MORRIS: Well, my lord, Lew Nolan was never an easy fellow to understand. He was behaving very oddly even for him when he rode up beside me just before the charge. But I’ve no doubt in my mind that about as soon as he read Lord Raglan’s order he decided to misdirect Lord Lucan. A great chance for Lew to test his theory about cavalry.
CECIL: But he underestimated the Russian artillery.
MORRIS: And his own feelings. Poor Lew hadn’t seen as much of the business of war as I had, and I reckon the sight of what those first shells did to our fellows and their horses was too much for him. It was a horrible reminder that cavalry are flesh and blood, not just part of a theory. I think when he was hit he was in the middle of telling us to turn back.
CECIL: (Slowly) Do you think he was influenced by my notion of bringing about something that would show our friends in St Petersburg the quality of British cavalry, their high morale and their bravery?
MORRIS: I couldn’t say for certain, my lord, but I know he was powerfully impressed by it. Especially by your last message. He’d set his heart on proving you were right.
CECIL: (Heavily) I see.
MORRIS: My lord, have you heard whether the news of the charge has had any effect… back there?
CECIL: Not as yet.
Sequence 7 — St Petersburg
ROGACHEV and his faction in conclave.
ROGACHEV: Surely this ‘charge of the Light Brigade’ shows little but the blind stupidity of the British cavalryman.
GENERAL: It may or may not show that, Count Rogachev. What it certainly shows is miraculous discipline and magnificent courage.
ROGACHEV: So you witnessed it, general?
GENERAL: Your honour must know that I had not the opportunity. Nor the privilege. But a soldier need not be a witness of such a thing. For a soldier, to be told is enough.
ROGACHEV: We must beware of attaching too much importance to a single event. What is it, major?
MAJOR: I did witness that event, my lord count, from behind the battery which the Light Brigade were attacking. With all respect to the general, you have to see such a thing. Such a thing! (Begins to break down.) It was without parallel, it was unique, it was indescribable. The French general who saw it said it was magnificent, but it was not war. It was indeed magnificent, and it was war besides. (Weeping) Those noble fellows! If only we had ten such men in all Russia…
ROGACHEV: There, there, my poor major, what you need is a drink. (Rings handbell) Again, we must pay attention to the larger picture.
GENERAL: The larger picture is that, far from the British soldier being in a bad way, it is the Russian. Every man in our army, high and low, is dismayed and daunted and in a state of fear at the thought of an enemy who can do such things. We shall lose the war in the Crimea, we shall never defeat Turkey while she has such an ally, and India is safe from us while the British remain.
The double doors open. JOSEPH enters with SERGEI.
ROGACHEV: Ah, Joseph. Drinks for everybody, please. Champagne for his royal highness…
JOSEPH: At once, my lord. (To SERGEI) Champagne here… vodka here…
MAJOR: (To general) If you call for a vote now, sir, you will assuredly carry the day.
GENERAL: Will you support me?
MAJOR: Of course, and not only I.
GENERAL: Very well. (Raises his voice) I move that we petition the High Command to proceed no further with any plan to move against India. I call for a show of hands.
ROGACHEV: Immediately, general?
GENERAL: If it please your honour.
ROGACHEV: So be it. All present, please signify. For the general’s motion, that the Indian plan be called off forthwith.
Hands are raised in silence.
ROGACHEV: Against, that we are still resolved to move against India.
Another pause.
ROGACHEV: In the circumstances I will not call for a toast.
PRINCE: Better luck next time, Rogachev.
ROGACHEV: I thank your royal highness for an impeccably British sentiment. (Irritably) That will be all, Joseph.
JOSEPH: Thank you, my lord count.
Sequence 8 — London
The Retrenchment Club. We move over to where CECIL and MORRIS are sitting.
CECIL: Well, Morris, you look well enough to take a glass of port.
MORRIS: Thank you, my lord. I think I could manage just the one.
CECIL: I suppose one or other of us has to say a great deal has happened since we last sat here.
MORRIS: Yes.
CECIL: Do you mind talking about it?
MORRIS: No. No, not at all, my lord.
CECIL: Can you tell me how many were lost in the charge? The reports I’ve seen disagree.
MORRIS: I know for a fact that 673 officers and men began the charge. Afterwards, only 195 answered at the first muster. I was not one of them, and many unwounded men had lost their horses and only turned up later. Altogether 113 men were killed and 134 wounded. But for the French attack that followed, there would have been many more.
CECIL: A hundred and thirteen too many.
MORRIS: Oh, most certainly, my lord, but what would you? And if it’s any comfort, Lew Nolan would very likely have done just as he did do if you had never met him. He was a mad fellow.
Closing notes of the Last Post.
CECIL: Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die. But not in vain.
PS to Captain Nolan’s Chance
Ever since I first heard of it as a boy, I have suspected that the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava was the result not of a blunder but of somebody’s intention. My recent look at the matter in some detail has confirmed me in this view. For instance, Cecil Woodham-Smith’s excellent, very full study, The Reason Why (1953), leaves one with at any rate a strong suspicion that Captain Lewis Nolan deliberately and vitally misled the commander of the Cavalry Division, Lord Lucan, about the objective of the charge.
Nolan had a unique chance to do so. He was the ADC of General Airey, Lord Raglan’s second-in-command and the Officer who wrote down and signed the fatal message that Nolan delivered. Up on the heights overlooking the battlefield, Raglan and Airey and their staff, who included Nolan, could see both (1) the captured British guns Raglan actually intended the Cavalry Division to recapture; and (2) the Russian artillery battery at the far end of the North Valley. From his lower position, Lucan could see neither (1), an easily attained objective, nor (2), to be attacked only at great risk. He was thus vulnerable to Nolan’s deception (and had negligently failed to acquaint himself with the Russian groupings).
The reason why Nolan misled Lucan, if he did, would clearly have been something above and beyond his amply documented zeal for action. He was also a fanatical believer in the unrealized powers of cavalry, especially light cavalry. This too is well documented; after a dazzling early career as a cavalryman he wrote not one but two books on the subject, and much of what I put into his mouth in the first sequence of my play is a close paraphrase of some views he expressed. But for good measure, and to contribute something of my own, I invented a small conspiracy that included Nolan and plotted to convince a sinister Russian cabal of the formidable fighting qualities of the British soldier, especially the cavalry soldier.