Swann sipped his coffee, adding several of Mr Tate’s newly invented sugar cubes, of which he’d grown very fond, and looked hard at Parker.

” We can’t afford to bugger this one up, Parker.”

Parker wished his superior wouldn’t use such language.

“No need to worry, sir, everything is in place.”

” Good. And I don’t want Evans in plain clothes when he goes over the road. Tell him he’s to put himself across as a bent copper and that he wants some of the action, whatever that might be, or he’ll close them down.”

” Right you are, sir. I shall go and brief him now.”

” And get back to me as soon as Deveroux shows himself.”

“Sir.”

With that Parker closed the window, picked up Swann’s dirty cup and saucer and made to leave.

” You’ll make a lovely father, John.”

” Yes, sir, thank you, sir.”

Swann, just for a minute, thought he saw the hint of a smile around Parker’s mouth as the young man left the office.

But Swann regretted his little joke about fatherhood as the past came flooding back, as it usually did after a cup of Parker’s strong coffee, too much sugar, and far too much Turkish tobacco.

Twenty-eight years earlier Herbert Merriman Swann, as a twenty-six year old captain of Dragoons, was sitting atop his horse on the morning of September 13th 1854 watching a dispirited and cholera-infested British expeditionary force come ashore at Kalamata Bay – some two hundred feet
below him – in a blaze of bearskins and red tunics and realised that, although undoubtedly brave, the army of which he was still a proud member, which would still win the military challenge ahead (the Russian Army was little more than a uniformed rabble in Swann’s opinion) was, nonetheless, extremely poorly equipped in arms, medical care, clothing and food. It made him angry to realise that most of the men he saw disembarking below would probably die of disease rather than wounds
received in battle.

But Swann, in that first year in the Crimea, still retained a certain admiration for the commander of the expeditionary force, Lord Raglan, a man who’d served bravely under Wellington (losing an arm at the battle of Waterloo) and a commander that tried desperately to keep his forces on the move in the Crimea by always trying to outflank the Russians by the reluctant use of Swann’s reconnaissance platoon that could, with the use of semaphore, fast riding, and the connivance of an ever growing band of journalists (who made excellent spies), and a couple of photographers, with their wagon loads of equipment, ensure Raglan had as much up-to-date information as possible.

Sadly, the French were not of the same mind as Raglan (who, deep down, still thought most things military could be solved by a frontal attack), preferring to dig in and lay siege, which infuriated the sixty-five year old Raglan and undoubtedly helped bring about the poor man’s death the
following year.

But Raglan’s death, it has been argued, could just as easily have been attributed to the incompetence of the dozens of staff officers who flocked around the commander like sparrows in a hedge, creating
confusion and distraction.

Swann would always remember that dreadful day in October 1854, and the way his mounted platoon had, with a vicious determined savagery, fought their way through the Russian lines during the latter stages of the battle of Balaclava to bring news to Raglan that Russian engineers were
trying to remove cannon from several of the captured British redoubts.

It had been a fierce bloody ride of slashing and shooting, but after a four mile dash under heavy canon fire all of Swann’s men had made it safely, if badly bloodied, to the southern reaches of the Causeway Heights, where Swann immediately pointed out to Raglan the Russian manoeuvres further to the north.

” We can’t let them have our guns, Swann. Indeed we can’t,” said Raglan, looking through his brass telescope. ” Indeed we can’t.”

” No, sir.”

Raglan then dictated an order to his Quartermaster General:

Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, and to
try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns. Troops of horse
artillery may accompany. French cavalry is on your left.
Immediate.

Swann implored Raglan to allow him to take the message to the field, but Raglan was having none of it.

” Sir, you have done your duty this day. Let another do his.”

” Sir, as you wish.”

And as Swann watched the confusion that followed – resulting in Cardigan’s Light Cavalry Brigade stupidly charging the Russian guns instead of creating an encirclement that would prevent the capture of the British guns – he saw Raglan’s shoulders heave, first with anger and then with sobs as the rider-less horses and the ragged, mutilated, survivors of the once proud 17th Lancers made their way back along the valley of death.

The actions of that day carved themselves deeply into Swann’s brain making him realise, if he didn’t already know it, that military intelligence is everything and that to ensure an order is carried through correctly those involved in its delivery and interpretation must be a known and limited number of trusted men.

With the end of hostilities in 1856 Swann resigned his commission, said farewell to such trusted comrades as troopers Lewis, Hughes, Evans and Dale, and headed east by steam ship for the riches of California.

To Be Continued…

Read Chapters 1 – 14