Lützeroda.. And It Took Us Twice

Gerard look at his ever present comrade Franco. The both stood at the ready to march. Where they had been for nearly an hour. Just ten paces forward the world disappeared into a dense fog. Sounds of men and horse echoed around and off the fog. Disorienting one and all.

Their column was ready to march down the road to Lutzroda.

“Merde, let us be on our way. This fog is spooking me.” Said Gerard out the side of his mouth.

“Shh, any moment now zee Colonne de manoevre will begin. Do not draw the ire of the Sous, you know how uppity he is!” Franco murmered back.

“Attention men of the 103e my fusliers and grenadiers of renown. It is time to march!” Their Colonel drew his sword and pointed teh way. As one the men shouldered arms, their damp scarlet cuffs piped in white flashed to their sides and off they stepped. Droplets of accumulated mist fell from shakos onto the broadshoulders of the men.

Gerard set his face into his usual grimace. “About bloody time, lets skewer these Prussians once and for all.” He said out loud. All who heard him said “Huzzah!” Then came the drum beat and off they marched. A dull thud through the oppressive fog. Booted feet crunched on gravel, the pace picked up. Behind them the 100th were tight on their tails. Sounds echoed everywhere. A chill settled on Gerards shoulders. ‘Merde.’ He said again

Ahead muffled musket shots were heard over the sound of their march. By some celver step counting, the regiment exited the road at the curve, and appraoched through the undualating field. long wet grass swept breeches.

“Voltiguers — en tirailleurs!”

The skirmishers went out and were gone, swallowed at twenty paces.

“Colonne d’attaque — formez!”

Gerard felt the whole regiment change shape around him. Off the road the march column stopped being a road thing four abreast and became two companies wide, ranks stacked behind, the grenadiers peeling out to take the flanks the way they always did. Nobody said form line. Gerard waited on it out of habit, and it did not come.

“We are going in like this?”

“We are going in like this.”

He had heard the officers argue it over a fire once, that a column of attack does not want to shoot and does not need to, that what it has is weight and depth and the men on its edges, and that weight is what takes a village.

Random musket balls flitted through the air from an unseen enemy. Skirmishers could be heard encouraging the 103rd forward, as pickets were killed.

Ragged fire tagged the discplined formation. A few meaty thwacks were heard here and there. The odd cry in pain from a more serious wound. Lines close around those that fell. Somewhere ahead, glimmering muzzle flashes could be seen indistinctly in the swirl of fog.

Then the drum, and the order, and the run at it.

Fifty paces. Thirty. Gerard could see the wall.

The wall did not give.

There was no moment he could point at after. No check he could name, no volley that broke them. The village took what they brought and did not move, and then there were sergeants in among them shouting them back, and Gerard was walking backwards down his own line of advance with his bayonet fixed and nothing on it. “Merde.” He panted. Gripping his musket tightly.

They re-formed out in the field. Somebody was counting. Somebody always counted.

“Three sides we came at it from,” said Franco, to nobody. “Three.”

“It did not open.”

“They do not. Not the first time.”

The Prussian fire followed them out and went high, and wide, and into the fog, and hit nothing at all. Gerard flinched at every round of it regardless. Then he noticed, dimly, that he was not being killed. That none of them were. Two hundred paces of open wet field, a garrison behind farm walls with every advantage a man could ask for, and the shooting was going nowhere.

“This soup,” said Franco, and let it sit there.

“What of it.”

“The same soup that has you spooked is why you have both your ears.”

Behind them, back toward Closewitz, the guns began to work.

“Baionette au canon!” came the order, the second time. “Now we are getting somewhere.” said Gerard, and did not altogether mean it.

“Aye, now its cold steel, shoulder to shoulder Gerard.”

“Always.”

“croisez la baionnettes” Gerard and Franco were front line, their muskets now horizontal, with the seocnd rank close behind angling over their shoulders, and deeper still were the rest of teh men, ready at port arms. “Come on, come on, lets us be among them.”

“Pas decharge, marche!”

thrum, thrum, thrum, the fast paced drum beat, echoed off the fog and the buildings in the distance. Left, right, left right, quickly now. 100 steps a minute, they moved forward almost gliding acros the grass, fog swirled around them, their dark uniforms an apparition of violence racing towards the Prussian defenders, who now attempted to fire at the swirling roiling mass of death approaching. Fifty paces, a thunder of feet, pounding. Murder glared from teh eyes of one and all. Somewhere swords were raised by officers, the troops no longer needed their command, they felt rather than heard the ‘En avant a la baionnette!’

“Vive l Emprereur” roared Gerard, Franco and their host of warriors. Their blood up, now a controlled run. Men in white and blue appeared fleetingly, buildings took form and shape. Dark rectangles back lit by soft interior light led the men of teh 103rd to the enemy.

A musket flashed close to Gerard, so suddenly it spooked him, ‘Merde!” He laughed, amusedat his on fear. TRaining kicked in; lunge, twist, withdraw, a single strangled cry as the throat was torn from the musket weilder. Franco pulled his trigger from the hip, gutting an officer, stepping in close he drove home the bayonet, 18 inches of cold damp steel. Ripping away, blood splatters on the ground and he moves forward side by side with Gerard. Smashing a door open, they heave into the light. Bull rushing the five defenders. A deafening shot rings out, the smell of gunpower and a cloud of smoke in the close quarters. Gerard feels the heat and sting, ears ringing he roars, and shouts like a bearded mad man. He pays no mind to the pain. A jumping lunge carries him forward and bowls over one defender as another tries stabbing feebly with his bayonet. Gerard lashes out with a boot, smashing the knee backwards, batting the baoynet away easily, while his bayonet already deep red, finds its way with practiced prescision into and thru the breast bone, stopping the heart instantly. The second fighter tries to stand, Gerard whips around. with quick jabs arm, chest and gut, fells the man. The two rear most soldiers flee out the kitchen.

All is silent.

Outside, the rest of the Prussians were going down the Weimar road at a pace. West. The way they had been told to go if it came to this.

He looks at Franco smiling. Franco smiles back as he wipes his bayonet on the dead mans uniform. “I see you have ruined another uniform Gerard.” Looking down the dark stain of blood trailing from his bicep to wrist.

“Eh it appears so, well merde.” He says,an undisturbed jug of wine sits on a table. Franco reaches for it, takes a swig and pours a substanial amount on Gerards wound, then tears off a slice of Prussian uniform to bind the grazing musket shot. Gerard grimaces, “pass the wine and stop wasting it. Be quick, we have Prussians to murder. This is a slaughter not a battle.”

Franco grunts. He handed back the jug and put his moustachioed chin toward the east, where the fog was going thin and grey and the guns were still at their work.

“Closewitz is still standing.”

“So was this.”

“Aye.” Franco picked up his musket. “And it took us twice.”