Sturm front musket men b.., p.4
Sturm Front (Musket Men Book 2), page 4
It must have been particularly demoralizing for the enemy to see Sturm’s numbers grown from twelve to about fifty as the enemy tried to close. There were only about fifty Angies left and they’d seen again and again today just how devastating musket fire could be.
“On my order!” Sturm said as he waited for the pikemen to close within ten yards.
“Fire!”
Fifty musket balls killed more than thirty men leaving the remainder badly outnumbered.
They hesitated, then charged forward once again only to be further diminished by a last volley from Gunner.
It didn’t take long for Sturm and his mixed group of musket men and cavalry to finish the survivors off.
He turned and looked at the battle.
Anjou had stopped feeding more men into the maelstrom.
They had won.
Chapter Five: Plans
Steil Pass, Oosten Graanland, Kriegsturm
The Strawberry Moon, Day 18, Year 1196
“We had them!” General Folquet Nogaret shouted. “We fucking had them! Why did you call off the attack?”
Spittle flew from the mouth coming dangerously close to striking the face of Colonel Guilbert Lavigne, and actually speckling the blue coat of his uniform, which began to flush the colonel’s face the same shade of purplish red as the general’s.
“We didn’t have them!” the colonel spat the words. While it was true that Nogaret was his superior officer and the first cousin of Baron Drancy, Lavigne was Viscount of Arbrefer and the heir of Count Montefer. In practical terms, there was very little that Nogaret could do to him that would last beyond this immediate encounter. The general did, after all, depend on Lavigne’s father as much as he depended on his cousin, to keep his lofty position despite his rather narrow abilities.
“They were falling!” Nogaret screamed.
“No!” Lavigne dared to contradict him. “We were falling—again, bleeding away so many troops that we wouldn’t have the manpower left to make the next push.”
The two men were standing face to face beneath a pavilion two miles back from the battlefield. To Lavigne’s knowledge, the general had never left this pavilion during the battle, preferring instead to conduct the affair through messengers while he drank wine and conversed with a pair of mistresses he had brought with him on the campaign.
“Another push will have to win back all the territory you just gave up!” Nogaret complained.
“We hadn’t won any territory, monsieur general,” Lavigne stated as he lowered his voice. It was a rhetorical device which didn’t work as well as his instructors had promised, but this time it succeeded in lowering the volume of the argument so that only those who were supposed to be included in it—Colonel Loup Allard, Colonel Trystan Ducasse, and Pater Remi Truffaut of the Illumination, could hear what they were saying.
“But I sent two whole regiments forward,” Nogaret protested.
“And some of your brave men had succeeded in climbing the hill some two-thirds of the way down the contested section of the pass,” Lavigne acknowledged. “But the enemy had formed a line against them and was driving them back off the hill. They’d failed, monsieur general. By stopping more men from flooding the pass I merely kept you from losing another regiment.”
Nogaret threw up his hands. “How can the worthless scum keep failing?”
“How do you know what you just told us, monsieur colonel?” Pater Truffaut asked.
“I went forward around the bend in the pass and saw it with my own eyes,” Lavigne informed him.
Every officer except Nogaret recognized the courage this had taken when so many thousands of their soldiers had died doing the same thing.
“That was a grave risk,” Truffaut reminded him. “Why—”
“So, you can confirm the enemy’s numbers?” Nogaret said. “How many thousands do they have? Five? Ten?”
Lavigne found a bit of diplomacy despite his anger at his superior’s treatment. “I could not see all of the enemy, monsieur general, and I was not in a position to make an exact count. I could only testify to perhaps one or two thousand.”
“One or two?” Nogaret said with disbelief.
“It was difficult to count them under these circumstances,” Lavigne insisted. “They were spread out on the north wall of the canyon with more at the eastern end. I cannot be certain that I saw all of their manpower.”
Nogaret seized on this admission as if it was the gift Lavigne intended. “Well, that means they could have many thousands more out of sight—even on the south wall of the canyon.”
“That is true,” Lavigne agreed. “I could not see everything.”
“If you do not mind, monsieur general,” the priest said, “I have a question for the colonel that is greatly troubling me.”
The general waved his hand indulgently and let the priest speak.
“Why, monsieur colonel, did you risk your life to press around the bend into the killing field? You are a senior officer. Your loss would be a grievous one both for this command and for your family.”
Lavigne affected to dismiss the possible danger as a man of Wotan should. “My regiment was next in line. I needed to learn what was happening to best direct them, and…I had made an analysis of the enemy’s capabilities that I thought it very important to confirm before feeding my men into that maw of death.”
“What analysis?” Nogaret demanded.
Despite his elevated temper, Lavigne began to enjoy himself. He stepped away from the general and the other officers to take a glass of wine off of the small table. “I’m sure that it is nothing that my fellow officers hadn’t also figured out,” the colonel taunted his colleagues.
Once again, the illuminator, Pater Truffaut, stepped forward both to elicit Lavigne’s intelligence and to keep the peace.
“I, however, am only an amateur in military matters,” he humbly downplayed his own acute knowledge. “Perhaps you could explain it to me?”
“It has to do with the cannon,” Lavigne teased, curious in which of his fellow officers’ eyes he would first see the light of understanding.
“Those damn cannon!” Nogaret cursed. “How could Wotan let them fall into the hands of the heretics?
Wotan didn’t do that, Lavigne thought. You did!
Fortunately, he exercised enough self-control to avoid pointing this out.
“I didn’t notice anything unusual about the cannon,” Truffaut admitted.
“There weren’t enough of them firing,” Lavigne gave them another clue.
“What do you mean, Lavigne?” Loup Allard asked. “The damn cannon were firing throughout the whole battle.”
“Were they?” Lavigne pressed. “We lost one hundred seventeen cannon to the enemy. A competent crew could fire those cannon roughly once every minute. I didn’t hear anything even remotely close to twenty cannon firing regularly on our boys.”
“They don’t have cannon crew,” Truffaut whispered.
“What?” Nogaret exploded again. “Of course, they have cannon crew! Who else was firing on my men!”
“I think,” Colonel Allard said, “that what our wise illuminator intended to say is that they don’t have enough crews to man the cannon they captured from us.” He turned to Lavigne. “I admit that I didn’t realize that while the battle was happening. Were you able to confirm with your inspection around the bend?”
“I think,” Lavigne told them, really enjoying being the center of everyone’s attention, “that we would be foolish to assume that they have no cannon crews. Someone loaded the cannon they stole from us. Somone pointed them west so that they covered the road. But I think the evidence is clear that they don’t have a lot of crews. In fact, I only saw one crew actively loading a cannon when I surveyed the battlefield around the bend.”
Suddenly even General Nogaret understood Lavigne’s point. “They can’t reload their cannon?”
“Not in any great numbers,” Lavigne confirmed. Then he hedged a bit. “At least, they cannot do so right now. Who knows when reinforcements may arrive.”
“But they don’t have them now?” Nogaret sought clarification, but he didn’t wait for the answer. “How long would it take for me to get new cannon from Fort Jurgen?”
“It would depend on how many cannon you want and how large you need them to be,” Colonel Trystan Ducasse informed him.
“Well, you’re the damn expert,” Nogaret said. “You tell me.”
Ducasse didn’t answer immediately, but stood rubbing his cleanshaven chin. Finally, he said. “Most of what the Krags stole from us are eight pounders. I’d want a minimum of two twelve pounders and six eight pounders and crews for forty cannon.”
“For forty?” Nogaret asked. “You’re only asking for eight.”
Ducasse had apparently expected this question. “What we are proposing here, monsieur general, is an artillery duel. We will bring up cannon around the bend in the pass just far enough to see the enemy cannon. Then we will destroy those cannon while they try to destroy us. When their first cannon or two are neutralized, we will edge further around the bend, hopefully bringing more of our cannon to bear as we do so. In this fashion, we will edge them back until they can’t fire cannon at us anymore and we are able to start firing on their musket men on the cannon wall from well beyond the range that those musket men can fire back at us.”
“The musket men will have to come down to fight,” Colonel Allard predicated.
“One moment please, monsieur colonel,” Ducasse said as he held up one finger. “I have not yet answered the general’s question, just laid the groundwork for my response.”
Allard politely nodded to Ducasse and the colonel of artillery continued. “We are going to take casualties among my cannon crew during the early stages of this duel. If the crews they do have are very skilled, we are going to take a lot of casualties. One of the ways you suppress enemy cannon fire is by killing the crews that load and fire the cannon. It is less common to actually hit the cannon and disable it, or hit a keg of powder and cause it to explode. We will do that on occasion, I am sure, but the truth is, we don’t have to do that if Colonel Lavigne’s assessment is correct and we are only dealing with a few crews. I want the extra crews on my end to make certain that my cannon remain operational even if the Krags get lucky in the early part of the engagement and eliminate several of my crews.”
Nogaret nodded. “That sounds reasonable. I will write Monsieur General Rochefort immediately outlining this opportunity and requesting the reinforcements arrive here by tomorrow night.”
“That will be hard but doable,” Ducasse acknowledged. “Cannon are heavy, but it has not rained for some time now and the road is a good one.”
“We also need more musket men,” Allard said. “The Krags will have to come down the mountainside to take out our cannons and we will need our own muskets to counter theirs.”
“What about the men you already have?” Nogaret demanded.
“Monsieur General,” Allard said in a very quiet voice. “We lost all of my remaining muskets in that explosion this morning.”
For once, Nogaret didn’t fume. “Have we figured out how they did that?”
“With black powder, obviously,” Lavigne said, “but specifically? We have no idea. None of the very few survivors saw enough to inform us.”
“Damn them!” Nogaret said, but this time his heart did not appear to be in the curse.
“They are all serving a heretic,” Truffaut reminded them. “They are all already going to hell.”
“Well, let’s see if we can’t send them there a little faster,” Nogaret regained a bit of his bluster. “I’ll also ask for five hundred more cavalry. If we can break them, we can use them to run the bastards down.”
Lavigne frowned. “Cavalry won’t be as effective as you might think, monsieur general.”
“And why not?” Nogaret growled. He seemed to find anger a very ready emotion.
“Because there are literally thousands of our dead filling the head of the pass and probably laid out on the road behind it,” Lavigne explained. “One of the things slowing our men down and helping the enemy kill them is the need to climb over the bodies of their fellow soldiers—many of whom presumably aren’t dead yet after the battle has been raging for even a few minutes. It is hard on the troops—very demoralizing—but it would be impossible for horses.”
“That’s going to be a problem for my cannon too,” Ducasse predicted. “I’m going to need pikemen to clear the road ahead of the cannon as we advance around the bend and into the pass.”
“Well, pikemen at least, are something we still have,” Nogaret said, “Lavigne, you take care of it.”
“Yes, monsieur general,” the colonel said,
“Now, get out of here, I have a letter to right to Rochefort.”
“Let me start by saying,” Colonel Lambert Vos addressed his small group of officers and noncoms, “that each and every one of you did the high king proud today and so did your men. Sergeant Eikenboom,” the corporal immediately straightened his shoulders at the sound of his new rank, “you and your cannoneers performed especially well. That trap with the kegs of black powder—simple genius. How long would it take you to set up that trap again.”
Eikenboom’s elated expression melted. “That would probably take days, sir. First, we’d have to clear all the dead out of that section of the pass. Then we’d have to rerig the trap. Then we’d have to replace everything—and, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, sir. They wouldn’t fall for it again.”
“Why not?” Vos wanted to know.
“Because, sir, the Angies aren’t stupid. They have to have figured out our biggest weakness.”
Vos took a moment to think about that before asking the obvious question. “What do you think our biggest weakness is, sergeant?”
“We can’t crew our cannon, sir. Right now, unless they are completely boneheaded, the Angies are bringing up more cannon.”
Sturm decided to keep his mouth shut so that he didn’t have to reveal his own ignorance here. Fortunately, Lieutenant Caldor asked the question he wanted to. “Why would they bring up more cannon?”
“So, they can use them to eliminate our cannon crews,” Eikenboom explained. “If it were me, I’d want four or five twelve pounders—more if I could get them. And I’d start by sliding a couple of them just barely enough around the bend in the pass that I could take on our first cannon with two or three of my own. Then I’d neutralize it.”
“Hoping to kill off our most skilled crew,” Sturm suddenly understood,
“Yes, sir,” Eikenboom acknowledged. “Then I’d ease them forward just enough to see the next cannon and I’d do it again.”
“And when they kill off our skilled crews they can begin driving the musket men off the wall, or at least forcing them to retreat down it,” Vos said.
“Yes, sir,” Eikenboom agreed.
“We’re going to have to get a couple of our own cannon down to the western end of the pass so that we can rip them to pieces when they finish coming around the bend,” Sergeant Ruus suggested.
“That won’t work,” Eikenboom told him with a dismissive shake of the head. Gone was the politeness with which he addressed senior officers now that he was talking to a man of his own noncommissioned rank. “First off, that road is littered with bodies and it will be pure hell moving cannon down it to get them in place. Second, they aren’t going to lead with their cannon because they have to clear the road too. My guess would be pikemen or even teamsters whose job it is to clear the bodies away so their cannon can move forward.”
“This is bad,” Vos said.
“Well, it’s not good, anyway,” Sturm half agreed “But this isn’t something they are going to be able to do quickly. Not only do they have to bring their cannon closer, but it’s going to take a good amount of time to destroy all of our cannon, while clearing the road so they can operate in this part of the pass. We can use that against them. Our whole operation here has been designed to slow them down until reinforcements can arrive.”
Vos nodded his agreement. “Unless they ran into trouble, my messenger and his escort should have arrived with my report two nights ago, or at worst, yesterday morning.”
“You can’t count on that,” Gunner said. “Lots of things go wrong in war—not the least of which is fifteen hundred enemy horsemen riding around causing havoc between here and Groene Heuvel. You have to build your plans around what you already have, not what you hope will arrive.”
“That’s good advice,” Sturm agreed. “And what we already have is an impressive force. Let’s think about it for a moment, colonel, is there any way we can remount your men and use them effectively in this pass?”
“Not here,” Vos told him. “There are simply too many bodies on the road for my horses to run safely.”
“What if we brought them across the creek, sir?” Lieutenant Caldor suggested. He was too injured himself to be doing any fighting, but you couldn’t tell that from the determined expression on his face.
“To what end?” Vos asked.
“We could ambush them from a direction we haven’t attacked from yet,” Caldor explained.
“You don’t need your horses for that,” Gunner muttered.
“Actually, that’s a very good idea,” Sturm said.
Caldor looked a little bit surprised. “It is?”
“Yes,” Sturm told him. “Colonel, your men don’t have the reload speed that my men have. Positioning them across the creek would buy them extra time to reload and shoot. They could do a lot of damage and it would force the enemy to divide their forces.”
“We would also be dividing our forces, making it easier for them to defeat us in detail,” Gunner warned him.
“Yes,” Sturm conceded, “but stay with me a moment. Do you remember how the Angies camouflaged the cannon when we first came into this part of the pass? What if we did that with the colonel’s men? They wait in concealment until the cannon come up and then pop out and shoot the cannon crews.”
“That might work,” Vos conceded.
Gunner shook his head. “No, they’ll know something is wrong because there won’t be enough of us on the wall. There is no way they are going to believe that one company of musket men have given them these sorts of casualties.”
