The Street Philosopher (17 page)

Frowning, Kitson glanced away. How could he challenge this? Revelation of the truth of warfare, as he had declared himself on many previous occasions, was the cornerstone of the
Courier’
s presence in the Crimea. Yet for some reason it made him profoundly uncomfortable to hear this from Styles now. This same commitment fuelled Cracknell’s grandiloquent rage, spurring the senior correspondent on to ever more scathing condemnation of the British commanders; in
the young illustrator, however, it seemed to be fostering only a dark and violent melancholy.

‘Come, Robert,’ Kitson said after a while, adopting a conciliatory tone. ‘We must not quarrel. God knows, this land needs no more ill-feeling in it. We are friends, are we not?’

Styles had resumed work on his sketch, the pencil scratching busily as it transcribed the charger’s mangled remains. ‘Yes,’ he said after a pause, his voice low and a little strained, ‘we are friends.’

The brushwood on Inkerman Ridge was thick and almost waist high. Major Maynard fought his way through, muttering curses as brambles and twigs scratched against his legs. He was holding a tin mug of steaming broth up in the air, in the hope of keeping it stable, but the uneven, slippery mud beneath the tangle of bushes was causing him to stumble frequently. Hot liquid splashed over his hands, making the chilled flesh smart and tingle.

Private Cregg followed about five yards behind him, cheeks ruddy from rum-and-water, with his minié rifle ready in his hands. Maynard knew that this was not necessarily a man to be relied upon. He could tell that Cregg was one of those who had fled to the service to escape the law, joining Her Majesty’s Army in order to avoid being dangled from the gallows. The scoundrel was famous for his insubordination, and was regularly flogged for it; but the Major had noticed that Cregg treated him, and him alone, with a certain gruff deference. Above all else, Maynard believed in giving every man under his command the chance to prove his worth. So this was it–he was giving Private Cregg his chance.

Finally, they reached the battery. Maynard set the mug down and caught his breath. Lifting a fist to his mouth, he licked the warm broth off his knuckles and looked about him in the early morning half-light. The battery, built in haste as soon as the Allies had arrived on the Heights around Sebastopol, had since been abandoned as it stood too far
forward of the rest of the line. It was large, constructed from sandbags and wire gabions filled with white rocks, and had two gun emplacements, designed for Lancasters from the look of them, both now empty.

The Allied positions were already lost in the fog behind them. All he could make out was the battery itself and a small grey ring of the wasteland around it. It was as if they were enclosed in an opaque, smoky bubble, lost to the rest of the ridge. The gloom was quite overpowering. Everything was thoroughly soaked by the drizzling rain that had been falling now for thirty-six straight hours. Maynard took out his watch. There was just enough light for him to see the hands against the white face; it was shortly before five. He put the watch back in his coat and picked up the mug, pressing his hands around it and inhaling the broth’s thin aroma. With some effort, he resisted raising it to his lips, and instead began to walk slowly around the battery’s perimeter.

‘Hello?’ he called, trying to keep his voice clear and confident. ‘Hello, are you there?’

There was no reply, but he knew what he’d seen. He’d been standing in the forward pickets of the Second Division, talking to Major Hendricks of the 55th, a fellow India man and an old friend. The wind coming in from the Black Sea had shifted the fog slightly, affording him a brief glimpse of the abandoned battery. There, close to the dark mass of sandbags, had been a solitary figure in a cap and a long coat. It had been exposed for just a second before the fog engulfed it once more. Hendricks had laughingly declined to go with him to investigate, and advised him to ready his revolver. The Russians were getting increasingly cunning, he’d said, and audacious as well; their scouts and spies were often seen nosing around the old Sandbag Battery. Undeterred, Maynard had beckoned Cregg to his side, and then set out.

There was a scuffling sound somewhere to his rear. He turned to see Cregg hauling himself on to the battery wall, his charcoal greatcoat falling open to reveal the red tunic beneath, worn to the colour of cured beef by the months of hard campaigning. Once up there, the private adopted a
crouched sharpshooter’s pose, looking about him keenly as if searching for targets.

‘Major,’ he hissed urgently, ‘what we after, exactly? This bloke you saw–’ e can’t very well be one of our own, can ’e? What would ’e be doin’ out ’ere, all by ’isself?’

‘I believe that I recognised him, Cregg. A fellow from the
London Courier
magazine.’

Cregg’s eyes, glinting beadily under the brim of his shako, stayed on the mists. ‘You mean the paddy, Major? Fat cove–big black beard? Likes the sound of ’is own voice? I seen you with ’im at the Alma–chum o’ yours, ain’t ’e?’

Maynard could not help but smile at this vivid description. ‘As much as anyone is,’ he replied. ‘Mr Cracknell and I are acquainted, but I would hesitate before claiming any more than that. I’m quite sure that he would jettison me in a moment if he believed it to be in his best interests–or should I say in the best interests of his work.’ He continued his search, peering into the darkest recesses of the battery. They were quite empty. ‘It was not him I saw, though–rather a member of his team. An illustrator.’

Now Cregg looked down at him, his face twisted into an uncomprehending sneer. ‘What, like an artist, what draws an’ that? Why would ’e be out ’ere?’

This was the nub of it. Maynard was but a humble soldier, a career man, not so very different from the scrawny chap up there on the battery. He stood well apart from the grand lords and refined gentlemen who deigned to wear the uniform, and he could not for a moment claim to understand the niceties of art. But even he could tell that it was not a morning for making illustrations.

‘Indeed, Cregg.’ Maynard completed his circuit. ‘Well, there is certainly no one here now. A little mystery we shall not be able to solve, I fear.’ He glanced down at the broth that sloshed blackly within the mug, and thought that he might get to drink it after all.

‘Major!’ said Cregg sharply, suddenly tensing. ‘Major, what’s that noise?’

For a second Maynard had no idea what the private was talking about. Thus far, the night had been a deathly quiet
one, as if the fog was muffling sound as well as obscuring sight. But then, away down the steep slope in front of the battery, he heard the faint creaking of cartwheels bouncing down an uneven road; the chink of metal, and the clump of boots; and, distant but quite clear, the murmuring of hundreds of voices, speaking in a thick alien tongue.

‘That’s–that’s bleedin’
Russian
, that is! The bastards are gettin’ ready to attack us!’ The private scrabbled down from the battery.

‘Calm yourself, man,’ Maynard instructed firmly. ‘It is but traffic on the road into Sebastopol. Major Hendricks was telling me of this shortly before we left the pickets. It runs along the base of the Chernaya valley. All quite routine.’

This served to confuse the soldier rather than reassure him. ‘Supply road? But ’ow are they ever goin’ to give it up, if they’re gettin’ new supplies?’

Maynard had no answer. Cregg was right: the campaign could not come to any sort of an end at present. The sad, simple truth was that the Allies lacked the troops to encircle the city properly, and their forces dwindled a little further with every passing day. Maynard’s fear, shared by a growing number of officers, was that the inexplicable delay in mounting an assault on Sebastopol had cost them a quick victory, and that the already ailing army was now doomed to face a Crimean winter.

‘You would be well advised to leave such matters to your superiors, Cregg,’ he said. ‘Now get yourself back to the line. Mrs Boyce and her friend should still be there with their cauldron of hot broth. I think you’ve earned yourself a cup.’

Cregg saluted and hurried off, plainly glad to be putting some ground between himself and the Sandbag Battery. Maynard turned back to the slope, lifted the mug and took a sip of broth. It was weak and bitter, and now only lukewarm; but he drank the rest down anyway, murmuring thanks to Mrs Boyce once he had finished. He had been most impressed to see her at the pickets, braving the cold and gloom in order to perform such an honest, valuable service for the sentries. Now there, he’d thought, is a person
with a proper sense of duty–more than could be said for her damned husband.

Boyce had been appointed to make the two o’clock tour of the line, a responsibility assigned to a different infantry colonel every night for the past three weeks. He had failed to appear, however, leaving Major Maynard no option but to perform this task for him, instead of retreating to his cot for some much-needed rest. No word had been sent, but Maynard knew that the Colonel (as he now was, having recently received an entirely undeserved promotion) had dined in the hut of some senior artillery officers half a mile back from the line. Obviously the attractions of a well-stocked table, and a sufficiently elevated company, had proved too compelling to leave. The Major had been angry, but not particularly surprised. It was hardly the first time Boyce had behaved in this manner.

Before heading back himself, Maynard decided on another circuit of the battery, to make a final check for any irregularities. As he trudged around its front, the dew from the coarse grass washing the mud from his boots, his brow slowly creased with gathering consternation. He wished that Hendricks, who had more experience of this portion of the line, had agreed to come out to the battery with him. The volume of noise rising up from the Chernaya valley seemed great indeed, and was growing by the second. Surely this could not be normal. Suddenly, there was a fresh clamour of Russian voices, shouting as if for order, mingled with the sound of rapidly turning wheels. These were not now the wheels of the Sebastopol supply train, of lumbering ox-carts loaded with flour, milk, or gunpowder, but something altogether lighter and faster, like small carriages or broughams–or pieces of field artillery.

Maynard swallowed, listening hard. This surely warranted an urgent report to Brigadier-General Pennefather of the Second Division. Pennefather might well laugh at him, and call him a lily-livered poltroon; or he might curse and castigate him for raising an unnecessary alarm, and bid him return post-haste to his own section of the line, where he knew what was what.

So be it. Maynard started to walk back in the direction of the pickets, lifting his boots up high in order to move through the mud and brushwood as quickly as he could. After half a dozen paces, he started to run.

The cauldron was heavy, and Annabel was glad indeed to set it down. She straightened up and put her hands on the small of her back, rubbing the aching muscles. Who would have thought that broth could weigh so much? The soldiers in the nearest pickets began to look around, nudging each other. Word started to travel along the positions on Inkerman Ridge.

‘Broth, my lads!’ she announced, peering through the steam that rose from the cauldron. ‘Hot broth, come and get some!’

They shuffled towards her out of the early morning fog, holding out their army-issue tin mugs for a ladleful of the watery brown liquid and then retreating. Some muttered thanks. Most said nothing, and kept their eyes fixed on the ground. One or two looked at her most oddly–and none too pleasantly. She suppressed a shudder, keeping a broad, compassionate smile plastered on her face. These men were
killing
, she reminded herself, killing on an almost daily basis, and they were being killed as well, in their droves, and sleeping in dirt, and living on filth. Do not presume to judge them. Judgement is the Lord’s right, and His right alone.

‘That’s right, my lads, drink up. And remember, the light of Almighty God is upon thee always. Speaketh unto Him and thou will be heard. Today is the Sabbath. Be sure to offer up thy prayers and devotions this day. As the good book tells us:
the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His
ears are attentive to their cry.’

As if to fortify her words, through the oppressive gloom came the sound of distant church bells, tolling within the besieged city, calling the faithful of Sebastopol to the first service of the day. Annabel thought about remarking upon this to the soldiers, but decided against it. It was probably best not to remind them of their Christian kinship with an enemy whom they would soon be ordered to fight to the death once more.

Annabel looked around for her young partner in her labours, and for a few seconds could not locate her. The girl had retreated a few yards after putting down the cauldron, and now stood all but enveloped in fog, the hood of her cloak raised against the drizzling rain. There was still something of the officer’s wife about her, Annabel noticed. She remained reluctant to mix with the common soldiery.

‘Madeleine, what are you doing back there? Come forward, if you please. There is more to be done.’

As Madeleine returned obediently to her side, Annabel was struck yet again by the girl’s beauty. Such a woman must be used to the adoration of all London–of all England. That she had chosen to stay in the camps said much, Annabel thought, for the Christian goodness of the soul beneath. The majority of the wives had headed straight back to Constantinople after the shocking loss of the Light Brigade, and the first frost; but this young woman, scarcely out of childhood, had opted to remain, and furthermore was prepared to assist with the alleviation of the suffering of the fighting men.

The unmarried sister of a chaplain from the 93rd Highlanders, Annabel Wade had travelled from Speyside to the Crimea quite independently of the British Army. Motivated by her stern Evangelical faith and a compassionate desire to lend whatever assistance she could, she was inexhaustible in her efforts to relieve the difficulties of the men on the front lines. She had met Madeleine in the Commissariat storehouse supplying the Light Division, where Annabel had been berating the officer behind the counter for the continued lack of winter clothing. They had conversed, and she had welcomed Madeleine’s cautious offer of assistance without hesitation.

Annabel could tell, however, that the situation with Madeleine Boyce was not quite as simple as it seemed. Spousal loyalty had played no part in her determination to stay–she only spoke of her husband with barely contained hatred or dismissive contempt. Neither, despite her efforts, was the plight of the soldiers her true reason. There was another motive at play. Annabel entertained no speculation, but she kept her eyes open. She knew that this girl was going to require her help.

Madeleine smiled at a private with a dirty bandage wrapped around his head, who was approaching the cauldron. He stared at her as if she were some manner of apparition come to taunt him in his misery. She looked away uneasily.

Annabel stepped forward, taking the private’s mug, filling it, and then pressing it back firmly into his hands. ‘There you go, laddie, a lovely mug of broth to warm the bones against this perishing cold. God go with thee.’ The man wandered off without a word, casting a long backward look at Madeleine as he went.

This rescue was typical of Annabel. In the weeks that they had been together, this admirable, fearless lady had taken on the role of Madeleine’s protector; and as a genuine affection burgeoned between them, she guarded her friend like a Caledonian mastiff.

Madeleine’s standard excuses for absenting herself from her husband’s tent had soon lost their credibility once the siege of Sebastopol was underway. The official issue of supplies–of what few supplies there were–was now regulated by a Commissariat store so close to where the 99th were pitched that it took but minutes to visit it. The exodus of the other officers’ wives back to Constantinople had robbed her of an infinite source of imaginary social arrangements. She had been left with no good reason to do anything but attend on Nathaniel. He had continued in his usual abuses, insulting her, beating her, subjecting her to intimate assaults; and had soon realised that he had a new weapon to use. The notion of sending her back to England had started to be broached several times a day. He had talked of how a
couple of the very best men had already ordered their wives home; no longer, it seemed, did such a course of action carry its previous implications of poverty and dishonour. She knew that she would have to think of something quickly.

Then, as if by the divine providence she so frequently invoked, Annabel Wade had appeared. Nathaniel could hardly object to her undertaking such useful work, which was so beneficial to the army, alongside a lady of eminent respectability. Of course, he was deeply suspicious at first; but no matter how much scrutiny he applied to the proposition, not a trace of Richard Cracknell could be detected about it.

And as he rode out one bright October morning, in the hopeful days before the loss of the Light Brigade, none other than Lord Raglan had noticed Madeleine and Annabel distributing slices of fresh cheese to an artillery company. He had ridden over and accepted some both for himself and his horse. Quite charmed, the elderly commander-in-chief had praised their efforts warmly and asked their names. A couple of days later, Nathaniel had been summoned before him, and congratulated at length for possessing a wife whose beauty and grace was exceeded only by her noble generosity of spirit. Raglan revealed that he had been informed that Nathaniel had yet to be made a full colonel, despite having led his regiment into battle at the Alma. This he had remedied on the spot; and Madeleine, having been so instrumental in drawing the commander-in-chief’s attention to her husband, was no longer threatened with a passage back to England. Lord Raglan had admired her, so she would remain in the Crimea. Nathaniel’s scrutiny had relaxed.

The resulting freedom was dizzying. She could meet with Richard whenever he requested it. Annabel asked few questions. Everyone else in the camps seemed to have more pressing matters to attend to than the movements of Madeleine Boyce. The cost, however, was mornings like this one. Madeleine did not feel that she was at all suited to the duties Annabel assigned her.

‘They do not like me,’ she said weakly.

Her companion gave a short, dry laugh. ‘No, my dear, I think they like you quite well enough. It is lucky indeed that your husband is not a jealous man.’

Madeleine could not help but smile at this. ‘Oh Annabel, you do not know what you are saying,’ she murmured.

Someone spoke her name, close by; a man with a polished voice, certainly not a common soldier. Madeleine turned to see Mr Styles, Richard’s illustrator, clad in a cap and a long black coat. He was unshaven and dirty, his face gaunt. In his hands was clasped a small notebook, open with its front cover bent back; on the exposed page, she noticed, was a sketch of a large crow, pulling at something with its beak.

‘Why, Mr Styles,’ she answered lightly. ‘It has been some time since last we met, sir. How are you faring?’

‘I am alive,
Madame
, and persevering as best I can,’ he said with a wan grin, removing his cap and closing the notebook. ‘It has been a good few weeks, hasn’t it? I had hoped that we would meet around the camp.’

There was something accusatory in his manner; Madeleine realised that Mr Styles believed that he had a grievance against her. ‘Well, I have been very busy, sir,’ she said apologetically, ‘assisting my friend here.’ She looked to Annabel, hoping to draw her in to the conversation and break the absolute concentration that Mr Styles had fixed upon her. Annabel, however, was fully occupied with the distribution of the broth.

‘I
had
hoped,’ the illustrator continued, his tone hardening a little, ‘that you might seek me out, Mrs Boyce. After I rescued you, I mean.’

Madeleine glanced into his bloodshot eyes. The strange despair she saw there made every thought leave her mind. She hesitated uncomprehendingly. ‘Sir, I do not know to what you are referring, but I—’

Mr Styles flinched as if struck. ‘My rescue of you,’ he broke in. ‘Down by the river, during the battle of the Alma. I saved you from those Cossacks, Mrs Boyce. Do you honestly not remember?’

As he spoke, a distinct recollection returned to Madeleine: of standing with a soaked Mr Styles on the Alma’s grassy
bank–of holding his wet, long-fingered hand between hers–in the moments before she had been seized by her husband and dragged across the Heights like a disgraced child. ‘Of–of course. Do forgive me.’ She took a tentative step towards Annabel, who, already alerted by the aggressive volume of the illustrator’s voice, was now eyeing him watchfully. ‘And I remain very grateful, Mr Styles, for what you did,’ she said gently, trying to placate him. ‘So much has happened since then, though, so many terrible things, that I find one cannot help–’

Mr Styles was not listening. ‘But I
saved you
. You said that you would not forget it. You promised. We—’ He stopped abruptly, his distress darkening to a suspicious anger. ‘Cracknell has been telling you things, hasn’t he? That I quailed before the enemy–that I am a–a worthless coward?’

Madeleine turned from him awkwardly, not knowing what to say. During their first liaison after the battle, Richard had indeed described with some relish how her handsome boy-genius, the would-be lover she admired so much, had come apart at the first sight of blood, shrivelling up like a carnation tossed onto the fire. And although vaguely aware that this was not a fair estimation, she had not challenged it.

Her wordless confusion gave the troubled illustrator his answer. Before he could speak, however, Annabel intervened, introducing herself with loud amiability and asking him if he was the same Mr Styles employed by the
London Courier
.

Mr Styles lifted a hand to his brow, and spoke curtly. ‘Madam, I must ask you to leave Mrs Boyce and I alone. There are certain matters that we must discuss in private, without your interference.’

There was a sudden animosity in his voice, and a presumption in his words, that made Madeleine catch her breath.

‘And what matters might those be, Mr Styles?’ Annabel asked, her expression still cordial but her tone now steely and resolute. She moved slightly to the side, interposing herself between Madeleine and the illustrator.

‘As I believe I told you, they are
private
,’ he replied with deliberate rudeness. ‘I will not tell you any more than that. Now, I must ask again that you leave us.’

Madeleine’s surprise quickly turned to indignation. The arrogance of the man, imagining that he had the right to demand access to her, and insult her friend so freely! She pushed past Annabel. ‘Really, Mr Styles, you forget yourself! I am quite certain that I cannot think of anything–
anything
–more that you and I might have to discuss. Good morning to you, sir!’

She took hold of one side of the cauldron and began to drag it away from the trenches and into the fog, in the rough direction of the British camps. Both Annabel and Mr Styles started after her, then grabbed for the cauldron, one trying to aid in its carrying, the other to halt Madeleine’s progress by holding on to it.

‘Please, Mrs Boyce,’ Mr Styles began desperately, ‘you misunderstand me most sorely. My only wish was to communicate to you how much I—’

A series of rapid notes from a nearby bugle, its precise location lost in the fog, brought them to a halt. This sharp sequence repeated, and then repeated again. Officers began to shout; a thousand men got hurriedly to their feet and reached for their weapons.

Madeleine’s gaze met Mr Styles’. ‘An attack,’ he said. ‘They’re sounding an attack.’

The cauldron fell to the ground, tepid broth slopping over the side, striking against mud rather than the grass that still covered most of the ridge. Annabel saw that they had arrived at the edge of the road that connected the camps with the eastern pickets. It stretched off into the blank, infinite fog; she could not tell which direction was which. The bugles continued, with more joining the chorus. Somewhere, she could hear rifles crackling, and then the elemental sound of cannon, rolling across the ridges and ravines of the Allied lines.

‘Dear God,’ she whispered.

With a start, Annabel realised that Madeleine and Mr Styles had moved off into the long grass on the far side of the road. They were already only silhouettes against the fog’s obliterating greyness, but she could see that the young man
was trying to take Madeleine in his arms, whilst she fought against him with all her strength. Annabel reached swiftly into the cauldron and took hold of the iron ladle.

A column of greatcoated infantry loomed suddenly into view, marching along the road at the double, cutting her off from Madeleine like the carriages of a train. Annabel could not wait for them to pass. Summoning her strength, she shoved into the close ranks and began to squeeze her way through. There was much jostling and cursing, and even some laughter. An NCO shouted for the soldiers to keep up the pace. She could smell gun grease and unwashed men. Her bonnet got caught on a button; she tore it off and ploughed onward with all her might.