The Devil's Own

by Garry Douglas Kilworth

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

The first of the colourful exploits of Jack Crossman, The Devil's Own sees him in the thick of the fighting during the notoriously brutal and bloody Crimean War. In an uneasy nineteenth century alliance with the French and the Turks, the British troops faced the dreaded Cossacks on the battlefield and debilitating diseases such as cholera in their campsites. Sergeant Jack Crossman, referred to by his admiring comrades as 'Fancy Jack', is a tough, shrewd and skilful soldier, part of the proud 88th Regiment, the Connaught Rangers, also known as 'The Devil's Own.' When Crossman is selected to lead a covert operation, he knows that his success or failure could determine the outcome of the war. Whether he and his men will survive their mission is another matter.

Release date: October 6, 2011

Publisher: Constable

Print pages: 275

Sample

Captain Lovelace was given the message that Brigadier-General Buller, Commander of the Light Division’s 2nd Brigade, wished to see him immediately. The staff officer made
his way through the huddled bodies of the men, bivouacked in the open, the rain falling steadily on their prone forms as it had been almost the whole time since the landing at Crimea’s
Calamita Bay, yesterday the 14th September, 1854.

It was the Army of the East’s first night without their large bell tents and they were suffering miserably. The French, more organized, were under cover. Each of St Arnaud’s soldiers
had carried ashore a third part of one of their tentes-abris. The French had somehow managed hot meals: their preparation had been superior. Even the Turks were under canvas, their bell
tents carried by mules and oxen-drawn araba carts.

‘Evenin’, sir,’ said a picquet, saluting.

‘Good morning, Corporal,’ replied Lovelace. ‘It’s ten after three.’

The corporal smiled and shrugged, the water running in rivulets from his tall shako headgear, across his shoulders, and down his Minié rifled musket. Like the troops trying to sleep on
the sodden ground, the corporal was in full dress, with only a spare shirt, boots and socks wrapped in the damp blanket tucked in his haversack straps. They had all eaten cold fare that evening,
there being no wood around for fires, though some had tried to boil their kettles on swiftly burning grass.

Although senior officers had tents, the majority of the officers were out in the open with the men. Lovelace had had little sleep and looked forward to a few minutes’ respite from the rain
under General Buller’s canvas.

He reached the tent from which came a warm and friendly-looking glow. The sentries standing outside, from the 77th Foot, saluted with their rifles as he passed between them, under the flap and
into the presence of Buller.

The general was sitting on a salt-pork barrel poring over a map. He looked up and nodded. His gaze travelled over the captain’s trousers and he squinted. General Buller was notoriously
shortsighted and too vain to wear spectacles.

‘Lovelace – what’s that? Mud?’

‘Yes, sir, it’s pretty wet – and cold out there.’

‘Hmmm. Never mind, man, the rain will stop before morning and then the sun will soon dry us out. September, after all.’

‘Yes, sir.’

General Buller stood up and began to pace the floor, his head down as if deep in thought, then he whirled on Lovelace as if he meant to confront him with some complaint.

‘Lovelace, this must be kept strictly confidential. What I mean is, you’ll have to liaise with a regiment, but their colonel must keep it under his hat too. Understand? You’re
my man in the field, but we need others like you.’

Captain Lovelace’s eyes widened a little. In point of fact he comprehended very little. He had been told virtually nothing so far. But he said yes, he understood.

Buller continued. ‘I want five men and a lieutenant from one of my battalions. Special duties, that’s what they’re for. While they’re with their battalion they’ll
carry out their normal duties, but I need them ready to be sent places – don’t ask me where because I don’t know yet – but it strikes me we could do with having a Russian
staff officer here, to ask him questions. Do you get my drift?’

‘I think so, sir. Yes.’

‘I know you’re good at this sort of thing. Right, remind me who I’ve got.’

General Buller had only very recently taken over command of the 2nd Brigade from General Pennefather.

‘Sir?’

‘In the 2nd Brigade.’

‘The 19th, 77th and 88th Foot, plus the 2nd Rifle Brigade.’

Buller peered at the tent pole as if he expected it to move at any moment.

‘Good, good. The 88th, they’re the regiment who call themselves the Connaught Rangers? The Devil’s Own. What was it Wellington said when he was shown them?’

‘I believe it was, “I don’t know what effect they’ll have on the enemy, but by God they certainly scare me.” ’

‘Good, good. They’ll do. Rangers, scouts, pathfinders, that sort of thing? The Rangers are an Irish regiment, aren’t they? Yes, that sounds right. I’m glad I took over
from Pennefather. He wouldn’t have known what to do with a battalion of Irishmen. Scouts, eh?’

Lovelace coughed politely into his hand and then attempted to correct the general’s mistaken impression.

‘The, er, 88th are a line regiment, sir. They do call themselves Rangers, it’s true – but that’s historical.’

General Buller was not a man who liked being corrected. He glared at his captain, myopically. Lovelace lifted his chin a little, determined not to be too intimidated.

‘Damn it, man, I know they’re a line regiment. Do you take me for a fool? I want five men from the 88th. They’ll be under Lieutenant Dalton-James . He’ll give them their
orders from time to time. Now, I don’t want this to become common knowledge, Captain. I don’t want any of the other division commanders knowing about it and I certainly don’t want
it to reach the ears of Lord Raglan.’

‘Yes, sir. What about Sir George Brown?’

Lieutenant-General Sir George Brown commanded the whole Light Division.

‘Especially him.’

‘Yes, sir, but . . .’

Buller glared at his captain. He actually liked young Lovelace, but Buller found these new officers a little too knowing for their own good. There was another one he had come across only the
other day – Nolan. Too cocky by half. In his day as a young officer Buller had been thoroughly deferential towards his commanders, treated them like gods, by damn.

‘Well, spit it out, Captain. What is it?’ he growled.

‘Well, I was just going to suggest that perhaps the Rifle Brigade would be a better source of manpower for such a task, sir. I mean, they wear green and would be slightly less visible on
the landscape than the 88th in their scarlet.’

‘Rifles? Green? I want some Irishmen, damn it. Irishmen. The Rangers know how to stalk. They know how to use the countryside. Whole of bloody Ireland’s countryside. Understand me,
Lovelace? Rangers, that’s what I want. See to it, will you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And find them a Turk, too. Some beggar who’s half familiar with the landscape. A Bashi-Bazouk. Someone who knows how to squeeze a meal out of a starved rabbit. We don’t want
our men to die unnecessarily.’

‘Yes, sir. One more thing, sir.’

‘What is it?’

‘Might I suggest a sergeant lead the men, rather than a lieutenant?’

Buller stared at Lovelace for a second. ‘You’re one of these damn officers who think NCOs should be given more responsibility, aren’t you, Captain?’

‘Well, I believe that in a modern army the non-commissioned officers are keystones – they are sometimes left with no one to command them and have to take the initiative themselves.
We ought to be encouraging them to dig into their own resources, become self-reliant, build their confidence.’

Buller shook his head in wonderment. ‘By God, sir, you new officers have some strange ideas. All right, the worst that can happen is that these men will be lost to us. We can soon send out
another party. See to it then, Captain Lovelace.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Captain Lovelace knew he had said enough and left the tent. It was still raining. Miserable, cold, wet rain. Lovelace had been in India where the rain was often warm. He stepped between the
soldiers’ bodies again, some actually fast asleep through exhaustion, slumped in mud-hollows which had filled with water. Out in the night somewhere a picquet fired his rifle, probably at
shadows. The sound echoed around the hillsides. A soldier turned over, his ammunition rattling in his pouch. He cuddled his rifle as if it were a woman.

Lovelace had not dared to mention it to General Buller, but although the 88th had been raised in Ireland, and were indeed an Irish regiment, they had a good few British in their ranks as well as
Irishmen. Recent recruitment had been carried out in Lancashire’s Bury and Burnley, and then at Preston, but others had joined in various parts of England and Wales. Not many Scots, it was
true, as there seemed to be some antipathy between the Scots and Irish which even war could not suppress. A Glasgow regiment and the 88th had come to blows only a few days previously.

And so it was that Captain Lovelace found Lieutenant-Colonel Shirley, the 88th’s commander. He explained the business to him. Shirley sent him to Lieutenant Parker. Parker gave Lovelace
the five men he requested, making no secret of their shortcomings. Lovelace suspected the men had not been chosen for their ability as scouts, but because they were either troublemakers or rather
odd: unpopular soldiers whom the regiment was pleased to be rid of. In point of fact, only one of them was Irish.

One of the men who fell under Lovelace’s gaze was decidedly small of stature. This was Private Peterson. Then there was Private Skuggs, a big Yorkshireman with a black temper; Private
Wynter, a recent transfer from an Essex regiment, a troublemaker and general army misfit; and Private Devlin from Kildare, the group’s one and only Irishman. The sergeant was a tall,
dark-haired man with a hard look to his young features.

‘Sergeant Crossman,’ said Lovelace, ‘are you from Ireland?

‘Scotland, sir,’ replied the sergeant in a cultured accent. ‘Which is no doubt why they volunteered me for this duty.’

Lovelace was rather taken aback.

‘You sound as if you’ve had a good education, Sergeant.’

‘Harrow, actually,’ replied the non-commissioned officer, surprising Lovelace with a wry smile. ‘I think you were there too, sir. A few years before my time?’

‘Good lord, yes. But . . .?’

The sergeant’s face hardened again. It did not seem as if he were going to enlarge on the subject. Lovelace decided not to dig any further. He was a little ruffled by the sergeant’s
tone. No wonder this man had been pushed forward for special duties. The officers would not trust him, since he was obviously gentry who had chosen to march with the file for his own seemingly
devious reasons, and the men would regard him as an officer’s spy. Even the men with him, especially the Irish private, would have misgivings about serving under a man with undisclosed
reasons for dropping voluntarily down the social scale.

‘As you wish, Sergeant. Bring your men and follow me. Your orders will normally be given to you by Lieutenant Dalton-James . You will in future obey his instructions before those of any
other officer, even your colonel.’

‘Has this been explained to the colonel?’ asked Sergeant Crossman. ‘He’s a bad man to cross.’

‘Sergeant, you are Brigadier-General Buller’s men, body and soul, and don’t you forget it.’

On the way back to Buller’s tent, he heard one of the four privates say to another, ‘So we’re to be stuck under the bloody tail feathers of Fancy Jack, eh?’

‘Keep your mouth closed, Wynter,’ snapped Sergeant Crossman, ‘or I’ll close it for you.’

Private Wynter did as he was told.

Lovelace had the sergeant’s nickname now. Fancy Jack. Jack, or, more likely, John Crossman.

The captain didn’t recall anyone by that name at Harrow.

But then the man had said it was before his time. Maybe. Lovelace intended to ask around, among the other young officers. Mysteries were meant to be solved. It would give him something else to
think about on these long rainy nights, when his belly was empty and he couldn’t sleep.

‘Sir,’ said the sergeant, ‘might I ask what we’re required to do?’

‘I understand your first mission will be to capture a Russian staff officer,’ said Lovelace. ‘In fact I know it is – you’ll receive full instructions from
Lieutenant Dalton-James .’

‘Sounds dangerous,’ said Crossman, a wry twist to his mouth. ‘Will any officers be coming along with us?’

‘No, you’ll be the man in the commander’s saddle. Sergeant.’

‘I see – ordinary soldiers are expendable.’

One or two of the men, marching sloppily through the mud beside the sergeant and captain, glanced across at the pair. They sensed a confrontation coming out of this insubordination.

Lovelace halted and turned to look the sergeant directly in the eyes, causing the soldiers to pause and watch. They stood there in the rain, like a tableau, while the captain stared into the
face of a sergeant he could reduce to the ranks in a matter of moments. Finally, he spoke.

‘Sergeant,’ he said, evenly, ‘you’re being given a unique opportunity – a chance to demonstrate you’re as good as any officer in the field. A chance to prove
that men of the rank and file can show as much initiative as their leaders. It’s an experiment which I think can work, but I’m pretty much alone in that thought amongst my brother
officers. In the few minutes I’ve known you I’ve come to the belief that you can do it, but if you like I can find another sergeant to lead these men.’

Crossman stood there for several moments, the rain dripping from the peak of his shako.

‘No, sir,’ he said at last. ‘I’m the man for you.’



Crossman and his small band of misfits were hidden in a patch of tall weeds behind an orchard. At one angle they had a view of the garrisoned village of whitewashed houses,
like a jumble of sugar cubes on the hillside. At another they could see the River Bulganak from which the Russian troops were drawing their water. Russian soldiers in grey and yellowy-grey uniforms
passed within a hundred yards of the hiding place.

Village women and camp-followers went down to the water to wash themselves, their clothes, and to fill containers. At this time of day, noon, there was a regular flow of traffic to and from the
Bulganak, which was not so much a river as a trickling muddy stream flowing westwards to the sea. There were places where you could jump from bank to bank, and Crossman saw evidence of raw sewage
floating in its ripples.

Crossman was waiting for mid-afternoon, when the Russian soldiery would be dozing.

‘At least we won’t catch the cholera here,’ remarked Wynter. ‘None of us ’ave got the cholera.’

There had been fifty deaths amongst the 88th alone since leaving England, due to cholera. It was sweeping through the Army of the East like a foul wind, killing men within a few hours. Crossman
had watched many suffer the symptoms of diarrhoea and vomiting; the victims drying to a husk, then simply fading away. Cholera was the first and more feared enemy. A bullet in the heart was a mercy
in comparison.

Peterson, more knowledgeable than the hard-headed Wynter, said, ‘You can’t catch cholera, like you catch a cold.’

Wynter sneered. ‘What, you tellin’ me things? Why, you’re not more’n fourteen years old at a guess. You’ve not even fluff on your chin. You tell mee
things?’

Peterson did indeed look only about thirteen or fourteen, though he claimed to be sixteen. Any of these ages was possible. Only a few minutes before, a Russian drummer boy of not more than ten
years had gone down to the river for a hatful of water. The little boy, in the grey of the Suzdahski regiment, had played with his short sword on the way back. He had been jabbing at unseen foes in
the way a child will with a toy weapon, crying, ‘Yea! Yaa!’

‘I tell you things, yes, you being ignorant of so much,’ said Peterson. ‘My age has got nothing to do with it.’

‘Quiet, you two,’ Crossman ordered. ‘Keep your eyes peeled – I want to get this job over and done with.’

Sergeant Crossman had led his men south through vineyards and orchards close to the enemy lines. They had eaten grapes and plums as they walked. The five soldiers had cut slits in the middle of
their blankets which they now wore like South American ponchos, their belts on the outside to stop them flapping. The extra layer was not for warmth, but to hide their glaring red coatees. Before
leaving the camp they had also divested themselves of their clumsy and hated shako headwear. They now had on their more comfortable forage caps.

The Bashi-Bazouk accompanying them was dressed in an assortment of loose clothing, fortunately none too colourful, topped with a ragged turban. A member of the Turkish irregular cavalry, Yusuf
Ali was a stocky, strong-looking man with benign features. He had a habit of discharging mucus from his nostrils using a violent snort of breath. He spoke limited but understandable English and
though from the slums of Constantinople had spent some time as a merchant boatman in and around the Crimea peninsula.

‘Show me again the gun, Sergeant,’ said Yusuf Ali. ‘Let me see the gun. Show Yusuf how this works.’

Although his men had their Minié rifles with them, Crossman had left his back at camp with another sergeant with the regiment. Tucked beneath his blanket, however, he carried a privately
purchased .38 revolver. It was a new model patented by William Tranter: a five-shot percussion pistol with a detached one-piece rammer.

‘Now, you see,’ said Crossman, ‘there are two triggers – one coming down through and under the trigger guard, and the normal one, inside the trigger guard. When you
squeeze the one under the trigger guard, it cocks the pistol. Then it’s ready for firing and you squeeze the trigger inside the guard.’

‘This makes for fast shooting, yes Sergeant?’

‘Absolutely. The cocking trigger turns the chamber and the pressure needed is very light. It makes for a good rapid-fire weapon – the best in my opinion.’

Many of the British officers had armed themselves with non-regulation revolvers, buying them before setting out for the Crimea, but Crossman was only a sergeant and therefore unusual in owning
such a weapon. Most men of his rank would not be able to afford such a luxury. He kept it hidden from his superiors, knowing there was the possibility of having it taken.

Ali reached for the gun.

‘No – look, but don’t touch,’ said Crossman.

‘Sergeant,’ whispered Skuggs, a little nearer to the edge of the orchard, ‘someone coming.’

‘Come back here,’ ordered Crossman.

Skuggs wriggled backwards like a snake in reverse, until he was alongside the others. The group were now lying flat in the tall grasses of the orchard. Low voices could be heard coming their
way, one of them a woman’s. There was the sound of swishing skirts, the smell of long grass being disturbed by feet and the sight of subsequent dancing clouds of seeds.

Insects hummed around the prone soldiers, settling on their taut faces, irritatingly persistent now that nothing could be done to dislodge them.

When he had purchased his revolver, Jack Crossman had also bought a German hunting knife. This he slipped from its sheath and gripped it ready to use. Ali already had a curved blade in his hand
and Skuggs and Devlin had taken their bayonets from their frogs. If they were to kill the owners of those voices, it would have to be done quietly and with the minimum of fuss.

The voices came closer and closer, until Crossman could actually see the blue of a soldier’s tall headgear above the high grass, then it dipped out of sight. There was more whispering and
some rustling, but the voices remained a few yards away and Crossman guessed the couple had stopped under a nearby apple tree. The sergeant signed with his hands that his men should stay where they
were and inched forward to get a better look.

He parted the grass gradually until he could see the woman, one breast bared, with the soldier lying between her naked spread thighs. Her filthy dress had been pushed up to her armpits, the
rucks in its folds mirrored by the creases on her face. Jack Crossman’s genteel breeding made him instinctively turn away from the sight in cold embarrassment.

It was a similar scene to one he had witnessed at fourteen, when he had caught his father on the library carpet with a maid. He remembered the feeling of shock which had swept through him; then
being discovered, accused of prying, and soundly beaten for it.

He raised his eyes again and watched the love-making dispassionately.

Crossman felt a touch by his side and realized one of the men had disobeyed his command to hold their position. It was Wynter. Crossman resolved to discipline him later; the man was becoming a
nuisance with his disregard for authority.

As the private’s eyes feasted on the scene before them, Crossman reminded himself that Wynter had lived half his life in one-roomed barracks where wives slept with husbands. There was
little privacy in such quarters and it meant Wynter had none of the inhibitions of his patrician sergeant. The private watched the love-making with an amused glint in his eye. He grinned at
Crossman and nodded in the direction of the pair.

After about ten minutes the struggling lovers managed to reach what appeared to be individual efforts of satisfaction. The woman casually rolled out from under the soldier and wiped herself on a
handful of grass. A strong smell of bodily fluids wafted over to Crossman. Then the woman said something, and stood up to adjust her skirts.

The soldier grunted and clutched at her ankle, trying to drag her down to his side again, but she laughed and kicked off his hand. She picked up the soldier’s blue hat, which had fallen
off during the love-making, and tossed it away from her. The tall headgear landed about three yards to the left of Crossman. The woman laughed once more and strode through the trees in the
direction of the village.

After a few more minutes the soldier sat up. Crossman could see by his blue, skirted coat and trousers that he was a Cossack, a corporal. The man rose slowly to his feet and began to pee in
their direction and Wynter wrinkled his nose. After he had finished his ablutions the Cossack scratched himself and yawned, studying the clouds in the sky. Then with a short sigh he looked around
for his headgear. Seeing it in the grass ahead of him he began to walk towards the small group. Crossman tensed, thinking it would be impossible for the Cossack to miss seeing the British soldiers
hiding in the grass.

But their luck held. It was only when the Cossack was reaching down for his hat that he noticed Crossman and Wynter. Before the Russian could let out a yell Crossman leapt to his feet and threw
himself at the man. The Ranger smashed a fist on the Cossack’s temple, knocking his head back. With his other hand he thrust upwards with his hunting knife, catching the man on a bony part of
the hip and hardly penetrating.

Wynter was behind the Cossack now and had pinned his arms tightly by his sides.

‘Do for him, sergeant,’ hissed Wynter. ‘Stick ’im quick, under the ribs.’

The Cossack yelled. Crossman jammed an elbow in the Russian’s open mouth. The man’s jaw became unhinged.

A knee came up towards the sergeant’s groin. He managed to twist sideways. His wooden water bottle took the blow, bending one of the metal bands. Crossman then tried to thrust upwards
again with his hunting knife, only to snag the hilt on the Cossack’s skirt. The blade entered the abdomen, but only up to an inch. The man’s eyes opened wide. He knew now he was going
to die and he struggled like a madman.

Crossman tried to push the blade of the knife in further, to reach some vital organ, but it was hopelessly entangled in the cloth. The Cossack managed to get one hand free from Wynter’s
grip and clawed at Crossman’s face, trying desperately to scrape out his eyes. Finally the Cossack’s skirts tore away and the hunting knife went in up to the hilt. The man’s eyes
widened in terror.

He retched and then went limp, his complexion fading to the ghastly colour of old bread.

‘Good, you’ve done for him,’ muttered Wynter, in a satisfied tone. There was a strange and disconcerting curiosity evident in Wynter’s voice, as if he was anxious to see
what the enemy soldier would do now he had ten inches of German steel in his belly. ‘He’s stuck good and proper, an’t he?’

As the Cossack slumped, Wynter automatically relaxed.

It was the wrong thing to do. The man was not yet dead. He drove his elbow back into Wynter’s stomach. Wynter struck out with his bayonet, stabbing the Cossack through the back of the
neck, the point coming out at his throat. A gurgling sound came from the wounded man. Wynter wrenched the blade free, yet still the Cossack did not fall.

He started like a hare from its form, running through the trees. He was amazingly fast on his feet for a man with serious wounds and would have been out of the orchard if the Turk had not taken
off after him. There was a brief scuffle in which the Bashi-Bazouk stabbed the Cossack at least a dozen times in rapid succession in and around the midriff, until finally the hapless corporal,
whose blue uniform was now drenched in his own blood, fell to the ground and lay still.

Crossman was appalled at the butchery they had had to perform on a man who had resisted bravely.

Skuggs was evidently harder to impress.

‘Kick the bugger,’ he muttered, ‘make sure.’

But no one went near the corpse for a few moments while the whole group regained their composure.. . .