The deployment of the army dragged on for hours. Behind him, the machine ground on through its cycle, but to his front only the sun moved, climbing slowly ever higher in the sky, until James started to feel the sweat forming under the silk shirt he always wore to a fight, lest a blow or a bullet carried any material with it into the wound. There was dust in the air now too; he could feel it gritting on his teeth. He took a sip from his water canteen, careful not take too much, knowing what lay ahead would be thirsty work; not knowing when he’d get a chance to refill it. Checking for the umpteenth time his brandy flask, guessing he would likely need that too before the day was over. Endlessly cluttering his mind with such trivia to pass the time.
And there, from nowhere, was a French officer reining his horse to halt to face him, resplendent in a finely tailored uniform of the Grenadiers à Cheval – obviously a staff officer – and from his braid, if James recalled his French army marks of rank correctly, a captain.
Without taking the trouble to present himself, the man took in the Dzików and their immaculate line in one long evaluating glance, then, not even looking at James, his eyes still lingering on the farthest dragoon, he addressed James, a superior officer, with calculated insolence.
‘Major General Estaing de Saillard presents his compliments and requires me to present you with your orders.’
James could barely understand him, such was the high-flown and formal nasal throttling of his words. Then, to James’ astonishment, the young French captain handed the orders to Casimir, and not to him.
Before James could say anything, the officer stepped his horse back a few paces and sat up in his saddle. ‘The major general intends to drive the Russians off the Mottlau river,’ he said, with a grand, sweeping gesture, ‘and then pin them against the sand dunes, where they will be given the opportunity to surrender. Complete victory is his goal. To that end he requires your cavalry to take up position behind our left flank with all due dispatch. Once there you are to prevent the enemy from taking advantage of the fact that our line falls short of a suitable anchor there in the dunes. The Polish militia uhlans will support you. God grant us victory!’
And with that, the French captain wheeled his horse and sped off back to his master. James, a colonel, had not even been given an opportunity to open his mouth. He knew what had just happened of course – he had served long enough in the French army to remember the contempt in which they held the soldiers of lesser nations. He felt he should have been seething, but as he sat there, Estelle beneath his rump, her head down to crop at the long tuft grass, he found himself absently wondering instead whether the arrogant little arse would survive the day or end up a bloody smear on the sandy soil. Then he was distracted by Casimir, offering him the folded set of written orders.
*
The sun was long past its zenith now and James sat there, mildly irritated with himself for not checking his fob watch for the time the French cannonade had begun. It had seemed an age, but he knew only too well how time can play tricks with you in a fight; if this exercise in tedious waiting he and the rest of his Dzików were enduring could be called a fight. Poinatowski had been right about the smoke, however. Way over towards the river, there was already a roiling grey bank of it, all but unmoving in another listless, windless afternoon.
The Dzików stood in three squadron ranks, their mounts shifting and shuffling, and facing away from the sound of the guns. At an angle, to their right, were the backs of the collected grenadier companies of all the Polish battalions, so all you could see was the rows and rows of coloured felt at the back of their tall mitre hats, like they were a field of tulips. They too seemed to be shuffling with boredom. And all the time, the endless, out of rhythm, drum-like roll of the French batteries firing, and the Russian batteries replying. Even if they’d all been allowed to turn and look, there was nothing to see. Not even the flash of the cannon was visible through the cocooning smoke.
As James had led the Dzików walking in column across the massing front of the army, he’d had the thrilling sensation of watching something unimaginably powerful being drawn tight; cocked, ready to be unleashed in a terrible blow. The grey-white of the French uniforms, picked out in all the gaudy colours of their regimental facings – the blues and reds and yellows – tramping in
