"Tom Purdom-Dragon Drill" - читать интересную книгу автора (Purdom Tom)

the common soldiers. As Frederick had promised, von Wogenfer had been given two battalions of line
infantry and one battalion of grenadiers--two thousand foot soldiers altogether.
The two line battalions belonged to a regiment that "faced" its blue Prussian coats with yellow. Their
cuffs, their lapels, and the turnbacks on their coat-tails had been dyed with the sunniest yellow the cloth
factories could produce. Their hats were the standard three-cornered affairs that topped the heads of the
line infantry fielded by every modern army. The grenadiers were dressed in the same blue coats and
white waistcoats, but their uniforms were faced with green. The ornate insignias on the front of their hats
glittered and flashed as they marched.
Von Wogenfer had drilled the entire detachment relentlessly throughout the last two days. By now it
took them less than two minutes to arrange themselves in the battle formation he had chosen.
The stake had been planted in a small hollow his sappers had dug in the hillside. Only the upper half of
Costanze Adelaide's body rose above ground level. She arranged herself so she was facing down the hill
and Captain Kreutzen accepted a length of rope from a sapper.
A grenadier company marched down the hill as soon as Kreutzen signaled the princess's hands were
securely tied. The company flowed around Costanze Adelaide and halted when it was placed so the
stake was positioned in the exact middle of the formation. Von Wogenfer could still see the bayonet and
the flag, but the princess herself was lost in the forest formed by the shoulders, hats, and muskets of two
hundred elite troops.
The grenadier company was the heart of the formation he had worked out with young Alsten, who had
acted as his counselor and admiring audience. They were his final defense against the special threat that
had preoccupied him from the moment Frederick had dumped this affair on his shoulders. They would be
surrounded by the two battalions of line infantry, who would form a protective square around the
grenadier company -- as if the line infantry were executing the standard defense against ordinary cavalry.
The entire plan had been diagrammed in pencil on a piece of paper he had stuffed into his left coat
pocket. On the diagram, von Wogenfer's own position was marked with a cross near the top of the
slope, about seventy-five paces from the square. His cavalry squadrons were supposed to form up on
both sides of his position. Directly in front of him. a second company of grenadiers would be posted
where he could employ it as a reserve.
Now the mortal, all-too-vulnerable human bodies represented on the sketch were moving into
position. The second company of grenadiers was parading into the open ground in front of him. The
breastplates of the cuirassiers gleamed in the sun when he glanced to his right.
On his left, the officers of the hussar squadrons lounged in their saddles with the studied insouciance
cultivated by light cavalry. Hussars wore one of the most dashing uniforms the military imagination had
conceived and these particular specimens belonged to a regiment that adorned itself with one of the more
spectacular examples. Crimson plumes rose from their fur caps. Gold frogging and white fur garnished
their sky blue jackets.
The commander of the grenadier battalion, Lt. Colonel Basel-Derhof, was riding beside the second
grenadier company. His eyes were flicking over every detail of the company's uniforms and deportment.
They came to a halt with the snap and precision that were supposed to be one of the distinctive marks of
grenadiers and von Wogenfer nodded his approval.
At the bottom of the slope, a stream ran along the edge of a typical stretch of prosperous Silesian
farmland. It was a clear, beautifully sunny day -- a morning when bayonets flashed like mirrors.
A horseman fell in on von Wogenfer's left. Von Wogenfer turned his head and his youthful adviser
offered him a curt nod.
Von Wogenfer smiled. By nature, young Alsten seemed to be brash -- even bubbly. There had been
times during the last few days when he had babbled for an hour straight. Then he would suddenly decide
he should be more soldierly and his garrulousness would be replaced by a caricature of military
brusqueness.
It was easy to understand why the boy had come to Frederick's attention. Forty years ago, young
Frederick had been a flute playing intellectual who was destined to be the leader of an aristocracy that