The Gold Seekers (41 page)

It is rumored that Varna will be our eventual destination, but as yet this is only rumor, and our regiment, with its horses, is expected initially to be conveyed to the island of Malta.

As you may imagine, Jenny, great excitement prevails throughout our ranks. Our cause is a just one; the Tsar’s desire to add Turkey to his vast dominions by armed assault and brutal slaughter, as evidenced at Sinope, must be opposed at all costs.

War is a soldier’s calling, and I am a soldier. I pray only that I may do my duty without thought for my own life, should my country demand this sacrifice of me. I know the bitter realities of battle—I experienced these in India—and in consequence, I view the prospect of once more going to war more soberly than do some of my fellows in the regiment. But if I may ask this of you, sweet Jenny, think of me sometimes, pray for me, and of your goodness, write to me, giving me news of yourself and our two families and of my homeland. Letters, directed to London in care of the British Expeditionary Force, will be forwarded, we are told. I entreat you to write as often as you can, and I sign myself, as ever, your

devoted friend and admirer,

William De Lancey

He had added a postscript, Jenny saw, but she was barely able to read it, her vision blurred by tears.

We have just been informed that Major General the Earl of Lucan has been appointed to the command of the cavalry division—that is, the Heavy Brigade and ourselves, who form the Light Brigade of hussars and lancers. The Heavies are dragoon regiments, with the famous Scots Greys included.

Those in the know fear that Lord Lucan’s appointment augurs ill; he and Lord Cardigan are on very bad terms and have not exchanged a civil word for twenty years, although they are related by marriage. However, to balance this, our fine Indian commander, Sir Colin Campbell—one of the best generals living, in my humble view—is to be given one of the infantry brigades. He, at least, possesses more recent experience of active campaigning than the majority of our generals.

Jenny dabbed at her tear-filled eyes. Why, she wondered, had the terrible dream come to her, all unbidden and before she had known that William was about to go to war? Should she—dare she tell him of the vision she had seen? He had begged her to write to him, and of course she would; but it

would be far too late, by the time a letter from her could reach him, to attempt to offer a warning. Probably by this time he would be already in Turkey… .

Making an effort, she blinked back her tears and, after folding the letter, placed it once more in the pocket of her dress. She would write at once, she decided, warmly and affectionately, promising that, as he had requested, he should be always in her prayers and her thoughts. But she would not mention the dream, lest it sap his resolution and his courage. William was a soldier, as he had reminded her, and war was a soldier’s calling; he must go where and when he was ordered to go.

She breathed a silent prayer for his safety, recalling with a pang the brief, happy hours they had shared during his leave in Sydney, and then, after crossing to her desk—the desk that had been her mother’s—she reached for quill and paper and started to write.

William De Lancey sat in his tent in the Light Cavalry Brigade camp before Sebastopol, and, a blanket wrapped about his shoulders to ward off the bitter chill of evening, he read, for the twentieth time, the letter he had received two days ago from Jenny Broome.

It was the first and only letter that had reached him since his arrival in the Crimea with the British Expeditionary Force; but she had written to him once before, when he had been in Varna, in Bulgaria, and he had replied immediately and at length. The mails, he knew, took weeks to reach England, and from there a lengthy interval must elapse before they could be consigned to a Sydney-bound vessel. He would have to learn patience. The letter in his hand bore the date of May 10, 1854; it was now October—October 24, if his memory served him right.

It was possible, William reflected resignedly, that Jenny— in common with his parents in Sydney—might not be aware that the Allied forces of Britain, Turkey, and France had crossed the Black Sea in a vast armada of ships, to land on the Crimean Peninsula just over a month ago, and that they were now conducting a siege of the great Russian fortress and naval base of Sebastopol… . He sighed and leaned forward to turn down the wick of his oil lamp, which was smoking vilely.

War had been officially declared on March 28, but by that time the combined fleets of Britain and France had already entered the Black Sea, and he had been on his way to Malta, with two squadrons of his regiment, on board the transport Henry Wilson. Thereafter had come a period of intense frustration, when the troops of the expeditionary force had been sent via Gallipoli to Varna, and—with never a sight of the enemy—a severe outbreak of cholera had taken hundreds of lives, and morale had been at a very low ebb.

The decision to attempt the capture of Sebastopol had come as a relief, and initially all had gone well. The Allied armies, with their guns and horses, had landed at last on Russian soil. They had won a splendid victory at the Alma River and had found themselves within sight of their objective, the enemy fleeing in disarray before them and offering no opposition.

Recalling his first sight of the Russian stronghold, from a summit overlooking the valley of the Balbec, William repeated his sigh. It had looked peaceful in the afternoon sunlight, a beautiful town of dazzling white buildings, surmounted by domes and cupolas of green copper and cut in two by its harbor, across the entrance to which blockships had been sunk to deny entry to the Allied fleets.

There were forts with gun embrasures facing north and south, as well as out to sea, and of these, the great star fort had seemed the most formidable. But there had been few signs that the town was defended in strength or that the guns were all manned. The beaten Russians, fleeing in disorder from the Alma, did not appear to have rallied behind Sebastopol’s crumbling walls, and the sunken blockships, lying submerged in the harbor mouth, possessed no guns. Indeed, William remembered wryly, it had been rumored that the commander of the British Fourth Division, General Cathcart, had assured the commander in chief, Lord Raglan, that he could walk into the town and take it, then and there, with scarcely the loss of a single man.

Lord Raglan had been in favor of an immediate assault, but the French would have none of it. Their commander in

chief, Marshal St. Arnaud—who, although no one had known this at the time, was dying of the cholera—had obstinately insisted that both armies must march inland and around their objective, establish themselves on the southern heights and, seizing the ports of Balaclava and Kazatch, land their siege trains and subject Sebastopol to a prolonged bombardment before any attack could possibly be launched.

Raglan had yielded reluctantly, and in the weeks that followed the ludicrous flank march, the great guns of the invading forces had been landed and dragged into position on the heights of the Khersonese Upland. The Russians had taken advantage of the respite this had given them to pour thousands of troops into the town and build up their neglected defenses, repair their forts, and send in their own great guns.

It had been stalemate, William reflected moodily, and St. Arnaud’s successor to the French command, General Canrobert, had proved as obstinate in his concept of how war should be waged as had the man he had replaced. To the British soldiers he was known, derisively, as Robert Can’t. It was an apt nickname, the Lord knew, and with the bitter Crimean winter in imminent prospect, optimism among the besiegers was at a premium.

William shivered. He drew his blanket more closely about him and, opening his small leather dispatch case, looked in it for writing materials with which to pen his reply to Jenny’s letter. She had written happily of her doings in Sydney, of picnics and dances, of gay garden parties hosted by mutual friends and acquaintances, and of races on the course that Governor Macquarie had originally designed and at which two horses of his mother’s breeding had triumphed. Whereas he … God in heaven, what could he write of this inglorious war? He—

“Sir—” The voice was his servant’s, and almost with relief William bade him enter. Private Robert Bubb had been his groom in India and had transferred with him from the 3rd Light Dragoons to his present regiment. Bubb was a quiet, sober Yorkshireman, of exemplary character and an excellent horseman, and William held him in high esteem. He set a steaming mug of black coffee at his officer’s elbow, careful not to disturb the writing materials scattered about the flimsy portable table. Coffee beans in their raw, unroasted state had been delivered to the camps by the hard-pressed commissariat, but Bubb contrived, by some means known only to himself, to produce a drinkable beverage each morning and evening, for which service alone, William thought, he was worth the small extra sum he was paid as a batman. He was also a reliable news gatherer, seeming to hear every whisper and rumor and able, usually, to separate fact from supposition.

He said diffidently now, as William sipped his coffee, “They say a Turkish spy has come in an’ given warnin’ of a Russian attack on Balaclava, sir. Twenty thousand infantry, wiv guns an’ strong cavalry support, this feller reckoned.”

There were always dire warnings from Turkish spies, William reflected; Rustem Pasha, the Turkish commander, was the source of most of them, and three days earlier he had issued a similar forecast, which had proved to be without foundation—although not before a furious General Cathcart had brought his division down from the upland and had then been compelled to march them back again, in a state of exhaustion.

But any threat to Balaclava had to be taken seriously. The small harbor was packed to capacity with shipping; through it, all stores, ammunition, food rations, and water for the infantry divisions and the naval gunners on the Khersonese Upland had to be taken, and the wounded brought down by the same route to the ships lying offshore. And the port was thinly defended. Under the command of Sir Colin Campbell, a single infantry regiment, the seven-hundred-strong 93rd Highlanders, was positioned at the village of Kadikoi, at the head of the gorge a mile above the harbor, supported by a single troop of horse artillery.

Spread out in a semicircle behind them were two battalions of marines with artillery and, across the South Valley, guarding the Causeway Heights and Woronzoff Road—the main line of communication with the upland—fourteen hundred Turco-Tunisian auxiliaries, manning six redoubts, as yet only partially completed.

“What has been the reaction to the spy’s warning, Bubb?”

William inquired. “What have your informants to say about it?”

Clicking his tongue disapprovingly, Private Bubb bent to pick up the heavily mud-coated boots William had discarded after that morning’s picket duty.

” Twill take me a month o’ Sundays to get these back in shape, sir,” the batman said glumly. He added, without a change of tone, “They do say as Lord Raglan is of the opinion that it’s just another false alarm, but that Sir Colin disagrees wiv him. He’s worried about them Turks on the Causeway Heights; he doesn’t reckon as they’ll ‘old if they was to come under an ‘eavy attack, you see, sir. An’ who’s to say they would? When all’s said an’ done, the poor sods is cut off—there’s nigh on a mile atween some o’ their positions, and they ain’t been given all the guns they was promised. Some of ‘em only have a couple o’ six-pounders.”

That was true, William realized. The ships of the fleet had been stripped of their heavy guns weeks before to arm the upland siege batteries; their commanders, understandably, were loath to part with the few that were left to them. Least of all did they want to entrust them to the Turks, of whose fighting qualities they were in doubt.

“Lord Lucan’s been ‘having a confab wiv Sir Colin seemingly, sir,” Bubb went on, referring to the cavalry’s divisional commander, General the Earl of Lucan. ” Twill be us or the ‘eavies as will be called out to ‘elp them Turks if they do come under attack, I fancy. Leastways, sir, that’s what ‘is Lordship’s orderly was sayin’ in the canteen.”

“He should know,” William said dryly. “If anyone does.” He set down his cup, regretting that the coffee was finished. “And let us hope he is right, Bubb. It’s time our men were given the chance to show what they can do. Is reveille at the usual time?”

“Aye, sir. Inspection an hour afore daybreak, like it always is. But Lord Cardigan won’t be there—gone back to ‘is yacht, he has, an’ taken Private Ash wiv ‘im. So he can’t be expecting no attack, can ‘e, sir?” Bubb cleared his throat noisily and gestured at the boots. “I’d best see what I can do wiv these, sir, so’s you can wear ‘em in the morning. Wouldn’t do to go into action against the Ruskies wiv dirty boots, would it, sir?” He grinned. “If we go into action, that’s to say. I dunno about you, sir, but speakin’ for meself, I’m a mite tired o’ being called a gilded popinjay by a bunch o’ bloomin’ foot soldiers!”

And so, William thought sourly, was he, for all he was aware that the reason for it was that Lord Raglan was so deficient in cavalry that he would not—dared not—risk the few regiments he had in major conflict. He needed the Light Brigade for outlying picket duty and intelligence gathering, and time and again—most memorably at the Alma—when a charge might well have turned the tide in the Allies’ favor, the order had come for them to withdraw. Small wonder, therefore, that the infantry soldiers, who had borne the brunt of the fighting and suffered many casualties in consequence, should mock the men of the lancer, hussar, and light dragoon regiments in their brilliant uniforms and deride them as popinjays.

Edward Nolan, aide-de-camp to General Airey, Lord Raglan’s chief of staff, and an acknowledged expert in cavalry tactics, had openly and angrily criticized the British commander in chief’s failure to make use of the Light Brigade.

“What is the use,” he had demanded scornfully, “of possessing the best-trained, best-disciplined, and best-mounted light cavalry regiments in the world and keeping them in a damned bandbox?”