With Marlborough to Malplaquet Part 9

"That's the right way!" sang out the colonel in high commendation, and a little crowd of the men following the example of the young lieutenant, the work of repairing the road was soon in rapid progress, the colonel standing by to direct the operations. Other officers speedily came to help, rather ashamed to think that they had allowed the youngster to set them a lead.

"It's nothing," cried Matthew, cheerfully, as he toiled with a will.

"Many's the time I've stood up to my waist in deadly-cold water digging out an old dog otter."

The lad's good-humour and willingness were infectious, and in a remarkably short s.p.a.ce of time the track had been repaired. Then, with many a joke at each other's expense, the men remounted and pursued their journey, covered from head to foot with mire, but cheered by the colonel's approving, "It will serve for all the rest of the horse, my lads."

All this time the cavalry were wondering why Tallard took no steps to stop their pa.s.sage, and none was more surprised than Marlborough himself. He did not at the time know that Tallard had left his centre weak, by sending so many men into the village on the right. Still less, of course, could the Duke know that Tallard was expecting a very easy victory. Be that as it may, the Marshal made no move till Marlborough had got a large part of his men across the stream and had formed his first line.

When Blackett arrived on the scene with his regiment he found that a force of Eugene's cavalry had taken the village of Oberglau, near the spot. A minute later, almost before the colonel had drawn up his men, there was a fierce shout, and there came thundering down upon the village, with almost irresistible shock, a body of the enemy.

"Irishmen, by Jove!" cried a man by Matthew's side. "They'll fight like demons!"

The attack, in truth, came from the Irish Brigade, a doughty body of Irishmen, exiles from their country, in the service of Louis. Before the Englishmen realized the situation the Irishmen had dashed clean through the force occupying Oberglau, and had taken up a position between the men and Eugene.

The confusion was extreme, and the allied troops could scarce be got to face the resistless Irishmen at all. Things looked desperate. The colonel of Blackett's regiment, seeing the state of things at Oberglau, as he toured it, shouted, "Go and tell the Duke, Mr.

Blackett!" and away dashed Matthew once more to the General. He was a pretty spectacle, but he did not give the matter a thought, and his news prevented the Duke from paying much heed to the condition of the messenger.

"Lead the way," came the sharp order, and Blackett thundered on in front, the great commander with a body of men hard after him, to find the energetic and plucky colonel fallen badly wounded, and the regiment in difficulties. With a swoop, the reinforcements fell upon the Irishmen, and, almost for the first time, Matthew found himself engaged in a hand-to-hand encounter. He did not know how long the conflict lasted, but presently he found the enemy in full flight, his comrades cheering l.u.s.tily around him. Marlborough's prompt.i.tude had saved the situation.

"You fought like a very fiend, Blackett," remarked the major, laughingly, a little later on, when for the moment operations had ceased, to which Matthew replied simply, "Did I, sir? I don't remember anything about it," whereat the major laughed again.

It was five in the afternoon, and there was a lull on the field. Up to the present neither side could be said to have gained any real advantage over the other. All the allied cavalry had crossed the stream, and the men wondered what would come next.

They were not left long in doubt. The order came to ma.s.s the horse in preparation for a grand charge. For a time the field was a scene of rapid and puzzling movement, but order was quickly evolved out of the seeming confusion.

Then the trumpet rang out, and there bore down upon Tallard a magnificent body of eight thousand cavalry. Bore _down_, we have written; the course was slightly upwards, as a matter of fact, from the stream. There was one check, and the Allies were stopped for a moment. Then like a whirlwind the horse dashed forward, at a tremendous speed.

It was too much. The French fired one volley, then turned and fled. On the Englishmen galloped, and in a few moments the enemy's line was cut in two. In two different directions the French cavalry ran, and Marlborough followed after that section which was making for Blenheim.

It was a wild stampede, and Matthew Blackett, as he dashed after the retreating enemy, always considered it the most exciting episode in his life.

It did not last long. By great good fortune the lieutenant found himself one of those surrounding Marshal Tallard. Amidst a wild burst of applause the gallant Frenchman surrendered, and before he knew well what he was doing, Blackett was leading Tallard's horse by the bridle.

The lad saw the Duke glance towards him as he dismounted to receive the gallant leader and invite him into his carriage.

The victory was practically won. There remained only the seventeen battalions in the village of Blenheim, and these, hemmed in on the one side, and bounded by the river on the other, gave little trouble. The poor fellows, in fact, were unable to stir, and many a man of them sprang into the river in his desperation, only to be hopelessly carried away by the swift current, and drowned.

It was a terrible scene of bloodshed, and it was an untold relief to the Englishmen when their gallant foes in the village gave in. One French regiment had actually burnt its colours to save them from being taken.

Thus ended the great fight of Blenheim, a fight in which the enemy had lost no fewer than forty out of their sixty thousand men. The Allies had had fifty thousand troops and had lost eleven thousand of them.

The wonderful renown of the French army had received a mighty blow. No longer could Louis boast that his troops were invincible.

To Marlborough the victory brought the royal manor of Woodstock and the palace of Blenheim. To the humble Matthew Blackett it gave a place near the great Duke's own person, as we have seen.

CHAPTER VIII

COMRADES IN ARMS

It was always a puzzle to George Fairburn that the Duke had so unexpectedly a.s.signed him to a cavalry regiment, and his friend Lieutenant Blackett could not help with the solution.

"I suppose it was just an accident," Matthew said with a laugh; "he saw a horse-soldier before him in the person of your servant here, and so turned you over to me. I'm mighty delighted, anyhow, that we are thrown together. We shall have a good time of it, I feel sure."

"We shall, if there's plenty to do," George a.s.sented with a smile.

There was plenty to do. At the very moment when the boy and Lieutenant Fieldsend arrived, the Duke had given orders to prepare for another long march, and within a couple of days George found himself one of a large body of troops heading for the Rhine valley. A halt was called before Landau, and the siege of this stronghold began. The affair proved to be a slow business, the attacking force being very short of military material. Days pa.s.sed; the fortress stood firm, no apparent impression being made at all.

"I dare wager the Duke won't stand cooling at this job," remarked Matthew to George and Fieldsend one evening. The latter with his regiment was a.s.sisting in the siege, and he had already taken a great liking for Matthew Blackett, a liking Matthew was not slow to reciprocate.

The prophecy was not far wrong. Almost before dawn the very next morning Marlborough was marching, with twelve thousand men, largely cavalry, towards the Queich valley, across a bit of country that for badness could hardly be matched even in the wilds of Connemara. On man and horse tramped, till the ancient city of Treves was reached. The Duke prepared for a siege, but he was saved the trouble. The garrison was far too weak to hold the place, and the place fell into his hands almost without a blow. George Fairburn grumbled at his luck, but was cheered by Matthew's laughing reply, "Don't seek to rush things too quickly, my dear lad; your time is coming."

It was. After ordering the siege of Traerbach, Marlborough flew back with a portion of his men to Landau, in his own breathless fashion, and before many hours were over Fairburn was as keenly interested in the siege as if he had never scampered all the way to Treves and back again. A week or two pa.s.sed by, and still the place held out, though it was plain the end was near.

One day a sudden a.s.sault was planned on a weak spot in the defences, a spot where some earlier damages had been ineffectively repaired.

George, with a troop of cavalry on foot, under the orders of Lieutenant Blackett, suddenly started off at the double, spurred by their officer's "Come along, lads! through or over!" With a roar of delight the men, mostly young fellows, dashed toward the spot, regardless of the whistling bullets that flew around. In a breach of the defences, a place not more than four or five feet wide, stood a huge Frenchman, whirling his sword over his head. The attackers pulled up for a moment, all except George, who kept right on, till he was close upon the big fellow with the sword. The Frenchman lunged out fiercely at the lad, but the Englishman skipped out of the way like a cat. Then before the man could use his weapon again George had charged him head first, like a bull, his body bent double. With a shock his head came into contact with the fellow's knees, and in a moment the Frenchman had tumbled helplessly on his face. The rest of Blackett's little band dashed over the prostrate enemy and into the fortress. The stronghold was taken.

"Send Cornet Fairburn to me, Mr. Blackett," said the colonel that same evening, and much wondering the lieutenant obeyed.

"Cornet Fairburn sounds well," he remarked to George. "Wonder if the old colonel has made a mistake about it."

There was no mistake at all. When George Fairburn returned from his interview with his commanding officer, it was as Cornet, not as Trooper Fairburn. It was by the Duke's own order, it appeared. That night the three friends, all with commissions in their pockets now, made merry in company. Sir George Rooke's desire had been speedily realized, and George had taken his first step upwards.

Marlborough marched to meet the King of Prussia, whom he persuaded to send some eight thousand troops to the help of the Duke of Savoy, in Italy. Then he went home to receive his honours, and the memorable campaign of 1704 came to an end.

Marlborough was a statesman as well as a brilliant commander, and he had his work at home as well as abroad, a work the winters enabled him to deal with. He was now quite aware that his best friends, that is to say, the chief supporters of his war schemes, were the Whigs, and he was working more and more energetically to put their party in power.

Harley and St. John took the place of more violent Tories, and in 1705 a coalition of Whigs and Tories, called the Junto, managed public affairs, more or less under Marlborough's direction. The d.u.c.h.ess still held her sway over the Queen, and the two ladies addressed each other as Mrs. Morley (the Queen) and Mrs. Freeman respectively. Already there were influences at work to undermine the power of the Marlboroughs, but their political downfall was not yet.

Scottish matters were giving a good deal of trouble to the English government. Two years before, in 1703, the Scotch Parliament had pa.s.sed an Act of Security, the object of which was to proclaim a different sovereign from that of England, unless Scotland should be guaranteed her own religious establishment and her laws. Now this year, 1705, the Parliament in London placed severe restrictions on the Scotch trade with England, and ordered the Border towns to be fortified. The irritation between the two countries grew and grew, and war seemed within sight. A commission was accordingly appointed to consider the terms of an Act of Union, the greater portion of Scotland, however, being strongly opposed to any such union at all.

The spring of 1705 found the Allies active once more. The main interest centres in the Netherlands and in Spain. The Earl of Peterborough, who took the command in Spain, was one of the most extraordinary men of his time. His energy and activity were amazing, and he would dash about the Continent in a fashion that often astounded his friends and confounded his enemies. No man knew where Peterborough would next turn up. "In journeys he outrides the post,"

Dean Swift wrote of him, and the Dean goes on to say,

So wonderful his expedition, When you have not the least suspicion, He's with you like an apparition.

Add to this that the Earl was a charming man, full of courage and enthusiasm, and able to command the unbounded affection of his troops, and you have the born leader of men. Of Peterborough's brilliant exploits in the Peninsula in 1705 a whole book might be written. His chief attention was first given to the important town of Barcelona, a place which had successfully withstood Rooke, and in the most remarkable fashion he captured the strong fort of Monjuich, the citadel of the town, with a force of only 1,200 foot and 200 horse.

Barcelona itself fell for a time into the hands of Peterborough and the Archduke Charles, now calling himself Charles III of Spain.

Success followed upon success, and whole provinces, Catalonia and Valencia, were won over. So marvellous was the story of his doings, indeed, that when, in the course of time, George Fairburn heard it, in the distant Netherlands, he was disposed to wish he had remained in Spain. Yet he had done very well, in that same year 1705, as we shall see.

Almost from his resumption of the command in the early spring of that year, Marlborough met with vexations and disappointments. He had formed the great plan of invading France by way of the Moselle valley, and our two heroes, who had heard whispers as to the work being cut out for the Allies, were ready to dance with delight. They were still frisky boys out of school, one may say. But the plan was opposed in two quarters. First, the Dutch, statesmen and generals alike, threw every obstacle in the way. They would not hear of the project. Then Louis of Baden was in one of his worst sulky fits, and for a time refused his help. When he did consent to go, he demanded a delay, pleading that a wound he had received at the Sch.e.l.lenberg, in the previous year, was not yet fully healed. The troops the Duke expected did not come in; instead of the 90,000 he wanted, but 30,000 mustered.

"It is no go," Blackett said to his friend with a groan.

At this juncture the Emperor Leopold died, and the Archduke's elder brother Joseph succeeded him.

"Spain is bound in the long run to drop into the hands of either France or Austria," the two young officers agreed. Already the lads were beginning to take an interest in great matters of state, as was natural in the case of well-educated and intelligent youngsters. And they felt that when either event should happen it would be a bad day for the rest of Europe.

Baffled in his great scheme, Marlborough set his hand to another important work. Across the province of Brabant in Flanders the French held a wonderful belt of strongholds, stretching from Namur to Antwerp. No invasion of France could possibly be made from the Netherlands so long as Louis held this formidable line of defences.

Moreover, the near presence of these fortresses to Holland was a standing threat to the Dutch, and, when Marlborough made known his plans to them, they for once fell in with them.