Kings and Emperors

“How come most of your regiment’s back below the crest?” Lewrie asked, most of his attention drawn to the sight of more French regiments emerging and forming all along the lower ground, with hordes of brilliantly uniformed cavalry trotting up alongside, and artillery in the rear.

“Oh, that’s His Nibs’s orders,” Horsley said with another roll of his eyes. “A queer way to fight, if you ask me, waiting ’til the last moment to rush up, form line, and give them volleys, but, what’s a fellow to do if a General tells you to.” Horsley pulled a pocket watch out and flipped the lid open. “A little past nine of the morning. We may have ourselves a battle by ten. Ehm, a slight suggestion, Captain … Lewrie did ye say? I’ve left my mount down behind the ridge line, and it might be good for you to do so. A mounted man is a grand target for the French artillery, and you might draw a bit too much attention to my men who are in the open.”

“I’ll just ride on, have a look-see,” Lewrie decided, bidding Horsley a good morning, and ambling on Eastwards.

He rode on to the next regiment, staying near the crest of the ridge so he could witness as much of the field as possible, now and then drawing rein to use his telescope. It was frustrating, for his pocket telescope was much narrower and shorter than the glasses used aboard ship, the “fetch ’em ups.” The view in the ocular was narrower, too.

“Wot th’ bastards doin’, Corp?” a soldier just behind the crest of the ridge called out to another soldier who stood in plain view.

“Formin’ up in bloody blocks!” the Corporal shouted back.

“Silence in the ranks!” some officer snapped.

Lewrie’s attention was drawn to what the French were doing, as well, and he couldn’t quite understand it. Regiment after regiment were coming together, elbow to elbow, rank after rank, creating dense blocks that looked to be thirty men across the front file, and fifty or more in depth. Other soldiers with bright green epaulets, as opposed to the men in the masses who wore red epaulets, were loosely drawn up on either flank and out in front of the massed blocks, and there were some cavalry troops between, a bewildering array of brass helmets with leopard skins, long horsehair plumes, some in polished back-and-breast armour, some in shakoed headgear, intricately laced and multi-buttoned dolman jackets, with pelisses thrown back over their shoulders. There were even lancers in silly-looking helmets that put Lewrie in mind of exaggerated hats worn by Oxford dons!

“Ah, good morning to you, sir,” yet another infantry officer said in greeting as Lewrie ambled up near his Light Company. “They seem to have brought it all, don’t you think? Lancers, Hussars, Dragoons, even Cuirassiers, but no Grenadiers au Cheval. Those would be with Napoleon himself, his mounted Grenadier Guards. You’d know ’em by their tall bearskin hats. Don’t know why, but the French call ’em Les Gros Talons, the ‘Big Heels.’ Oh well, no matter. Cavalry is just for show, today. We have the slope of them, and they’ll find it difficult to get up with us.”

Lewrie was relieved that this officer didn’t make a jape about a sailor being out of his element, and he did sound knowledgeable, so Lewrie at last dis-mounted and walked over to him.

“Why are they making those big blocks?” Lewrie asked.

“Ah, that’s their way, isn’t it?” the Light Company Captain rejoined with a titter. “They always attack in large columns, several of them abreast of each other, and so far, they’ve been unstoppable. Ask the Dutch, the Austrians, and the Russians. Look closely at the centre of each column. See the drummers, all the flags, and eagles?”

Lewrie raised his telescope and found the Tricolours, other ba

“Out in front and on the flanks, those fellows with the green epaulets, those are their voltigeurs, and tirailleurs,” the Captain said. “Light infantry, much like our Light Companies. Voltigeurs … it means ‘Leapers,’ or maybe ‘Grasshoppers.’ Who’d be a Grasshopper, I ask you?” he said with another titter. “Never live it down! Tirailleurs, well … ‘Shooters’ is close, but if the French had any sense, they’d issue rifled weapons, not smoothbore muskets.”

“Let’s hope they don’t, sir,” Lewrie said, faking a shiver, “else our own officers get knocked off quicker than theirs.”

“Oh, then we can’t have that!” the Army officer said with another of his titters, almost a bray this time. “How else would our troops be controlled? We fight battles, not Irish riots. Ah, I believe that the curtain is about to go up. Look there, over to the right.”

French artillery was in position, the gu

“Don’t know about you, sir, but I’d see to my horse,” the Captain of the Light Company cautioned. “Far from a thoroughbred, what, but do recall poor Richard the Third, ‘a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!, hey? Besides, he ain’t battle-trained, most-like, and he’ll take fright and gallop off if he ain’t well-tended.”

“Good idea, sir,” Lewrie said, eying his nervous mount, which already was showing the whites of its eyes and tugging at the reins. Lewrie crossed the ridge to the reverse slope, where hundreds and hundreds of soldiers sat or lay in shelter, found this particular regiment’s officers’ mounts being tended by grooms, and bade them to look after his, then returned to the crest of the ridge.

The French ca

They can keep that up all day, but it won’t help ’em much, he told himself; Shootin’ uphill’s a total waste.

Artillery got its best results on flatter ground, where shot could strike a bit short, rise up from First Graze, then go skipping along at eight hundred feet per second or better to plough into tight ranks like a game of bowls, scattering broken bodies like nine-pins.

“Your poor horse run away, yet, sir?” the Captain from the Light Company asked as he strolled up to Lewrie, his sword out and whacking shoots of long grass.

“Not yet, no, sir,” Lewrie said with a smile, introducing himself at last.

“Captain Samuel Ford, sir, and happy to make your acquaintance,” the other fellow told him, offering his hand. “Wonder if the French gu

There were now at least ten of those massive blocks of troops below them on the upper plain, all standing at attention, it looked like, waiting stoically for … what?

“There, Captain Lewrie, a bit to our right,” Captain Ford said, pointing, after a long moment. “I do believe that two of the columns are advancing, at last. Not for us, more’s the pity. Damn all French, root and branch, but they do know how to stage a fine show.”