Authors: Simon Scarrow
THE GENERALS (37 page)
Then, as the column passed over a tall dune, Napoleon saw a glittering ribbon of water ahead of them. The irrigated crops of small farmers stretched on either side. The soldiers broke ranks and ran the last steps down the bank and into the cooling, refreshing waters of the Nile, sinking to their knees as they drank from the river again and again.
Napoleon watched them with an amused expression for a while, until his attention was drawn by a squadron of cavalry galloping downriver from the direction of Cairo. As they reined in and the sergeant gave the word to dismount and tend to their precious horses, his officer approached Napoleon and saluted.
‘Sir, I beg to report we’ve found the enemy.’
‘Where?’
‘A day’s ride to the south. We found a rocky outcrop and climbed to the top for a better view . . .’ His voice faltered.
‘Go on.’
‘Sir, there must tens of thousands of them. More men than I have ever seen. Mamelukes, Arabs, peasants, as if they were on a crusade, sir.’
‘Hardly a crusade.’ Napoleon smiled. ‘But we’ll give them a battle all the same. Send word to every unit in the army, Berthier, we march to battle.’
Chapter 31
‘Over there, sir.’ Berthier handed him the telescope and pointed to the south. It took a moment for Napoleon to steady the instrument and then slowly sweep the horizon as he sought the feature that his chief of staff had indicated. For a moment the circle of vision passed along the front of the enemy line: thousands of Mameluke cavalry, gorgeously arrayed for battle in their turbans and silk robes. Between them and the Nile the Pasha’s general, Murad Bey, had stationed his infantry, perhaps fifteen thousand of them as far as Napoleon could estimate. Their flank was covered by the fortified village of Embabeh, garrisoned by a few thousand more Mamelukes. And there, on the far bank of the river, drawn up before the outskirts of Cairo, stood a vast mass of peasants armed with swords, spears, and antique firearms. Although there had to be nearly a hundred thousand of them, they were on the wrong side of the river and would take no part in the coming battle. A handful of French gunboats, anchored fore and aft, maintained a steady fire on the far bank to discourage any attempts to cross the river.
Through the cloud of dust hanging over the enemy host Napoleon finally caught sight of the objects Berthier wished him to see. Shimmering in the afternoon heat were the neat geometric forms of the pyramids rising up beyond the village of Gizeh. Napoleon caught his breath as he grasped the true scale of the structures, then he lowered the telescope and returned it to Berthier.
‘Quite a vision. We’ll have plenty of time to explore ancient monuments when the day’s over.’ He gestured to the five French divisions drawn up on the rolling plain below them. A mile beyond the Mameluke cavalry was moving towards Desaix’s division on the right of the French line. ‘Until then we have other matters to attend to. I think the enemy are finally ready to begin their attack.’
The French had been deployed since mid-morning and had sat in the sun waiting for the battle to begin. The heat and thirst had taken their usual toll, and the men were keen to fight, if only to end the torment of being forced to wait in the dazzling glare.
With only a limited force of cavalry under his command Napoleon had been obliged to deploy his army in five great rectangular boxes. It still amused him that the army insisted on referring to the formations as ‘squares’. Each contained a division and an allocation of guns from the artillery reserve and they were arranged in a staggered line to minimise the danger that they might fire on each other in the confusion of an enemy attack. Provided his men could keep their formations intact they would be able to hold off the Mameluke cavalry. But if the enemy managed to break into one of the squares, then they would cut the Frenchmen to pieces.
Napoleon and Berthier mounted their horses and rode down the slope of the small hill towards the division in the centre of the line. The officers and sergeants had seen the dust rising around the dense mass of Mameluke horsemen and were already bellowing orders for their men to stand to and close up the formation. Napoleon reined in and called for a telescope. As he swung the glass to the right of the line he could not help swearing in astonishment at the speed with which the Mamelukes had moved to envelop the French right flank. Desaix’s and Reynier’s divisions were going to take the brunt of the enemy’s main assault and Napoleon could only hope that his generals and their men would hold their ground.This was a battle unlike any they had fought back in Europe. There would be no assaults in columns behind a screen of skirmishers. The French were on the defensive and had to trust in firepower and good discipline.
The distant roar of cannon fire drew Napoleon’s eye back to the extreme right of the French line where a powerful battery had been established in a small village. Through the lens the battlefield was foreshortened into a swirl of figures and smoke in tightly compressed planes. Then Napoleon saw the barrels of his guns belch smoke and flame as they cut down swathes of the enemy cavalry closing on them. An instant later his view was obscured by the Mamelukes as they charged the French divisions and converged on the gaps between the French squares. There was a distant roar as Desaix’s men poured volley fire into the flank of the horsemen riding past the side of their square. Then Reynier’s men joined in, before the sound of musket fire became more general, a continuous roar and crackle. The Mamelukes added to the growing din as they drew their horse pistols and fired into the dense masses of blue-coated infantry.
Napoleon made his way across to the right hand side of the centre formation to better observe the attack.A torrent of enemy cavalry had swept into the gap between Reynier’s division and the centre of the French line and now charged home, seemingly straight at Napoleon and his staff officers.
‘Fix bayonets!’ the colonel of the right flank brigade bellowed out to his men and there was a metallic rasp and rattle down the line as his men drew out the long blades and slid the sockets over the ends of their muskets. When his men were still again the colonel shouted the order to advance their weapons and the long line of bayonets rippled down, towards the oncoming Mamelukes.
A cannon roared from the corner of the square and sent a blast of grapeshot scything through those at the head of the charge, bringing down several horses and their riders. Close to Napoleon a musket went off and he cupped a hand to his mouth and bellowed,‘Wait for the order! Don’t fire until they are within fifty paces!’
The sergeants relayed the order along the line and the men stood still in grim anticipation as they watched the approaching enemy, so close now that their wild cries could be heard above the drumming of hooves. From behind Napoleon there came a flat thud as a mortar was fired and the shell arced up and then plummeted down amid the enemy before exploding with a great flash and a roar. A pall of smoke and dust filled the air. For a moment the charge faltered and then the colonel of the brigade bellowed the order to open fire and a hail of musket balls added to the slaughter. Men and horses went down like skittles, and still they came on, desperate to get close enough to use their pistols on the French. Only a few managed it and hurriedly discharged their weapons. Most shots went high, or kicked into the sand at the feet of Napoleon’s soldiers.Then the Mamelukes wheeled their mounts away and spurred them out of range of the French weapons so that they could reload and charge again.
Within minutes the ground in front of the square was scattered with the bodies of horses and riders, many writhing as their cries of agony split the air. Still the muskets roared out, cutting even more of the enemy down. Despite their desperate bravery the Mamelukes could not stand up to the withering fire from the French line, and at last they wheeled their mounts away from Napoleon’s formation and galloped across the rear of Reynier’s and Desaix’s divisions to fall upon the artillery battery on the far right of the line. As soon as the artillery crews saw the threat they abandoned their guns, clambered up on to the flat roofs of the village and fired down on the horsemen swirling between the houses.
Once he saw that the flank would hold off the enemy’s cavalry host, Napoleon turned to Berthier with a grin. ‘We seem to have got their attention on the right. Now’s the time to strike at Embabeh and close the trap.’
He wheeled his horse about and galloped back across the centre of the square. Followed by Berthier and a handful of mounted guides, he made his way through a narrow gap between two battalions of the brigade stationed on the left of the division. They made for the bank of the Nile where General Bon and his men were standing ready to assault Embabeh. Napoleon thrust his arm out towards the earthworks encircling the village.
‘Now’s the time, Bon! Send your men in.’
‘Yes, sir.’ General Bon passed the order on at once and a moment later the drums began to beat the advance. The French battalions rolled forward, their standards rippling out in brilliant colours as they caught the glare of the sun’s rays. To their right three small squares moved to cover the attack in case the Mameluke cavalry attempted to intervene. Napoleon urged his horse forward and joined Bon in the main assault column tramping towards the mud-brick ramparts of Embabeh. Behind the breastwork on top of the rampart Napoleon could see the turbaned heads of the defenders as they levelled their muskets and opened fire.The range was long and only an occasional shot whistled past close enough for Napoleon to hear. Even so, the dense mass of men marching forward was a hard target to miss and as they neared the walls the first men began to fall. Their comrades stepped over them and continued relentlessly towards the ramparts, now shrouded with gunpowder smoke, so that only the stabs of flame showed where the defenders stood.
Cannon fire echoed across the surface of the Nile as the gunboats shifted their aim from the other bank and started to bombard Embabeh, pounding the ramparts. The enemy fusillade slackened as the Mamelukes took cover and the French columns quickened their step as they approached the fortifications. Napoleon ducked instinctively as a roundshot from one of the gunboats whirred overhead.
‘Shit, that was close,’ Berthier muttered.
Napoleon nodded. ‘Hope those bastards on our boats don’t get carried away and forget to cease firing. Time to continue on foot, I think.’
He slipped down from his saddle and handed the reins to one of his staff officers. An infantry battalion was marching past and Napoleon exchanged a few cheerful greetings with them before falling into step with the captain of the rear company.
‘Mind if Berthier and I join you?’
The captain, a stocky youth, a few years younger than his general, flushed with pride as he saluted. ‘It would be an honour, sir.’
‘The honour is ours, Captain. Now, let’s see what your men can do.’
The last cannon fired from the gunboats just as the colours of the leading battalion reached the foot of the rampart. The grenadier company immediately scrambled up the steep slope, struggling to keep moving in the shifting sand that had been piled up against the ramparts to slow the attackers down. Now that the bombardment from the gunboats had ceased the Mamelukes returned to the ramparts and renewed their fire on the French troops. But it was already too late for them, as the skirmishers in front of the ramparts raised their muskets and fired at any turbaned heads that appeared above the parapet, either side of the assault column. As Napoleon watched, the grenadiers swarmed up the slope, and then hauled themselves over the breastwork to fall on the defenders beyond. The sound of musket fire was replaced with the harsh scrape and ring of bayonets and swords and the wild cries of men fighting for their lives.
The companies following the grenadiers began to climb up and feed into the fight spreading out along the wall.As Napoleon made his way forward with the last company of the battalion the churned sand gave way beneath his boots and he was breathing hard by the time he reached the ramparts. The bodies of Mamelukes and French soldiers were sprawled on either side. A short distance ahead lay the nearest houses of the village and the Mamelukes were streaming back from the walls into the narrow alleys between the mud-plastered buildings, pursued by French soldiers wildly shouting out their cries of triumph and jeers of contempt.
Suddenly, there was a loud boom and a cannon ball cut a bloody path through the soldiers who had just entered a street right in front of Napoleon. An instant later the ball struck the inside slope of the rampart a short distance from Napoleon and Berthier, flinging sand over them. Napoleon blinked and brushed the dirt away from his face before running to peer round the corner of the street into the heart of the village, where a cloud of smoke eddied around the monstrous muzzle of a vast gun. Already the Mamelukes were busy ramming another charge down the barrel while two men approached, struggling under the burden of a huge ball. A fearsome weapon indeed, thought Napoleon, but its very size was its biggest weakness. It could cover the street, but it was far too large to be manoeuvrable.
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