Whirling the razor-sharp Italian broadsword above his head, he ran headlong into the French line and, sweeping aside the musket and bayonet of a terrified infantryman, hit him full in the chest with his body weight. Doing so, he sensed the entire line buckle as the best part of three thousand men made contact. The man reeled back, Steel brought down the great sword and felt it judder as it made contact with the Frenchman’s skull. Then he was on again, clambering over the bleeding corpse and pushing into the second rank. This man did not wait but turned and fled. To Steel’s left and right men went in with the bayonet. One of the Frenchmen threw down his musket, but it was too late. He died still pleading to be spared.
There was no point in trying to take prisoners in the first rush on such a field. ‘No quarter’ was the only rule of war at this level when men who had been standing under cannon fire for hours and then received close-range musketry were finally given free rein. All you could do as a defender was either to stand your ground and fight, or run. Most of the French were running.
‘Halt. Stand your ground.’
Steel knew that even though the enemy appeared to be retreating their victory would be short-lived. From their start position he had seen the French second and third lines up on the high ground and was well aware that as soon as the news arrived that the front line had collapsed they would counterattack.
He turned to Slaughter. ‘Sar’nt, we’d better get ready to receive their attack. It’s sure to come.’
Slaughter nodded and walked towards the company. ‘Come on, lads. The day’s not over yet. Let’s give them a warm welcome when they come back.’
‘D’you think they will come back, Sarge?’
It was Norris, one of the new intake, a huge costermonger’s lad from Bow who had fancied his chances with an exotic-sounding Scottish regiment and whose size was not quite matched by his intellect.
‘Nah, Norris. They’ll not come back. But their brothers will. And they’re bigger and more evil than those buggers. Twice as horrible and twice as hungry for your blood, son. So you’d better make sure that yer musket’s oiled and yer bayonet’s clean.’
The recruit stared at him in horror. ‘Yes, Sarge.’
Another of the men spoke, one of this Scots-raised regiment’s few remaining genuine Scotsmen: ‘How did you manage to see them Frenchies, Sarge? You was nowhere near ’em. Same as us.’
‘Second sight, Mister Macrone. Second sight. That’s what I’ve got, isn’t it? And you’d be best to remember that. Next time you take a fancy to some illicit booty.’
They walked among the dead and wounded, lifting whatever they could salvage in the way of equipment and ammunition. Unused French musket balls and cartridges were scooped up and stuffed into cartouche boxes. While the British infantry fired sixteen balls to the pound the French fired twenty-four, making each ball lighter and smaller. They might not fit the British muskets exactly, the excess ‘windage’ between barrel and ball causing them to fly out at erratic angles, but in the desperate moments of a long firefight, when you were down to the last few rounds a man, a few captured enemy musket balls could make all the difference between winning and losing.
Now too was the time for prisoners, though you had to be careful and it was better to poke a bayonet into a man’s ribs – just to make sure – than pay for the consequences. Steel looked away and saw, down the hill, that the pontoon bridges were brimming with grey-coated infantry, Dutchmen, who were spilling off and moving up towards the Allied left wing.
The brigade was astride a stream now as it flowed downhill and into the Scheldt, and several of the men were stooping to drink. Slaughter saw them. ‘I shouldn’t do that, Cussiter. You don’t know what’s been in it.’
Taylor echoed his advice. ‘Aye, Dan. Most likely some Frenchy’s pissed in it. Or worse.’
Cussiter spat and swore, and the others who had been moving to the water thought better of it.
Steel laughed. ‘This is thirsty work, lads. But don’t forget my promise. Anything in that inn if you take the hill, and I’m paying. Just keep the French out of the village and then send the buggers back to Paris, or send them to hell.’
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.’