. The same self-confidence that Morgan had noticed when they were in the river was asserting itself over every man to whom he spoke, regardless of regiment or company, calming, reassuring and helping frightened boys to become men.

‘We've done it, sir, we've taken the Redoubt.’ Morgan had thrust the butt of the Colour pike hard into the parapet; now he looked round up at the bushy slopes to the horizon no more than three hundred paces above him.

‘Aye, Morgan we have, but there's plenty more Muscovites: look there.’ Hume pointed up the hill.

Although a few hundred British had bloodily taken the centre of the position, they were now pinioned between the unprotected rear of the Great Redoubt and a mass of fresh, Russian infantry who lay on the smoke-laden slope above them. Meanwhile, the British commander, Lord Raglan, had moved forward with a tiny group of his Staff until he was well to the fore, almost in advance of his leading troops with the foresight to order-up a battery of British guns that could fire right into his enemy's flank.

‘Now we'll need some help to hold it.’ Major Hume was so hoarse he could barely make himself heard, despite the fact that the guns and rifles had fallen quiet for an instant right across the battlefield.

‘Yes, sir, Cambridge's Guards are in reserve right behind us, aren't they?’ Morgan knew what was supposed to be the plan, but Hume looked anxiously back towards the river.

‘Well, if they are in reserve, they're a bloody long way away; we need them up here now before the Russians counterattack,’ Hume replied.

The Duke of Cambridge's division had, indeed, been held in reserve, untouched by the fire that had so damaged the Light and Second Divisions during the advance to the river and now he was determined not to let his command fall into the same ruptured state as they crossed the Alma. But Cambridge's caution meant that his Division lay too far to the rear of the troops that were now so horribly exposed in the Great Redoubt. They should have been closely supporting the first wave of attackers, on hand to deal with whatever the Russians planned to do next.

The unnatural quiet ended as suddenly as it began. As the last few men seeped into the Redoubt and caught their breath, the danger of the position became more and more obvious. The sergeants busied themselves redistributing ammunition and clearing fouled breeches with their combination tools whilst trying to calm and steady the men. Despite their every effort, though, the troops started endless, ragged cheering that Morgan was raw enough to mistake for a sign of confidence rather than one of near panic. He and Sergeant Ormond had been relieved of the responsibility of the Colours by two uninjured sergeants, so they bawled with the best of them until a spatter of bullets sent them to ground.

‘Where's that fire coming from, Sar'nt Ormond?’ Morgan felt useless as he crouched on the ground with no Colour, no troops to command and only a sword and pistol.

‘Must be them lot, sir, there.’ Ormond paused for a moment whilst reloading his rifle and pointed through the smoke to a slab of Russian infantry about three hundred yards up the hillside beyond them. One half were firing whilst the other half plodded obliquely across the rear of the Great Redoubt, bayonets twinkling, the sun flashing off the brass spikes of their leather helmets.

That morning, Morgan had taken the Tranterrevolver from its case and carefully loaded the six chambers before clipping it to his narrow sash – he thought he could remember holding it above the current but, as he drew it, he had no confidence that the thing would work.

‘You'd be better off with one of the casualties' rifles, sir, wouldn't you?’ Ormond asked.

Morgan looked around him – none of the other officers had picked-up rifles, they were sticking to the unwritten rule that gentlemen left the sordid business of killing to the rank and file – a rule that he'd already broken. So now he contented himself with his pistol, balancing it carefully on his forearm as he aimed at the coatskirts of a crossing Russian and pulled the trigger. He was rewarded with a bang, a jolt and a face full of smoke followed, much to his surprise, by five more faultless detonations, yet the Muscovites tramped on untouched, apparently oblivious to his fire. How his father would have scoffed.

Heads and hearts more hardened to war may have been able to resist the spark of panic that now fanned through the mass. Two Staff officers scrambled through the position, waving their arms, yelling, ‘Don't fire, they're the French’ then ‘Fusiliers retire’ in chaotic succession.

‘Retire be damned, stand fast and fire low.’ Hume had almost lost his voice, but other officers echoed him. ‘Morgan, put that wretched thing down; get amongst the boys, won't you?’ Stung by the words, Morgan thrust his half-reloaded pistol away.

‘Here, sir, help me with these.’ Colour-Sergeant McGucken thrust a clutch of paper cartridges into the young man's hand, gesturing him to calm the troops from the hotch-potch of regiments around him. Within the Great Redoubt were men of the 7th and 23rd Fusiliers, both as keen as anyone else to hear and obey an order that would get them out of the horror with their honour intact and once a bugler took up the “Retire” all was lost. Some men paused, firing sullenly into their enemies, but most bundled back through the embrasures that they had seized just a short time before with barely a backward glance. The troops streamed down the hill, trying hard to avoid their dead and wounded comrades who studded the slopes.