by Glenn Cooper
A fog that clung to the tops of the tents and the tips of the meadow grass heralded the morning of the grand battle. Few of the soldiers were pleased but John welcomed the mist like a friend and hoped it would linger well into the day. He was far less pleased about Adolphus, since the monk had failed to reappear at the Italian camp. When John had left him near the German position the night before, the monk had assured them he could find his way back. After all, he said, he had been wandering these parts for a very long time.
“I am sorry, John,” Antonio said sympathetically when he returned to the cooking fire. “I have not seen him.”
“Then I have no idea she got my message.”
Simon looked up from his bowl of oats. “I’ll wager the monk got through and delivered it just fine.”
“Why do you say that?” Caravaggio asked.
Garibaldi joined them. “Because living in Hell has turned Simon into an optimist,” he chuckled. “John, I promise you that we will launch a raid into the German field encampment as soon as we have neutralized Henry.”
John adjusted his heavy shoulder bag, went for his saddled horse and said, “Then let’s get this show on the road.”
King Henry was raging at the fog and none of his nobles could calm him.
“How can we begin our assault if we cannot see our way? I was cursed in life and I am cursed in death.”
“We must make our way with caution,” Oxford said, “but the fog cuts both ways, Your Majesty. We cannot see the French but the French cannot see us. Once we reach the Seine the visibility should be much improved.”
Henry fumed. “Send scouts ahead. And where is my mounting block so I may get astride my damned horse?”
Cromwell was no soldier and he had no intention of becoming one now. He would stay in the camp with a retinue of servants and a light guard. He called out to Henry, “I beg you to stay back, well out of harm’s way. You are the treasure of Brittania whose value cannot begin to be measured. You must not be injured or taken or your kingdom will surely crumble.”
Henry began to mount his steed and said, “You are a sycophantic toad, Cromwell. Have I told you that of late?”
“Just yesterday, if I recall, Your Highness.”
John could hear the clopping of a thousand horses and the rumble of artillery carriages but still couldn’t get eyes on the English through the soupy conditions.
“They’re close,” he whispered to Antonio.
“I hope they cannot smell you,” Antonio said.
“With you guys around, all they’ll smell is shit.”
Simon snorted and patted his horse’s neck to keep the beast from getting skittish. Caravaggio reached for one of the grenades in his saddlebag and inspected it for the hundredth time.
“Don’t drop it,” John said. “It’ll be hard to paint without arms and legs.”
“I remain impressed by the beautiful design.”
“I always told my men not to fall in love with their weapons. They’re only tools to get a job done.”
Garibaldi had been persuaded to stay at the rear and leave the initial assault to younger, more agile men but he grumbled and fussed as each squad assembled and galloped off into the mist.
John’s plan was in full swing.
Twenty squads of thirty to fifty riders each fanned out to the north, the east, and the west with the intention of snaring the English in a noose. Lacking any effective form of battlefield communication, John would send a signal, and then in guerilla fashion, implementation would be in the hands of each squad.
He checked his watch, not to aid him this morning, but to remind him he had only six days to get Emily back to England.
“When?” Antonio asked.
John strained his ears. The English army was getting closer. “Soon.”
Just before dawn a German rider galloped into Barbarossa’s camp with news that the Russians had arrived during the dead of night and were grouping nearby. Stalin and his delegation would be arriving any time.
Emily awoke inside her wagon in a state of nervous anticipation. It had been a particularly difficult night and Andreas complained that her restlessness had robbed him of his usually sound sleep.
“Is it because of what the old monk told me?” he asked her, perplexed. “Is it because he said, ‘Thirty?’”
“Yes.”
“What does it mean, thirty?”
“It means a lot, Andreas,” she said. “It’s a very good number. It means I’m not alone.”
“Of course you are not alone. Andreas is here. Many others are outside the wagon.”
Nothing would come from trying to explain more. The simple eunuch wouldn’t understand in a million years, and truth be told, she didn’t understand what was happening either. Who was this monk? Who had sent him? If someone had made the crossing from Earth, who was it and how had it been accomplished? How had she been found in France? Was it possible to return to Earth or would her hopes be dashed?
“Could you just untie me so I can go outside and have a bit of a wash?” she asked.
He trundled over and unlocked the chain that tethered her to the bedframe and led her outside. The air was cool and the camp was shrouded in mist. On her way to the privy she saw soldiers preparing themselves for war by strapping weapons to their waists, saddling horses, kicking dirt on their cooking fires. Inside the privy tent she heard their crude remarks about what they’d like to do with her if given half the chance and when she emerged to splash herself at the water trough she stared down the nearest ones with as much venom as she could muster.
A commotion rippled through the camp.
She saw the soldiers around her suddenly ignore her and point toward the sound of approaching horses, saying, “Are they here?” and, “Yes, it’s them, I am sure,” and, “Keep your pistol cocked. They cannot be trusted.”
Emily turned to Andreas and asked what they were talking about.
“The Russians, I reckon,” he said. “I heard they were coming.”
“Why?”
“To help our king defeat the French, that is why.”
Emily did not have an unobstructed line of sight to Barbarossa’s wagon but she could see some of what came next. A bevy of riders in smart green uniforms and black boots dismounted and formed a human cordon for a painted covered wagon resembling a gypsy caravan she had seen in a movie. The wagon stopped and then nothing happened for a minute or two.
Andreas half-heartedly tried to hurry her along back inside her own wagon but he seemed intent on watching the Russians himself.
It seemed that there was a stalemate of sorts, finally broken when Himmler emerged from Barbarossa’s wagon to speak with a mustachioed Russian. Finally Himmler went back into the king’s quarters and Barbarossa himself came outside, hands on hips, looking quite furious. Seconds later, a smallish, powerfully built man with a splendid shock of silver hair emerged from the painted caravan and shuffled forward.
The man was far shorter than Emily had imagined him to be but his features were iconic and unmistakable. She was sure of it.
It was Joseph Stalin.
He curtly extended a hand that King Frederick pumped once and quickly unclasped, as if worried it might be taken from him. Stalin then followed Barbarossa back into the king’s wagon, accompanied by Himmler and a handful of the Russians.
“Come,” Andreas said, pulling her along. “There is no more to see.”
She followed the eunuch obediently for a few paces then froze.
A slight man with curly gray hair spilling from under a soft cap showed himself at the doorway of the Russian painted wagon for no more than a second or two before retreating inside.
There was something about him. That fleeting glance did not trigger recognition, the way she had recognized Stalin, but an emotion, a confused emotion, a blend of sadness and warmth. Andreas tugged at her wrist and she shook it off.
Shackled once again to her bed she asked, “How long will I be kept this way?”
Andrea
s shrugged his big shoulders. “I do not know. The war will start soon. We will win, I think. Then we will go home.”
She sighed. “I would like to go home too.”
King Maximilien remained in his palace that morning complaining of a throbbing leg and Forneau was glad of that. In the field the king could only be counted upon for histrionics and sowing confusion and Forneau suspected it was fear of the Germans that made his leg ache today.
Forneau had ridden from the walled city while it was still dark and had joined Orleans at the French encampment. Surveying the morning fog together he asked the duke whether the weather was affecting his plans.
“Not at all,” the dapper and confident military man replied. “If anything it improves our position. The Germans will be expecting us to be in the west challenging Henry, and here we are in the east, waiting to pounce on them when they emerge from the fog. I am most pleased.”
“I admire your spirit,” Forneau said.
“Thank you. How is the king today, if I might ask?”
“He is unwell.”
“I see. You know, Forneau, if we are triumphant today, perhaps you and I should seek each other’s counsel.”
“On what subject?”
“Oh, this and that. I was merely thinking that for the good of our kingdom, that plans might be prudently weighed should Maximilien’s health take a dramatic turn.”
Forneau nodded gravely. “I believe I know precisely what you mean,” though if madness had seized him he might have replied, “You? You wish to be king? If fortune finds us today then a nobler man than yourself will be king of Francia and perhaps all the dominions of Hell.”
John leaned forward in his saddle, straining to see through the fog. Through the blanket of white something of color came into view, a fluttering red.
A flag.
The squeal of ungreased axles grew louder and the murmuring voices of Englishmen were heard. If the Englishmen were any closer one of them might have marched straight into John’s horse.
It was time.
He never imagined he’d be in another war but here he was, a very long way from home, a soldier again.
He had one of his grenades in his hand and holding the pommel of his saddle for balance, he let it fly with all of his might. It sailed away in a high arc and though he lost sight of it in the mist he heard the explosion seconds later followed by the screams of the soldiers it tore into.
The signal given, he dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and pierced the fog bank, Antonio and Simon to his left, Caravaggio to his right and the rest of his squad of men following, every man throwing a grenade as he rode.
From all sides, the English army found itself under assault by thirty squads of Italian riders. Dozens of explosions rang out and hundreds of soldiers were shredded.
King Henry pulled in his reins and saw small fireballs rising up in the distance from every direction.
“What the blazes!” he shouted. “Where are they?”
One of his soldiers fired a musket blindly and the king berated him asking what he thought he was shooting at.
Oxford rode to the king and implored him to turn back but Henry would hear nothing of it.
“I go forward,” he shouted. “A king only goes forward. Let us teach these French dogs a lesson they will never forget.”
“Listen, sire,” Oxford said, cupping his ear to the shouts of the enemy. “I do not hear French. I hear only Italian voices.”
“Italian?” Henry shouted. “What the devil are Italians doing here?”
The English troops were so confused and terrorized by the simultaneous assaults that they hardly fought back against the Italian riders suddenly in their midst. Those that did were cut down by saber thrusts and pistol shot. For his part, John was little interested in hand-to-hand combat. The object of his attack was not flesh and blood, but metal. Having taught the English how to make La Hitte cannon, his immediate task was destroying them. He made for the nearest group of cannon carriages, shouting for his squad to follow.
He rode to the first large cannon piece he saw and in the split second of attention he could give it, the mouth of the barrel looked smooth.
“This isn’t one of them,” he shouted to Antonio, “but I’m going to spike it anyway.”
As he reached for a grenade in his shoulder bag, an English infantryman lunged at him, but Caravaggio was there to sever the man’s arm with a strong blow. John threw the grenade hard down into the barrel of the cannon and jerked his horse away just as the artillery piece exploded in a muffled blast, the steel torn open at a seam.
“Look for the ones with notches,” he shouted.
Simon found one, the deep notches easily visible at the barrel opening. He tossed a grenade into the muzzle and it exploded. John soon found a notched one too and did the same. All around the battlefield the distinctive muffled explosions could be heard as the Italian raiders spiked artillery barrels.
Some twenty yards away, John recognized a flag, the same design he had seen in Hampton Court and there, on a black horse was King Henry, waving his sword and bellowing at his compatriots. For the briefest of moments in the ensuing chaos, Henry seemed to see him too and though it was too far to be sure, John detected a shocked scowl before the king turned his horse and galloped off.
Garibaldi was half a mile away in a safe, rearguard position. The sounds and smells of war had started his old juices flowing and though his spirit was willing, his bones and joints were creaky. He sat astride his horse, flanked by two of his older generals, men who had signed onto his cause years earlier, and lamented the information blackout. The fog had lightened but he still could see no more than orange explosions through his spyglass.
“Are we winning?” he asked. “Are we winning?”
From a distance, the grenade blasts sounded like thunder but Forneau knew exactly what it was.
He said to the Duke of Orleans, “The time has come, has it not?”
“It has indeed.”
The duke mounted his horse and one of his generals waved a flagpole high over his head so the masses of French troops might see the signal.
Forneau too pulled himself onto his saddle. “What are you doing, Forneau?” Orleans asked. “You are no soldier.”
“You are wrong,” Forneau said. “Today we are all soldiers.”
To the west of Paris the battle raged on for an hour and Garibaldi became despondent over the lack of news. Time and again, his generals had to physically restrain him from impulsively galloping off to join the fray.
Suddenly loud shouts were heard and out of the fog men emerged, running madly toward the Italian camp.
Englishmen.
Owing to their chaotic formation, it was clear enough this was no assault, but a retreat, and upon seeing the Italian reserve force, the English soldiers panicked further. Caught between two fronts some of the soldiers threw down their weapons in surrender but others raised swords, their muskets and pistols long spent of shot.
“To arms!” Garibaldi shouted. Now his own men could no longer prevent him from fighting as the enemy swarmed among them. Garibaldi drew his pistol and shot a man in the forehead then pulled out his sword and charged.
An Englishman with a pike came running toward him and one of Garibaldi’s bodyguards jumped in front of his master’s horse to protect him. But the pike impaled the man’s belly, went straight through his back and entered Garibaldi’s left calf. Garibaldi swung his saber with an old precision and took off the top of the pike man’s skull. Then he painfully dismounted and knelt beside the fallen bodyguard to give him some tender words in his agonies.
At this moment John, Antonio, Simon, and Caravaggio rode into the Italian camp, attacking the sandwiched Englishmen. Soon they were joined by a larger contingent of Italians and the remaining enemies were vanquished, their broken and bloodied bodies left to writhe in the dirt.
John dismounted and flew to Garibaldi’s side.
“You’re wounded,” he said.
John took a look at the impaled man. “There’s nothing I can do for him but let’s try to patch you up.”
He tore some cloth from the pike man’s shirt and was bandaging Garibaldi’s calf when they both heard the rumble and squeak of heavy wagons.
“The enemy!” Garibaldi said. “We must go.”
“It’s not the English,” John said. “It’s a gift for you.”
Through the mist, a dozen heavy cannon carriages appeared, pulled by English horses but driven by Italian men. As a cheer went up through the camp John saw Caravaggio lifting Simon off his feet in jubilation.
John pointed toward the carriages and said, “When the English retreated I decided not to spike all of them. I saved some for you.”
“I am glad you are safe,” Garibaldi said, wiping tears from his face. “And I will most assuredly put these artillery pieces to good use.”
“The English will probably regroup,” John said. “It’s too early to celebrate.”
“I agree.” Garibaldi inspected his leg. “Excellent bandage work. Thank you. Now help me to my feet.”
The Italian riders from the thirty separate squads began arriving back in camp and Garibaldi gave a brief and heartfelt speech praising their courage and reminding them that there was more, much more to accomplish on the day.
The fog was now lifting. They would be able to see the English coming if a counterattack was in the offing. A portion of the Italian army would stay to the west to deal with a regrouped Henry and the rest would slide to the east to assist the French against Barbarossa.
John rushed through a teach-in on how to load and fire the La Hitte cannon. Groups of men huddled around as he demonstrated the techniques. When he was done, Garibaldi limped to his side, fitted with a cane artfully carved by Caravaggio from a tree limb.
“It’s time to honor my promise,” he said. “Let us go find your Emily.”