Chapter 12: The Sad Side Of War.
Before firing the keg of powder, Rupert and Hugh had rid themselvesof their jackboots, coats, and vests, and they therefore swameasily and confidently.
"Listen, Hugh! Here is the boat coming back again," Rupertexclaimed. "This thick mist is fortunate, for they can't see twentyyards. We can always dive when they come near. Mind you go downwithout making a splash. We are all right at present; the boat isgoing to our right, let us swim quietly in the other direction."
Presently they heard a voice in English say, "It is no use ourtroubling ourselves. It's a mere waste of time. The young rascalsare dead. Drowned or blown up, what matters it? They will nevertrouble you again."
"You don't know the villains as well as I do. They have as manylives as cats. I could have sworn that they were burned at thatmill, for I watched till it fell, and not a soul came out; and tothis moment I don't know how they escaped, unless they flew away inthe smoke. Then I thought at any rate the chief rogue was done for,when Muller wrote to tell me he was going to finish him for me thenext day. Then they both got through that day's fighting by theScheldt, though I hear they were in the front of it. And now, whenI leave them fastened up like puppies in a basket, in a sinkingboat, comes this explosion, and all is uncertain again."
"Not a bit of it," the other voice said; "they simply preferred asudden death to a slow one. The matter is simple enough."
"I wish I could think so," the other said. "But I tell you, afterthis night's work I shall never feel my life's safe for one hour,till I hear certain news of their death.
"Stop rowing," he said, in Dutch. "There is a bit of a plank; wemust be just on the place where she blew up! Listen, does anyonehear anything?"
There was a long silence, and then he said, "Row about for half anhour. It's as dark as a wolf's mouth, but we may come upon them."
In the meantime, the two lads were swimming steadily and quietlyaway.
Presently Hugh said, "I must get rid of my sword, Master Rupert, itseems pulling me down. I don't like to lose it, for it was mygrandfather's."
"You had better lose the grandfather's sword, Hugh, than thegrandson's life. Loose your belt, Hugh, and let it go. Mine is noweight in comparison. I'll stick to it as long as I can, for it maybe useful; but if needs be, it must follow yours."
"Which way do you think the shore lies?" Hugh asked, after having,with a sigh of regret, loosed his sword belt and let it go.
"I have no idea, Hugh. It's no use swimming now, for with nothingto fix our eyes on, we may be going round in a circle. All we needdo is to keep ourselves afloat till the mist clears up, or daylightcomes."
For an hour they drifted quietly.
Hugh exclaimed, "I hear a voice."
"So do I, Hugh. It may be on shore, it may be in a boat. Let usmake for it in either case."
In five minutes they saw close ahead of them a large boat, which,with its sail hanging idly by the mast, was drifting downstream.Two boatmen were sitting by the tiller, smoking their pipes.
"Heave us a rope," Hugh said in Dutch. "We have had an upset, andshall be glad to be out of this."
The boatmen gave a cry of surprise, but at once leapt to theirfeet, and would have thrown a rope, but by this time the lads werealongside, and leaning over they helped them into the boat. Thenthey looked with astonishment at their suddenly arrived guests.
"We are English soldiers," Hugh said, "on our way to Bergen opZoom, when by some carelessness a keg of powder blew up, our boatwent to the bottom, and we have been swimming for it for the lastcouple of hours."
"Are you the English officer and soldier who left Dort thisafternoon?" one of the men said. "We saw you come down to the quaywith Mynheer Von Duyk and his daughter. Our boat lay next to theboat you went by."
"That is so," Hugh said. "Are you going to Bergen? We have enoughdollars left to pay our passage."
"You would be welcome in any case," the boatman said. "HansPetersen is not a man to bargain with shipwrecked men. But gobelow. There is a fire there. I will lend you some dry clothes, anda glass of hot schnapps will warm your blood again."
Arrived at Bergen, one of the boatmen, at Rupert's request, went upinto the town, and returned with a merchant of ready-made clothes,followed by his servant bearing a selection of garments such asRupert had said that they would require, and in another half hour,after a handsome present to the boatmen, Rupert and Hugh landed,dressed in the costume of a Dutch gentleman and burgherrespectively. Their first visit was to an armourer's shop, whereHugh was provided with a sword, in point of temper and make fullyequal to that with which he had so reluctantly parted. Then, hiringhorses, they journeyed by easy stages to Huy, a town on the Meuse,six leagues above Liege, which Marlborough, again forbidden by theDutch deputies to give battle when he had every prospect of a greatvictory, was besieging.
The capture of the fortress, and subsequently of Limberg, was allthe campaign of 1703 effected; whereas, had the English commanderbeen allowed to have his way, the great results which were notobtained until after three years' further fighting might at oncehave been gained.
Rupert was greeted with enthusiasm by his comrades on his return.After the battle before Antwerp the duke had caused inquiries to bemade as to the fate of his young friend, and had written to Dort,and had received an answer from Rupert announcing his convalescenceand speedy return to duty.
Upon hearing his tale of the fresh attempt upon his life by SirRichard Fulke, the commander-in-chief wrote to the States General,as the government of Holland was called, and requested that ordersshould be issued for the arrest of Sir Richard Fulke, wherever hemight be found, upon a charge of attempt at murder. Nothing was,however, heard of him, and it was supposed that he had eitherreturned to England or passed into Germany.
After the capture of Limberg the army went into winter quarters,and the 5th dragoons were allotted their old quarters near Liege.
During the campaign of 1703, although slight advantages had beengained by the allies in Flanders, it was otherwise in Germany andItaly, where the greatest efforts of the French had been made.Beyond the Rhine the French and Bavarians had carried all beforethem, and Villars, who commanded their armies here, had almosteffected a junction across the Alps with Vendome, who commanded theFrench troops in Italy. Had success crowned their efforts, thearmies could have been passed at will to either one side or theother of the Alps, and could have thrown themselves withoverwhelming force either upon Austria, or upon Prince Eugene, whocommanded the imperial troops in Italy. The mountaineers of theTyrol, however, flew to arms, and held their passes with suchextreme bravery that neither the Bavarians on the north, nor theFrench on the south, could make any progress, and the design hadfor a time been abandoned.
Austria was paralyzed by the formidable insurrection of Hungary,and it appeared certain that Vienna would in the ensuing campaignfall into the hands of the French.
During the Winter Marlborough laboured earnestly to prepare for theimportant campaign which must take place in the spring, and afterthe usual amount of difficulties, arising from private andpolitical enemies at home and in Holland, he succeeded in carryingout his plan, and in arranging that the Dutch should hold theirfrontier line alone, and that he should carry the rest of his armyinto Germany.
The position there seemed well-nigh desperate. Marshal Tallard,with 45,000 men, was posted on the Upper Rhine, in readiness toadvance through the Black Forest and join the advanced force andthe Bavarians--who also numbered 45,000 men, and the united armywas to advance upon Vienna, which, so weakened was the empire, wasdefended only by an army of 20,000 men, placed on the frontier.
On the 8th of May, Marlborough set out with his army, crossed theMeuse at Maestricht, and arrived at Bonn on the 28th of that month.Marching up the Rhine, he crossed it at Coblentz on the 26th, andpushed on to Mundlesheim, where he met Prince Eugene, who nowcommanded the allied force there. Next only to Marlborough himself,Eugene was the greatest general of the age--skillful, dashing yetprudent,
brave to a fault--for a general can be too brave--frank,sincere, and incapable of petty jealousy.
Between him and Marlborough, from the date of their first meeting,the most cordial friendship, and the most loyal cooperationprevailed. Each was always anxious to give the other credit, andthought more of each other's glory than their own. So rapidly hadMarlborough marched, that only his cavalry had come up; and PrinceEugene, reviewing them, remarked that they were the finest body ofmen he had ever seen.
A few days later the Prince of Baden came down from the Austrianarmy of the Danube to meet him. Eugene and Marlborough wished theprince to take the command of the army of the Rhine, leaving thearmy of the Danube to their joint command. The prince, however,stood upon his rank; and it was finally arranged that Eugene shouldcommand the army of the Rhine, and that Marlborough and the Princeof Baden should command the army of the Danube on alternatedays--an arrangement so objectionable that it is surprising it didnot terminate in disaster.
Marlborough at once marched with his force, and making his way withgreat difficulty through the long and narrow defile of Gieslingen,effected a junction with the Prince of Baden's army; and foundhimself on the 2nd of July at the head of an army of 96 battalions,202 squadrons of horse, and 48 guns; confronting the French andBavarian army, consisting of 88 battalions, 160 squadrons, 90 guns,and 40 mortars, in a strong position on the Danube.
The bulk of the army was on the right bank. On the left bank wasthe height of Schellenberg, covering the passage of the river atDonauwoerth, and held by 12,000 men, including 2500 horse. Alongthe front of this hill was an old rampart, which the French wereengaged in strengthening when the allied army arrived. The latterwere not when they came up, according to the ordinary militaryidea, in a condition to attack. Their camp had been broken up atthree in the morning, and it was two in the afternoon before theyarrived, after a long and fatiguing march, in front of the enemy'sposition.
Thinking that it was probable that he would be forced to fightimmediately upon arriving, Marlborough had selected 530 picked menfrom each battalion, amounting to 6000 men, together with thirtysquadrons of horse, as an advance guard; and close behind themfollowed three regiments of Imperial grenadiers, under PrinceLouis. The total strength of this force was 10,500 men.
The French and Bavarian generals did not expect an attack, knowingthe distance that the troops had marched, and therefore quietlycontinued their work of strengthening the entrenchments. The Dukeof Marlborough, seeing the work upon which they were engaged,determined to attack at once, for, as he said to the Prince ofBaden, who wished to allow the men a night's rest, "Every hour wedelay will cost us a thousand men." Orders were therefore given foran instant assault upon the hill of Schellenberg. Not only was theposition very strong in itself, but in front of it was a wood, sothick that no attack could be made through it. It was necessary,therefore, to attack by the flanks of the position, and one ofthese flanks was covered by the fire of the fortress ofDonauwoerth.
"This is as bad as a siege," Rupert said, discontentedly, to hisfriend Dillon, for their squadron formed part of the advance. "Weare always out of it."
"You are in a great hurry to get that bright cuirass of yoursdented, Rupert; but I agree with you, the cavalry are always out ofit. There go the infantry."
In splendid order the 6000 picked men moved forward against theface of the enemy's position, extending from the wood to thecovered way of the fortress; but when they arrived within range ofgrape, they were swept by so fearful a storm of shot that the linewavered. General Goor and his bravest officers were struck down,and the line fell into confusion.
The Bavarians seeing this, leapt from their entrenchment; andpursued their broken assailants with the bayonet; but whendisordered by their rush, a battalion of English guards, which hadkept its ground, poured so tremendous a fire into their flank thatthey fell back to their entrenchments.
"This looks serious," Dillon said, as the allies fell back. "Theenemy are two to our one, and they have got all the advantage ofposition."
"There is the duke," Rupert exclaimed, "reforming them. There theygo again, and he is leading them himself. What a terrible fire!Look how the officers of the staff are dropping! Oh, if the dukeshould himself be hit! See, the infantry are slackening theiradvance in spite of the shouts of their officers. They arewavering! Oh, how dreadful; here they come back again."
"The duke is going to try again, Rupert. See how he is waving hishand and exhorting the men to a fresh attack.
"That's right, lads, that's right.
"They have formed again; there they go."
Again the troops wavered and broke under the terrible rain ofbullets; and this time the Bavarians in great force leapt fromtheir entrenchments, and pounced down upon the broken line.
"Prepare to charge!" shouted General Lumley, who commanded thecavalry. "Forward, trot, gallop, charge!"
With a cheer the cavalry, chafed at their long inaction while theircomrades were suffering so terribly, dashed forward, and threwthemselves furiously upon the Bavarians, driving them headlong backto their lines, and then falling back under a tremendous fire,which rolled over men and horses in numbers.
At this moment a cheer broke from the dispirited infantry, as the headsof the three regiments of Imperial grenadiers, led by the Prince ofBaden, arrived on the ground. These, without halting, moved forwardtowards the extreme left of the enemy's position--which had been leftto some extent unguarded, many of the troops having been called off torepulse Marlborough's attack--pushed back two battalions of Frenchinfantry, and entered the works.
General D'Arco, the French commanding officer, withdrew some of hismen from the centre to hold the Prince of Baden in check; andMarlborough profited by the confusion so caused to endeavour, forthe fourth time, to carry the hill. His force was however, nowfearfully weakened; and General Lumley, after conferring with himfor a moment, rode back to the cavalry.
"The 5th dragoons will dismount and join the infantry," he said.
In a moment every soldier was on his feet; and five minutes laterthe regiment, marching side by side with the infantry, advanced upthe hill.
This time the assault was successful. The enemy, confused by thefact that the allies had already forced their line on the left,wavered. Their fire was wild and ineffectual; and with a tremendouscheer the allies scaled the height and burst into the works. Closebehind them General Lumley led his cavalry, who made their waythrough the gaps in the entrenchments, and fell upon the fugitiveswith dreadful slaughter. The French and Bavarians fled to a bridgeacross the Danube below Donauwoerth, which, choked by their weight,gave way, and great numbers were drowned. The rest retreatedthrough Donauwoerth, their rear being gallantly covered by GeneralD'Arco, with a small body of troops who held together. Sixteen gunsand thirteen standards fell into the victors' hands.
The loss of the allies, considering the force that they broughtinto the field--for the main army had not arrived when the victorywas decided--was extraordinary, for out of a total of 10,500 men,including cavalry, they lost 1500 killed, and 4000 wounded, or morethan half their force; and the greater part of these were English,for upon them fell the whole brunt of the fighting.
The enemy suffered comparatively little in the battle, but greatnumbers were killed in the pursuit or drowned in the Danube. Stillgreater numbers of Bavarians scattered to their homes; and out of12000 men, only 3000 joined the army on the other side of theDanube.
The Elector of Bavaria fell back with his army to Augsburg, underthe cannon of which fortress he encamped, in a position too strongto be attacked. His strong places all fell into the hands of theallies; and every effort was made to induce him to break off fromhis alliance with France. The elector, however, relying upon theaid of Marshal Tallard, who was advancing with 45,000 men to hisassistance, refused to listen to any terms; and the allied powersordered Marlborough to harry his country, and so force him intosubmission by the misery of his subjects.
Such an order was most repugnant to the duke, who
was one of themost humane of men, and who by the uniform kind treatment of hisprisoners, not only did much to mitigate the horrors of the war inwhich he was engaged, but set an example which has since his timebeen followed by all civilized armies. He had, however, no resourcebut to obey orders; and the cavalry of the allies were sent tocarry fire through Bavaria. No less than 300 towns and villageswere destroyed in this barbarous warfare.
This duty was abhorrent to Rupert, who waited on the duke, andbegged him as the greatest of favours to attach him for a shorttime to the staff, in order that he might not be obliged toaccompany his regiment. The duke--who had already offered Rupert anappointment on his staff, an offer he had gratefully declined, ashe preferred to do duty with his regiment--at once acceded to hisrequest, and he was thus spared the horror of seeing the agony ofthe unhappy peasantry and townspeople, at the destruction of theirhouses. Rupert, in his rides with messages across the country, sawenough to make him heartsick at the distress into which the peopleof the country were plunged.
One day when riding, followed by Hugh, he came upon a sad group. Bya hut which had recently been burned, after some resistance, as wasshown by the dead body of a Hessian trooper, a peasant knelt by thebody of his wife. A dead child of some five years old lay by, and ababy kicked and cried by the side of its mother. The peasant lookedup with an air of bewildered grief, and on seeing the Britishuniform sprang to his feet, and with a fierce but despairinggesture placed himself as if to defend his children to the last.
Rupert drew his rein.
"I would not hurt you, my poor fellow," he said in Dutch.
The man did not understand, but the gentleness of the tone showedhim that no harm was meant, and he again flung himself down by hiswife.
"I do not think that she is dead, Hugh," Rupert said. "Hold myhorse, I will soon see."
So saying, he dismounted and knelt by the woman. There was a woundon her forehead, and her face was covered with blood. Rupert ran toa stream that trickled by the side of the road, dipped hishandkerchief in water, and returning, wiped the blood from the faceand wound.
"It is a pistol bullet, I imagine," he said to him; "but I do notthink the ball has entered her head; it has, I think, glanced off.Fasten the horses up to that rail, Hugh, get some water in yourhands, and dash it in her face."
The peasant paid no attention to what was being done, but satabsorbed in grief; mechanically patting the child beside him.
"That's it, Hugh. Now another. I do believe she is only stunned.Give me that flask of spirits out of my holster."
Hugh again dashed water in the woman's face, and Rupert distinctlysaw a quiver in her eyelid as he did so. Then forcing open herteeth, he poured a little spirit into her mouth, and was in aminute rewarded by a gasping sigh.
"She lives," he exclaimed, shaking the peasant by the shoulder.
The man looked round stupidly, but Rupert pointed to his wife, andagain poured some spirits between her lips. This time she made aslight movement and opened her eyes. The peasant gave a wild screamof delight, and poured forth a volume of words, of which Rupertunderstood nothing; but the peasant kneeling beside him, bent hisforehead till it touched the ground, and then kissed the lappet ofhis coat--an action expressive of the intensity of his gratitude.
Rupert continued his efforts until the woman was able to sit up,and look round with a frightened and bewildered air. When her eyecaught her husband, she burst into tears; and as Hugh raised thebaby and placed it in her arms she clasped it tightly, and rockedto and fro, sobbing convulsively.
"Look, Hugh, see if you can find something like a spade in thatlittle garden. Let us bury this poor little child."
Hugh soon found a spade, and dug a little grave in the corner of agarden under the shade of an old tree.
Then the lads returned to the spot where the husband and wife,quiet now, were sitting hand in hand crying together. Rupert made asign to him to lift the body of his little girl, and then led theway to the little grave. The father laid her in, and then fell onhis knees by it with his wife, and prayed in a loud voice, brokenwith sobs. Rupert and Hugh stood by uncovered, until the peasanthad finished. Then the little grave was filled in; and Rupert,pointing to the ruined house, placed five gold pieces in thewoman's hand. Then they mounted their horses again and rode on, theman and his wife both kneeling by the roadside praying forblessings on their heads.
A week later, Rupert again had occasion to pass through thevillage, and dismounted and walked to the little grave. A roughcross had been placed at one end, and some flowers lay strewn uponit. Rupert picked a few of the roses which were blooming neglectednear, and laid them on the grave, and then rode on, sighing at thehorrors which war inflicts on an innocent population.
This time their route lay through a thickly wooded mountain, to atown beyond, where one of the cavalry regiments had itsheadquarters. Rupert was the bearer of orders for it to return toheadquarters, as a general movement of the army was to take place.The road was a mere track, hilly and wild, and the lads rode withpistols cocked, in case of any sudden attack by deserters orstragglers from the Bavarian army. The journey was, however,performed without adventure; and having delivered their orders,they at once started on their homeward way.