The sound of the trumpet had died away, and it was only as the cavalry advanced, lances held high, that Sinclair noted the strange, almost unnatural hush that seemed to have fallen over the entire valley. No rifles were fired from the heights, no cannons boomed, no breeze rustled the short grass. All he could hear were the creaking of the leather saddles and the jingling of spurs. It was as if the whole world was holding its breath, waiting to see how this spectacle would unfold.
Sinclair held his reins loosely in his hands, knowing that the time would soon come when he would have to tighten his grip and urge Ajax on into a maelstrom of fire. The horse lifted its head, snorting at the fresh air, happy to trot at last on level, hard-packed ground. Sinclair tried to keep his gaze fixed firmly ahead, on the trim figure of Lord Cardigan, sitting erect in his saddle, his gold-laced pelisse not dangling from his shoulder, as was the custom, but worn as a coat. Cardigan never once turned around to observe his troops, for to do so, as any cavalryman knew, was to signal uncertainty, and Lord Cardigan was nothing but certain of himself. Whatever Sinclair and the other men thought of him in general, much as they might mock him for his luxurious ways and petty insistence on protocol, on that day he was an inspiring figure.
And then Sinclair saw, at the far end of the valley, a puff of smoke, as delicate and round as a dandelion head, then another. The boom of the cannon fire arrived only a second or two later, and a fountain of dirt and grass erupted into the air. The shots had fallen short, but Sinclair knew that the Russian gunners were simply finding their range. The front line had advanced no more than fifty or sixty yards, when to Sinclair’s astonishment Captain Nolan broke from the ranks and raced, in a gross breach of all military etiquette, directly across Lord Cardigan’s path, waving his sword; he had wheeled in his saddle and was shouting something at Cardigan that was impossible for anyone to hear over the rising thunder of the guns. For a moment, Sinclair thought that Nolan had lost his head entirely, and was trying to take over the charge. But before Cardigan could even react to this shocking display, a Russian cannonball exploded in the dirt, and a shell fragment ripped across Captain Nolan’s chest with such savagery that Sinclair could see the man’s beating heart. Then he heard a scream, like none he had ever heard before, as Nolan’s bloody body, still somehow erect in the saddle, was carried back through the lines by the panic-stricken horse. The sword had dropped from Nolan’s hand, but his arm remained inexplicably outstretched, as if he were still attempting to direct the attack. The scream continued, too, until the horse had bolted into the 4th Light Dragoons, where the body, finally silent, toppled from the saddle.
“Good God,” Sinclair heard Rutherford mutter. “What was the man trying to do?”
Sinclair had no idea, but to see Captain Nolan, the most capable rider in the whole British cavalry, slain so soon, did not bode well. The pace of the brigade increased, but only slightly. Lord Cardigan, who had still not so much as turned in his saddle to ascertain Nolan’s fate, was leading the troops in close formation and at a measured pace, for all the world as if they were simply performing a drill on a parade ground, rather than marching into a mounting cascade of fire.
“Close in!” Sinclair heard Sergeant Hatch call out behind him, ordering the riders to move up and fill in the gaps left by fallen men and horses. “Close in to the center!”
The pace picked up, and Ajax lowered his chestnut muzzle, with its blaze of white, and carried Sinclair forward, his sword and sabretache slapping at his side, his helmet lowered to shield his eyes from the bright sun. The shaft of the lance grew unwieldy in his hand, and he longed for the order to lower it and cradle it beneath his arm. And he prayed that he would survive long enough to use it.
Halfway down the valley, the brigade had come within the withering cross fire of the cannons and infantry rifles on both the Causeway Heights and the Fedioukine Hills. Musket balls and cannon shells, grapeshot and round, whizzed and blazed through the ranks, tearing into the horses’ flanks, or knocking the riders clear out of their saddles. The troopers could no longer restrain their terrified horses, or for that matter restrain themselves, and the ranks became increasingly disarrayed as horses and men galloped forward, desperate to escape the deadly hail. Sinclair heard cheers and prayers, mingled with the agonized shrieks of wounded horses and the screams of dying men.
“Come on, Seventeenth Lancers!” he heard Sergeant Hatch shout, as his horse drew along Sinclair’s right side. “Don’t let the 13th get there before us!”