Chapter 681: Burning Eastern Europe Part Eight
Yannick's ribs were broken, and he had a stab wound in his thigh. His entire body felt as limp as a ball of cotton.
He struggled to lift his head, locking eyes with a Cossack cavalryman about twenty paces away. The man was clearly too weak to move, his curses in Russian a constant stream.
Yannick spat at him, then suddenly noticed an artilleryman, half-slumped on a dead horse nearby, appear to stir.
He quickly called out, "Sergeant, are you alright?"
The artilleryman slowly turned his head, taking a long moment before speaking with great effort, "I'll live, for now."
Only then did Yannick see that half of the man's face was utterly mangled, a strip of shredded flesh hanging from his nose, swinging with each ragged breath.
"We... seem to have held our ground," he murmured.
The artilleryman rasped, "Yes, the cannon is still here..."
Suddenly, the artilleryman's body jolted. He frantically raised a hand, pointing down the earthen slope, his voice desperate as if he'd glimpsed the gates of hell itself. "There! Over there!"
"The gun, the gun!"
Yannick frantically looked around, spotting a flintlock musket discarded nearby.
Just as he started to crawl towards it, the artilleryman's voice came, "It's no use. You might kill one, at most..."
Yannick froze. In his current condition, he'd be lucky to hit even one.
"What do we do? What can we do?!"
His heart gave another painful throb.
They had fought to the death, killing every Russian cavalryman, and now no one was left to fight. Yet, they had somehow missed two enemies.
And spiking the cannon's touchhole required only one Russian soldier.
"No, this can't happen! It can't!"
The artilleryman suddenly remembered something, gesturing towards the cannon behind Yannick.
"Look, the muzzle is pointed right at them.
"I remember the powder was already loaded. Get a canister shot in there, and when those bastards get close, fire it. You might blast them both."
"Yes, the cannon, the shot..." Yannick looked down, immediately spotting the ammunition chest five or six paces away.
He struggled to crawl over, opened it, then looked at the artilleryman. "Which one should I use?"
"The gray one, wrapped in linen."
"Right." Yannick heard the thud of hooves. He hurried to lift the "linen bundle," and as he exerted himself, an excruciating pain immediately shot through his broken ribs.
His eyes wide, he pushed through the breath-stealing pain, desperately cradling the shot out. He gasped a few times, then dragged the cannonball to the base of the muzzle.
The hoofbeats grew louder, they must have been climbing the slope.
Yannick cried out, kneeling there as he gripped the cannonball. With every movement, his chest felt as if a knife had been plunged in and was twisting relentlessly.
"God, grant me strength!"
He braced the base of his right arm against his neck, lifting the cannonball over his head, bringing it closer and closer to the muzzle.
"Hurry!" the artilleryman cried out, frantic.
Yannick let out another cry. Bracing his left leg, he slowly pushed himself to his feet, blood spurting from the wound on his right thigh.
The next moment, the cannonball finally slid into the muzzle.
Unable to find the ramrod, he used his arm to push the cannonball further down.
The artilleryman glanced at the Cossack cavalrymen, then back at Yannick. "Light the fuse! It's right by the touchhole!"
Yannick spared a glance at the touchhole and replied, "The fuse is already in!"
"Then light it!"
Yannick looked up, spotting the linstock stuck at the back of the cannon. He stumbled towards it, but suddenly his foot gave way, and he collapsed to the ground.
The world spun around him. His last conscious thought was, 'I can't, I can't pass out...'
"What are you doing?!" the artilleryman roared, blood welling up in his cheeks from the strain. "Light it! Light it now!"
But the infantryman beside the cannon remained unresponsive.
The two Cossack cavalrymen had reached the top of the ridge. Seeing the unguarded cannon, it was as if an irresistible prize lay before them.
Just as they were about to dismount, a small, brown-haired head suddenly appeared over the other side of the earthen slope.
A small boy struggled his way up, and when he saw the ground littered with bloody, mangled corpses, he froze in terror.
If Yannick hadn't lost consciousness, he would have recognized the boy: Kaczy, the younger brother of the girl killed by Russian artillery that day.
The artilleryman reacted instantly, shouting at the boy, "Little one! Grab that smoking stick and light the rope on the cannon! Hurry!"
The boy hesitated, seeing Yannick lying unconscious beside the cannon. Finally, he gathered his courage, walked to the linstock, and pulled it free.
The two Russian cavalrymen seemed to grasp what he was doing and frantically tried to turn their horses. But a horse is far slower to turn than a man.
Under the artilleryman's guidance, Kaczy pressed the burning tip of the linstock against the fuse.
With a hiss, the spark vanished into the touchhole. Instantly, the cannon unleashed an earth-shattering roar.
BOOM!
Kaczy was flung to the ground by the massive recoil. The two Cossack cavalrymen, barely twenty or thirty paces from the cannon, simply vanished. Even their horses had their upper bodies shredded by the shot, the remaining halves tumbling down the slope.
"Ha, haha..."
The artilleryman chuckled twice, about to praise the boy, when he was suddenly choked by a mouthful of blood. He coughed violently a few times, then his head lolled, and he collapsed onto the dead warhorse.
Ten minutes later.
The cannons in Zagazig Village once again began to pour shellfire onto the Russian line formation.
The Russian army, which had just regained some momentum when the shelling stopped, was immediately driven back down.
Along the Polish defense line, Drasowitz, Yannick, and their comrades had long since been replaced by other soldiers. But these new men, just like their predecessors, fearlessly met the Russian gunfire, returning the most ferocious counterattacks.
Finally, the Russian infantry, unable to sustain such immense casualties, began to retreat.
The Poles' utter disregard for death had left a profound psychological scar on every one of the Russian soldiers.
Polish soldiers began to scramble over the breastworks, shouting as they pursued the fleeing enemy.
The Russian forces scattered like stray dogs, accelerating their panicked flight.
Just as Drasowitz had predicted, the Russian offensive momentum greatly diminished the next day. Meanwhile, the Polish recruits had matured almost overnight, delivering a devastating head-on blow with astonishing morale.
However, the old soldier would never witness this sight.
He would never again see his Marlena and Fyodor.
Perhaps one day, his children would tell their own, how their grandfather had used his life to shield them from the iron hooves of the Russian cavalry.
Two days later.
Yannick and his unit retreated to Maryce.
His regiment had held out an entire day longer than planned. Along the extensive Mozyr defense line, battles like the one at Zagazig Village were commonplace. The Russian forces, which had initially planned to seize Mozyr in five days, had only just managed to breach its first defensive line.
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