William peered through the forest of troops, craning his neck and seeking out the familiar face of Andrew. Eventually William found him, positioned on the left edge of the square, a few rows behind himself and Paul. William waved and gesticulated, but Andrew was absorbed in a sketch he was doing in a little pocket notebook while perched atop his horse. William couldn’t help but grin despite the direness of their current circumstances; even while teetering on the precipice of battle, Andrew would not be distracted from his art.
William turned around to face the front again and saw Captain Liversage trotting up to the front of the squadron. He spotted William and called out to him.
‘Private Gisborne! To me, at once!’
William manoeuvred River King through the rows of men and horses, and hurried over to the captain.
‘Captain Liversage, sir!’ he barked, saluting.
He noticed immediately that the Captain’s face was bone-white, drained of blood, and that the man’s deep-set eyes were alive and pulsing with what could only be fear. To see such a look in his mentor’s eyes could only indicate that something was terribly, terribly wrong. A brew of dread began to churn with nauseating vileness in the pit of William’s belly.
‘We are to charge the Russians,’ Captain Liversage said with quiet severity. ‘I want you next to me, my boy.’
William stared across the open valley at the massed Russian army, with their bristling steel hedge of artillery, lances and muskets stretched across the breadth of the horizon, and his blood ran as cold as a Highland stream at the sight of that solid wall of men and weapons.
‘Sir, forgive me fir askin’, but tha’ means, um, tha’ means that we’re gonnae be charging across tha’ valley? A full mile, across open ground, in full sight ay the Russian gunners? And have no’ the Russians captured the guns on the sides ay the valley too, sir?’
Captain Liversage nodded, his face haggard and tightly drawn.
‘That’s right, William. Guns to the front, guns to the left and guns to the right. We’re charging into the maw of hell itself, and it’ll be welcoming us with an open mouth of lion’s teeth, with raking claws on either side.’
William swallowed slowly, feeling a parching dryness sucking every last drop of moisture from his mouth and throat.
‘Sir, tha’s … tha’s…’
‘Suicidal!’ Liversage snapped. ‘Damned suicidal! Sheer madness, I know boy, I know!’
After this brief, vociferous outburst he tilted his face up to the sky, and released a long, slow breath, expelling every ounce of air from his lungs with his diaphragm.
‘I am sorry, William,’ he said gently, ‘I did not mean to be so curt with you. The order, however, has come directly from the head of the army, Lord Raglan, who is positioned up on the heights. Presumably he can see something, something that we down here on the valley floor cannot, that merits this act of insanity. Captain Nolan has just brought the order directly from Raglan himself, and it states that we are to attack immediately. We have been given a direct order, William, and as mad as it may seem to us, our task is not to question it. We must merely obey and carry it out to the best of our ability.’
‘Aye sir.’
William heard the words pass through his lips, but it did not seem as if he himself had actually uttered them. Where was this thing, this soul, that inhabited this shell of meat and muscle and sinew and bone that was his body? It felt as if it had temporarily fled the flesh-bound confines of limbs, head and torso, or perhaps taken refuge in some dark cave in the depths of his psyche.
‘You and your friends sharpened and prepared your sabres and lances last night, as I advised you, did you not?’ Liversage asked.
William’s grip on the reins tightened, and it felt like a painful tension was spreading through his entire being, as if some malevolent, invisible puppeteer was winding up a powerful spring within him.
‘Aye sir, sharp an’ ready,’ he croaked, his hoarse voice barely clearing a whisper.
The two of them observed a couple of officers trotting out to the vanguard of the mass of cavalry troops.
‘There’s Lord Cardigan, who will be leading the charge from the front,’ Liversage commented, his voice flat, and his stiff expression unreadable. ‘I will be with the other captains behind him. You will accompany me on my left. I know that you are close to your friends, so go and say a farewell to them, and then join me immediately at the front. Hurry boy, go!’
William nodded and trotted quickly through the rows of mounted troops. He stopped next to Michael first.
‘We’re tae charge the Russians head-on, Mikey,’ he said, painfully aware of the tremor in his voice.
Michael, despite hearing this news, looked more excited than anything else; he was raring for battle, and William noticed something in his friend’s eyes that he had never before seen: a strange flare of raw courage, bolstered with a kind of brimming, hissing fury. The sight of this both frightened him and injected a fresh if weak elixir of something like bravery into his own veins.
‘Good luck, my friend,’ William said, squeezing Michael’s powerful shoulder.
Michael nodded and flashed William a grin that verged on the cocky.
‘We’ll give ‘em hell, Will. We’ll give those Russian bastards hell! They willnae know what hit
