Episode 117: What Do We Fight For? (6) "Volunteer battalions, forward!! Tear out those aristocrats' hearts!!"
"""Wuaaah!!"""
Pwooo—
The revolutionary army band's trumpets filled the front of Villers-Bocage.
Napoleon's heavy hammer, flying in from the west, began smashing the neatly gathered royalist right wing without mercy.
"It's the revolutionary army! Right wing, switch formation into a square right now!! Even so, they're just militia! We're absolutely superior in marksmanship!!"
"Argh!! My eyes!!"
"I—I can't look straight at the enemy because of the sun!"
"W-what?"
The bright sunlight, having moved west after noon, began tormenting the royalists' eyes.
"Captain! We can't aim properly and fire!"
"Shoot! Fire!! Just shoot, damn it!"
Was it fear that they might lose, or responsibility to maintain strict discipline?
Probably the former.
If they lost here, there would be nothing left they could offer in exchange for their lives.
In the end, the mounted royalist officers began driving their troops hard, repeatedly pounding the backs of soldiers' heads with their bootheels as the men squinted into the light.
"You fucking—!! Shoot!! There are so many of them, you'll hit someone!"
"Gngh…! Screw it!"
Tatata—bang!!
But the bullets fired by the front line, squinting hard against the glare, didn't come close to hitting Napoleon's hammer. They slammed uselessly into bare ground.
"F-first line finished firing! Second line, commence firing! This time, aim properly and fire!"
"I—I can't see in front…"
Tatata—bang!!
But results wouldn't change under the same conditions. The second volley ended the same way.
The third, the fourth—again, only unlucky clods of dirt were struck, flinging up toward the sky.
Worse, the more time passed, the more the sun lowered toward the earth, pouring even more light straight into royalist eyes.
"Damn it all! Everyone, bayonets up! Draw your swords!! We push them back in melee!!"
"Yes!"
"Up to now, those revolutionary bastards tricked us with petty deception, but the ones we're facing now really are militia! There's no way we lose in melee!!"
The royalists drew their blades.
Those traitors had already used their greatest strength—experienced troops—as bait in a trap.
Even if the royalists had fallen into that trap, the experienced troops had been spent, so the enemy being swung as the hammer now had to be militia.
It wasn't for nothing that the world had a term like rabble—militiamen would obviously lose their will to fight and run the moment one or two beside them died.
If the royalists—regulars and former mercenary bands used to war—clashed in melee with newly recruited militia, wasn't it certain the royalists would overwhelm them?
So it was a rational, textbook choice.
But how strong the rage and fighting spirit could be in people who had realized why they fought and had willingly taken up guns—those of too-noble status could never understand.
They said once your muscles remember, you act even without your brain telling you to.
Philippe, following the drill that had been forced into his body over days of that hellish exercise, drove his bayonet toward the enemy's throat.
"Waaah! Die! Die!"
"Ghk… ghrrk…"
Blood sprayed chak—! across the borrowed white uniform, and the wet, boiling phlegm-sound from the throat of the royalist mercenary he'd stabbed vibrated through the rifle into Philippe's hands.
The black eyes of the man who'd been murderous a moment ago lost their light.
"H-hi… hiiik!!"
Having extinguished a life for the first time, Philippe let out a scream in a trembling voice without meaning to.
Maybe that scream drew attention—another enemy sprang out from behind the one Philippe had stabbed, raising a bayonet and charging at Philippe.
"Sterben!"
He shouted something strange Philippe couldn't understand—so he seemed like a German or Swiss mercenary.
Philippe hurriedly tried to lift his rifle to block the bayonet, but the blade buried deep in the throat wouldn't come free.
"H-huh?! Aaaah!!"
Philippe squeezed his eyes shut as hard as he could.
Fuck! So this is how I die!
Bang—!
A gunshot rang out.
Philippe eased his scrunched face and slowly opened his eyes.
"Ugh! U-ugh…"
"Soldier! Do you really want to die? Snap out of it!"
The enemy who had been stabbing at Philippe collapsed face-first to the ground, shot through the center of the chest.
And beside Philippe stood the captain of the neighboring company—one hand holding a bloodstained sword, the other holding a pistol with smoke curling from it.
"C-captain…?"
"Yeah! I'm Second Lieutenant Jean Lannes!"
Philippe asked in a trembling voice.
"Why are you here, Captain…"
"Why? Because your captain just died. Now 2nd Company follows my command too. Understood?!"
"O-our captain…"
The smart captain who'd gone to the Sorbonne in Paris—he was dead?
This is—this is insane. I have to get out of here…
"Uh… uh…"
"Hey! Hey! Soldier! You crazy bastard! Snap out of it! You want to depart this world like your captain?!"
"Ugh!!"
Third Company's commander, Second Lieutenant Jean Lannes, kicked Philippe in the back with all his strength.
Unable to accept the sudden pain, Philippe finally dragged his runaway mind back into his body.
"N-no! Second Lieutenant Jean Lannes!"
"Then fucking kill those pig bastards before you die! Aren't those pigs saying they'll drag France back to the old days? Soldier—do you miss the old days when aristocrats swaggered around?!"
Miss the old days? The days when you farmed and nine-tenths got taken as tax? I still boiled with rage just thinking of that lord's face.
Philippe forced his disobedient jaw to move and shouted at the top of his lungs.
"Noooo!!!"
"Yeah? Then what do those bastards standing in front of you look like?!"
Jean Lannes pointed with his sword toward the royalists in the distance.
"R-royalists!"
"Right! We've got a chance to smash the royalists who've been eating our flesh, and you're going to waste this golden opportunity by trembling like this?!"
"Noooo!!!"
"Yeah?! Then charge! Charge!"
"WAAAAAA!! CHAAAARGE!!"
Philippe yanked his bayonet free from the dead royalist's throat and sprinted toward the next target.
"You pig bastards! I'll kill you all!!"
Unlike before, Philippe's hands weren't shaking.
"Load!"
"Fire!"
Kwa-boom!!
Napoleon's gamble—raising the remaining stake by betting an additional four thousand—finally shone.
The cannons that had been firing at the revolutionary army a moment ago now swung around and spewed fire at the royalists.
Heavy iron shot rolled through the packed center of the enemy, tearing off the legs of unlucky soldiers in its path.
"Direct hit! We punched right through the enemy center!"
"Good! Prepare the next round!"
"Load the next round!"
"Loaded! Fire!"
Kwa-boom!
"Another direct hit, Sergeant!"
"Of course—when the targets are packed together like that! Those royalist pig bastards—paid us peanuts and worked us like dogs, and now look at them! Now, if we rest, our side dies! Load again!"
"Yes!"
The revolutionary troops who had seized the royalist batteries kept firing without stopping, grinning from ear to ear.
"…Hah. Am I possessed by a ghost? Or was war always this easy… Damn it, I can't tell."
Colonel Antoine Desaix, holding a spyglass and observing shell impacts, shook his head.
Like twisting a child's arm, Bonaparte toyed with the royalist army and kneaded the battlefield however he pleased.
• Using militia as a hammer? What are you saying?!
• Why? Is there any reason it can't be done?
• A reason?! Their morale will hit rock bottom—at worst they'll desert! How can you use militia as a hammer?!
• Hm. First Lieutenant Louis Charles Antoine Dezé, you've never really observed the soldiers, have you?
• What are you talking about—
• Our volunteer battalions weren't dragged here. They volunteered because they want to stab aristocrats in the belly. If you'd eaten even one meal with the soldiers, you'd know.
• How does an officer eat with soldiers?! That's a violation of military law!
• Military law? Don't bring that fine military law into my unit. I'd rather understand my soldiers' psychology and use them properly than chant stiff rules.
But unlike Dezé's worries, Bonaparte's certainty became reality.
The reality of mere militia smashing regular troops.
"…How many moves ahead is he seeing, how many factors is he considering… He's something else."
Dezé muttered, tongue clicking in disbelief.
June 24, 1791.8:00 p.m.Nine hours into the battle.
"S-surrender! Just spare my life—kh… khk!"
"We won!!"
"Waaah!!"
"We—we beat the aristocrats!"
A bayonet was driven into the throat of the last remaining royalist.
"Even if we didn't catch that Artois bastard, it's a huge victory."
"It happened because you trained them well. Ah, seriously, I'm tired. So tired."
As if the tension had drained out of him, Napoleon took off his hat and perched on a chair.
"Wine?"
"…Guillaume, you brought wine all the way here?"
"We were going to win anyway."
"…What makes you so sure we'd win?"
"Napoleon's commanding. How could we lose?"
"…What?"
Why's this guy smiling? I was riding the surest sure bet there is.
"Hah. Fine. Pour me a glass."
"Yes, General of Victory."
"Chambertin?"
"Chambertin."
"Kh. You really know your stuff."
"I'm not running a food business for nothing."
I poured Napoleon a glass, then poured one for myself.
"A toast to celebrate the first victory?"
"Seriously, what… Then you do the toast."
"A toast…"
Hm. What's good for commemorating beating the royalists?
Ah.
I raised my wine glass and spoke.
"How about a toast to democracy."
"Haha. Sure. Not bad."
We clinked glasses together at the same time.
"A toast to democracy!"
"A toast to democracy!"
Damn—whoever procured it, this wine is really good.
"But Guillaume."
"Hm? What?"
"Where the hell is Grouchy?"
"Heh… hehe…"
The Comte d'Artois muttered, half out of his mind from the catastrophe that had just unfolded.
• We have to save the Comte d'Artois no matter what!
• Open an escape route!
• North! There's a gap in the encirclement formed by enemy cavalry!
• Really?! Whoever that enemy cavalry commander is, he's sloppy—pick only the elites and break out with the Comte!
• Comte! Pull yourself together! You, of noble royal blood, must live! Only then can we plan for later!
Artois clenched the reins hard.
"…Right! Even if I lost, can't I still pursue the great cause again? I will not forget your sacrifices!"
Artois wasn't fleeing like a coward. He was planning for later.
"I—I can go to Spain and borrow an army. I didn't demand pointless sacrifices."
The noble royal scion soothed himself like that.
But in that moment—
Bang—!
"H-huh…?"
Artois slowly looked down at his chest, something leaking out and soaking warm.
In the night, as Artois steadily lost strength, a man appeared before him with the sound of hooves.
"Wh-who… hk… black surgery…"
"I am Second Lieutenant Emmanuel de Grouchy of the National Guard. For the peace of France, in the name of the People, I will execute you as a traitor."
Grouchy pushed a fresh round into the pistol in his hand.
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