“To get my musket, Captain; seems like the best way to ensure I don’t get killed.”
The pit was filled with pensive redcoats, who could see very little of the battle or the enemy. Gauner scanned the line of men ahead of him, aware that the rattle of drums and musketry was closing.
“They won’t stand. Not a third time. Get ready boys. We will have some business to do shortly.”
Musketeers peered into the green space beyond. The battalion ahead had suffered casualties from the last two attacks and the incessant skirmishing and those men who had helped a comrade to the hospital that had been set up in the grounds of the church were returning in fewer numbers. A body slithered down the slope into the pit and Gauner was just about to turn and savage the new comer thinking it might have been one of the redcoats hoping to shelter there rather than return to the battalion when he heard the shouts of ‘Krombach’ and laughter and backslapping from the men around him.
Gauner turned and looked at the redcoat in muddied cavalry trousers and stained red tunic.
“Well, the prodigal son; you must be slumming it to mix with the likes of us, boy!”
“The air is much cooler down here, Sergeant, than upstairs with the General. Besides, everyone else has a vested interest in keeping me alive, so I thought I would pay you a visit; might be lucky for you.” Krombach laughed as Reifener dropped the musket he was clutching and gave Krombach his best imitation of a bear hug, followed by Pinsk who thumped him on the back for good measure.
Outside there was the sound of running on either side of the windmill.
“You’re a cocky bastard, Krombach!” Gauner hissed. “As for lucky, that line has broken; we are for it now. Rest time is over, make ready for the order to fire.”
The pit was quickly wreathed in smoke, Krombach perched next to Reifener and joined in the drill of loading and reloading, passing muskets forward to those in the firing positions. Musket balls splattered against the frame work of the building. The drums were close; the ground shook with the trample of thousands of pairs of feet marching in unison, heading up the gentle slope towards the windmill. Krombach could imagine the blue massed ranks heading towards their position; above him the sounds of feet on the staircase. Wallmoden and his staff had clearly seen enough.
“Rats and a sinking ship; you off to join your new friends, Krombach?”
The building shuddered and part of the side of the structure gave way, filling the pit with debris and dust, choking the men and caking them in white powder, a testament to the century of flour- making with which the windmill had served the citizens of Hondschoote. Soldiers cleared away the powdery dirt from their eyes and returned to the firing positions, one man instantly rolling away, white face stained red as a single hole above the temple pumped out jets of thick red blood.
“Return to your positions. Krombach, make yourself useful and get that body out the back.”
Crawling forward, Krombach couldn’t recognise the dead soldier and hesitated as to how to move the weight of the corpse.
“Here, ‘Bastion, take his shoulders, I will take his feet.” Pinsk dropped his musket and helped despite the curses from Gauner.
The two men hauled the body out and laid it by the wreckage part of the windmill just as another cannonball struck, showering the ground where they had stood with needle sharp splinters. The two friends threw themselves boldly into the pit landing on top of the musketeers attempting to load.
“Come on, we need those muskets. Pinsk back to your post!” Gauner barked.
Krombach returned to the mechanical process of loading, the saltpetre of the gunpowder staining his face as he worked on one musket before loading another.
“One more volley. Then fix bayonets, lads!”
The French column was thirty yards at most. It had stopped its advance and was preparing to fire. On either side, through the acrid smoke, Krombach could just make out the trench to the right where Brandt was ordering volley after volley from the men around him. Muskets crackled in unison to the left, he could only assume that the balance of the battalion would be stood in double line, commanded by the resolute Neuberg, though Krombach could see nothing of it.
He loaded one more musket and passed it forward to a grasping hand as the building shook again with the rattle of hailstones. Another redcoat slid down into the pit, screeching and clutching at the remains of an ear. Even though the writhing body was no more than five feet from Krombach, the screams were drowned by the cheers of a thousand Frenchmen as the battalion hurled itself as the positions of the 10th. In that moment, Krombach reached for his own musket and fished for the bayonet, twisting and fixing it into position. The light of the day seemed to be smothered up by the press of bodies running past on either side of the building. He turned and guarded the steps that led down into the pit, only to see a curious blue-coat stick his head under the beams of the building. Krombach screamed and thrust the bayonet deep into the soft tissue of the Frenchman's mouth, feeling the bayonet rip through muscle and puncture the back of the neck. Yanking the musket back, the body dropped down so that the eyes remained fixed accusingly on their killer while a torrent of blood stained a dirty blue uniform.
Other bodies appeared and musket balls ripped into the enclosed space of the pit. Pinsk clutched at a wounded arm but waved away Krombach when he tried to help. Another Frenchman attempted to force his way down the steps into the pit, but Reifener’s bayonet caught the man square in the belly as Krombach’s drove up into the dying man’s chest.
Another ragged volley from the left; Neuberg's line held. Then suddenly there was a new sound. The crashing of hooves on cobbles and a Frenchman fell against the shattered framework of the windmill, then slithered and fell into the pit to be stabbed by a dozen bayonets. Blue-coats were running, this time in the other direction, pursued by cavalry.
“It’s the Guards!” Krombach could just make out the rich, red tunics of the Life Guards as a squadron in a dense column swept from the town and into the flank of the French mass that had burst through the position of 2nd Company. The redcoats punched stale air with jubilation and then waited for orders. But the voice of Gauner was quiet. Krombach looked at the hulking Sergeant slumped forward and then saw the red stain that had soaked his right leg. Krombach pulled Gauner upright and saw that despite his deathly white pallor, the Sergeant was still breathing, his hand clutching at the wound in the top of his thigh.
“Don’t let them take my leg off, boy. I’d rather die now than live as a cripple.”
Krombach looked at Gauner's colour. He had seen men carried from his father’s ships with broken limbs and tried to remember what to do.
“If we can’t stop the bleeding Sergeant, it won’t matter.”
Gauner coughed. “Are you trying to comfort me?”
Krombach reached down and tore a section of Gauner’s trouser, reached under the wound and tied a tourniquet as tightly as he possibly could. That only left the matter of shifting the man whose muscular frame weighed at least half as much again as every other soldier in the pit.
“I have an idea.” He turned and looked at Pinsk whose wound was being bound by Reifener.
“You alright, Henry?”
Pinsk nodded, gritting his teeth.
“Good, because I think as the only remaining NCO, you are in charge.”
Krombach scrambled out of the pit, just as the Hanoverian Life Guards began to return from the mauling of the French troops, in near perfect order. He dodged between horses and saw to his relief that his captain was still alive and that the trenches of Brandt’s Company had been largely bypassed by the enemy.
“Sir, can you spare the Ox?”
Brandt looked at Krombach as if he had gone slightly mad, in so much as he was covered in white dust, stained red with streaks of blood.
“Who?”
Krombach shook his head. “Sorry sir, Corporal Hartmann. Sergeant Gauner is badly wounded and none of us can lift him.”
Hartman had already hea
rd his nickname and had vaulted out of the trench before Krombach had finished the sentence, trotting off towards the remains of the windmill, before Brandt could even reply.
“It seems I can.” Brandt said, watching Hartmann go. “This,” Brandt pointed to Krombach’s attire, blood-stained and thick with mud, “…this is your idea of keeping out of trouble? I think you had better clean yourself off and then present yourself to the General.”
“Yes, sir.” Krombach said in a resigned voice. “Do you think the French will attack again?”
Brandt looked at the fleeing infantry and beyond them, the dark columns which stood reformed from the earlier attacks.
“Perhaps; we will know in the next hour or two. Find the General, stay out of sight of the enemy. That is an order!”
Krombach nodded and turned away, retiring to the pit only to say goodbye to his friends, collect his musket and find his mount.
Hondschoote: 8th September 1793
The fourth attack began at just after six p.m. For a while the battalions, remnants of the last three attacks, made good progress up the slope and on towards the stump of the windmill. Davide and Mahieu watched and waited. The Black Lions had skirmished throughout most of the day, although 6th Company had never been called upon. General Jourdan had thundered past a dozen times, encouraging men to advance, rallying those battalions that had been driven back. He had taken two fresh mounts, such were his efforts.
Now his final attack was being set in motion. But as one battalion reached the crest of the rise, another broke, spreading confusion in the massed ranks of men already shaken by defeat. Houchard galloped past and on towards Hondschoote, but still no orders came for the Black Lions. Blue-coats streamed away from the battle, discarding packs and muskets and passing the solid mass of men who stood watching them.
“Can’t say I blame them, Mahieu, I…” Davide had turned to speak but Mahieu just motioned ahead.
“Look, sir. I think he’s come for us.”
Jean-Baptiste Jourdan swept down the hillside at a gallop, closing in on the Colonel.
“14th?” Jourdan shouted, eyes wide with the adrenaline of the moment.
“Yes sir; the Black Lions at your command.”
“Good,” Jourdan understood immediately. A name gave them pride; he could use that to goad them on to finally break the redcoats’ resistance.
“Black Lions, with me; the enemy will run when he sees your standard.”
Jourdan raced back to the battle and the Black Lions followed, ready to face and defeat a stubborn foe.
The enemy had broken at the very moment that the 14th had crested the ground around the windmill, the column becoming ragged as it passed over the carnage of the battlefield. Ahead three battalions, two redcoats and one of deep blue held the rear-guard, falling back in perfect order through the town square. The ground shook as a thousand horsemen swept over the ridge, Houchard at the head. Two regiments of dragoons crashed past the Black Lions to chase the enemy that were now fleeing from the village of Leyselle, in the pale of the September evening light.
Hondschoote had fallen. The day belonged to the Republic.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Message.
Rosendael: 8th September 1793
The journey across the moor was less treacherous than Krombach had feared but his relief at finding the track that led from Furnes and following that to where he could see the distant light from Ghyvelde was palpable. Once he had found a crossing point for the canal that ran between Dunkirk and Furnes, the lights of the army camped at Rosendael and the glow of Dunkirk beyond lit his way. Yet before he had reached either, he joined a road crowded with wagons and carts of every description. The baggage and wounded from the army of the Duke of York were being withdrawn. Krombach asked a dozen drivers, but each seemed equally ill informed. They were simply following the wagon in front, heading to Furnes or Nieuport, no one seemed certain.
Krombach pushed his horse on, knowing that Trevethan had waited several hours now but when eventually he had found a path to the battery at Rosendael, matters had clearly been decided. Trevethan listened to Krombach’s account of the day and then added the news of his own. The Guards had held out at Teteghem, had they not, the army would have been forced to take to the Dunes to escape. With the immediate line of retreat threatened combined with the message from Wallmoden, the Duke had ordered several squadrons of cavalry to Furnes, the baggage train and all the sick and injured. The French had continued their raids throughout the day. The siege was to be lifted until the outcome at Hondschoote was known.
“What should we do now, sir?”
“We assume that the Duke doesn’t know for certain that Wallmoden is withdrawing. Can I ask you to ride there now? Virtually his entire staff has ghosted away. I imagine that the infantry will follow suit soon. I’m waiting on wagon teams to return so I can move these guns. If we lose these the game is up. The powder will have to be burned or tipped into the canal too.”
Trevethan peered at his watch twisting it towards the glow of a nearby fire.
“It’s a little after nine now. I want to be away from here by three in the morning at the worst. Get yourself back here as soon as you can, bring anything you can that can drag these guns. I will see if I can find any barges to move them but it took us two hours a piece to unload them. I need those wagon teams and limbers.”
“Where are the limbers, sir?”
“Furnes, with the magazine; don’t ask me why m’boy. Someone obviously thought it a good idea. Find the Duke and get back here as soon as you can. There’s a good lad. I’m going to need every pair of hands if we are going to disappear before daylight.”
Around him navvies had already set to work, waiting for the dusk-light to finally recede in order that the task of saving the siege guns could begin unobserved by the enemy.
Ghyvelde: 9th September 1793
In the few minutes that Krombach had spent with Trevethan, the road to Furnes had become further congested. A battalion of infantry were waiting to take the place amongst the slow-moving traffic of an army that was fleeing in something near controlled chaos. Krombach managed to push past the line of redcoats, despite a volley of curses from the tired men and then found his way blocked by two squadrons of cavalry. Anxiously, Krombach considered leaving the road and once again traversing the Great Moor but in the dark he could not be sure of the way. There was no choice but to join the stream of men and animals that drifted slowly east towards the garrison town of Furnes until he could find a patch of ground to skirt around the impasse of the cavalry.
It had taken an hour to make the half a dozen miles to the outskirts of Ghyvelde. A westerly wind whipped across the landscape, drawing up fine clouds of sand, stinging the necks of the travellers on the Furnes road and blowing directly into the face of a horseman trying to push his way along the margins of the road. The strengthening breezes peeled away the clouds that had smothered night sky and he recognised the officer as one of the Duke’s staff, the man who had been the aide to Freytag.
At the same time, Henson-Jefferies had spotted Krombach. Despite the moonlight and the filth of redcoat’s uniform, he beckoned the man that Trevethan had been using as a messenger.
“You, sir, over here to me!”
Krombach waited for a wagon to pass and then pushed in front of another, to a stream of curses from the driver, who pulled hard on the reins of the team he was steering. With another kick into the flanks of his mount, Krombach crossed the road, reining in next to the immaculately dressed aide.
“Do you carry a message, boy?”
“Yes sir. One from General Wallmoden to the Duke and a verbal one from Major Trevethan to the Duke of York; he requests the wagons and limbers to move the artillery.”
“You can forget that! That will not be possible. It’s taken me the best part of an hour to get to here. Do you know where Teteghem is?”
“Yes, Sir, you need to head back along this road and instead of taking the fork for Rose
ndael…”
“Yes, I know where it is!” Henson-Jefferies spoke crossly. “I asked if you knew where it is. This message must get there at once. It is from the Duke himself and outranks the message that you carry. Give me Wallmoden’s message. You know your way around the Moor?”
“Not in the dark, sir? Not with confidence, no…”
“Well the lives of five hundred Guardsmen now depend on your actions. On this road it might take me the rest of the night to reach Teteghem. You might make it in a single hour across the moor.”
Henson-Jefferies handed Krombach the dispatch. “Take this. Get to Teteghem as fast as you can. Then ride to Rosendael, order Trevethan to destroy the guns and retreat. Good luck…” Henson-Jefferies nodded to Krombach, the matter was settled, and wheeled his horse on into the night towards the distant lights of Furnes.
Krombach looked at the dispatch and then placed it carefully inside the pocket of his jacket that Frau Brandt had arranged to have sown there; for all the messages Krombach had carried, not one had been on behalf of his Captain. Not that any of that mattered and he tried to clear his head to think of the best way to Teteghem.
He reached into his saddle bag and searched for a dog-eared fold of paper, a map he had, first sketched when the guide had taken him across the moor. Krombach wanted to avoid the place at all costs at night. That was an impossible task, for him at least despite what the Guards officer might think. He traced the ground from Ghyvelde. If he followed the arms of one of the canals, it would lead directly to Teteghem. The northern side looked more temping but the ground was broken by a series of large water-filled ditches and he had not marked any crossing places, in truth it was an area he knew little of other than through observation. A southern route skirted the moor and ended at a marsh which led to Coudekerque. There was a crossing point that he knew of but he would still need to cross the main canal, a waterway of some thirty feet. Krombach made up his mind and spurred his tired horse away from the village of Ghyvelde to find a route south and west to Teteghem.
The King of Dunkirk Page 30