valley and wheeled to form two ranks across as they trotted forward, quickly changing to the canter.
'Peel!' Lewrie warned. 'We've got company!'
'Bugger 'em!' Peel threw over his shoulder, drawing his saber and laying it point-down, extended beyond his horse's neck. 'On!'
'They think we're French…' Lewrie panted, 'runnin' away… and you'll
'I do, sir!' Mountjoy called, his clothes filthy with clods of earth and grass thrown up by Peel's horse's hooves. 'Some, anyway. I… picked up a few phrases… from Rahl and Brauer!'
And before Lewrie could tell him not to, Mountjoy reined in and turned away to trot back toward those glittering lance points, into the teeth of the charge, with his hands up, screeching
'Bloody damn'…!' Lewrie yelped, knowing it was suicidal, but unwilling to abandon the hen-head! He reined back himself, slowing his horse so quickly it crow-hopped after its skid, quite willing to throw him off! He swung back to join Mountjoy, at an inoffensive canter, his hands empty and outstretched. The only thing he knew that might identify himself was to break into a loud song-'Rule, Brittania'! The lancers came on, like an imminent collision between two ships, lances still lowered as Mountjoy continued yelling. He had a childlike urge to cover his eyes, and only watch the outcome through his fingers!
At the very last second, though, the front rank parted, raising its lances and sawing back to a lope, to circle him and Mountjoy. Alan let out a
'Well,
'Good.' the officer laughed. 'German is so inelegant. What do you say you do, m'sieur?'
'Thank bloody Christ,' Lewrie muttered under his breath, once Mountjoy got to slanging. Grateful that it wasn't just the Russians' aristocracy who hated their own tongue, and mostly spoke in French.
'They'll help us pursue, sir!' Mountjoy announced.
'Bloody good. Let's be at it, then.' Lewrie beamed.
Off they went again, the lancers in a column of twos, thundering up through those bouldered, bushy hillocks, through a patch of forest, and out into another, smaller valley, where they caught up with Peel, perhaps only a half mile from where they'd split off from him. He was circling his horse at a breather-trot, waiting for them. Beyond, they could see Choundas, just as he put his struggling horse to a slope. 'What'd you stop for?' Lewrie demanded, reining in.
'Them, damn 'em,' Peel spat.
'Oh.' Lewrie cringed.
A little beyond Choundas, at the top of that grassy slope sat a troop of French dragoons-heavy cavalry. It wasn't 150 yards off, but it might as well have been the distance to the moon! A column of blue-coated infantry could be seen to the north, at the head of the small valley, marching for the low, bouldery ridge they'd left.
'Goddamn the man's shitten luck!' Peel cried. 'After all we've done, got so close on his heels… now
'Still a chance,' Lewrie muttered through a dry mouth. He alit from his horse, trotted to the tumbled ruin of a rock fence just beside the road, and unslung his Ferguson rifle. He'd killed Lanun Rovers at 200 yards with it-winged 'em, anyway.
One complete turn of the trigger-guard lever, to lower the screw breech and open the barrel's hind end.
'Lewrie, it's over,' Peel pointed out. 'We sit here, this dumb and happy, they have the slope of us. Sooner or later, they'll charge. And lancers ain't meant to tangle with heavy cavalry, head-on.'
'It's not over yet, Peel,' Lewrie snapped. 'Sooner he's dead, the sooner you and Twigg leave me the hell alone.'
He bit off the folded end of a premade cartouche, the powder bitter on his tongue. Bullet end up the spout. Crank the breech shut and pull the flint striker's dog's jaws back, checking to see that the flint was firmly seated and didn't slip against the leather under the clamping screw's face. At half cock, he flipped open the frizzen, to bare the pan, and primed it with a measure from the powder flask that held the very finest, talclike igniting powder.
'Er, sir?' Mountjoy bickered. 'The Herr Baron von Losma says we should hightail it. Soon, sir.
'A minute.' Lewrie sighed. 'A minute.'
He pulled the Ferguson back to full cock and put it to his eye, resting the barrel on the rocks, settling himself. It looked to be at
There was the wind to consider; it was blowing from behind the cavalrymen on that far slope, and a little to Lewrie's right. A shot uphill, almost into the wind? He held high, aiming a foot above his nemesis's hat, a touch to the right, maybe a foot beyond Choundas's shoulder.
'Might as well shoot at the moon, sir, the
'Shut
There was a raven's caw off to his left, so near his ear that he almost jerked the trigger. Tramp of marching feet, thud of a drum. Another column of infantry emerging far to left of the slope where the cavalry sat and stared. At least a battalion, coming to use the road they were on.
The raven swooshed past, zooming upward, gliding and tilting to gain altitude before beating its wings, again. Flying toward Choundas. Once it was past, the wind faded, the grass tips before Lewrie stilled their slight wavering, and he inched the barrel a bit more left. Took a quarter-inch more elevation.
'My congratulations on your breathtaking escape,
'Their infantry is not far behind them,' Choundas cautioned as he slurped down a restoring measure of brandy.
'We wait for the rest of the squadron, then,' the dragoon said in disappointment. 'For the infantry to flank them away.' 'We march on Vado Bay, at last?' Choundas beamed. 'Indeed,
There was a puff of smoke from the fence, from the kneeling man. 'It