By My Sword Alone David Black (best story books to read txt) 📖

sit and charge their own wooden beakers. Then he plunged straight in. ‘I think we are all aware, gentlemen, that this war has progressed from an internal Polish matter to a general confrontation between those old foes, Bourbon France and Spain, and the Hapsburgs and their mittel Europa neighbour and Holy Roman Empire ally, Saxony.’

James had not mentioned the Russians; the Russians who were currently bombarding Danzig and threatening to drive them into the Baltic. But then, nobody seemed to notice. He pressed on.

‘Since King Stanislas has retreated here to Danzig, he has secured support from King Louis of France, who has in turn concluded an alliance with Spain and the Kingdom of Sardinia to come to Poland’s aid against those who support the usurper Augustus of Saxony. Troops of this alliance have already overrun the Duchy of Lorraine and are advancing into Austrian possessions on the Rhine. Another army, led by the Spanish infante, is already advancing on the Austrian-controlled Kingdom of Naples. This is a Europe-wide conflagration, gentlemen. But while that might make us look like a mere side-show, I am assured we are not.’

There had been no such assurance. In fact nobody had told him anything. All he knew had come not from their army command, or from Stanislas’ court, but from the gossip and the idle guesswork over dinner of a mere middle-ranking naval officer who was probably passing on more than he knew himself, namely his friend Claude; in his own words, a simple sailor.

James continued: ‘The strategy here on the Baltic, is to hold Danzig as thorn in the enemy’s side .... a diversion that must force him to split his forces … and ultimately in any future peace negotiation, the prize that will wrest Poland from both Austrian and Russian spheres of influence.’

All utter drivel, of course.

But what else could he say? He couldn’t have the poor wretches going into battle thinking they might be about to die just because someone had over-played their hand in another man’s fight.

Yet that was likely the case. His friend’s guess was that the Comte de Plélo had come with a power to negotiate. But from what James had heard from Lacy, the Russians had no interest in talking about anything apart from surrender, which meant that they really were all about to become victims of an over-played hand. He would have certainly been very upset himself right now, suspecting what he did, if it hadn’t been for all those thalers Mr MacDougall was currently transferring from Stanislas’ treasury to a Hamburg bank on his behalf. A cold detachment crept over him at his own duplicity. Suddenly he’d never felt so far away from the boy he used to be, and the man he’d thought he would become.

Later, outside the tent, sitting in companionable silence with Poinatowski, the two men listened to the persistent guns, and watched the sky over Danzig glow red in the falling darkness.

‘You never really mentioned the Russians at any length, excellency,’ observed Poinatowski, idly. ‘Seeing as it is them we shall be mostly fighting.’

‘No. I didn’t. To be honest, no appropriate tosh to spout about them came to mind.’

Poinatowski laughed. ‘Tosh, excellency?’

‘Pyotr, when it is just us, in conclave, discussing the doggerel of life, call me James.’

‘Ah. You realise here, in this culture, such familiarity is not common … excellency ...’ and he stuttered to a halt under James’ saturnine glare. ‘It would make me feel uncomfortable,’ he concluded, his eyes down.

‘Then feel uncomfortable, Pyotr … for my sake,’ said an unblinking James. ‘It would mean a lot to me to have someone in the regiment to talk to me as a human being again.’

‘As you wish, excel … James.’ And with that, Poinatowski’s face crumpled into the complicit grin James had come to enjoy.

‘Tosh?’ said Poinatowski, returning to his initial question. ‘You mean your address was not sincere?’

‘What do you think? How would I know all that grand strategy? I had to tell them something. I just didn’t want …’

Poinatowski interrupted him. ‘You know it is a fact that you astonished everybody that you bothered at all? We are not a people who are used to having things explained to us. That is something that makes us uncomfortable, too.’

James sighed. ‘If I am to order them to fight, do they not need a reason?’

‘We are not a people who are used to wondering why, either, or indeed wondering about reasons for anything, James. Our princes speak, and we obey. To do otherwise has in the past, always proved dangerous.’

‘Maybe I just want the world to be a fairer place.’

‘A dangerous aspiration. Who put that idea in your head?’

James smiled at him. His friend was right. This was a different world. The dead hand of despotism you and Davy long used to rail against over your claret, is far deader here, laddie, he said to himself. Suddenly, Hanoverian oppression seemed an infinitely more civilised affair. A beast you could at least argue with. He laughed and said, ‘I suppose I’m still wishing myself back home, instead of getting on with being a long way from it. And that is a dangerous aspiration.’ He gave a wave of his hand.

Poinatowski, gazing off into the night, said, ‘Only one home for us soldiers, eh? The field we pitch our tent in. But going back to the Russians, and why they’re here. If I might offer my explanation to you. It’s because of Courland. It stands to reason. Word will have travelled from Vienna to Saxon Augustus on his new Polish throne back in Warsaw, that the price of the Russians helping keep him there, is the duchy. Augustus is not a stupid man, so he will happily throw it to the bear, once he’s won. It’s the currency of our politics in this world, betrayal, gain, the exercise of power