Читать книгу Brothers in Arms - Iain Gale, Iain Gale - Страница 8

Looking across the broad sweep of the battlefield, away to his right, Steel realized with an unpleasant start that the Grenadiers and a sizeable portion of the battalion companies of Farquharson’s regiment had got themselves ahead of the rest of the Allied line to their flank, which here mainly consisted of Hessian and Hanoverian foot, and which appeared to have been pushed back some way by the French. It would only be a matter of minutes now, he thought, before the enemy came on again. He could see the grey-coated Frenchmen pouring through the village to his right and centre, and it seemed that if they continued their advance they might push the entire Allied line back into the Scheldt.

Hansam saw it too. ‘We appear to have exceeded ourselves, Jack.’

‘Quite so, Henry. And I wonder what the Duke intends to do about it. We’ve a marsh and the river to our rear. We cannot retire. The left certainly looks strong enough, but look over there.’

He pointed, and both men stared up the rising ground to the right where a large body of scarlet-and-gold-clad enemy horse was advancing steadily behind their infantry. Just then a commotion from some distance to their rear, followed by the crack of splintering timber and screams, made both men turn to look. At first Steel thought that the French must have succeeded in shelling the flimsy pontoon bridges, but then he realized that it was sheer weight of numbers that had brought two of them crashing down. As he and Hansam watched, hundreds of Dutch infantry were thrown into the Scheldt in full kit, losing weapons and equipment and doing their best not to be sucked under the waters. More than a few did not succeed.

Steel was thoughtful. ‘Now Marlborough will have to do something, Henry. This is going to hold up his plans. We’ll need to hold them here. It’s my guess that he intends to turn the French right using the Dutch. But now he’s going to be held up. The French need time. If they can find it and use it then they’ll turn our right flank and not we theirs. D’you see, Henry?’

Hansam nodded. ‘So we’re going to have to make sure that they have no time. There’s nothing for it but to stand – here. Against whatever the French throw at us. That lot included.’

He pointed again to where the French horse were moving steadily down the hill to their right. They had almost reached the line of the small stream that joined the one along which the battalion had taken up position. Within seconds it seemed they would be upon them.

Steel turned to to Slaughter. ‘They’re coming, Jacob. Prepare to receive cavalry.’

The command was echoed in shouts through and around the battalion, and Steel was aware of the horror that all infantrymen held in common of facing charging cavalry. It was the stuff of nightmares. But he knew, too, from his own experience in the Northern Wars fighting with the Swedes against the Tsar, that given the right frame of mind infantry could beat off a cavalry attack. Nor was it in his plan to use the device of forming a square. That would not be necessary and he knew that Frampton would think likewise. With the new muskets and the platoon firing system, it must surely be possible to defeat the cavalry by musketry alone. In any case the cavalry were too laden to come at them very fast. No more than a gallop usually. It would be that last crucial, critical pause in the volley firing that always did for the infantry. But firing by platoons had made that a thing of the past. All they had to do once they had fired was to make sure that they recovered their muskets sufficiently fast to charge bayonets at chest height. Then he knew they would break any cavalry.

Nevertheless, his heart trembled as he gave the command: ‘Prepare for cavalry.’

Automatically the right half-company formed into three ranks as before, the front rank embedding their musket butts into the earth. It had begun to drizzle now and the earth was visibly softer. It had also become more difficult to see across the battlefield, and as he peered towards the oncoming cavalry it seemed to Steel as if they had stopped. He rubbed at his eyes and looked again, then turned to Williams.

‘Tom. Look over there. Look at the enemy horse and tell me what you can see.’

There was a pause while the young lieutenant took in what lay before him. ‘I see enemy cavalry, sir. A great many of them. Impossible to tell the regiment with certainty. But they look like the Maison du Roi. Louis’ own horse guards. Good God, sir. They’re the finest cavalry in all France.’

‘Good. Well done, Tom. But tell me now, what are they doing, your fine cavalry?’

Williams looked again. ‘Why, nothing, sir. They appear to have come to a halt.’

Steel stared. It was true. They had stopped. This was a new and welcome madness in a battle of big surprises. Cavalry, bearing down in vastly superior numbers upon exhausted and outgunned infantry, did not halt. They pushed on, gained whatever impetus they could, drew their swords and went hell for leather at their target. They did not stop.

He estimated their range. A hundred, perhaps a hundred and fifty yards. What the devil had stopped them? Who had given the order?

Slaughter came to his side. ‘Sir, shall we give them a volley?’

‘No, Sar’nt. Hold your fire. It may be a trick. They can cover that distance in just under a minute and they may think that we’ll spend our firepower before they get to us. I can’t fathom what they’re doing. What d you think, Sar’nt?’

Slaughter grinned. ‘You know me, sir. I don’t think. Not unless I’m ordered to.’

‘Don’t be funny with me, Jacob. What d’you think they’re about?’

‘Well, if you really want my opinion, sir, just the same as you. That’s what I was asking myself. Why stop? You’ve got enough men to take out a brigade, let alone our little battalion. What in hell’s name’s stopping them?’

It might have amused Slaughter to know that at precisely that moment the same question was being asked by the French commander in chief. For the past half hour Marshal Vendôme, sweating and filthy after having gone in himself on foot to take control of the desperate infantry fight in the centre of the French line around the village of Groenewald, had been recovering his humour on a tree stump on the edge of the village of Lede to the rear of the French position.

It was fast approaching seven o’clock when he got up and turned to his secretary.

‘We’re winning, du Capistron. Winning. We’ve pushed them out of both villages and down towards the river. I thought Marlborough was supposed to be an intellectual. To have studied the great generals. He can’t have learnt much. He’s got a marsh and a river to his back. He’s trapped, du Capistron. We’ve got him. And now we must follow up. Speed is everything. Lose that and we risk losing the battle. Grasp the moment and we win.’

He walked past the last few houses in the village and stood above the stream that ran along the foot of the hill. It was becoming increasingly hard to see now through the rain, but gazing down at the left wing he thought he could pick out the shapes of men and horses on the dead ground before the village of Roygem. Several squadrons of them. Presumably, Burgundy had left them as a reserve when he had attacked Marlborough’s right. Vendôme continued to look, and as his eyes became accustomed to the light he saw that there were a great many more men on the plain than he had thought at first. Considerably more. He counted them off and it became evident that what he could see were not merely a few squadrons but the entire wing sitting there, drawn up in neat battle lines as they had been all day.

Vendôme shook his head in disbelief and shouted to du Capistron, who ran to join his master: ‘What in God’s name are they doing? Why hasn’t he moved? The idiot! He should have taken them into the Allied right. I sent that order over an hour ago. Didn’t Burgundy get my order? Didn’t he, man? Take it again. He must attack! What are they doing there? They’re not moving. Are they mad? Quick, write this down.’

But even as he was dictating the order Vendôme became instinctively aware that it was already too late. The moment had gone, and the opportunity was lost. Looking out across the valley he could see Marlborough’s right wing strengthened now with two full regiments of cavalry positioned hard against his vulnerable right flank. The moment had gone.

He waved to du Capistron. ‘No, no, don’t bother. Don’t waste your time. It’s too late. That ass has missed the mark. I only hope that he hasn’t lost us the battle.’

Steel and Slaughter were still staring at the motionless cavalry when another horseman appeared riding along the left of the line in a fashion so foolhardy that it proclaimed his utter inexperience on a battlefield.

Slaughter suppressed his laughter. ‘Aye aye, sir. Looks like we’ve got company. Silly bugger’ll get hisself killed, riding along a line like that. If the Frenchies don’t have a pop at ’im then like as not one of our own lads will. That type of officer there’s what you’d call a liability, sir. If you don’t mind my saying so.’

‘You’d do best to keep your thoughts to yourself, Jacob. But you’re quite right. The young idiot’s only going to draw their fire.’

In response, it seemed, a French gun on the hill above Schaerken opened up with a round of ball and, missing the tempting target of the horseman, sent its projectile into the ranks of a company of musketeers, killing several of them.

Slaughter sighed. ‘What’d I tell you?’

The man pulled up his horse directly in front of Steel, who saw that he was a young lieutenant from Farquharson’s number three company, Sir James’s wife’s well-provided nephew, who rather than advance at the head of a company as a battalion officer had been taken on by the colonel as his personal aide, with a view to joining the General Staff. Steel had not encountered him before, but he had heard that the young man had already run up a prodigious mess bill in attempting to win over the affections of his brother officers. It was not Steel’s way, and he wondered whether the lad was really cut out for soldiering.

The lieutenant reined in, patted his horse and stared down with a supercilious air. You’d be better suited to the Royal Household, thought Steel. This battlefield is no place for a boy like you.

The lieutenant touched his hat in salute and spoke in a clipped, courtly accent. ‘Sir. Lieutenant Mowbray, with a message from Colonel Farquharson. Captain Steel, the battalion is about to advance. Your company will form the van. We are ordered to take the hill.’

Steel nodded. ‘Thank you, Lieutenant. I shall advance the company, and please be so good as to return my compliments to the Colonel.’

Apparently satisfied, the lieutenant turned, and as he rode back to the colonel Steel looked at Slaughter, barely managing to contain his laughter until the young man was out of earshot.

‘Well, that’s us told. Jacob, hold your tongue. Silly young sprat. He’d better get that head of his a sight lower if he wants to keep it attached to his body. Come on.’

Again the men changed formation and then, in a steady line, three ranks deep and two hundred men wide, the entire battalion began to advance up the hill towards the French. To their left another six battalions followed suit, while to the rear two identical lines of three ranks’ depth came on at fifty-pace intervals. Argyle rode in the centre of the huge brigade column, shouting encouragement above the wind and rain.

Out in front of his half-company of Grenadiers, crossing the shallow stream of the Diepenbeek, Steel turned to Williams. ‘This’ll give them a surprise, eh, Tom?’

‘We’ll send them back to Paris, sir.’

Steel laughed and nodded, although, while he could almost see the incredulous French faces, in his heart he knew that this would be no easy victory, and he waited for the first shot to strike.

As much as Steel presumed that their assault might take the French by surprise, even he would have been astonished had he known the full extent of the trap about to be sprung on Marshal Vendôme. For while the French before them were taken aback that their hard-pressed enemy should counterattack, it was their comrades to the right who had the greater surprise. As Argyle’s brigade pressed forward, to their left from the very top of the Boser Couter down the hillside streamed battalion after battalion of grey-coated infantry with black-cuirassed cavalry protecting their flanks. They were the Danes and the Dutch. The Scandinavian cavalrymen of Claude-Frédéric Tserclaes, Count Tilly, and sixteen Dutch battalions under the command of a Swede, Count Oxenstein. Under Marlborough’s direction and the command of the young Prince of Orange fighting in his first battle, they had skirted the southwest side of the Boser Couter, hidden from French sight, and now the moment of reckoning had arrived. It was eight o’clock, and as they descended the slope, slippery from the recent rain, struggling to keep their lines dressed, Orange’s men found to their intense pleasure that they were looking directly into the flank and rear of the entire French army.

But Steel was oblivious to their coming triumph. His thoughts were fixed only on the sight that lay before him: a long line of enemy infantry, with levelled muskets. The French opened fire on Farquharson’s battalion at seventy paces. One of the balls struck Lieutenant James Mowbray in the right side of his jaw and passed out through his left cheekbone, shattering it and taking away half his face. As he fell from his horse his last mortal thoughts were not of the agony he might be in, for he was too shocked to feel the pain, but how much it might cost him to have his tailor make up a new coat. The same volley felled some forty men of the battalion. Not all were dead and some were only lightly wounded, but it was enough to make the company officers yell to dress the ranks and for the sergeants to push with their halberds at the reluctant redcoats, urging them on into the storm of lead. Steel, at the head of the Grenadiers, felt a musket ball touch his calf and saw that it had torn away part of the leather of his boot and grazed the skin. He swore out loud, not from having been hit, but because his immediate concern was where on earth in Flanders he was going to find another pair of boots as comfortable as these that had carried him down the Rhine to Blenheim and through the mud of Ramillies. Bugger the formal firefight, he thought. In for a penny, in for a pound. Another firefight might decimate the French but there were sure to be more behind, he reasoned. The only real way to take this hill was going to be to fight for it hand to hand. He looked to his rear and yelled: ‘Charge! Grenadiers, with me.’

Then they were running in. Steel sensed the momentum close behind him. There were thirty paces still to cover and the French were loading too fast. Twenty, ten more, and then they were on them just as they loosed off their volley. Steel’s target was smaller than him, swarthy and moustachioed, with black hair and a gold sleeper ring in his ear. He fell on him with all his force, and as the blade of Steel’s sword drove deep into the man’s chest his finger tightened on the trigger of his musket and it exploded beside Steel’s left ear, firing its ball high in the air and almost deafening him. Along the line it was a similar experience, most of the Grenadiers having managed to close just in time. A few unfortunates, though, were too slow and met the muzzles of the French guns at point-blank range, to be torn to pieces by the impact of the bullet, their dead flesh scorched by the flash. Steel drew his blade from the dying man and ran into the second rank. Parrying a bayonet, he cut at the man before him, and, feeling his sword find bone, moved on. The third-rank man, seeing him, turned and fled past a bewildered officer who quickly followed his example.

Now they were through the line, and apart from isolated groups of men locked in combat with Farquharson’s redcoats the French unit had disintegrated. Steel saw a score of them surrendering under the merciful eye of one of the other company commanders. He looked about him to gauge his losses, but had hardly begun to make a count when he was aware of another body of men directly to their front. As Steel had feared, behind the first line lay a second, and as he watched they prepared to fire a volley at the recovering British. Steel braced himself.

‘Sar’nt. Prepare the company to take fire from fifty paces front. Grenadiers, reform. Mister Williams, to me.’

As the company attempted to reassemble itself as best it could, Steel realized that across in the enemy lines all was not as it should be. He watched, intrigued, as several of the French officers stopped in the very motion of issuing their commands for musketry drill and began to look across the field to their right. He followed their gaze, and it was at that moment that he caught sight of the Danish and Dutch infantry and horse advancing down the great hill and heading directly for the French right flank. The French had seen them too, and suddenly the men who a few seconds before had been ready to take the field were thrown into confusion. Officers and sergeants shouted commands to wheel round and face the new threat. Others, though, issued orders to retreat, and soon what had been an orderly line broke into no more than a panic-stricken rabble. A few of the men, veterans who knew that often their best defence might lie in attack, stood their ground and continued to go through the motions of loading their weapons.

As Steel looked on he saw a tall Frenchman raise his musket and take careful aim directly at him. There was nothing to do but stand and hope that the man’s skill was not as sound as his nerve. There was a crack and a flash and a moment later Steel felt a thump in his left arm. He knew instantly that he had been hit, and quite well. Wounds were nothing new to him but the unexpectedness and impact of this musket ball made him reel, and he fell momentarily against one of the Grenadiers, Mackay, clutching at his shoulder for support. The man turned to help him and, seeing the wound, yelled across to where Slaughter and Williams were standing staring at the unfolding drama.

‘Steady there, sir. Officer down!’

Williams, breaking away from the spectacle, came running, and Steel, dazed by the shock, was just aware that the French before them, including the lucky bastard who had shot him, were turning to run, panicked by the rapid advance of the Dutch. He turned, white-faced, to the lieutenant.

‘Mister Williams, follow up our attack. Get on, Tom. Get after them. Take the half-company. I’ll find you. Follow up, but don’t overreach yourself. And look out for their cavalry.’

Hardly had Steel got the words out before he sank down against a hedgerow. He was aware of Taylor kneeling beside him and removing his stock, trying to staunch the bleeding in his arm. Steel turned to him and babbled as the corporal tied the makeshift tourniquet, ‘Taylor. Matt Taylor. Corporal Taylor. Well done, Taylor. Thank you.’

He knew that it was vitally important that he should not pass out. He waited for the pain, but still it did not come. He grabbed at Taylor’s arm and pulled him down to whisper in his ear: ‘Go on, Matt. Go with them. I’ll find you.’

Taylor smiled at him and laid him back gently against the hedge. ‘With respect, sir, I don’t think you will. And if you want my opinion, sir, they’ll not be needing my help.’

Steel looked towards the retreating French and saw that the slope of the Boser Couter was now awash with a sea of Dutch and Danish grey. And then the pain kicked in.

A mile and a half back from the carnage, at an inn in the village square of Huysse, on its pretty wooded hill where the alder trees grew in profusion and where on any other day than this the birds sang in their branches, Marshal Vendôme, spattered in blood and filth, paced the cobbles and kicked a loose stone across the ground. The village church clock rang the half after eight, and through the dim light of the wet evening both sun and moon hung together in the darkening sky, looking down on the rivulets of blood that coloured the twin streams of the plain of Oudenarde and flowed into the Scheldt.

A party of horsemen trotted quickly into the square, the hot breath of their winded mounts heavy against the evening air. Leaving his horse with a groom, the Duke of Burgundy walked across to the Marshal.

‘We cannot hold them. The army is completely surrounded. Only the darkness can save us now. I—’

He was cut short by Vendôme. ‘Why did you not execute my order? At five o’clock I sent you an order to take your wing – your entire wing, thirty thousand men – and attack the Allied right. Why did you disobey me?’

Burgundy replied, ‘The Duc de Puységur informed me that the area across which I was to advance was a morass. He told me that the Allies could not advance across it and that neither should we.’

‘But I told you to advance.’

‘I sent word by messenger.’

‘I received no such message.’

‘I assure you—’

‘Assure me nothing, My Lord. Your Royal Highness must not forget that you came to this army on condition that you would obey me. By what right and in what name did you ignore my order?’

Burgundy shook his head. ‘Marshal Vendôme, do not forget yourself. You may be a Marshal of France but I am a Prince of the Blood.’

Vendôme fixed him with his eyes: ‘But here, My Lord, it is my blood that matters. That and the blood of those men out there – dying for you and the King. We cannot now win the day, My Lord. We must retire and regroup. All that we can hope to do now is to recommence this battle tomorrow.’

There was a respectful cough. Vendôme turned towards it. ‘D’Evreux?’

‘Sire, if I may be so bold. I do not truly believe that the army is of sufficient strength and constitution to be in any situation to fight tomorrow. Or indeed the day after that.’

Du Capistron said, ‘Sire, we have lost the battle. We have lost the army.’

Burgundy muttered, ‘I didn’t lose the army. It was Puységur’s fault. He lost the battle.’

Vendôme said nothing but looked at each man for a few moments before moving on to the next. When he had done with all of them he walked alone towards one of the half-timbered houses and pressed his hand hard against the wall. Then he turned and spoke: ‘This is a sad day for France. And a sad day for all of us … Very well, gentlemen. It would seem that you all wish to retire. So be it.’ He turned to Burgundy. ‘And I know that you, Monseigneur, have long wished to do so.’ Before the Prince of France could give voice to his indignation, Vendôme turned back to his staff. ‘Send word to what commanders we have left: Sauve qui peut. They are to make for the Ghent – Bruges canal. Come, gentlemen. Tonight we retire on Ghent. Why should we delay? To be sure, we have nothing else left to lose.’

Slaughter found Steel in the shade of a shattered tree, binding up the hole in his arm. ‘You all right, sir? Looks nasty, that. You should have someone take a proper look at it. Someone better qualified than Matt Taylor, maybe.’

‘Matt’s a good physician, Jacob, as good as any London quack doctor. Don’t fuss. I’ve had worse.’ He struggled to his feet and swayed unsteadily. ‘I’ll be back in the fight in a moment.’ He looked around himself at the field, empty save for the dead and dying and discarded weapons. ‘Where the devil is the company?’

‘Don’t you know, sir? The Frenchies have surrendered. Battle’s over. We’ve won.’

Steel leant backwards onto the hedge. ‘Well, thank God for that, then. I don’t think we could have managed that again, Jacob. So where are the men, Sar’nt?’

Slaughter produced a hand from behind his back and Steel saw that it contained a crumpled and torn piece of white and gold cloth. He reached out to touch it and felt silk and embroidery and gold wire. His face split open in a wide grin. ‘Tell me that’s what I think it is, Jacob.’

‘It is that, sir. That’s a French colour. Took it myself in the chase, with Mister Williams.’

‘Does the Colonel know?’

‘Not yet, sir.’

‘All in good time, then. Well done, Jacob. The regiment’s honour can come later. This is the Grenadiers’ moment. It’s their colour for now. Your colour, our colour, as much as the regiment’s.’ He noticed that Slaughter had a sheepish look about him. Steel recognized it of old. ‘Got something else to tell me, Jacob?’

‘Well, sir, you recall that as we advanced we passed a village that we’d retaken from the French and that in that village there was an inn.’

Steel looked at him. ‘Yes … vaguely.’

‘Well, sir, it wasn’t.’

‘What?’

‘An inn, sir. It wasn’t an inn.’

‘Well then, what was it?’

‘Well, sir, do you recall that you made a promise to the men?’

It came back to Steel. ‘Ah, yes. The inn. The rum, or beer, or what you will. What was it I promised them exactly?’

Slaughter grinned. ‘Well, I do remember you saying that they could ’ave anything as was on the menu in the inn, sir. That inn at least that we thought was an inn but what really wasn’t an inn.’

‘Yes, yes. Oh Christ. I did, didn’t I?’

Slaughter nodded his head. ‘That you did, sir. An’ that being the case and the inn not being an inn …’

Slaughter was interrupted by the bizarre sight of one of the Grenadiers, an Irishman named Mulligan, chasing a woman across the battlefield. Steel and Slaughter stared at them for a moment until they vanished from sight. Then Steel spoke. ‘What was that? Was that a woman?’

‘Well, it’s good to see that you’ve still got your senses, sir.’

‘Jacob, you’re not telling me something.’

More women appeared, a party of three this time, pursued by two red-coated musketeers. They walked arm in arm as they passed Steel and Slaughter, whom they ignored, and it was clear from their laughter that they were not entirely sober. Their faces were black with powder soot, below which it was still possible to detect traces of rouge. Their voluminous clothes hung loosely about them, in one case to the point of leaving little to the imagination.

Steel shook his head and wondered whether he was delirious. ‘Jacob, what the devil are such women doing on a battlefield? This is no place for a lady.’

‘But these women, sir, if you’ll excuse me, they ain’t no ladies. That’s what I was trying to tell you, sir.’

‘No, Sar’nt. Let me guess who they are and why they’re here.’

‘Well, it seems that we’ve just taken their home, sir.’

‘Their home. The inn, I suppose?’

‘Right first time, sir. The inn as we supposed it might be. In effect, sir, it’s what you might call a house of ill repute. A bordello. Reckon that the girls must’ve heard that soldiers were coming and thought it might be good for their business, and then when the battle started it was too late to run, so they hid in the cellar.’

‘Good God. You’d better make bloody sure that no more of the men see them.’

‘Well, thing is, sir, it’s a bit late for that.’

‘I’ll have any man who so much as handles one of those women flogged in front of the battalion.’

‘Wouldn’t do, sir.’

‘No?’

‘No, sir. Seeing as you promised the men anything that was on the menu at the “inn”, so to speak.’

‘I did, didn’t I?’

‘You did, sir.’

‘Christ almighty, Jacob. The British army wins a glorious victory, and what part does my company play in it? We liberate a bloody brothel!’

‘And we’ve taken a colour, sir.’

Steel looked a the crestfallen sergeant. He knew that there was only one way out. ‘You know that I’m a man of my word, Sar’nt.’

‘Loyal, sir. That’s you through and through. Loyal.’

‘Well, make damn sure that no one else hears about it – Major Frampton or the colonel. And before they enjoy themselves at my expense they can damn well get busy collecting weapons. God knows there are enough of them.’

‘Very good, sir. The men’ll be well pleased.’

‘No one, Sar’nt. No one’s to know. And if any of them catches the pox I’ll have them out of the company. They can decide what risks they want to take.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And you’d better have Mister Williams take that colour to the rear once the men have seen it. Tell him to find Marlborough and to tell him which regiment took it. And, Jacob, be sure to tell him to say that it was Captain Steel’s company.’

If Steel had thought that his trophy might have been presented to the Duke in splendid isolation, he was wrong. A little to the east and rear of the final position of Farquharson’s Grenadiers, Marlborough stood at the centre of a small group of officers, flanked by Prince Eugene, who had commanded the right wing throughout the battle. They were gazing at something on the ground at the Captain General’s feet: a pile of French colours to which every few minutes others were being added.

Cadogan smiled and knelt to touch the silk of one of the captured banners before standing and turning to the Duke. ‘A victory, Your Grace. And, may I say, a victory like no other. Something new for London to shout about. And what an honour for the Queen. I am informed that the enemy have lost fifteen thousand men all told, perhaps as many as twenty. Ten thousand more, they say, have deserted and run for France. On our part we have taken only three thousand casualties, perhaps a thousand killed. It was a day well won, your Grace.’