“Let us thank God,” said Carmagnola with stinging sarcasm, “that you do not command Buonterzo’s troops, or our overthrow would be assured.” And he led the rather cruel laughter, which at last silenced Bellarion.
The two battles into which the army was divided moved at dusk, leaving all baggage and even the cannon, of which Facino judged that he would have no need in operations of the character intended. Before midnight Carmagnola had reached his station within a mile of Aggazano, and Facino was at Travo, ready to breast the slopes at dawn, and from their summit descend upon Buonterzo’s camp.
Meanwhile the forces rested, and Facino himself snatched a few hours’ sleep in a green tent which had hurriedly been pitched for him.
Bellarion, however, too excited by the prospect of action to think of sleeping, and rendered uneasy by his apprehensions, paced by the river which murmured at that point over a broad shallow, its waters sadly shrunken by the recent drought. Here in his pacings he was joined by Stoffel.
“I did not laugh at you today,” the Swiss reminded him.
“I have to thank you for that courtesy,” said Bellarion gravely.
“Courtesy wasn’t in my mind.”
A patriotic Swiss and an able soldier, Stoffel had the appearance of neither. He was of middle height and a gracefully slim figure which he dressed with elegance and care. His face was shaven, long and olive-skinned with a well-bridged nose and dark pensive eyes under straight black eyebrows. There was about him something mincing and delicate, but entirely pleasant, for with it all he was virile and intrepid.
“You voiced,” he said now, “a possibility which should not have been left outside their calculations.”
“I have never seen a battle,” said Bellarion. “But I do not need to see one to know that all strategy is bad which does not consider and provide for every likely countermove that is discernible.”
“And the countermove you suggested was discernible enough—at least, when you suggested it.”
Bellarion looked at the Swiss so far as the Swiss was visible in the faint radiance of that warm summer night.
“Thinking as you do, why did you not support me, Stoffel?”
“Carmagnola and de Cadillac are soldiers of repute, and so is even Koenigshofen, whilst I am but the captain of a small body of Swiss infantry whose office it is to carry out the duties imposed upon him. I do not give advice unasked, which is why even now I dare not suggest to Facino that he repair his omission to place scouts on the heights. He takes Buonterzo’s vulnerability too much for granted.”
Bellarion smiled. “Which is why you seek me; hoping that I will suggest it to him.”
“I think it would be well.”
Bellarion considered. “We could do better, Stoffel. We could go up ourselves, and make observations.”
They came an hour or so later to the crest of the hill, and there remained on watch for some two hours until the light of dawn was strong enough to disclose to them in detail the slopes towards Aggazano. And what they saw in that cold grey light was the realisation, if not of the exact possibility Bellarion had voiced, at least of something very near akin. The difference lay in that, instead of moving first against Carmagnola and later against Facino, Buonterzo was beginning with the latter course. And Bellarion instantly perceived the advantages of this. Buonterzo could descend upon Facino from above in a position of enormous tactical advantage, and, having destroyed him, go round to meet Carmagnola on level terms of ground.
The order of the movements, however, was a detail of comparative unimportance. What mattered was that Buonterzo was actually moving to destroy severally the two battles into which Facino had divided his army. In the upland valley to the north, a couple of miles away, already breasting the gentle slopes towards the summit from which Bellarion and Stoffel observed them, swarmed the whole army of Ottone Buonterzo.
The watchers waited for no more. Down the hill again to Travo they raced and came breathless into the tent where Facino slept. Their news effectively awakened him. He wasted no time in futile raging, but, summoning his officers, issued orders instantly to marshal the men and march down the valley so as to go round to effect a reunion with Carmagnola’s battle.
“It will never be effected that way,” said Bellarion quietly.
Facino scowled at him, dismissed the officers to their tasks, and, when only Stoffel remained, angrily demanded of Bellarion what the devil he meant by constantly intruding opinions that were not sought.
“If the last opinion I intruded had been weighed,” said Bellarion, “you would not now be in this desperate case.”
“Desperate!” Facino almost exploded on the word. “How is it desperate?”
“Come outside, my lord.”
To humour his self-sufficiency, to allow it to swell into a monstrous bubble which when fully swollen he would reduce to nothing by a single prick, Facino went with him from the tent, Stoffel gravely following. And in the open, by the river under that long line of shallow hills, Bellarion expounded the situation in the manner of a pedant lecturing a scholar.
“Already, by his present position, Buonterzo has driven the wedge too deeply between yourself and Carmagnola. A reunion of forces is no longer possible by marching down the valley. In less than an hour Buonterzo will command the heights, and observe your every movement. He will be at a centre, whence he can hurl his force along a radius to strike you at whatever point of the periphery you chance to occupy. And he will strike you with more than twice your numbers, falling upon your flank from a position of vantage which would still render him irresistible if he had half your strength. Your position, my lord, with the river on your other flank, is much as was the position of the Austrians at Morgarten when they were utterly broken by the Swiss.”
Facino’s impatience and anger had gradually undergone
