Ensign Royal

by Ensign Royal (retail) (epub)

  I fought my ground. I cannot recall how long I fought it for, or against how many; now I was lost in the red mist of battle, my sword thrusting and parrying against the brief assault of one enemy, then another. A glancing blow from a musket-butt struck my left shoulder, and the pain was so intense that I thought for a moment the arm was broken. Yet still I fought on, only dimly aware of the fact that for every step I took forward toward the enemy, I was taking two or three back. And downward. For now we were edging down the rear slope of the sand-hill, the victorious troops of the New Model occupying its summit.

  And then Taliesin Vaughan was by my side. ‘Boy, do you not hear the trumpets sound the retreat?’ he cried. ‘Come, Lieutenant. We need to seek our colours and regroup.’

  I was angry and confused, but there was no denying the sense of the old Welshman’s words. Thus I turned and ran, joining the headlong retreat of the last defenders of the sand-hill.

  * * *

  As we ran down the slope, the jeers and musket-shots of the New Model ringing in our ears, I caught a glimpse of the wider progress of the battle. Close to us, and to our right as we retreated toward the rear, the elite Spanish foot regiments were holding their own against Turenne’s finest and the rest of the New Model. But in the centre, the French infantry were clearly pressing hard against the mediocre German and Walloon regiments, as Villasanchez had feared; and if the centre broke, the battle was lost. The smoke and confusion made it impossible to see how the great Condé fared on our left. Perhaps if he could break through there, he could still come to the aid of the centre in time. And thus to the aid of our Britannic army, too; for I caught the occasional glimpse of one of our standards, in the thick of the fighting in the centre. That was where we were bound, toward the hellish cacophony of screaming, gunfire and clashes of metal on metal that indicated the very heart of the battle.

  A thin cheer went up from our men. I saw the Duke of York’s royal standard, flying at the head of his own troop of horse guards. With him rode some few score of Don John’s Spanish cavalry. They thundered past us majestically, bound for the sand-hill in a glorious attempt to avenge us and repel Lockhart’s regiment. By chance, Francis Kilvern rode on their nearest flank and saw me. He grinned and raised his hat, and I knew how happy he would be: I had lost count of the number of times he had told me of his longing to be in a great cavalry charge, scattering the enemy before it. Then the smoke of artillery fire clouded the scene again, and he was gone. It was the last time I ever saw him.

  It was only some twenty years later, after my discourse upon the battle with the Duke of York, that I learned the fate of poor Francis. The Duke told me of a man, by then a sergeant in the Life Guards, who had witnessed his end, and I sought him out. Alas, Francis did not perish in glory, wielding his sword to good effect against the traitors of the New Model. Only moments after he waved to me, a French cannonball struck the ground some yards in front of his horse. The beast reared up, affrighted, and threw Francis, who landed awkwardly. The old sergeant, riding behind, witnessed his head snap at the neck. Thus perished a dear friend and a centuries-old lineage.

  Now I was pushing my way through the rear ranks of our own infantry, bound toward my colour, the red, blue and gold battle standard of the king’s guard, glimpsed fleetingly above the throng. I had no more than ten men with me; I knew not how many had fallen on the sand-hill, how many might be with Taliesin Vaughan if he still lived, or how many might have taken their chance in the confusion of retreat to desert the field. Some of the Swiss and Walloons who had not yet engaged were already breaking and running; their inexorable shuffle backwards as their front ranks gave way before the French told them all they needed to know. The centre was breaking.

  Strangely, this realisation seemed to empower me. There is a mania in battle, and I was seized by an overwhelming conviction that if only my ten men and I could reach our own army, our reinforcement would make all the difference. On we went, as ever more of the Swiss and Walloons turned and ran.

  ‘Dia agus an ri!’ - the familiar cry came from close by, and I recognised the colours of the Duke of Ormonde’s Irish regiment, the rearmost unit of the royal army. They were not yet engaged, but the battle was coming ever closer: I glimpsed a fleur-de-lys banner no more than ten yards away, above the throng ahead of us. The noise and smell of weaponry and killing were almost overpowering.

  ‘God and the King!’ I shouted, echoing the battle-cry in my own tongue.

  A young red-haired captain, not much older than myself, studied me suspiciously. ‘You’ve been in the wars, friend,’ he said.

  Indeed I had; my hat was long gone, my sleeves were torn, my breastplate dented, and my right arm still caked in another’s blood. ‘Quinton’s troop, King’s Guard,’ I said proudly. ‘We were detached to defend the sand-hill.’

  ‘Then the fact you’re here now tells me you didn’t.’

  ‘The Duke of York has ridden to retake it –’

  ‘And been repelled,’ said the Irishman. ‘We just got word. The French cavalry came round from the flank, and drove them off.’

  My hot-headed belief in my own and my army’s invincibility withered and perished in that instant. If Turenne’s horse were in our rear and allied with Lockhart’s New Model, the enemy could roll up our line from the sea. Yet even when he knows all is lost, there is some elemental force that drives a soldier on. I saw our colour again, closer now and clearly retreating toward us, and knew I had to reach it.

  ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘God go with you, Irishman.’

  ‘And with you, Quinton’s troop, King’s Guard.’

  Onward, then, deeper and deeper into the fray, ever closer to our front line –

  A familiar figure appeared at my sight, as silently as though the ground itself had disgorged him onto that spot. Bearded and wielding an ugly, bloodied dirk in each hand, he resembled a veritable ambassador of death.

  ‘Alabada sea Dios!’ cried Villasanchez. ‘Mateo Quinton! You live. I had not thought to see you again.’

  ‘Nor I you,’ I said. ‘But Norris is dead.’

  The Spaniard was unmoved; for him, it would have been but one more death among the thousands he had witnessed. As would mine. ‘I shall light a candle for him,’ he said lightly. ‘But he will not be the last, this day.’

  ‘How goes it here?’ I had to shout to be heard above the din of battle.

  Before Villasanchez could answer, a gap appeared among the men in front of us. Through it came a French pikeman, half-pike at the shoulder, charging at us like a mad bull. Deftly for a man of his age and bulk, Villasanchez ducked under the weapon’s deadly point, sprang up and sliced his dirks crossways into the man’s deck as though he were carving a hog. Blood gushed as the man’s body fell onto its knees and thus into the sand, the ultimate price for the impetuosity of the first man to breach the enemy’s line.

  ‘It is over here,’ said Villasanchez, as though nothing had happened.

  ‘But we still stand – the colour of the King’s Guard still flies yonder –’

  ‘Look upon it well, for you will not see it ere long. The regiment is surrounded, Matthew. They have no hope. They must surrender, or they will all be cut down.’ His expression was grim. ‘Let us pray they surrender to the French, and not to your fanatic English friends. They can expect little quarter there, I fear.’

  A huddle of Irish troopers pressed down on us, retreating steadily before the French onslaught. We were barely ten feet from the enemies’ blades.

  ‘Then do we stand and fight here, Don Alonso?’ I demanded.

  ‘’Tis as good a place as any to die, young Mateo. May your heretical God go with you.’

  ‘And the blessing of the Romish Whore of Babylon be upon you, Don Alonso.’

  With that, we stepped forward to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our Irish comrades-in-arms.

  The reason why the French were about to carry the day was apparent at once. Their regiments were still in approximate order, a formidable if ragge
d line marching steadily forward under the torn, blood- and gunsmoke-stained but still recognisably white banners of France. Whereas our army had disintegrated into small groups, each fighting their own desperate battle for survival: here some Irishmen, nearby a gaggle of Germans, beyond them a troop of Scots, all battling bravely but too disordered to have any hope of success. On came the French, remorseless and dreadful –

  And stopped.

  For one fleeting moment, I believed that some miracle had occurred – that our cavalry had carried the sand-hill and turned in upon the enemy line. The behaviour of the French troops who were still engaged with us, retreating back in good order to the main body of their army, seemed to give credence to this. Only later, long after the battle was over, did I learn the true cause of the unaccountable pause by Turenne’s invincible infantry. They knew that our army’s last hope, Condé’s cavalry on our left, was making an almighty effort to break through and relieve the centre. Thus the French massed and then wheeled to meet the last attack of their own countrymen, knowing that the feeble army opposite them was already broken and beaten. The coup-de-grace upon the royal army of Britain could safely be left to its own inveterate foe. At first I heard only the drums of these new regiments, coming over from the left of their line and moving into position ahead of the French. Then, through the gunsmoke, I saw spectral shapes that slowly solidified into the familiar standards and turtle-backed helmets of the New Model Army. At their head rode several troops of their cavalry: the Lord Protector’s own favoured men, the part of the army in which he had made his name. The cavalry of the Parliament and Commonwealth of England. The men who had ridden down and killed my father upon Naseby Field.

  The sight of our new opponent was enough. Already the fine Spanish regiments to our right were retiring in good order from the field, covered by the artillery and what remained of our cavalry. The few German and Walloon regiments that had not broken in the early exchanges were now in headlong retreat. Villasanchez strode up and down the few yards around me, ordering men back into their ranks, berating their officers. He was an old soldier, and knew full well one of the oldest maxims of war. Cavalry rarely prevail against ordered units that hold their formation. But break your formation and run, and the cavalry will ride you down and hack you to pieces.

  Good soldiers would have heeded the Spaniard’s orders, and some did, slowly recreating some semblance of an ordered line of muskets and pikes. But the royal army was full of the scrapings of the British islands, and many of them had witnessed enough. And for those men – those boys - yes, the sight of the Ironside cavalry truly was more than enough. Many of the Duke of York’s Irish regiment simply dropped their weapons onto the sand, turned and fled.

  I moved to Villasanchez’s side as we watched the horsemen of the New Model manoeuvre into position for the charge. Without a word, I raised my sword in salute. He returned in kind. Then we turned and awaited the onslaught.

  The line of cavalrymen, perhaps a hundred in all, came on in a trot at first, then broke into a canter. I felt their hooves shake the firm Flemish sand, heard the drumbeat of their tread. Finally, perhaps twenty yards from us, they levelled swords and pikes and broke into the gallop.

  Villasanchez ordered our musketeers to give fire. It was a ragged volley – we could mass barely forty men for it – but at least two of the riders fell, one when a vast, ugly wound erupted in his horse’s shoulder and the beast stumbled in death-agony.

  ‘Hold steady!’ cried Villasanchez. ‘Pikemen, there! Hold, curse you!’

  Unnerved by the terrible sight of the charge, several of the men in the centre of our makeshift line threw down their arms and ran. Their action sealed their fate, and ours. The cavalry pulled up short of our ranks where they held, with two or three less experienced men reining in too late and running themselves or their beasts onto our pike-points, but the gap in the middle allowed rider after rider to pour through. A trooper hacked down at me, but I parried his blow and then he was past – but his action distracted me from the assault of the man behind him, whose spear thrust low and caught me on the hip, tearing open a vivid red gash in my flesh –

  ‘Close ranks!’ cried Villasanchez, gesticulating wildly as he attempted to get our line reformed.

  But it was too late. The horsemen who had already broken through were turning, ready to fall upon us from the rear. I ran into the gap and ordered the men nearest me to turn to face this new attack. As I did so a cavalryman attempted to ride me down, slashing viciously down onto my unprotected head. I just brought up my blade in time, but this was clearly both a competent horseman and swordsman. He turned his steed upon barely a few feet of sand and came for me again, this time in the classic cavalryman’s posture, his sword straight out at the end of his extended arm. All at once I became aware that there was another horseman, close behind me. I heard Villasanchez’s cry of warning, but that drew not only my attention to him. I saw the second horseman level his pistol at point-blank range and discharge it. I do not know where the ball struck Villasanchez. It span him round, and for one moment his hands raised above his head in what seemed like the gesture of benediction. I saw him slump forward, but did not see him strike the sand. For in that moment, the first cavalryman’s sword tore into the same shoulder that had been struck earlier in the morning. As the pain tore my conscious thoughts apart, I dimly saw the second cavalryman raise his empty pistol and bring it down on my head -

  There was sand. In the sand was blood, and I knew it was mine. I was dimly aware of running feet, and of hooves. Strangely, the armies seemed to have parted and I had a clear sight of the sea: of the ships that lay there. The bells of Dunkirk were tolling for noon-day. Above them rose the sound of a trumpet, the hooves seemed closer, and the last sight I saw was a familiar blue, red, gold banner.

  My last thought was, ‘Thanks to God, I have died for my king’.

  Chapter Ten

  There are angels. I have died, and I have seen them. To be precise, I have seen one. She was there when my disembodied eyes opened to peruse Heaven for the first time. And she was truly angelic. A pure face, full of sympathy and understanding. Clean, curling auburn hair. She spoke to me softly in a language I could not understand. The language of the angels. What else?

  My reverie lasted for barely a few moments: the time it took me to register the facts that I had the most violent, raging pain imaginable in both my head and my shoulder. Heaven looked suspiciously like an unadorned room in a middling household. The language of the angels seemed to bear a remarkable resemblance to Dutch. And as the angel leaned over me to mop my brow with a damp cloth, I realised that I had seen her before: upon the quayside in Nieuwpoort, when I left on my fated expedition to England.

  The door behind her opened, and I saw an even more familiar face: that of my brother.

  ‘Matthew Quinton,’ said Charles, Earl of Ravensden, standing over my bed and contemplating me, ‘I can only assume you have your grandfather’s legendary luck. You should be dead, brother.’

  Through the nearly unbearable pain, I struggled to form words. ‘The battle – the army –’

  ‘Lost, as Dunkirk is lost. France and the Protector exult, and bestride Europe. Dunkirk is handed to Cromwell, as the price Mazarin agreed for the Ironsides’ intervention.’ Charles settled himself on a stool beside my bed and clutched my wrist, as though to confirm he could feel my pulse. ‘The army of Spain came off in fair order, but ours is no more. The King’s Guard, surrendered. The Duke’s Irish regiment, slaughtered by Cromwell’s cavalry – the onslaught that you attempted to prevent, and nearly paid with your life for so doing.’

  ‘How – how was I not taken? Not killed?’

  ‘The Duke of Gloucester brought up a troop of horse to reinforce your line. They stemmed the flood for barely a few minutes, but it was sufficient to retrieve you and get you clear.’

  ‘Villasanchez?’ I posed the question in an impossible hope, although I already knew the answer.

  ‘Dead. I assume so
, in any event. Left on the field, with so many other good men. No doubt buried in a common pit by now. A thousand killed on our side, it’s said – five thousand more, wounded or captured.’

  My thoughts turned to Francis Kilvern, and Dick Norris, and Dick’s Alice, who would not yet know he was dead. Alice, to whom I would one day deliver Dick’s ring.

  Then a darker thought. ‘Mother?’

  ‘I have written to her. She will be here within a day, perhaps tonight.’ The formidable Dowager Countess was at Brussels, attending upon King Philip’s viceroy and attempting to win from that potentate a supply of new funds for the upkeep of both King Charles and the family of Quinton.

  ‘Then where is “here”, Charles?’

  ‘Here is Bruges, Matt. One of the houses owned by the estimable Meinheer van der Eide, a Dutchman who has been of much service to us. The traitorous Henfield’s vessel was one of his. Van der Eide’s daughter, here, has been tending upon you all the time since you were brought away from the battlefield. She seems quite taken with you.’

  He nodded to the girl, who understood the gesture if not his words and smiled back at him. It was a pleasing smile.

  ‘I did not think the Dutch favoured Cavaliers,’ I said, struggling to divert my thoughts from the delightful creature before me, the dire prospect of my mother’s imminent return, and the excruciating pain that dominated all.

  ‘The Dutch favour money,’ said Charles wryly. ‘Meinheer van der Eide may be as dour a Calvinist and republican as one can meet, but he had invested a considerable amount in London before the late troubles in our country. The Puritans show no inclination to return any of it to him. Thus his one hope is to invest now in the restoration of the king.’