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

them down so that they were now all sitting in rows instead of standing as if on parade, muskets across their laps; some had even doffed their tall mitre hats. No mutter of conversation, though. None of the soldiers had anything to say.

That was when the hubbub started further down the line. The next battalion was standing, too. James and Poinatowski stood on their stirrups for a better view. It was another Polish battalion; fusiliers this time, no longer just an extended blue line, their individual platoons separating, being marshalled by sergeants pointing halberds, directing the soldiers back into column of march.

‘Looks like our general needs reinforcements for his fight on the riverbank,’ said Poinatowski as they watched. Scuffling sounds and yells broke out over their shoulders and when they turned, the grenadiers to their front were being slapped and cajoled back to their feet. And when they looked back the other way, the fusiliers down the line had started marching … tum-tee-tum! tum-tee-tum! … into the smoke.

That was when the two men saw, coming the other way, what looked like a convoy of peasant refugees and agricultural machinery – until they saw the marching uniforms behind the oxen and cart horses drawing the wagons. And then they could see that some of the wagons were actually artillery pieces. A mounted officer on a very un-military looking horse trotted up, and introduced himself.

‘Messieurs, I have the honour to command this battery of light field guns,’ he said, raising his tricorne. ‘I am to reinforce your flank.’

Then he saw their looks of astonishment and alarm. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘We use local carters and labourers to draw the battery. My gunners do the firing!’ Another winning smile. ‘And they all know their duty very well, I assure you, sirs! Where would you wish us to deploy?’

James sent Casimir to bring down a troop of uhlans from off the dunes, and introduced their officer to the gunner. The three 6-pounders would go to where the dunes started to rise, and the uhlans would cover them.

‘Should any enemy attempt to turn out flank, m’sieur,’ ordered James, ‘you are to pour fire into theirs.’

All while Poinatowski watched, chewing his lip, as the grenadiers extended their line to just two ranks deep. The manoeuvre was completed with little trouble, but this time the men were not allowed to sit.

And to the east, and the river, the crackling of musketry, shot and shell laboured on, while here, where the flank hung in mid-air, the waiting laboured on also.

*

James saw the uhlan charging in from the dunes while he was still some way off, his dust cloud haloed out behind him. By the time he got to where James and Pointowski stood, James was practically as breathless from anticipation as the uhlan was from hard riding. The man slewed to halt, removed his czapka cap and bowed in his saddle, trying to catch a breath. But when he spoke, James understood not a word.

‘He is a Lithuanian Tatar, excellency,’ said Poinatowski, translating. ‘And has no command of diplomatic French … or Latin.’ The latter, he delivered with his arch smile.

‘Very funny, Pyotr,’ said James, in no mood to trifle, but still able to see a joke. ‘Now, what does he say, man? It’s obviously urgent.’

‘Not so urgent as it can’t out-run a marching Russian column, excellency,’ said Poinatowski. The uhlan’s message; a Russian column was marching across the front of the grenadiers. ‘Positioning to turn the grenadiers’ flank, I believe, excellency,’ said Poinatowski. ‘It is obvious.’

The fug of boredom vanished from James’ head.

*

A brisk gallop took James and Poinatowski to the open ground on the grenadiers’ left.

‘Everything’s so damn flat!’ said James, to no-one. The terrain gave him no view. All he could see was open grazing and a couple of stunted, wind-bent copses. And yes, there, in between, was a line of marching green; shouldered muskets prickling along like a porcupine’s back. And in the midst, mounted officers; poles sporting regimental colours hanging lank in the still air, the only way for him to estimate numbers. One set of colours, one regiment; one regiment, 1,600 men. He could see two sets of colours. But there was no sense of the direction of march; was the line coming at him? Or marching across his front, like the uhlan had said?

He turned back to the grenadiers. A senior officer, he guessed from his braid-trimmed tricorne instead of a mitre, was stomping about, gesticulating. Their great general had appointed no-one to command the left flank. ‘Stand and hold!’ had been his only order. James cursed the belligerent stupidity of the man. The grenadier officer was likely a colonel, too. Was James going to get into an argument with him over who was senior? That way battles were lost; he’d read it in his histories. What was happening here, he’d also read in his histories.

‘The Duke of Marlborough, have you ever heard of him?’ he asked Poinatowski.

‘Yes, excellency,’ he replied, eyes rolling.

‘That’s what’s happening here,’ said James, holding his telescope to his eye again. ‘But the wrong way round. The silly arse!’

‘Excellency?’

‘Marlborough tactics,’ said James, while trying to concentrate on what he could see. ‘He would always open with an attack on one section of the enemy line … and then keep battering away until the enemy was forced to reinforce. The section of his line he weakened to do so, Marlborough would then throw his reserves at it … and break through. Our general keeps throwing more reinforcements into his attack on the right … weakening us here on the left …and so here are the Russians, throwing their reserves at us.’

Poinatowski looked back at the 500 Dzików dragoons behind him, then across at the 800 or so grenadiers formed in their fragile two lines; and then out to where as many as 3,000 Russian