Captain Nemo: The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius (47 page)

Nemo strode toward the tent headquarters, surveying the dry, hilly land.
 
Using his written orders and a letter of introduction from Emperor Napoleon III, he met with the French troop commanders.
 
Veterans of the Napoleonic Wars, they were doddering old men who spent more time bragging about the events of their youth than they did running the occupation forces on the Black Sea.

On his own initiative, Nemo studied the army encampments, sitting up late at night in his small white tent.
 
He looked over terrain maps by the light of an oil lamp, determining how best to exploit the resources at hand, using only the few tools the army had given him.

Disregarding the war, the Crimean locals continued to take fishing boats out onto the Black Sea each morning and returned to port with full nets.
 
The army purchased most of the fish (or commandeered it -- Nemo didn’t know which).
 
Old women and their daughters worked on the rocky beaches, filling bottles and tubs with Black Sea water, which they left out in the sun to evaporate; later, they would use the sea salt for preserving fish.

Rolling hills covered with brown grasses and low trees encircled Sevastopol.
 
The scenery reminded Nemo of parts of Africa he had seen from the balloon.
 
Farther along the southeastern coast, the rugged Crimean Mountains rose high, a bastion against any forces of the Tsar that might come to rescue the Russians.

In peaceful times, the land was used for growing wine grapes, herbs, and a variety of plants harvested for their essential oils.
 
The countryside looked like a gentle place to live.
 
Unfortunately, the Crimea’s strategic importance had made it a battleground, again and again, for centuries.

Nemo’s job was to embroider the hills with lines of trenches for the allied forces, so that the soldiers could take shelter while keeping the Russians bottled within the city.
 
He oversaw the digging of ditches and the building of barricades using rocks scavenged from destroyed villages outside the fortress.
 

British cannons were hauled up and installed in place, surrounded by cushioning dirt berms, woven grass mats, and wicker supports.
 
Wooden stools sat beside each gunnery emplacement so the cannoneers could tend their weapons for the daily bombardment of Sevastopol.

Month after month the siege had continued, and still the Russians did not yield.
 
Though the Tsar’s invaders retained an enormous fighting force and many weapons, they were still trapped.
 
Turkish and British armies blocked access from the north so that no Russian reinforcements could arrive.
 
The siege went on.

Nemo devoted himself to designing sanitary facilities, draining standing pools, and improving latrines to check the spread of cholera -- though the bureaucratic confusion and the lack of cooperation between allied military groups was maddening.
 
He often had a difficult time obtaining supplies and men for his engineering projects, though everyone could see the efforts would benefit all soldiers.

The British and French forces were woefully underequipped, their uniforms not designed for the Crimean climate.
 
Their boots did not fit, their weapons often did not fire, and medical supplies were inappropriate or nonexistent.

Most of the budgetary resources had been diverted to developing unusual advancements.
 
The British regiments used new breech-loading rifles, supposedly far superior to the traditional muzzle-loading guns that armies had used for centuries.
 
British riflemen could fire more rapidly, though with more frequent muzzle explosions and misfires.

Explosive landmines -- another innovation for the Crimean War -- were planted beneath the ground and detonated with each Russian foray.
 
The terror of these mines worsened when the allies could not remember precisely
where
they had been planted.
 
Killing indiscriminately, the explosions took as great a toll on allied troops as they did against the enemy.

Correspondents from European newspapers made use of hastily laid telegraph lines, reporting daily events with unprecedented speed to readers of their periodicals.
 
Never before had the public experienced a distant war
as it actually happened
.
 
Armed with new camera equipment, intrepid photographers set up tripods and used bottles of chemicals, glass plates, and cumbersome light boxes to record visual images of the events.
 
Photographs provided a starker realism than battlefield sketches, causing quite a sensation back in the civilized areas of Britain and France.
 

Nemo, though, was more concerned with setting up siege walls and defensive apparatus.
 
He used pulleys and wooden crossbeams and adapted good old medieval technology to help in the war effort.

He already longed to go home to Caroline.

One morning, after the dawn fog had lifted over the battered siege ground, Nemo completed the intricate scaffolding for an observation tower atop a grassy hill.
 
From this vantage, he saw a group of Turkish troops riding past for the regular exchange of soldiers.
 
French troops moved into the front positions where Sardinians had camped, while British infantry moved to the fields that had held Turks.
 
Though the number of fighters didn’t change, the constant rotation of army encampments created a confusing hive of activity that accomplished no purpose.
 
Was it part of a plot calculated to confuse the Russians inside the fortress, or just military incompetence caused by conflicting commands?

Unlike the battered and poorly supplied Europeans, these oncoming Turkish warriors looked dashing in fine uniforms of bright silk.
 
Though their weapons were more primitive than breech-loading rifles and long-range cannons, their eyes held a hard glint, and their stance was determined.
 
Most of the Turkish soldiers Nemo had seen were dedicated fighters, vigorous to protect the Crimea.
 

But these men were harder, both pompous and dangerous.
 
The horsemen paused to stare at Nemo’s crude construction.
 
Wearing loose outfits, sashes, and turbans, they sat astride sleek brown horses, surveying the quiet battlefield . . . and at the same time somehow assessing
him.
 
Nemo stared back.

The broad-shouldered man at their lead had a long face, a neatly trimmed beard that etched out a silhouette of his pointed chin, and long eyebrows that curled like insect antennae.
 
A green silk turban covered his head, adorned with an emerald the size of a walnut.
 
He rode proudly on the largest stallion, which pranced about as if charged with energy.

Nemo could tell from the man’s embroidered clothing and stiff bearing that he was an important man, a
caliph
or military leader in charge of Turkish troops.
 
When the caliph rode up to the scaffolding, Nemo stopped what he was doing, set aside his blueprint sketches, and waited.
 

The caliph’s stallion snorted and shifted on its hooves.
 
The man’s eyes flashed with black fire, as if his head could not contain the ambitious thoughts in his mind.
 
A long scar shaped like a lightning bolt marred the tan skin of his left cheek.
 
He stared at Nemo in silence for a long moment, and the engineer wondered if the caliph could speak English.
 
In his time on the Crimea, Nemo had spent enough time in Turkish camps to pick up a few words of the language.

The caliph nodded at the jury-rigged siege tower and said in accented but clear French, and then again in English: “Good work.
 
Very good work indeed, Engineer.
 
I have been watching you.”
 

Then the caliph yanked his horse’s head around and dug in his heels.
 
He and his troops rode off down the hill toward the army encampments around the walls of Sevastopol.

iii

By late October, 1854, the siege showed few signs of letting up.
 
The Russians trapped inside the Sevastopol fortress had lit fires and burned down buildings.
 
At night, occasional deserters slipped out and fled alone across the countryside.

Supplies began running out for the British and French forces as well.
 
When a Sardinian cargo ship arrived, the food and clothing were rapidly distributed -- and came up far short.
 
Spotters stood on the beaches, looking across the Black Sea in vain for other sails.

In hill camps, the Turkish warriors kept to themselves, separated by culture and language . . . as well as the knowledge that, though this war was supposedly being fought on their behalf, theirs was the weakest army here.
 

After centuries of greatness, the Ottoman Empire had recently been led by several generations of self-absorbed Sultans whose vision rarely strayed beyond the palace boundaries.
 
Regardless of the religious or patriotic overtones imparted by other European leaders, the Turkish lands were seen as lush prizes in an Imperial game.
 
Though claiming altruistic motives, the leaders of Europe had their eyes on the riches of the Black Sea region.

Nemo’s quiet engineering work had improved the lives and strategic positions of the allied armies.
 
His ingenuity became so well known among the troops that he was recognized in any camp.
 
Many soldiers wanted to hear about his balloon trip across Africa, or about being marooned on a desert island, or about fighting against pirates in the South China Sea.
 
Others just wanted Nemo’s best guess as to when they would all be going home.

For two days he bedded down on the plain with the British Light Brigade: six hundred mounted troops that could move quickly, unencumbered by heavy artillery.
 
They could be ready at a moment’s notice to charge against an enemy.
 
As the siege dragged on, the proud brigadiers had grown restless for action.

Though the Earl of Cardigan was ostensibly their commander, friction among the British officers had thrown leadership of the Light Brigade into question.
 
Often, conflicting orders were issued, either by or against Cardigan, just to spite him or to plunge the troops into confusion.
 
Morale had reached its lowest point, and nothing in Nemo’s engineering repertoire could fix that.

After crawling out of his tent, he ate a meager breakfast, refreshed himself, and went to check his horse.
 
For now, Nemo had spent enough time studying the Light Brigade’s encampment to the north of Sevastopol, and he intended to move on that morning.
 

Before he could leave, however, an alarm sounded, and the brigadiers sprang out of their white tents.
 
They blinked in surprise and confusion -- then excitement.
 
“The Russians are moving!
 
They’re trying to break free from the north.”

Bugles shrilled, and members of the Light Brigade rushed to saddle their horses and gather their weapons.
 
“They’re heading toward Balaclava,” one of the commanders yelled.

Remembering his terrain maps, Nemo realized the military significance of Balaclava, a small fortified village not far from Sevastopol.
 
The Russian troops had lost Balaclava early in the siege -- but if they could retake it, they would expand their foothold on the Crimea and gain desperately needed supplies.
 

Earl Cardigan stepped out of the officer’s tent in full commander’s uniform and raised his ponderous voice.
 
“Upon our honor, men, the Brigade shall be the first to meet them.”
 
Cardigan lifted his ceremonial sword in the air and sawed the reins of his horse.
 
The heavy mare reared up, making the earl look every inch the commanding military figure.
 
“Light Brigade, prepare to charge!”

Nemo climbed into the saddle of his horse and looked across to where the fortress gates had been thrown down.
 
The frantic Russian army poured forth with all their forces, cannon, rifles, and infantrymen.