Chapter 35: The Night of the Dunes

The night of June 14, 1830, came down over the peninsula of Sidi Fredj with a
cold, damp sea-wind that smelled of salt, wet wool, and the faint, sweet scent
of guncotton residue.

The great French armada had retreated to the deep, safer waters of the outer
bay, their riding lights swinging lazily in the dark like a swarm of cold stars.
But on the narrow, rocky tip of the peninsula, behind the ruined walls of the
old Ottoman fort, nearly fifteen thousand French soldiers who had managed to
land during the chaotic day were now huddled on the sand.

They were in a desperate state. They had no tents, their food was wet, and the
shallow wells they had dug in the sand yielded only a brackish, salty water that
tasted of old weed. They lay in the dunes, shivering in their light summer
trousers, their eyes wide with a quiet, terrified vigilance as they stared into
the dark.

Inside the center redoubt behind the sand wall, Amine stood with Yusuf. The
yellow light of a single oil lantern reflected on the brass casing of the
telegraph receiver on the table.

"An army that is victorious must rest, Yusuf," Amine said, his hand checking the
action of his Sabaa rifle. "But an army that has been beaten must never be
allowed to sleep. If the French spend this night in peace, their officers will
find their courage by the morning. They will clean their muskets, they will
organize their lines, and they will try the neck again tomorrow. We must keep
their nerves raw."

Yusuf adjusted his leather cartridge belt. "You want to send the Khayala to
harass their camp, Sidi?"

"No," Amine said. "A cavalry charge in the dark would be too loud, and the
French sentries would see them against the white sand. We will send the Rabaa
squads. Ten of our finest marksmen, carrying their smokeless rifles, and five of
our new 'ground-shells'—the Mina."

He pointed to a small, heavy iron cylinder that sat on the table. It was a
cast-iron shell from the Zilzal foundries, but instead of an impact fuze, it
carried a simple, spring-loaded steel hammer held back by a thin copper wire—a
trip-wire.

"We will bury these shells in the shallow sand of the dunes, two hundred yards
in front of their sentry lines," Amine explained. "We will run a fine, black
iron wire from the safety pin across the paths. When a French patrol stumbles on
the wire, the pin will be pulled, releasing the hammer to strike a copper cap.
The shell will explode, throwing a spray of gravel and sand that will wound
their legs and keep their entire camp in a state of panic."

He looked at Belkacem of the Flissa, who stood by the doorway, his long,
silver-mounted flissa sword slung across his back, his face calm and dark in the
shadow of his hood.

"Take the western dunes, Belkacem," Amine said. "Keep your shots slow,
irregular, and precise. One shot every twenty minutes, from a different position
each time. Never fire twice from the same bush. Let them believe the sand itself
is shooting at them."

Belkacem bowed his head, a faint, dangerous smile playing on his lips. "The
Flissa know the night, Sidi Amine. We will make the dunes speak to them."

The stalking in the dunes was a silent, terrifying game.

Under the cover of the wet sea-mist, Belkacem and his nine marksmen slipped
through the openings of the sand wall, their gray wool burnouses turning them
into invisible shadows as they moved through the wild sea-grass. The roar of the
surf on the outer rocks was their cover, masking the soft rustle of their boots
in the sand.

At eleven o'clock, they reached the outer perimeter of the French camp.

A French sentry, a young conscript from the Loire valley, stood behind a low
breastwork of salt-grass. His musket was held across his chest, his hands red
from the cold wind, his eyes watering as he stared into the gray fog of the
dunes. He was thinking of his mother's kitchen, of the warm bread and the sweet
cider of his home, when a faint, metallic snap sounded fifty yards to his left.

He froze, his heart beating a fast, terrified rhythm. "Who... who goes there?"

The mist did not answer.

He took three steps forward, his musket raised, his boots sinking into the loose
sand.

CRACK.

The report of the Sabaa rifle was a sharp, dry snap that was instantly swallowed
by the roar of the surf.

There was no flash, and no smoke. But the heavy lead bullet, fired by Belkacem
from three hundred yards in the pitch black, struck the young conscript
dead-center in the chest. He fell without a sound, his musket slipping from his
fingers into the soft sand.

"Sentry down!" a voice screamed from the French camp. "To arms!"

Within seconds, the entire western wing of the French camp was in chaos.

The soldiers leapt from their sandy hollows, their muskets raised, firing a
frantic, blind volley into the dark dunes.

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.

A massive cloud of white, sulfurous smoke erupted from their lines, completely
blinding them. They fired at the shadows, at the wind, and at the shape of the
rocks, wasting hundreds of rounds of ammunition on the empty sand.

When the shooting stopped, the silence that returned to the dunes was heavier
than before.

Twenty minutes passed. The French soldiers, their nerves raw, their bodies
shivering from the cold damp of the smoke, slowly began to lie back down in the
sand, their hands still clutching their muskets.

CRACK.

A second shot rang out from the eastern dunes, three hundred yards from the
first position.

A French sergeant, who had just stood up to check the sentry line, spun and
fell, his shako rolling into the surf, his blood turning the white sand dark.

"They are behind us!" a soldier screamed, panic breaking through his voice.
"They are in the camp!"

Again, the French opened fire, their blind volleys throwing a useless storm of
lead into the dark, their own smoke clouds trapping them in a suffocating,
yellow fog of sulfur.

At midnight, a French patrol of five men was sent out to clear the eastern
dunes. They moved in a tight line, their bayonets fixed, their eyes wide as they
stepped through the low scrub.

The lead soldier's boot caught on a fine, black iron wire that ran between two
juniper bushes.

CLINK.

With a sharp, cracking roar, the Mina ground-shell exploded.

The blast was not large, but it was violent. The cast-iron casing shattered into
hundreds of small fragments, throwing a spray of white-hot iron and gravel into
the legs of the patrol. Three of the soldiers fell, screaming in pain as the
sharp fragments cut through their trousers, while the remaining two retreated to
the camp at a frantic run, their weapons discarded.

"They have mines!" the word ran through the French camp like a physical disease.
"The sand is full of explosives! Do not move from your holes!"

For the rest of the night, the French army did not sleep.

Every thirty minutes, a single, silent shot would ring out from a different
section of the dunes, dropping a sentry or an officer who had dared to stand.
Every rustle of the wind through the sea-grass, every shift of the sand under
the tide, was met by a frantic, panicked volley from the French lines.

By the first gray light of the dawn of June 15, the thirty-seven thousand men of
the French expeditionary force were exhausted.

Their eyes were red and bloodshot from the lack of sleep and the yellow sulfur
smoke; their limbs were stiff from the cold damp of the wet sand; and their
spirits were broken by the terrifying, invisible enemy who killed without smoke,
without warning, and without mercy.

Amine stood on the high parapet of the fort, his telescope focused on the French
camp. He saw the haggard, defeated faces of the soldiers, the listless posture
of the sentries, and the deep, silent fear that had settled over the entire
peninsula.

"They are tired, Yusuf," Amine said, his voice quiet, carrying the absolute
certainty of his victory. "Their hunger is deep, and their water is dry. Today,
we will give them no peace."