The Street Philosopher. Matthew Plampin

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      ‘Looks a bit hot down there at the moment,’ Cracknell said, lighting a cigar. ‘I think we’ll make a brief pause–allow them to cover a bit of ground before we pick up the pursuit once again.’ He drew out his pocketbook and opened the cover. ‘Let’s get something down. Observations and the like. While they’re still fresh in the mind.’

      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 СКАЧАТЬ