"Certainement," the youngster replied. He kept his eyes on the steadily advancing regulars. His thoughts were still on them, too, for he continued, "So long as they give us the chance to do something else…"
"Yes. So long as," Kersauzon agreed. "Nothing in war is certain. I would be the last to claim anything different. But I believe that fighting where we are, as we are, gives us the best chance of victory."
The redcoats marched right into musket range. Their sergeants went on dressing their lines even then. They could have started shooting. So could the French settlers. When the pause held, a heavyset, elderly Englishman-he was close enough to see clearly-rode out in front of his force and tipped his hat in the direction of Roland Kersauzon's army. Kersauzon gravely returned the courtesy. The Englishman rode off to one side of the line, so as not to get in the way of his side's musketry.
Bugle calls rang out: English and French. The front rank of soldiers in both armies dropped to one knee. The second rank stooped to shoot over their heads. The third rank stood straight to fire above the heads of the second.
"Now!" Roland Kersauzon shouted, at the same instant as his English opposite number yelled what had to be the same thing.
Fire rippled across both battle lines. Smoke clouded the air. Bullets flew. Oh, how they flew! One of them tugged at Roland's sleeve. Another knocked the hat off his head. He caught it before it fell. He needed a moment to be sure, but no, neither of those musket balls touched his tender flesh.
Not all his men were so lucky. Some fell and lay still. More staggered away in pain and disbelief. The stink of blood and that of shit from bowels pierced by bullets or loosened by fear filled the air along with gunpowder's choking reek.
Having fired, the first three ranks of Frenchmen retired to reload. The next three stepped forward to take their places. Their muskets were loaded and ready to fire. Roland knew succeeding volleys would by the nature of things grow more ragged than the first two.
That was certainly true for his half-trained troops. But the redcoats fired and reloaded, fired and reloaded, faster than mere mortals had any business doing. They got off three volleys for every two from the French settlers, sometimes two for one. If the settlers tried to hold their ground much longer, the Englishmen would either charge home with the bayonets that glittered at the ends of their guns or simply slaughter them with that deadly massed musketry.
"Retreat!" Roland shouted. "Retreat!" Enough buglers still stood to amplify the command. The Frenchmen streamed back in among the trees-those who still could.
"By Jove, we've got them now," Major General Braddock said in more than a little satisfaction. The crash of volley after volley made his horse skittish, but he himself stayed as calm as if he were in his drawing room. Almost in spite of himself, Victor Radcliff was impressed.
And he was impressed at what the redcoats were doing to the French settlers in front of them. The settlers were brave; if they weren't, they couldn't have stood the gaff as long as they had. But they were getting chewed to pieces. The training that made an English regular would have been reckoned cruel if inflicted on a hound. On a man…But, cruel or not, it worked. The regulars delivered their fire with a speed and volume Victor wouldn't have believed if he weren't seeing it with his own eyes.
Blaise saw the same thing. "These men ugly. These men bad. But these men, they fighters," he said.
Whoops and cheers from officers and sergeants announced the French debacle. "They're running, the cowardly dogs!" an underofficer shouted gleefully.
"Order the pursuit!" Braddock commanded in a great voice. Horns and human voices carried out his bidding.
"Hurrah!" the soldiers shouted as they tramped forward, still in neatly aligned ranks.
And all hell broke loose.
When volleys tore into the redcoats from both flanks, they left Victor confused for a moment. The enemy was in front of them. The enemy was broken, was fleeing… The enemy was, he realized, leading them straight into a trap. No. Had led them.
Smoke rose from the left. Smoke rose from the right. More musketry tore into the redcoats from either side. Cannon boomed, their roar deeper than that from the flintlocks. The roundshot, enfilading the English, tore great holes in their lines.
And the French settlers who'd volleyed with Braddock's regulars hadn't fled incontinently, as Victor thought they had. Once they reached the cover that trees and ferns gave, they turned around and started shooting again. Each man blazed away as he saw fit. It wasn't the deadly hail of bullets a good volley produced, which didn't mean it wasn't galling.
The French settlers also proved to have field guns hidden in the woods to the rear of their lines. They fired roundshot and canister. The range was long for canister, but not too long. Regulars fell in clusters when the showers of lead balls struck home.
"My God! We are undone!" Major General Edward Braddock sounded astonished, disbelieving. "They tricked us, the dirty scuts!" By the way he said it, the French settlers had no right to do any such wicked thing.
"Can we break them?" Victor asked, more from duty than from hope. The veriest child could see that the English regulars, under fire from the front and both flanks, were the ones being broken.
So could Braddock. "No, this day is not ours, I fear me. Best we withdraw to save what we can, while-" He stopped, wincing, and set a hand on his prominent belly.
"You're wounded, your Excellency!" Victor said. Sure enough, blood stained the gray vest Braddock wore under his long red coat.
He still had spirit. "Nothing serious, my dear boy, I assure you. I-" He winced again. This ball struck the right side of his chest. "I say! Blighters are using me for a pincushion today." He coughed and grimaced and flinched. Red foam burst from his nostrils. He would die, then. No surgeon could cure a wound like that, even if fever didn't take him after the bullet in the belly.
A musket ball gashed Victor's horse. The animal screamed and bucked. He fought it back under control. Another ball drew a bloody line across the back of his hand. The redcoats' lines, neat no more, were bloodied, too. They stolidly tried to fight back. In an impossible position, bedeviled by foes they couldn't see-foes who didn't fight the way they were used to-the undertaking was hopeless.
"Blow retreat!" Victor shouted to the buglers. He looked around for Blaise. The Negro hadn't fled. He hadn't got shot down. "Go to the other wing. Tell the buglers there to sound retreat, too. On my orders and General Braddock's."
"Sound retreat. On your orders. Yes, sir." If Blaise had any nerves, he kept them in a place where they didn't show. Off he rode.
"I'll get you out of here, your Excellency," Radcliff told the English general.
"Kind of you to say so, young fellow, but I fear me I'm done for." The red foam was on Braddock's lips now, too. "I know somewhat of wounds. I'll not go anywhere far, not with what I've caught."
"Your courage does you credit, sir." Victor could say that and mean it. Braddock faced death with as much equanimity as any man he'd ever seen.
He waved the praise away. "I've done good fighting in my day-and some not so good, I fear, here at the end. I've loved a lot of pretty women, too, and more than a few of them loved me back. I hoped to be shot at a more advanced age by an outraged husband, but no man gets everything he wants."
"Come away, please. Maybe the doctors can do you some good." Even as Victor spoke, he knew they couldn't.
So did Edward Braddock. "Quacks might kill me faster, you mean. But I die fast enough without them. Save yourself, Radcliff. Pay these backwoods Frenchmen back, if you see the chance. Go on. Your luck won't last if you stay here. Mine's already run dry." He sagged in the saddle. He wouldn't be able to sit his horse much longer.