The Baltic War(256)

Thankfully, he didn't see any reason to maintain the silly sword-waving business, since he was now a few feet behind the volley gun crews. He did use the sword once, though, to point at a jittery-looking crewman who was glancing back and forth between the advancing enemy and the rear. The sword-thrusting gesture was a combination of an admonishment and a veiled threat.



"Stop worrying about them, Metzger! Pay attention to your job!"



Easy enough to say, of course. Thorsten had to struggle a bit himself not to just gape at the oncoming French. He was discovering—they all were—that what they'd been told in training was quite true. Cavalry charges are absolutely terrifying, if you let yourself dwell on them instead of concentrating on what you're planning to do to the enemy. Even at a few hundred yards distance, those armored men on horseback looked twice the size they actually were. As soon as they began to gallop, which they would very soon, they'd look larger still.



And there were thousands of them coming. Only a few thousand, true—Reschly's estimate had been no more than four thousand, and probably closer to three—but even three thousand horses make an incredible drumming din. They were still cantering, too, since the enemy commander was smart enough or experienced enough not to take the risk of winding the mounts. Once they started the gallop of the final charge—





Three hundred yards. Close enough. "Charge!" shouted Guébriant. A few paces behind him, the trumpeters sounded the command.





—they'd make the very earth seem to shake.



Which it did.



"Steady, fellows, steady!"



He saw that all the gun crews in his half of the battery were ready. Glancing over, he saw the same was true of Reschly's half. The lieutenant was already lowering his sword, having used it to give the colonel a signal. Straley had wanted the first magazines fired in a coordinated volley, although thereafter the gun crews would fire as ready. With the slightly duck-foot design of the volley guns, the rounds became too dispersed beyond two hundred and fifty yards, and the colonel didn't want nervous gun crews wasting that important first volley.



In the distance, Engler could see Straley's mouth open, shouting something. He couldn't hear a word of it, though, over the thunder of the horses' hooves.



That's why they used bugles, of course. The sharp sound of the instruments pierced through the noise quite easily.



Fire!





One of the cavalrymen right next to Jean-Baptiste was slammed back in the saddle, his helmet sailing off. The man stared blank-eyed at the sky for a moment, blood pouring down the back of his skull, before he slumped off onto the ground.



He was already dead, thankfully. Being in the front ranks of a massed charge like this, a minor wound was as surely fatal as anything, if a man fell off his mount. The horses coming behind would trample his body into a barely recognizable mass of pulp. They were galloping fairly slowly, with the weight of their armored riders—not more than fifteen or sixteen miles an hour—but that was more than fast enough for a big horse to be unable to avoid a man lying on the ground.



That was just a passing thought for Guébriant, however. The count was squinting, trying to see ahead through the huge cloud of gunsmoke that had now obscured the USE forces.



There had been something peculiar about that first enemy volley. It didn't sound quite right, even for four-pounders. The cloud of gunsmoke was a bit peculiar, too. It had seemed to emerge instantly across the entire ranks of the enemy artillery, instead of spreading out from the clumps emerging from cannon barrels. It looked a lot more like the sort of gunsmoke produced by musketeers, in fact.



Whatever, it didn't matter. They'd closed another fifty yards in those five or six seconds. By the time even four-pounders could fire again, the French cavalry would be upon them. Even if one or two crews managed to get off a second shot, they'd only do it at the last moment and canister lost much of its effectiveness at very close range. Deadly to anyone directly in front of the barrels, of course. But the shot simply didn't have time to spread out very far.





Thorsten had come to a halt directly behind one of the volley guns. He watched as the three-man crew went smoothly through the sequence. The used ammunition strip was extracted and tossed into a thin-walled metal case lying on the ground nearby. They'd reload it later, when they had time. A new strip was brought out of another case and fitted into the barrels. A powder train was laid behind the ammunition strip and the side-mounted loading lever was shoved into position, securing the breech. A percussion cap was then placed on the nipple located in the center of the barrel array and would be fired by the gunner using a simple hammer mechanism.