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

really could only mean one thing. And even if there was a chance that it did not, was that a chance worth taking?

But as he waded through the melee and heard the snippets of shouted orders and passing information, it quickly became obvious that all the churning in his guts over what he was about to do had been for nothing. Yes, he had stepped forward, determined, but it was becoming apparent his decision to betray – if that was what it was – had already been taken from him; that this great revelation of his character was cancelled for today. It was, it transpired, now no longer safe to venture beyond the walls or through the gates. To do so was to invite musketry and cannon ball against your person. But what had she said about her own safety, and how much it counted? Before he could start fretting on that, a passing aide finally put an end to all his fears that she might yet find a way to continue pursuing her wilful ways. There were no safe conducts out of the city anymore, he said. Danzig was sealed off, the siege proper had begun. With Dorothea still inside, said James, with a sigh, to himself.

He turned around and left the headquarters without another word. Getting her out of the city would have to wait. He headed back to the banks of the Mottlau to be rowed across the river. When he finally arrived at the Dzików lines, he found Poinatowski and Beart in great spirits. With the air to the east still full of the din of the continuing bombardment, and a black pall continuing to hang above the city, the two officers led him into their mess tent and poured him a stiff brandy.

And Poinatowski, beaming ear to ear, said, ‘There is a French squadron in the offing, waiting to land infantry and artillery. At least a brigade, we think. Maybe more. And no Chapuis this time. They have Louis’ minister to the Danish court, Count Plélo, aboard … a king’s minister leading them. This is business, excellency, is it not?’

And suddenly all Dorothea’s going on about, ‘latest swings of the pendulum of power’, became clear. A French squadron and French troops; was Louis XV really intending to keep Stanislas on the throne, or was he preparing the way to force a new compromise candidate on the warring factions? And if the latter, had Dorothea von Kettler divined matters correctly? Had she been right when she asserted that Chevalier James Lindsay knew nothing, and that she knew all? His heart sank at all the dispute, confusion and sating of honour that must follow; and the bloodshed, too.

The confined streets of a city were no place for cavalry, which was why the dragoons were still camped on the wide flat terrain to the north and east of the Weichselmünde fortress, between the Mottlau river and the sea. They were there, along with all the grenadier companies from the few regular Polish infantry battalions inside Danzig, and three battalions of militia, to block any attempt by General Lacy swinging the right flank of his army round to occupy the Mottlau’s west bank and finally seal off Danzig from the Baltic and any hope of relief. They were not much of a blocking force, to face a massed Russian infantry assault in open battle, but they were all General von Bittinghofen could field.

‘Drill,’ James told his officers. ‘In full regiment formation. Up until now we have been manoeuvring in penny packets … companies, half troops, troops and squadrons. From now on, we drill as a regiment, all three squadrons in concert. Drill, drill and more drill.’

The following morning, with the early summer sky still red from the sunrise, the Dzików, with Captain Poinatowski at their head, formed up three ranks deep, with a squadron frontage of 150 troopers, plus all their officers and NCOs, and their colour party and buglers – over 500 men and their mounts – and they trotted out onto the flat sandy soil of the Westerplatte, their colonel watching from atop the only rise in ground for miles. Bugles sounded the commands, and the trot went to canter, and then came the urgent rising notes of the ‘Charge!’, and the earth shook as each trooper gave his horse its head. Meanwhile to the side, each troop’s corporal of horse, at full gallop, minded the ranks, looking to their cohesion, noting those to be cursed and corrected later, because no order shouted could ever be heard above all that din; and when the whole charging box was on the edge of disintegration, the bugles sounded once more, ordering the ‘Recover’, and the charge collapsed in chaos.

James, with Beart beside him, made his notes on what he had witnessed, and then called Poinatowski forward. ‘Captain,’ he bellowed in a stern, parade voice, ‘that was a disgrace to the honour of the regiment. Once more, if you please …’ and leaning forward he passed his notes to the young captain, but with a knowing smile, and said, sotto voce, ‘some observations for you to attend to, but really not bad for a first time out, Pyotr … by the time you have executed another dozen or so, I’m sure we’ll start to look like a cavalry regiment should. Then we can graduate to the complicated manoeuvres, eh?’

The day wore on, and the air grew thick from all the dust their horses kicked up, so that it clung to the fields around them like a cloud fell to earth. Sitting high in his saddle, Colonel Lindsay studied their progress, certain what he was driving them through would prove vital in the days to come. There was the creak of leather beneath him, and the smell of it, and of horse, and the dust of a campaign in his nose, and grit in his mouth; and the clarity that it all