*****BATTLE SCARS OUT NOW! FREE!***** A collection of ten short stories of heroism and tragedy, and set during the long years of war between 1793-1815. AMAZON UK http://ift.tt/1DlLove AMAZON.COM http://ift.tt/1DlLlQj AMAZON.DE http://ift.tt/1DlLlQl AMAZON.COM.AU http://ift.tt/1DlLlQn AMAZON.FR http://ift.tt/1DlLovm An excerpt of SUMMER IS COMING: ‘Jacques is a good man,’ I say. ‘He’s a vielle culotte. A veteran of the wars. He fought at Jena, Friedland, and Wagram with me. And the battles here in this frozen hell of a devil-country: Smolensk and Borodino. Pah! He is a survivor.’ ‘I hear what you are saying,’ says the man opposite me. A thick crust of ice covers the peak of his Dragoon helmet. More cover his huddled form underneath a patched horse blanket that sits on his shoulders knotted with twine around his neck like a cloak. He pulls at it with fingers split open from the bitter cold as though it chokes him. ‘And there have been countless other battles,’ I continue, wiping my face of the persistent flecks of snow. ‘Places where men shit their breeches as they marched. Where men, brave men, puked blood and wept for their mothers and sweethearts as they died.’ ‘I said I hear you.’ I gaze at the Dragoon’s face; hollow and horrid-looking, like my own. Most of the men have thrown away their razors amongst other things to lighten their packs and so look wild. Eyebrows, moustaches and beards rigid with ice. Not even the flames can melt them. Still, it is nothing as frightening as the enemy’s. The Cossacks are terrifying beasts with men’s faces. ‘You might hear me, but you aren’t listening. There’s a difference,’ I say to him, my breath fogging the air between us. I am becoming irritated by his presence and his manner. ‘You sit there with your sunken eyes, slack mouth and for all I know you could be listening to the howling of the wind.’ I stare at the other men crowding the fire. Same faces: defeated, starving and cold. Always so cold. One of them, wearing the remnants of a Grand Duchy of Berg regiment, cradles his head in his hands. Already given up. No fight left in him. Like so many others. I watch the firelight play across their faces. This campaign has taken years off our lives. Another soldier, a Saxon, by the colour of his uniform, is just staring into the flames. Not moving. No breath. He could have already expired. Especially with those eyes; unblinking dead eyes. Who would know? Who would care? The emperor, we affectionately nicknamed le patron: the boss, le tondu, the shaven one and le chapeau: the hat, has left Moscow and now the army is in full retreat back along the same route we have entered. We couldn’t even gain a toehold in this hellhole. It is a landscape torched by the inhabitants as they have fled, spoiled, made barren, wasted and devoid of keeping an animal, let alone a man, alive. The emperor’s fate is taking us along a cruel path, nonetheless, a path back to our beloved France. But some men have voiced their scorn of le tondu, for he has deserted us. Some men have taken that as a slight and left their ranks for good. These are dark days.
by David Cook Authorfrom Free Books http://ift.tt/1DlLove
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