19
"Where the hell do they come from?" Katyusha groused, annoyed. "What are our scouts doing, catching a few z's?"
The newcomers immediately opened up their formation, deploying into six long lines that almost completely covered the southern valley, from hill to hill, with the British heavy infantry forming up the center.
Part of the Russian foot soldiers, remembering the earlier victorious charge, and surely fired up by a situation that until then had played in their favour, naively thought about trying once more, throwing themselves like madmen against the deployed enemy.
Unfortunately, there was quite the difference between attacking confused enemy soldiers coming down a hill and brazenly charging a fresh, prepared unit, and few of those poor bastards understood it in time.
With just two volleys, the Allies annihilated almost a third of the Russian infantry engaged, and with that Nonna had the wise idea to order his cavalry, by then clearly outnumbered, to cede a bit of terrain, to get as much space as possible between her men and the enemy rifles.
"Order those idiots to halt before being butchered like foxes. Form up again three hundred yards away from the frontline. And all the reserves forwards."
"What about the cavalry?" asked Liprandi. "If this keeps up, they'll be caught between the rock and the hard spot."
"Nonna can take care of herself. Do as I say."
The new maneuver of the Russian General, promptly noticed by the British command, caused the immediate reaction from both Raglan and the officers engaged in battle.
Lucan, to avoid finding himself in a crossfire, thought better to withdraw what was left of his cavalrymen, ordering to redeploy in the northern valley, ready to support Cardigan when it would be time to advance once more and seal the deal. Nonna could have gone after them, but his men, no matter how extraordinary, were exhausted as well; so, she gave the order to find safety on top of the middle hill, still partially covered by the smoke of the previous explosions, away from the battle and from the enemy artillery.
However, the bad news were not over yet.
"General!" yelled an onrushing aide, fast as if he had the devil at his heels. "The French light cavalry has done a flanking movement and is coming up from the north! They're going for our batteries on the hill!"
"We have to withdraw them at once! Up there they're sitting ducks!"
"Don't you worry, I already took care of that." Katyusha replied calmly.
After a lengthy flanking maneuver, the French light cavalry (Chasseurs d'Afrique) under the direct command of General Canrobert had managed to get through the frontline undisturbed.
The original plan was to complete the encirclement and attack the Russian encampment from the north, but faced with the chance of taking up too much time, making the French contribution to the victory non-existent, the General had instead ordered to strike at the artillery posts on top of the northernmost hill, the Fedyukhin hills.
The pronounced curve made by the French to go around the battle had allowed them to get close to their target completely unmolested; then, when they spotted the first earthworks guarding the hills, the General ordered to pick up the pace.
The first posts turned out to be empty, perhaps because they were too exposed to be defensible.
Only after another three hundred years at a lively trot the Chasseur reached the enemy; just where thhe terrain began to curve upwards, the French surprised a small group of Russian foot soldiers that were fumbling about in some trenches, from which some tall columns of black smoke rose high in the sky.
"Charge!" Canrobert immediately ordered.
The Russians, however, did not even try to resist, but instead took flight at once, escaping towards the top, with the smoke covering them.
Not put off at all, the French kept up their charge, and with nothing standing in their way they passed over that last defensive line, spreading up the hills.
The smoke through which they went, sickening and dense beyond belief, completely surrounded them, turning out to be not a barrier, but rather a thick cloud that covered the whole hill.
Canrobert and his men quickly lost trace of their targets, finding themselves riding on a terrain that aesthetically had more than a passing resemblance to the antechamber of the Underworld.
All around them it was impossible to see beyond a few inches, so much that each man had trouble keeping sight of who was just two ranks forwards.
Everywhere was a barely sloped plain covered by stones and gravel; the only reference points, if any, were a few heaps of stones and lightened pyres that created that disgusting smoke, positioned with maniacal precision a certain distance away from each other, following a precise concept.
Soon, also because of the lack of any target worth of a charge, the offensive lost its élan, turning into a slow trot, confused and also fearful at times. The soldiers kept looking for each other, trying to breathe as little as possible to avoid getting more of that gaseous tar into their lungs, capable of causing dry heaves more than the fiercest massacre.
"But what in the devil is happening here?" a disgruntled Canrobert growled.
Before the situation could slip from his control, the General ordered to resume the charge, aiming straight to the top; after all, one way or another there was an end to that hill, and perhaps, once at the top, they would get their bearings.
Despite everything, that venomous fog kept floating about, and no matter how far they went, Canrobert and his men, other than suffering more and more from that untolerable smell that burned noses and throats, were unable to see the end of it.
Then, all of a sudden, the sun was shining once more, and the horsemen in the vanguard found themselves out of the cloud. Unfortunately for them, the time they took to adjust their eyes to the sunlight was not enough for three of them to see where they were going, and their companions could only watch as they literally flew down a small cliff with their horses; the jump itself wasn't that much of a big deal, but more than enough to ensure a crushing death on the rocks below.
"Halt, halt!" yelled the General, before others could follow them to the same fate.
Actually, they were on a small strip of arid land protruding over the valley below. The hill that bisected the battlefield was right in front of them, and despite the distance the Russian soldiers deployed on the other side immediately began firing on them; and since there was no other way out of there, the French could do nothing else but promptly turn their horses around and get back into the fog.
It was just then that Canrobert and his troops completely understood that they were trapped.
Choked by that miasma, with no idea of where to go, right in the middle of a battlefield, where the enemy could be anywhere.
The frantic attempt to find a way out quickly led to the disintegration of the unit, with small groups of horsemen that, lost contact with the others, started in various directions, disappearing into the smoke without the General, who had no more control over the situation, could do anything.
But the worst part, that caused everybody to lose their nerves, was that when, from somewhere into that fog, screams and yelps of those who had unwisely wandered off began to reach them, together with echoes of brief clashes.
Then followed shots fired, clashing of swords, and in a short time they began seeing horses that trotted aimlessly here and there, a few with their rider still on the saddle, with his throat cut or shot up like a hunted animal. With that, panic ensued.
Everybody ran in a random direction, a few even abandoning their horses and their sabres, with the General and his officers no longer commanding anything.
Single groups began to coagulate together, in a game of butchery that made them see the enemy where there was none, all of this helped by the fact that, from time to time, somebody, even right in the middle, ended up being killed all of a sudden by shots fired from God knew where, or even by anachronistical arrows.
The height of the panic was reached when Canrobert's aide, after cursing out his General after the last appeal to calm, had thrown himself against a shadow that was going straight for him without thinking twice, and ended up realizing that he had decapitated the same man who had left ten Francs poorer the evening before with a septiéme only when it was too late.
Looking at his men butchering each other, pushed in such a way like animals thrown into an arena by invisible gaolers, overwhelmed by fear and hysteria, the General, his heart threatening to stop with each beat, had but a single choice.
"Drop your weapons!" he ordered with what breath that smell had left in his lungs. "I said, drop your weapons!"
Despite everything, his men welcomed that ill-fated order like a blessing, letting sabres, pistols and muskets drop to the ground.
"We surrender!" Canrobert yelled once more. "Did you hear me, Russians? I said we surrender!"
The silence persisted for interminable seconds, with the astonished soldiers that looked at each other with raised arms; until some frightening figures, like ghosts, appeared, looking like disquieting hairy creatures, completely covered by grass and tar. They were two dozens at most, and those kind of cloaks that they wore were so thick and dark that no faces could be seen, also because those were half-hidden by the thick, still drenched collars; some were armed with rifles, others with bows and arrows, and a few just with simple daggers.
The flagbearer took a few steps forwards, while those grassy monsters kept him at gunpoint, and in an absolute silence he threw the French banner on the ground, just in time to run up and help the General, whose heart had at last given out under the weight of such a humiliation.
The defeat of the French, however, did not significantly improved the situation of the battle as a whole, that was becoming more and more worrisome.
The British reinforcements had in a few minutes taken the whole western half of the valley, and were now quickly advancing towards the Russian lines.
The infantry units sent by Katyusha to support the already engaged forces deployed while marching, but it was already apparent, when the first volleys were fired, why the General had tried in any way to avoid a pitched battle with his men.
It was one thing to charge befuddled units, with the number and the atmosphere on their side, it was another thing to watch one's friend die beside you, and realize that it had been only a matter of inches that the bullet had not ended his own.
The limits of the Russian army were now coming to the forefront as a dramatic reality, and at the moment there was nothing that could be done to avoid that slow, trickling loss.
Nonna and her cavalry stood right up the hill, unable to move; to try and face the British infantry meant to expose their own infantry's right flank to a cavalry charge, while charging the cavalry meant providing nice targets to the artillery deployed on the hill behind them a long time before the clash.
It was a situation with no way out.
Katyusha was trying to keep her self control, confident that an upset was still possible.
But in the eyes of the British command the picture that was beginning to form was one of a decisive victory, despite everything; maybe a costlier than predicted one, but the final outcome was the same.
Who was not cheering in that whole mess was Cardigan, who had spent all that time rooted in the valley to the north with his men, standing stupidly still before the Russian lines, mainly artillery ones, deployed on the other side of the valley. Once more, again, he would have to figure as a mere spectator to the engagement, and the only thing that soothed his nerves was that Lucan, standing a few dozen yards behing him licking his wounds, would have to shut up, after that poor show of his.
With a desperate effort, or maybe because they were more afraid of disappointing their commander than they were of enemy bullets, the Russian foot soldiers managed to join their already engaged companions, but despite that they kept losing more and more ground before the advance of the Allied division.
The sight of the Russians that were barely hanging by, just a push away from running away, through his spyglass was the best ever sight that Raglan could recall watching from the day he had set foot in Crimea.
"Let's end this. Order Lord Cardigan to engage those Cossacks on the hill and provide a diversion. Meanwhile, Lord Lucan ought to take advantage of that to flank that artillery formation in the northern valley and take it from behind."
"Aye, My Lord."
Lord Cardigan welcomed the aide from the base camp like the Second Coming, but, just as he heard the content of the message and the relative orders, he went postal.
"What does it mean, diversion?" he thundered, enraged. "The enemy cannons are right before us, and the Cossacks are spent by now! We just need a quick attack, and then it's all open towards the enemy encampment!"
"Would you like to kill yourself?" was Lucan's annoyed reply. "When was it ever heard of a cavalry unit making a frontal attack an artillery position?"
"They're Russians! They don't recognize the breech from the mount."
"Haven't we been licked enough for today? Now, please order your mean to prepare to advance, and stop behaving like a damn fool!"
The thought of having to coordinate with Lucan was enough to give him a stroke, but that of having to be his shield while Lucan went and covered himself in glory by opening the way to victory was enough to make him consider putting his pistol's barrel in his mouth, out of anger and shame.
But still, nothing could be done about it; so, under his command, the Light Brigade began a slow trot, followed closely by Lucan's men.
The plan was simple by itself; move towards the Cossacks deployed on the hills as if they wanted to engage them. At the last moment, the Heavy Brigade would leave the formation, too late to be intercepted, and would have made for the left flank of the main Russian battery in the northern valley, overwhelming them. With that, the road to the main Russian camp wide open, the Russian General would have to choice but to order a withdrawal, and further losses of infantry units would be avoided.
Cardigan was even more ashen than usual, and his own aid didn't have the heart to speak to him, such was his annoyed expression. He turned his glare now forwards, now towards his left, now to the back to look for Lucan, and it was as if he could see him laughing at him, mocking him about how he would once more function as his stepping stone for the glory.
"Brigade! At my command!" he bellowed, his saber raised. "To the left!"
"But, My Lord..." the aide tried to say.
Unfortunately, Cardigan was not alone in his Brigade to share the belief that the lack of regard from above for their men was supremely offensive. Therefore, several welcomed their commander's orders with elation.
From high above the hill, Raglan and his staff looked on, astonished, at the sight of the five whole regiments of light cavalry that, all of a sudden and with no evident reason, deviated from the preordained path, slipping once more into the valley and going straight for the Russian batteries.
"What in blazes is Cardigan doing? He has to flank those batteries, not charge them!"
Lucan was likewise speechless, but, unlike the higher ranked officers, took just a few seconds to decide what to do.
"Halt!" he ordered his men, leading them by example. "Halt!"
Everybody immediately obeyed, standing there watching the Light Brigade that was picking up speed, getting farther and farther away.
"My Lord, perhaps we should go with them."
"I don't have the slightest inclination to go to my death because of that madman." Lucan replied, before ordering to double back. "Return to our starting positions!"