‘Close ranks!’ Margont shouted automatically.
He forced himself to think of other things. He tried to recall Natalia’s face. She was asking him to bring his book back and her clear voice eased the noise of gunfire and his headache. The ground began to tremble beneath his feet, as if Dante’s Hell, which Brother Medrelli had so often told him about, were slowly opening its jaws to swallow up the world.
There were shouts of joy. A mass of cuirassiers and carabineers pounded past at the gallop. The cavalrymen were riding thigh to thigh, tight against one another like bricks in a wall. The sun glinted on their breastplates, helmets and sabres. The floodtide engulfed the Russian infantry and cavalry, sweeping them aside, and carrying on past the Great Redoubt. Eugene’s troops started to charge. Suddenly, the Raevsky cannon stopped firing, as if by magic. The smoke cleared and inside the entrenchment metal gleamed in the sunlight. It was the cuirassiers of the 5th and 8th Regiments, led by General Auguste de Caulaincourt, who had just entered the Great Redoubt from the rear via the gorge. The French infantrymen, wild with joy, immediately climbed up the breastworks. The cuirassiers had decimated the defenders but were now being pushed back under fire from the last remaining Russians. However, Eugene’s soldiers were springing up to take over. ‘Long live the cuirassiers!’ the soldiers shouted, while shooting at Russians.
Margont noticed Colonel Pirgnon at the top of a breastwork. He was urging his men on, and they, uplifted by his courage, were passing him on either side and pouring into the redoubt. His presence, in such an exposed position, was considered an insult by the Russians. They took aim at him, cursing him as they did so. But for the devotion of his soldiers who pounced on them, and the smoke and general confusion, Pirgnon would probably have been hit. It was as if Delarse and he were in competition to see who was the more reckless. He remained there in full view whilst his soldiers stoutly defended what they had just named the ‘Pirgnon breastwork’. At that precise moment, this man who so admired Achilles did indeed resemble the mythical warrior.
Margont entered the redoubt. The Russians were fighting every inch of the way. Some were sheltering behind heaped-up corpses of men and horses. Even some of the wounded had been thrown on to the piles. He had never seen anything like it. Shouting was coming from all sides. A Pavlov grenadier, recognisable by his mitre-shaped headgear, which this regiment had been allowed to keep because of its bravery at Friedland, charged at him with his bayonet. An infantryman from the 9th fired on the Pavlov. As this was not enough to stop him in his tracks, the fusilier jabbed him with his bayonet. The Pavlov fell to his knees but picked himself up again. It took another blow from the musket butt to knock him unconscious. The Frenchman was preparing to finish him off. Margont stopped him. He stared at the Pavlov. His arm and forehead were bandaged. He also had a deep gash to the shoulder.
‘What next? Even the wounded are having a go!’ Margont yelled.
The fusiliers continued to pour into the redoubt. Some infantrymen made a detour to avoid Margont. This poor captain seemed to be speaking to a dead person and they were more afraid of madness than of death. Next to him a boy of ten was crying. He was a Russian drummer. He had ‘bird’s nest’ decorations on his shoulders and his sleeves were scattered with white braiding in the shape of an inverted ‘v’. Squatting on the ground with his elbows on his knees, he was sobbing over his broken drum.
At last, the Great Redoubt was taken. Pirgnon, arms folded, was still on his breastwork. Margont set off in search of his friends. Lefine sprang up from behind a heap of corpses, his face smeared with gunpowder.
‘So, you’re still alive, Captain?’ His blackened face was beaming with pleasure. ‘He doesn’t reply but he’s still alive! Look at that swine Irenee!’
Margont turned his head. Saber was surrounded by two colonels and an infantry general. There were also numerous officers from the cuirassiers.
‘I’m told that you were the one who cleared away the remains of the stockade blocking the gorge through which we entered the redoubt,’ declared a colonel from the cuirassiers.
‘That is correct, Colonel,’ replied Saber, standing firmly to attention.
‘What is your name?’
‘Lieutenant Irenee Saber, Colonel.’
‘Well, from now on you will be called Captain Saber. I shall see to it personally.’
The infantrymen again cheered the cuirassiers, who returned the compliment. But no one was happier than Saber.
Russian troops were still massed behind the Great Redoubt. Margont noticed Piquebois. He was standing on a pile of Russian bodies because there was nowhere else to put your feet. The bodies were a horrible sight, slashed and spiked all over. They were the bloody trail left by the cuirassiers of the 5th and 8th, the heroes of the Great Redoubt.
‘Are you all right? You’re not wounded, are you?’ enquired Margont.
Piquebois made no answer. Motionless, he was staring at the Russian line.
‘They’re there. It’s them …’ he declared.
‘Who?’
Margont looked in the same direction as Piquebois. He could see the Russian ranks further away, on the heights; he could make out the green lines of the infantrymen and black and white troopers in serried ranks.
‘It’s them, the Imperial Horse Guard,’ Piquebois said, speaking the words with difficulty. He started to charge, shouting: ‘To the death! Up and at the brats! Let’s kill the lot of them!’
He was dashing towards them as cannonballs bounced around him. The hussar in him was awakening and he was furious. Piquebois became frenzied, as in the past at the height of the charge. He wanted to fling himself into the midst of the Imperial Horse Guard and perish in the heat of battle, in a climax of blood, broken bones and severed limbs. Margont went running after him but would never have caught up with him had a shell not exploded near his friend. Margont picked Piquebois up, slung him over his shoulder and brought him back to the redoubt. Piquebois, half-conscious, was delirious. He could see the famous Imperial Horse Guard galloping along, roaring with laughter and pointing at him.
While the taking of the Great Redoubt was in its final phase, Kutuzov ordered his Imperial Horse Guard to charge the French cuirassiers. But French cavalry reinforcements were sent in. At the end of this massive clash between mounted troops the Russian cavalry was driven back and several enemy infantry regiments also received a mauling. By four o’clock the Russian left flank had fallen back. The centre, although seriously weakened by the loss of the Great Redoubt and the village of Semenovskaya, was still holding out.
Once more Napoleon wondered whether he should send in his Guard against the Russian Foot Guard, who had formed square, and the survivors of the other units. He had never encountered an enemy so ferocious and tenacious. He did not sense that the Russians were about to give in yet.
After much hesitation, he declared: ‘Eight hundred leagues away from Paris you do not risk your last reserve.’ He had his last reserve guns brought into position and gave this order to General Sorbier, who was commanding the Imperial Guard: ‘Since they want more, let them have it.’
The Russians now had four hundred cannon firing at them. But Kutuzov stood his ground and answered back with his ordnance. This unprecedented artillery duel ended only when night fell.
The Grande Armee had lost thirty thousand men, killed or wounded, including forty-eight generals. Russian losses stood at fifty thousand. Fewer than a thousand of those had been taken prisoner. But the Russian army had not been destroyed, so the war was not over.
After holding a tense council of war with the heads of the general staff in an ordinary
With the Russian army in retreat, the road to Moscow was now well and truly clear.
