With Marlborough to Malplaquet Part 10

Thus it happened that Lieutenant Blackett and his friend Cornet Fairburn found themselves once more in the thick of war. They had had a preliminary skirmish or two not long before--the retaking of Huy, the frightening of Villeroy from Liege, and what not--but now something more serious was afoot. That the task the Duke had set himself was a difficult one, every man in his service knew, but they knew also that he was not a commander likely to be dismayed by mere difficulties. Villeroy, the leader of the French, had 70,000 troops with him, a larger force than the Allies could get together.

It was near Tirlemont that Marlborough began his operations. The march to the place went on till it was stopped by a small but awkward brook, the Little Gheet, on the farther side of which the French were very strongly posted in great numbers. So formidable an affair did the crossing appear that the Dutch generals objected to the attempt being made. Marlborough, usually the best-tempered of men, was in a rage, and determined to push the attack in spite of them. It was the morning of July 17, 1705.

"We are in for hard knocks to-day, if appearances go for anything,"

Blackett said quietly to George, as their regiment prepared, with the other cavalry, to open the proceedings.

"So much the better," was George's laughing answer; "without hard knocks there is no promotion, eh?"

All was ready; the bugle rang out the signal for the attack. The long line of Marlborough's horse fronted the Gheet at no great distance away, the field-pieces were in position, the infantry and reserves somewhat to the rear. Beyond the stream, with the advantage of rising ground, were planted the French guns, supported by a powerful host.

Away! The cavalry dashed onwards at a terrific pace. A sharp rattle of musketry rang out, and in a moment a sprinkling of the advancing troopers fell from their saddles. George Fairburn was already warming to the work, and he sat his steed firmly. Then a ball struck the gallant animal, and in an instant the rider was flung over its head.

The young cornet narrowly escaped being trampled to pieces by his comrades as they swept by in full career. Up he sprang, however, a trifle stunned for the moment, but otherwise no worse. Quickly recovering his sword, which had flown from his grasp, he darted after his more fortunate companions, and arrived breathless on the scene.

A fierce struggle for the pa.s.sage of the river was going on, and desperate fighting was taking place in the very bed of the stream, a trifle lower down its course. For a time George endeavoured in vain to find a way through the struggling ma.s.s of men and horses to the brink of the Gheet; the press and the confusion were too great. Accordingly he ran on behind the lines of horse, to find a place where he might thrust himself in. Where his own comrades were he could not tell.

Bullets were flying thick around him as he ran, but he did not give the matter a thought. It was characteristic of him all through his life, indeed, that when his attention and interest were strongly engaged on one matter he was all but oblivious to every other consideration.

At length his chance appeared, and an opening presented itself.

Springing over the prostrate bodies of men and horses, he reached the bank. To his surprise the stream seemed to be very deep. As a matter of fact the waters were dammed lower down by the ma.s.s of fallen men and animals lying across their bed. Without hesitation he dashed into the flood, his sole thought being to get himself across and so into the enemy's lines. With his sword held tightly between his teeth, the boy officer swam, as many another l.u.s.ty Peterite would have been able to do. He reached mid stream.

Suddenly he became aware of a sharp pain in his left shoulder. A moment later he grew faint. In vain he struggled to keep afloat; the world grew dark to him, and he sank beneath the surface.

A tall fellow, fully six foot three in his stockings, if he was an inch, had just managed to wade through the stream, his nose above the surface, a comical sight, if anybody had had the time to notice it.

Looking back, this man saw George disappear, and without hesitation he dashed into the water again. Reaching the spot, he groped about, and then, with both hands clutching an inanimate form, he dragged his burden to the bank.

"George, by Heaven!" he cried, as soon as he could get a glimpse of the features. It was true; Matthew Blackett had saved his friend's life at the risk of his own. And it had been a risk, for a dozen bullets had splashed around him as he had hauled his heavy load along.

"Blackett!" exclaimed Fairburn, a moment or two later, when, recovering, he opened his eyes. "Where's your horse?"

"Done for, poor wretch! And yours?"

"Shot under me, at the very first volley. And it was you who dragged me out! I shall remember it! But here we are on the right side; come on!"

The lads gripped each other warmly by the hand, and side by side dashed on into the thick of the _melee_. A large number of the allied cavalry had by this time made good their pa.s.sage across, in spite of the fiercest opposition on the part of the enemy. In vain Blackett urged his companion to withdraw and get himself away with his wounded arm. George would not budge an inch. It was only a flesh wound, it afterwards appeared. So the two North-country lads stood by each other. For an hour or more they were hotly engaged, the enemy falling back inch by inch.

Then came ringing cheers. The French had abandoned the position; the famous and hitherto impregnable line of defences had been broken. Our heroes breathed more freely when a short respite came. But the interval of rest was short. Colonel Rhodes, their commanding officer, catching sight of the pair, as he was collecting his men again, joyfully hailed them, and a minute later George and Matthew, provided once more with mounts, were cantering with the rest to the renewed attack. The enemy had made another stand some distance farther back.

Another struggle, and this second position was like wise carried, with a grand sweep. Victory was at hand.

Suddenly a startling report ran through the English lines. The Duke was missing! Where was the mighty General? was the question on every lip. Somebody ran up and said a word to Colonel Rhodes. Instantly the gallant officer and his men were galloping off to a distant part of the field, the troopers wondering what was afoot. The explanation soon appeared. Marlborough had become separated from the main body of his army, and now, with but a very few men around him, was in imminent danger of capture by the French troops, who were pouring thick upon the spot.

Colonel Rhodes charged at the head of his regiment straight upon the French, and a lane was cut through. It was a matter of a few minutes.

The Duke was saved, and the enemy retired in woeful disappointment.

The first to reach the Duke were Blackett and Fairburn, and the lads were flushed with joy and pride when their distinguished leader, looking at them with a smile, said, with all his old pleasantness of manner, "Gentlemen, I thank you."

The Brabant line of strongholds was broken. Villeroy fell back, and Marlborough had his will on the defences. No inconsiderable section of the belt was rendered useless. No longer did an impa.s.sable barrier stretch between the Netherlands and France. The importance of the victory could hardly be overstated. As one writer has well pointed out, "All Marlborough's operations had hitherto been carried on to the outside of these lines; thenceforward they were all carried on within them."

A day or two later the Duke came to inspect the regiment to which our boys belonged, just as he was inspecting others. The men with their officers were drawn up, and the General's eyes ran along the line.

Presently he spoke a word to the colonel in command of the regiment, and, to their no small confusion, Lieutenant Blackett and Cornet Fairburn were called out to the front.

"How old are you?" the Duke inquired, as the youths saluted.

"Nearly twenty, may it please your Grace." "Just turned nineteen, by your Grace's leave." Such were the replies.

"Hum!" said the Duke thoughtfully, "you shall have your promotion in due course. You are young, and can afford to wait for it." This to Matthew. "As for you"--turning to George--"you have fairly earned your lieutenancy." And he turned away.

CHAPTER IX

ANNUS MIRABILIS

"Don't imagine, my dear lad, that they are going to make captains of mere boys like ourselves." This was the reply, given with a hearty laugh, when George Fairburn, after receiving his friend's warm congratulations at the close of the inspection, was condoling with Matthew on his failure to get his step. "A captain at twenty is somewhat unlikely," Blackett went on. "I suppose so," replied George.

"After all we are only glorified schoolboys, some of our fellows tell us. Yet you look three-and-twenty, if a day. However, all will come in time, let us hope."

The brilliant operations on the defence line proved to be but the prelude to Marlborough's second great life disappointment. He saw his chance. He had but to follow up his success by a decisive victory over Villeroy's forces, and the way lay open to Paris. His hopes ran high.

Alas! the Dutch had to be reckoned with. Eager to follow up his advantage, Marlborough called for a.s.sistance, immediate and effective, from them; in vain; the a.s.sistance did not come, or came too late.

With what help he could get from the Dutch, nevertheless, he went forward to the Dyle. Here again the Dutch balked him, raising objections to the crossing of that river. In despair the Duke gathered his troops, as it happened, strangely enough, on the very spot where, a hundred years later, another great Duke gained his most famous victory over the French. Could Marlborough have but had his chance with Villeroy in that spot, there is little doubt that Europe would have seen an earlier Waterloo.

But it was not to be. Just as the Margrave of Baden had stopped his advance along the Moselle into France the previous year, so now the supineness and factious opposition of the Dutch prevented Marlborough from dealing the French power a crushing blow. Deeply disgusted, he threatened once more to resign his command. "Had I had the same power I had last year," he wrote, "I could have won a greater victory than that of Blenheim." It was a bitter trial for him.

The campaign of 1705 soon after came to a close, and the Duke set off on what we may call a diplomatic tour among the allied states, his travels and negotiations producing good results. It was not till the beginning of 1706 that he went back to England, and thus it was late in the spring of that year when the campaign was reopened.

Rejoining his army in the Netherlands, he proposed to make another of his great marches, namely into Italy, there to join his friend Prince Eugene in an invasion of France from the south-east. This plan was made impossible by the crookedness of the kings of Prussia and Denmark, and some others of the Allies. Swallowing this disappointment also, as best he might, Marlborough started from the Dyle and advanced on the great and important stronghold of Namur, at the junction of the Sambre with the Meuse. Namur had always been greatly esteemed by the French, and, in dread alarm, Louis ordered Villeroy to take immediate action. The result was that the two hostile armies, each numbering about sixty thousand men, met face to face near the village of Ramillies, half way between Tirlemont and Namur, and near the head waters of the Great and Little Gheet and the Mehaigne.

Lieutenants Fairburn and Blackett from their position on a bit of rising ground could take in the general dispositions of the respective forces, and the same thought pa.s.sed through both their minds. The French and Bavarian troops were drawn up in the form of an arc, whose ends rested on the villages of Anderkirk, to the north, and Tavieres, on the Mehaigne, to the south. The villages of Ramillies and Offuz, with a mound known as the Tomb of Ottomond at the back of the former, were held by a strong centre. Marlborough, on his part, had disposed his men along a chord of that arc. If it came to a question of moving men and guns from one wing to the other, it was plain that the Duke had the advantage, the distance along an arc being necessarily greater than that along its chord, and it was that thought which came into the heads of the two lieutenants.

Marlborough directed his right to attack the enemy around the village of Anderkirk, backing up the a.s.sault with a contingent from his centre. Blackett and his friend were soon taking part in the gallop over the swampy ground in the neighbourhood of the village. A sharp encounter followed, the Frenchmen beginning to waver. Hereupon Villeroy in alarm promptly sent from his centre a large number of men to support his staggering left at Anderkirk, thereby leaving his centre weak.

All at once Marlborough withdrew his troops to the high ground opposite the hamlet of Offuz, as if for a fresh attack. Then sending back a part to keep up the pretence of continuing the combat in the marsh, he took advantage of the concealment afforded by the higher ground, and, cleverly detaching a large body, ordered them to slip away round to seize Tavieres, on the Mehaigne. George and his friend were thus separated, the latter being of those who remained in the swamp to keep up appearances. It was a clever bit of strategy, and, before Villeroy realized the truth, Tavieres had been rushed with a splendid charge. The fact that the attack on Anderkirk had been only a feint came to the French commander's understanding too late. His centre, with the village of Ramillies and the Tomb of Ottomond commanding it, the really important positions of the day, was weakened by the loss of troops sent on a wild-goose chase.

Ere Villeroy could repair the mischief and summon his men from Anderkirk, Marlborough had sent down upon the French centre a great body of cavalry under the command of Auerkerke, the Dutch general.

English and Dutch horse combined in this a.s.sault, and George Fairburn found himself one of a host dashing upon the village of Ramillies.

There was a terrific shock, a few moments of fierce onslaught, and the first line of the enemy gave way. Through the broken and disorganized line the cavalry swept, to charge the second.

Another shock, even greater than the first. The Frenchmen of the second line stood firm, for were they not the famous Household Regiment--the Maison du Roi--of Louis, and probably the finest troops in Europe. The advance of the Allies was instantly checked. In vain Auerkerke urged on his men; in vain those men renewed the attack. The enemy stood steadfast; they began to drive back their antagonists; the position of the Allies was becoming critical.

"Go and inform the Duke! Quick, quick!" the Dutchman called out to a young officer whom he had observed fighting with the utmost determination near by, but who had stopped for a moment to recover his breath.

It happened to be Lieutenant Fairburn, and George once more found himself face to face with the Duke, for the first time since he had met him after the rush of the French defence line near Tirlemont last year. Marlborough, the youth could see by his quick glance, knew him again. In a word or two George delivered his startling message.

"By Jove, sir," declared the subaltern, when telling his story to his colonel afterwards, "never did I see so spry a bit of work as I did when I had said my little say. The Duke was ten men rolled into one, sir. Orders here, there, and everywhere; fellows sent darting about like hares. In a few minutes--minutes! I was going to say seconds--every sabre had been got together, and we were all tumbling over each other in our hurry to get along to the fight. It was a fine thing, sir."

The commander, sword in hand, led his reinforcement to the fatal spot with the speed of the whirlwind. He had almost reached it when he was suddenly set upon by a company of young bloods belonging to the Maison du Roi. They were n.o.bles for the most part, and utterly reckless of their lives. Recognizing the Duke, they made a desperate attempt to secure him, closing round him with a dash.

"Great Heaven!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed George Fairburn, as his eye suddenly fell upon the Duke fighting his way out of the group, and in company with fifty more he flew to the spot. At that moment Marlborough, now almost clear, put his horse to a ditch across his track. How it happened no one could tell exactly, but the rider fell, and dropped into the little trench. Marlborough's career appeared at an end. His steed was cantering madly over the field.