Austerlitz

Prologue-Part Three

Part 3

The Sergeant Major, Alain noticed, wasn’t the stereotype most would expect. Rather than the short angry man you may have anticipated, instead he was just over average height Alain guessed, the man had a calm voice which despite being quite soft held an air of complete authority. His hair had begun to turn white and was thinning on the crown, which showed the man must have been in the army for the majority of his life and he would have seen a great deal.

As the Sergeant Major approached and Alain got a better look at his face he noticed a great deal of furrows crisscrossing his forehead, which Alain hoped weren’t from decades of disappointing recruits.

“Alright gentlemen, you have all been selected because you have something the Emperor wants, and that is agility and the skill to shoot the bicorn off the head of a British officer from one hundred paces” The man paced up and down in front of the assembled men, squinting slightly as he went. “I am Sergeant Major Pelletier, and I am going to turn you into the best men you can be, the best men for the Emperor and more importantly the best men for me” He chuckled.

“Now, it’s time to tell you what you will be doing, whilst providing sharpshooters and scouts you will also be working as ordinary infantry when the situation demands that you do so. The Emperor has decreed that in addition to those jobs you have another task. Which in my opinion is the most harebrained idea anyone has ever come up with, your other job is to…jump…jump onto enemy cavalry” The man sighed and watched the shocked and confused expressions begin to appear on the faces of the men in front of him.

“No, you didn’t hear me wrong that is your job, why do you think you are called Voltigeurs? You are the vaulters. How we are going to train you to do this I’ll never know, but if the Emperor says jump it’s your responsibility to ask ‘which horse’. What we’ll do is start training you to be sharpshooters and then move onto the horse stuff when we work out how to do it, now gentlemen I want you to head over to the firing range and I’ll meet you there, we’ve got a lot of work to do’ The men saluted before filtering off to the firing range all exchanging their thoughts on what they had been told. Alain joined a small group of men and listened in to the conversation.

“What does the old man think he’s doing? Firstly, there is no way I could jump onto a horse and secondly, the fact he told us he has no clue what he’s doing, doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence that he could teach me how” Said a short man, his face red with either anger or the exertion of his outburst, but Alain couldn’t tell which.

“You can’t necessarily blame it on him Girard, after all the Emperor decreed it and I doubt anyone really knows how to jump on top of a horse while an enemy cavalryman is riding it” Another exclaimed in response.

“No but you’d either hope he had some idea or at least tell us he did” The first man responded, who Alain presumed was Girard.

When they finally reached the firing range all the chatter subsided and they formed up again, though trying to concentrate on the man stood ahead, many couldn’t resist glances at the rifles lined up near the targets, though they’d been though training most of the new soldiers couldn’t wait to get their hands on a rifle of their own.

“Now you are to be split up into squads of eight men, with whom you will train with, eat with and live with for the rest of your military careers, you’d best get to know each other soon as it is these men on which your life will depend they will have your back and you will have theirs. Squad one will be…” Alain stopped listening at this point, the man seemed to talk for an age, his mind wandered to other things like imagining himself leaping onto an enemy horse, knocking off the rider as he did so and landing perfectly in the saddle and charging off. Everyone would think he was so brave by being able to jump onto the back of a moving horse he couldn’t wait. He was suddenly jolted back into the real world as his name was called out.

“…and the last three in squad seven…Florien Girard, Gaston Thibaud and Alain Dubois…”

Alain recognised the two men as the ones who had been talking on the way over and they exchanged smiles as they joined up with the rest of their squad, before any of them had a chance to introduce themselves a Drill Sergeant led them towards the rifles leant up against the far wall. None of them could help themselves as their faces cracked into beaming smiles, they were about to be given the most important piece of soldiering equipment, their gun.

The Drill Sergeant picked up one of the rifles with his left hand and showed it to the recruits “This is your rifle, your pride and joy, it’s your responsibility to look after it and if you neglect it and it won’t fire don’t blame me when an Austrian stabs you in the gut with his bayonet. As you may have noticed it is a bit shorter than the muskets you will be used to using this is because we don’t want you lot tripping over the barrel when you are running around the battle field. You will be issued with one rifle and one rifle only, if you lose or break your rifle you will be paying for a new one, not the army. Now each of you pick up a rifle, go collect your things from your tents and report to the west side of camp where you will be assigned a new tent, off you go”

Alain felt the weight of his new rifle, it was indeed lighter than the rifles he had been used to training with but he definitely saw the benefit of using it. He ran his hand over the smooth wood of the stock and stared down the barrel, it was in no doubt a good gun, it certainly looked that way. The firing mechanism was clean and greased, and in far better condition than the training rifles he had used, though he knew what its purpose was, Alain was in awe of the beautiful weapon. 

He began the walk back to his tent, it suddenly dawned on him that we would no longer be sharing with Valentin and he felt crestfallen. How would he tell the big man that they would not be fighting together?  He knew Valentin would try to shrug it off, but it would be killing him on the inside. Alain grimaced and tried to console himself in the thought that it would be bound to happen at some point. They would have been split up eventually, but he knew this wasn’t true; he’d just have to tell him.