By My Sword Alone by David Black (ebook reader ink TXT) 📕

nothing; and ‘thank you for your concern,’ she said, but her own safety no longer signified in this latest swing of the pendulum of power.

And that was when the first Russian mortar shell plummeted through a warehouse roof at the end of the next street and exploded.

*

The initial barrage continued for over two hours, with the huge mortar shells plunging into the close-packed canal district with a sickening regularity, the sheer weight of them shattering tiles and battened floors until the huge, fuse-sputtering balls came to rest deep amongst all the combustible produce stored within, before detonating, sending flame and red-hot iron splinters into all the tarred cordage and barrels of turpentine and bales of wool and the wooden fabric of the buildings themselves. Then the shelling stopped. But it turned out to be only a pause. To let the mortar barrels cool? To bring up more shot? More powder? For the expenditure of both had been prodigious. Then it started again. By midnight, the fires had turned the city centre night into day. Only a lack of breeze stopped the embers swirling in the huge up-draughts of air from spreading the flames to other parts of the city. Down each narrow street you could see the glow from the fires throwing dancing silhouettes as men fought the fires throughout the night. Like armies of matchstick figures in relief against the walls, in and out of the flicker and smoke.

James and Dorothea stood for a while, mesmerised by the spectacle and the noise, and soon, the heat. Until one shell, its dull metal intrusion actually visible, seemingly coming towards the house in slow motion, the tiny fire dance of its fuse growing perceptibly larger in the sky; and in an instant it was tearing in so fast it forced them both to step back, before it went plunging into the back of the house opposite. They could hear it crashing through floors, then a bright, white flash appeared, illuminating every window in the instant before every window blew out, and the shattered glass from them pattered against the walls of their own house, and the heat and concussion hit them in the face.

James pulled her back into the room. ‘Downstairs, into the cellar, now,’ he said, manhandling her. He felt her stiffen as if to object, and then her will went with her recognition of the mortal peril they both were in, the whole city was in. And down they went.

The dawn brought a brief respite. Then, the bombardment resumed; different guns now, hammering the defences instead. And when the mortars resumed, it was the two southern bastions they rained their shells down on.

The fires in the city continued to burn throughout the day, and the bombardment’s incessant crump and rumble became as ubiquitous as birdsong. Always there.

Through it all, James had business to attend to, before he returned to the Dzików colours.

As he made his way along the debris-strewn streets of Danzig that morning, he could see that the Russian gunners were operating to a plan. Different areas of the city were coming under sustained bombardment only for a set number of hours, then the guns and the mortars would shift. Different ordnance was also being used; the mortars dropping their fizzing shells into the inner city, and the big howitzers demolishing the defences. A solid pall of black smoke continued to hang over the wharf district, and from billowing smoke above the roofs to the south west he could see the fires were in control there.

The Russian gunners obviously had detailed cartography of the whole area within the outer bastions, for them to be consistently dropping all that ordnance so accurately. But then given the wholly porous nature of Danzig’s defences until now, it was hardly surprising; all the trading that had gone on, and the regular negotiating missives that had constantly passed between Stanislas’ court and Lacy’s requisitioned farmhouse; not to mention Dorothea’s frequent forays.

James was on his way to do something he was not proud of, but if he was going to save Dorothea from her own foolhardiness, he had convinced himself it was absolutely necessary. Do the deeds men do have names in and of themselves, or can they be justified into more noble repute? That was a question he knew he was about to put to the test.

Was it an act of betrayal he was he about to commit? Something she’d assured him he was good at. Another banner portrayal of his disloyalty? A confirmation of all those low traits she had listed to his character, to himself and the world? Well, if it kept the silly bloody woman alive, then he’d just have to live with it.

The big hall below von Bittinghofen’s private offices was in confusion. Aides trying to put together information on a huge cartographer’s plan of the city as to where the shells were landing and the damage being done. The general himself was there, besieged by muddle of staff officers, all obviously gathered in hurry, many without coat or wig.

James needed urgently to speak to someone in authority; someone who commanded the walls and the city gates. He dived into the fray. But it was not long before it became apparent that his mission might now be redundant. He had been on his way to denounce Dorothea as a Russian spy to von Bittinghofen. Privately, so her sin might be obscured and no retribution follow. Not a hard task, given her nobility. No commoner, general or not, would ever put her up against a wall. But at least von Bittinghofen could restrain her; confine her to the duke’s town house. Because her movements in and out of the city had to be stopped, even if it meant falsely accusing her of what would be, for anyone else, a capital crime. General Lacy had personally assured him that, ‘she cannot be allowed to continue …’ It