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

brought to him. How everything was made simple by the ordinary, and how it focused the mind. He was commanding men he would shortly lead into battle. There was nothing else to think about. Just drill, and more drill, until they could move in their sleep, or better, through all the smoke and noise and mayhem of modern war, without thinking.

And every time the drill was paused, to water the horses and the men, to tighten straps and dun more lessons into each trooper’s peasant head; and the noise of pounding hooves and bridles and bugles died away, there, to the east, was the never-ending grumble of the Russian guns bombarding Danzig; to remind them all why they did this.

When the Dzików trotted back to their lines outside the wall of the Weichselmünde fortress they could clearly see a forest of masts. The French squadron had obviously entered the river and was now anchored in a line opposite the fortress’ jetties. As the troopers rode closer it became apparent that the soldiery carried by the ships had now disembarked, for the fields leading up to the fort’s glacis were a milling mass of grey-white uniforms, all industriously employed in throwing up tent lines and digging latrines. An artillery park had also appeared, with a row of half a dozen six-pounder field guns and their limbers neatly pegged down, and the barrels of shot and powder being stacked.

As they trotted by, James counted five separate infantry regiments’ colours planted in amongst the growing sea of canvas, their fleur-de-lis-speckled folds barely shifting in the calm evening air. Cooking pots were also much in evidence in the French lines, and limp ribbons of smoke were starting to rise vertically from several corners of the new camp.

James’ personal quarters were in the fortress, and once he had Estelle shoulder her way through the press of soldiers clogging the main gate, he dismounted and walked his horse to the stables. He felt like a stranger in the crush of new faces; bustle and organising was going on everywhere, a mad tumble that offered no apparent path to order he could see, but then he was too tired to be paying proper attention and sought only a bath and sleep. He feared, however, a summons to meet his new commander, whomever that was going to be. The only name he’d heard so far was this Count Plélo that Poinatowski had mentioned, but he was just some politico, and James fully intended to steer as far away from him as he could.

The other thought that drifted through his mind as he fed Estelle her usual two apples before seeing to her being rubbed down, was whether one of those French men-o-war out there on the river was the Achille, and if he would be seeing his friend Capitaine Perouse again. Then it was up the stairs to his rooms, where one of the servants was already filling a hot bath for him. When the waft of the steam hit him, it vanquished all other concern from his mind, and he cast off his sweaty uniform in a dream before sinking into the oblivion of the near-scalding water.

That there were two letters waiting for him, delivered courtesy of the French men-o-war, was something he would deal with later.

*

James watched the water’s reflection dapple on the great cabin’s deck-head as Claude Perouse helped himself to a pinch of snuff. Both men were reclining in deep, upholstered chairs more befitting a country house drawing room than a ship of the line; enjoying the last of the evening sun streaming in through the huge gallery window that stretched from beam to beam across the Achille’s broad stern.

They had just dined on a huge dish of ortolans, a large turbot and jugged boar, washed down with a fine gamay from Capitaine Perouse’s own family vineyard near Tours. The conversation had been just as rich.

‘The word from the flagship is that this Comte de Plélo is under orders to seek early battle, and deliver an early victory,’ Capitaine Perouse had confided in him. His information was not first-hand, he said, and he’d had no opportunity to evaluate the comte himself as he’d sailed on the squadron’s flagship. But he’d been told King Louis’ emissary had seemed an educated man, if a little enthusiastic.

‘He is not the military commander, that is a major general called Estaing de Sailland, who I have met and who strikes me as a capable man, but this Plélo has the political power. What he says is writ. You say Lacy has 60,000 men before Danzig, and Plélo arrives with 5,000. And you, and the Polish troops, that makes what? Twelve thousand? Those are not odds for an early victory. It looks like it might be the Chapuis fiasco all over again.’

As James studied the dapples, he wasn’t so sure. He was no general, but he knew enough of how battlefields worked to know they were not talking about a straight fight. Lacy could not put all his 60,000 men into the field against Plélo, because he’d need the vast majority of his army to maintain the siege lines around Danzig, lest the garrison sallied forth and destroyed his guns and his supply dumps and magazines while his soldiers were off fighting battles elsewhere. The Russians and the Saxons might be hard pressed to field an army equal to Plélo’s 12,000, especially if Plélo and his tame major general decided to seek battle on this side of the Mottlau river, and all the communications and transport problems that would entail for Lacy.

An early victory was certainly possible, and would deliver a position to bargain from, and as the expedition was under the command of a politico, that made sense. He wondered what the Comte de Plélo had been sent to bargain for; then decided it was none of his business.

Balloons of cognac now nestled in each