The Seeds of Power Read online

  They had opted for the only part of southern Russia practical for a seaborne assault: the Crimean Peninsular. It was felt that if the port of Sevastopol were to fall, Russia would be brought to her knees. Colin, being somewhat better read than most of his fellow junior officers, had reckoned that the fall of Sevastopol would bear the same relation to Russian strength as the capture of say Plymouth would to the British. But he could not deny that were an enemy to land in England and take Plymouth it would probably mean the fall of the government, so perhaps there was some argument for the strategy.

  Certainly, in the beginning, things had gone well enough. The Russians had been taken by surprise. They must have known a British troop-carrying fleet had left Varna, but presumed it was withdrawing to Turkey. The landing, in mid-September, at a place aptly called Calamita Bay, had been unopposed. But as the terrain had not been reconnoitred in any way, this landing had taken place on an open beach some thirty miles north-west of Sevastopol.

  No sooner had the fifty thousand-odd French and British troops been safely ashore than a gale had blown up, and it had been realised that the ships could no longer lie off the exposed coast. Now at last a reconnaissance was made, and it was found that there were two protected ports, Kamiesch and Balaclava, lying south-east of Sevastopol. Another reconnaissance had discovered that, however surprised they had been by the attack, the Russians had managed to put the city into a state of defence, with sunken ships blocking the harbour and formidable earthworks facing inland. The only solution had seemed to be a siege, and a siege required secure bases. As re-embarkation in the bad weather was impossible, the two armies had been forced to march around from the north of Sevastopol to seize the two inferior ports and regain contact with their ships. This march had necessitated crossing the River Alma, and here the Russians had been brushed aside, with heavy casualties in both armies. The ports had been reached by the end of September. Now at last the siege could begin.

  The cavalry, few in numbers and thus too precious to be risked, had nothing to do at the Alma. Nor did they have anything to do with the siege. Morale had suffered, even if few of the officers seemed to have any concern over the total lack of generalship being revealed by their commanders. Colin was an exception. He was appalled by the initial landings, the slipshod way in which every manoeuvre was carried out, the confidence apparently enjoyed by all the staff that the Russian defences would crumble at the first attack. Well, that had been proved wrong. Sevastopol was discovered to be an enormously strong fortress, defended by the most determined of men. It was going to be a long siege, and now cholera had returned.

  The Russians were not interested in standing on the defensive. This morning, 25 October, 1854, the bugles had blown summoning the entire British army to stand to. Scouts had reported that General Menshikov, the Russian commander, had brought his field army out of Sevastopol and was advancing to throw himself between the besieging part of the British lines, and Balaclava. His idea was to destroy the British base. Obviously he could not be allowed to do that, and every man in the British army had begun to look forward to a real fight at last. The battle had commenced at dawn, and there had already been some severe clashes. But the field, a series of valleys between low hills, could not be overlooked save from the various heights which had been appropriated by the generals, and it was impossible for any private soldier or junior officer to tell what was going on. The Light Brigade had been sent into one of the valleys and told to keep out of trouble, which had left the men muttering more angrily than ever. They had heard the gunfire from the very next valley, and had learned from a messenger that the Russians had made a general assault there, and had been driven back by the 93rd Highlanders.

  The Light Brigade Commander, Brigadier-General James Brudenell, Lord Cardigan, red-faced and belligerent, was furious. ‘Those damned fellows have all the fun,’ he complained to the Divisional Commander, Major-General Lord Lucan. They were walking their horses to and fro in front of their equally agitated subordinates, the animals’ tails swishing with an impatience as great as their riders’. ‘What the devil are we, on a confounded parade?’

  But now a galloper came down the hillside waving a piece of paper. The staff officer’s name was Captain Nolan, and he handed the paper to Lucan. ‘From Lord Raglan, my lord.’

  General Lord Raglan was the Commander-in-Chief.

  The Major-General studied it, then raised his head. ‘Guns? I see no guns, Nolan.’

  ‘They are Turkish guns, captured in the recent attack, and being carried off by the enemy, my lord. Lord Raglan is determined they shall not have them.’ Nolan pointed. ‘They are in the next valley. He wishes you to advance and cut them off.’

  Lucan walked his horse forward. The valley made a slight dog-leg, and then divided into two, separated by a low hill. Lucan studied the situation, then returned to his command. ‘There are guns on those hills.’

  ‘The guns we want are in the valley, my lord.’

  ‘I see those also,’ Lucan said. ‘There are a devil of a lot of them. My people will be subject to cross fire from the hills.’

  ‘My lord,’ Nolan said. ‘I have given you an order from the Commander-in-Chief. Those guns must be retaken. Will you carry out the order, or not?’

  Lucan cleared his throat, very loudly. ‘Of course I will carry out the order, Mr Nolan.’ He turned to Cardigan. ‘Lord Cardigan, you will advance your brigade and seize those guns.’

  Cardigan had also been studying the valley in front of him. Now he said, ‘May I point out that it is against the rules of warfare for cavalry, unsupported, to attack guns.’

  ‘I know it,’ Lucan said. ‘But Lord Raglan will have it. We have no choice but to obey.’

  Cardigan glared at him for a moment, then turned to his men. ‘The Light Brigade will advance.’ And then added, loud enough to be heard by those in the front rank, ‘Here goes the last of the Brudenells.’

  The trumpeter sounded the call, and the six hundred and seventy-three horses walked forward, Cardigan well out in front. Colin rode at Captain Wharton’s elbow, in front of their squadron, and could see nothing save the green-brown slopes to either side, the sweep of the valley in front of them. Then they began to round the dog-leg, and he caught his breath. There were certainly guns on the slopes to either side, but these were very obviously Russian guns; the gunners for the moment were too surprised at the sight of the English brigade to think of firing.

  Of Turkish guns being driven away there was no sign.

  The bugle called for a trot, and speed was increased. Now the gunners on the hillsides woke up, and black explosions marked the slopes, followed by explosions from in front of the cavalry, at the end of the valley. There was no longer any time for thought, as the call rang out to charge. It was at this moment that Nolan, who had accompanied the cavalry and was riding at Cardigan’s shoulder, suddenly let out a yell. ‘The wrong valley,’ he shouted. ‘You are attacking the wrong valley.’

  It was doubtful if anyone heard him. He urged his horse past Cardigan’s, and received a sharp rebuke from the Brigadier-General. A moment later he was dead, hit by a flying shell fragment, the first casualty of the charge.

  Now the valley was filled with the sound of thundering hooves as the horses moved into the gallop. But above the rumble was the roar of the guns, and Colin could hear the shrieks from behind him. Whole rows of men and horses being mown down by grapeshot.

  Colin lost all sense of reality. He counted himself certainly dead, for the shot was flying all around him. Yet he was unhurt when he reached the enemy ranks. The Russian gunners abandoned their weapons in consternation, but a squadron of green-coated horsemen galloped forward. Colin swung his sword as the first horse reached him, and sent the man tumbling from the saddle, but his mount cannoned into Colin’s, and unseated him. He landed on his feet, and realised he had lost his sword. Then he was surrounded by dust and hooves as the rest of the brigade caught him up; he was astonished at how many had so far survived. He looked l
eft and right for his horse, but could not see it, stumbled forward, and a Russian cavalryman loomed above him. He drew his revolver and shot the man, then reached for the bridle, and received a tremendous shock in his back. For a moment he thought another horse had kicked him, and continued reaching for the rein, but then his legs lost their strength and he fell to his knees and then on to his face.

  Boots thudded beside him, and someone turned him over with a thrust of the toe. The revolver was levelled again and then was suddenly lowered. Colin gasped, aware of a quite startling pain where up to a moment ago he had felt nothing. The man knelt beside him. ‘Colin?’ he asked. ‘Colin MacLain?’

  Colin blinked. ‘Bolugayevski, by God,’ he muttered. ‘You bastard.’

  ‘My God, I have killed you,’ Bolugayevski said, and began shouting in Russian.

  Colin lost consciousness.

  *

  Light filtered very slowly through a cloud of sweeping darkness. Colin did not like the light, for it brought pain, surging through his body. He had tried to escape it and the agony that accompanied it, and retreat into the world of darkness.

  This time the light and the pain would not go away. He moaned, and tried to move, and the pain increased. Then he heard voices, speaking some unintelligible language. Russian! He was in the hands of the Russians! He tried to concentrate, to focus, to understand where he was and what was happening, and the voices came closer. Then he saw a face, bending over him. A woman’s face, vaguely familiar, yet it was no woman he had ever seen before.

  It was a handsome face. Too strong for true beauty, and yet reassuring in its straight lines, chin and nose and forehead. He couldn’t make out the colour of her eyes, and her hair was invisible, tied back on her head in some kind of bandanna. Without warning it smiled, and became beautiful.

  Now he was surrounded by faces, male and female, peering at him, clapping their hands. They made the pain increase, and made him aware, too, of how thirsty he was. ‘Water!’ he whispered.

  A cup appeared before him, and a few drops were poured on to his lips. He sucked at them anxiously, but the cup had been taken away, and in its place there was a man’s face, bending over him. This face was very like the woman’s save that it was much older. ‘You are fortunate, Lieutenant MacLain,’ the man said, in English. ‘You are going to live. Georgei will be very relieved.’

  Now the pain was constant, but so was the nursing. Colin gathered that the nursing had been continuous from the moment he had been brought into Sevastopol, when he had been unconscious, as he had stayed unconscious, for several days. Sevastopol!

  He was too weak, and in too much pain, to do more than grasp at life, or to be embarrassed as the Russian women bed-bathed him and changed his soiled linen—even by the presence of the handsome woman on these occasions.

  ‘You are in our house.’ Georgei Bolugayevski sat beside his bed, his face serious. ‘I insisted upon it. You are much better off here than in the hospital. In the hospital, men die like flies.’

  Colin licked his lips, and Georgei held a cup to them; the water was mixed with brandy, and sent his mind reeling. ‘Were there many prisoners?’ he whispered.

  Not many,’ Georgei told him. ‘Now you must rest, and try not to think about what happened.’

  *

  Colin watched the woman moving about the room, straightening flowers. ‘What are you called?’ he asked.

  She turned, and immediately held the cup to his lips. He was grateful for the water, but his brain was active. ‘Name,’ he said. And when she continued to stare at him, uncomprehendingly, tried to point at himself. To his horror he could not move his hand.

  The woman understood, and herself held his wrist to lift his arm. He looked at wasted flesh and muscles. The woman smiled, and spoke, then raised her eyebrows. ‘Colin,’ he said.

  She nodded. Her brother would have told her that. ‘Dagmar,’ she said.

  *

  ‘Dagmar is my eldest sister,’ Georgei explained that evening. ‘She is the oldest of us all.’

  ‘Is she not Russian?’

  ‘Well, of course she is Russian. But Papa married a Danish lady. I am half Danish.’

  Colin considered this. But it did not seem relevant: they were still his enemies. ‘Are we still at war?’

  Georgei grinned. ‘Very much so. Your people, and the French, will not go away.’

  ‘What happened in the battle?’

  ‘Which battle?’

  ‘There has been another one?’

  ‘Oh, yes, only a few days ago. At Inkermann, just outside the city. But you are speaking of Balaclava. We gave...how do you British put it? We gave you a bloody nose. But we could not reach Balaclava. So you could call it a draw.’

  ‘The cavalry...’

  ‘Your cavalry is virtually destroyed. Well, it destroyed itself. Do you know who gave the order for that senseless charge?’

  ‘It came from the Commander-in-Chief.’

  ‘Then he should be at least cashiered, if not shot.’ Colin tried to remember. ‘There were some Turkish guns you had captured...’

  ‘Ali!’ Georgei said. ‘I think I understand. Then perhaps it is merely your brigade commander who should be shot. We did capture some Turkish guns. But you did not go after them. They were in the next valley. Instead you charged several emplaced batteries of our field artillery. None of us had ever seen anything like it before. I should hope we will never see anything like it again, either. It was mass suicide.’

  ‘Were they all killed?’

  ‘Except you, you mean? No, no. But the casualties were very severe. I don’t think many got back.’

  ‘What of Lord Cardigan?’

  ‘Oh, he got back. We were under orders to let him do so. Now you must rest.’

  ‘That is all anyone ever tells me,’ Colin complained. ‘What is going to become of me?’

  ‘You are our guest. My guest. My God, when I think that I shot the man who saved my life. My business is to have my people nurse you back to health. Yours is to get well.’

  ‘As a prisoner,’ Colin said bitterly.

  Georgei grinned. ‘You are better off here than out there with your comrades. Soon winter will be upon us.’

  *

  Georgei came to see him less often, suggesting that the siege was continuing, and perhaps intensifying. Now his most regular visitor was Georgei’s father, Prince Alexander Bolugayevski. Apart from Dagmar, of course, who came every day. But they could not communicate. She spoke no English, and he spoke no Russian. Even if he had not felt it impolite to ask any of the servants about her, he could not communicate with them either.

  Yet he was on terms of the most complete intimacy with the women who served him, whether it was changing his dressing or attending to his necessaries, as he could not get out of bed, or washing him. There again Dagmar was often present. In the beginning he was too weak to feel embarrassed by her presence but as he regained his strength she seemed so much a fixture that it was difficult to think of her as anything other than a most attractive nurse.

  *

  Prince Bolugayevski was not a soldier. He had been caught in Sevastopol by the suddenness of the Allied descent. Despite the inconvenience of being besieged he appeared to be a good-humoured man who did not seem the least bothered by what was going on around him. ‘You are making excellent progress,’ he said. ‘When I first saw your wound, why, I thought, this man has no chance at all. But you are a very strong young fellow. All you need is patience, and you will make a full recovery.’

  ‘Can you tell me where I was hit?’

  ‘The bullet entered halfway down your right side, in the back; Georgei was mounted when he fired, and you were on foot. Thus the bullet had a downwards trajectory, and this was very fortunate for you. It split three ribs, tore away part of your kidney and exited just above your groin. But it missed your lungs, your heart, and your bladder. Any of those would have been fatal. And...’ he smiled, ‘you have two kidneys. But as I said, I despaired of y
our life when I first saw you. Is not modern medicine capable of miracles?’ Bolugayevski was smiling. ‘But now that you are recovering, you are bored. You need something to occupy your mind. You shall learn Russian.’

  Colin turned his head, sharply. ‘It would be a good idea,’ the Prince said. ‘You may be with us some time.’ He smiled. ‘Sevastopol can hold out forever.’

  *

  Colin had to accept that it was no idle boast. The city was not even properly besieged, and there remained always a road open to the north, through which the Russian wounded could be evacuated, and replacements, both of men and munitions, brought in. The French and British were incapable of closing this route; they lacked the men and winter had now arrived with a severity unexpected so far south. He spent every morning with a local schoolmaster who spoke English, and who began to teach him Russian, but he was constantly distracted by the howling wind and the snow clouding down outside his window.

  ‘Your comrades are in a bad way,’ said Mr Yevrentko. ‘They are still in tents. Those of them who are not in hospital. In the hospital they are dying like flies. But do you know, some English gentlewomen have come, to nurse them? That is truly remarkable.’

  ‘Mademoiselle Dagmar nurses me,’ Colin pointed out.

  ‘You mean Countess Bolugayevska,’ Yevrentko said severely. And it is here in the safety and comfort of her own home. To send a gentlewoman into a hospital full of men and disease...it is unheard of.’

  ‘Countess Bolugayevska?’

  ‘Of course. Is she not the Prince’s eldest daughter?’