By My Sword Alone, David Black [8 ebook reader txt] 📗

draw their carbines,’ he said, and Beart repeated his order in a parade ground bark.

‘Forward, at the walk,’ said James. Again, Beart repeated the command, and as one, their carbines gripped at the trigger guard, the butts resting on their thighs, over 300 Dzików dragoons stepped off into battle.

The order to ‘Trot!’ followed and the two lines of dragoons moved from behind the now-wilting line of Polish grenadiers, advancing directly on the flank platoons of the Russian line now advancing to begin their volley fire into the grenadiers’ flank.

The smoke ahead was thick, He couldn’t see the entire length of the line of grenadiers anymore, and only a rump end of the Russian line they were trading fire with was clearly visible ahead. As for the other Russian line, still advancing to flank the grenadiers, their flank appeared to be starting to collapse. He did not understand. His dragoons were still only a distant threat. No fire had been exchanged yet; contact was not imminent. But what he’d at first taken for confusion turned out to be sergeants man-handling the Russians’ flank platoons, to turn from their front to face James’ advancing dragoons. The second Russian line halted. He needed to close that distance, fast.

He ordered, ‘Canter!’ and the dragoons’ pace picked up. The number of paces between them shrank, visibly, with each thud of hooves. And then the individual features of the Russians started to become discernible; the distance down to 200 paces, right where he wanted to be. He reined Estelle, and gestured Beart and Casimir and the bugler to do the same, so the front squadron passed through them, and as they did, he stood on his stirrups and bellowed his commands.

‘Halt! Present! Fire!’

The Dzików’s front rank discharged their carbines as one; 150 weapons going off in a single crash and gout of smoke, so that the oddly bent Russian line vanished behind it. James led his command party galloping to the flanks as the second squadron came cantering up. He left it to Beart to make the oft drilled-for call.

‘Second squadron, pass through!’

And the second squadron rode through the first’s open order line and into the smoke, and was lost. His teeth crunched on the grit of the powder smoke; it stung his eyes, and the reek of it cloyed in his nose and mouth and throat. His ears were filled with the noise of men; shouting, screams. He patted Estelle’s flank to calm her, and leant forward to whisper his familiar sweet nothings in her ear. As he did, his stinging eyes could see down the line of the first squadron as its troopers reloaded, mechanically. Then he craned back, straining to see through the smoke, to where the other Russian marching column was. Through the swirling tendrils it was all too apparent that column had now come to a halt, too.

He could see sergeants were running, dressing the line; mounted officers, nudging their horses into position. The battalion’s colour party too, marching to occupy what was about to become the centre of their line. James knew that somewhere in that press of gold braid and feathered tricornes was some Russian colonel or major, who’d found himself in command of this battalion simply because he had been able to afford the rank, or it had passed to him by hereditary right. Just as he knew the time left to him and all his troopers on this earth now hung on the eye of that Russian colonel or major, and whatever degree of drill aesthetic would satisfy him. Because only when he was satisfied, would he issue the orders, ‘Left turn! Present! Fire!’

The longer the Russian delayed, the longer James’ dragoons had – because when the Russian did give his orders, that was when his battalion would start pouring volley after volley into them; and there was nothing James could do.

His two fine squadrons of dragoons had nowhere left to go, no choice worth making. He had led them here out onto this battlefield in a bid to seize advantage, and now they stood exposed between fires; enemies to their front and enemies to their flank.

His first command in battle, and he had plunged them into a killing cauldron.

Two ragged volleys rang out from the smoke to his front, like an angry stutter; it was his second squadron of dragoons discharging their carbines, and the clumsily-turned platoon from the Russian flank returning their fire. He could see nothing of the effect of the duel, all he could see was his first squadron, now reloaded, stepping forward into the smoke, still obeying his orders, walking to pass through the second squadron’s line to deliver another volley.

And once executed, their orders were to charge the Russian flank.

James wondered at the odds of their succeeding before the other Russian battalion raked them with their musketry. He needn’t have bothered. The crash of the enemy’s volley rang out. When he turned to look, a wall of powder smoke had already obscured the far Russian line. Except the smoke was far closer than it should have been. Since he’d last looked, the Russian line must have advanced to close the range before unleashing their hail of lead. Standing at the back of the Dzików’s own fog of powder smoke, he did not see the enemy’s musket balls hit home – but he heard the chaos; the cries of horses and men and the sickening, unmistakable slap of flesh hitting the earth. The heavy thuds were the horses, the lighter, liquid thuds, their riders.

The Russian battalion was reloading. He was watching them, transfixed, with a feeling of utter powerlessness, when a bugle sound echoed out the smoke to his front, above the cacophony of the dying. His troopers were supposed to discharge another volley into their heap of Russian soldiers. But that was the ‘Charge!’ he was hearing. Beart must have decided to order it now.