The Street Philosopher Read online

  Kitson nodded and tried to work, but was unable to compose more than fractured notes. A minute or so passed; Cracknell asked for another word for ‘unstoppable’.

  ‘Inexorable,’ Kitson yelled back over the guns.

  ‘Aha.’ Cracknell made a correction. ‘Of course. I knew that you were on this campaign with good reason, Thomas.’

  Kitson smiled mirthlessly and carried on writing.

  There were shouts, and the blasts of NCOs’ whistles. The senior correspondent closed his book, got to his knees and looked down towards the river. ‘Come, gentlemen. It is time for us to follow.’ He heaved himself up, and started out on to the battlefield, stepping through the ragged, barely recognisable bodies that fringed the copse as if they were nothing more than fish heads in the gutters of a city market.

  Kitson edged over to Styles, who had not moved. The illustrator had a piece of paper before him, on which he had succeeded only in making a crude study of a dismembered foot. ‘Mr Styles,’ he said, ‘we are leaving.’

  Styles quickly packed away his drawing equipment. He looked profoundly scared. Kitson found that he was strangely reassured by this, and liked the illustrator all the more for it. Fear was the only sane reaction to their current circumstances, and formed a welcome contrast to the unflinching bravado of their senior. Taking Styles’ arm, he helped him to his feet. ‘This way–towards the vineyard. Be sure to keep your head down.’ Together, they ventured from the copse.

  A heavier trail of corpses marked the path of the advance, bodies crumpled on the ground as if they had been dropped from a height, cast aside by some enraged giant. The loose stone wall surrounding the vineyards had been knocked down, swept away by the force of the line, its rocks kicked amongst the vines by the soldiers’ boots. Clearing the remains of the wall, they ducked under the canopy of leaves. Cracknell was nowhere to be seen. The red tunics of the soldiers could just be glimpsed up ahead, moving through the closely planted vines. These provided little shelter from the Russian bombardment, shrapnel having torn through branches and men alike. The two Courier men stumbled across a ghastly slick of disgorged innards; Styles fell dizzily to his knees, retching so hard he lost his balance. Kitson leant over him, placing steadying hands on the illustrator’s shoulders.

  Cracknell pushed through the vine leaves next to them. ‘And what’s keeping you two, may I ask?’ he demanded. A second later, he noticed the sheet-white Styles. The senior correspondent swore. ‘What’s the matter with him?’ His eyes widened. ‘Holy Christ, he hasn’t been hit, has he?’

  ‘No, Mr Cracknell, I believe he’s—’

  Cracknell’s interest immediately diminished. ‘Then what? A fever?’ He turned away, checking the progress of the advancing troops. ‘Surely he hasn’t been around the miasmas of the camp for long enough to have contracted cholera?’

  Kitson shook his head. ‘No, sir, it is not that either.’ He cleared his throat, bracing himself for a ferocious reaction. ‘It is for the best, I think, if we pause again, to recover our bearings.’

  The senior correspondent was not listening. His attention was given over entirely to the battle. ‘Did you hear that, Thomas?’ he asked, raising a forefinger. Kitson looked around vaguely, unable to make out any individual sounds in the hellish clamour that enveloped them. ‘Muskets! They’re within musket range–they must almost be at the river! Come, we must get closer!’

  ‘A pause, sir, that is all I ask, so we—’

  Cracknell stared at his junior in utter astonishment. ‘A pause? What the devil are you talking about, man? We have to keep up! We have to know, don’t you understand?’ His irritation was growing with his impatience.

  Kitson’s careful detachment, straining throughout this exchange, started to give way. This was the ugly reverse of Cracknell’s inspiring idealism and frequent invocation of camaraderie: a savage disdain for those he believed were failing or opposing him. The journey between these two attitudes seemed to be a short one indeed. ‘You misunderstand me, Mr Cracknell,’ he responded, as calmly as he could. ‘I merely wish to do what is in the best interests of the Courier and its correspondents.’

  The senior correspondent heard none of this. ‘Oh, do what you will!’ He got to his feet, and started towards the Alma. ‘I, at least, intend to do my duty!’

  Boyce cleared the vineyard. A shrapnel gash on the mare’s side was bleeding on to his left boot, and quite spoiling its shine. He’d tried wiping it with a rag, but this only served to make the problem worse. None of the annals of war, he reflected bitterly, told one that battle was such a confoundedly dirty business.

  The musket-fire from the enemy positions started like a summer rainstorm. One, then two, then six shots; and then a downpour, the balls pinging off stones, tearing through vine leaves, and slapping into the mud with hissing plops. Boyce’s unlucky mare caught one in her haunch, neighing in distress as she spun around, looking for her assailant. The Lieutenant-Colonel struggled to rein her in, his eyes fixed on the Russian redoubts. What an uncivilised horde, he thought. Their fire is utterly uncoordinated–haphazard, even. They have no conception of the basic codes and systems of combat. As he watched, a loose gang of them appeared above a crude parapet directly in front of him, perhaps a hundred and fifty yards up the hill. He could just make out their spiked helmets, and enormous dark moustaches, which were both untrimmed and unwaxed–could there be any plainer indication of their savagery? They did seem awfully close, though, all of a sudden. For the first time that day, Boyce became worried for his safety, and wished that his miserable troops would get the hell out of that vineyard.

  Slowly, they emerged, in a rough semblance of the line, to be raked by the Russian muskets. Lieutenant Davy, who bore the regimental colours, was shot in the eye. His body folded neatly earthwards, the flag fluttering down after him. The men behind raised their miniés, and started to shoot back.

  ‘Hold your fire!’ Boyce yelled. ‘Hold your fire, damn you! Wait for the order! Sergeant, take the names of those men! Lieutenant Nunn, the colours!’

  The other battalions of the Light and Second Divisions were arrayed along the gentle slope of the riverbank on either side of the 99th Foot. Marshalled by their officers, they manoeuvred around each other and then plunged into the Alma. Boyce held back until the crossing was well underway, and then urged the mare forward; she leapt in gladly, as if believing that the waters would offer refuge from the battle. The river was cold, and surprisingly fast-flowing. Bullets, shells and shot from the enemy positions were beating the water to foam, and kicking up brown plumes of silt. Riding out to the middle, Boyce tried his best to enforce the line.

  And then he saw him, like a sleek black vole, scurrying along behind the ranks of the 99th, and gingerly stepping out into the Alma. That blasted Irishman, the dishevelled paddy reporter, the one who Madeleine was, was–well, he couldn’t even bear to think of it. What the devil was he doing here, Boyce wondered, in the thick of battle, at the moment of glory, soiling it with his despicable presence? He waited until the wretch was out of the shallows, and then spurred his horse towards him.

  The mare, her eyes bulging with pain and confusion, almost ran the correspondent down. He was knocked to one side, stumbling headlong into the water. Surfacing, he flailed about in an effort to reclaim his cap, which had fallen off and was now floating away.

  ‘Explain yourself, cur!’ snarled Boyce over the thunder of the guns.

  Cracknell, having seized the lost cap, pulled it back on. ‘Why, Lieutenant-Colonel Boyce,’ he grinned, ‘fancy us meeting here! D’ye have a word on the battle for the London Courier?’

  ‘You will fall back!’ Boyce cried, pointing furiously in the direction of the vineyard. ‘You will remove yourself from the field, this instant!’

  Staying mostly submerged, Cracknell’s grin grew yet wider. ‘I’m a civilian, Boyce,’ he replied tauntingly. ‘You can’t give me orders, y’know!’

  ‘You compromise us all, you damnable rogue—’

&nbs
p; A shell smacked enormously against the surface of the river, detonating an instant later. Boyce’s horse bore the brunt of the blast, a large fragment ripping open her throat. With a choking, rattling whine, the mare sank down, her blood gushing into the Alma. Boyce, blown from his saddle, found that he was caught up in its tattered remains. Muscles screaming in protest, he fought dazedly to prevent the dying horse from collapsing on top of him and pushing him beneath the surface.

  Cracknell leapt backwards through the water, his legs paddling as he tried to propel himself as far away from the explosion as possible. The notion of coming to Boyce’s aid did occur to him; he wasn’t the sort to let a man die in front of him simply because they weren’t the best of friends. But the stricken officer had attracted the attention of the enemy’s riflemen, and bullets were flicking at the water all around the carcass of the mare. Sorry, Boyce old fellow, he thought as he lunged away through the bloody current towards the opposite bank, it’s just a mite too risky.

  The senior correspondent was finding the experience of battle extremely invigorating. He’d seen action before, of course, during his famous tour of the North Americas; he’d witnessed the Texas Rangers exchanging fire with the Mexican Army, and skirmishing with Comanche braves. But that was all as nothing next to this. Being there, in the heart of it, made him feel almost indescribably good, as if the fire of life crackling within him had been pumped up to a roaring inferno by a huge pair of celestial bellows. He could swear that his vision and hearing were sharper. Nothing escaped his notice; he felt powerful, completely in control, ready for whatever lay in store.

  The loss of his subordinates did not overly concern him. They would either learn, and harden, or they would be left behind. Seeing them so reduced, bold young Styles especially, had proved to Cracknell that they had no hope of ever matching his mettle and resilience.

  At the mercy of a treacherous river bed, many of the soldiers around him had slipped over on to their backs, or fallen forwards down unexpected slopes into deep water. Packs and uniforms, heavy enough on land, became unmanageable when waterlogged, and several privates were being dragged under by the weight of their gear. Others were rendered immobile, cursing breathlessly as they splashed and floundered, left for the Russian snipers to pick off at leisure. Unencumbered, Cracknell was making rather more rapid progress. For a moment, he considered offering assistance to some of the more beleaguered cases; the shout of orders from the shore, however, made him realise that to get thus involved would be to miss the next stage of the attack, and so he left events to take their natural course. One could not, after all, afford to be overly sentimental about the private soldier on the field of battle.

  Leaving the water, he staggered up the riverbank through a light fall of musket-fire.

  ‘Over ’ere!’ called a voice somewhere ahead. ‘Oi, cock, over ’ere!’

  Grasping at this sound, Cracknell weaved towards it, flopping down under the lip of a long rocky ledge some ten yards beyond the Alma. Several companies of redcoats were hunched there, awaiting their instructions. They were, he saw, from the 99th; it was one of these men who had called out to him.

  It soon became clear which one. ‘These bastards can’t shoot for bleedin’ toffee, can they, cock?’ shouted a sallow, sunken-featured fellow who crouched close to where he lay. Incongruously cheerful, he turned to the man next to him, who was praying under his breath, and poked him in the ribs. ‘Only time you’ve got to worry is when they’re not bleedin’ aimin’ for you! Eh, pal?’ The praying man did not react. His garrulous comrade returned his attention to Cracknell. ‘You’re one o’ those newspaper blokes, ain’t you?’

  Cracknell, panting hard, looked up at the soldier and gave a quick nod. He took off his cap and flicked it against the pale stones of the bank, darkening them with a heavy spray of river water.

  ‘Well, be sure to mention of Private Dan Cregg in yer tellin’ o’ the battle, Mister Reporter, as a right bleedin’ brave an’ upstandin’ soldier!’ This obvious untruth drew a snicker from the men around them. Cregg leant forward and prodded Cracknell with a dirty forefinger. ‘Did I really see the Lieutenant-Colonel take a ball back there in the river with you, cock?’

  Cracknell, still too breathless to talk, nodded again.

  ‘Ha!’ Cregg slapped his palm against the stock of his minié. ‘Serve the bastard right! Serve him bloody well right! Bleedin’ Boycie–got what ’e deserved, an’ no mistake!’

  ‘Enough of that talk, Cregg! D’ye want yet more punishment, man? D’ye enjoy it, perhaps?’

  Major Maynard was striding along the row of crouching soldiers. Sight of him brought Cracknell immediate cheer. Maynard was a solid cove, and a soldiering man through and through–the very fellow for this situation. Laudatory phrases began to form in his mind.

  ‘No, sir, Major!’ replied Cregg with a crooked smirk.

  Maynard squatted down next to Cregg. He was about to speak to the soldiers when he noticed the sopping, panting correspondent stretched out amongst them. ‘Mr Cracknell!’ he cried out in surprise. ‘How the devil did you get so far forward?’

  With some effort, Cracknell sat up, spat out some thick mucus and reached inside the wet flap of his jacket for his cigar case. ‘Grit and–and determination, Maynard,’ he replied haltingly. ‘Yourself?’ He opened the case, releasing a trickle of water and a handful of mashed tobacco.

  There was a crashing salvo of cannon-fire somewhere above them. The Major ducked, a half-smile on his face. ‘I’ve heard you boast long about your commitment to your task, Cracknell, but that, I suspected, was brandy talking. I see now that I misjudged you.’

  Cracknell, casting the cigar case away with a frown, felt his strength returning. ‘Shame on you, Major, for ever thinking such a thing! Now, do you have a comment about the progress of the battle?’

  Before Maynard could answer, something happened further along the line that sent a murmur of animation through the soldiers. Cracknell turned around to look. Major-General Codrington had eased his grey Arab charger up on to the ledge, and now shouted hoarsely, ‘Fix bayonets! Get up the bank and advance the attack!’

  As the men unhooked the long blades from their belts and started attaching them to the barrels of their miniés, Maynard began firing out questions. ‘The Lieutenant-Colonel is down, yes? Where is Major Fairlie? Captain Pierce? Does Lieutenant Nunn still have the colours?’

  ‘Major! I say, Major!’ It was Captain Wray, perhaps the most obnoxious of Boyce’s creatures, pushing his way purposefully through the soldiers. Cracknell had crossed paths with him on several memorable occasions in Varna and Constantinople. Seeing the Courier man, Wray turned furiously to Maynard. ‘What in God’s name is that blackguard doing here?’

  ‘You have left your company in the middle of an engagement, Captain,’ Maynard said sternly. ‘This had better be good.’

  Cracknell let out a low snigger. Military authority, for once, was on his side.

  Wray’s eyes bulged out amusingly from his plum-coloured face. ‘I only wished to say, Major, that we should dispatch some of our skirmishers to discover the fate of the Lieutenant-Colonel, and lend him whatever assistance they can.’

  Maynard’s brow darkened. ‘A respectful tone is called for, Captain Wray, when addressing a superior officer–you would do well to remember that. And you are fully aware of our orders. We cannot break the battalion at this time. Return to your post–we must press the attack.’

  As the chastened Captain retreated, scowling at Cracknell as he went, Maynard rose and looked over the 99th. ‘Here we go, my lads,’ he said, his voice loud but calm. ‘We’re to proceed up this here hill. Now these Russians will learn exactly who they’ve been firing on this day.’

  Cracknell was left lying on the stones as the redcoats got numbly to their feet. Some began striking at the ledge above them with their rifle stocks, knocking loose rocks and earth in an attempt to make it more scaleable. He glanced along the line. The 19th and 23rd were already on the ban
k, advancing up the Heights behind Major-General Codrington in open order, their bugles sounding.

  Then Major Maynard appeared atop the ledge, his cheeks flushed. ‘Advance, men!’ he cried, waving his sword like a semaphore flag. ‘Forward the 99th! Forward the Paulton Rangers!’

  The Courier man reached for his pocketbook, thinking to make a record of this stirring scene. Like the cigars, however, it had been utterly destroyed by the waters of the Alma. Several fine passages, including a masterful account of that morning’s preparations that he had penned whilst visiting the French camp, were lost. Cracknell let the book fall to the ground, where it landed wetly, spreading open like the wings of a dead duck. Ye Gods, he thought, I need a bloody drink.

  The senior correspondent had been gone only a minute or so when Styles recovered. After wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he pulled his felt hat back decisively on to his head and declared himself ready to continue.

  ‘My apologies, Mr Kitson,’ he said, ‘it will not happen again, I swear it. We must find Mr Cracknell.’

  Getting up, they made their way out on to the shell-blasted riverbank. The Alma was clogged with dead, floating face down, bobbing steadily towards the sea. On the other side of the river, beyond the advancing Light Division, loomed the rough crenellations of the Russians’ forward redoubt. Kitson could see that the men inside were working with urgent speed, trying to tilt their cannon so the barrels once again faced the approaching British. Musket-fire continued, somewhat ineffectually–the enemy’s accuracy was thankfully poor. Styles, keen to atone for his momentary lapse, had taken the lead; raising his folder of sketches above his head, he plunged into the Alma and started to stride through the waters.

  The cannon-fire from the forward redoubt began just as Kitson reached the river. It was immediately clear that it was different somehow. Instead of a string of deep, low bangs, followed by the sonorous howl of the iron balls, there was now a more ragged, loose sound, like something being dynamited, and its pieces being thrown in all directions. Then the shout went up–‘Grape!’