Where the Light Falls

by Allison Pataki

  André watched as the leader of the French skirmishers dropped to his knee, aimed his rifle, and fired. Before his bullet had found its mark, he heaved backward, a scarlet stain seeping outward from below his hip, where a Prussian bullet had torn through his uniform. Two other Frenchmen were at his side in an instant, pulling the wounded man back behind the line. Several other Prussians were hit. A handful of Frenchmen dropped below the tall wheat, their own bodies catching bullets. And then, just as quickly as it had begun, both sets of skirmishers retreated, receding backward like ocean waves obeying the moon and a retreating tide. The prelude was over.

  André stood tall, feeling every muscle in his body go rigid. He noticed that while the skirmishers had filled the field with smoke and a few corpses, he had not yet seen the main body of Prussian and Austrian infantry emerge from the far side of the field. Any second now, he expected those lines to appear. Some of his men began to fidget, cursing under their breath as they heard the deep guttural yells of the distant, unseen enemy. Far-off drumbeats signaled the orders of the enemy to begin moving.

  André resisted the impulse to say anything to his men, knowing it would simply reveal his own nervousness. And then he saw them: a wall of green and gold. Two flags hemmed in their formation, and André guessed those to be the banners of the Prussian and Austrian kingdoms. The green-clad Prussian infantry cleared the tree line now and marched into the meadow, their heavily booted feet stomping in unison and giving credence to the rumors that these were the most disciplined soldiers on the Continent.

  To the rear of André’s formation, the rumble of French drums began to sound, shaking the earth beneath them and signifying that it was time for the French to begin marching as well. Kellermann and Dumouriez, off to the side, leaned their heads toward each other. Murat was beside them, studying a map. Their brief conference concluded, Kellermann spurred his horse, unsheathing his sword as he rode toward the men in the front. All around André now, his men watched their leader, their voices lifting in cheers and shouts.

  “Men!” Kellermann rode before the French line, his hat lifted in the air in one hand, his sword raised in the other. André couldn’t hear Kellermann’s voice over the din of his frenzied men. Let them cheer, he thought, looking at faces that betrayed both fear and exhilaration. He strained his ears, barely detecting the closing of Kellermann’s words: “The nation is under attack, but we will not let her be taken. We have answered the call. We here, today, with the whole world watching, fight for liberty, equality, and fraternity!” And then, brandishing his sword high overhead, Kellermann clamored: “Vive la nation!”

  André made a fist with his hand and lifted it to join the heady cries of his men, his blood roiling with nervous agitation and pride. “Vaincre ou mourir!” he shouted, echoing the cries of the thousands around him. “Victory or death!” Those were the only two choices before them, and every Frenchman on that field knew it.

  Meanwhile, across the field, the Prussian line advanced, impermeable to this sudden upsurge in French spirit. They carpeted the golden meadow with an unnatural tide of green, white, and gold as their numbers kept coming, marching steadily toward André and his men.

  The men were looking at him now, and André felt a tightening in his gut when he saw the anxious expressions on their faces. They awaited his cue. Perhaps they sought confidence from his presence, like a group of mischievous children, so long obstinate, now withdrawing behind their father in the face of a menacing stranger. Only Leroux looked ahead, his features implacable, as though he were willfully avoiding André’s gaze.

  “All right, lads.” André lifted his sword. “Company, shoulder arms!”

  André’s men lifted their rifles, resting the weapons against their shoulders. He nodded. “Forward march!”

  All along the line now, his fellow captains were shouting the same orders, and the men obeyed. As if one body, every man took one fluid stride forward, thousands of left feet taking the first step on the march that carried them forward into the unknown.

  Behind him, the artillery barrage started up again. This time, the enemy stood in range and the French cannons were firing not to startle and unnerve, but to kill. For the first time that morning, the Prussian artillery answered back, sending a volley of cannons ripping out from the far side of the forest. André flinched, his body’s instinctive response, but he quickly composed himself and resisted the urge to seek protection. The closest cannonball struck wide of André and his company by at least one hundred meters to the right, spewing mud ten feet into the air as it smashed into the damp earth.

  To his left, André heard the crackle of a wall of French muskets. The men had grown louder now, too, with officers barking out orders and soldiers shrieking out battle cries. A layer of smoke had begun seeping over the field, so that it filled André’s nostrils. He coughed once, turning back to ensure his men were in formation. The enemy was close enough now that he could begin to make out individual facial features from within the wall of Prussians before him. He noticed that one of the men directly opposite him had a thick golden mustache and a wide brow.

  “Company, halt!” André stopped his men in their march. Mouth dry, he waited a few seconds, falling back on his training where otherwise his nerve might have faltered. “Company, load!”

  While André’s men began to front-load the gunpowder and bullets into the muzzles of their muskets, the German officer opposite André barked out an order in words André couldn’t understand. At this, the Prussians halted as well, standing with muskets poised in front of them.

  A feeling of dread settled over André, but he forced out the hoarse command: “Company, present arms!” André watched as his words turned to action with a quickness that surprised even him. His men were ready to fight.

  They cocked back their muskets’ hammers. Just before the enemy could open fire, André lifted his sword and shouted: “Fire!”

  Forty weapons fired in that moment, deafening André as the musket balls ripped through the field and a wall of smoke enveloped the French line. Seconds later, André heard the crack of enemy fire in reply. But the Prussians were too late. The first French volley had been effective enough to disorient the enemy and obscure their view, so that the majority of Prussian rounds flew high or fell short of their intended targets. André heard a lone, sickening thud, as one of his soldiers grabbed his stomach and dropped to the ground. Farther down the line, several men cried out and fell to the ground as well.

  As the smoke cleared, André saw that more Prussians had stepped forward to fill in the line where their comrades had been felled. The brief elation André had felt by unleashing and surviving the first volley was now replaced by the cold, unwavering exigency of his years of drilling and training: he had to get the second round into the enemy before they had recovered from their own initial shock.

  “Company, reload!” André yelled. But he noticed, with disappointment, that some of his men were moving unsteadily, numb and dazed after their baptism by enemy fire. The man to André’s left, his hands trembling violently, was having trouble sliding the ramrod into the barrel of his musket to lodge the ball and powder into place.

  They couldn’t delay any longer. “Company, make ready! Fire!” André’s men fired off their second volley almost simultaneously with the enemy’s. This time, the Prussian bullets proved more accurate and more devastating. To André’s left and right, men went down. A bullet flew past his ear, buzzing like an angry hornet, and André saw through the wall of smoke that three men in the front of his line lay flat on the ground. Behind him, Sergeant Digne called out to the men in the second line to fill in these new gaps. The Prussians would not pause their assault to show sympathy for the dying French, André reminded himself, and neither could he.

  Behind them the roar of the French artillery continued, adding to the chaos. This was how it had to happen, André knew: they must keep loading and reloading, killing one another until either one of the lines exhausted its numbers or its men lost th
eir will to keep fighting. The best thing André could do for his men was have them send more shots downrange than the enemy.

  André noticed that his men were distracted, their attention pulled down the slope toward the right flank. There, a cluster of blue-coated guardsmen were shouting like fiends. They had forced the Austrians opposite them into a fighting withdrawal, so that some of the men in the enemy line were beginning to fall back. A handful of the more eager French militiamen were urging their comrades onward to pursue the Austrians, confusing the temporary retreat for a rout. The bluecoats moved en masse toward that breach, surging forward in an unorganized frenzy.

  When they advanced to within a hundred meters of the enemy, the Austrians halted, regrouping. With machinelike efficiency, they performed an about-face and the front rank dropped to their knees. André saw a flurry of sudden gray as the Austrian muskets fired all at once, pouring their deadly hail into the unsuspecting Frenchmen. The efficiency of this sudden counterfire was staggering, and the bluecoats fell like stalks of wheat before a scythe. André felt his stomach turn as he heard so many of his countrymen cry out in agony. The survivors, seeing the carnage all around them, turned and fled, leaving their screaming comrades in the grass as the onslaught of Austrian bayonets turned the wounded into corpses.

  The enemy leadership sensed the sudden vulnerability of the French right flank, and Austrian reinforcements now marched to that spot like a swollen river pounding a vulnerable dam.

  André had to force himself to tear his focus from the carnage and turn back to the more immediate danger facing his own men. He ordered another round of fire, wiping the sweat from his face. Still, to the right, the enemy was funneling men toward the weakened stretch of the French line, endeavoring to pierce the space where so many bluecoats had fallen or fled.

  “Steady, lads, never mind that,” André called out, noticing how many of his men, too, were watching that unraveling swath of their line. What had started as a small hole seemed to be widening, as a torrent of white-coated Austrians now overwhelmed the fissure.

  “Company, reload!” André shouted, noticing how feeble his voice sounded amid the frantic elation of the enemy. How in God’s name would they stop that breach? André wondered. If the Prussians and Austrians broke through in large enough numbers, they would split the French infantry line and spill into the rear, wreaking havoc and causing a panic that would sap any hope of French victory.

  “Company, fire!” André shouted, forcing his hoarse voice to rise up even as this disaster unfolded to his right.

  And then André heard three quick trumpet blasts from behind, followed by a roar of cheers. André turned and saw a squadron of cuirassiers, the French heavy cavalry, racing toward the line, their thick-chested stallions thundering forward. At the front of the formation rode General Murat, the heavy-plate armor across his chest reflecting the sun and dazzling allies and enemies alike. He held his reins with one hand, directing his horse with his legs. With his sword lifted high above his head he cut a fierce silhouette against the cloudless sky. He reminded André of a hawk, riding in a determined arc, poised to descend upon its hapless prey. And then Murat’s sword was slashing and tearing into the line of enemy infantry, cutting down men who moments earlier believed they had broken the French right flank.

  Now even André couldn’t help but watch, rapt, letting out a savage yell as he watched Murat and his horsemen reclaim the momentum of the battle, driving the Prussian and Austrian infantry back from the previously doomed right flank.

  “Sir.” Sergeant Thibaud grabbed André’s shoulder, pointing at the Prussian infantry line opposite them. “The enemy is advancing, sir! Look!”

  André turned to see for himself. Straight ahead, the Prussians had fixed bayonets and were marching forward in a phalanx of men, wood, and steel. The soldiers on both sides began to shout and scream now. The initial fear of death had subsided, and, fueled by bloodlust and the instinct to survive, their desire to kill the enemy had reached its fever pitch. Insults were being hurled from both sides, and André saw it was futile to try to quell the rage of his men. The best course was to harness that frenzied energy and determine the exact moment to unleash it.

  “Company! Fix bayonets!” André shouted, his own hoarse voice sounding as mad as the rest of them now. “Company, advance!” André set the pace as he and his men began to march forward to meet the enemy.

  Meanwhile, approaching them, the Prussians seemed to be growing taller. And their number seemed to have doubled. André, senses heightened, suddenly smelled the stench of hundreds of sweaty men to his left and his right. Around him, other French companies had begun their own marches forward toward the enemy, and the field would soon be roiling with dead and dying men.

  “Company, halt!” André held his sword high. For a moment, there was a crackling, eerie silence as both sides faced each other.

  “Vorwarts Marsch!” And then the enemy began to surge forward, running toward André’s men as they screamed at a bloodcurdling volume: “Schweine!”

  “Hold positions, lads!” André yelled. His men bucked beside him now, faces grim as they prepared to repel this wave of screaming fighters barreling toward them. And then André lifted his sword, shouting over the wails of the approaching enemy. “Front rank, kneel!” His men obeyed, the front line dropping to their knees.

  And then suddenly from behind André, the heavens opened with a terrible wrath, a percussion of noise ripping across the battlefield. The French artillery, which had momentarily fallen silent, now poured out a deadly hail of cannonballs. The advancing Prussian line caught this terrible assault of lead and fire, and scores of men began to convulse and fall to the ground. Clouds of dirt, grass, and smoke flew into the air along with bloody limbs and pieces of shredded uniform. The Prussians cried out in agony and terror, while, across from them, the French erupted in a mighty roar.

  The Prussian assault was blunted momentarily but not halted, as the dazed survivors continued to stagger forward. André seized on this momentary confusion. “Both ranks, reload! Second rank, present arms!” André called to the standing men in his secondary line. “Fire at will!” The jarring crack of all of those French muskets added further damage to the decimated Prussian line, and now André told his men to stand and brace. “Prepare to receive bayonets!”

  His men braced, their own sharp blades raised and pointed to break the Prussian wave like an impenetrable dike. André bent his knees, chin tucked, as he unthinkingly screamed out his thoughts: “Kill the bastards!”

  And then the Prussian infantrymen crashed into his line with a staggering ferocity, the weight of thousands of pounds of men and wood and steel colliding against the lines of the bracing Frenchmen. André held his sword ready to parry the thrust of a steel bayonet that pointed toward his belly.

  To his left, a Prussian was impaled as he crashed into the French line. André watched as another Prussian behind the dead man filled in the line and stabbed the Frenchman in the face. The man fell backward, in a bloody tangle with his killer, whom he struggled with until he was stabbed a second and third time.

  André received the brunt of a shoulder from a large man who bowled into him, crashing into the second rank of French infantry. When he regained his footing, André turned in time to see the bayonet thrust of a squat, stocky man flying toward him. André dodged the thrust and slashed the man’s left shoulder, tearing through uniform and flesh until his blade reached bone.

  The smoke from the cannon fire had billowed forward and now settled like a rain cloud, darkening the field with its shadow and stink as the melee unfolded all around him. To his right, Leroux had his musket locked with a Prussian nearly twice his size. André leaped over a body and thrust his sword tip between the Prussian’s shoulders. Leroux, under the weight of the dying man, fell to the ground, the corpse crashing on top of him. A moment later he rolled the man off of him, spitting out blood and a loose tooth. Taking André’s hand, he rose back to his feet, a stunned look on his
face.

  “Thanks, sir,” was all Leroux could manage, his hands empty of his lost musket. André leaned forward and picked up a gun off a nearby fallen Frenchman. He handed it to Leroux, who nodded, wiping his sweaty, bloodstained face.

  André wiped his own brow, panting, as he turned back toward the scrum. As he scanned the throng for his sergeants, his voice rasping out their names, André noticed two enemy soldiers closing in on him. Each of them had bayonets lifted, and he realized that he’d have to face them simultaneously.

  André stood with his sword unsheathed, bracing for the assault. The first man lunged from the right, his movements jumpy and undisciplined. André easily parried the thrust and slashed the man’s thigh, causing the Prussian to grunt and stagger backward. In a heartbeat, André delivered a second blow, this time hacking the man’s elbow as his assailant fell to the ground, wounded. He crawled away, moaning in agony.

  The second Prussian, larger and more methodical than the first, sized up André from a safe distance. Then, with a startling quickness, the man feinted left and jabbed right, his movement causing André to duck and lose his footing. The man then lifted his rifle and slammed its butt into the side of André’s head. André staggered, falling to his knees as his vision went blurry. He felt a second blow to his head and dropped flat onto the soft grass. The man stood over him now, blocking out the sun, and André saw the blade of the bayonet held aloft as it reflected the midday light. He rolled to his right just in time to hear his enemy’s steel bayonet slice through layers of earth where his head had just rested. The man ripped his blade from the ground, pulling it up covered in dirt and grass, and lowered it in a second attempt, once more just barely missing as André darted out of his way. But the thrust was not entirely ineffective; the blade grazed the side of André’s cheek, just below his hairline, and André gasped, feeling the sting of where the steel had ripped his flesh.