‘Get a bloody move on, Gisborne!’ the sergeant bellowed. ‘I’ll have you flogged if I have to say your name one more bloody time!’
‘Goodbye Andy,’ William croaked, choking on the raw emotion of the words as he spurred River King on and trotted off to the front, where the officers were.
He pulled up next to Captain Liversage just as another bugle call announced the commencement of the charge.
‘Just on time, my boy,’ the Captain murmured. ‘You’ve said your goodbyes?’
‘Aye sir.’
Captain Liversage nodded and drew his sabre. His face was even paler and more haggard now than it had been a few minutes ago.
‘Then you are ready. Loosen your sword in its scabbard and ready your lance, for now we ride into battle! Look to Lord Cardigan for the order to move; he is leading us from the front. And remember the training I’ve given you, my boy. You’ll need it to get through this encounter.’
William drew his sabre a tad from its scabbard, leaving it loose enough to be whipped out rapidly if necessary, and he then gripped his lance with his right hand, pulling it from its boot on the saddle. With his left hand he reached quickly into his jacket and pulled out his pendant with Aurora’s portrait.
‘I swear I’ll get through this, my love,’ he whispered, kissing the picture as a stabbing pang of grief and sorrow pierced his core. ‘I swear I’ll come out alive. Fir you, fir us.’
From the front came a clear, ringing order from the commander of the Light Brigade, Lord Cardigan.
‘The Brigade will advance!’
Next to William, Captain Liversage began to trot forward on his horse, and William did the same. He found that his heart was hammering in great thumps within his chest, threatening to burst through the flimsy bone-cage of his ribs with the vociferousness of its racing. The morning sun caught the razor-tip of his lance in a brief but dazzling burst of glare, and at once he was reminded of the final night he had spent with his love beneath the shimmering diamond spread of the northern stars and the glory of the Northern Lights. The fluttering of the red and white pennant on the end of his lance suddenly sounded as loud as a madman flailing with fury on a snare drum, and the colours of the heavy grey rain clouds wallowing in the pond of sky above seemed to be stretching, bleeding and blending into a single wash of vomit-smeared murkiness.
Vomit.
Shit.
Piss.
An overwhelming urge to purge all three contaminants from his body abruptly seized him, and it was all he could do to remain upright in the saddle and not double over and empty his stomach all over the muddy ground.
‘Steady yoursel’, boyo, steady yoursel’,’ he muttered as he and River King moved forward. He had to squeeze the words through cracked lips with a tongue that felt like a dirt-caked potato stuffed inside his mouth. Was the rippling of his lance pennant caused by the crisp autumn breeze, or the violent trembling of his hand?
There was no longer any time to wonder. The horses sensed that something terrible was about to happen, and some began to break formation and accelerate from a trot to a flat-out run. It was all William could do to keep River King under control amidst the rising tide of panic that was spreading across the valley like a rolling, choking fog.
Abruptly Captain Nolan, who had delivered Lord Raglan’s fateful order for the Light Brigade, galloped out to the very front, outstripping Lord Cardigan, who was set on advancing at a steady, measured pace. Nolan had a deranged look of dread splayed across his face, and he was gesticulating wildly with his sabre at the causeway heights – pointing at the artillery pieces the Russians had captured earlier in the day. Recapturing the guns from the Russians on the heights would have proved an easy, low-risk task for a force capable of moving with speed and agility … a force just like the Light Brigade.
The sudden realisation of the mistake that the entire Light Brigade was making hit William with the force of a cannonball blasted from a fire-spewing barrel.
We’re not meant to be charging the whole Russian force across the valley – we’re meant to be retaking the guns on the causeway heights! The whole order was entirely misinterpreted! Because of this misinterpretation, we’re charging into certain death! Oh Lord Jesus, oh God, what will become of us?!
It was as Nolan was about to cry out, to scream out the blunder that had been made and to hopefully change the direction of the charge, that the Russian forces unleashed their first barrage of fire. A screaming shell burst just above Nolan, and drove its white-hot, razor-twisted shrapnel through his body. Although his arm remained raised above his head, he dropped his sabre instantly. His eyes rolled back in his head, blazing white against the fragile pink of the flesh around them, and whatever words he had meant to utter morphed into an unearthly moan that rose in a crescendo into a bone-chilling scream. Blood began to gush from his mouth, and his horse wheeled about in a panic and galloped blindly off through the ranks, carrying the now-lifeless corpse of Nolan atop it.
‘Blast that half-wit!’ cursed one of the officers to William’s right. ‘Galloping ahead of us like that and getting himself killed! Ruddy fool, what a ruddy fool!’
William, however, understood the dire need that had prompted Nolan to charge out ahead of the pack, and he now knew why the officer had slashed and waved his sword about with such violent urgency above his head – but he, a mere private, was powerless to do or say anything about it.
‘Captain Liversage, sir,’ he heard himself utter, his voice sounding as if it were someone else speaking, someone trying to cry out from a faraway valley or mountain peak. ‘Captain, we’re—’
The Russian forces to
