There had been something peculiar about that first enemy volley. It didn't sound quite right, even for four-pounders. The cloud of gunsmoke was a bit peculiar, too. It had seemed to emerge instantly across the entire ranks of the enemy artillery, instead of spreading out from the clumps emerging from cannon barrels. It looked a lot more like the sort of gunsmoke produced by musketeers, in fact.
Whatever, it didn't matter. They'd closed another fifty yards in those five or six seconds. By the time even four-pounders could fire again, the French cavalry would be upon them. Even if one or two crews managed to get off a second shot, they'd only do it at the last moment and canister lost much of its effectiveness at very close range. Deadly to anyone directly in front of the barrels, of course. But the shot simply didn't have time to spread out very far.
Thorsten had come to a halt directly behind one of the volley guns. He watched as the three-man crew went smoothly through the sequence. The used ammunition strip was extracted and tossed into a thin-walled metal case lying on the ground nearby. They'd reload it later, when they had time. A new strip was brought out of another case and fitted into the barrels. A powder train was laid behind the ammunition strip and the side-mounted loading lever was shoved into position, securing the breech. A percussion cap was then placed on the nipple located in the center of the barrel array and would be fired by the gunner using a simple hammer mechanism.
The gunner gave the oncoming targets no more than a perfunctory glance, just to double-check that the gun's recoil shift had been corrected properly. The volley gun barrels were rifled, giving them much greater accuracy than smoothbore muskets. But the real advantage was the added range the rifling gave the bullets. With twenty-five barrels laid down in a row, angling slightly apart in a duck-foot design, there was no more point in "aiming" a volley gun than there was in aiming a smoothbore musket. Just point it in the direction of the enemy and close the hammer.
Which, he did. The twenty-five round magazine fired almost in unison with those of the other volley guns on the line. A trained crew could work the volley guns once every eight to ten seconds, where it took the crew of a four-pounder cannon much longer than that. Over time, that slight spread of skill would produce increasingly ragged fire, but this was only the second volley.
Twenty-five barrels to a gun, six guns to a battery, six batteries to a company-and on this field, today, Colonel Straley had three companies under his command. Within a space of one second, two thousand and seven hundred rounds were fired at an enemy now about one hundred and fifty yards away.
Bang.
Bang.
Two thousand, six hundred and fifty rounds, rather. Two gun crews had screwed up and fired a couple of seconds later. But they weren't any of the crews under Thorsten's command, so he didn't worry about it. And he was worrying a lot less about the oncoming enemy cavalry, too. They were starting to suffer heavy casualties already.
The enemy fired another volley, long before Jean-Baptiste expected. For the second time, the count of Guebriant was astonished.
Stunned, even-and quite literally. A round had struck his cuirass. Dead-on, a heavy three-ounce canister ball would have punched right through the armor and killed him. So would a musket ball weighing half as much, for that matter, if it hit straight on. A canister round could kill even with a glancing blow, with its greater weight. This bullet had struck a glancing blow, but the bullet wasn't any heavier than a musket ball.
Good for him at the moment, to be sure. He was a bit dazed and from the pain he knew he might have suffered a cracked rib. He'd certainly be badly bruised. But even through the shock and pain, Guebriant finally understood what he was facing, even though he still couldn't see the enemy clearly because of the gunsmoke. Those weren't artillery of any kind. They were organ guns!
But what sort of lunatic general would try to use organ guns against a cavalry charge? The weapons took as long to reload as cannons did. They weren't used that often, and then almost entirely in siege warfare for the purpose of suppressing enemy sharpshooters on the walls.
Another volley came, after they closed to seventy yards, and the count was struck again. A minor flesh wound on the back of his hand, but it was the right hand that held the sword. His weapon went flying.
That was three volleys in perhaps twenty seconds. Glancing from side to side, Guebriant realized they'd suffered casualties as bad as they would have taken against heavy artillery or massed infantry. It was incredible. He'd led his men into a trap.
Nothing for it now, however, but to press the charge through. Even with this horrendous enemy rate of fire, they were now within sixty yards. They wouldn't suffer more than one more volley.
That volley came when the French cavalry was not more than ten yards from the line of volley guns. Thorsten had been practically screaming at the gun crews, in his insistence that they stand their ground and keep firing. That wasn't easy, even with the huge clouds of gunsmoke obscuring the sight of the enemy. Unlike infantry units, the volley gun companies didn't have pikemen to fend off cavalry at the final moment. They'd be forced to fight with the ten-foot partisans they carried as hand weapons against men on horseback armed with wheel locks and sabers. And lances, some of them. It would be a slaughter, if it got that far.
But… it wouldn't. The gunsmoke had cleared enough, in patches here and there, for Thorsten to be able to see that the French cavalry charge was already collapsing even before that final volley was fired. There was still a solid group of perhaps two hundred men at the center-coming almost right at him, in fact-that was maintaining the charge. But the rest were not. The casualties they'd suffered from this head-on charge at ranked volley guns had simply broken their spirit. They were already peeling away, salving their wounded pride with a rather pointless caracole-style firing of their wheel locks and then racing to the rear. Very few volley gunners would be hit by pistol shots fired in such a manner.
Thorsten ignored them. There were still that two hundred or so thundering at his batteries. He'd never relinquished his own saber, and now he made sure he had it in a tight grip. Being one of the few men in the batteries on horseback, he'd have to meet cavalrymen directly and fight in their manner rather than his.
So be it. He had a fleeting and regretful thought of Caroline, but pushed it aside. He'd die or he wouldn't.
But it never came to that. That final volley shattered what was left of the charge. Only a dozen French cavalrymen made it into the ranks of the gunners, and a good third of them were wounded. Even with their superior weapons, they were simply too outnumbered to put up much of a fight.
The officer leading them was bleeding badly and half-slumped over his saddle before his horse passed through the line. Fortunately for him, his half-panicked mount instinctively avoided the guns and so he passed just beyond the range of partisans being wielded on either side. Then, not thirty feet beyond, a sudden panicky lunge to the side by his horse spilled him from the saddle. He landed on the ground like a sack of meal, his helmet coming off and flipping over twice. Then, with a little spasm of an elbow motion, the officer managed to roll himself over on his back. Half of his face was covered in blood.
Thorsten trotted his horse over and saw that the man was still conscious. That head wound wasn't as bad as it looked. A lot of blood, as always with head wounds, but the wound was a gash across the side of his head just above his ear, not anything that had penetrated the skull. He'd been creased by a bullet, was all.
The French officer groaned and raised his right hand to the wound on his head. The hand was bleeding also.
Thorsten dismounted and came to one knee beside him. "Hold still," he said. "I'll get a bandage on as soon I can, so you don't lose too much blood."