by Tony Roberts
Sergeant Cannard planted the eagle behind them and stood there, unmoving. “Nobody abandons the eagle,” he growled once.
“I could eat an eagle right now,” Bausset said, “I’m that hungry.”
“Hey, Pierre,” Casca twisted round. “Any chance of getting us something to eat after this little battle?”
“Place your orders, Pierre will deliver,” Fabvier said, his voice rasping in the cold.
The men grinned. Then they fell silent one by one, ready to receive the attack. The enemy was on the move, two lines of soldiers, preceded by skirmishers. Behind them the cannons now opened up, sending a salvo of shot into the town. Balls ripped through wooden houses, knocked over flimsy constructions and bashed holes in sturdier ones. Shells exploded with roars, sending debris up into the air, and setting fire to the wooden homes. The church was struck, stone shards flying out in a deadly arc, but it missed the soldiers cringing beneath it.
The house two down from Casca was struck, shattering into a ruin within seconds. The people living inside began to climb out, helping each other, and they angrily beat aside the soldiers who went to help. They did not want a Frenchman’s help. It was their doing, after all, despite the fact it was a Russian gun that had hit their home.
The advancing men came closer and the cannons shifted their aim, sending shot over Casca and his comrades’ heads deeper into the town. Explosions came to them from behind and Casca hoped to hell Marianka was okay. “Okay men, here they come. Pick off those damned sharpshooters.”
The skirmishers had come within range and were now kneeling and aiming at the defenders. Shots began to be traded, but the defending French troops came off better, having cover, whereas the Russians had only the long grass to hide in, and that hardly stopped a musket ball. Casca held his fire. Let the others keep the skirmishers at bay; he would wait until the main line got within range. They would be very close before that happened.
The skirmishers withdrew and the front rank of the main infantry came to the front, advancing stolidly, guns at hip height and pointing slightly upwards. “Make ready!” Casca shouted out, raising his gun. The rest of the platoon did likewise. Recent memories of the conflict in the Americas came to him, when he’d been in a similar position aiming at the Redcoats.
The green coated Russians reached the outer buildings and came to a halt, ready to deliver a volley of their own. “Now!” Casca yelled, and fired at the man he’d picked out as his target, a sergeant carrying the company colors. His shot, accompanied by a white cloud of discharged powder, flew through the air and impacted on the sergeant’s stomach. The man folded over and fell face down to the ground. Other Russians were toppling, some very quickly, others more slowly, pained expressions on their faces.
“Down!” Casca yelled, seeing the survivors of the line about to fire. He pulled Begos down and caught sight of Bausset ducking in reflex, just as the Russians blasted their muskets. Shots rattled against wood and spat past viciously. A few of the platoon cried out and fell, clutching chests, heads or arms, but none of Casca’s squad were hit. “Now, up and drive them back!” he screamed, getting to his feet and leading the counter-attack.
The Russian line was beginning to advance, but the combination of the losses they’d received and the lack of impact their volley had made, meant they were outnumbered. Casca ran at the enemy, emitting a blood-curdling scream, and he went right at one shocked looking man with a beard and a flat looking nose. Casca’s thrust brushed aside the desperate block and the blade sank deeply into the Russian’s chest. The man gasped and sank to his knees, and Casca wrenched out the blade and glanced swiftly left and right. One of the enemy turned to take him on but Casca raised the butt, knocked up the Russian’s jab and slammed the barrel of his musket into his opponent’s left ear. The man’s head whipped back and he staggered back, stunned. Casca rammed the bayonet up into his throat and it made an obscene sucking sound. The Russian stared at Casca, eyes and tongue protruding, before he fell backwards.
Paradis and Begos were struggling to the left, so Casca glanced quickly to his right to make sure things were okay there, and Bausset was clubbing his enemy to the ground, so he swung round and smashed his butt into the kidneys of the man forcing back Begos. The Russian cried out in pain and Begos finished him off gratefully. Muralt and his opponent were locked gun to gun, but as Casca watched, Fabvier appeared underneath and stabbed up, his knife slicing into the abdomen of the Russian and he fell to the ground where Fabvier dispatched him by slitting his throat. Cackling, the little man sliced open the coat of the dead man and began rifling through his pockets.
The first Russian wave was being driven back but now the second one arrived, adding their weight to the attack. Casca was confronted by a whole group of them and had to back away as the fresh troops came at him from two directions. The others, too, slowly gave ground but this meant the attackers now were funneled in between the houses, and they couldn’t use their superior numbers. Casca stopped and called his squad to stand with him. Three Russians charged the Eternal Mercenary who swung his musket in a wild arc, striking one of them on the shoulder and causing the other two to pause, dodging the wickedly blurring butt.
Muralt and Begos closed in on Casca’s left and Bausset arrived a few seconds later on the right. Paradis and Fabvier had been separated by another group and were being forced back along a side track but more defenders were there to help. “Stop them from going any further,” Casca said, and began jabbing forward with his musket. The gap in between the houses was no more than five feet and only two Russians at a time could get at Casca, standing squarely across the gap. Bausset reloaded and aimed at the front Russian from no more than two feet. His shot blew the man’s face into pieces and he fell back into his comrades, unable to fall because of the lack of space. Casca sank his bayonet into the chest of the second and suddenly the Russians were retreating, unable to make any progress in the face of the desperate defending.
“Hold it,” Casca said, watching as the enemy ran back to their own lines, leaving a fair number of their men lying in the mud and grass at the town’s edge. “They’ll start blasting us again with their cannons. Take cover!”
No sooner had he said that then there appeared puffs of smoke from the guns in the Russian lines and the deep throated roar of their discharges came to the watching Frenchmen, and seconds later the shot and shells began landing amongst them. Two of the soldiers close by were flung up into the air by an explosion, and the rest threw themselves flat, trying to get some cover from the deadly barrage.
The rest of the afternoon continued along the same pattern, and finally Pegot ordered the retreat. The church had been reduced to a shattered pile of stone and the houses around were burning ferociously, forcing the French back. Casca led his men along a side track and into the main street running east-west. Here the carnage was clear to see, the bombardment had caused havoc, smashing houses, men, animals and wagons. Men from all kinds of units intermingled, getting in each other’s way, and shouting broke out until officers arrived to separate them. Tempers were running high and the need to get out of Vyazma overrode any other consideration.
Casca kept his squad with him and away from the worst of the confusion. The town gradually sloped down as it got close to the western exit and the road widened slightly as the houses ended. Here were wagons and carts of the supply units, and the sutlers. Some had gone on ahead and the leading elements of the army were already making their way into the gathering darkness, leaving behind a blazing town and 4,000 dead Frenchmen. The Russians had lost 1,800 of their own but they had won the day, even if their plan in cutting the French army in two and destroying the rearguard had failed.
Marianka appeared, relief on her face. The wagon looked in a sorry state, the canvas ripped, the wooden structure splintered and worn, but it was still in a working condition. “Where’s Wojciech?” Casca asked as he came up to her.
“Over there by those trees,” she answered.
“Good. H
opefully nobody will disturb him. We’ve got to go, no time to lose. Get on board. One of us will accompany you on board, and I’ll relieve each man at two hour intervals. We’ve lost the town and the further distance we put between it and us the better.”
They set off, part of a long, ragged, streaming mob pouring out of the doomed town. They had saved two corps but it had sapped their energy even further.
That evening the snow finally arrived. It began falling softly, slowly at first, then began to build in intensity. The men looked at it, then hunched their shoulders, their breath clouding in front of them. Casca puffed out his cheeks. “So it begins,” he said. “Now it gets really tough.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
When they next stopped, deep into the night, Casca pulled out the furs. He passed one to each of the squad, telling them to put them on and never take them off. Hats, too, he passed round. “What about the ones we’re wearing?” Paradis asked.
“These will keep you warmer, believe me,” Casca said.
Marianka had shrugged into hers and was dwarfed by it, but she felt much warmer. She was happy that one of the group sat with her during the journey as it stopped her from feeling alone and vulnerable, and the soldier often took over the driving so she could rest.
The snow didn’t stop and got worse over the next couple of days. Soldiers started wearing the clothing they’d looted from Moscow, hoping to take them back to their loved ones in France. Now the need to keep warm took priority and the odd assortment of clothing turned them from looking like an army into something else, but they cared little. Faces stared out from hoods improvised out of dresses, hats and stockings, eyes deeply sunk into red sockets. Noses were red and running and the misery of the men was palpable. Some had little protection other than the officially provided uniforms and they were the ones who suffered the most.
Toes and fingers ached, thoughts became slow and muddled and gradually feeling began to be lost in parts of the body. The snow fell unrelentingly, covering the trees, grass and bushes in a blanket of white which became too dazzling to look at. The road was turned into a sheet of treacherous ice, and men and horses stumbled along, trying to find some sort of purchase on the iron hard mud. Some of them reached the end of their endurance and simply lay down and died, unable to handle the conditions any more. Bodies littered the army’s retreat, and within an hour had been covered completely and were nothing more than cocooned shrouds on the roadside.
Casca though had no intention of losing his men that way. If they fell in battle, then so be it. But to lose them to the cold was something else, and he’d be damned if that happened. “Keep walking!” he chided them, walking back and forth. “If you lose feeling in any part of your body, rub it, knead it, until the feeling returns.” He looked at each of them, checking their condition. “No stopping, you hear me? I’ll kick your butts if you do!”
The eagle carried by Sergeant Cannard was just ahead and Casca used it as a symbol to keep the men together, to concentrate on it and carry on walking in its wake. Colonel Pegot and what was left of his headquarter staff were grouped around it too, and that, Casca told his men, was the core of the battalion. As long as the men stayed close to it, they would be fine.
After two days out of Vyazma, orders came down the line to Prince Eugène, leading his IV Corps. Napoleon wanted his flank protected and he needed the town of Vitebsk secured, as news was filtering down that the northern flank had collapsed against fresh Russian forces from St.Petersburg, and so the task of securing Vitebsk went to Eugène and his shrinking corps, now numbering nine thousand men. At a place called Dorogobuzh they swung off the main road, wagons and all, and left the rest of the army to make for Vitebsk, now on their own in a hostile land.
The weather suddenly turned, the snow ceasing and the temperature rose, melting the snow that had already fallen and the road the corps was using was turned in no time to a quagmire. Wagons and cannons got stuck and had to be pushed out by the tired men, and hopes rose that the snow had been just a freak occurrence. “No,” Casca said to the hopeful group, “it’ll be back. This is just a temporary reprieve. Keep your furs with you, whatever you do!”
The next day they arrived at the River Vop. A bridge ran across but it wasn’t strong enough to take the guns so the engineer units began to reinforce it. In the middle of this the Russians turned up, but these weren’t the regular infantry units, they were Cossacks under Platov. They had cannons too, small 6-pounders, but effective at close range. And they began shelling the bridge and the men on the near side of the river.
Eugène arranged a protective screen of infantry, their backs to the bridge, to try to fend off the enemy while the cannons were dragged over. In the haste to scramble across, the bridge collapsed, plunging men and guns into the freezing water. Screams came to the infantry still to cross and they realized what had happened. Now they were trapped on the wrong side of the river and no bridge to cross.
“What do we do now?” Paradis asked, staring at the gap where the bridge had been.
“We swim,” Casca said grimly. Shells from the Cossack guns began falling amongst the infantry and they edged backwards nervously. All the while the mounted Cossacks waited, waited for the infantry to break, then they’d be amongst them. Waiting with the rest of them was Iuganov, itching to get at the hated enemy, especially as he’d been told there were amongst them the 84th line. He scanned the distant figures of the French, but was unable to make any of them out. “Let me at those whoresons,” he pleaded to Platov, “I’ll skewer them and roast them on my spit!”
“Wait,” Platov held out a hand, “until they break for the river, then you can go.”
“Bah,” Iuganov turned away in disgust, “we attack and they will break. They’re beaten already, can’t you see it in their stance? They’re a frightened rabble!”
“Wait!” Platov snapped, irritated at the man. It was typical of these wild Cossacks, they had the tactical ability of a cheap Astrakhan whore.
Pegot, on the far bank, turned to the Prince. “Can’t we do anything, your highness?”
“Give them covering fire,” Eugène replied. They had managed to pull some of the cannons across, and now these were being wheeled into position. “Order them across, regiment by regiment. We’ll cover them as best we can, then form a camp here. Tomorrow we turn west and make for Smolensk.”
“Not Vitebsk?” Pegot turned in surprise.
Eugène laughed humorlessly. “It was a risky venture, and now without half my supplies and guns, I can’t do that! We will have to get to Smolensk with the rest of the army, if we can!”
Casca heard the order and saw some units peel away from the defensive perimeter. “Stand and wait until we’re told to move,” he said. Up came a sergeant and tapped Casca on the shoulder. “Retreat fifty paces and halt. We’re trying to keep the perimeter as together as we can!”
“Okay, let’s go,” Casca said and edged backwards, watching the enemy as he did. Shells kept on landing close by, blowing a few men up into the air, shredding them. Bodies marked their retreat and after counting fifty he stopped. The line halted and the men stood grimly, watching as the Cossacks edged forward like hungry wolves. Then from across the river the French guns opened up, exploding amongst the horsemen, sending some into a panic. The soldiers cheered and exulted that at last, some of the enemy were getting it back at them.
“84th Regiment, go!” called an officer, waving his saber frantically.
Casca grabbed those left and right. “Let’s go, get to the river now!”
At that moment the Cossacks attacked. With a shrill cry they plunged forward recklessly, unable to hold off any more. They bore down on the shrinking perimeter and as they got to within eighty yards were struck by a volley from the soldiers that cut down dozens of them, sending the charge into a confused chaotic mass of falling horses and men.
The next wave leaped over the fallen and charged the men still at the edge of the defenses. The line collapsed and it was every man
for himself. Yelling, screaming and shouting, the French broke for the river, trying to escape the hordes of vengeful Cossacks amongst them, cutting them down with impunity. Bodies fell by the score yet hundreds of soldiers reached the river edge.
Casca and his men approached the confused, milling mass by the river bank. A jam of wagons partially blocked the way and Casca recognized with a leap of his heart Marianka’s wagon amongst them. He called to her and she appeared, her face showing alarm. “We can’t get across!” she wailed.
“Unhitch the horses, now!” Casca snapped. He waved at his men to help. “Get the wagon over to the river’s edge!” The river was about forty feet wide and the banks were steep and slippery. Already some of the panic stricken men and women were in the river, thrashing about, screaming at the extreme cold. It was clear the water wasn’t deep, about four feet or so, but the cold made a huge difference. As Casca watched a group of people tried to ease themselves into the river but they slipped down the icily treacherous surface and fell into the water with huge splashes.
Behind more screaming came as the Cossacks closed in, slaughtering as they went. Casca loaded up and turned to face the immediate danger. Behind him, his men had released the horses and they trotted off, pleased to be free from the restricting harnesses. “Into the river, go on!” Casca barked, scanning ahead anxiously. Visibility wasn’t good; the frosty air from the river was clouding things and Casca could only see indistinct figures in front of him after about thirty feet. It wouldn’t give him much time to defend himself with.
With a rumble, a creak and a splash, the wagon slipped into the river, coming to rest on the bed, the wheels just under the water. The rest of it stood clear. “Right,” Casca said, “quickly, onto the wagon, and then you can slip into the water at the far end. Go!”
Some of the other people had seen what they had done, providing a stepping-off platform into the river, and they began to converge towards it. Casca backed away, his musket waving in front of him, but the soldiers and civilians weren’t about to be put off by a lone man with one shot. The Cossacks were closing in and they wanted to be over the river.