‘How so?’ Billy scoffed at his words. ‘How can that,’ he pointed at the Legion, ‘stop those.’ He waved at the Austrian columns moving purposefully towards them.
‘Did your ma teach you to add up?’
‘Course.’
‘Then do it now. How many rifles are in that line?’
Billy twisted in the saddle as he looked at the French soldiers. ‘A lot.’
‘How many men in those columns can return fire.’
Billy screwed up his eyes as he peered through the mist. ‘Just those in the front.’
‘So who wins?’
Billy’s lips moved as he did his calculations. Every man in the French line could fire, whereas only the Austrians in the front two ranks of each column could hope to return it. He did the sums, and for the first time in a while he smiled. ‘We do.’
‘It’s simple, isn’t it?’ Jack nodded as the boy reached the correct conclusion. ‘Those columns look bloody frightening, I give you that, but when they’re close enough, our boys over there will open fire. The first volley will cut down the front ranks, maybe the second and perhaps even the third. The white coats will still come on, even if they have to tread their mates into the dirt to do it, but then the second volley will hit them. The front of that column will be like a bloody butcher’s yard. They’ll be screaming then, those whose arms have been torn off, or whose guts are spilling into their hands. They’ll get in the way, stopping their mates coming up behind. The French, well, they’ll keep firing, keep killing and maiming, and they won’t be able to miss, will they, seeing as how those bloody things are so damn big.’
Jack tasted something bitter as he predicted what was to come. ‘If those Austrian boys have any sense, they’ll turn tail right here and now. If they’re brave, or foolish,’ he shook his head, ‘or both, then they’ll still try to come on. But they won’t stand, not for long. When they break, they’ll be nothing more than a mob of frightened bastards running for their lives.’
He looked at Billy, his smile stretched thin. ‘So don’t be frightened. Those poor buggers are marching to their deaths.’
The Austrian columns came on in fine style. The noise assaulted the French line, the bugle calls and the beat of the drums getting ever louder. The advance of the great blocks of men seemed inexorable, the French line far too fragile to stand against such power.
The Austrian conscripts saw it too. They cheered with every step, whilst their officers bellowed encouragement. The great yellow and black flags waved at the columns’ heads, the proud imperial eagles revealed to the men packed tight in the ranks as the breeze caught the huge squares of silk.
Jack watched, grim-faced, as the men of the Legion finished loading their Minié rifles. It was the same weapon he had used in the Crimea, a fine gun for an infantryman. The barrel was rifled, the long grooves etched into the inside spinning the bullet to make it vastly more accurate than the smoothbore muskets it had replaced. But it was not the rifling that made the Minié one of the most deadly weapons ever used on the battlefield. The real genius was in the bullet.
Unlike the round balls fired by the rifles used when the first Napoleon was emperor, the conical bullet fired by the Minié was smaller than the weapon’s barrel, allowing the men to load quickly and easily. When the charge was ignited, the base of the bullet deformed and expanded to grip the rifling. This expansion also contained the power of the charge’s detonation, ensuring that all of it was delivered behind the bullet.
It was dreadfully effective. In the Crimea, Jack had seen five or even six men hit by a single bullet. Now he looked at the advancing columns and felt something close to sympathy for the Austrians approaching the French line. He had no doubt what would happen, what fate awaited the men packed together in the tightly spaced ranks. He knew what was to come, and he felt angry. For the Austrian commanders had learned nothing of the wars already fought in the era of modern weaponry.
The French general would still take no chances. He saw the might of the columns, and he sent his artillery to support his infantry. Jack watched as the French artillerymen bustled around their guns, the air filled with the shouts of their officers and sergeants as they prepared to fire. The men knew what they were about, and it did not take long for the teams of horses to be sent to the rear, the guns lined up so that their great gaping muzzles pointed towards the enemy.
The columns were getting closer. The white-coated ranks advanced with discipline, the formation maintaining its cohesion even as they came into range of the French gunners.
With a great roar, the guns opened fire.
Jack felt Billy flinch as the thunderclap of sound pounded into them.
‘Watch, boy, watch!’ He snapped the instruction, his own eyes fixed on the columns.
Soil and dust was thrown up in great fountains of dirt as the first shells smashed into the ground just ahead of the closest column. The French gunners were firing at what seemed to Jack to be an impossibly long range, but they had still nearly found their mark with their first volley.
The gunners did not pause to celebrate. The gun line was a hive of activity as the artillerymen went through the tightly choreographed routine of reloading.
The second volley seared out across the plain less than half a minute later. This time the barrels were warmer and the shells went further, tearing into the Austrian columns. Even from a distance, Jack saw great gaps ripped in the enemy’s ranks before a thin cloud of powder smoke obscured his view. The familiar stink stuck in his throat, the rotten-egg stench filling his mouth. He leaned from the saddle and spat, the taste bitter.
When his head lifted, the powder smoke had rolled away enough for him to see a battery of Austrian guns deploying to return fire. From so far away the enemy gunners looked tiny, swarming around their cannon like so many ants disturbed from a nest.
The French fired two more volleys before the enemy gunners were ready to reply. Jack saw great gouts of flame sear from the Austrian cannon as they replied, the sound very different to the great roars of the French salvos. He tried to trace the path of the shot, but the range was simply too great, and all he saw was a series of crevices being gouged in the ground well to the front of the French line.
The French gunners did not pause. They poured on their volleys, their rifled barrels so much more effective than the smoothbore cannon used by the Austrians. Shell after shell hit the infantry columns, each one tearing another great gash in the ranks.
‘Jesus Christ.’ Jack had never seen an artillery barrage like it. The French gunners were destroying the Austrian columns. Barely a shell was missing, even at such long range, and already the advance was grinding to a bloody halt.
A battery of Austrian horse artillery rushed forward. It was a courageous move. Jack could see the gunners lashing at their horses to drive them on. The limbers scrabbled across the ground, the cannons behind bucking like wild creatures. The Austrian artillerymen were gambling on a fast advance to allow them to close the range and bring their cannon to bear on the French guns that were wreaking such havoc on their comrades.
Jack heard the shouts from the French gun line as the enemy horse artillery was spotted. It took little time to turn a battery of the French guns towards them, the gunners hallooing joyously like a hunter getting his first glimpse of a fox.
Still the Austrian horse artillery came on, flaunting their courage. The men in the columns cheered them loudly, even as another salvo of shells ripped into their ranks.
The French battery finished realigning and opened fire. Their gun sergeants had taken their time aiming, their skill challenged by the bravery of their peers in the enemy’s ranks. Jack tried to gauge the range. It had to be at least a thousand yards, much too far for a smoothbore cannon to hope to hit its target, but well within the range of these new French guns that had been manufactured and designed for just such a moment as this.
The French salvo hit. Not one shell missed. One moment the Austrian guns had been galloping forward; the next
they were destroyed.
A lone gun emerged from the destruction. Five had been hit and now lay in smoking ruin, the ground around them smothered with dead horses and broken men. The single gun to survive swerved around and charged for the rear. The cheers of the Austrian infantry died away.
Jack turned his gaze from the slaughter. It was a dreadful demonstration of the power of the modern cannon. Warfare was changing in front of his eyes.
To the left of the French line, the ridge was wreathed in smoke. Maréchal MacMahon’s II Corps was just one of the five French infantry divisions at the emperor’s disposal that day. Whilst Jack was witnessing the fight on the southern flank of the battlefield, other French divisions were assaulting the ridge itself. From where he sat, it was impossible to know if these assaults were succeeding, or if they were being destroyed as easily as the Austrian columns.
‘Those are brave boys.’ Palmer voiced his opinion softly, drawing Jack’s attention back to the great blocks of infantry that were still struggling forward. It was indeed a courageous display, the men in white uniforms forced to pick their way over the dead and the dying, the ground behind them littered with broken bodies.
The French guns fired without pause. Every shell hit. Every shell killed.
The columns were nowhere near the French line when the inevitable happened. With hundreds slaughtered, the survivors could advance no further. The formations broke, the men turning and streaming towards the rear in sudden, desperate haste. The French gunners kept firing, killing and maiming even as their enemy ran.
The men in the French line did not cheer. The legionnaires had watched fellow infantrymen butchered by the artillery fire, and more than one face turned to stare in loathing at the gunners, the foot soldiers’ sympathy firmly with the men in the white uniforms.
The guns fell silent, the broken enemy ranks now too far away even for the power of their precious new cannon. The first Austrian attack had been repulsed without the French infantry firing a single volley.
Jack shifted his aching buttocks as he sat on the ground. He looked around, trying to see if anything was happening, but he could see nothing save for French troops standing patiently in their ranks as they waited for fresh orders. He could hear the sounds of fighting, but they came from far away on the ridge, and were not close enough to warrant his attention.
‘Going to be a storm.’
Palmer was sitting on the ground next to Jack whilst Billy held all three horses. He was looking up at the sky. The day was already hot, the air muggy and close. The skies overheard were grey and smudged with an inky darkness, the telltale signs of a storm building over the top of the battlefield.
The Legion had not moved for several hours, the morning dragging by with excruciating slowness. There had been some activity. Austrian cavalry had threatened II Corps’s right flank, the hostile detachments probing the joint between it and III Corps. MacMahon’s cavalry had seen them off easily enough. The fighting had been too far away for the men in the Legion to see very much of it at all, and Jack was feeling thoroughly bored.
‘Looks like it,’ he agreed. He looked across at his comrade. ‘I’ve never seen columns beaten back like that.’ He had been dwelling on the fate of the Austrian infantry.
‘No.’ Palmer’s expression was as dark as the sky. ‘Those poor boys didn’t stand a chance.’
Jack denied any notion of sympathy. ‘At least it was over quickly.’
‘Hark at you. You don’t know shit, Jack.’ Billy was standing close enough to overhear, and he interrupted with laughter. ‘It was nothing like you said it would be.’
Jack ignored the comment, but the boy was correct. He had seen war, had fought in enough battles to know what to expect. But his experience bore little comparison to what they had just witnessed. War was changing, the men far away in the factories designing and manufacturing weapons that made a mockery of the tactics used on every battlefield since the previous century.
‘Here we go.’ Palmer spotted the arrival of a galloper, a young officer in sky blue who rode fast along the line towards a group of officers. As he came closer, they turned as one to face him.
‘At last. I reckon we’ll go north.’ Jack glared at Billy, who pulled a face as he heard a fresh prediction. ‘That way.’ He nodded towards the ridge.
‘I reckon you’re right.’ Palmer stood up to get a clearer view. He sat down quickly enough, shaking his head. ‘I can’t see fuck all.’
Jack grunted in acknowledgement. It was always the way. Once the battle started, a soldier could only see what was going on around him, and even then it was hard to know anything more than what was happening right under his own nose. No one knew the whole picture, not even the general commanding the army. It was only afterwards that some overall sense of events could be gleaned. During the day, all a man could do was beat the enemy in front of him, and pray to God that everyone else was doing the same.
A series of bugle calls followed within a minute of the galloper’s arrival. Almost immediately the long line of infantrymen started to break up, returning to the column formation that was more suitable for manoeuvres, re-forming to face northwards towards the ridge that dominated the centre of the battlefield.
Ahead of them was San Cassiano, the village spread across the slope of the ridge to the south of Solferino. Thus far, the men of the Legion had been spectators, their role in the battle limited to standing by and watching as the Austrian columns were destroyed. But the day was young, and now it would be their turn to go on the offensive.
Jack guessed that it was early afternoon when the French columns marched for a second time. The officers took their time. The columns had no sooner moved off when they were stopped again, the sergeants and corporals running around the ranks to ensure that every file was perfectly spaced and every rank aligned with those around it, so that the column was ordered and formed correctly. Only when they were satisfied did the men move off again, the drums beating out the rhythm of the advance.
Jack, Billy and Palmer followed the rear ranks of the Legion. They rode easily, their borrowed horses taking the strain as the ground sloped up sharply once they reached the lower reaches of the ridge.
Now the column stopped again. This time it was to redeploy. With the drums beating out the time, the men moved into a new formation. In the days of the first Napoleon, the French army had attacked in great columns, a dozen or more battalions formed into one massive body of men. Reform had been slow, but defeat at the hands of the British and their European allies had taught the French that such tactics needed to be consigned to the past.
Now the Legion redeployed into mixed order. There were eight battalions committed to the attack on San Cassiano. They were ordered into two groups of four. In each formation, two battalions would form line, the men arranged in two long ranks, one battalion beside the other. The other two battalions would advance in a battalion column, one on each flank of the line. The formation was designed to lessen the effect of enemy artillery fire whilst having the firepower of a line, but with flanks secured by the denser columns.
The Legion would form the right-hand column on the southernmost formation. Each of the battalion’s eight companies moved into a two-man-deep line arranged one behind the other. Once in place, the men fixed their bayonets, the air filled with purposeful clicks as they twisted the steel blades into place.
With the French assault paused, Jack had time to pull his field glasses from their leather pouch and use them to see what lay ahead. It did not take long to bring the slopes around San Cassiano into sight. The ground the French were attacking was smothered with white-coated Austrian infantry formed into long lines on the slopes below the village.
It would be a hard fight. The French battalions would have to advance against the Austrian line with the slope sapping their strength. They would be under fire every step of the way, the Austrian line able to pour down volley after volley. The ridge was a strong defensive position, and this time the Austrian line hel
d all the advantages.
‘This is close enough.’ Jack twisted in the saddle so he could face Billy. ‘Down you get, lad.’
The boy needed no further urging. Jack felt the cold breeze on his back as Billy’s warm body slipped from the saddle, to land sure-footed on the ground. Jack dismounted too, immediately handing the reins to Billy. Palmer had already done the same and now tossed a sack in Jack’s direction.
Jack slipped his worsted jacket from his shoulders. He dipped into the sack and pulled out the blue tunic of the Legion. It was time to lose the civilian garb and become a soldier once again.
‘Stay here and don’t bloody move. We’ll need to come and find you, and we can only do that if we know where you are.’
Billy nodded earnestly in reply to Jack’s instructions. They stood in a sparse copse of cypress trees. It would offer little in the way of shelter, but it was a decent landmark, one Jack was reasonably sure he could find again with no trouble. He did not know how the day would play out, but if Ballard’s plan went off perfectly, he and Palmer would be back soon enough, the errant son reclaimed.
‘He’ll be all right.’ Palmer walked over with an oddly stiff gait. His legionnaire’s tunic was too tight and pulled badly across his shoulders.
Jack smiled at the effect. ‘You look about as French as boiled beef and carrots.’
Palmer chuckled at the comment. ‘I don’t plan to wear this get-up for long.’ He nodded at Jack. ‘At least yours fits.’
Jack made a show of preening. ‘I quite like it.’ He had worn both the bright scarlet of a British officer and the plain red wool of an ordinary soldier. He had worn the dark blue of a British hussar, the dusty khaki jacket of an Indian irregular, and even the fabulous sky-blue tunic of a maharajah’s general. The legionnaire’s blue coat was just another to add to the list.
He settled the kepi on his head. Ballard had done well to find them the uniforms. The battle to come would be quite unlike the confused close-quarter fighting in Magenta that had allowed them to find Fleming without being turned away. This time it would be hard, if not impossible, to get close to him, the Legion sure to fight in a tight, organised formation. Ballard’s stolen uniform gave them a chance of getting amongst the ranks, a chance they would need to take if they were to have any hope of completing their mission.
The Last Legionnaire Page 24