Steel gasped. ‘Oh Christ in heaven. How in hell’s name?’
He didn’t have to say anything more. The beleaguered garrison was making a sortie against the attack. It was any besieging soldier’s worst nightmare. The enemy allowed you to expose yourself in the open, picked off as many as he could, then, feeling sufficiently confident, counterattacked in strength.
Continuing to advance, and followed steadily by his men, Steel watched as the white flood built to battalion strength, then as still more came on. There must be thousands of them, he thought, enough to easily outnumber the attackers.
‘Keep going, lads. We can take them. They’re just putting on a show. They know they’re beaten.’
In truth he did not believe his own words. The best the British could now hope for would be to stand their ground and trust that the French counterattack petered out. Otherwise, even if they escaped with their lives, they would surely lose all the gains that they had made in the last few minutes and for which many men had died. It was madness, but there was no alternative.
Steel chose his moment with great care. ‘Halt. Make ready.’
They would meet the French attack head on with a solid volley. He was aware that the other five companies of the regiment would still be advancing in their wake but trusted that when they saw the turn of events they too would stop. Indeed if the adjutant or Colonel Farquharson had enough nous they might even be able to join the Grenadiers in the line and give the enemy a really bloody nose before they had a chance to close. For now, though, during the all-important first volleys his men and the Grenadiers from the other regiments to his right and left would be on their own. Slowly the gap between the advancing lines of red- and white-clad soldiers grew less and less. At fifty paces they stopped.
‘Make ready. Fire by platoons.’ He paused. ‘Present. Fire.’
The first of the volleys rang out from the British ranks, followed by another and then another along the line. It was met almost simultaneously by an explosion of fire from the French, which although more instantly murderous was soon over, while the red ranks continued to pour it on. Steel saw white-clad Frenchmen fall in numbers but was also aware of gaps appearing in his own line. Slaughter pushed and pulled at the men, and the drummers dragged out the dead. Another French volley, and the rippling fire of the Grenadiers continued. The French did not break and run, as Steel had hoped they would, and as the smoke cleared he saw why. Behind the two ranks of the enemy regiment to his front, in which there were now significant gaps, another unit had appeared to reinforce it, and as he watched the front regiment split in four and allowed the sections of the fresh unit to come through and form a new and untarnished front line.
Christ, he thought, they’ve got us. He realized that there was no way to win this firefight. It galled Steel that it had happened so quickly, but if there was one lesson he had learnt in this war it was to know when the time had come to concede. And that time was now. There were just too many of them.
‘Sar’nt, have the men retire. Fall back. Fall back to the trench, lads.’
Slaughter intoned in turn, ‘Steady. Keep it steady now. Don’t turn your backs to them. I’ll shoot any man I see turning away from the enemy. Fall back, slowly.’
They had reached the parapet now, and the French had halted some fifty paces away. Now they in turn were falling back towards the city. Every few paces they would loose off a ragged volley, but the bullets made little impact. One of the Grenadiers was caught on the cheek and cursed as he wiped away the blood. But just as the last few of his men were climbing down after him into the trench, Steel was aware of a more powerful volley.
There was a cry. ‘Man down.’
Steel looked around. He saw Hansam clutching a wounded arm, Williams panting with exhaustion and Slaughter counting in the men. He peered over the parapet and saw that the French had turned now and were marching at double time back towards their defences. All the men were back in the trench now and the unlucky last-minute casualty had been dragged in with them.
‘Sarnt, who is it? See if Matt Taylor can patch him up.’
Slaughter shook his head: ‘’Fraid he can’t, sir. It
is
Taylor, sir. He’s dead.’
The week following the attack passed slowly. Surely, thought Steel, there must be some end to this stalemate? He had been astonished by what had happened – their failure to get as far as the breach and the apparently unaffected French. He had been dismayed too by their casualties. The company had lost a score killed and wounded in the brief fight, including Matt Taylor. His loss was sorely felt throughout the company. He had been hugely popular, not only for his skill with wounds, but for his cheerful good humour and sound good sense. For Steel in particular it was a dreadful loss. Taylor had been one of his originals, with him in this war since the outbreak. Indispensable, apparently immortal. Steel had lost not only one of his men, he had lost a friend and a soul mate.
With spirits low, it was vital to raise morale. The men spent three days when not fighting in games of cricket organized by Tom Williams. Steel himself took a part in one. It was not a great success, as the mud was still soft and the ball had no bounce. Still, it kept morale higher than it might have been, and it was always good for the men to see him at play. Particularly with them. But such distractions were not always possible.
On the sixth day after the attack Steel could be found sitting in a damp hollow within the trench. The rain was falling in sheets and he had wrapped himself in his cloak and had his hat pulled down hard on his head. Beside him sat Hansam, similarly clad. The Grenadiers lay about the trench in various attitudes. Some were asleep. Some could not sleep, despite their evident state of exhaustion. A few played cards. All were wet, cold and miserable. All were impatient for action. Having been sitting with his eyes shut for some minutes, at last Steel spoke.
‘It would not be so bad if we were given some notion of when we might go in again. The problem, Henry, always lies in the not knowing. Don’t you agree?’
‘Yes. Always. But, Jack, surely too much information is a bad thing. Tell the men too much, tell them the facts, and we’d have a mutiny on our hands. Still, it would be nice to know how long we have.’
There was nothing worse for a soldier, thought Steel, than boredom. It ate into the soul and gnawed away at the subconscious fears they all harboured, fears of death and mutilation. And a siege was the very worst place for such fears. Every day the same routine. Missiles flying overhead from both sides reminding you that the instruments of your potential destruction were always close at hand, that any day might be your last. He would rather have led a forlorn hope than sit here, like this, day after day, hour on hour, waiting for death. Attempting to divert his mind, he had given much thought to the matter of his mission in Paris. Had relived every moment, from his arrival in the city to his ignominious departure. He did not linger, however, over the memory of his terrifying interview with Malbec and the Marquise. He wondered how Simpson had got on, whether the odious Gabriel had been ‘disposed of’ by the Kaiser’s men, and not least where his brother might now be and whether anyone had discovered his complicity in Steel’s escape.
Chiefly, though, his mind was occupied with the wish to know whether he had succeeded, and it was on this that he was thinking when he was roused by the sound of approaching footsteps, or rather splashes, for the mud in the bottom of the trench had turned to filthy slurry as it filled up with water as the level within the ground grew daily. Most of the tunnels had been flooded, and the mining activities had been temporarily suspended on both sides. Which, he felt, was a blessing. At least they would not all be blown sky high without notice. Steel looked up to see who their visitor might be and was greeted by the sight of a young officer. The man’s cloak and hat hid both rank and unit, but Steel guessed from his fresh demeanour and step that he must be a runner from the brigade command.
He stopped and greeted Steel with a smart bow. Steel struggled to his feet and turned away to shake the rain from his clothes.
‘Orders, sir, from General Webb. Your men are to become part of a converged battalion of grenadiers to accompany the general as part of a force to escort a wagon train of supplies.’
Steel knew Webb. He was a sound commander who had led a brigade at Blenheim and now had command of a division. This seemed a curious task for such a man.
‘Supplies? From where? Brussels?’
‘No, sir. Road’s cut. Supplies from Ostend, sir. You are to march out with the general and escort the supply convoy from Ostend. You won’t be alone. He has twenty-four battalions and twenty-six squadrons of horse.’
A sizeable force, thought Steel. ‘How bad is it? How far have the French got?’
‘Word is, sir, that while we’ve been sitting here the French have occupied a line along the Scheldt from Lille to Ghent. In some force, it seems. In effect they’ve cut us off from Brussels. We still hold the port and are connected to it by the road through Menin and Thourout, although in parts it’s no more than a causeway and it’s flanked by the French at Nieuport and Ypres. At this moment Sir General Erle is proceeding in convoy from the port towards our camp with munitions and other supplies.’
Steel blanched. Henrietta was in Brussels. He had sent her there for her safety, and now it seemed that all he had done was to deliver her into captivity.
‘We’ve lost Brussels?’
‘Not lost, sir. Cut off.’
‘Quite. Yes, thank you, cornet, you may go. Tell General Webb we shall make ready to move.’
Steel turned away from the man as he took his leave. Hansam looked at him, read his thoughts.
‘Don’t worry yourself, Jack. She’ll be fine. She’s sure to have got away, in either direction. She survived Ostend, so surely this will be little trouble.’
‘Little trouble? A French army stands between me and my wife and you call it “little trouble”? Have a care, Henry.’
‘I’m sorry, Jack. That was insensitive of me. But it is true. Besides, what can you do to help? Nothing.’
They both knew he was right. They had been commanded to march by the brigade general, and nothing could stop that happening. At least they were not going directly to Ostend itself. The name hung low in Steel’s mind, forever associated with death and horrid carnage. It was the place where he had seen a friend butchered in cold blood and where he had almost lost his own life. But it was the place, too, where he had first seen his dear Henrietta.
While Steel was apprehensive, Slaughter was jubilant. ‘Thank God for that, I say. We’ll finally get shot of this bloody trench. I’ll tell the men, sir. They’ll be that glad of it.’
‘Thank you, Sar’nt. So am I, for that matter.’
Williams came running into the fire-bay. ‘Sir, have you heard? We’re to march with General Webb and a whole battalion of grenadiers drawn from the division. I met young Bellows on the way here. Told me everything. Isn’t it terrific?’
‘I don’t suppose you thought to ask your friend where we’re to rendezvous with the column? It quite slipped my mind.’
Willliams looked pleased with himself. ‘As a matter of fact I did, sir. We’re to meet at a place called Wynendael. He reckons we won’t see any action, but it will be good to be away from here, sir, won’t it?’
‘Aye, Tom, that it will.’
As the grenadiers prepared to take leave of their trench, handing over their squalid billets to a company of disgruntled dragoons, none of them was aware that their fate was being decided some miles away in a tent pitched in a field on the southern outskirts of Bruges.
Marshal Vendôme stretched his fingers out across a map of the Low Countries and settled the tips on a junction in the road just southwest of the city.
‘General de la Motte, you will take your division, twenty thousand men, and advance to this crossroads at Thourout. We have intelligence that the Allies are sending a relief column from Ostend to supply their army besieging Lille. You will meet the enemy column here, between Thorout and Wynendael, and seize it for France. At all costs it must not be allowed to get through to their lines at Lille. I do not anticipate that you will encounter any problem whatsoever. According to our intelligence, the escort consists of only some seven thousand men. They are mostly British, I grant you, but you will have an advantage of some three to one in your favour. Marlborough has sent a dozen more battalions to reinforce them, but we do not believe that they have yet arrived. Even if they have, however, you will still enjoy a considerable advantage. There is no excuse for failure, de la Motte. No excuse whatsoever. Take the column and return with it to me. That is all I ask. You lost us Ostend. Now you can at least save Lille.’
Riding at the head of the small column, Major General John Webb reflected upon the task that lay ahead of him. He did not know if they would win the day, nor even if he would escape with his life. What he did know, though, at least what he had been told by Marlborough, was that he faced a force numbering certainly twice his own column strength of six thousand infantry, and that the enemy force would doubtless be of all arms, infantry, cavalry and artillery.
Webb was too seasoned a soldier to suppose that he could fight a straightforward pitched battle at such a disadvantage. The lack of cavalry, for one thing, would put his men at peril of being outflanked and ridden down. Worse still was his utter lack of artillery. He saw the reason for it. For one thing, his role was to be a mobile unit, to escort the convoy. For another, the Duke he knew did not have any medium guns to spare, all of them being employed against Lille. He would not have expected artillery. But the French would have it, that he knew, and his men would have to stand and take the shot for just as long as the French could sustain their fire, or until they became bored with knocking men down like ninepins and decided to close the action with an infantry attack. All the initiative lay with the enemy, and to say that his options were limited would have been an understatement. But Webb knew that there was no turning back. If he failed in his defence of the supply column, then Marlborough would raise the siege. As a soldier his duty was to keep the French at bay, and die at his post if he must. As a man, though, his inclination was quite otherwise, and as he rode along towards the enemy he ruminated on the situation.
He did not care much for Marlborough. Wasn’t his own cousin the Member of Parliament Henry St John, Tory leader at Westminster and directly opposed to the Duke? Webb had even served as a close ally of St John as an MP himself for three years in the late 1690s. He regretted the duel which had forced him out of his seat and back into the field in the army of King William.
If the truth be told, which he hoped it never would be, he was more of a Jacobite than most people would ever know. It irked him to be fighting in the field shoulder to shoulder with the Dutch, in particular, who had perverted the course of the British bloodline. Queen Anne was reasonable enough, indeed he had even had a position in her husband’s household. But she was too easily led, and at present still in thrall to Marlborough’s conniving, courtly wife, Sarah Churchill. And when Anne died, what would happen then? The Queen was barren. Thirteen miscarriages, they said, and the poor Duke of Gloucester dead at eleven. At the age of forty-three it looked unlikely she would now produce an heir. Webb was concerned that the throne might pass over the Channel to the Dutch again, or worse still one of the German princes. The Act of Settlement had named the Electress of Hanover, and that could not be allowed to happen. He knew that others in Britain shared his worries. He was the last man to wish another bloody civil war on his country. He had been born just seven years after the end of the last. Yet it was clear that something would have to be done. In the meantime, though, there was another more pressing problem facing him.
In fact, thought Webb, it would suit him very well to be beaten off by the French and for the siege to be a failure. Before any action could be taken to restore the proper Stuart line, Marlborough would have to be discredited. But defeat was not in Webb’s nature, and it was perhaps because of that fact and the conflict of emotions in which he now found himself that the shrewd Marlborough had given him this troublesome command. No, there was only one thing to do, and that was to forget politics and beat the bloody French. Duty demanded it and his conscience demanded it. Besides, what would his fellow generals say if he turned tail and ran? Moreover, he was a man of honour who abided by his word.
Webb had accepted the command with thanks, and with it Marlborough’s selection of the units which should form it, down to the minutest detail. Why, the Duke had even gone so far as to suggest that he should appoint a particular captain to the command of the converged grenadier battalion. Arguably, in this skeleton force, the grenadiers were the most important element. The man sounded solid enough – a hero, by all accounts, decorated and promoted at Blenheim and Ramillies and newly married to Rumney’s eldest daughter, which in itself, knowing that family as he did, he could see would be a demanding undertaking. Webb hoped that the captain would prove himself capable of leading a battalion in the coming fight, for all their sakes.
Steel stood with the eleven other battalion commanders in Webb’s makeshift field headquarters, a clearing in a copse at the edge of the road from Roulers and Courtrai. They had slogged up here from Lille over three days, and Steel recognized the road from the previous year’s campaigning, for it was up here that they had marched towards Ostend. The name chilled him to the bone … and now here they were again in a country ravaged by war. Many of the villages had been deserted, he noticed, most only recently. It was often thus in this war and those which had preceded it: soldiers constantly retracing their own footsteps. How, wondered Steel, can you really tell who’s winning or losing? It didn’t seem to make sense. Towns fell and were recaptured time and again, and men died in their name. Eventually the villagers would leave, sick of the fighting. After a while they would return to turn over the bloody fields and repair the broken houses and start again.
The rain had not let up until this morning, and they were grateful for the time to dry out before the engagement. They were a typically assorted force for this war of nations, thought Steel, looking around at his fellow officers: apart from his own composite grenadier battalion, there were Hanoverians, Prussians, Dutch and Danish and, importantly for him, four battalions of Scots. He noticed that Webb was speaking.
‘Count Loudenburg, I want you and your Prussians on the left here, if you please. The Hanoverians on the right wing. Your Danes would do best in the centre of the line. The Scottish brigade I will position here too, in the centre, closest to me. We shall form up in three lines of battle, each of four battalions, for that is all we have. And we must face facts, gentlemen. As you know I have pushed on the cavalry, and by their report we are heavily outnumbered and by all arms. What we need is a miracle, gentlemen – some means by which we can counter that superiority by stealth and surprise. I have positioned us between two woods. That at least will have the effect of funnelling the French towards us, for the woods, I believe, are quite impassable. The French commander has stretched his line between two woods, a gap of a thousand yards. Comte de la Motte may attempt to flank us. Heaven knows he has enough men.’ Far more than I was advised by the Duke, he thought. ‘But in truth that may not be possible, and I certainly believe so. To our right lies the Château de Wynendael, making it impossible for infantry to manoeuvre in line and with hedges which would impede his cavalry. To the left the wood becomes a tangled coppice, quite impassable. I have selected this position with care. Formed two deep in three lines we shall be able to deploy maximum firepower while forcing his numbers into a tighter gap than he would have wished – a tunnel of fire, if you like. But that may not be enough. We need some means of amplifying the effect of our firepower.’
One of the Prussians spoke up. ‘We will be using your method of platoon fire, General? My men are quite conversant with this procedure. I believe it would work admirably.’
‘Yes, Captain Becker. It is my intention to do so, and I am equally certain that it will prove effective. But we must search for some other element.’
Steel had a sudden thought. ‘Sir.’
Webb looked at him. ‘Who are you, sir? Introduce yourself to the company.’
‘Captain Steel, sir, late of Farquharson’s Foot. I have the honour to command your Grenadier battalion.’
Webb looked at Steel long and hard. ‘So, you are the great Captain Steel. Well, I admire your candour and your bravery, sir. Your fame precedes you. You’re a Scot, are you not?’
‘Sir.’
‘A Highlander?’
‘No, sir. My family home lies southwest of Edinburgh.’
‘You’re no Covenanter then?’
‘Sir?’
‘Did your people come out against King Charles in the late civil war? Where did your sympathies lie?’
‘My family came out for the King, sir. That was my father’s wish. But we are as loyal to the present regime as we were to the last. Whoever is the rightful monarch as decreed by lineage and by Parliament.’
Webb laughed. ‘So you are a politician as well as a soldier, Captain.’
Steel thought of his brother and how he too would have laughed at their conversation. ‘No, sir. I try to stay away from politics as much as I can. I am a simple soldier.’
‘One thing I suspect you are not, Steel, is simple. You wished to make a comment on my plan of battle?’
‘Of course I agree with you, sir, that the woods are impassable to infantry and cavalry in formation. But I have walked them this past hour, General, and men can pass through them quite easily, if unformed.’
Webb laughed. ‘That may be, Captain, but what difference will that make to the French? An unformed unit can be of no threat to us, surely, any more than we can use the woods to attack the French?’
‘I was not thinking about the French passing through the woods, but our own men, sir. I ask you to place half of my Grenadiers on the left wing, concealed within the woods, and below them a unit of Prussians, the Brunswick Erbprinz regiment perhaps. And on the right place the remainder of the Grenadiers and another battalion, equally capable of such a manoeuvre.’ He indicated one of the Dutch commanders. ‘Might I suggest the Heukelom regiment under Colonel de Villegas here. They were first recruited, I believe, mostly from country men from Zealand. They would do well in such conditions.’
Webb looked interested. Steel went on. ‘In fact the woods are sufficiently dense to conceal both bodies of men. My plan is that the men of both units should hide themselves as best they can in the undergrowth so that the French have no idea that they exist. Then we play out the battle according to your orders, sir. Following the bombardment the fire-fight will commence and the French will advance towards our position, coming to halt with their flanks each resting on one of the woods. That is our moment, sir. At a given signal, the Prussians and my own Grenadiers on the left and the other half of the Grenadiers and the Dutch on the right will rise up and pour volley after volley into the French flanks. We wait, of course, until they are in thirty or forty yards from our line, and then the trap is sprung.’
Webb stood back and nodded, and there was a general murmur of approval. Eventually the general spoke. ‘Captain Steel, your plan is bizarre and not a trifle haphazard, and certainly not within the rules of war. But it seems to me that it is our only hope against such odds and with precious little horse and no cannon. If the Danes agree, then you may carry out your strategy.’
He looked towards Colonel Carlsen, who was nodding in approval.
‘Very well then. But do not forget that you are gambling with two precious battalions, a sixth of my force. If anything untoward should occur, I shall hold you personally responsible as the originator of the plan. Do you understand?’
‘Perfectly, sir. And thank you.’
Steel stood with half of his new battalion at their start line on a track which ran through the woods to the left of the position. Around him he had gathered a small knot of officers. Three of them were foreigners from the other contingents which made up his converged battalion, and the other two were familiar faces: Hansam and Tom Williams.
He looked over his temporary command. In the front he could see his own company in their familiar red coats and mitre caps, worn since leaving the siege lines at Lille. Behind them came the other detachments, Danes, Prussians and Dutchmen mostly. They would not, he supposed, for the most part understand what he was about to say to his own men. But they might at least feel the spirit in which the words were said and through that his intention and the extent of his resolution to stand their ground.
He began. ‘We are to occupy the left wing of the position. This ground –’ He stamped his boot. ‘– right here.’ He sensed a stirring in the ranks and knew why. ‘No, men. I grant you that it is not our usual way to stand on the left of the line and that some of you may feel that is a dishonour. But let me tell you now, it is my doing and mine alone that we are here. I do not often take you into my confidence, but this time I shall. I intend to hold this position to the death. We are heavily outnumbered. I won’t pretend that we’re not. We have no artillery, and precious few cavalry, a hundred and fifty sabres in all. But we have something that the Frenchies never had. We have spirit. We can win, lads, just as we did at Blenheim and Ramillies and Oudenarde. And that we should win here today is vital, not only to the convoy but to the siege of Lille and, yes, to the entire war. If this convoy is taken then we may have to withdraw our lines at Lille and yield it to the French. But it’s not going to be taken. And we’re not going to yield. We’re going to fight in a new way today, lads. We’ll be fighting dirty and we’ll be fighting to the death. For one thing, we’re not going to show ourselves. Do not think the worse of any of this. It is still an honourable matter. But surprise is everything today. It is our task to take the enemy completely unawares.’