Where the Light Falls(22)

“Captain Valière!” André heard his name and turned to see his two sergeants approaching, fully dressed in their white uniforms.

“Sergeants.” André straightened his posture, assuming a mask over his facial features that he hoped adequately veiled his nerves. “Are the men ready?”

The first, by the name of Thibaud, nodded. “Dressed and equipped, Captain.”

“Bayonets ready at the waist, each man with thirty cartridges,” Sergeant Digne added. “And, er, they’ve been issued the tricolor cockade for their uniforms, per regulation, sir.”

“Thank you, Sergeant Thibaud, Sergeant Digne.” Apart from their names, André knew little about these two men who served under him, as they had only just been assigned to his company several weeks earlier on the march into this province.

André looked out over the rows of men that filled the staging area of the camp just short of the woods. “It’s time. We’ll get the men into formation now.”

“Yes, Captain.”

To the left a company in tight file formation marched up, dressed in the career white uniform. Beside them the bluecoat militia looked on, attempting to mimic their order and formation. An unmanned horse whinnied loudly, pawing at the dirt and prompting several nearby blue-coated guardsmen to step nervously backward.

“You think they’ll be all right out there?” Thibaud jerked his chin toward the growing cluster of militiamen. One of their commanders had just unfurled a large banner that read “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death.”

“We’ll know soon enough,” André said, looking at their threadbare blue coats and punctured, barely serviceable boots. He removed his hat and wiped his brow.

“Holding against the Austrian line will be slightly different from slapping around an old Parisian warden,” Digne said. “The ones who survive will come out with a bit more hair on their nuts—”

“When we reach the tree line,” André interjected, steering his two sergeants back toward the morning’s tasks, “the company will march double file until we clear the woods. We expect to find the enemy waiting on the far side of this forest, in the open pastures.”

Both sergeants nodded, chastened, as André continued. “The wheat will be high this time of year, but dry enough, given the weather. General Kellermann says there is a windmill on the top of the ridge. When the battalion forms into line, we’ll make our position in the front, before the windmill.”

Sergeant Digne let out a slow whistle. “Christ in heaven, sir, they’re putting us in the front? What did we do to piss them off?”

“We won’t be passive observers today, that’s for certain.” André leaned his head to the side, placing his tricorn hat on top.

A pulse of agitated anticipation hummed across camp as the artillery barrage began. André, with his company formed into two tight files, each forty-five men long, looked to the crest of the hill from where the firing originated. Each boom was followed by a burst of smoke and a flight of birds, startled from their nests into fleeing the violent cacophony. For a moment, André envied those birds, able to quit these lush woods and fields before the golden ground became drizzled in red. But then he recalled his courage; his whole career had prepared him for this moment.

André squinted his eyes and focused on the tree-lined crest, where the French artillery barrage originated; somewhere, behind those stately oaks and chestnuts, stood Remy. “Stay safe, brother,” André mouthed to himself, as he offered a silent prayer that he’d see his brother that evening.

All around him now, companies formed into their narrow marching files, and André’s men folded in seamlessly beside them. When the bugler sounded, André clenched his jaw tight, speaking in a cool tone: “Right, lads, you heard it. Now we move.” Sergeant Digne barked the command and the company began marching forward.

As they crossed the wood-line, quitting the open fields of the previous day’s camp, the determined morning sun was almost entirely blocked out by the thick leaf cover that hung heavy on the surrounding boughs. In this copse the air was cool and damp, smelling of loamy earth and sap-filled bark. Mingled in with that sweet, pleasant scent was the unmistakable aroma of sulfur, wafting from the nearby cannonade.

André slapped a mosquito at his neck, removing his palm and seeing the first blood to color his skin that day. Already, his neck was lined with a filmy layer of sweat. He took a sip of water from his canteen, knowing that the day would be a hot one and that the heat from a battlefield sapped a soldier’s energy as much as combat. “Take a drink if you need it, lads, but no more than a few sips,” he said, hoping his men had filled their skins that morning with water instead of wine.