‘Break ranks and pull back!’
The soldiers at once moved to the sides of the street, firing and reloading from cover as they steadily gave ground to the enemy. Arthur, trying hard not to show fear, forced himself to remain in clear view as he strode steadily back towards the bridge. As they reached the market square he ordered his men to halt. The engineers were still preparing the charges and the last of the wagons was squeezing across the narrow span. A handful of men from one of the other regiments was defending the southern approaches to the market square and every so often there was a sharp crash and clatter of falling roof tiles as the French battery outside Ondrecht continued to lob shots into the heart of the village. On the other side of the river Arthur could make out the black hats and red jackets of his men taking up position in the houses that lined the far bank. As soon as the last wagon rumbled down into the street beyond the bridge Arthur turned back to his men.
‘Withdraw! Withdraw!’
The redcoats, hunched over their muskets, stepped back into the market square and fired their last shots at the approaching hussars, before turning and trotting back towards the bridge. Arthur drew his sword, and fell in with them, boots scraping over the cobbles as they ran. A cry of triumph rose up from the street behind them and, glancing back, Arthur saw the hussars start forward, chasing after the redcoats. At the sight of Arthur’s company falling back the handful of men from another regiment still firing at the enemy to the south began to retreat. Then one of their officers, a lieutenant, stopped and pointed.
‘Enemy infantry! There!’ He turned to his men. ‘Stand your ground, damn you!’
But already too many of them were hurrying towards the bridge for his authority to hold sway over their instinct for self-preservation. In any case, an instant later there was a crash as an artillery shot grazed the cobbles a short distance in front of the lieutenant before passing close beside him and smashing through a wall at an oblique angle. A shower of razor-sharp fragments of shattered cobble tore into the officer. He screamed and slumped to his knees, clutching his hands to the chopped-up flesh of his face.
‘My eyes!’ he screamed. ‘My eyes!’
Arthur started towards him, but before he’d taken more than a few quick strides the lieutenant was hit by a shot from the enemy infantry approaching the square. Pitching forward he hit the ground, twitched a moment and then lay still.Arthur stared at him in horror, until one of his soldiers gently took his arm and eased him towards the bridge.
‘Come, sir. Nothin’ yer can do for ’im now.’
Arthur nodded, then tore his gaze away from the fallen officer as he joined his men running for the bridge. As they flitted past the ends of streets he was aware of dim shapes in dark blue coats hurrying towards the square, and musket balls whined through the air or cracked off the cobbles as the French tried to cut down the fleeing redcoats. Then Arthur was on the bridge, lichen-covered stonework rising up waist high on both sides. He stopped himself and turned back, waving the last of his men past, and then trotted along behind them as the first of the French infantry burst into the market square and began to race towards the bridge.
‘For God’s sake, Wesley!’ Lord Moira beckoned to him from behind a wagon on the far side of the river. He was stabbing his finger towards the buttresses of the bridge. ‘Run, man! The fuses have been lit!’
Arthur ducked his head, clasping one hand to his hat to keep it jammed down, and ran for the cover of the nearest house. As he gained the stone doorway he pressed himself in and glanced back towards the bridge. Over the cambered surface he saw the cockaded hats and tricolour flag of the enemy on the far side. Then there was a great blinding flash, a deep booming roar and he was thrown back against the studded wooden door by the shockwave as the kegs of powder beneath the bridge exploded. The centre span of the bridge seemed to rise up intact for an instant before bursting into fragments that rose up and out and began to fall to the ground, showering the area in debris. As the roar of the detonation quickly faded away there was a moment’s silence as men on both sides stared at the pall of smoke and dust rolling over the remains of the bridge. Then the first shot was fired, there was a reply, and then a steady crackle of musketry as both sides renewed the fight. But it was already as good as over. A twenty-foot gap yawned over the rubble-strewn river and the British were, for the moment, safe.
The column pulled out of the village and resumed its march towards Antwerp. For a while the French artillery continued to harass them from the far bank of the Anhelm, but inflicted only a handful of casualties and smashed the axle of a supply wagon that was quickly set on fire by its driver and abandoned.
As the rearguard crested a ridge a short distance from the village Arthur stared back at Ondrecht for a moment, and wondered at his first taste of war. He suddenly felt weary. Weary, but exhilarated. He had stood up to enemy fire and come through it alive. He turned his gaze towards the men of his regiment passing by on the road.They were laughing and babbling away in excited tones, no doubt bragging about their deeds. For a moment he was tempted to have the sergeant major silence them, but then resisted the impulse. Let them have their moment of triumph. It would be good for morale, and besides, they had earned it.
Chapter 83
September 1794
The counter-attack on Boxtel, had been a disaster, just as Arthur had expected. Several regiments strung out across the sodden fields around the fortified town had crept forward under cover of darkness to retake the town from the French. But the orders for the attack had overlooked the question of co-ordination of effort, and each unit had advanced on its own initiative once the initial exchange of shots between skirmishers had begun.The result was a piecemeal attack, which the enemy had had no difficulty in containing and then throwing back with heavy losses for the British side. General Sir Hugh Wilson had made no attempt to try to win back control over the assault and had refused to call off the attack long after it was clear that it had been a costly failure. As the wan glow of dawn crept across the land the attackers finally pulled back from Boxtel, leaving the ground in front of its defences littered with dead and dying redcoats. General Wilson and his staff officers had simply ridden away to establish, so they said, a new headquarters a safe distance from the enemy. He left orders that the rest of his force was to fall back on his position as best they could.
At first light the French had sortied from their defences, driving back the redcoats with ease, and their general, possessing all the courage and initiative that Sir Hugh so clearly lacked, immediately went on to the offensive, hurling the British back. Arthur had recently been entrusted with the command of a brigade, consisting of the 33rd Foot and the 42nd Foot, and now they were covering the retreat of their comrades as they streamed back along the road from Boxtel.
There was a brief lull in the fighting an hour after dawn, and Arthur cautiously rode forward to look for any sign of the enemy. As he trotted his horse along the grass verge at the side of the road to muffle the sound of its hoofs, he saw that the way was littered with discarded equipment and weapons. Here and there a wounded man was desperately trying to escape the enemy and rejoin his comrades.Those no longer able to move lay and waited, wholly at the mercy of the revolutionaries whose reputation for committing atrocities was the talk of the allied armies. There was nothing Arthur could do for them, and he tried to ignore the pleas for help that some called out to him as he scanned the road ahead for any sign of the enemy.
He was, as best he could estimate it, a mile ahead of his brigade when he reined in and reached for his spyglass. He snapped it open and squinted into the eyepiece. Nothing. He continued looking as his mind began to reflect on the abysmal progress that had been made on this campaign (so far). The skirmish at Ondrecht had set the tone for the months that followed. After Lord Moira had joined up with the Duke of York outside Antwerp there had followed one retreat after another.The failures of senior officers were compounded at every turn by the disorganisation and downright corruption of those bodies of men who were supposed to support and supply the British Army. The Duke of York, who commanded the army, was only three years older than Arthur and while he had some flair and meant well, he simply lacked the drive to do what was necessary to save his men from the effects of corruption and incompetence. Arthur frowned. God above! This was no way to fight a war. No way at all. At this rate Mr Pitt might as well throw in his hand and offer the revolutionaries the head of King George on a platter.
There was movement on the track ahead of him, and as he directed his spyglass to the spot Arthur saw the head of a column of infantry emerge from a small wooded hill standing between him and Boxtel. An officer rode forward to take up position at the head of the column and Arthur smiled at the array of gold ribbon the man had on his coat.What the French commanders lacked in refinement they more than made up for with vanity. He waited a moment, until the first horse teams emerged from the wood, drawing cannon behind them. But there was no sign of cavalry. Not yet, at least.Very well, Arthur nodded to himself. He would make his stand on the ground he had chosen for the brigade at first light.With luck they would hold the French off long enough for the rest of the army to reform. He snapped the spyglass shut, slipped it back into his saddlebag and wheeled his horse round.
The small group of staff officers looked round at the sound of an approaching horse. Half an hour earlier the colonel had left them with orders to deploy the brigade astride the crossroads, before riding off along the rutted mire of the road towards the enemy. The men had tramped into line and now the dense ranks of the redcoats rippled across the rolling pastureland on either side of the junction.The colonel had chosen the spot well: the left flank was anchored by a patch of soft polder, and the right fetched up against a large copse of elm trees on a small hillock. The French, if they came, would not be able to use their cavalry to flank the British line. Instead they would be forced to launch a frontal assault if they were to break through. Ahead of the British line the ground sloped down and disappeared into a soupy mist that rolled off the polder and across the road.
The redcoats stood in silence, the butts of their muskets resting on the ground. After the brisk march to take up their present position their bodies had worked up some heat and now a thin milky vapour lazily dissipated above their black hats.
As the officers stared towards the sound of the approaching horse, a figure abruptly materialised from the mist. Colonel Wesley urged his mount towards them.The mare had been ridden hard and its flanks were flecked with foam. He reined in and slid stiffly from the saddle, handing the reins to his groom.
‘Any word from headquarters?’
Captain Fitzroy stepped forward. ‘No, sir. Nothing.’
Arthur glanced back down the road. ‘Damn …’
As soon as he had received word of the approach of the enemy column the previous evening he had sent a young subaltern galloping back to headquarters to request reinforcements, and some artillery to support the army’s rearguard. Headquarters would have received the message several hours before dawn broke, and yet there was no sign of any redcoats marching to their aid, not even any acknowledgement that the message had been received. Arthur angrily clamped his teeth together at yet more proof of the incompetence of those who commanded the expeditionary force.This on top of the failure to send any supplies to his men for the last three days. They had been forced to take what food they could from the locals and now the Dutch townspeople hated the redcoats even more than the French invaders. His men were hungry, hated and, worst of all, short of ammunition. Just enough to face one short skirmish, and then they’d have to retreat, or rout.
Captain Fiztroy coughed and Arthur looked at him irritably. ‘Yes?’
‘Sir? The French. Are they coming?’
‘Oh yes, they’re coming all right. They’ll be here within the half-hour.’
Fitzroy lowered his voice before he continued. ‘In what strength, sir?’
Arthur forced himself to smile. ‘Enough to give us a decent chance to show what the brigade can do.’The smile faded. ‘A full division, I’d say.With at least one battery of horse artillery. But no cavalry. At least none that I could see before I turned back.’
The group of officers glanced at each other anxiously. Even though the 33rd had been blooded at Ondrecht that was the only fight they had been engaged in.The men of the 42rd were nearly all recent recruits, many of them preferring army life, with all its harsh discipline and danger, to the endless toil of scratching a living off the land back in Britain. There were also cutpurses, debtors and other criminals amongst the wretches waiting in the silent ranks stretching out on either side. Once again Arthur wondered if they would hold their ground. So much was riding on that. Not least their survival, and his reputation. Lack of supplies and lack of support would stand for little in the eyes of those who would judge the young colonel. Everything depended upon the officers and men of the brigade holding firm, and putting into effect all the lessons that had been drilled into them over the last few months. The moment of truth would come for all of them when the massed column of the enemy, urged on by the insistent rattle of drums, rolled up the slope towards the thin line of redcoats.
‘Looks like you’ve finally got what you wanted,Arthur,’ Fitzroy muttered. ‘Your very own battle.’
‘Yes.’ Arthur turned away quickly and beckoned to the brigade quartermaster. ‘Hampton! Up here, man!’
‘Sir!’The stocky officer trotted up, and Arthur caught the scent of spirits on his breath as the man drew himself up before his colonel.
‘Is there any gin left in the wagons?’