In his own tent, his batman had his cot turned down, a new uniform laid out, hot water at the ready and food set out on clean white linen.
"Ivan," Stefan said with grinning affection, "we have the amenities again, I see." Everything was immaculate. "You've been busy during the hiatus. What would I do without you?"
Ivan beamed with pride. "Your father trained me well, Excellency." Fifty years ago Ivan had been a young serf saved from hanging over the theft of a chicken he'd taken to feed his starving family. Stefan's father had interceded, paid the villainous landowner for the chicken and Ivan's family and offered Ivan a position. His devotion was unconditional.
"Are we going to win this tomorrow, Ivan?" Stefan asked with a smile as he began washing his hands in the copper basin set on a table near his cot.
"The Bariatinskys are always victorious in battle, Excellency."
Stefan looked at the small elderly man beside him holding a crisp white towel out for him. "I like your confidence," he softly replied, Ivan's peasant certainty in some measure more reassuring than his officers' confidence, as though the very earth and spirit of Mother Russia had affirmed his victory.
Stefan found he couldn't sleep, though. Until tonight he'd always been able to doze off immediately, a habit honed to perfection after years of campaigning, a necessity when sleep was often limited. But now when he should, he couldn't, and he lay on his cot with his eyes closed so Ivan wouldn't fuss.
The battle was going to be desperate, he knew, and its outcome decisive to the war. And, irrelevant to the assault on Kars but oppressively relevant to his sleepless mind, he missed Lisaveta with a wretched miserable despair. There had never been a woman he cared about on the eve of battle so he'd been able to sleep on horseback, on the hard ground, in rainstorms and blinding sun. He'd never loved a woman before and now it colored every thought he entertained as well as those he tried to avoid. It made him hopelessly sad and wildly happy, it caused him to lose much-needed sleep and it impinged dramatically on the assault on Kars.
He might never see Lisaveta again, or ever see his child, he realized. The reflection struck him like a blow and he held his breath for a moment, frantically rationalizing away that possibility. He was never hurt, he reminded himself, never wounded. He was charmed. The familiar phrases should have been more comforting. Two weeks ago they would have been enough, even a week ago they would have been acceptable, but in that time his life had irrevocably changed.
Ivan swiveled around when Stefan abruptly sat up.
"I can't sleep," Stefan brusquely said. "Could I have a glass of tea?"
He dressed while Ivan made fresh tea, putting on his boots and clean tunic, strapping on his revolver belt and his sword scabbard decorated with his Saint George ribbon. At the last he added an extra cartridge bandolier and placed the long-bladed knife within easy reach in his belt.
Standing, he drank his tea and then the small glass of arrack Ivan always handed him before an attack. It warmed his throat and he smiled at Ivan and thanked him. The familiar activities eased the disturbing turmoil in his mind and brought the focus of his thoughts back to the assault.
"We'll dine at Kars tomorrow, Ivan," Stefan said, sliding his hands into his pigskin gloves. "Wish me luck."
"May God ride with you, batioushka," Ivan quietly replied, kneeling to kiss Stefan's hand, and as he rose he sketched the sign of the cross in the air between them, the orthodox religion a politic adjunct to his peasant superstition. For added assistance he murmured a cossack maxim having to do with a good horse and strong sword arm, surreptitiously gesturing to ward off the evil eye.
Stefan was smiling broadly when he stepped out into the chill night air. How could he lose, he thought, with God and the peasant spirits on his side?
The troops had been moved into position in the past hour under cover of the moonlit darkness. As was customary for him, Stefan went among his men, talking to them, telling them just what they were to do, offering encouraging words and good-natured chaffing, promising the musicians they would play a waltz in the streets of Kars tomorrow, answering the question asked a hundred times, his smile white against the darkness of his face. Yes, he would be leading the assault in person.
Stefan would be leading the Eleventh Cavalry Division, twelve battalions strong, on the right wing, directing their columns against the Karadagh and Tabias forts, guardians to the citadel. The cavalry had the most serious task to perform—the initial charge, clearing the way for the infantry—and everyone knew, although the orders hadn't yet been given, that they were to carry the forts at any cost. For twenty minutes or more Stefan conversed with his men, taking special care to talk to his noncommissioned officers, who bore the brunt of the decision making once the attack began. When he was satisfied each understood his directives and goals, he stood at the head of his troops for a final prayer. As he always did before battle, he asked for courage and God's grace to see them through. His dark hair whipped by the wind, Stefan stood, head bowed, and spoke the words so they carried across the moonlit army, his men murmuring the prayers with him, row upon shadowed row, calling on God's succor in the coming hours.
This final prayer was a ritual learned at his father's knee, comforting more for the litany than the content. As a cultivated man, Stefan realized Mukhtar Pasha prayed to his God for the same victory. In the end it would be men and not gods who determined the outcome, but the rhythm of the phrases soothed him and the priests' chanting was a calming, familiar musical undertone to the restless agitation gripping him before an attack.
A low hum of conversation broke out afterward as each soldier spoke for a final time to his companions. Haci was trading facetious remarks with one of the Kurdish troopers. The numerous cavalry officers around Stefan were exchanging comments or smoking their last cigarette or checking their weapons. For a small space of time, Stefan stood alone in the midst of his cavalry. Shutting his eyes, he shook his hands briefly at his sides to stimulate the circulation—for his sword grip would be essential in the coming minutes—took a deep breath, opened his eyes and quietly said, "Mount up."
His muted order was immediately obeyed, as though his soft voice had carried to every man in his corps.
Leaning forward in his saddle, he spoke to Cleo, promising her green pastures and respite when Kars was taken, his fingers smoothing the soft velvet of her ears, his voice so low it didn't even carry to Haci at his side. Whether Cleo understood the words or merely responded to his tone and the preparations for battle, she turned her head for a moment and looked at him with her large intelligent eyes. She'd carried Stefan across the plains of Asia on the Kokand campaign and in every battle since with as charmed a life as his own. A bond existed between them that was based not just on sentiment but on mutual need.
With a brushing stroke down her neck, Stefan straightened and turned to survey his officers and men formed in ranks behind him. His cavalry was mounted in tight order, knee to knee. Circassians, Kurds, Daghestanis, cossack lancers and some of the elite Gardes, the grenadiers and infantry arranged behind them by battalion. All eyes were on Stefan, the only general who actually led his men himself, dressed in his white Gardes uniform on his favorite black horse, his tattered banner flaring in the wind, the pennant as medieval in appearance as his Circassian standard bearer dressed in surtout and helmet. The square of silk fastened to a cossack lance had the white cross of Saint George on one side and on the other the letters S.B., for Stefan Bariatinsky, and the date 1872 in yellow on a red ground. It had been carried throughout the Kokand campaign from the taking of Kazan to the subjugation of the Kirghez tribesmen, carried beside him in all the fights that had made him famous as the best young commander in Russia.
The cold was intense and penetrating as they arranged themselves in order of attack in the ravines at the base of the steep ramparts guarding the forts, the wind chilling their blood. A full moon shone from a dark blue sky on the waiting men, on the open plain and valleys of the fo
othills, on the snow-wrapped mountain ridges glimmering in the distance. A remarkable silence invested the thousands of men, a total silence, for after days of bombardment the guns and cannons had now fallen mute. Even the Turks would now know that an attack was coming after weeks of artillery fire spaced fifteen minutes apart, day and night.
Gazing up at the formidable bulk of Karadagh and Tabias, forts built by Prussian and English engineers to withstand any conceivable attack, Stefan surveyed the ground he knew so well he could see it in his sleep and picked out the routes for each of his battalions in the shadows of the rocky incline.
He was ready, his men were ready, the Turks were holding their breath for the assault.
The time had come.
Wrapping his reins lightly around his left arm, leaving slack for Cleo to maneuver on her own, Stefan raised his right arm and a pulse beat later swept it forward, his signal for the music to play. With banners flying, the Eleventh Cavalry Division disappeared into the cloud of dense white smoke that erupted before them.
The advancing columns were a dark mass in the haze of defensive artillery and rifle fire, moving upward, wavering at times under the intense Turkish volleys, hesitating in instances until supporting regiments carried the mass farther on with their fresh momentum, the army always rolling forward despite the varying terrain or circumstances in an undulating propulsion of human bravery. Stefan rode through the torrent of rifle fire, unmindful of the bullets, his mind once again free of personal concerns, his concentration solely on the progress of the battle, placing himself where he saw encouragement was most needed, moving back and forth across the line of assault urging his men on, rallying them when needed against the withering fire. Men fell around him, his officers and escort were cut down, but he seemed immune to the bullets flying past him, always in the thick of the barrage, impelling his men forward.
Chapter Nineteen
Behind their redoubts, the Turks were firing with such rapidity a flaming red line of fire tore into the advancing columns. As they drew closer to the entrenchments the second and third attack battalions slowed down and began to falter. In horror, Stefan saw the first break begin, the first men turn in retreat before the annihilating fire storm, and knew not a moment could be lost or his men would lose heart. He had only two battalions of sharpshooters left in reserve, the best in his detachment. Quickly waving them forward, he put himself at the head of these, picking up the stragglers in his rush forward, reaching the troops that were considering retreat and giving them the inspiration of his own courage. He gathered up the whole mass as if with a single sweeping motion of his arm and carried it toward the redoubt with a rush and a cheer.
The entire fortress before them was like a vision of hell, enveloped in flame and smoke, the steady crash of deadly rifle fire a lethal barricade they must cross, but his men pushed on because their general was a dozen yards ahead of them and they wouldn't fail him. Stefan's sword was shot in two twenty yards from the ramparts, tossed aside and replaced in a reflexive blur of motion from his saddle scabbard; his uniform was covered with mud and filth, his cross of Saint George twisted round on his shoulder, his face black with powder and smoke, but he charged forward the last few yards with a savage yell and Cleo soared over the last ditch, the scarp and counterscarp, over the parapet and swept into the redoubt like a hurricane. Stefan was smiling, feeling the old frenzied energy and brashness. He heard his own scream with a sense of exhilaration, heard the answering roar of his troops streaming in behind him and knew his men would follow him anywhere.
Like a pressured damn breaking, the Turkish defenses crumbled against the onslaught of an army that shouldn't have been able to reach their entrenchments, that should have retreated against the superiority of their Peabody-Martini rifles, that was led by a maniac they all recognized as the phenomenal White General… Bariatinsky.
And twenty bloody minutes later the Tsar's army had taken the redoubt.
The question then was how to hold it, dominated as it was by the Tabias fort, exposed to the fire of sharpshooters concealed behind the next line of trenches and the artillery sights of the citadel. Stefan knew they would be counterattacked. Mukhtar Pasha had no other choice but to try to retake Karadagh and hold that and Tabias at any cost. Both armies understood the significance of the forts protecting the entrance to the citadel.
In less than ten minutes, Stefan's cavalry met the first rush of the regrouped Turks, giving the grenadiers and infantry time to scramble over the parapets, giving the last reserves time to advance up the hill, and ten minutes later what was left of the cavalry faced the Turkish counterattack pouring down the earthworks toward them.
The fighting was brutal. Stefan and his Kurdish troopers were in the thick of the combat, slashing and parrying, slashing and parrying, the motion of their sword arms dogged and automatic, their bodies numb to any sensation save the drive to survive. Sweat streamed down their faces despite the frigid temperatures, their bodies pumping adrenaline in a frantic effort to thwart death, their minds concentrated with focused intensity only on stopping the next fatal blow… and the next… and the next.
They fought mechanically without thought, by instinct alone, their skill a fusion of courage and tactic so ingrained the question of breeding or training was moot. They fought for two hours on the parapets and parade ground and paved squares of a fortress the English and Prussians had guaranteed invincible. They fought while the sky turned a dull gray and the stars lost their brilliance.
Stefan's uniform was no longer distinguishable as white; it was bloodstained and torn from numerous wounds, the worst a saber cut on his right shoulder that had cut clear to the bone. He was fighting now with his left hand. Cleo's reins were wrapped around the saddle pommel, for his right arm was useless even for the light guidance his trained mount might need. Cleo was lathered and foaming, her black coat sleek with moisture. Haci and his men, sword and dagger in hand, marshaled around Stefan, committed to protecting him with their lives. Twice in the past hour Stefan had sent for reinforcements, but in the melee of battle there was no guarantee his dispatches had gotten through and his position was becoming untenable.
With a feeling of unease, Stefan heard the ominous drumbeats of another Turkish attack, the rapid staccato rhythm signaling another sortie. His men heard it too, and knew the sound to be a warning of disaster. Even if Stefan's call for reinforcements had reached their base camp, the ascent up the side of the glacis was so precipitous that troops couldn't be brought up with the same speed as Mukhtar Pasha's attack force, and after hours of fighting, Stefan's remaining men were exhausted, low on ammunition and grimly aware the next Turkish assault could be mortal.
Calling on his last reserves of strength, reaching down beyond his pain and fatigue to an inner strength that had carried him through countless campaigns in the past when the odds were as slim or worse, Stefan shouted to the men, his voice hoarse and raspy, and rode toward the advancing Turks pouring over the entrenchment. They had to stop this attack or all would be lost; he had to rally his men or the hours of fighting would be in vain; he couldn't allow this Turkish counteroffensive to succeed or all the lives lost would have been useless.
Raising his sword high, he spoke to Cleo, nudging her forward with his knees. With her own valiant spirit undiminished, she broke into a trot.
The Turkish rifles ripped into his first line, his bodyguard began to fall, and a moment later Stefan's forward cavalry was fully engaged, the infantry short yards behind. They fought like men with their backs against the wall, knowing there were no options short of death. Soon the ground was slippery with blood, strewn with the dead and dying.
When Haci fell, Stefan saw him go down in the extreme border of his peripheral vision and, shouting for help, jumped from Cleo to go to his aid. The remaining seven of Stefan's guard followed him, and standing back-to-back against the Turks, they protected Haci with their bodies. The waves of Turks seemed unending as Stefan and
his bodyguard stood in a circle on the paving stones laid in an intricate variation of a herringbone pattern. They kept coming while daylight rimmed the horizon; they kept coming while Stefan and his Kurds stood unflinching; they kept coming as Turkish bodies piled up in heaps around the phalanx protecting Haci, Stefan's men firing their revolvers in relays like a well-choreographed ballet of death.
But their own casualties mounted, too, against the expensive modern Peabody-Martini rifles the Ottoman Empire had purchased from America, and at last only three of the phalanx remained standing, and then, ten bloody minutes later, none were left….
The battle washed over their bodies in the muted light of dawn, as though their gallant stand had never existed, as though their human lives were no more than a flicker of an eye in the cosmic universe, as though the heir to the Bariatinsky-Orbeliani fortune and honor were a grain of sand on an ocean shore and the battle for Kars a vast tidal wave.
The Tsar's soldiers came up at last as color brightened the sky in numbers sufficient to force a Turkish retreat, but the Turks fought like demons, street to street, house to house, to the very end. Kars was their most important stronghold, the Sultan had poured a fortune into its defenses, and their generals and ruler and religion offered them paradise if they died in its defense. So they died instead of surrendering; they stood and fought at each corner and barricade; the citadel was emptied of defenders, the auxiliary forts and trenches were emptied, and hour after hour the Turks fought until at last it was over.
As the autumn sun shone feebly from its midpoint, a silence began to gather, a silence of dead men and victory, a silence of exhaustion and weary triumph, a silence of Turkish defeat and hesitant Russian hope. The Russian cries began sporadically then, small rejoicing hurrahs from parched throats, exhalations of personal good fortune from men too tired to shout, smiles exchanged with adjacent comrades-in-arms. They had won, they began to realize. The Tsar's army had gained the impregnable, the unconquerable citadel of Islam and its defenders were vanquished. Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!
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