The assembled officers mumbled their assent and Napoleon turned to the hapless General Mireur. ‘Is that clear to you?’
‘Y-yes, sir.’
‘Then get out of my sight and re-join your units.’
As soon as word of Napoleon’s dressing down filtered through the ranks the men returned to their duties shamefaced and keen to prove themselves. Even before Berthier and the others arrived the army had formed up and started its march due east towards the Nile. At first they marched in the same fatigued manner, but as the night wore on so their resolve stiffened and there was no more abandoning of equipment or comrades. At last, as the dawn broke over the desert, a mounted patrol sped down the long column of troops snaking across the dunes. They reported to Napoleon that they had seen the village of Rahmaniya on the bank of the Nile, an hour’s march away. Word of this swept through the ranks and now they marched forward as eagerly as if they were on a parade ground.
Then, as the column passed over a tall dune, Napoleon saw a glittering ribbon of water ahead of them. The irrigated crops of small farmers stretched on either side. The soldiers broke ranks and ran the last steps down the bank and into the cooling, refreshing waters of the Nile, sinking to their knees as they drank from the river again and again.
Napoleon watched them with an amused expression for a while, until his attention was drawn by a squadron of cavalry galloping downriver from the direction of Cairo. As they reined in and the sergeant gave the word to dismount and tend to their precious horses, his officer approached Napoleon and saluted.
‘Sir, I beg to report we’ve found the enemy.’
‘Where?’
‘A day’s ride to the south. We found a rocky outcrop and climbed to the top for a better view . . .’ His voice faltered.
‘Go on.’
‘Sir, there must tens of thousands of them. More men than I have ever seen. Mamelukes, Arabs, peasants, as if they were on a crusade, sir.’
‘Hardly a crusade.’ Napoleon smiled. ‘But we’ll give them a battle all the same. Send word to every unit in the army, Berthier, we march to battle.’
Chapter 31
‘Over there, sir.’ Berthier handed him the telescope and pointed to the south. It took a moment for Napoleon to steady the instrument and then slowly sweep the horizon as he sought the feature that his chief of staff had indicated. For a moment the circle of vision passed along the front of the enemy line: thousands of Mameluke cavalry, gorgeously arrayed for battle in their turbans and silk robes. Between them and the Nile the Pasha’s general, Murad Bey, had stationed his infantry, perhaps fifteen thousand of them as far as Napoleon could estimate. Their flank was covered by the fortified village of Embabeh, garrisoned by a few thousand more Mamelukes. And there, on the far bank of the river, drawn up before the outskirts of Cairo, stood a vast mass of peasants armed with swords, spears, and antique firearms. Although there had to be nearly a hundred thousand of them, they were on the wrong side of the river and would take no part in the coming battle. A handful of French gunboats, anchored fore and aft, maintained a steady fire on the far bank to discourage any attempts to cross the river.
Through the cloud of dust hanging over the enemy host Napoleon finally caught sight of the objects Berthier wished him to see. Shimmering in the afternoon heat were the neat geometric forms of the pyramids rising up beyond the village of Gizeh. Napoleon caught his breath as he grasped the true scale of the structures, then he lowered the telescope and returned it to Berthier.
‘Quite a vision. We’ll have plenty of time to explore ancient monuments when the day’s over.’ He gestured to the five French divisions drawn up on the rolling plain below them. A mile beyond the Mameluke cavalry was moving towards Desaix’s division on the right of the French line. ‘Until then we have other matters to attend to. I think the enemy are finally ready to begin their attack.’
The French had been deployed since mid-morning and had sat in the sun waiting for the battle to begin. The heat and thirst had taken their usual toll, and the men were keen to fight, if only to end the torment of being forced to wait in the dazzling glare.
With only a limited force of cavalry under his command Napoleon had been obliged to deploy his army in five great rectangular boxes. It still amused him that the army insisted on referring to the formations as ‘squares’. Each contained a division and an allocation of guns from the artillery reserve and they were arranged in a staggered line to minimise the danger that they might fire on each other in the confusion of an enemy attack. Provided his men could keep their formations intact they would be able to hold off the Mameluke cavalry. But if the enemy managed to break into one of the squares, then they would cut the Frenchmen to pieces.
Napoleon and Berthier mounted their horses and rode down the slope of the small hill towards the division in the centre of the line. The officers and sergeants had seen the dust rising around the dense mass of Mameluke horsemen and were already bellowing orders for their men to stand to and close up the formation. Napoleon reined in and called for a telescope. As he swung the glass to the right of the line he could not help swearing in astonishment at the speed with which the Mamelukes had moved to envelop the French right flank. Desaix’s and Reynier’s divisions were going to take the brunt of the enemy’s main assault and Napoleon could only hope that his generals and their men would hold their ground.This was a battle unlike any they had fought back in Europe. There would be no assaults in columns behind a screen of skirmishers. The French were on the defensive and had to trust in firepower and good discipline.
The distant roar of cannon fire drew Napoleon’s eye back to the extreme right of the French line where a powerful battery had been established in a small village. Through the lens the battlefield was foreshortened into a swirl of figures and smoke in tightly compressed planes. Then Napoleon saw the barrels of his guns belch smoke and flame as they cut down swathes of the enemy cavalry closing on them. An instant later his view was obscured by the Mamelukes as they charged the French divisions and converged on the gaps between the French squares. There was a distant roar as Desaix’s men poured volley fire into the flank of the horsemen riding past the side of their square. Then Reynier’s men joined in, before the sound of musket fire became more general, a continuous roar and crackle. The Mamelukes added to the growing din as they drew their horse pistols and fired into the dense masses of blue-coated infantry.
Napoleon made his way across to the right hand side of the centre formation to better observe the attack.A torrent of enemy cavalry had swept into the gap between Reynier’s division and the centre of the French line and now charged home, seemingly straight at Napoleon and his staff officers.
‘Fix bayonets!’ the colonel of the right flank brigade bellowed out to his men and there was a metallic rasp and rattle down the line as his men drew out the long blades and slid the sockets over the ends of their muskets. When his men were still again the colonel shouted the order to advance their weapons and the long line of bayonets rippled down, towards the oncoming Mamelukes.
A cannon roared from the corner of the square and sent a blast of grapeshot scything through those at the head of the charge, bringing down several horses and their riders. Close to Napoleon a musket went off and he cupped a hand to his mouth and bellowed,‘Wait for the order! Don’t fire until they are within fifty paces!’
The sergeants relayed the order along the line and the men stood still in grim anticipation as they watched the approaching enemy, so close now that their wild cries could be heard above the drumming of hooves. From behind Napoleon there came a flat thud as a mortar was fired and the shell arced up and then plummeted down amid the enemy before exploding with a great flash and a roar. A pall of smoke and dust filled the air. For a moment the charge faltered and then the colonel of the brigade bellowed the order to open fire and a hail of musket balls added to the slaughter. Men and horses went down like skittles, and still they came on, desperate to get close enough to use their pistols on the French. Only a few managed it and hurriedly discharged their weapons. Most shots went high, or kicked into the sand at the feet of Napoleon’s soldiers.Then the Mamelukes wheeled their mounts away and spurred them out of range of the French weapons so that they could reload and charge again.
Within minutes the ground in front of the square was scattered with the bodies of horses and riders, many writhing as their cries of agony split the air. Still the muskets roared out, cutting even more of the enemy down. Despite their desperate bravery the Mamelukes could not stand up to the withering fire from the French line, and at
