‘Leave to speak, sir?’
‘Wear away, Corporal Acton.’
‘I’ve just seen ’orses again, sir,’ he said, still peering through his telescope.
The light was increasing rapidly. Hervey thought he too could see what might be horsemen. ‘Well, we shan’t have long to wait,’ he said, putting away his glass as if to say they were now committed to the fight.
Five minutes later, the sun broached the horizon and its first horizontal rays began searching the plain.
And then it was revealed – infantry, a brigade and more, standing waiting a mile hence, a mass of cavalry on either flank, artillery drawn up forward. ‘I believe the Seraskier has stolen a march,’ said Fairbrother decidedly. ‘Vedeniapine’s chaplains had better be on their knees.’
‘I’d never discourage prayer,’ said Hervey thoughtfully, ‘but Vedeniapine’s situation may by no means be as perilous as you surmise. The Seraskier can’t have wanted his position revealed by daylight thus. The storming parties should have broken into the trenches while it was yet dark so the rest could close with the redoubts as daylight came – rather than standing yonder in review order.’
General Wachten’s coup d’oeil evidently accorded with Hervey’s. Pointing with his telescope in the direction of the massing Turks, he gave the order for the regiments to load.
‘See,’ said Hervey, nodding to the suddenly animated lines of infantrymen; ‘we might be with Marlborough for all that the drill’s changed.’ He supposed that Peter the Great himself would have approved (certainly the Duke of Marlborough would have found the drill entirely familiar). He could not understand the Russian, but he soon saw what it meant.
‘Prime and load.’ Each man made a quarter turn to the right, brought his musket to the hip and opened the pan.
‘Handle cartridge.’ Back snapped the frizzen, out came cartridge from cartouche bag, and a thousand well-drilled soldiers of the Tsar bit off the bullets and spat out the paper.
‘Prime.’ Hammer to half-cock, pinch of powder in priming pan, frizzen snapped closed again.
‘About.’ Musket butt to the ground, rest of powder into barrel, spit in the ball and push in the cartridge paper to wad the charge.
‘Draw ramrods.’ Pull the ramrod half-way from the barrel hoops, seize backhanded in the middle, draw out and turn it simultaneously to the front, place one inch into barrel.
‘Ram down the cartridge.’ Drive wadding, bullet and powder to bottom of barrel, tamp down with two quick strokes, return ramrod to its hoops.
Half a minute.
The brigade shouldered arms, and waited.
General Wachten rode forward five lengths. ‘Troops will advance!’
Battalion commanders repeated the cautionary.
‘By the left – March! ’
Out stepped the line to the beat of drum in the left flank company, taken up in turn by the time-beaters the length of the brigade. The Cossacks followed at a hundred yards.
‘Come on,’ said Hervey, scrambling down the pile of masonry.
Fairbrother was past remonstrating. In any case, he had never marched to the beat of drum in a parade like this. He fancied he would enjoy it.
They fell in between the Grenadiers and the Kozlov Regiment.
‘A fine prospect, then. Don’t you agree, Corporal Acton?’
‘Can’t understand why I didn’t take the Fusilier serjeant’s shilling and not Serjeant Deakin’s, sir.’
Droll; Hervey smiled. And since there was little else to do in the advance but march in step, he might as well pass the time of day: ‘You were ’listed by Serjeant Deakin, were you? C Troop man – the image of a dragoon. No question that you preferred his shilling. How much was the bounty?’
‘Nine guineas, sir.’
‘I hope there were not too many off-reckonings.’
‘I was able to buy a small interest in a public house, sir.’
Hervey laughed. ‘Ale for all who drank your farewell! I’ve never heard it thus expressed.’
‘No, sir. I means it proper. My uncle’s landlord o’ the Marquis o’ Granby in Bromley.’
Hervey was a shade discomfited. ‘I beg your pardon, Corporal Acton. My compliments to you. An admirably named place.’
Fairbrother had detached himself from the marching repartee, and was first to notice the activity off-shore. ‘Look yonder.’ He pointed to the gunships off the west side of the isthmus.
They had lowered small-boats, and the crews were pulling hard. It was not yet full light but the towing ropes were clearly visible. It wouldn’t take long to swing the ships on their moorings so the guns could bear.
‘Smart work,’ said Hervey. ‘As we observed yesterday, they’ll have targets aplenty if the Turk obliges and stands fast in the open much longer … What do you estimate their number?’
‘I confess I’ve never seen the like,’ said Fairbrother. ‘Who knows how many stand to the rear. Our perspective on foot is very limited. Thousands?’
‘What say you, Corporal Acton?’
Even though observation was the dragoon’s business, and the tricks of the trade practised every field day, it was still a tall order. Yet Acton was undaunted. He shielded his eyes (the sun was now gathering strength) and calmly surveyed the distant ‘enemy’.
‘There appears to be three distinct musters of infantry, sir. If that’s three battalions, suppose upwards, say, of two thousand? The cavalry I can’t make out at all well, but there must be half that number at least. And where else would all them we saw with the Cossacks have gone?’
‘So your report would be?’
‘Estimate two thousand infantry in brigade, with cavalry supports at least one thousand, and artillery troop.’
‘Excellent summation. There must also be a battalion in the trenches, else the fighting would not be so active. We must count on there being four thousand in all.’
‘And we are, what, fifteen hundred?’ asked Fairbrother (‘we’ seemed natural enough, marching in line with a Russian brigade – and he was certain the Turks would make no distinction).
‘And a thousand in the redoubts,’ replied Hervey.
‘The odds are not oppressive, then, as long as yonder general knows his business?’
‘My sentiments entirely. We shall just have to see whether Wachten is as capable of manoeuvring as he is of organizing.’
They tramped on to the growing rattle of musketry and, now that it was light enough to lay, the Turk guns which had opened fire with solid shot at the redoubt. Hervey was relishing the novelty – except for the stench. The smell of horses was sweet; that of the rekrut was not. The stale sweat of a winter unwashed, the pungent exhilaration and fear of coming battle, the sulphurous flatulence, the belching onion breath laced with kvas – he had thought his nose inured to rankness until now.
‘Infantry,’ he said, sighing. ‘If the Turks would only oblige, I’d wheel the entire line to the right and march them into that sea. I never smelled anything so foul in so fair a place.’
Fairbrother shook his head. ‘A maroon’s cabin wouldn’t stink as bad.’
‘The powder-smoke will be a fumigatory. I’d welcome some musketry for medicinal purposes alone.’
Hervey could hardly suppose, though, that an English brigade would smell much sweeter in the circumstances – not, obviously, of kvas, and possibly not of onions, but there would be something just as rank. In other respects he imagined things would be much the same; these Russians advanced at a slower pace – about eighty to the minute, and a shorter step – but infantry were infantry.
He began calculating: the step was a foot and a half, he reckoned (red-coats managed two); eighty to the minute meant a hundred and twenty feet – forty yards – in the minute; there was half a mile till volleying range – so twenty minutes, say. He took out his watch and marked the time. Strange the things that were possible on foot.
The regiments began singing, the Pavlovsk first – Preobrazhensky, at once recognizable. Then the
Kozlov, fullthroated, a swaggering tune he didn’t know but that made them all step out and quicken pace, so that the Pavlovsk’s fifers and time-beaters had to speed theirs to keep the dressing. General Wachten turned in the saddle, smiling broadly and encouraging the beat with clenched fist. One of the Kozlov rekruty, short-legged, short-backed, skipped out of the front rank and began a capering Hopak along the line, urged on by the officers.
‘Not for the Horse Guards, I’d wager,’ said Fairbrother, bemused. ‘But what a joyous way to go to your death.’
‘Perhaps I shall instruct the Fifty-third to sing on the march.’
‘Did the army sing at Waterloo?’
‘The French did, when Bonaparte reviewed them. I don’t recall any on our side of the field.’
They were across the isthmus now, with a breeze bringing a taste of the sea sparkling blue behind them, the sun full up. And then the gunships began their cannonade – thunderous unison and clouds of smoke. The left flank of the Kozlov were now skirting the breastworks of ‘B’ Redoubt, singing louder against the roar of the battery and the broadsides. Flankers fell to fragments of Turk shell which exploded long; the singing faltered momentarily but picked up with renewed determination.
Turk and Russian were now in full view of each other, a furlong and a half at most. Wachten halted the advance and trotted over to where the Kozlov’s commanding officer stood with his adjutant and drummer.
Hervey watched as the general’s hand indicated a change of direction. ‘I believe he intends they enter the trenches,’ he said, with a sufficient note of surprise to alert Corporal Acton.
‘Going with ’em, sir?’
‘I trust not,’ said Fairbrother, before Hervey could reply.
‘No. There’d be nothing to see except at close quarter. I want to observe what the general does. I don’t see his purpose in entering the trenches.’
But that was not what Wachten had instructed them to do – only to present a flank while the rest of the line advanced.
The singing stopped abruptly as the battalion officers began the complicated evolution of forming left at the halt.
‘Would not wheeling be quicker?’ asked Fairbrother.
‘You were the infantryman, not I – but I’ve watched a line take an age to dress when it had wheeled too tightly.’
It was five minutes nevertheless before Wachten was satisfied that his flank was properly protected, and he could give the order ‘Forward!’ to the Pavlovsk.
Hervey now found himself on the left of the line. Shot hissed this way and that at fifty yards. The Turk gunners had not yet changed their lay from the redoubt; it would be an easy switch when they did.
‘I’d say Wachten’s been deuced adroit. If he can fright off yonder Turks, as Vedeniapine did yesterday, likely as not he’ll bolt the ones in the trenches without a fight. I wonder what he’ll have our Cossack friends do?’
He glanced back to where the Cossacks stood with what he imagined must be uncommon patience, waiting for the infantry to gain ground. Had Wachten given them licence to act as they saw fit?
The Pavlovsk were now at volleying range – two hundred yards – but there was no sign of the Turk muskets presenting, or the guns switching and changing to case-shot. They simply stood their ground as if on parade.
‘They don’t seem to be frighted this time,’ said Fairbrother coolly, like a spectator at a field day.
Indeed, the Turks had begun moving forward not back, and inclining left so as (it appeared) to meet the Pavlovsk squarely.
‘You see what it’s to be, then?’ said Hervey.
‘A volleying contest. I do dislike the thing; so bludgeonly.’
Hervey had no desire to stand in a rain of lead either; all his cavalryman’s instinct was for movement. ‘At least I’ll be able to look the Fifty-third in the eye,’ he managed, sounding resigned.
‘If you haven’t first lost your head,’ replied Fairbrother, with some asperity. ‘And I hope there’s to be no “tirez les premiers ”.’ (At Fontenoy the officers had lifted their hats in greeting, and, so legend had it, invited the French to fire first, to which they had replied: ‘Messieurs, nous ne tirons jamais les premiers; tirez vous-mêmes.’)
Hervey agreed. He had once thought the Fontenoy drill the essence of gentlemanlike conduct in the face of fire – but had long since considered it the action of the amateur.
But Wachten’s instinct was also for movement (what chance of it there was). Out went the strelki.
A roundshot struck the ground in front of the Pavlovsk’s left-flank company, ricocheting low and bloodily, cutting a grenadier in two, taking off the head of the man behind, spattering half a dozen others in gory debris. Several threw up, and some fouled themselves – men who had not seen action before, or perhaps who had and knew there was more to come. The singing seemed an age ago.
Another roundshot flew high, close to the general and his staff, and then dropped harmlessly to the rear. Yet another struck the ground in front of the left-flank company but lofted just as harmlessly.
‘Deuced odd,’ said Hervey coolly. ‘They must have left their canister in the limbers.’ Shot was never very destructive unless the ranks were deep or in enfilade.
‘Small mercies. Deo gratias,’ replied Fairbrother.
‘I’ll say “Amen” to that.’
The strelki opened up a galling fire, and with no Turk skirmishers to counter.
‘Mightn’t our own guns show a little address?’
‘Our own?’ Hervey half-smiled. At least they were now on the same side. ‘I’ll warrant that Wachten would give half the Pavlovsk for a horse troop.’
In any case, they would count themselves lucky that only three Turk guns bore – and the gunners damnably slow at their work; it was a full minute before another roundshot ploughed its bloody furrow through the ranks.
On marched the line, leaving the wounded to the drummer boys.
Hervey and Fairbrother fell into silence, the noise too great and the roundshot too grisly. Only the barking of NCOs could be heard, to make a man fear his fate more at their hands than at the cannon’s – or here and there the softer word of an officer to pluck at a man’s faint heart.
Two more minutes and then (thank God) ‘Halt! Make ready!’
The officers took post to flank and rear, clearing the line of fire.
‘Present!’
Up went the four hundred muskets of the front rank.
‘Fire!’
Smoke billowed the length of the line. The second rank advanced five paces, waited for it to drift rear, and then presented.
‘Fire!’
It mattered not what the Turk guns did now: the Pavlovsk had eyes only for their cartridges and ramrods – work they could warm to. The clatter was like power looms in a mill.
It was impossible to see the effect, the smoke was so thick, but men now began falling to the answering fire. NCOs cursed and officers waved their swords, the Pavlovsk firing now by platoons, the old Marlborough drill, giving the Turks no respite. Unless the rounds were wide or high in the fog of powder-smoke, Hervey could not believe the Turks could stand it long.
But the Pavlovsk too were receiving withering musketry. How long could they bear it?
A musket ball knocked off his forage cap, and was lodged in the band when Acton picked it up. Another glanced off his boot, with the pain of a mule kick.
And then the Pavlovsk were fixing bayonets.
And now they were advancing … breaking into double time.
And Hervey was running with his sword at his shoulder, pistol in hand.
Fairbrother cursed as he stumbled and almost fell.
‘Have a care, sir,’ chirped Acton, a sword in each hand.
And into the smoke of the last volley the line charged – yelling, screaming, baying like hounds on to the quarry.
No man waited on a bayonet charge scarce ever: they fired, counter-charged – or fled. The Turks fired – some wild, some well – but the Pavlovsk
charged on, unstoppable.
The Turks turned tail, but the press of men was too great. Into their backs ran the bayonets, a melee of blade, butt and boot – anything to stun and then kill.
Hervey plunged into the frenzy like a wild man, sword flailing. Fairbrother likewise – booting and stabbing with all the savagery of his ancestors. Acton, desperately at Hervey’s hand to catch a blade, used every cut in the drill book.
Long minutes of muscle-tearing, lung-bursting execution, of bloody hacking, thrusting and slicing – and then, as suddenly as they’d charged, it was over, the fighting ceased, the noise ended. Piles of dead, of heaving, writhing, wounded, dying men, others on their knees, and a few running for all they were worth, unencumbered by weapons – all that was left of the Turk brigade.
And now came the sobbing and groaning, the cries of pain and the rattle of death. The Pavlovsk Grenadiers surveyed their work with exhaustion and elation in heady mix. The officers would now begin their work of mercy.
Hervey stood half-bent, sword at his side, unbelieving, panting. Fairbrother put a hand on his shoulder, as if to support himself. Corporal Acton wiped his sabre on a Turk cloak and sheathed it, drawing his pistol to take up guard next to them.
With his breath back, Hervey straightened up. His eyes smarted with the smoke, and the ringing in his ears was infernal; but he could hear faint cheering from the far side of the redoubt – the Azov Regiment, come from nowhere, charging with the bayonet into the flank of the Turk reserve; and far over on the right the Cossacks slipping the leash and going at the Turk cavalry like fire racing through stubble. The Seraskier’s corps was finished. By God, Wachten had judged it well!
Hervey saw him approaching – the general hailing him, indeed, as if he were surprised to find him safe in the midst of so much slaughter.
How should he form the German? – ‘A very perfect victory, sir’?
But Wachten was already forming his own words of appreciation.
It was indeed a very perfect victory – the best part of two brigades overthrown, destroyed; many prisoners and many guns captured. The Cossacks might even have seized the Seraskier himself had he not quit the field so hastily. Siseboli – it was as plain as day – could not be taken by a force less than five times the number that had tried this morning. And where would the Seraskier find such a force, unless by drawing off those facing the Russians to the north? Wachten had cause indeed to be pleased.
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