The Bridge on the Marne

Édouard Detaille: Le Grenadier

Captain Jean Lann stood at attention as General Moncey halted his horse a few yards away.

“Durand, how much longer before the bridge is complete?”

General Moncey looked down from his horse at the chief engineer, a tall, thin man with a large nose. 

“Three hours, sir,” Durand said.

“Have it done in one.”

The man looked on the verge of apoplexy. “Yes, sir, but I need more men.”

General Moncey looked around. “Capitaine!”

“Yes, sir?” Lann said.

“Your company will help the engineers complete the bridge.”

“Yes, sir.”

Captain Lann watched the general ride off, golden epaulettes bouncing on his shoulders encompassed in deep navy and sabre rattling at his side. The horse’s hooves made dull sounds in the soft earth.

Chief Engineer Durand hurried off to the bridge shaking his head and cursing.

“Lieutenant Moreau! 

The young lieutenant was at his captain’s side in a moment.

“We are going to help complete the bridge. Gather the entire company from their other duties. Send some to the bridge on this side, send the rest to the far side. And gather as much extra wood as you can.”

The lieutenant headed off among the tents stretching west from the riverbank up the rolling meadows dotted with campfires, tents, and wagons seemingly to the horizon.

Captain Lann walked back to the water’s edge to where the men’s boots had trampled the grass into mud which quickly became a stinking mire infested with swarming flies. The Marne stretched out lazily left and right, its gentle flow green and rippled. Trees on the opposite bank cast the merest hint of a shadow in the early morning light. Beyond the treeline rose the hill of St. Michel, the town sited along the ridge to the south. The barest hint of sunrise grasped its way up the opposing side of the hill shedding light on the 2nd Engineers Company laboring to bridge the river. Hammering and sawing, shouting and cursing emanated from the middle of the bridge.

Lann set off at a trot up the new planking atop pylon after pylon stretching out into the quiet morning waters. He passed men carrying wood planks out to the bridge, others racing back to gather more. The bridge, barely ten feet wide, seemed to disappear halfway through the river where the final planks had yet to be laid and there was nothing between him and the water. 

Where the planks ended, pairs of pylons dotted the water in a straight line to the other side of the river. Each pylon was actually three logs forming a tripod. A stout piece of lumber was placed across the width of the bridge connecting each set of pylons. Another piece was then laid perpendicular running the length of the bridge on the outer edge of either side. The final planking was then laid across the width of the bridge. 

Some men were in the water hauling on lines to pull into place the lumber connecting each pylon. Others were busy securing the supports for the final planking. Still others were hammering each piece of lumber horizontal across the width of the bridge to finish the surface. 

“Company! We have one hour to complete our work,” said Durand.

Groans. “It will take two, at least,” said one. “Merde,” another man said.

“This is our work. Infantry marches, cavalry charges, artillery bombards, and we build. We, the engineers, build. Think of that! Who else builds in war? We must not let down our comrades or our Emperor. Do your duty and on the double. I need ten more men to take boats across to help the group on the other side. We will meet in the middle.”

Captain Lann threw off his hat and seized a hammer. The steady drumbeat of hammers increased its pace echoing and reechoing off the water. 

Slowly but surely the far bank drew closer. Captain Lann stopped to wipe sweat from his eyes and glanced at the opposing treeline. The tops of the trees began to glow with the morning sun. 

“Captain Lann!”

It was Lieutenant Moreau in a boat.

“Lieutenant. When you get to the other side, tell those lazy bastards to move their asses.”

“Yes, sir.” The lieutenant saluted smartly.

“Keep going, men. Almost there now,” Captain Lann said to the men working around him.

A splash. Shouts.

“Help, sir! It’s Marcel. He can’t swim.”

Chief Engineer Durand seemed to ignore the comotion.

“Throw him a line. Marcel, grab the pylon,” said Lann.

The big man flailed, churning the green water white. 

“The pylon, Marcel. Where’s that line?”

“We don’t have any rope, sir.”

Captain Lann cursed, took off his jacket, kicked off his boots, and leapt into the water. He took two powerful strokes over to the drowning man who grabbed on to him and pushed him under in an attempt to float. 

Captain Lann felt nothing but cold water and a powerful hand tight on his shoulder forcing him down. He tried to kick but couldn’t lift himself and the heavy man on top of him. Water forced its way into his mouth. With one final effort he grabbed Marcel’s wrist and twisted, coming up spluttering behind the big man. He put his arms under Marcel’s armpits and, unable to clasp them together, held on tight to his belly. The big man, suddenly calmed, went slack and allowed himself to be pulled to shore. 

A few men grabbed Captain Lann and Marcel as they struggled into the shallows and pulled them into the mud where they lay coughing and panting. 

“Learn to swim, Marcel,” Captain Lann said between gasps.

The big man grinned, teeth yellow against his muddy beard. “Pourquoi? You’ll always be there.” 

“You don’t know that.” Captain Lann stood up. “Back to work, men.” He extended a hand. “Up, Marcel. There’s no time to waste.”

Both men sopping wet and covered in mud walked back up the bridge into the middle of the river. Hammers swung, sweat dripped, plank upon plank upon plank settled into place, some freshly cut, some torn from the walls and roofs of the nearby village. 

The opposite bank approached. Up the river, regiment after regiment of infantry streamed across the first bridge completed the day before. But one pontoon bridge was not enough. Speed was the order of the day and the second bridge was needed to allow the army to cross more quickly. 

“Faster, men, faster. We are the vanguard now. We must lead the advance,” Captain Lann said loud enough for the men to hear, those on the end of the bridge sticking out into the middle of the river and those advancing from the far side.

“Chief engineer!” General Moncey peered down from under his plumed hat.

“Yes, general?”

“Why is my bridge not complete?”

“Sir—”

Two hammer blows sounded and a cheer went up from behind Captain Lann. The two bridging teams were laughing and slapping each other on the back. 

“Sir, your bridge is complete,” Captain Lann said with no small satisfaction. 

“I didn’t ask you, captain.” He turned to the man next to him. “Brigadier general, give the order,” General Moncey.

“Trois Corps, en avant!” the brigadier general roared. 

Captain Lann, 24th Company, and the engineers scuttled across the bridge to the far side of the Marne to avoid the oncoming flow of horse artillery. Fast and better trained than the foot artillery, the horse artillery would deploy closer to the enemy. One by one the horses clopped across the bridge and each limbered cannon and ammunition wagon rumbled behind. Hoof after hoof, wheel after wheel they crossed the bridge, advancing onto the bank and flattening the grass before disappearing through the grove of trees at the water’s edge. 

Fifty cannon and more filed past Captain Lann and his men, followed now by the cavalry, first the hussars, jubilant on horseback and flamboyant in their uniforms a melange of color. Light glinted off the brass detail of each man’s tall cylindrical shako hat. Golden braids lined his tunic, a deep blue, more gold braid decorated the fur-lined pelisse slung jauntily over one shoulder. A brass-hilted sabre dangled next to the red and blue and gold shabraque that the horseman straddled. The light cavalry rode off laughing to reconnoiter the battlefield and screen the army’s movements.

Next the cuirassiers in their shining breastplates astride their massive chargers. Their huge mounts snorted, threatening to step over the side of the narrow bridge as they jostled for space, and jangled the heavy armor of their riders, veterans who gazed grimly ahead, ready to smash the enemy ranks, red plumes nodding atop their helmets and horsehair streaming down their backs. 

The dragoons next, mounted infantrymen distinguished by their blue and red coats and short helmet. They bore straight swords hanging at one side and bayoneted musket on the other, all-purpose cavalry ready to fight on horseback or on foot as the situation required. 

Then the slower moving foot artillery, also pulled by horses, that would march with and support the infantry. 

The heavier artillery and cavalry crossed without incident. Then, as rank upon rank of infantry marched steadily across the bridge, muskets slung over one shoulder, packs secured to their backs, Captain Lann and his men rowed back to the other side of the Marne to return to camp and finally have their breakfast. Camp was tents for the officers, bedrolls for the men wherever they could find space, and the thought of the far off glory of the marshal’s camp bed and fresh-cooked meals. 

A fire blazed by Captain Lann’s tent, lit by the captain’s steward, Rochefort. A small portly man who habitually pretended to be deaf when orders were shouted but could hear a musket cock at five hundred yards, Rochefort acknowledged the captain’s presence when he noticed him ducking into the tent. 

The captain changed into the only other shirt and trousers he had, ones merely stained with blood rather than covered in mud and soaking wet. Donning his officer’s coat, he settled next to the fire where  Rochefort’s expertly made coffee was just bubbling. Hot and black, the steward poured it into Captain Lann’s waiting cup. He drank as fast as he could, knowing every moment was precious when he could be recalled to duty in an instant.

Half a loaf of bread, baked in some nearby village, followed his coffee. Captain Lann dipped the bread meditatively in a cup of wine Rochefort had poured and set on the ground next to him, with a quarter wheel of cheese. The steward knew his master’s habits well. 

“Letter for you, sir.”

“Mail here?” Lann took the letter from the steward. “Some things still work I suppose.” Lann tore open the letter. “Ah, from Marie.”

The captain quarreled with himself. Every man, himself included, was desperate for news from home, for some brief respite and yet even a small reminder could make the separation magnitudes more painful and increase even more to be far, far away from the mud and the guns and the wheels and the blood. Lann’s fingers toyed with the envelope. He pulled the letter out but did not open it. 

Lieutenant Moreau saluted. “May I join you, sir?”

“Bien sûr.” Lann, still focused on the letter, indicated a spot by the fire. 

The young lieutenant helped himself to coffee and sipped deep in appreciation.

“Captain Beaumont. Sit, sit. Have some coffee,” Captain Lann said to a scruffy, tired-looking officer passing by. 

“Merci.”

“Will we fight today?” Lieutenant Moreau said. 

Captain Lann shrugged. “I hope not.”

“Why not? We must fight and we must win. I intend to prove myself. How close are the Prussians? Will the marshal deploy so close to the river?”

Captain Lann shrugged again. 

Captain Beaumont spoke. “It’s been reliably reported that they are somewhere over the ridge of St. Michel. We hold the bridges to fall back across but I doubt the wisdom of deploying so close to the river.”

“We will hold, even if we do not win,” Lann said. “We must hold here and pin the enemy wing, and if all goes well, we may force them into the upper course of the Marne just north of here. The river bends and we can put it at their backs. But, of course, our concern is the bridge and the bridgehead on this side of the river.”

“I hope we fight today,” said Moreau.

Beaumont raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“To win, of course. To fight a worthy enemy and win in glorious fashion. But I am stuck here at the bridge, always in the rear.”

“To win, eh? It is glorious, yes,” Beaumont said. “It is glorious to walk the battlefield after the last shot has been fired. How many arms without bodies do you think you will find? How many bodies without legs? How many heads without bodies, face up, eyes open, staring at you without seeing? How many will you find? How many will you bury with your own hands? How many will you return to their mothers and wives? Who will bring you home when you join them? Do not be so quick to bask in the glory of victory when victory is so hard won. 

“And who enjoys the victory? The living, yes, but truly? The marshal? Perhaps. Perhaps only the emperor himself. La Patrie? La Patrie is tired of war and so am I.”

“You speak like a man already defeated. Where is your spirit, your pride?” Moreau said.

“It is here, still.” Beaumont touched his chest. “But it is diminished. I lost some of it at Eylau. I lost some more at Borodino and even more at Leipzig. You know those names, I see. How could you not? Don’t be so quick to judge, you young upstart. You’ll have your battle—if not today, then tomorrow or the next day—and when you do, I hope you’re ready. Thank you for the coffee, capitaine.”

Beaumont stood, straightened his uniform, and walked off toward the bridge. 

Moreau scoffed. “The man has given up. He’s pathetic. All this time, all those campaigns, and still only a captain. I do not mourn the glorious dead. I weep for those who have not had their chance, who will never have their chance to prove themselves.”

Captain Lann examined the young lieutenant. Confident brow. Fiery, eager eyes. Smooth cheeks. Crisp uniform. He couldn’t decide if Lieutenant Moreau was destined to be on the receiving end of canister shot commanding a forward regiment or a general callously sending others forward to receive canister shot in his place. If he survives, he thought, he will be a terror. If.

“Lieutenant Beaumont is a hero and you should be so lucky as to repeat his career. He should have died a dozen times, whether from a musket ball or fever, starvation or cold. He does his duty, marching when and where he is told, shoulder to shoulder with his men. He commands the reserve, an important position guarding the bridgehead here. You want to be at the front? Go and volunteer. No? Then do not slander your elder and your superior officer, not in my presence, or I will personally whip you with the flat of my bayonet.”

Daggers appeared in Moreau’s eyes but he merely said, “Yes, sir,” dumped the remains of his coffee in the fire, and stalked off.

Lann sighed. “Did you have some coffee, Rochefort?”

“Oui, Capitaine.”

“Good. We all need it, yesterday, today, and everyday hereafter until—when? Who knows?”

“Until I see my sweet Angeline again.”

“Sit with me, Rochefort.”

“Merci, Capitaine.”

“Tell me about your Angeline.”

The steward’s eyes lit up. “Ah, what have I said before? Eh, I will start at the beginning. She is not tall, but taller than me. Fat with good hips and a heaving bosom.” He winked at Lann. “And her blue eyes twinkle when she smiles and disappear into her cheeks. And she cooks the best food, so good it makes us both fat.” He patted his belly.

“Children?”

“Unfortunately, no. Not for a lack of trying.” He burst into laughter.

Lann felt his face crack into a smile. 

“My general stands at attention, but the children never came.” He looked a little sad. “And Marie? What haven’t you told me of her?”

Lann thought. “There are some things I wouldn’t tell anyone.” Rochefort nodded sagely. “But she’s beautiful. Dark hair and eyes—”

“Her figure?” Rochefort said, a lascivious look in his eyes. 

Lann frowned and narrowed his eyes. “You forget your place, Rochefort. That is for me alone to know, you horny bastard.”

Rochefort recoiled as if struck. “Pardonne-moi, Capitaine. I did not mean to offend you, sir.”

Lann ignored him. “She is beautiful.” His voice drifted off as he fingered the letter still clutched in one hand. “And has just given birth to a baby girl.”

“Toutes nos félicitations!”

Lann heard the slight pause in Rochefort’s voice. “The child is mine. I’m sure of it. I was home a year ago. A father. I wonder what she looks like.” Lann was filled with a desire to be anywhere but by that campfire in front of that tent beside that muddy, fly-infested river, so close to the cannons and howitzers of the enemy soon to be belching flames and death across the battlefield. 

Rochefort smiled. “You will see her. Soon the war will end, one way or another, and you and I will both return home and all will be well.”

“Tell that to the men frozen to the ground at Borodino.”

The steward shrugged. “War is war.”

“Rochefort, never has a truer word been spoken.”

He grinned. “You are too kind, monsieur.”

The sound of guns knocked the pleasant conversation out of both men’s minds. Lann focused on the sound, unable to do otherwise. Great booms, too regular to be thunder, echoed from the beyond the hill across the river. Thunder brings one’s mind to the heavens, to life-giving rain and the lightning of the gods, the far-off war of the heavens. Cannon fire growls and threatens doom. It brings one’s mind to earth, to hurtling balls of iron and shattered bones. 

The last infantry battalion headed for the front line had crossed the river leaving Lann and his company of a hundred men and the other three companies of fusiliers in the 2nd Battalion, barely five hundred men, on the north side of the river together with the two engineer companies responsible for the bridges. 

Lann could hear drums and fifes between the discharges of cannon, urging the men forward. He could imagine the scene, one he knew intimately. Horse artillery galloped to the front to pummel the enemy line while voltigeurs followed them to pepper the enemy with musket fire and cause disorder in the ranks. The massed infantry battalions formed in column and marched straight for the enemy line supported by slower foot artillery. The long columns of men moving and swerving like living things themselves would cross the uneven ground of the battlefield before swiftly deploying in line formation three men deep. They would fire to pin the enemy center. Hussar squadrons on the French right would engage the enemy cavalry and clear a path to the enemy’s flank. Infantry would follow the hussars, forcing the enemy left to turn to face the new threat creating a gap in the enemy center. The opportunity created, the cuirassiers, sabres and breastplates shining, would charge at the gap in the enemy line. At the same time the infantry, bayonets fixed, would charge to crash through the weakened enemy line. Hundreds, thousands of soldiers would be captured and the jubilant hussars and dragoons would charge down the fleeing enemy for miles to complete the victory. 

It was a sight Captain Lann had seen many times, most often from the center of the battlefield with canister shot tearing through the line all around him. 

It was not a sight he felt the need to see again. 

Rochefort mumbled something and busied himself with the captain’s muddy uniform. Lann dipped the bread into the wine, listening to the guns crackle and thunder. The fire smoldered. Up and down the bank, the men of the 2nd Battalion milled about. 

Men. They were boys. Conscripts. Ill-trained and ill-equipped. Lann thought back to the well-drilled marvels of Austerlitz, the men of the Grande Armée who had smashed the Austrians and Russians in ‘05. Was this what they were reduced to? Boys who barely knew which way to hold their muskets driven into battle by the few veterans left who marched behind them to make sure they didn’t run away. And here he sat, their commander, in charge of defending the river crossing and the rear of the army. 

“Captain, assemble your men.”

Lann looked up. Major Lemaire, commander of 2nd Battalion, had seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

Lann leaped up and saluted. “Yes, sir. Right away.”

Always the necessities of war, the commander’s orders, forced an end to complacency, an end to morose dwelling on the army’s shortcomings. An army must march with the men, or boys, it has.

Lann gulped the wine and dashed the remains into the fire. 

“Moreau!”

The lieutenant approached warily from where he had been standing under a nearby tree. 

“Yes, sir?”

“Assemble the company.”

“Sergeant-major! Assemble for review.”

“Yes, sir.”

Orders went down the chain of command. The company’s four sergeants roused the troops from where they stood or sat or lay around the riverside. Drums beat and fifes piped instructions. Soon, but not quickly enough for Lann’s liking, the company was assembled in three ranks, thirty men across—under-manned for an infantry company.

“Compagnie, attention!” Lann said as the major walked by inspecting the troops. 

They stood there sweating in the glaring afternoon sun, the distant thunder of guns and drums rolling over them from beyond the river and over the hill. 

“Captain,” Major Lemaire said.

“Yes, sir?”

“Do your men not know how to stand at attention?”

Lann paused. “They are new conscripts, sir, and have had little training.”

“I don’t care. Teach them to assemble properly or I will have you demoted to private.”

“Yes, sir.” Lann turned away from his superior to suppress the urge to strike the man’s bristling mustache straight off his face. Lann stalked up and down the ranks, straightening the lines, adjusting muskets and uniforms, widening the stance of some, narrowing others. A sergeant’s work, Lann grumbled to himself, not that of a captain. 

“24th Company ready for review, sir.”

Lemaire glanced deprecatingly over the company. 

“Captain Lann, you will take your men and patrol west along the river.”

“Patrol, sir? But the rest of the corps is still engaged in the battle. Is it wise to disperse our rearguard when there are already so few of us defending the bridge?”

“Why does it sound like you are questioning me, Lann?”

“But, sir—”

Lemaire waved his hand imperiously. “The enemy are engaged with the main army on the other side of the river. There is little danger to us here. Your young conscripts, as you have already noted, need training. You will take your company and patrol to the west along the northern bank of the river. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

Lemaire stalked off. 

Lann spoke so all could hear. “Company, left face! Forward march!”

The tiny column of ninety infantrymen led by Lieutenant Moreau, six corporals, two sergeants, and one sergeant-major, with Captain Lann, two sergeants, and the drummer at the rear, marched off a stone’s throw from the riverbank. The men squinted as the afternoon sun shone full in their faces, their cloth caps doing nothing to shade their eyes. Marching across the uneven ground the column grew disorderly. Stands of trees reaching out into the water provided temporary shade but blocked their path and made the column grow disorderly. Sweat dripped down Captain Lann’s face and into his eyes. 

The drummer’s steady beat melded with the tramp of the soldiers’ feet. The whir of insects at the riverbank blended into the beat of the march making music of their struggling advance. 

Captain Lann noted the disorder of the march and barked orders to the sergeants to run up and down the line and restore order. The musket slung over the shoulders of the men in front of him bobbed and rocked next to their bowed heads, each man’s eyes on the ground to avoid stumbling and falling.

“Company, halt!”

The drum stopped. The men lurched to a halt, shocked from their reverie. 

“Right face! En avant!”

The men turned, backs to the river, and marched north. Having progressed a quarter mile down the river, Lann intended to sweep north by northeast and then back to the bridge in a large semicircle so as to follow the letter of his orders and patrol the area while not straying too far from the bridge. 

Farther from the river the land opened into meadows dotted with wildflowers, bluebells and purple betony, and hemmed in with copses of beech and elm. The oppressive air of the denser thickets by the river dissipated and a cool breeze blew from the west. 

Lann was tempted to stop and sit but the distant ongoing thunder of battle made him feel that rest would be disrespectful, wrong, immoral while so many young men were dying over the nearby hill across the river. 

As if feeling the captain’s mood, the drum slowed slightly and the men’s feet followed suit. The bees hummed from flower to flower around them. 

Through the humming of the bees a sound thrummed and beat, mingling with the far-off thunder of guns, but nearer and not in time with the company’s drummer. Captain Lann glanced at the sky, looking for a sign of impending rain but the same blue-in-blue met his eyes, not a dark-gray cloud on the horizon and the sun just beginning to turn the western sky orange and pink. 

As Lann brought his eyes back to earth, there it was. Closer now, from the west. A dull rumbling beat, its basso note vibrating through his chest. There was no time. 

“Form square!”

His shout froze the company. 

“Form square! Enemy cavalry approaches! Sergeants at the corners! Fix bayonets!”

There was a flurry of confused movement, soldiers ran to and fro. One sergeant ran up to the captain.

“Captitaine, the men do not know how to form square.”

Lann grabbed the sergeant by the jacket. “What shape is a square, Dufour? Get the men in a square or a rectangle, or a circle for all I care. Just get them back to back and have them point their bayonets at the enemy!”

The sergeant ran about grabbing men by the shoulders and forcing them into place. 

Lann’s voice boomed out. “Steady men. On me, on me. Form up. Two ranks. Fix bayonets.”

The men crowded around Lann. He could smell their fear in their sweat, see it in the whites of their eyes. The drummer, a boy of thirteen, stood stunned in front of Lann in the middle of the swiftly closing circle of men. The captain grabbed his drumsticks and began beating on the drum. The noise did little to move him. Lann slapped him across the face. “The men need you. Do your duty and they will do theirs. You understand?”

The bewildered drummer nodded.

“Good.”

Lann shouldered his way through the second rank to the front next to Moreau. 

“Front rank, kneel and charge bayonets. Second rank, charge bayonets. Prepare to receive cavalry.”

The front rank knelt and placed the butts of their muskets on the ground. The second rank angled their bayonets at the approaching enemy.

Lann’s huddle of a hundred men stood shakily. The meadow that had just seemed warm and pleasant now turned cold and hellish. Fear chilled the sweat running down their backs.

The enemy cavalry appeared at five hundred yards, trotting gracefully in good order. At three hundred yards they sped to a canter, the tall feathers sticking up from their shako helmets nodding and waving.

Two squadrons, Lann estimated. Three hundred cavalry. 

A trumpet’s call. Three hundred sabres swept into the air at once, the afternoon light glinting off the polished flat of each blade. Gold braid shone on their blue-gray uniforms. 

Another trumpet’s blare. Sabres pointed at the huddle of French soldiers, straight at Lann’s eyes. Sound of the horses’ hooves rose higher, faster thundering in their ears. The hussars’ tunics streamed from their shoulders as they bore down on Lann and his men. 

Time slowed. Pounding blood mixed with the thunder of the horses in Lann’s ears. 

“Hold.”

Closer. Closer. Shining steel bearing down on them. 

“Hold.”

Lann drew his sword. 

The wave of cavalry parted to sweep around the tiny infantry square. 

“West flank, fire!”

One great crack rang out. It deafened Lann and filled the air with smoke, blocking his sight. Horse and rider collapsed in front of him in a mass of kicking legs.

“Reload! North and south, fire!”

Moreau was pointing a pistol, aiming for the nearest rider. A flash of fire, the hard crack of the ball leaving the gun.

The shot was answered by ten more poured from enemy pistols into the dense square of men. The man next to Lann dropped to the ground. The man in the second rank stepped forward, just behind his comrade’s body, and leveled his musket. A cavalryman came too close and the Frenchman lunged at him with his bayonet. The wounded hussar pointed his pistol and fired. Sergeant Dufour rushed forward to fill the gap.

“Fire at will!”

Crack! Smoke obscured the enemy, their presence known only by the thundering of hooves and voices shouting in German. Sunlight filtered through the smoke to create an eerie effect like light through stained glass shining down in this cathedral of war. 

Lann turned to check the other side of the square and fell over a bulky object. The company drum lay on its side, the drummer motionless next to it.

Lann leaped up and joined the front line just as a horse came too close to the square and reared up front legs kicking in the air over their heads. He slashed mercilessly at the horse’s flank and the rider’s leg and both toppled over. One infantryman in the front rank rushed forward to finish the rider. “No!” Lann shouted. A hussar’s sabre separated the soldier’s head from his shoulders. Lann fired his pistol and dropped the jubilant hussar, joy mixed with rage still apparent on his face as he slumped in the saddle. 

The waves of charges by the enemy slackened as they increasingly kept their distance. The French company’s rate of fire slowed. All around, the ground was littered with Prussian blue-gray uniforms glittering with gold braid and fallen shakos.

The French square began to more closely resemble a ragged circle, each man shoulder to shoulder struggling to keep place over the bodies of his comrades. The air reeked of powder and burning paper. Smoke obscured Lann’s vision as he glanced around to check the integrity of the formation.

The last Prussian horsemen turned and galloped off the way they had come. Two more shots crackled out and flew toward their fleeing backs.

The French infantrymen cheered. Eyes wild, some threw their hats in the air. Others set about dispatching the Prussian wounded and despoiling them of their weapons and finery.

“Form up! Back to the bridge, on the double!” Lann said. 

“Capitaine!”

Moreau’s voice brought Lann up short. 

The lieutenant grabbed Lann’s ankle. “My leg. I don’t think I can walk.”

Lann glanced at his leg. An ill-aimed pistol shot had made a hole in his right boot just at the ankle. 

“Then you will have to remain,” Lann said.

“But, capitaine. I can’t—you can’t leave me.”

“I will do my duty. The major must be warned. For all his stupidity of ordering us here alone we have nevertheless discovered the enemy who will recover quickly. I must go.”

“Capitaine, don’t leave me.” His voice hit a pleading note. 

“Moreau, you found your glory. If you are half the man you claim to be, you will find a way to crawl back to camp. On the double. En avant!”

Moreau’s angry shout rang out with the muffled cries of the wounded. Lann hardened his heart, not wanting to hear or even think of them. He had to warn the major that the enemy might be on the north bank of the Marne, that the rearguard was threatened, that the army’s line of retreat and line of communications were compromised. Nothing else mattered. Not Moreau, not the dozens of dead and wounded on the ground.

Lann and the remains of 24th Company retread the same ground they had just marched over, crashing through underbrush and thickets at a run. Panting, Lann looked over his shoulder every few seconds, wondering if he would hear the enemy approach over the raucousness of their mad dash back to camp and his ears still ringing from musket fire, if he would hear the enemy even before taking a sword in the back. He urged the men on faster, lifting one man when he fell. 

Through the thickets, across a clearing, the river hard on their right. The fading sun behind them cast long shadows in front showing their struggling bent forms and mocking them.

Shouts and cries ahead. A great buzzing of activity, a high tenor of panic. A trumpet blaring lamely sounded a pleading note.

Panting and weak-kneed 24th Company emerged. 

Thousands of Frenchmen were streaming back over the bridges on the Marne. Disheveled, disorganized, demoralized, wounded. 

Teams of engineers were disassembling the pontoon bridges farther up the river while men were still retreating over them. A third team of engineers stationed massive casks by the pylons of the bridge Captain Lann’s company had helped to build. 

Lann attempted to shout, his voice hoarse. “Major Lemaire! Where is Major Lemaire?”

No one answered. No one seemed to care. Lann and his men were caught up in the crush of men streaming over the river. 

A passing colonel was screaming orders but no one seemed to listen, every man pushing north away from the river as quickly as possible. The cavalry were the luckiest, their horses pushing through the crush and escaping from it to gallop ahead and wheel away, gathering far away from the bridgehead.

An explosion ripped through the air, throwing men to the ground. Through the fire and smoke and the smoldering remains of the bridge on the ridgeline to the south across the river illuminated by the sun galloped two dozen horses. Lann watched as they stopped, turned, and unlimbered their cannons. 

There was nothing he could do and no one who would listen. Tongues of flame stabbed from each cannon, thundercracks turned every head. Panic flew with the balls of iron scattering the men’s wits as the iron scattered bodies. 

Captain Lann roared to his men and ran away from the river toward the nearest group of cavalrymen, a cluster of cuirassiers on the verge of turning and fleeing.

“Where is your commanding officer?” Lann shouted to the nearest cuirassier.

“What?”

“Your captain?”

“Who are you?” said the haughty cavalryman.

“There are enemy cavalry on this side of the river. We must mount a defense.”

“The bridge is destroyed. You should worry more about those cannon.”

“Listen to me you pompous fool. My company encountered enemy cavalry not a few thousand yards west of here. Are you calling me a liar?”

“What? The cannon,” he said, gesticulating wildly toward the other side of the river. The cuirassier turned his back, spurred his horse, and galloped away.

Lann ordered his company forward to get outside the range of the enemy shells. They headed northwest, away from the river and the stream of French soldiers, hoping that the artillery would aim at the main mass of men and not off on the flanks. 

They sheltered behind some trees. Lann was torn by two thoughts: What could be done to help the army at the bridgehead and what had become of Moreau and the other wounded?

Indecision swirled within him. He could wait for the artillery to stop their merciless barrage and try to help cover the army’s retreat or he could plunge into the descending darkness, practically alone and unsupported, to try to find Moreau and the others. 

The decision was made for him for, when he looked around for his company, he saw only Sergeant Dufour and two determined-looking privates. The rest had vanished, presumably into the mass of men running north from the river toward the town of Pargny-sur-Saulx.

The air grew still and quieter, as if a storm had passed. 

Lann looked around. The guns had stopped. 

The last shreds of light disappeared in the west. 

There was safety in darkness for the army. Exhausted, Lann, Dufour, and the two privates slept where they sat. There would be no midnight cavalry charge by the enemy. They were safe for the present and the next day would reveal the best course of action. 

Dawn broke and Lann led the remaining three members of his company back to the river. There was no sign of the enemy on either side of the water. Smoke wafted from the charred remains of the bridge. The river itself was choked with bodies, killed while crossing the bridge prematurely blown up or while attempting to swim. A few hundred soldiers milled about as if in a daze waiting to be told what to do. Holes pitted the ground and trees on either side of the clearing had been splintered by cannonballs. The air was still, not even a bird sang, and the smell of churned earth wafted from the ground.

“Lann!” It was Beaumont. Grizzled, tired, and soaking wet, but eyes brightened by the sight of Lann.

Lann slapped him on the shoulder. “What happened?”

Beaumont shook his head. “I don’t quite know. Major Lemaire ordered us over the bridge right after you went on patrol. We never even made it into battle. Never fired a shot before we were all running back over the bridge. The cavalry got ahead of us. I got pushed off the bridge and had to swim the rest of the way. Then some fool blew the thing up before we were all over. I heard General Moncey was killed or captured but who can be sure?”

“More likely he was the first over the bridge.”

Beaumont grunted. “Look!”

Lann turned around. 

Crawling out of a thicket was Moreau, scratched and covered in filth, trailing one leg behind. 

Lann, Beaumont, and the others rushed over. Lann offered him water.

“So, Moreau, you made it, eh?”

“No thanks to you, Jean.”

“That’s Captain Lann.”

Moreau glared, an animal look on his youthful face covered in dirt and sweat.

“I demand satisfaction, Captain Lann.”

Lann sighed. “Really? For not carrying you? Is it really worth crawling all the way back, saving your own life, healing that leg, just to get killed by my sword?”

“Yes!”

“Spoken like a true fool. Fine, you’ll have it. Now get up.”

Lann and Beaumont helped Moreau to his feet. Moreau flung one arm over each of them and the three of them hobbled north followed by Dufour, the two trusty privates, and whoever else had the inclination or the wits to follow.