At this point, though, that was mostly a formality. Trying to exert moment-to-moment control over an attack this size, with more than ten thousand men involved, was an exercise in futility. That was the job of the regimental and battalion commanders, and all he could do was trust that they did it properly. Marcus spent half his time looking north and east, waiting for the trouble he knew would come when Janus’ victorious troops sorted themselves out and turned in his direction.
Artillery on both sides had already opened fire. The enemy had at least two batteries, smoke billowing from where the cannon were set in front of the infantry. Marcus’ five regiments were arranged in a line, each with one battalion behind the other. For the moment they were still in column, the companies of each battalion stacked up one after the other for easy marching.
Archer’s guns responded, blasting away at the enemy from in between the advancing columns. As at Satinvol, he kept half of them on the move while the other half fired, gradually closing the distance. That meant his fire was less effective, though, compounding the effect of the enemy’s thinner formation. Columns might move faster, but when a plunging cannonball skipped through one, it could sweep away a dozen men at once, while the strung-?out line the enemy had adopted meant a hit was far less devastating. Guns were more vulnerable on the move, too—?Marcus saw one of Archer’s six-?pounder teams take a hit, the solid shot slamming through the horses and leaving gory wreckage in its wake.
A cloud of dust announced the arrival of Give-Em-Hell and his cuirassiers, their wedge-?shaped formations pounding onto the battlefield on the extreme right. He was advancing slowly, keeping pace with the infantry. One by one, the enemy gunners shifted their fire—?massed cavalry was a tempting target, even easier to hit than infantry in column. Balls crashed and bounced among the horsemen, and broken men and mounts began to litter the ground behind their advance, like a slow drip of blood from a wound. Injured men staggered away, looking for help, while broken animals ran wild or screamed their agony, their cries drowned under the ongoing cannonade.
Marcus felt his admiration for Give-Em-Hell ratchet up another notch. It couldn’t have been easy to restrain himself under that fire, but the cavalry attack would be useless if it was pressed too early, before the toiling infantry had the chance to get into range. The horsemen continued their slow, measured advance, matching their pace to that of their comrades in the ranks.
Smoke obscured much of the enemy line, but there was enough of a breeze that Marcus could get an intermittent view. The dull boom and the flash of the guns changed timbre as the infantry reached four or five hundred yards and the artillery changed to canister, switching targets back from the cavalry pressing on the flanks. Sprays of musket balls cut swathes from the oncoming battalions, leaving corpses piled in mounds of blue. The ranks tightened up, Marcus’ mind filling in the monotonous cries of the sergeants to close the gaps. Nearly there.
With Fitz’ customary timing, his battalions halted to deploy into line, and Sevran and de Koste followed suit. Companies fanned out, marching sideways and then forward to convert the squat column into a long, thin formation that could bring maximum firepower to bear on the enemy. As they went through their evolution, canister and solid shot continued to rain down. Archer’s guns moved forward while the infantry was halted, and they switched to canister themselves, spraying shot across the enemy line. They’re taking hits, too, Marcus had to remind himself. It was always easier to see the effect on your own side than on the enemy.
He glanced at Cyte. She was looking to the east, where the Girls’ Own was watching the rear.
“Anything?” he said.
“A little fighting, by the smoke,” Cyte said. “Nothing serious yet.”
Marcus nodded grimly and turned away. All right, Give-Em-Hell. This is it.
At the moment the infantry started to move forward again, Give-Em-Hell’s men spurred their mounts, plunging ahead. They swept forward from the right of the infantry in a diagonal line, spreading out into separate wedges by squadron. Blasts of canister emptied saddles and sent horses crashing down in crimson ruin, but the momentum of the charge was too much to stop. As the cuirassiers closed, the cannoneers abandoned their pieces, scrambling back to take shelter among the infantry.
Well trained as they were, the enemy infantry formed themselves into squares, each battalion closing up into a rectangular diamond shape bristling on all sides with muskets and fixed bayonets. The cavalry flowed around these tight formations, unable to press their charge home into a wall of steel, and the rattle of muskets joined the sound of cannon as the squares opened fire. More cuirassiers fell, washing over the squares like a wave around standing rocks, then falling back in much the same fashion. The cavalry retreated in good order, though losses had clearly been heavy, and they’d failed to make any impression on the squares. Give-Em-Hell’s men rallied outside of musket range, squadrons forming up again under the shouts of their officers.
The time they’d bought had been enough for the infantry to cover three hundred yards. As the enemy cannoneers hurried to return to their pieces, the lead friendly battalions halted and delivered a volley, scything through the artillerymen and sending many of them running back the way they’d come. Once they’d reloaded, the infantry continued to advance, until they were within easy musket shot of the enemy squares. Then, as the two formations faced off, the true killing began.
Marcus had been in this kind of fight before. It was like living in a nightmare, the world obscured by smoke, the enemy visible only by the flashes of their muskets. Men fell, shrieking or crying or with hardly a sound. There was no avoiding death, no dodging or parrying, just the mechanical drill of load, shoulder, and fire, hoping like hell that the enemy broke and ran.
Thanks to the cavalry charge, however, Marcus’ troops had a distinct advantage in firepower. They already had more battalions engaged, and the enemy were formed in squares, with half their weapons pointing uselessly to the rear. The opposing battalion commanders could try to re-form their units under fire, a difficult task at the best of times, but they risked opening themselves up to another sudden charge from Give-Em-Hell, whose men hovered off to one side waiting for the opportunity. To make matters worse, Archer’s guns were close now, slamming double canister into the tightly packed squares.
They didn’t have things entirely their own way—?one of Fitz’ battalions broke, formation disintegrating as its men fled for the rear—?but in the end the pressure told. One by one the squares began to waver and then to give way, walls of bayonets faltering as soldiers ran from the unrelenting storm of shot. Marcus watched them go, and found himself smiling as he mouthed words along with the distant cavalry commander.
“All right, boys, give ’em hell!”