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Executive Times |
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2007 Book Reviews |
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Napoleon’s
Pyramids by William Dietrich |
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Rating: |
**** |
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(Highly Recommended) |
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Click on
title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Adventure William
Dietrich’s latest novel, Napoleon’s
Pyramids, gives readers a dose of fine historical fiction. He creates a
fictional protagonist, American Ethan Gage, and places him in late 18th
century It was 2
P.M., the hottest time of the day, when the French army began forming squares
for the The
pyramids were still a hazy fifteen miles away, but arresting in their perfect
geometry. From that distance, they looked like the caps of colossal prisms,
buried to their neck in the sands. We stirred at the sight of them, so fabled
and so towering, the tallest structures that had ever been built. Vivant
Denon was sketching furiously, trying to fit a panorama on a notepad and to
catch the shimmer of the vault of air. Imagine
the magnificent panoply of the scene. On our left flank ran the Nile,
shrunken before the floods that would soon start but nonetheless a majestic
blue that reflected the brilliant sky Beside was the lush green of the
irrigated fields and date palms that bordered it, a ribbon of Add to
this the tens of thousands of uniformed men in crisp formations, the milling
Mameluke cavalry, the lumbering camels, the braying donkeys, and the
galloping French officers—already hoarse from shouting orders—and I was
trapped in an environment so exotic that it seemed like I’d been transported
to a dream. Talma was flying through sheets of paper as he wrote furiously,
trying to record it all. Denon was muttering to himself that we all must pose
before battle could be joined. “Wait. Wait!” Arrayed
against Bonaparte’s army was a glittering host that seemed two to three times
our twenty-five thousand men, topped by a thunderhead of dust. Were the
Mamelukes better generals, it is possible we’d have been overwhelmed. But the
Arab army was foolishly divided by the mighty river. Their infantry this time
Ottoman foot soldiers from On the far
bank, shimmering on the horizon, was Once again
the Arab army’s heart was the Mamelukes, mounted cavalry now ten thousand
strong. Their horses were superb Arabians and richly harnessed, their riders
a kaleidoscope of robes and silks, their turbans topped with egret and
peacock feathers, and their helmets gilded with gold. They were armed with a
museum’s worth of beautiful and dated weapons. Old muskets were inlaid with
jewels and motherof-pearl. Scimitars, lances, spears, battle axes, maces,
and daggers all glinted in the sun. More muskets and pistols were holstered
on their saddles or thrust in their sashes, and each Mameluke was trailed by
two or three servants on foot carrying additional firearms and ammunition.
These slaves would sprint forward to relay weapons so the Mamelukes wouldn’t
have to pause to reload. The warriors’ horses pranced and snorted like circus
steeds, heads rearing in impatience for the coming charge. No army had
withstood them for five hundred years. Prowling
the outskirts of the Egyptian formations were the white-robed Bedouin on
their camels, masked like bandits and circling like wolves. These waited to
descend on our ranks to kill and plunder when we broke under the penultimate
Mameluke charge. Our own wolf, Bin Sadr, was hunting them even as they hunted
us. Dressed in black, his cutthroats lurked on the lip of the dunes and hoped
not only to ambush Bedouin, but to strip dead Mamelukes of booty before
French soldiers could get to them. The
Egyptians had strapped small cannon on the backs of camels. The animals
brayed and snorted and trotted this way and that under the shouted commands
of their anxious trainers, so unsteady that the aim would prove worthless.
The river was once more thronged with the lateen-rigged feluccas of the
Muslim fleet, crammed with hooting sailors. Again we heard the clamor of
drums, horns, bugles, and tambourines, and a forest of flags, banners, and
pennants fluttered above their assembly like a vast carnival. The French
bands struck up as well, as the European infantry filed into position with
stolid efficiency from long-practiced drill, priming their weapons and fixing
bayonets. The sun sparkled on every deadly point. Regimental banners bore
streamers of past victories. Drums thundered to communicate commands. The air
was an oven, heating our lungs. Water seemed to evaporate before it could
travel from lips to throat. A hot wind was coming up out of the desert to the
west, and the sky was an ominous brown in that direction. By this
time most of the scientists and engineers had caught up with the army—even
Monge and Berthollet had come ashore—but our role in the coming showdown had
not been specified. Now General Dumas, looking even more gigantic on a huge
brown charger, came galloping by to roar a fresh command. “Donkeys,
scholars, and women to the squares! Take your place inside, you useless
asses!” I have
seldom heard more comforting words. Astiza,
Talma, and I followed a herd of scientists, French women, and livestock into
an infantry square commanded by General Louis-Antoine Desaix. He was perhaps
the army’s ablest soldier, the same age as Napoleon at twenty-nine, and one
inch shorter, even, than our little corporal. Unlike the other generals, he
was as devoted to his commander as a loyal hound. Homely, disfigured by a
saber cut, and shy of women, he seemed happiest when sleeping between the
wheels of a field piece. Now he formed his troops in such a robust square,
ten soldiers deep facing in four directions, that entering was like taking
refuge in a small fort made up entirely of human beings. I loaded my rifle
again and looked out at “By Moses
and Jupiter, I’ve never seen such splendor,” I muttered. “No wonder Bonaparte
likes war.” “Imagine
if “It will
bring better times, I hope.” Impulsively, I took and squeezed her hand. “ Surprisingly, she did not
pull away. “Yes, it is.” Once more
the army musicians struck up the “Marseillaise,” the music helping steady
everyone’s nerves. Then Napoleon rode by our square with his immediate staff,
his steed black, his hat plumed, and his gray eyes like chips of ice. I
climbed on a caisson—a two-wheeled ammunition wagon—to hear him. Word of his
wife’s infidelities had left no obvious mark, save furious concentration. Now
he pointed dramatically at the pyramids, their geometric purity wavering in
the heat as if seen through water. “Soldiers of The cheer
was eruptive. As much as the common foot soldier complained about Bonaparte
between battles, they welded to him like lovers in a fight. He knew them,
knew how they thought and bellyached and breathed, and knew how to ask them
the impossible for a bit of ribbon, a mention in a dispatch, or a promotion
to an elite unit. Then the
general leaned closer to Desaix with quieter words that some of us could hear
but which were not meant as an address to the army. “No mercy.” I felt a
sudden chill. Murad Bey,
once more the commander of the Arab army in our front, saw that Napoleon
intended to march his squares forward to bludgeon through the Arab center,
splitting the Mameluke forces so they could be destroyed piecemeal. While the
Egyptian ruler had no grasp of European tactics, he had the common sense to
try to forestall whatever the French intended by attacking first. He raised
his lance, and with their eerie, ululating cry, the Mameluke cavalry once
again charged. These slave warriors had been invincible for centuries, and the
ruling caste simply could not believe that technology was bringing its reign
to an end. This was a much larger attack than any we had yet faced, and so
many horses thundered forward that I literally could feel the quaking of the
ground beneath the caisson I had mounted. The
infantry waited with nervous confidence, knowing by now that the Mamelukes
had neither the artillery nor the musket discipline to prevail against the
French formations. Still, the enemy’s approach was furious as an avalanche.
All of us tensed. The ground shook, sand and dust erupted at the breast of
their line like oncoming surf, and lances, spears, and rifle muzzles were
brandished like fields of shaking wheat. I felt a little reckless and giddy
up on my perch, looking over the heads of the ranks before me, Astiza and
Talma looking up at me as if I were crazy, but I hadn’t seen a Mameluke
weapon yet that I felt had much chance of hitting me at any range. I raised
my own rifle and waited, watching the enemy banners ripple. Nearer and
nearer they came, the rumbling growing in volume, the Mamelukes sounding
their high, wavering cry, the French whispering not a word. The open ground
between us was being swallowed. Were we ever going to fire? I swear I could
pick out the bright colors of the enemy’s unexpected Caucasian eyes, the
grimace of their teeth, the veins of their hands, and I became impatient.
Finally, without conscious decision, I squeezed my trigger, my gun kicked,
and one of the enemy warriors pitched backward, disappearing in the stampede. It was as
if my shot were the signal to commence. Desaix cried out and the front of the
French erupted in the familiar sheet of flame. In an instant I was deaf and
the attacking cavalry went down in a crashing wave of torn bodies, screaming
horses, and thrashing hooves. Smoke and dust rolled over us. Then another
volley from the rank behind, and another, and then another. Somewhere the
field guns boomed and scythes of grapeshot whickered out. It was a storm of
lead and iron. Even those Mamelukes not hit were colliding and catapulting
over the mounts of their comrades. A furious charge had been churned into
havoc in an instant, just yards from the first French bayonets. So close
were the fallen enemy that some were hit by the burning wadding from the
European muzzles. Tiny fires started on the clothes of the dead and wounded.
I loaded and fired again too, to what effect I couldn’t tell. We were
wreathed in smoke. The
survivors wheeled away to regroup while Napoleon’s soldiers swiftly and
mechanically reloaded, every motion practiced hundreds of times. A few of the
French had fallen from Mameluke fire and these were dragged backward into the
middle of our square as the rank awkwardly reformed, sergeants beating at
slackers to force them to duty It was like a sea creature growing another
arm, impervious to fatal damage. The
Mamelukes charged again, this time trying to penetrate the side and rear
ranks of our infantry square. I’m no expert
of this time period in history, but Napoleon’s actions seemed consistent with
the facts, and his personality as it emerges in this novel also seemed to
match the historical record. Napoleon’s
Pyramids is not meant to be taken so seriously that it is without flaw,
but it provides hours of adventurous entertainment. In the spirit of meeting
those expectations, this book is highly recommended. Steve Hopkins,
May 25, 2007 |
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The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the June 2007
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Napoleon's
Pyramids.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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