I didn’t even know. We were in the village celebrating Raoul’s fête day and by the time we got back the camp was in total upheaval. Orders had come for an urgent move, and everyone was packing in the pouring rain.
Crespin had friends on Châtillon’s staff so we sent him to find out what was going on. We weren’t really worried, there’d been loads of moves already and they only meant swapping one muddy field for another, but Charlot said this one was sudden, the gallopers only brought the news in the last ten minutes. He was quite unruffled himself, of course, he wouldn’t even let Philibert pack the pans till he’d made my evening chocolate.
Then Crespin came back, his face pale and his eyes wide and shiny. He said ‘It’s the whole army, chaps. Heavy baggage off tonight, the rest of us at daybreak. Châtillon’s listening to Fabert at last.’
‘But why now, my child?’ said Gaspard. ‘Has something happened?’
Crespin gave a little twitch of his head. ‘Some of the chaps think the enemy’s moving. Châtillon saw them himself, heading to Bazeilles. If they cross the river in the morning there’s talk of them taking the high ground first.’
No one said anything after that, we just got our heads down and went on packing.
Everyone round us was doing the same, moving faster and clumsier in the driving wind and rain. No one could keep the fires going in a downpour, and the only light was what spilled from the field ovens, glowing red in the night like a dozen devils’ eyes. People were hurrying everywhere, cursing and yelling and bumping into each other, all the order suddenly gone. Men scrambled up the fodder carts to hurl covers over the top, wet ropes flying about like thick whips. I remember the chaos of it, horses snorting and stamping, gallopers plunging about shouting orders, tents flapping wildly, canvas cracking to the wind like musket shots, rain on my hands and in my eyes and running down my face like tears.
That’s what it was like, that last night in camp. That’s how I remember Friday the 5th of July 1641, the night before the Battle of La Marfée.
Oh, bless you, Señor, a little rain didn’t bother us, you don’t catch veterans of the army of Flanders hanging on for a bit of sunshine. We were only waiting for the report from our men in the royal army, which came in prompt at midnight.
Well, you know all about it, I expect, you know what we learned. The best part was where the Aubéry were to be placed, really almost a gift, as you might say. The Duc arranged for his equerry to stay at the highest point during the battle and give the signal when it was time to make the turn.
But you’ll know what interested my Capitán most, Señor, and that was the little story this Desmoulins added at the end. Say what you will about your Chevalier, he had the kind of audacity we like in Spain, and the idea of him hiding in the ranks of France’s own army was enough to tickle anyone. The Comte de Soissons says ‘That’s a man France should be proud of, that’s a man I’d like to meet.’
My Capitán smiles and says ‘I’m not sure you would, Monseigneur.’
Now that’s maybe not the right thing to say to the Comte, given the conscience he’s got on him. Three times that day he’s been confessed already, the Duc his own self caught him at it in the bushes. Now he says ‘You think de Roland would not approve of me, d’Estrada?’
My Capitán sees the danger. ‘Not approve of the man who did so much to defend Picardie in the year of Corbie? I meant only that this is one man I would rather have with us than against us.’
Bouillon’s quick to agree. ‘Quite right,’ he says. ‘We should just be grateful he’s been caught. He’ll spend the battle in irons, poor fellow, and what harm can he do us like that?’
It raged all night, that storm. Not that I gave a stuff, I was sat in a tent with a double-canopied roof sipping a goblet of rather good wine. If you’re ever going to be captured, Abbé, make sure you do it with a nobleman.
The Marquis himself was dashing about organizing his squadron for the move, but he left us in the care of a charming aide called Lapotaire, who cleared the tent of servants, fetched a nurse to bandage André’s arm, stuck a couple of footmen outside as sentries, and left us well alone. It was all very discreetly done, since the Marquis seemed reluctant for anyone else to learn who André was. He didn’t want to make the malcontents a present of the best figurehead a popular rebellion could possibly have.
I wasn’t sure we wanted to make the King a present of him either, but André was confident it wouldn’t come to it. He said ‘We’ll be travelling together, won’t we? We can escape on the way.’
I watched him prowling round the tent tapping his hand against his belt, and knew he missed the feel of a sword. ‘Why not now?’
He paused to stare at me. ‘And leave Bernadette?’
Little things like life obviously didn’t mean much when it came to chivalry. ‘All right, we’ll take her with us. We knock out the sentries, sneak back to camp, and –’
He was shaking his head before I even finished. ‘We can’t, it would be abusing the Marquis’ kindness.’
I sighed and continued to abuse his wine. ‘Well, get us out before Paris, won’t you, I don’t fancy the block.’
He stopped again and looked subdued. ‘I’m sorry. I got you into this, didn’t I?’
‘Naturally,’ I said, refilling his goblet. ‘But if I’d stayed in the camp I’d be dead anyway. Sury thinks I’m going to blab on him.’
He took the wine. ‘Why?’
I told him. It amounted to bugger all, but I told him and he didn’t seem surprised. He said ‘At least it proves we’re not imagining things. I’d better tell Praslin.’
But he didn’t come, Abbé, the man was just a little busy. A fumbling at the canvas announced only the return of a soggy Lapotaire, announcing apologetically that the Marquis thought there might be a bit of bother in the morning and there wouldn’t be an escort free to take us to Paris. We’d stay in his care, of course, we’d travel in a nice dry baggage wagon, but since we couldn’t be guarded on the road he was afraid we’d need to be put in irons for the journey. Unless, of course, the Chevalier was prepared to give his word not to escape …?
André looked at him.
‘No,’ said Lapotaire, flustered. ‘Of course not. It’ll have to be irons then, but I’ll have them struck off the moment we arrive.’
‘Thank you,’ said André. ‘But might we speak to the Marquis before we leave?’
Poor Lapotaire. A move and probably a battle on the way, and now a prisoner wanting his officer’s attention. He said ‘I’ll ask, Chevalier, I promise. The very first chance I get.’
I knew what that meant, and our next visitor was a friendly blacksmith who stuck the pair of us in manacles. Ten minutes later we were loaded into a wagon full of Praslin’s furniture and trundled off with the rest of the baggage into the black night.
I too was with the baggage. I travelled with the wounded, for Desmoulins would take no chance of my telling the other women what I knew. Mme Bonnier was permitted to fetch me our own luggage, but other than that my only contact was a friendly wave from Francine, who accompanied us in her own cart.
At least I had Grimauld for company, for the doctor said he should rest while he was still pissing blood. The only other patient was M. Fauvel, who refused to stay in the village with the sickest men and was of too senior a rank for the doctor to deny. He was a strange man, Monsieur. Yesterday I could have killed him with fury at his injustice, but today he lay with his insides cut to pieces and was as bewildered and grateful for my attentions as a sick child. Once he clenched my hand and said I was a good, kind girl, then screwed up his eyes while tears crept out from under the lids.
Yes, I knew he was dying, Monsieur, he knew it himself, but then time was running out for us all.
We were all up at dawn, sitting on horseback waiting for an order that didn’t come. The sun rose higher behind the rain, senior officers said ‘Sod this’ and went to look for breakfast, and still we sat there while Châtillon looked at the weather and went ‘Oh dear.’ I don’t think we moved till gone nine.
At least we went fast. The infantry had mostly gone ahead after the baggage, it was only us cavalry pounding down the broken roads to catch up and get in the nice neat order of battle that came round the last dispatch but six. We were in the first line with the Sieur de Puységur, and had to absolutely thunder down the slow-moving baggage to our proper place at the front. As we passed Chaumont we saw the heights of Frénois looming ahead of us, and I thought ‘It’s all right, we’ve beaten the bastards, we’re still in time.’
We started to climb by the village of Noyers-Pont-Maugis. The rain had slowed to a soft drizzle, but it was pouring down the ruts and crevices like little waterfalls, the ground was sloshing with it and even the infantry were slipping. It didn’t matter, every inch gained was an advantage over the enemy, so we just toiled on, giving the wagons and cannon a shove when they got stuck, getting higher and higher all the time.
Then we saw horses coming down to meet us, the scouting party back to report. Praslin was leading, his horse stumbling and slithering as he urged it faster over the boggy terrain. Then I saw his face and understood. We all did. Behind us I felt the whole army rippling to a stop, as eleven thousand men waited in silence to be told what they already knew.
The enemy had got there first.
We were jolted off the road to form baggage lines, and it was there all round us, that little edge to one man’s voice, a high-pitched note to another, people suddenly doing familiar jobs clumsy, others shouting when there ain’t no need. Fear, boy, it’s as catching as plague.
I knows why too. Coming off the road that hasty ain’t what the Maréchal would have planned. We was reacting to something the enemy’s done, and that’s what you don’t want, see, that’s them in charge instead of you.
I checked my bundle. I’d got my piece and a full bandolier, but it didn’t seem much the way things was looking. I said to Bernadette ‘You get out your wheel-lock, I’ll find us ammunition,’ but I’m just climbing over the side when the lieutenant says ‘And me, soldier. Get me a musket too.’
Ah, he was a dead man, sewn up pretty on the outside, ripped to Rocroi on the inside, but he’d a hard-set look on his face and hands fit to hold a gun, and them were things we needed. I said ‘Yes, M’sieur,’ and dropped down.
It was our own regiment guarding us. There’s a company from the Uxelles round the war chest and another by the bread charrettes but otherwise it’s all red coats of the Aubéry. Our own company’s by the officers’ wagons, Desmoulins seeing to the ordering and Michaud tagging after him as acting lieutenant. Our wives are huddling up with them of other regiments, and women with babies begging places in the wagons with prostitutes and sutlers, people they wouldn’t normally give so much as good morning. They’re out in the open with a battle coming, see, them things don’t seem so important no more.
I knew the guards on one of the armoury wagons, they’d camped near us at Douzy, and they handed me guns and powder easy when I said they was for the wounded. The younger one give me chaff for it, he said ‘What’s the matter, dad, think we’re that desperate?’ The older one behind him, his eyes said ‘Yes.’
I didn’t usually spend my battles in baggage lines, but it didn’t look a very conventional ordering to me. Aubéry had us packed in to form lines two wagons deep, the whole lot making a square with one side missing, like a box without a lid. It seemed reasonable, any enemy would have to attack through that one open side, and we’d a whole regiment to defend it. I can’t say I was worried.
André was. He was thrashing up and down between Praslin’s stacked chairs saying ‘This is it, Stefan, the big battle, we can’t be sitting here with the bloody women.’ It’s difficult for a man to look martial and heroic with his hands manacled together, but he was stamping about enough to shake the wagon.
Our driver brought us neatly to a halt, then called over his shoulder ‘We’re all in, I’ll wait with you till M. Lapotaire sends us a sentry.’
André was up with him at once. ‘Could we have our irons off, do you think? M. Ravel’s wrists are chafing him.’
It seemed to me M. de Roland was chafing too, but I said nothing, only held out my raw limbs for inspection.
The driver hesitated. He had a country look to me, ruddy skin, puzzled eyes, he was probably straight off one of the Marquis’ village estates. ‘I’ll ask M. Lapotaire, M’sieur, just the very minute he comes back.’
André said carefully ‘M. le Marquis will need his aide on the battlefield, he won’t have time to return here.’
The driver climbed down to the horses, as if he felt safer when he couldn’t actually see us. ‘Oh, he’ll come, M’sieur, there’s always a lot of hanging around before a battle.’
I wasn’t so sure. I looked round at the fodder carts without their covers properly secured, the wagon of travelling players backing hastily out of the line and bumping away over the fields, the munitions guard giving muskets to a bandaged figure I recognized as Grimauld. It seemed to me the time for hanging about was over, and I only hoped we hadn’t realized it too late.
We clawed our way up to the plateau between Chaumont and Noyers and there they were on the higher ground with the forest at their back. There was no surprise, no ambush, just us scurrying into position at one end of the plain and them lined up at the other actually waiting.
I concentrated on taking my place in the cavalry right wing. I was a bit flustered, actually, I couldn’t think what I was doing. My cuirass was digging in under my armpits, I’d never worn one before and wished I wasn’t now, hardly anyone else in the light cavalry had bothered. I got my hand to my sword, but Charlot gave a tiny shake of the head because of course it was pistol first. I went for the right holster, then remembered it was better to start with the left, because the right’s easier to grab in the chaos of battle. I took out the gun and looked at it blankly.
‘It’s loaded, M’sieur,’ said Philibert helpfully, leaning forward from behind. ‘I did them both this morning.’
I pulled back the dog into the firing position, looked up to see if anyone was doing the same, then froze as I got my first proper view of the enemy. They were actually about the same number as us, but somehow looked a lot more. The ranks of pike looked like forests by themselves, with little white flashes where the sun caught the blades. There were musketeers each side of them, sleeves of shot, and I’d never seen so many guns at once, all on rests and levelled at us. In the middle were cannon.
There must have been cavalry on the wing opposite, but the ground dipped in front of us, and I couldn’t see. There were certainly cavalry over the far side like an image in a mirror of ourselves. They even looked like us, they were French or Sedanaise not Imperial troops, and there was something familiar about them I couldn’t explain.
‘The white sashes,’ said Crespin from my other side. ‘That’s really wrong, Jacquot, they’re trying to pretend they’re in the service of the King. How can our chaps fight them when they’re dressed like that?’
I was beginning to feel we couldn’t fight them at all. There were banners flying above some of the ranks and I recognized most of them: Soissons, Bouillon, Guise, names of some of the greatest princes in France. We’d got nothing like that to offer, only the poor old Duc de Châtillon who no one rated much anyway. Even having André would have helped, he was someone the men had heard of and cared about. Then I remembered it was these bastards who’d killed him, and gripped my pistol so hard it hurt.
The ground vibrated as cannon fired from our centre. I’d heard them before, we’d used them on the forts, but that was against walls, this was against men. I even looked where the balls went like I expected to see clouds of dusty powder and chips of stone, but there were people, actual people flying out of the yellow smoke like they’d been thrown, and a fine red mist colouring the air with blood.
‘Christ,’ said Raoul’s voice behind me. ‘Oh, Jacquot. Oh, Christ.’
Orange balls flared in front of us like giant muskets, a great boom, then off to the left of us screams and yells as the enemy’s cannon hit.
‘This is not civilized,’ said Gaspard thoughtfully.
My hand jerked on Guinevere’s bridle but drums were starting next to us, beating the advance. We were going in.
The poor enfants perdus of infantry went in front to take the shot and save the lives of those of us who rode behind. It was mainly the Piémont, those grand black-and-white colours waving bravely against the greyness of the sky, but we’d got another regiment even closer, their dark green flag diagonally crossed like a Spaniard’s, and an extraordinary noise coming from their ranks like pipes being strangled. They were foreign, of course, people called them the Douglas, but they marched sort of gruffly and gave me a solid feeling I really needed.
The horses in front were moving, and we were off. We went slowly at first, no more than trotting as we got clear of the lines, on to the plain and down into the dip. Charlot said ‘Remember, Monsieur, when they fire you must make your horse rear,’ and I nodded but didn’t think I could really do it, not use Guinevere to take a ball meant for me.
We were outpacing the drummer boys, the beat was behind us, but still the enemy didn’t fire. I looked at the backs of the men bobbing up and down in front of me, Gaspard’s stupid cape and Raoul’s beautiful grey doublet, then between them glimpses of the enemy muskets getting closer and closer. I wanted to gallop, it must be time, maybe if we galloped they’d never fire at all, and then the muskets were flaming orange stars, the crash of gunfire throbbing in my ears, then another as our own musketeers fired back. Our front rank was stumbling, Raoul struggling to control his mount, and I knew ahead of him men were down. Horses neighed in terror and smoke drifted towards us across the plain, floating away to reveal piles of bodies, easily a hundred of our men sprawling in front of us, but the others keeping going, those Scotsmen marching doggedly on.
Little cracks of sound ahead of me, our first rank discharging their pistols. We were spreading out, I’d got a clear view ahead and my brain was clearing too, the gunfire had blown out all the muddle. I raised the pistol, remembered to turn it sideways so the powder fell right against the vent, saw an enemy musketeer levelling at me, fired and dropped him. Someone shouted, swords rasped out of scabbards all round, I dropped the pistol in its holster, clutched the mane, and drew my own.
Guinevere leapt forward, we were galloping, galloping, that same wonderful thunder of hooves across grass, but there was no shouting, none of the exhilaration I remembered by the river, and a ginger-haired man ahead of me was muttering ‘My God, my God’ till it became all like one word, ‘MyGodmyGodmyGod.’ Another blast of gunfire swept across our ranks, Gaspard swerved violently and Raoul’s back jerked and spat out red, a bright splash against the grey. He flopped and fell, Raoul was down, and I was still galloping forward, leaping over his body and charging on, Raoul de Verville, dead at twenty-two.
They fired again, I felt something whizz past my face, put my head down and galloped on. Pike were coming up to our right, I heard the order then the great thud as they slammed their butts into the ground, thrusting the pike forward at an angle, horse-breast high and the full strength of the earth to take the impact. I thought ‘Sod that, I’m not charging that,’ and kept right on at the musketeers. They were countermarching, another volley already, but we were up to them, they were breaking in panic, and I smashed down my sword across the neck of the first I could reach.
Then we were crashing through them, all of us, Charlot’s great form stooping in his saddle as he slashed at the men on the ground. Pike thrust at us from the side, stabbing at the flanks and breasts of the horses, I swerved a panicking Guinevere back and sideways, but Crespin’s horse was screaming, his back was weak and he couldn’t hold on, he slid down over her neck, hat off, blond curls spilling over his face. He rolled clear as the horse fell, but he was on the ground with a dozen pike round him, face blank in terror. I thrust Guinevere sideways against the pike, getting closer, close where the blades can’t reach, slash down with the sword, hack down at the faces, but a pike stabs in from further away, then a sharp bang and it falls away backwards and disappears. Gaspard lowers his pistol, and I see Charlot hauling Crespin up on to the back of a riderless horse.
Others are driving on behind us and now we’re swept along with them, infantry scattering before us, their lines broken in disorder. We’re through, we’ve done the hard bit, we’re behind the cannon, we must be, we’re ready to turn and take them from the rear. I wrench at the reins to bring the mare round, then stop as I see what’s behind.
Our second line aren’t following. I’m looking back at a mass of Imperial infantry but beyond them our own men are under attack from a great wing of cavalry, they can’t fight through to support us and are falling back into the Piémont. Shots off to our right, bullets whining among us, they’ve got musketeers in the forest as well. We can’t stay here, we can’t go back, our only hope is to charge forward.
But the other cavalry aren’t coming. Our squad’s all there, so’s the Queen’s, but the rest are breaking up and turning to get the hell out. The officers are screaming at them, I hear Puységur’s own voice yelling, but the men shout back ‘To hell with this,’ and one dragoon rises in the stirrups, yells ‘That’s what you get for your fifty écus!’ and wheels away.
The stupidity of it was blinding. We’d been up against fellow Frenchmen and hadn’t bothered to look after our own, we’d done nothing to win their morale or loyalty and the dragoon was right, this is what you get for it, bloody this. But it was too late now, too late for anything, we were stuck in the middle of a raging battle and we were on our own.
We heard gunfire echoing through the hills. At the next crash André swerved in the middle of his pacing, went to the front of the wagon and jumped straight down. I followed him.
The driver didn’t turn. He was chewing a piece of grass and staring nervously towards the open side of our enclosure, and when we looked round we saw why. The guards were leaving us. It wasn’t desertion, it was orders, Aubéry was there himself directing his capitaines as they pulled the men off guard duty and led them away.
‘I knew it,’ said André in an anguish of frustration. ‘We should be there, they’re calling for reserves.’
‘Are they fuck,’ I said. Desmoulins was personally ordering the men by the war chest, and Sury directing others away as if he knew exactly what he was meant to do. ‘They’re leaving the whole baggage train to the enemy.’
An army never leaves its baggage unattended, this was poxy traitorism going on right in front of us. I notice something else too, that it’s all the Aubéry capitaines taking their men like lambs, the Uxelles ain’t having it. Aubéry’s yelling the order’s from the Maréchal himself, but the capitaine by the bread train stands arguing the toss right back, and the one by Châtillon’s wagons says outright he won’t leave the war chest.
Then above it all comes another voice, a young man shouting loud and strong ‘Hold fast, all of you. Your officers are working for the enemy, you must stand your ground.’
André a-course, standing in the open with his hands chained together but authority like a ruddy general. The men hear it all right, hardly a one but stops and looks, but they don’t see nothing but a tattered prisoner in chains, they go right on hurrying out the enclosure after Aubéry. Our own company know who he is, they’re stopping in confusion, but they ain’t sure nor nothing like it.
But Fauvel sees it, and there’s maybe a lot of things suddenly making sense to him now. He drags himself to the side of our wagon and yells hoarsely ‘No, men, he’s right, it’s treachery. Stand to your posts!’
Our company stop. The Uxelles waver too, they see something’s up, but the other Aubéry have got their own capitaines telling them it’s all right, they ain’t taking notice of Fauvel, no, nor André neither, and him all but screaming at them ‘For God’s sake, listen!’
I’m flop down off the wagon and running at them, yelling ‘That’s the Chevalier de Roland, boys, now do what he fucking says.’ Ravel’s at it too, bellowing alongside in that big fuck-off sergeant’s voice of his. That’s four of us, now, four and the name of ‘de Roland’, the Uxelles make up their minds and stop where they are. Most of the Aubéry are already gone, but there’s even a few of them ignoring their officers and marching back to their posts.
The rage on Desmoulins’ face shows the man he really is. He swings round on the Uxelles, brandishing his pistol and screaming it’s mutiny, they’re disobeying an order in the face of the enemy. André sees the danger, he’s running towards them, but something bangs behind me, and Desmoulins jerks back like someone’s punched him, spins on his toes like a dancer, and thuds down flat on the ground. Back on the sick wagon I see Fauvel lowering his musket, and think ‘Fuck me to Frankfurt, the man’s shot his own cousin.’
There’s nothing like shooting your officer to get people’s attention. The yelling and arguments stopped with the shock, and the silence was more eloquent than any of it. Fauvel had just proved our desperation, and when I looked at the miserable number of soldiers left I thought he had a point. We had little more than a hundred men to guard a baggage train packed with women and children, and the enemy were obviously on their way.
Someone moved near the crafts’ wagons, heads turned all over the enclosure, and there was our friendly blacksmith walking purposefully towards us with his hammer. ‘Better get those manacles off, Chevalier,’ he said. ‘Looks like we’ll be needing you.’
He was no one, Abbé, but his words seemed to snap the lot of us out of a trance. The men went back to their posts, their officers headed towards us with determined faces, and followers everywhere climbed out of their wagons.
Only André didn’t move. He told the smith to see to me first, then gazed round the whole baggage train with an air of uncertainty I didn’t like at all. He looked at a cook’s boy perhaps eleven years old, at a clerk with a wooden leg, a bunch of women sitting round a sutler’s wagon, another standing with a baby in her arms, and all watching him with the same trusting expectancy. For a second he closed his eyes.
I smacked my wrists down on the wagon step for the smith’s hammer. ‘What’s the matter, little general, forgotten how to fight a battle?’
He muttered ‘Fuck off, Stefan,’ and shoved past me to meet the officers. There were only three of them, the capitaines of the Uxelles, and poor little Michaud of our own company, looking as if what he really wanted was his mother.
‘Orders, Chevalier?’ said the first capitaine. That was Valéry, a fine soldier who’d fought beside us at Arras.
André grasped the man’s arm in his manacled hands. ‘God bless you, M’sieur. The enemy must come through that gap in the enclosure, can you hold it?’
‘We can do anything,’ said Valéry proudly, ‘but it’s a big line for forty men.’
‘Too big,’ said André, and turned to Michaud. ‘Enseign, get the company to pull more wagons to narrow that gap, then place them under this officer’s orders, can you do that?’
Michaud straightened and the fear evaporated from his face. He said ‘Of course, Chevalier,’ and ran back to the men, calling out orders as he went.
The second capitaine said doubtfully ‘If we all man the line there’s no one to guard the war chest. I’ve taken an oath to protect it.’
I’d have given him an oath or two of my own, but André only nodded. ‘All right, but you’ve a much better chance if we stop the enemy getting in at all. Hold the line, and we’ll use another force to stop them breaking in anywhere else.’
The man looked at him blankly. ‘What force?’
‘This one,’ said André. He cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled ‘Drivers! Craftsmen, sutlers, everyone! I need men who can fire a musket.’
‘Only men, Chevalier?’ called Francine. She was sat at her wagon, a pipe in her mouth and an arquebus in her lap. ‘You don’t want women?’
André looked sternly at her. ‘Madame, such a question.’
Francine grinned, took the pipe from her mouth, and clambered down.
She wasn’t alone. They were coming from all over: drivers, armourers, smiths, farriers, bakers, cooks, valets, wives, even a prostitute or two, there’s a lot of followers in an army who can load and fire a musket. The second capitaine watched them filing to the munitions wagons, said ‘All right, better than nothing,’ then forced a grin and loped off after Valéry.
The smith got my second pin flattened, yanked it out the cuplock and sprung the cuff open. You won’t believe the relief, Abbé, unless you know what it’s like to have two pounds of iron clamped like a pig’s jaws round your wrist. I yelled at André to take my place.
He was whispering to Grimauld, but turned and joined us in a second. ‘I’ll need a sword, Stefan, will anyone here have –?’
‘Here, Chevalier,’ said a girl’s voice, and there was his pretty Bernadette, offering him a sword like a squire. ‘It’s M. Fauvel’s, he wants you to have it.’
André looked longingly at the blade, but couldn’t get a hand to it. The smith was still working on his first rivet, hammering more and more frantically, but I was hearing something else between the blows, a distant roar from the battlefield, then something getting closer and louder, the rumble of galloping hooves.
I said ‘André.’
He was whispering to the smith and didn’t hear.
‘Chevalier!’ called Bonnier, panting towards us with my sword. ‘Chevalier, there’s …’
Cavalry. I could see the shapes pounding through the trees. Christ knows how many, the whole forest was moving. Our men had reduced the gap by four wagons’ length, but there was no time for more, they abandoned the next two where they were and spread themselves out to hold the line. A hundred men, and what looked like a thousand charging right at them.
André wrenched his hand out of the first cuff. The smith reached for the second, but André said ‘No time, just do what we’ve talked about,’ snatched the sword from Bernadette, and started to run for the gap, the loose manacle swinging heavily from the chain on his left wrist.
I took my own blade from Bonnier and went after him, but he turned, still running, and said ‘Lead the civilians, Stefan, show them what to do.’
I said savagely ‘What do we fucking do?’
‘Kill anything that gets through.’ He gave what was almost a grin, then turned and ran to the line.
They were Sedanaise cavalry, the Duc de Bouillon’s own, they must have ridden right round under cover of the forest and burst out in a mass at some sort of signal. We were still smashing our way blindly across the lines when we saw them hurtle out of the woods ahead of us, crashing into our left flank, jubilant and fresh and cutting them to pieces. Men and horses were screaming, our ranks breaking and scattering as the cavalry drove through them in an unstoppable wedge, slicing through and out the other side.
‘The baggage train!’ someone shouted. ‘My God, the baggage train!’
The cry spread through our lines. The baggage lines are safety, the one bit of home you’ve got on campaign, our troops had got wives there, children, they were yelling in panic and trying to turn back. Puységur was shouting ‘The Aubéry’s there, we’ll hold them,’ but men in red coats were staggering out of the forest, confused and leaderless, and even Crespin was saying ‘The Aubéry’s gone, the Aubéry’s broken,’ his lips as pale as his face.
We’d have broken ourselves then, but Praslin was leading the Roquelaure for their own charge and our officers urged us in with them. I didn’t need the order, I was dashing to get alongside and be with the man who’d led us at the bridge. But this was heavy cavalry we were driving into now, armoured gendarmes who weren’t running from anyone, I was seeing nothing but steel helmets with closed visors, I was fighting nothing human, my sword bounced off plate and a great blade screeched across my own cuirass before Charlot fought to my side to beat the men back.
Praslin was through ahead of us, sword waving high above the carnage, but a cry went up as his blade flailed in the air then vanished as he toppled to the ground unhorsed. I dug in my knees to force Guinevere through the fray, but there were enemy all round and Charlot hauled me back. I heard a man yelling ‘Surrender, you fool, cry quarter!’ and Praslin’s voice saying ‘Never, Beauregard, not to Monsieur le Comte.’
I wish that was all I remembered, but the screen of men shifted in front of me, I saw Praslin on the ground and the Sedanaise slashing at him, hacking down long after he was dead. I saw François trying to fight his way through to his brother, but prayed he wouldn’t make it, prayed he wouldn’t see it or hear the awful baying of men who were suddenly animals. That’s what hell sounds like, I’m sure of it. Sometimes I hear it in my dreams.
Other voices were mixing in with it too, rough with desperation. Roquelaure was trying to rally his cavalry, but then he was down and surrounded by the enemy. Fabert’s country voice was yelling his men to hold, Sourdis was screaming at our retreating cavalry, de Bauffremont was shouting ‘Stand, Piémont, stand!’ Uxelles, Andelot, Roussillon, all of them crying the same thing ‘Hold the line there, hold them, hold them, hold …’
I was dancing Guinevere back and whirling round with the sword, man down and on to the next, the next, always the next, and still the voices crying ever more urgently ‘Hold them, hold them,’ till there wasn’t even a ‘them’ any more, the world was shrinking to nothing but that single word, ranks of men breaking and running and nothing in my ears but that endless hopeless cry to ‘Hold!’