by Iain Gale
Orkney demurred.
‘Perhaps it is their intent. That is fine ground for cavalry. No hedges or ditches and the corn ready harvested.’
‘That may be so. But even if it is a premeditated move, you cannot deny that it has presented me with an opportunity. Tallard has placed how many, eight perhaps nine battalions of infantry in the centre. Gentlemen, it may well be a fatal error.’
As he spoke the words, a shot came spinning through the air from the French lines and hit the horse of one of his aides, a cornet of Lumley’s Horse, square on. It sheared the animal’s face and jaw clean off and carried the bloody remains on into a regiment of infantry standing close behind. Hitting the front-rank man in his chest the shot passed through his body and took the man to his rear in the stomach and the man behind him in the groin. It eventually settled some fifty yards behind the regiment, its trail marked by a grisly red streak. As the aide collected himself and attempted to disentangle his legs from the saddle of his beheaded horse, Marlborough turned back to the staff.
He sought his brother, Charles Churchill, who commanded a brigade and had been on the field since early that morning.
‘Charles. I think it would be a good idea now if the infantry were to lie down. The sun is somewhat warm and we cannot have the men over-heated before time.’
Within seconds, along the allied lines, officers and sergeants began to issue the command ‘lie down’. A train of artillery rattled past the knot of staff, on its way to higher ground. Marlborough watched it go:
‘Observe, gentlemen. Colonel Blood has an unerring eye. We may be outgunned by the French in numbers of cannon, but we will most certainly not be out-shot.’
They looked across the field, following the rain of black balls now hailing down upon the French forces. It was possible to mark quite clearly where they fell. Where the neat, white ranks were suddenly cut through with a passage of dirty red.
Seeing another cannon being heaved past them, over the undulating scrub, Marlborough motioned to the staff to follow him. They rode to the heights above Unterglau, almost exactly at the centre of the line and soon neared the place where the battery had set down and was busy unlimbering. Marlborough dismounted, gave his reins to a groom and approached the battery commander, a man of medium build in his early thirties whose bronzed features and large, calloused hands bespoke his profession.
‘Who are you?’
‘Jonas Watson, Your Grace. Major of artillery.’
‘Well, Major Watson, where do you suppose to direct your fire?’
The man smiled. He turned and pointed with deliberate precision towards the French.
‘Directly towards that large formation of horse, over there, Sir. Colonel Blood’s specific orders, Your Grace.’
The man indicated a mass of several squadrons of French cavalry, dressed in pale grey coats distinguished by black cuffs.
‘Yes. I do believe that you are right. And what trajectory would you employ to hit that target?’
‘No more than eight degrees, Your Grace.’
‘Let me see.’
Marlborough walked across to one of the great brass-barrelled twelve-pound cannon. He leant over it and aligned his eye with the five-foot-long barrel.
‘You need to depress your angle of fire by two, no, one degree only, Major Watson. There, that will take your shot directly into the heart of the enemy. Carry on, Major.’ He remounted his horse and rode back to his position, the staff following, leaving the somewhat bemused gunnery officer to his duties.
‘You see, Hawkins, how the men do love my becoming involved in what they do? They value it, as I do. It is what marks the good general out from the bad.’
Marlborough stared out towards the French and reassessed the situation. He spoke to no one in particular.
‘We must cross that stream before he realizes what we have done. You can be sure that if Marshall Tallard is anything of a general, he will attempt to prevent us. It is vital that we establish ourselves beyond the soft ground before he has time to mobilize his horse. Pray God that Prince Eugene is ready soon.’
Music was drifting over the plain now. Cacophonous for the most part and indistinct from the French side. But from time to time a tune could be discerned. The music of King Louis. The soaring voice of the Sun King’s imperialist aspirations.
Marlborough rubbed at his ear, as if in pain. He squinted and shook his head and turned to Cardonell.
‘What is that noise? I think that we can manage better than that, Adam, do you not? Have the bands strike up. Let them play what they will. Something rousing. “Lillibulero”, “Over the Hills and Far Away”, “The Grenadiers’ March”. A tune to stir the soul.’
He looked across to Hawkins.
‘Music is the thing now. It will cheer the men, and it may also unsettle the French.’
As he spoke another salvo of artillery fire broke about them, the heavy iron balls smashing into the earth with horrible ferocity before ricocheting up to land among the ranks of prostrate redcoats. Even though they were now lying down, still the cannonballs found their target.
At that precise moment, 500 yards away to the left, on the low-lying land towards the steaming marshes, exactly the same thought was beginning to gnaw at Steel’s mind. He looked out towards the enemy, across the sun-drenched field, his head heavy from the previous evening’s wine, his senses still filled with Louisa’s distinctive, musky scent. They had come here yesterday, Saturday, posted on picquet guard to the village of Schwenningen with other units from Rowe’s brigade and orders to protect the narrow pass whose passage would be so vital to the approach of the army. Ahead of them the pioneers had gone on to ensure that the roads would be managable and the day had been wrought with alarms as the picquets of both sides found each other and played out their deadly games.
At around six o’clock in the evening, they had been approached by a great body of French dragoons. But ranged in line and calling on a little assistance from the Foot Guards, the allies had seen them off. And then all had been peaceful.
For once his men had slept under cover, taking their pick of the houses in the abandoned village. Steel had taken Louisa off to a small, humble dwelling on the outskirts where she tended the garden every day. Her father, who until now had been a guest of Henry Hansam, had gone with them and was soon sleeping soundly in an open cot before the fire. The couple had sat close to each other at the simple table of the peasant cottage, Louisa clad only in her loose shift, looking as beautiful as he had ever seen her. Black bread and ham and cheese had been their food, and more than one bottle of the local wine, which Hansam had discovered in another of the houses. And afterwards they had enjoyed what both of them knew might be their last night together.
Their sleep had been brief, and at a little after three in the morning, the army had come to them. It had crossed the Kessel on pontoon bridges, moving in eight great columns towards the west, between the wooded hills and the marshes that flanked the Danube to their left. Together they had watched the squadrons and battalions as they spread like the arms of a fan on to the plain. And then, all too soon, it was time for his own brigade to swing into line and join the general advance.
They parted without a word. Held each other until the last moment. And then, as the motion of the great machine swept him on, from high above the column of marching men, Steel kept his eyes upon hers until he could see her no more. Then, turning to the front, he was a soldier once again.
Now, as they formed on the field, Steel began to see Marlborough’s grand design unfold. To the right, the the Imperial troops under Prince Eugene – Danish and Prussian infantry and a mixed force of cavalry from Imperial states – moved steadily and slowly across the rough ground towards a far distant village. On the left wing Marlborough had concentrated his English troops along with the Dutch, the Hessians and the Hanoverians.
Across the position insistent drum rolls called the army to order. The pop of muskets being discharged into the air told of weapons bei
ng checked and made ready for the coming day. In the pans any trace of damp powder was carefully scraped out with the tool every soldier carried for just that purpose. There would be no second chances today. Every shot had to count and misfires, an all too common occurrence, would soon be a matter of life or death.
Sword clanking against his thigh and fusil slung over his back, Steel marched along the track at the head of the company, in column, three abreast. At his side walked Hansam and behind them Tom Williams.
At the head of the column, Sir James, with Frampton, who had now replaced Jennings as the Adjutant, turned off towards the left and led the regiment into a field whose dew-laden grass covered their new shoes with a glistening sheen. Behind Steel the company sergeants barked their commands to change direction and gradually the red caterpillar of Farquharson’s Foot moved across the fields to take up its allotted position.
Hansam spoke:
‘What think you of this, Jack? We have a river to our left and a forest to our right.
There remains but one direction in which to move.’
Steel smiled at him. It was, he thought, a good enough place to stand and fight. A wide, level plain which stretched for four, perhaps five miles, from the Danube to the dark, wooded hills of the Swabian mountains. As far as the eye could see it was covered in rich cornfields. Across the middle of the plain ran a little stream, the Nebel, which flowed north to south into the Danube. On either side of it the armies had deployed and it was here, in a patch of dead ground just to the front of this stream, close to where it divided into two, that the regiment came to a halt. Slaughter gave the command:
‘Form line.’
With a swift, if not altogether fluid movement, the red column began to split into smaller sections. Men turned inwards as they had been taught to do on the drill ground and within a few minutes the marching formation was transformed into a line of battle. Steel found his position in the centre of the company, four paces to the front of his men, and looked to his left:
‘I can see, Henry, what His Grace intends for us. He believes that we can carry all once again in a frontal assault. We shall have to prove his confidence.’
Steel looked past Hansam, who was standing to the left of the Grenadiers, next to the two nervous-looking drummer boys. Past them, along the line to his left, Steel could see McInnery and Laurent standing beside the first and second companies of the regiment, laughing and calling unintelligible comments to one another. Beyond them, past numbers three and four companies, towards the centre of the battalion, were the colours: the red silk of the regimental colour and beside it, the azure and white Saltire of Scotland, fluttering proudly above the battalion, held firm in the hands of the two most junior Ensigns. Behind them stood the familiar bulk of Sergeant Macwilliam, his halberd placed firmly on the ground, ready to be used as a quarter-staff should anyone in the ranks consider dropping back as much as a few inches. And mounted behind him, to the front of the pioneers, on his bay gelding, sat Sir James Farquharson. It was hard to tell from a distance of a hundred yards, but to Steel it seemed that his commanding officer’s face wore an expression that was part pride, part sheer terror. Steel poked a finger under his collar and scratched again at his neck. The lice that plagued all of the men, officers and other ranks alike, had been heated by the march and were on the move. Slaughter spoke quietly, smiling:
‘Old trouble, Sir?’
‘Same old trouble, Jacob. I’m damned if I know why, but the little beggars always seem to get more active just as we’re about to go into action. Christ knows if I’ll ever have my clothes to myself again.’
‘Must be your blood, Sir. It’ll be more heated at the present, if you see what I mean. Before a battle that is. You know, Mister Steel, you should talk to Taylor about it. He swears by lavender and almonds, Sir. Rub it on your self, you do. You’ll never see another of the little bleeders again, he says. Don’t you think that after we’ve finished this business and done for the Froggies, that you might not just have a go at letting me get rid of the little bleeders once and for all? Jesus, Sir, I really thought that Miss Louisa might have cured your bad ways. If I might be so bold as to suggest it, it doesn’t do for an officer like yourself to be scratchin’ all the time.’
‘No, Jacob, you may not be so bold and you know as well as I do, Sarn’t, that these vermin are not particular with their attentions. Why the cleanest of men are regularly infested. The late King himself had a dreadful time of it on campaign.’
Williams laughed. That had been Slaughter’s plan and Steel knew it. It was the same with any new blood in the regiment on their first time in action. Laughter was the answer. It released all the tension. That was what to do. Laugh. And talk about other things. About anything other than the imminent prospect of death and mutilation and unthinkable pain.
Trying to ignore the irritating itch, Steel looked still further down the line of men that stretched away to the left in an apparently endless river of red.
‘So, Tom. What d’you think of your first set-piece engagement? D’you see all the regiments. You can tell them from their colours. There’s Lord North’s with its yellow, then the Duke of Marlborough’s own regiment under their cross of St George. That next, you see, the blue ground, is Ingoldsby’s, mostly Welshmen there, and lastly you have the red duster of Brigadier Rowe’s Yorkshiremen. The whole brigade drawn up for battle and you won’t see better away from the Horse Guards.’
‘It is a magnificent sight, Sir. If I were a Frenchman I should be shaking in my boots.’
Steel lifted his gaze across the plain towards the enemy. He wondered how many Frenchmen were doing just that.
He had been astonished to find, as the mist began to clear, that the tents of the French camp were still pitched. Had they not heard the drums, the trumpet calls, seen the approaching columns? Now, though, the tents and the baggage had been sent to the back and the French and Bavarians stood arrayed before him. It was an impressive sight. Seventy, perhaps eighty battalions and twice that many in squadrons of cavalry with more cannon, he thought, than he had ever seen before on a field of battle. Eighty or ninety guns in all and some that looked like huge siege weapons. It was a strong position too, well chosen. Other commanders would not have dared to contemplate an attack on such a position. But Marlborough was no ordinary commander. And this, he told himself again, was as good a place as any to stand, and perhaps to die.
Steel realized that Hansam was standing behind him:
‘You see, Jack, from the colour of their uniforms, how they have deployed by nationality. French white and grey predominately to their right and Bavarian blue on the left. It is a wise precaution, d’you not think. One perhaps that Marlborough might emulate, given the polyglot nature of our own force.’
‘I do not believe that is in His Grace’s mind at all, Henry. He means to mix us up. Have you not seen that in our own division General Cutts deploys us in six lines of attack. Four of infantry with two of horse behind. D’you see? He has on purpose interspersed the English and Scots with the foreign troops and mercenaries. Behind the first line of Rowe’s English he has ranged a brigade of Hessians and behind them another English brigade, that of Ferguson. Finally, in the fourth line he places our Hanoverian friends.’
In truth, Steel had been wondering all morning about their deployment. In the column of which Farquharson’s was a part, under Lord Cutts, the cavalry were positioned to the rear, as was generally the rule. But across the remainder of the field, as far as he could tell, Marlborough had deployed with one line of foot, followed by two of horse with another of foot in the rear. It was an unusual formation and he wondered what it meant. In all, thought Steel, we have some 12,000 men, almost a quarter of the army and the better part of the infantry, with us here on the left flank. The centre of the enemy line he could see was filled with cavalry and Marlborough appeared to have matched them. But here, before Blenheim, he realized, it was the infantry who would carry the day. He saw too now, with a hollow feeling in the
pit of his stomach, that for the Duke to succeed he would have to send his army on to the plain in full view of the enemy guns before finding some means of traversing the surrounding bogs. One thing was clear. This would be no easy victory.
In front of him the parched grass was already littered with an ugly harvest of corpses from the forward ranks. For over an hour now the French artillery had been pouring in a steady fire. Recently though it had intensified. And still the order to advance did not come. Word was that they were still waiting for the troops under Prince Eugene to reach their allotted places on the right wing.
Slaughter too had been surveying the position:
‘It’s bad ground, Sir. Bad at least for whichever one of us means to attack.’
He tested the ground with his feet.
‘Look, Sir. See that. That’s right boggy ground there.’
He pointed in the direction of their intended advance.
‘And you see the way the ground slopes up? You can’t hardly make it out. But look really carefully and you can see. I tell you. Boggy ground and we’ll be marching uphill an’ all.’
The cover of their earlier position had afforded the regiments the chance to re-form. Now though, even as the shot flew over their heads, they had adopted a looser formation. At the head of the regiment the padre, a small, pale man, with an oversized nose and a mop of lank, black hair, was conducting a drumhead service. The men had created a clearing in their ranks to act as a temporary chapel. The front rank had turned about, while the rear two acted as the nave and chancel. The priest had laid his gold embroidered altar cloth across the top of six drums that had been stacked together, and had given his long gold cross to one of the regimental drummer boys. On top of the topmost drums they had place two tall gold candlesticks, with unlit candles. The padre began to speak, in the flat and uncharismatic voice of the Oxford-educated clergyman, made the more comical by the fact that he had a slight lisp.