Perhaps one among them remained entirely undistracted, entirely focused on the French movement; as the enemy worked themselves into battle lust, Napoleon Bonaparte steadily eyed the sea of horsemen in front of him. He ordered the French to put three hundred paces between squares, a distance large enough to mitigate friendly fire concerns but narrow enough to create the deadly crossfire that would pour into the Mameluke lines from both directions as they tried to encircle the French. General Bonaparte lifted his sword and gave the signal.
The massive French squares began to march. As the drummers and fifes kept time, the soldiers moved in perfect unison, the great squares advancing forward in one steady motion. Dust churned at their feet as they moved toward their enemy; André marveled at the discipline required to carry out this complex maneuver and wondered if even some of the Mamelukes were transfixed by this bizarre configuration marching toward them.
Not to be outdone, the Mameluke leader lifted his scimitar over his head and, in one fluid motion, dropped it to his front. At this, a tidal wave of Mameluke horsemen began speeding down the gently sloping sand, racing toward the French squares. André was gripped by a momentary feeling of helplessness; this cavalry charge appeared unstoppable, the proud Arabian horses carrying thousands of bellowing warriors directly to the French line, their armor and swords glistening in the stark white sunlight.
As the wave of Mamelukes chewed up the gap between the two armies, the French squares stood fixed, a wall of flesh and steel. Steady. Individual soldiers shook with fear, but the formation held firm. And then, as the Arabian horses thundered less than fifty paces from the French squares, the order was shouted and a deafening burst ripped out from the front of each square. Muskets cracked in unison and the cannons positioned at the corners of the squares poured a devastating hail of grapeshot and lead into the charging horde of men and horses. Horses screamed and fell, many of their riders trampled by the ranks thundering past them. Those beasts that hadn’t been hit began to buck and swerve at the sight of the French bayonets so densely stacked together. The lucky riders who were yet unhurt weaved their horses between the squares and were caught in ruinous crossfire that tore into them from both sides. Now, they became stranded as the French shifted to funnel all of these riders toward the reedy banks of the river.
André watched this unfold from within his square, astonished by the carnage of this first assault. On the French left flank, the soldiers nearest to the river were dispersing the square. The battalions wheeled slowly apart and formed back into three conventional infantry lines. There, under the commander General Bon, the division formed up for a counterattack. Like sheepherders, Bon’s division fenced in the disoriented and scattered Mamelukes, funneling them and their horses toward the river. This was the tactical genius of Napoleon Bonaparte at work; he had harnessed not only thousands of men and tons of steel but even nature itself to his purposes. Rifles and bayonets stabbing outward, the division offered the Mamelukes a grim choice: be gutted by French steel or throw themselves into the flowing waters of the Nile.
A large part of the Mameluke cavalry took their chances with the Nile, spurring their skittish horses into the river. Those who chose to stand and fight were methodically felled with bayonet thrusts.
Along this bank of the river stood a small cluster of clay buildings, a deserted fishing village from the looks of it. The attacking Frenchmen now swarmed this outcropping of buildings, taking cover behind the structures to fire on the Mamelukes who struggled in the nearby river. The horses splashed and plunged like sea serpents as the glorious glint of all of those precious stones went dull in the dark water. Hundreds were pulled under by the current. It appeared so far to André as if not a single Frenchman had perished, while the Mamelukes were literally being carried away in the current.
“All right, men!” The sound of General Dumas’s voice pulled André’s attention from the distant carnage back to his immediate surroundings. “Enough spectating. It’s our turn.” The general’s eyes flashed with a wild light as he spoke.
“If we let that rear group retreat”—Dumas pointed his sword to the south, near the base of the mountainous pyramids—“they’ll regroup and attack us later.” Sure enough, in the distance was a cloud of dust, churned up by the band of Mameluke cavalry that had survived the squares and had splintered off to flee to the relative safety of the southern desert.
“Cavalry, advance!” Dumas shouted, kicking his horse in the sides. André, Murat, and the others followed. The cavalry hidden inside the squares now began to emerge and rode to join Dumas’s charge. The horsemen cut a wide arc around the periphery of the French line, approaching the pyramids from the west.