The Last Legionnaire

by Paul Fraser Collard

  The Austrians fired.

  It was the legionnaires’ turn to die. The Austrian muskets may have lacked the power of the French rifles, but the range was short and the volley cut down the attackers in swathes.

  Jack could not hold back a cry as a musket ball seared through the soft flesh above his hip. The pain flashed brightly, then he hit the line.

  An Austrian conscript lunged at him. It was a weak blow, the man’s terror stealing the strength from the attack. Jack laughed as he battered it aside. He was still laughing as he hit the man with his rifle butt. It took him barely a second to ram his bayonet down before he was moving on, the Austrian soldier left clutching the terrible hole that had been torn in his belly.

  Within moments, the Austrian line had been splintered. Dozens died, the legionnaires ramming home their bayonets with ruthless precision. Some Austrians turned to run, but they were cut down. Jack felt no mercy as he stabbed his bayonet into the joint of a man’s neck and spine. The man screamed, twisting as he fell so that he landed on his back. He lay there floundering like a recently landed fish until Jack silenced him with an efficient thrust through the heart. His bayonet stuck fast, and he cursed as he was forced to stamp hard on the man’s chest to free it.

  The delay nearly cost him his life. The fight had broken up into a hundred vicious melees where death could come from any direction. Jack ripped his bayonet free just in time to see a white-coated soldier preparing to smash in his skull with a rifle butt.

  He threw himself to one side. The rifle butt caught him a glancing blow on the shoulder. Pain seared through him, but still he thrust his bayonet into the man’s gut. This time he twisted the steel cruelly, freeing it before it stuck fast.

  The fear came then. Men were falling in droves, many cut down from the side or rear so that they died without knowing who had killed them. His nostrils flared as the familiar stink of battle caught in his throat: the sour odour of blood and shit, mixed with the stench of opened guts and torn flesh.

  He lunged, bellowing with rage. An Austrian officer was on the point of cutting into Kearney’s unprotected neck. Instead of landing the blow, he turned, a scream escaping from his lips, his face revealing a horrible mix of terror and surprise as Jack drove his bayonet into his side.

  The legionnaire sergeant whirled on the spot, finally alive to the danger. The Austrian was already falling away, his hands scrabbling frantically at the gaping wound. Kearney’s face twisted into a vicious snarl as he realised how close to death he had just come. He hammered his rifle butt down, finishing off the officer who had so nearly killed him.

  An Austrian conscript came at Kearney from behind, crying out as he lunged. His bellow turned into a scream as Jack’s bayonet took him in the throat, the long steel blade erupting from the back of his neck as Jack drove it home.

  ‘That’s twice!’ Jack shouted the words as he pushed forward so that he could cover Kearney’s back.

  Kearney had no time to reply. Another Austrian attacked, using his bayonet in short, efficient thrusts. The sergeant battered each one away, keeping the man at bay long enough for Jack to come at him from the side. His bloodied bayonet ended the disciplined attack with a single strike to the heart.

  It was their last fight. The Austrians broke for a second time. A few legionnaires cheered as the enemy fled, but most just sucked down huge draughts of air before starting the hideous task of pulling the wounded from the piles of bodies that lay around them.

  They were not given time to do much. The worst of the wounded would be left behind as fresh orders rallied the ranks and recalled them to their position on the ridge’s crest.

  Whilst they had been fighting off the Austrian counter-attack, the first guns had finally been manhandled into position. Now the artillerymen opened fire, their shells smashing into the fleeing troops.

  ‘Fucking bastards.’ Jack cursed under his breath at the merciless French gunners. He sucked in a lungful of air, then started to retrace his steps back up the slope. A heavy hand on his shoulder stopped him.

  ‘I owe you my thanks.’ Kearney’s face was serious.

  ‘You’d have done the same for me.’ Jack had not fully caught his breath, so he gasped his reply.

  ‘Would I?’ Kearney’s face creased into a smile. ‘I’m glad you think so.’

  Jack tried to laugh, but it came out more like a sob. He took a moment to catch his breath before he replied. ‘I know your type. You cannot help playing the hero.’

  Kearney slapped him on the back. The fight seemed to have barely affected him at all. ‘Come on, Jack, that’s enough of your crap. Let’s get you back safe.’

  The two men started the long trudge up the slope. Neither looked at the pile of bodies left behind, the pathetic heaps that marked the high tideline of the Austrian counter-attack. Palmer and Fleming passed them. From the look on the legionnaire’s face, he was not enjoying Palmer’s presence. It appeared that Ballard’s enforcer planned not to go more than a yard from Fleming’s side.

  Jack looked at the sky. It was dark, and heavy black clouds shrouded the sun, but he guessed it could be no later than mid-afternoon. There was plenty of daylight left. Plenty of time for more men to die.

  ‘You’re still alive, then.’ Palmer greeted Jack as he made it up the last yards of the slope. Around him the exhausted legionnaires were slumping to the ground. For the moment, both the Austrians and their own officers were leaving them in peace. It was time for a moment’s rest, to give thanks for being alive, and to relive the moments of the chaotic fight.

  ‘Takes more than a little scrap like that to kill me.’ Jack wanted nothing more than to lie on the ground. He was out of condition, a fact made all the more evident as Kearney came striding past him, his breathing unaffected by the events of the last half-hour. He forced as deep a breath as he could manage into his lungs, then stood straight. ‘Blow me, but it’s hot.’

  ‘Not as hot as India.’ Palmer pulled his canteen from over his shoulder and took a long draught.

  Jack gave his own canteen a shake. It was still half full, so he had a drink, careful not to take too much. He knew how badly he would need it later on. Good water was as scarce as mercy on a battlefield.

  ‘Hot? This isn’t hot,’ Kearney scoffed. ‘In Algeria, it was so hot you could feel your brain frying in your skull, during the day at least. The nights were cold enough to freeze your balls for all time.’

  Fleming chuckled at his sergeant’s mockery. ‘Best be kind to them. They’re just new recruits.’

  ‘Hark at you. I was killing men when you were still shitting in your breeches, old son.’ Palmer did not care for the abuse.

  Fleming shrugged, then looked to Kearney. ‘Sergeant, we should show the old man some respect.’

  ‘Old man indeed!’ Palmer rose to the bait. ‘I didn’t hear you calling me that when I killed that white-coated bastard who was about to shove his bayonet up your fucking arse.’

  ‘That was kind of you,’ Fleming was enjoying himself, ‘just as it was kind of you to leave that other fellow to me. You recall him? The one about to ram a bayonet into your balls before I killed him.’

  The two men laughed. It earned them a few stares, and some glares, the English voices clearly grating on finely stretched nerves.

  Kearney spotted the reaction. ‘Enough. There’ll be plenty of time for those tales. That time is not now.’

  ‘No, but it is time for us to leave.’ Palmer’s smile disappeared quicker than a routed Austrian. ‘Old son,’ he wrapped his hand around Fleming’s elbow, ‘I’d be grateful if you‘d walk with us.’

  Fleming shook his arm to free it, but Palmer’s great paw stayed in place. ‘Don’t be foolish. I cannot leave now. The day is not done.’

  ‘We can slip away all quiet like. Even these French buggers will let you go for a shit. We can go and not come back. We have horses over yonder.’ Palmer looked at Kearney. ‘We’ve all done our bit for today.’

  Kearney nodded. ‘I won’t st
op you.’ He glanced around at the tired men sitting on the ground. There were far fewer than there had been an hour earlier. Those left alive did not care if Fleming and the Englishmen left, and the handful of officers still on their feet were too busy to notice.

  ‘There you have it.’ Palmer kept a firm grip on Fleming’s elbow. ‘Now you behave yourself and come with us.’

  Fleming shook off Palmer’s hand. ‘I am a legionnaire. I will not leave my comrades.’

  Palmer was unimpressed by such passionate loyalty. ‘I need you to put an end to all this, one way or the other.’

  Jack watched the exchange in silence, content to leave the negotiations, such as they were, to Palmer. The older man was having no more luck than he himself had had when he had tried to convince Fleming to come with them.

  ‘Hold fast.’ Palmer was about to grab Fleming with more force when Jack spotted a French officer riding down the line towards them.

  ‘What the devil does he want?’ Palmer glared at the unwanted interruption.

  The officer’s horse was lathered in sweat, great globules of foam at the corners of its mouth, but it still had enough energy to toss its head as the few surviving Legion officers stepped towards the man on its back.

  The exchange that followed was curt. The mounted officer spoke quickly and urgently, his left hand thrust out to point to the south.

  ‘Do you understand what he is saying?’ Kearney stood at Jack’s shoulder.

  ‘No idea.’ Jack gave a half-smile as he admitted it.

  ‘The Austrians are trying to turn our right flank.’ Kearney spoke softly, one ear turned to listen to the conversation. ‘While we have been fighting up here, the men down on the plain have been under heavy attack. He says every man is needed, otherwise the day is lost.’

  Jack twisted and looked in the direction the officer was pointing. From their place on the high ground, he could see a fair way to the south and east. The plain stretched away for miles. Most of the great expanse was wreathed in powder smoke. The men of the Legion had started their day down there, watching as their artillery had turned back the first Austrian columns. They had then moved on to assault the ridge, but it appeared that the Austrian commander had not been so quick to divert his attention from the ground that formed the French army’s right flank.

  Through patches in the smoke, Jack could just about make out the dark blue uniforms of the French infantry. They were in line, and he could see the flashes popping out from each musket as they fired a volley at some unseen enemy.

  ‘Here we go.’

  Kearney brought his attention back to the French officer. The man had finished speaking and was in the process of wheeling his mount around. Without ceremony, he kicked hard, forcing the horse into motion.

  ‘En place!’ One of the Legion’s officers shouted the order to his reluctant troops. ‘Marche ou crève.’ He strode down the line, urging his tired men to their feet.

  Kearney gave Jack a tight-lipped smile. ‘Looks like we aren’t done yet. You still coming along?’

  Jack nodded but could not return the smile. He had no choice. He would follow wherever Fleming went.

  ‘Then let’s go. You heard the man. We march or we die.’

  The Legion had fought hard. But their day was not yet done.

  The Legion marched down the slope, keeping the pace slow and steady until they hit the flatter ground of the great plain. The legionnaires were tired, but they had formed into column without a murmur. The regiment’s colour led the way, the red, white and blue of the tricolour gaudy against the bruised sky.

  For the second time that day, Jack advanced with the French. This time he was in their ranks, rather than following behind, marching to Kearney’s left, with Palmer and Fleming on his other side. It did not feel odd being in the midst of the French unit. It had been a long time since he had walked in the rank and file of an infantry column, yet he felt at home in a way that he hadn’t for as long as he could remember. He might have been an Englishman hiding in the French army, but he was a soldier amongst comrades, the legionnaires around him accepting him without complaint.

  The pace increased as the column came down off the high ground. The officer leading the way turned them on to the road that took them along the bottom of the ridge. From somewhere just ahead, a legionnaire began to sing. The man’s voice was deep, and others joined him almost immediately. They sang sombrely, each word resonating through the column. It was a sound quite unlike any Jack had heard from an English regiment.

  The song died away, the only sound left the thump of the men’s boots hitting the road’s surface in unison. They marched with their heads held high, the élan of the Legion restored by the deep, melodic song.

  They did not keep the pace up for long.

  Ahead, the road was almost completely blocked. A convoy of wounded soldiers was heading towards them, the long line of wagons and ambulances stretching back for hundreds of yards. Orders were shouted and the column stopped, then filed off the road, scurrying out of the way of the miserable procession.

  They stood at the roadside as the convoy passed by. Every wagon and ambulance was packed full to capacity, with the less grievously wounded clinging on to any spot they could find. Dull, listless eyes stared down at the legionnaires as they passed, from faces etched with pain.

  Those unfortunate souls unable to secure a place in the transport plodded along at the road’s edge. Many bore dreadful wounds, their proud uniforms now soaked in gore. A few sported bandages, or had wounds stuffed with lint, but most were untreated, the tears and rents in their flesh left open, bloody and oozing.

  Some men came alone. Jack saw one marching along at a fine pace, his severed arm clutched across his chest whilst blood pulsed freely from the stump just below the shoulder where the limb had once been. Others came in small groups, those with lesser wounds supporting those who could barely walk. All bore the same haunted expression, their assumption that it would be other men who would be hit proven to be the false hope that it had always been.

  Then there were the bodies of those for whom the march had been too much. As the convoy thinned out, Jack looked along the path it had taken. Corpses were being treated without dignity. Some of those who had fallen had been dragged to one side, their broken flesh abandoned and forgotten. Others were simply left to lie where they landed, the boots of the men and the wheels of the wagons and ambulances grinding them into the dirt.

  Jack watched it all, holding his emotions tight. He had seen such sights before, but there was something in the numbers that came close to overwhelming him. Even the breach at Delhi had not been as bad.

  The last of the wounded went past, the road now empty once again. The column re-formed silently. Even the officers were subdued, their orders called out just loudly enough to set the men into motion. The Legion marched once more, picking up pace now the road was clear. This time no one sang.

  Eventually the officer at their head turned them from the road and led them south, towards the sounds of fighting that continued unabated out on the army’s right flank. They soon passed an aid post, its black flag hanging listless in the heavy air. Bodies smothered the ground in every direction. There was little way of knowing who was alive and who had died, the men lying in long lines that were being tended to by a mere handful of orderlies. Other bodies had been heaped into a single great mountain, the forms twisted and broken, the glazed eyes of the slain staring in accusation at those still clinging to life.

  A few local women were tending to the wounded. They offered water, the canteens they had filled taken greedily by men half crazed by thirst. There were far too few to cope with the vast swathe of humanity dumped upon them, but that did not quench their desire to help, and as the column walked past, Jack saw them working tirelessly to give some succour to as many men as they could.

  The column left the bitter scene behind and moved across a great field of wheat, now trampled into dust. They passed behind an isolated farm packed full of French
troops. The area had clearly seen much heavy fighting already that day. The buildings that made up the farm had been nearly destroyed, the ground around them ripped and torn, and covered with scorch marks from where Austrian artillery shells and rockets had fallen. Bodies lay in every direction, the dead carpeting the ground.

  A staff galloper rode up to the officer in command. The conversation was short, the galloper riding away almost immediately. The Legion pressed on, marching towards three regiments of line infantry forming up to the south of the battered farmhouse.

  ‘I know those men, they are from Bataille’s brigade, part of III Corps.’ Kearney marched at Jack’s side. Neither had spoken for some time, but now the American sergeant broke the spell that had fallen over them both.

  To their front, Jack could see a village, one that he could only assume was still held by the Austrians. ‘What is that place called?’ He strained his eyes, but they were too far away for him to be able to see any enemy troops.

  ‘Hell, I don’t know.’ Kearney peered ahead. ‘These damn places all look the same to me.’

  ‘Well whatever it’s called, it’s about to be attacked.’ Jack saw French cavalry moving up to cover the flanks of the infantry. At least six battalions were on the move, their bright tricolours creating a splendid sight.

  The officer leading the Legion turned to shout at his men. They picked up the pace immediately, heading towards the French infantry beyond the farmhouse.

  They had arrived in time to join the attack.

  Ballard held the wounded hussar down, pinning him by the shoulders. The man fought against him, and it took all of Ballard’s strength to keep his back pressing against the tabletop.

  The surgeon who worked at his side swore under his breath and spat out a wad of phlegm. Neither altered the pace of the saw that was moving back and forth at a steady, even pace. The noise as it cut through bone set Ballard’s nerves on edge. It grated in his ears and echoed in his skull. He had already listened to it a hundred times, yet familiarity had not dulled its horror.