In contrast, the Russians were finally in position. About one hundred and twenty thousand men under the command of Marshal Kamansky were centered in various towns between the Vistula and the Narev rivers. There was tremendous excitement In Königsberg as news of maneuvers and countermaneuvers came in. Sabrina would have been frantic, except that she had received a letter from Perce a week before Christmas that discounted the movements of the army. Since it was sent by a general courier, it was nearly impersonal. In fact, Sabrina was sure it was meant as much for Sir Robert Wilson as for herself.
“I am standing up better to the cold than I had expected,” Perce wrote, “partly because Sergei is a genius at finding sheltered corners and food, and partly because I have rapidly cast away all British notions of privacy and propriety. I huddle up with any warm body available. It is indeed fortunate that Russian army officers seem to be chosen more for their size than anything else. Those big bodies generate plenty of heat, and Pëtr Pavlovitch, Matvei Semenovitch, Ivan Petrovitch, and I sleep—when we can sleep—more closely embraced than any newlywed pair.”
Sabrina smiled. She didn’t believe Perce was really cold and sleeping out in the open. If he had been, she suspected he would never have mentioned it. He was trying to tell her that his nights were accounted for.
“But perhaps,” the letter continued, “it is only the supreme command in the Russian army that is currently dependent on addled wits. My companions are not stupid, nor is my general, and they find themselves as puzzled as I by this continual moving around. There does not seem to be any purpose in it. At first I thought we must be probing for the French positions, but this cannot be true. We are rushed forward as if to attack, find nothing, and instead of moving farther forward or right or left, we are commanded to retreat. General Bennigsen is not one to confide in his inferiors, but I believe he is furious. He has several times been to Kamansky’s headquarters. The last time I thought he would have an apoplectic fit when he came from speaking to the marshal. Considering this and taking into account various conversations I have had, I would say the movements are merely a result of Kamansky’s inability to make up his mind.”
When Sabrina transmitted this information to Sir Robert, as she was sure Perce intended, he agreed heartily. “Good head on his shoulders, Kevern has. Remarkable how he picked up military ways. Understand he never trained for it at all.”
“Yes, that’s true. He’s the Earl of Moreton’s heir. His brother Robert is the military one. He’s in India now, serving under Wellesley.”
Sir Robert’s brows went up. “Arthur Wellesley? Good man, that. Brilliant in defense and has a solid notion of how to get the best out of his men. But there may be some good to come out of Kamansky’s dithering. I’ve had some word from the French side, you know. We have our ways. Boney’s staff seems just as confused as the Russians. Seems they can’t decide whether Kamansky intends to attack or retreat or even where he’s concentrating his forces.”
“But what will they do?” Sabrina asked anxiously.
“That, my dear Lady Elvan, is the question. If I could answer it, we would be well off. Unfortunately, I cannot even guess. Partly it depends on things we can judge—like how well Boney has been able to resupply his army. That, I fear, has been going well for him, better than we had projected. It is possible that once the men are outfitted he will attack. However, he isn’t predictable. If his attention is drawn away or if he doesn’t feel the Russians to be a serious threat, he may do nothing.”
Sabrina did not say I hope so, which was what she felt. Instead she asked, “What would be best for us, Sir Robert?”
He laughed rather bitterly. “Would you believe I don’t even know that? I think it would be better if the armies engaged at once. The Russians can better withstand the cold, and the longer the time Boney has between actions, the more chance he has to train reinforcements and gather supplies. He paused when he realized Sabrina had grown quite pale. “Worried about Kevern?” he asked kindly.
“Yes, I am,” she admitted. “I’ve known him since I was eight years old.
“Well, probably you’ve no need to worry right now,” Sir Robert assured her, “not so long as Kamansky’s in charge, anyway. I don’t think he’ll fight. If Boney moves, I’m pretty sure Kamansky will back away. Even Boney won’t try to advance far at this time of year. It won’t do to outrun your supply lines in winter.”
Much cheered by those comforting words, Sabrina went on about her life, happily unaware that Sir Robert’s assurances were totally valueless. It was not that Sir Robert had lied to her. He himself did not yet know that Marshal Kamansky had resigned his command and that Bonaparte had decided, weeks earlier, to fight the Russians at the first favorable opportunity.
In support of this intention, Bonaparte roused the Poles against the Russians with vague promises of freedom, which he never intended to fulfill. His generals Davout and Lannes had accompanied him when he marched into Warsaw. The army then turned northward while Bonaparte remained in the city. Meanwhile Bonaparte’s generals Ney and Bernadotte crossed the Vistula, moving eastward toward the Russians, while French forces under the command of Soult and Augereau advanced as far as the village of Golymin, where General Buxhöwden commanded a division of Russian troops.
Had Marshal Kamansky been in charge, an order for withdrawal might have been given. However, General Bennigsen had been left without a commanding officer, and he knew he might never again have so much freedom of opportunity. He was well aware that his involvement in Tsar Paul’s death had made an inveterate enemy of the dowager tsarina, while Alexander himself blew hot and cold—at one moment hating his father’s murderer and at the next admiring the courage and force of character that had enabled Bennigsen to act. Marshal Kamansky’s retirement was, to Bennigsen, another moment in which to seize opportunity. Orders went out to all his subordinate commanders to stand fast and repulse the French.
On Christmas Day, Bernadotte launched an attack on the Russian forces at Moehrungen in an attempt to outflank them. The Russians were driven back, but they did not break and flee as the Prussians had done at Jena and Auerstedt. In fact, as they retreated they inflicted heavy losses on Bernadotte’s division that he dared not pursue. Nor did Bennigsen take fright at this minor reversal. If the French had been defeated and had not attacked again, the credit for stopping Bonaparte’s men would have gone to others than himself.
Therefore, General Bennigsen was in good spirits when he summoned his aides at about four o’clock in the morning of December twenty-sixth. All divisions had to be warned that an attack was imminent. Orders were already prepared in sealed packets. Bennigsen did not consider it necessary for his messengers to know too much about large-scale plans; however, each aide was instructed that the principal order for each officer was to hold fast at all cost.
Perce had plenty of time to ponder the possibilities, since he had the longest ride, to where Buxhöwden’s division held Golymin. Perce had been around the military long enough to know that the standard procedure would be to take the most defensible position possible and use artillery and rapid musket-fire to hold off the enemy. But personally he did not think artillery or rapid-fire technique would work. For one thing, he was very uncertain of the accuracy of Russian shooting, for another, he was not sure there was enough ammunition for the shooting to last very long.
If the firepower failed, there would be a real mess. The French had a fondness for bayonet work. Perce restrained a shudder as he remembered one charge he had survived. Bullets were far less frightening. One knew they could kill, but invisible as bullets were, they were easier to ignore. A man coming toward one with a bayonet mounted on his musket, a wall of men so armed, inspired a most fervent desire to be elsewhere.
Wrenching his mind from too vivid memories, Perce analyzed Bennigsen’s decision to stand fast. He felt Bennigsen had judged correctly. It was better to stand and fight now, Perce thought, than to retreat on a possibility. The hopeful sign of pre
venting Bernadotte’s advance at Moehrungen would hearten the officers, reminding them that the French could be held. But Perce felt a victory was needed. Automatically he pulled up his horse’s head as the animal stumbled on the rutted road. He looked across the ditch, but he could hardly make out the fields in the dull light of a gray dawn. Also, the uneven ground was covered by a deceptive layer of snow and ice and would offer even more unsafe footing. Mostly it would be the French who were moving, but if they got this far the victory would be theirs, as so often it was.
Why? Was Bonaparte a genius? Perce sighed. The beaten always insisted he was, because it mitigated their defeats, and perhaps it was true. It was the men who did the fighting, after all, the corporals and sergeants who held them to their work. The French, often worse trained and worse equipped than their enemies, had uniformly been more successful. Perce thought of the Prussian troops, as rigid and as useful as wooden soldiers. It was said that every man in the French army felt he had a marshal’s baton in his knapsack. Why not? Bonaparte himself had started as a corporal, and promotion from the ranks to officer was reasonably common, although generally not in two steps to marshal, as Boney had done it. Certainly such a hope might motivate a man wishing to distinguish himself.
However, if that was the source of French courage, there was no way of using it to inspire Russian troops. They were not even free men, and if Sergei was any example, they did not want promotion and responsibility. With that perspective, Perce wondered why the common soldiers fought at all. He knew why he was here—for king and country, yes, because he had a considerable investment in his country; but the Russian serf had none. No, that wasn’t true, he knew it wasn’t. He had heard the men talking about the “little father’s” wish that they would be brave and strong. Idiotic as it might seem for such ill-treated slaves, they loved the tsar.
Suddenly Perce’s eyes narrowed. He remembered Bennigsen sending out instructions to his subordinate officers that each unit was to be read the words of the tsar on the declaration of war, and all the church bells were to be rung before and after the announcement. What pretty words Alexander had used? One bit came back. The war was against “the principal enemy of Mankind, one who worships idols and whores…who is bringing together every Judas in the world…in order that the Church of God be destroyed.”
Hot damn! Alexander was no fool when he was jolted out of his indecision. He had given his serf-soldiers something for which to fight. He had started a Holy War. Perce whistled aloud, and his horse twitched his ears. He urged the animal forward at a slightly faster pace. The light was better now. It must be nearly six o’clock. Golymin should not be far.
It was not difficult to find General Buxhöwden. Perce just headed for the largest and least miserable building in the village. His uniform and the packet of dispatches were swift passports to the general’s presence. Perce found him dressed and just finishing breakfast, which meant that he must have been warned by movements of the enemy troops. He handed over the packet, gave Buxhöwden Bennigsen’s verbal message, and added that if there was time, General Bennigsen thought it might inspire the men to remind them of the “little father’s” directive against the Antichrist Bonaparte and his legions of devils.
“What we can, we will do,” Buxhöwden said grimly. “We are outnumbered. I do not know how badly, but our position is good, and the cavalry they have will not be of much effect if I had more men…“
“All of the generals are being warned, sir,” Perce said. “From that I conclude that General Bennigsen is convinced the attack will be on all fronts. However, I will carry your request most willingly.”
Buxhöwden thought a moment, then waved Perce away toward the outer room. “I will have a reply shortly.”
Perce was delighted with the delay, since it gave him a chance to warm up and have a glass of tea—in Russian encampments, tea was served in mugs rather than in cups—and something to eat. It was fortunate he had done so. By the time Buxhöwden had handed him a note for Bennigsen, his horse was rested and he made reasonably good time. Nonetheless, when he neared Pultusk, he could hear guns. He spurred his mount to greater speed and then veered sharply east over the fields when he saw figures moving to his left. They were small enough to indicate distance, but he heard the crack of musket fire.
There was little danger from that. Perce wondered how anyone could be fool enough to fire at him at such a distance. Unless there was cavalry… A swift glance around assured him on that point. What he saw must be only a small patrol, but he continued to drive his horse as fast as it could go. The road, the only safe path he knew to Pultusk, was bounded by soft, boggy land that had been made nearly impassable by the snow and sleet.
He lost that patrol, but eventually his horse began to tire. When Perce was forced back toward the road at the end of the plowed fields that warned of bog beyond, he was scarcely five hundred yards in advance of the French troops. That he made it at all was owing to the fact that the division sent around to the north was somewhat behind the advancing center. The nearer he came to the town, the louder and more insistent was the noise of gunfire. However, his narrowest escape was from the nervous men of his own forces, one of whom fired at him almost point blank as he approached the lines.
That the shot missed worried Perce almost as much as it pleased him. If the trooper could not hit him at that range, he was not likely to be very dangerous to the oncoming French, either. The one consolation, Perce thought as he drove his flagging horse along the empty street toward General Bennigsen’s headquarters, was that the French would be massed together. He hoped that a bullet directed, even vaguely, at man level would hit someone, provided these idiots didn’t fire into the ground or the air.
Sergei came running out to meet him as he slid from his horse, calling out that the general was gone to “that place” east of town. Perce nodded. The aides knew the spot, a rising piece of ground with some trees for shelter, which would provide a better place for observation.
“Saddle Bravo for me,” he said, “and follow me with the rest of the horses. You’d better bring poor Major, too. Rub him down and put a blanket on him. Bring some feed along, it may be a long day, and we might not be coming back to Pultusk. You’d better put the extra saddle on Red.”
“Is the battle lost?” Sergei asked, his eyes narrowing.
“No! It’s barely begun, but I doubt we’ll remain here. If the French are thrown back, we’ll have to advance. If not, it can’t hurt to be prepared.”
“Yes. Don’t worry. I’ll be ready.”
Sergei seized Major’s bridle, and Perce stamped into the building, trying to bring feeling back to his feet. It was not terribly cold today, but clutching the saddle with thighs and knees tended to numb the feet. Perce eased off his gloves and blew on his fingers. His hands were not too bad, although both little fingers were swollen and cracked with chilblains. Only a frightened clerk remained in the general’s office, and he gave Perce the same message as Sergei had. Since Perce knew that no one would have told the serf anything, he marveled anew at his man’s ability to pluck useful information out of the air or to put two and two together to find an answer his employer-master might need.
He stayed only long enough to drink another mug of tea, hot and strong, and he made it far too sweet by putting the lumps the Russians sucked into the cup, but the warmth the sugar would give was worth the sickly taste. Outside, Bravo was stamping and tossing his head. Perce ran his hand down the gleaming neck, feeling a tightening in his throat. He hated riding a horse into battle. They were too easy a target. He had had to shoot one of his mounts, which had been badly wounded at Austerlitz.
“You better reprime your pistols,” Sergei said.
Perce jerked around, then turned back to soothe the startled horse. Sergei’s remark seemed like a horrible presentiment.
“Four or five hours in the damp. You don’t want a misfire if you come face-to-face with a Frenchman,” Sergei added, looking questioningly at Perce
.
“I hope it’s only Frenchmen I have to shoot,” Perce replied, and then as Sergei looked even more surprised, he said, “I was thinking about Dancer.”
Relief came over Sergei’s face “You be careful, little father,” he said, smiling indulgently. “There’s cold meat and cheese and bread in the saddlebags, and I put the waterproof over the blanket. Weather for lapdogs they have here, so much rain instead of decent snow. I’ll watch. If you need another horse, wave your hat.”
Sergei turned away to the stable, shaking his head. He had wondered for a minute if the officers feared a rout and expected to have to shoot their own men to keep them from running away, but it was only that crazy English thinking again, worrying about the horses. He was sure his master would rather be shot himself than have one of the horses hurt. Sergei gathered the gear and loaded it on a pack mule, not only feed but Perce’s extra clothing, fur coat, and blankets. Then he slung a stolen carbine over his shoulder. Servants were not supposed to be armed, but people got funny ideas in the middle of a battle when it was hard to know who was where.
Actually, Sergei had a certain amount of sympathy for those who would rather steal than fight. He himself didn’t mind fighting, but when a man was cold and hungry, stealing did seem like a better idea. It was especially appealing when the chances for getting away with it were so good. Only not his master’s goods. Sergei had defended Perce’s belongings successfully on the retreat from Austerlitz—at least, what was left after his too generous little father had given away everything they could survive without. Sergei sighed, then brightened. This time he had hidden the most essential items. Once more he checked the leading reins. He didn’t want the horses bolting when they came closer to the thunder of the big guns.
The Kent Heiress Page 19