Flashman at the Charge. George Fraser MacDonald
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and then he rolled away, and someone else jumped down to see to him.
Raglan halted, cool as you like, glancing right and left, and then summoned two of the gallopers and sent them pounding away along the bank to find Evans and Brown, whose divisions were being smashed to pieces at the foot of the bluffs. Then he says, ‘Come along, gentlemen. We shall find a vantage point,’ and cantered up the gully that opened up before us just there in the bluff-face. For a wonder it seemed empty, all the Ruskis being on the heights to either side, and the smoke was hanging above our heads in such clouds you couldn’t see more than twenty yards up the hill. A hell of a fine position for a general to be in, you may think, and Raglan must have thought so, too, for suddenly he spurred his horse at the hill to the left, and we all ploughed up behind him, scrambling on the shale and rough tufts, through the reeking smoke, until suddenly we were through it, and on the top of a little knoll at the bluff foot.
I’ll never forget that sight. Ahead and to our left rose the bluffs, bare steep hillside for five hundred feet. We could see the Russian positions clear as day, the plumes of musket smoke spouting down from the trenches, and the bearded faces behind them. Directly to our left was a huge redoubt, packed with enemy guns and infantry; there were other great batteries above and beyond. In front of the big redoubt the ground was thick with the bodies of our men, but they were still swarming up from the river, under a hail of firing. And beyond, along the bluffs, they were still advancing, a great sprawling mass of scarlet coats and white cross belts, clawing their way up, falling, scattering, re-forming and pressing on. For a mile, as far as one could see, they were surging up, over that hellish slope with the dead scattered before them, towards the smoking positions of the enemy.
Better here than there, thinks I, until I realised that we were sitting up in full view, unprotected, with the Ruski infantry not a hundred yards away. We were absolutely ahead of our own infantry, thanks to that fool Raglan – and he was sitting there, with his blue coat flapping round him, and his plumed hat on his head, as calm as if it were a review, clinging to his saddle with his knees alone, while he steadied his glass with his single arm. There was so much shot whistling overhead, you couldn’t be sure whether they were firing on us with intent or not.
And then right up on the crest, above the batteries, we saw the Russian infantry coming down the slope – a great brown mass, packed like sardines, rank after rank of them. They came clumping slowly, inexorably down towards the batteries, obviously intent on rolling into our infantry below. They looked unstoppable, and Raglan whistled through his teeth as he watched them.
‘Too good to miss, by George!’ cries he, and turning, caught my eye. ‘Down with you, Flashman! Guns, at once!’ and you may understand that I didn’t need telling twice. ‘Stay there!’ shouts I to Willy, and then had my charger down that slope like a jack rabbit. There were gun-teams labouring and splashing up the bank, and I bawled to them to make haste to the ridge. The horses were lashed up the muddy slope, the guns swinging wildly behind them; one of our gallopers got them positioned, with the gunners hauling them round by main force, and as I came back up the hill – none too swiftly – the first salvoes were screaming away to crash into the flank of the Russian columns.
It was havoc all along the bluffs, and smoking hell on that little hill. There were infantry pouring past us now, sweating, panting, smoke-blackened faces, and bayonets thrust out ahead as they surged by and upwards towards the Russian positions. They were shrieking and bawling like madmen, heedless apparently of the bloody holes torn in their ranks by the Russian firing; I saw two of them suddenly turn into pulp as a fusillade struck them, and another lying screaming with a thigh shot away. I looked for Raglan, and saw him with a couple of gallopers preparing to descend the hill; I looked for Willy, and there he was, his hat gone, shouting like a madman at the passing infantry.
And then, by God, he whirled up his sabre, and went flying along with them, across the face of the slope towards the nearest battery. His horse stumbled and recovered, and he waved his sword and huzza’d. ‘Come back, you German lunatic!’ I yelled, and Raglan must have heard me, for he checked his horse and turned. Even with the shot flying and the screaming and the thunder of the guns, with the fate of the battle in his hands, those ears which were normally deaf to sense caught my words. He saw me, he saw Willy, careering away along the bluffs among the infantry, and he sang out: ‘After him, Flashman!’
Probably, addressed to any other man in the army, that order would have evoked an immediate response. The Eye of the Chief, and all that. But I took one look along that shell-swept slope, with the bodies thick on it, and that young idiot riding through the blood and bullets, and I thought, by God, let him go for me. I hesitated, and Raglan shouted again, angrily, so I set my charger towards him, cupping a hand behind my ear, and yelling: ‘What’s that, my lord?’ He shouted and pointed again, stabbing with his finger, and then a shot mercifully ploughed up the ground between us, and as the dirt showered over me I took the opportunity to roll nimbly out of the saddle.
I clambered up again, like a man dazed, and rot him, he was still there, and looking thoroughly agitated. ‘The Prince, Flashman!’ he bawls, and then one of the gallopers plucked at his coat, and pointed to the right, and off they went, leaving me clutching at my horse’s head, and Willy a hundred yards away, in the thick of the advancing infantry, setting his horse to the breastwork of the battery. It baulked, and he reeled in the saddle, his sabre falling, and then he pitched straight back, losing his grip, and went down before the feet of the infantry. I saw him roll a yard or two, and then he lay still, as the advance passed over him.
Christ, I thought, he’s done for, and as our fellows surged into the battery, and the firing from above slackened, I picked my way cautiously along, through those dreadful heaps of dead and dying and wounded, with the stink of blood and powder everywhere, and the chorus of shrieks and moans of agony in my ears. I dropped on one knee beside the little blue-clad figure among the crimson; he was lying face down. I turned him over, and vomited. He had half a face – one glazed eye, and brow, and cheek, and on the other side, just a gory mash, with his brains running out of it.
I don’t know how long I crouched there, staring at him, horror-struck. Above me, I could hear all hell of firing and shouting still going on as the battle surged up the slope, and I shook with fear at it. I wasn’t going near that again, not for a pension, but as I forced myself to look at what was left of Willy, I found myself babbling aloud: ‘Jesus, what’ll Raglan say? I’ve lost Willy – my God, what will they say?’ And I began cursing and sobbing – not for Willy, but out of shock and for the folly and ill-luck that had brought me to this slaughterhouse and had killed this brainless brat, this pathetic princeling who thought war was great sport, and had been entrusted to my safe-keeping. By God, his death could be the ruin of me! So I swore and wept, crouched beside his corpse.
‘Of all the fearful sights I have seen on this day, none has so wrung my heart as this.’ That’s what Airey told Raglan, when he described how he had found me with Willy’s body above the Alma. ‘Poor Flashman, I believe his heart is broken. But to see the bravest blade on your staff, an officer whose courage is a byword in the army, weeping like a child beside his fallen comrade – it is a terrible thing. He would have given his own life a hundred times, I know, to preserve that boy.’
I was listening outside the tent-flap, you see, stricken dumb with manly grief. Well, I thought, that’s none so bad; crying with funk and shock has its uses, provided it’s mistaken for noble tears. Raglan couldn’t blame me, after all; I hadn’t shot the poor little fool, or been able to stop him throwing his life away. Anyway, Raglan had a victory to satisfy him, and even the loss of a royal galloper couldn’t sour that, you’d think. Aye, but it could.
He was all stern reproach when finally I stood in front of him, covered in dust, played out with fear, and doing my damnedest to look contrite – which wasn’t difficult.
‘What,’ says he, in a voice like a church bell, ‘will you tell Her Majesty?’
‘My lord,’ says I. ‘I am sorry, but it was no fault—’
He held up his one fine hand. ‘Here is no question of fault, Flashman. You had a sacred duty – a trust, given into your hands by your own sovereign, to preserve that precious life. You have failed, utterly.