Russian winter, and to calm down those who were overwrought. The soldiers were glancing up and seeing cannonballs buzzing through the sky. One young chasseur was marvelling at the scene. He found the masses of French and Russian troops rushing at each other ‘fantastic’, the exploding shells ‘amazing’, and the thunder of the cannon ‘awesome’. Exhilarated by the sight, he was gazing up at the black shapes flying over him.
‘And that? What’s that?’
Margont went up to him and removed the bayonet from his musket. Otherwise in a couple of minutes he would accidentally have run his neighbour through. He slid it into its sheath.
‘Only when we launch the attack.’
The soldier had still not taken his eyes off the spectacle overhead.
‘They look like huge insects!’
‘They are in fact insects. Their precise scientific name is
‘No, they’re cannonballs, Captain.’
‘That’s another way of looking at it.’
The waiting continued. Some were beginning to hope that the battle would pass them by. Margont surveyed the battlefield. On the tops of the hills and on the slopes, in the smallest valleys and gullies, on the plains and even in the streams, as far as he could see, there were masses of soldiers. He had never seen so many. There were lines going into the attack, retreating or remaining still, squares, columns closely packed or split up, scattered hordes, fluctuating groups, soldiers isolated, lost or dug in, troopers whirling around or charging
Saber approached Margont. ‘Prince Eugene has taken the village of Borodino. But it’s probably a diversionary attack. The Emperor’s going to try to break through the Russian left so it’s imperative that we take the Great Redoubt, otherwise our troops will be crushed by its guns and will lay themselves open to attack.’
Margont had realised that they had occupied Borodino. For the rest, he knew his friend only too well. Saber was smiling. He had some good news to announce.
‘The Great Redoubt will be ours.’
The French artillery was pounding the Great Redoubt and the Three Fleches. To the left Eugene had indeed seized the village of Borodino but his progress had been halted. To the right the Three Fleches had already fallen – they had in fact been taken, lost and retaken. Ney’s troops and those of Davout, Murat and Nansouty were trying to link up with Poniatowski’s Poles, who were coming from the far right. But, from the village of Semenovskaya, which was set on a hilltop, the Russians overlooked the victorious French and were showering them with round shot, shells, grapeshot and bullets. Although Murat and La Tour Maubourg were attacking them with heavy cavalry – the Saxony Cuirassiers and Life Guards, and the Westphalian and Polish Cuirassiers – they were being counterattacked by a wave of Russian cuirassiers. The Friant Division took advantage of the impetus of the allied charge to storm the houses. The confusion and slaughter were at their height.
All this time the 13th Light were chewing on blades of grass and kicking their heels. Aides-de-camp and orderlies kept galloping up, wheeling their horses round once or twice to calm them, handing over a missive and immediately setting off again. More and more of them kept arriving and they were in more and more of a hurry.
‘The Redoubt! The Redoubt! The Redoubt!’ Saber began to chant.
His company took up the cry. A superstitious corporal, terror-stricken at the thought and appalled that no one was listening to his pleas, brandished the butt of his musket ready to smash Saber’s skull. The lieutenant had not noticed him because now all he could think of was ‘his’ Redoubt.
Margont grabbed the man by the sleeve. ‘That’s not a Russian. Control yourself.’
General Morand and his general staff galloped past the 13th Light. A few moments later, at about ten in the morning, the order was given to carry the Great Redoubt. The Morand Division began to march. Only the 30th of the Line and a battalion of the 13th Light were going to attack the Great Redoubt itself. The role of the other regiments was to take on the Russian troops deployed round about.
The infantry went forward perfectly aligned, coming under direct fire from the Great Redoubt. There was a buzzing that became a whistling sound, which got louder and louder, and then a breach appeared in the line. Another whistling sound and another gory void.
‘Close ranks! Close ranks!’ shouted the officers.
The soldiers moved closer together to fill the gaps but more shells exploded, more cannonballs struck them full in the chest or tore off their limbs, and there were more shouts of ‘Close ranks! Close ranks!’
Lefine had followed Margont. He had told a sergeant who was unhappy at seeing him leave the 84th for the day: ‘If you’re going to die, it might as well be with your friends.’
‘At this rate there soon won’t be any ranks left,’ he muttered.
‘Who cares? We’ll shout: “Close!”’ replied Margont.
‘Why are there so few of us to attack this redoubt? Who’s the fool who gave this order?’
‘Close ranks, Sergeant.’
‘Yes, well, the other regiments in the division could also close ranks with us! I hate the army, which is only reasonable since the army obviously hates me!’
Margont was looking straight ahead and thinking only of keeping the ranks close together.
Galouche was reciting a passage from the Bible: ‘And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.’ The Apocalypse. It was an appropriate choice.
The cannonballs were raining down more and more heavily, dropping, killing, bouncing off the grass, dropping back down again, killing once more … At last, the enemy was close enough and the line charged forward, yelling as it went. Grapeshot swept away whole ranks in a deafening din. The infantrymen following leapt nimbly over the dead and wounded and took their places. The attackers were in a frenzied state. Fear, vengeance, hatred, a desire for glory, and an obsession with fighting to avoid thinking about those dying around them – all these feelings mingled to produce an excited, exhilarated, enraged sort of euphoria. The Russians positioned on the edges of the redoubt had been pushed back or wiped out.
Disorientated by the smoke surrounding the entrenchment – a warm fog that smelt of burnt gunpowder – Margont fell into a ditch. He tried to get up but other soldiers tumbled on top of him, screaming with fear. He struggled and quickly got back on his feet to avoid choking to death under a human shroud. He was suffocating and could hardly see. There were flashes of light: men were shooting one another inside the ditch itself. Terror- stricken Russians had hidden there and were firing at anything that moved, killing as many of their own men as of the enemy. They were swiftly slaughtered. The French gave one another a leg up to get out of what a grenadier from the 30th quite rightly called a ‘trap for prats’ and went back on the attack.
The French were entering the Great Redoubt through the gaps made for the cannon or those caused by French artillery fire. Other infantrymen were clinging to the earthworks, digging their feet in and climbing up as best they could before shooting at the Russians from the top or throwing themselves at them. Some of the gunners were no longer even defending themselves but reloading their gun and firing so as to blow dozens of Frenchmen to smithereens. The cannon fell silent, the shooting gradually died away.
When Margont entered the stronghold, he saw Saber stroking a cannon as if it were the muzzle of a horse.
‘You see, it was easy. I told you so!’
At that precise moment the Great Redoubt and the Three Fleches had been taken. The enemy line was seriously weakened. Ney and Murat asked for reinforcements so they could try to penetrate the Russian army. Napoleon sent them very few. He wanted to preserve his Guard. Sending it into the attack at this moment would
