The Saxon Uprising(145)

It was a nasty wound, in the way that such wounds so often were, when gun battles were fought with muskets. The balls were slow but heavy, and shattered bones if they struck them full on—as this ball did.

Stearns ordered him taken to the rear by two of the adjutants who accompanied the staff officers. Leebrick lost his foot in a surgeon’s tent, but he survived. Men usually did if the amputation was of a lower extremity, so long as they didn’t get infected—and the Third Division’s sanitation practices were just as good among the surgeons as anywhere else.

Christopher Long was struck twice, again by stray bullets—although these were both fired by the enemy. The first ball caused a minor flesh wound on his left shoulder, which he had bound up and then ignored. The second wound, however, he couldn’t ignore. That one struck him in the ribs. A glancing hit, it didn’t penetrate the heavy buff coat he was wearing in lieu of armor. But it must have been a canister ball, twice the weight of a musket ball, because it broke at least two of his ribs. He tried to keep going but the pain was excruciating. Within minutes, over the young colonel’s protest, Stearns had him taken to the rear as well.

That almost killed him. The two adjutants guiding him completely lost their way. The three men wandered for hours in the snowfall, with no idea where they were. None of them being sailors, none of them had thought to bring a compass. What soldier needs a compass?

Eventually, they came across a village. It had been deserted for weeks, and was not much more than ruins. But they were able to find some shelter in a house that had been only half-burned and one of the adjutants had some food on him.

There was no shortage of water. The snow drifts came as high as six feet in places.

Ulbrecht Duerr’s wound came from a saber cut. A cavalryman from the unit of Courland cuirassiers came out of nowhere, shouting and swinging his blade. Duerr brought up his pistol but only had time to use it as a shield of sorts. Fortunately, it was a great heavy down-time saddle-holstered wheel-lock, not a dinky little up-time pistol. So the only damage he suffered was a broken finger that got caught in the trigger guard before the pistol was flung into the snow.

That hurt like the devil, of course, but the immediate problem was that Duerr was right-handed—and he’d just lost the use of his right hand. So, forced by necessity, he drew his own sword and fought left-handed.

And won. Blind luck, really. The cuirassier got overly rash and swung a great blow that missed and dragged him half out of the saddle. Seeing his chance, Duerr drove the point of his sword into the man’s exposed throat.

Tried to, rather. His strike missed also but came much closer—and he wasn’t off balance. So, at the end, he was able to turn the missed stab into a slash with the part of his blade just above the handguard.

Which was like a razor, because although Duerr was slapdash when it came to keeping his blades sharp, that portion of a sword’s edge almost never gets used. The man’s carotid was severed as neatly as you could ask for. Off the saddle he went entirely, and bled to death in a snowbank.

Thereafter, Duerr withstood the pain of his broken finger rather cheerfully. At his age, besting an opponent left-handed! He’d be able to brag about that until his dying day.

Which might be today, of course. Still, bragging rights were bragging rights.

Mike Stearns got his own bragging rights that day. He had two horses shot out from under him.

Not one. Two.

Both times, by stray shots coming from nowhere. It was that sort of battle.

Neither shot struck him, and he was able to leap clear the first time a horse went down. But the second horse went down abruptly and his left leg got caught under its body. Luckily, none of the tack or weaponry came between his leg and the horse, just the horse itself. That big an animal put a hefty bruise on his leg, but nothing worse.

He might not have gotten up on the third horse an adjutant found for him, except that he found walking hurt too much.

What moron had thought fighting a battle in a snowstorm was a good idea?

Right around the time Mike was painfully dragging his leg from under that second horse, Johan Banér finally found his missing center. Not the Östergötlanders—they were long gone. But most of John Ruthven’s infantry regiment had been rallied by its commander and was getting into formation.

“Good work, John!” Banér shouted, as he rode up. “Now let’s—”

Jeff finally had everything in place—and a good thing, too. Some more Swedish soldiers were looming up out of the snowfall, and these looked to be much better organized than any of the others they’d run across.

The volley gun company was where it was supposed to be—a bit in front, for a clear line of fire, but not so far that the Hangman infantry couldn’t protect them.