North Valley, Balaklava, Crimea, 25 October 1854

Butcher Jack Vahey’s bloodshot eyes fixed on the line of Russian guns sat motionless in the valley. He judged they were about a mile away, a seven-minute ride if the regulation pace was forced. He knew what he sought to do was a reckless act, and that if he joined the Seventeenth he might be killed in action. But that morning, Jack Vahey had decided his life was insignificant. Six hundred men of the Light Brigade were about to die, and he had to save them.

Still muzzy from the effects of cheap Turkish rum the night before, there were laughs from the Heavy Brigade as Jack dashed by them on his captured Russian horse. Everyone in the cavalry knew his drunken antics by now. But this time, Vahey ignored the jokes and insults from the freshly bloodied troopers and spurred across the parched stillness of the valley towards the Seventeenth Lancers. 

Time was running out, and Jack saw in the distance his regiment had already mounted. He was out of breath and out of uniform, and in his butcher’s gear, he stood out like a clown at a garden party. But this was the last thing on Jack’s mind as he weaved between his comrades looking for Captain William Morris, the Seventeenth’s newly appointed commander.

Morris sensed movement behind him. But the sight of Vahey minus his jacket and with his shirt sleeves rolled up to the shoulder represented everything Morris hated about privates. Jack’s shirt, face, and bare hairy arms were splashed and blackened with dried animal blood from slaughtering the day before. A pair of long, greasy cavalry boots added to his slovenly appearance, and worse still, Morris could see Vahey was riding like a drunken stable hand. 

Morris was utterly shocked by Jack’s appearance and was only able to mumble a string of meaningless insults under his breath. Another matter was occupying his young mind. He had one eye on Lord Cardigan, the major-general of the Light Brigade, and the other on his friend Captain Lewis Nolan who was arguing with Lord Lucan, the cavalry division commander. 

The quarrel between them was out of place before a formed up brigade ready for action. But like everything else that morning, Vahey was oblivious to the argument and what was about to happen. Only one thing was occupying his numbed mind, and this was a good chance to right the wrongs of the past and maybe even get a little medal for his trouble.

‘Permission to join the Seventeenth sir,’ said Jack, his thick Irish accent sounding even more garbled than usual. 

Morris ignored Jack. He was still listening to the back-chat coming from an eager and irate Nolan. Morris knew his friend had overstepped the mark again, and lately, it was becoming dangerous just being associated with him. 

‘Sir, permission to join the Seventeenth!’ repeated Jack more forcefully this time.

Morris half turned his head.

‘Sir, per—’

‘I heard you the first time private.’

‘Sorry, sir.’

Morris turned back to his friend Nolan who was now pointing wildly at the enemy guns at the base of the valley.

‘Who are you anyway private?’ groaned Morris, still not giving Jack his full attention. 

‘Vahey, sir. It’s feckin Vahey…’ spat Jack.

‘What? What was that?’ 

Jack knew immediately he had overstepped the mark and prayed he wouldn’t end up back in the guard tent. 

But when Captain Morris finally gave Jack his full attention, it was apparent he had not been listening to Jack or knew who he was. Morris was a stranger to most of his men. Beards had made it more difficult to recognise one soldier from the other in the Crimea. And to make things worse, Morris was suffering from a fever, stomach cramps, and a raging thirst that he hoped and prayed wasn’t cholera. 

‘Vahey?’ exclaimed Morris. ‘Ah yes, you’re that…that butcher fellow I reprimanded yesterday for being drunk on duty.’

‘Yes sir, but—’ 

‘Still drunk, I see,’ exclaimed Morris. ‘Troop sergeant-major!’

Immediately four stamping hooves cast a thick dust cloud over the regiment, and Sergeant-Major Chapman wheeled his chestnut mare beside Morris. He saluted smartly and tweaked his well-waxed moustache before eyeing up Vahey disapprovingly. 

‘This man should be in the guard tent, sergeant-major. What’s he doing here?’

‘Permission to speak, sir—’

‘I wasn’t speaking to you, Vahey,’ snapped Morris.

‘But sir I—’ 

Morris held up his hand in protest. At that moment, a wisp of sweet-smelling smoke had drifted past him, and his head flicked in Chapman’s direction. 

‘Who’s that smoking in the presence of the enemy!’ 

There was a jangling of horse bits in the ranks of the Seventeenth, and Morris jabbed a finger aimlessly at the two lines of stiff-backed lancers. ‘That man!’ he said, turning to Chapman for support. ‘That man! Tell that man he’s a disgrace to the regiment!’

‘You there…you’re a disgrace to the regiment!’ barked Chapman to no one in particular. He secretly knew that a gentle breeze had blown the offending cigar smoke from the dragoons positioned on the Seventeenth’s right flank.

Morris winced, thought better of his reprimand, and turned back to Jack. ‘And where’s your uniform private?’ 

‘And where’s your uniform Vahey?’ echoed Chapman.

‘Sorry sir, to be sure I—’

But again, Jack was cut short like a razor. A shrill bugle call brought an end to the pointless banter, and everything in the valley suddenly drew into sharp focus when Lord Cardigan brought the brigade to attention. 

‘Draw Swords!’

Cardigan’s order caught Morris unawares. But immediately, all thoughts of Butcher Jack sped from his fevered brain. With machine-like precision, Morris unsheathed his cavalry sabre, and in complete synchronisation, the sword arms and lances of the Light Brigade sprang to life. 

‘On my order, the Seventeenth will advance!’ barked Morris as loud as he could.

Sergeant-Major Chapman nodded towards Lord Lucan and his aide galloping to the rear. ‘It seems Lord Lucan has spoken, sir.’ 

Morris sniffed at the retreating cocked hats and, with one hand, flicked open his pocket watch, a present from his wife in Devon. Gazing quizzically at its clouded face and the memories it conjured up, he turned to Chapman and tried to compose himself even though his stomach was turning cartwheels. 

‘What time is it, troop sergeant-major?’ he said.

‘Ten past eleven o’clock, sir.’

Morris stared back at his timepiece. ‘The blasted thing’s stopped—’

However, Lord Cardigan’s second order to the brigade put Morris firmly on the spot.

‘The brigade will advance!’ he cried. ‘First squadron of the Seventeenth Lancers direct!’ 

‘Return to your post troop sergeant-major,’ said Morris calmly.

‘That means you too, Vahey,’ added Chapman.

Jack tried to protest again but failed. 

‘Get fell in, you fucking Irish bastard!’ roared Chapman in his best put-down voice.

Jack took one look at the sergeant’s flushed face and saluted smartly. No one crossed Chapman if he wanted to live. Men had been flogged to within an inch of their lives for lesser crimes, and Vahey wondered what to do next. 

Jack was on his own. He knew no one would listen to his warnings now that orders had replaced speculation. Morris was a prig, concluded Jack, and in the end, he rode towards the right flank marker of the regiment, the only other place where he might be able to influence the charge.

Vahey was immediately replaced by a jubilant Captain Nolan, who took up position beside Morris at the head of the Seventeenth. Nolan was out of breath, red-faced and sweating from his altercation with Lucan. 

Morris handed his friend a letter home, but Nolan made light of it and drew his sabre. ‘Now we’ll have some fun, William!’ he said, raising an eyebrow at the Russian guns. 

Pocketing his watch uneasily, Morris managed a wry smile and, clearing his parched throat, took a deep breath.

‘Advance!’

Chapman echoed the order to ‘Walk!’ and the Seventeenth immediately responded. Dust clouds rose from the regiment, and the entire Light Brigade edged down the valley to a shrill fanfare of bugle calls. 

A slight decline lay before the five regiments of light cavalry, and the Seventeenth Lancers were the first to break into an involuntary trot. Ahead of them was a terrain strewn with bleached stones and sun-baked earth. The arid ochrelandscape starkly contrasted with the splendid uniforms and panoply of edged weapons glinting in the late October sun. The Seventeenth’s white and red lance pennons fluttered like bunting at a country fair, and only the rattle of metal on metal broke the silence and warned this was no gymkhana. 

All the troopers of the Light Brigade followed their officers without question. Discipline had replaced off-duty regimental chitchat, and none sought to ask why they were advancing or what might happen once they were in range of the Russian guns. British soldiers knew orders must be obeyed to the letter or they would be punished severely, and the Light Brigade had waited so long to play their part in the fight for Sebastopol that anything was better than being held in reserve again. Now their darkest fears were neatly tucked away in their saddlebags, and they were ready to live or die for queen and country, even hung-over privates like Butcher Jack.

But the splendour of the Seventeenth Lancers derided the dishevelled appearance of the lone rider desperately trying to find a position in the neat ranks of blue and grey. Vahey’s tousled appearance was totally out of place, even here among those that knew him best, and more laughs from his comrades broke the tension as he rode by on his little horse. 

With his shirt billowing out like sailcloth and his hair stuck up like a birch-broom, Vahey startled the right flank marker as he pulled up beside him.

The young sergeant smirked at Jack and gazed at the meat cleaver nestled neatly against his shoulder. ‘You’re a cool customer!’ he lisped, eyeing Vahey’s appearance. ‘I say, Butcher Jack, do you know what is what?’

‘Feck off.’

The flank-marker was shocked. ‘Well…I only asked if you knew what is what.’

‘I know you’re a dead man. That’s what is what,’ said Vahey trying to think of a plan. ‘Now do as I say…or else!’

The flanker’s cracked lips involuntarily drew back over his teeth. A strange awareness of his frail mortality drained his usually flushed young cheeks as he checked the rank and file. He had never seen Butcher Jack behave so out of character before and part of him knew that either Vahey had gone mad or something was very wrong. 

By this time, Vahey was leaking Turkish rum and liquid fear. His sore eyes focused yet again on the Russian guns at the far end of the valley, and Jack couldn’t believe that the Light Brigade was about to charge them head-on. Even he knew it was against all the rules of war for cavalry to attack artillery from the front. Also, heavy guns and Russian soldiers with rifles lined either side of the valley, and worse still, they were being reinforced from the captured British redoubts on the Causeway Heights. 

Everyone had been fooled, thought Jack, even Captain Nolan, who had written books about cavalry tactics, and in the next few seconds, Vahey knew the silence in the valley would be shattered forever. The moment he feared had arrived. And a dull thud in the distance told Jack that despite his persistence with Morris, yet another military blunder in the Crimea was about to be unleashed - this time on six hundred men and their precious horses.

The thud Jack heard was a ranging shot. A throw-away Russian shell. And it exploded overhead in the clear azure sky. Deadly flowers of flame bloomed coal-black and pumice-grey over the Seventeenth, and simultaneously there was an inhuman yell from the ranks. Vahey thought a woman was screaming until he saw Captain Nolan clutch his flayed and bloody breast. His ivory ribs had been blown into his exhaling lungs by a chunk of hot smoking shrapnel, and his spooked Arabian immediately bolted out of control at right-angles to the brigade. 

Nolan’s hellish scream continued unabated until his waif-like body fell from the saddle somewhere behind the Eleventh Hussars. Then all was quiet apart from the thud of horses hooves and the jangling of equipment.

Morris was visibly shocked by his friend’s disappearance from the line. He wondered if he was dead. But he had other things to worry about fifty yards later. The Russians on the Fedioukine Heights had marked their targets well. Two more Russian batteries of twelve-pounders opened fire from both sides of the valley at once, and a deafening payload of iron and steel was unleashed into the neat lines of cavalrymen. 

With each new cannonade and explosion, a blizzard of hot metal fragments ripped through vast sections of the brigade. Almost immediately, the orderly advance had turned into carnage, and amid the gut-churning world of noise and smoke, orders came in echoes and half sentences. 

‘Keep up, come on!’ encouraged one officer.

‘Close in on your centre, back the right flank…’ ordered another.

Cries of ‘Steady lads!’ rang out in the ranks.

‘Left squadron, look to your dressing!’ yelled Captain Morris, shocked back into reality.

Jack Vahey’s body shook violently each time the Russian guns thundered out their screaming shells and speeding cannonballs. The only other sound he could hear was his own heart drumming inside his head. It was so loud that he thought the hearts of the whole brigade were pounding in unison. It seemed like time had stood still in the valley, and it soon became clear to everyone that, if the advance continued, the Light Brigade would be slaughtered to a man. 

But even Jack knew there was no going back now. 

Each trooper looked to his comrade for moral support. Jack saw the measured gaps between the regiments suddenly contract, and the killing zone behind them erupt with bomb craters, ploughed up bodies and mangled horseflesh. He saw men and horses blown away by cannonballs while survivors veered out of the way creating wide fissures in the once neat lines of cavalrymen. The Light Brigade were all trapped in a furnace of explosive - a boiling cauldron of fire worse than anything Jack had seen in his life - and the misdirected charge down the valley had only just begun. 

‘Close that gap, Seventeenth!’ barked Cardigan when the Russian artillery on the heights paused to reload. The brigade commander was furious, and Captain Morris turned and angled his sabre at the flanker beside Vahey, who had already sensed the problem. 

Efficiently the Seventeenth wheeled back into position, but Vahey had other ideas and steered purposely into the flanker’s horse.

‘I say…that won’t do Butcher Jack!’ he shouted.

‘Right wheel!’ cried Vahey. 

Jack had decided that his only option now was to influence the direction of the charge. Morris was oblivious, and the rest of the brigade followed like sheep. It was now or never.

But another succession of shells bursting overhead shattered the moment and made Jack’s little horse swerve out of control. 

Another explosion close by hit two troopers next to him, and they both ceased to exist. Lumps of flesh, blood and brains splattered Jack’s linen shirt red and grey. He felt a bullet ping off his axe head and thud into the breast of another trooper directly behind him. The hiss of another missile passed directly across Jack’s face, and a second shattered the young flanker’s teeth into a mass of bloody pearls. 

Vahey thought that somehow the sergeant had caught the bullet between his teeth like a circus act he had once seen in London, but then he saw the missile had lodged in the back of the trooper’s throat. Jack watched as the flanker clawed frantically at the burning metal fragment, hoping in some way to remove it. But very soon, the youngster lost consciousness and tumbled from his horse in a speeding blur. 

Vahey eagerly took the flanker’s place, knowing that the Seventeenth, and the whole brigade, were trained to follow his lead. He was in a perfect position now, thought Jack, to put his plan into action - he only hoped it wasn’t too late.

With anger, guilt and fear urging him on to complete his mission, Vahey tried to adopt his best English accent. ‘Tree’s about!’ he yelled at the top of his voice. ‘Tree’s about!’

‘Seventeenth close in on your left!’ shouted Lord Cardigan from somewhere amid the falling palls of smoke.

Morris responded instantly. ‘Troop sergeant-major…direct!’

‘Captain Morris, you are losing your interval!’ roared Lord Cardigan from somewhere in the maelstrom. Morris could see his commander’s face was bloated and red with rage, but his words were soon drowned out by another ear-splitting bombardment, this time from almost every direction in the valley. 

Morris had already heard Vahey’s countermanding orders, and he tried to force the pace in the hope of re-directing the regiment himself. But when he saw Morris forge ahead, Cardigan scolded him for attempting to ride before the brigade commander, and Morris dropped back. 

Turning to Chapman, who saw his frustration, Morris’s next order was for his sergeant to race and pull the regiment back into line. 

‘Left flank close in on me!’ yelled Chapman wheeling his horse into the Seventeenth.

Vahey tugged his reins in the opposite direction.

‘Vahey!’ raged Chapman.

‘Tree’s about!’ cried Vahey again. ‘Right wheel!’ 

Chapman looked around him for a bugler, but there was utter confusion in the ranks. He tried to grab Jack’s reins, but reaching for a moving target was useless. Chapman used all his skill as a horseman to stop Vahey, but he was forced to let go when a speeding missile leapt up before him like an oversize cricket ball. 

The ball tore up the parched earth, bounced once over Chapman’s shoulder and severed the legs of several horses as if they were matchsticks. Some troopers followed Vahey’s lead out of the way. They were fearful of the terrible reality unfolding before them, and the domino effect continued all along the front line of the brigade.

But not enough. 

Vahey’s spirits soared for only a fleeting moment. He thought his plan was working. But when more missiles swept the brigade from the flank, all semblance of regimental order collapsed. 

Countless horrors appeared briefly in the storm of shot and shell. Men were slammed headfirst into the rock-hard ground as they tumbled from their horses, and through the fog of war, Vahey saw a headless rider still grasping his couched lance accompanying the Seventeenth down the valley. Spooked horses were charging about everywhere, and to Jack’s horror, the Light Brigade was now being herded towards the guns. 

A few seconds later, Chapman’s gloved hand appeared out of the fog again, and this time he managed to grasp Jack’s bridle. 

Out of his mind with rage, Chapman tugged viciously at the leather straps, but the high-pitched scream of another missile shocked him into letting go. A wayward shell missed his head by inches, but Chapman’s poor horse reared up out of control, smoke curling over its rump. It shrieked madly, and when the shell embedded in its flanks exploded, gallons of blood and horse meat showered the regiment.

The force of the blast catapulted Chapman from the saddle, and Vahey heard troopers swearing madly at him as he tried in vain to requisition another mount. The regiment was now oblivious to rank. No one was really in command of the brigade, and Chapman was left to his fate behind the lines, blood oozing between his legs. 

But the mad charge was far from over.

More shells exploded among the Seventeenth, and red-hot iron fragments continued to decimate flesh and bone with incomparable ease. Brains suddenly protruded from shattered skulls, faces were torn off by shrapnel, and men were flung around like rag dolls as the bombardment grew in even greater intensity. 

It was hardly surprising that all discipline had gone. Vahey thought he’d been hit at least a dozen times. So much blood and horse guts covered his body that he was unsure if he was wounded or not. Like most of his comrades, he had become numb to what was happening around him and had gone deaf in both ears due to detonations sucking air from the valley. All Jack could smell was burnt flesh and black powder. It seared his lungs and stung his eyes which now streamed with tears of frustration and anger. 

But through all the death and destruction, Jack Vahey felt a terrible sense of guilt. He judged the Seventeenth had almost reached the enemy guns, and soon nothing would matter anymore. His mind was swimming with thoughts of how he might die, and in the heat and swirl of battle, he saw Captain Morris whirling his sword above his head, willing his men on despite the danger. 

Jack’s horse seemed animated above the ground, hovering in a red mist lit by lightning flashes from below. He saw shadowy figures in greatcoats running away through the choking vortexes of smoke. And when the Seventeenth finally plunged into the Russian battery of guns, Morris thrust his sabre into the fog and yelled, ‘Charge!’

The desperate cry was belated - the Seventeenth had been charging for the last three minutes. No bugle call had sounded, or at least no one heard it due to the din of battle echoing in the valley. Conditioned by their seven-minute ride into hell, the Light Brigade was transformed into a pack of wild animals eager to kill or be killed. Vahey saw whirling sabres slashing into anything that moved. Friend and foe were being hacked to death or speared like pigs in a ruthless cull. Confusion and fear fed off each other as each man’s desperate will to survive resulted in blind acts of heroism or cowardice. 

The infamous verbal message Captain Nolan had so mindlessly delivered to Lucan had done its work well, thought Jack, and now there was no way out of the nightmare. The familiar coppery-sweet smell of blood was in the air, and at that moment, Vahey wished for a quick and merciful death.