Chapter 30: The Wall of Sand

The first flat-bottomed French landing boat touched the sand of Sidi Fredj with
a soft, wet scrape at exactly six o'clock in the morning.

Within minutes, the shallow water of the bay was alive with the movement of
eighty boats. The elite first division of the French army, under the command of
General Berthezène, began to disembark.

The soldiers, dressed in their bright blue wool coats and white trousers,
splashed through the knee-deep water, their heavy leather packs held high, their
Charleville smoothbore muskets slung over their shoulders. They scrambled up the
wet sand of the beach, their officers shouting commands, their horn-players
sounding the steady, rhythmic notes of the assembly.

Through his achromatic telescope, Amine watched them from behind the center
redoubt.

The French moved with the flawless, geometric discipline of an army that had
conquered Europe. They did not run; they formed into tight, deep columns of
companies, thirty men wide and ten men deep, aligning their ranks under the
direction of their gold-epauletted officers. To them, the silence of the dunes
was proof that their landing was a complete surprise.

"They are forming the vanguard, Sidi," Yusuf whispered, his hand on the
elevating screw of the center Zilzal cannon. "They are preparing to march across
the neck toward the Staoueli road."

"Let them gather," Amine said, his voice flat and cold. "They must be
concentrated. If they are spread out across the dunes, our artillery will lose
its efficiency."

He watched the French column grow.

Nearly four thousand men had now landed on the narrow spit of the peninsula.
They were packed tight on the sand, a solid, blue-and-white mass of infantry,
less than eight hundred yards from the concealed sand wall. At their head,
General Berthezène himself stood on a small mound of sand, his pocket telescope
focused on the empty road ahead, his staff officers gathered around him.

The French drums began to roll—a dry, rhythmic rum-dum-rum that carried clearly
over the roar of the surf.

"Sights at eight hundred yards," Amine said.

Yusuf adjusted the brass screw. The muzzle of the gold-bronze Zilzal rose, its
gold-bronze lip aligning with the center of the blue French column.

"The targets are set, Sidi," Lounes said, his hand holding the copper percussion
primer of the vent-hole.

Amine raised his hand.

The French column began to move. Their boots crunched in the dry sand, their
long line of bayonets glittering in the morning sun like a forest of steel
needles. They were entering the narrowest point of the neck—the bottleneck.

Amine brought his hand down.

"Fire," Amine said.

Yusuf pulled the lanyard.

BOOM.

The six Zilzal cannons fired almost simultaneously, their thunderous, cracking
roar shaking the sand wall and throwing a massive cloud of clean, white smoke
into the air. The gold-bronze barrels recoiled three paces on their oak
carriages, their iron brakes biting into the wooden platforms.

At eight hundred yards, the six cylindrical-conical shells, spinning down the
rifled bores under the force of two pounds of glazed powder, reached the French
column in less than two seconds.

The impact was catastrophic.

The shells did not bounce through the sand like solid iron balls. The moment
their brass nose-cones struck the packed ranks of the infantry, the copper
safety pins sheared. The internal plungers struck the percussion caps, and the
shells exploded.

Six brilliant, orange-red flashes of light erupted from the center of the blue
column, accompanied by a series of deafening, hollow CRACKS that drowned out the
sound of the surf.

The effect of the pre-grooved iron casings was devastating. Six geysers of wet
sand, red wool, shattered muskets, and iron shrapnel boiled into the air. The
blast tore through the packed ranks, turning a sixty-meter section of the column
into a smoking crater of blood and dust. More than eighty men were killed or
mangled in the first second of the detonation, the sharp, jagged iron fragments
cutting through wool coats and bone with terrible force.

The French column froze, the dry drums stopping instantly.

Before the officers could even scream a command, the smoke from the first volley
had cleared, and the six Zilzal crews had already reloaded.

"Load!" Yusuf's voice roared.

Shhh-thunk.

The second wave of shells slid down the rifled bores.

"Fire!"

BOOM.