by Iain Gale
‘That, Adam, was probably the most selfless and courageous act by any general that you will ever witness. Prince Eugene’s wing is sorely pressed, yet he sends me all the cavalry I desire and doing so saves the day. I thank God for his friendship and loyalty.’
It was three o’clock and they had been fighting now for near on six hours. It was clear that the immediate threat to the British infantry had been forestalled, but Hawkins, like Marlborough, was also profoundly aware that what he was now experiencing was that moment of crisis that lay at the heart of every battle. The epicentre around which everything hung. Marlborough echoed his thoughts:
‘We must contain the enemy infantry in Oberglau. Lord Cutts prevents their leaving Blenheim. We must do the same in the centre.’
Hawkins surveyed the field. Everywhere troops appeared to be locked at a standstill. Ahead of them the long lines of cavalry faced each other, neither prepared to make the first move, while on the right wing, Eugene’s advance too had come to a grinding halt. If we should leave the field now he thought, they would say at home that the army had been licked. But the Colonel knew that was not Marlborough’s way. The Duke had one more hand to play and Hawkins had an inkling as to what it might be.
Jennings stood in the garden of a small half-timbered house on the north-west side of Blenheim village and inspected the group of dishevelled and surly men whom he had been appointed to command. While most wore the red coat of Britain, within the ranks he could also discern Prussian blue, and Austrian and Danish grey. There were around fifty of them, all told. Unshaven and poorly equipped. Most had lost their hats and they carried a risible assortment of weaponry, ranging from standard issue English Brown Bess muskets to fusils, dragoon carbines, swords and axes. The men were about as far from Jennings’ idea of soldiery as it was possible to get. But for the next few hours at least, his life was inexorably tied to theirs.
From the direction of Sonderheim a knot of riders appeared.
At their head rode an officer of some rank and he looked vaguely familiar. He was slightly overweight and his blue coat was more heavily embroidered with more gold on the lapels and cuffs than on any uniform to be found in the British army.
As they rode past Jennings and into Blenheim through the only road still open that led directly from three French lines, the officer reined in. He looked at Jennings.
‘Who are you?’
‘Major Aubrey Jennings, Sir. Late of the army of Queen Anne. I am prisoner of your army, Sir. I have given my parole.’
One of the officer’s aides rode forward to Jennings:
‘Allow me to present His Highness General le Marquis de Clerambault.’
Jennings recognized his drinking partner of the previous evening. He removed his hat and bowed. The General continued.
‘And who are these men, Major?’
‘Deserters, Sir. They have been placed in my care. But I believe, Sir, that I already have the pleasure of your acquaintance. We met if you recall only yesterday evening in the camp at …’
Clerambault, whose recollections of their after-dinner conversation were evidently not as good, cut him short.
‘And what exactly do you intend to do with them?’
‘I have orders from one of your officers, Sir. Colonel Michelet of the regiment d’Artois, to conduct them to the centre of the line where they will fight for your cause.’
‘Have you now? Orders, eh?’
He turned to the aide.
‘Michelet. Did I give any such orders?’
‘No, General.’
‘No indeed. I did not give any such orders. These men may be deserters, but they are here in my sector of the field and here they will stay, Major. You observe, I cannot afford to send a single man elsewhere.’
‘But, my dear General. What then must I do? You cannot expect me, an Englishman, to fight my own countrymen, which I must surely do should we remain here, in Blenheim.’
Clerambault thought for a moment.
‘Well, I do see your point, Major. But I am afraid that there is nothing that I can do about it. Here you must stay. Move from the village and I shall consider it a sign that you have broken your parole. And then of course, we will have no alternative but to shoot you.’
Jennings knew when he had been beaten. He smiled at the General and nodded his head. Clerambault looked as smug as his habitually self-satisfied expression would allow.
‘Good day, Major. I wish you joy of it.’
Jennings gazed after the little group and called down a curse upon the General, then turned back and gazed again on his company of misfits. He could not now lead them away from here and yet he could not lead them to battle against Englishmen. He found a sergeant, an Irishman, in the uniform of Orkney’s regiment.
‘Sarn’t. See that the men are, erm, well rested. Find them some water if you can. I’m going to see if I can get a better view of the battle.’
The man did not move.
‘Sergeant. Did you hear me?’
‘If you please, Sir.’
There was an unpleasant inflection on the final word.
‘The men aren’t inclined to take orders from no one any more … Sir. Seeing as we’ll all be shot for desertion if we’re captured, and the easiest way not to get captured as we see it is to stay at the rear, Sir.’
‘Very well. We shall stay at the rear. But you’ll take your damned orders from me or you’ll end up at the front line. Now, just do as I ask. Keep a watch on the house. Keep the men together and keep them happy and I’ll make it worth your while. Understand, Sarn’t? There’s a quart of rum in it for any man who’ll obey me. I promise not to get you killed if I can help it and I’ll do my best not to get you captured. If you want me to, once this is all over and I’m in power, I’ll even get you a pardon. What d’you say?’
The disgraced Sergeant, summoning every ounce of what military spirit he had left in him, pulled himself up and snapped to attention. He turned to the men and began to bark orders. To his surprise, Jennings saw that they obeyed. They too, he realized, must now live only by their own code of conduct.
He walked towards the house and, pushing open the door, took a final look at the deserters. One of them, though, he did not see. A small, weasel-faced man who had been standing in the shadows behind the rear rank as the new commander had approached them and who, with a skill learnt as a child in the alleyways of Holborn, had slipped away quickly and quietly through the backstreets before climbing down to the stream. There, stepping over the bodies of the wounded who had crawled there to die and colour its waters with their blood, he had cast off his coat and plunged in, intent on swimming across to the allied lines. For he had a message to deliver.
Steel rubbed at his face with his hands and tried to summon a glimmer of hope. As he had known it would, their second attack had foundered. Oh, they had pushed the French back from the ramparts. Had even in some cases penetrated the streets. But it had been in vain. Blenheim was a curious, straggling village. More a collection of individual farms, set side by side, each with its own yard and grounds, and each one making a highly defensible position. The place was packed with French infantry. There had to be 20,000 men in there. Faced with sheer weight of the enemy and too many strongpoints, there had been no alternative but to withdraw. And so they had pulled back to nurse their wounds and count their dead. Their casualties had been even worse than previously. The Grenadiers had begun to lose heavily. A total of seventeen were down now, of whom ten were certainly dead or dying. Worst of all, Nate Thomas had taken a ball in the chest and was dying slowly and painfully.
Sitting on the grass, in a hollow of ground that afforded them protection from the musket fire that poured constantly from the village, and surrounded by the remnants of his half-company, Steel looked down towards the Danube and wondered how long this respite might last.
Slaughter’s respectful cough brought him back to the present. The Sergeant was accompanied by two Grenadiers and between them stood what appeared to
be a prisoner.
‘Mister Steel, Sir. Thought you might be interested in this one. Caught him down by the water, Sir. He was asking for you by name.’
The Sergeant, who Steel now saw to be grinning, stepped aside and he looked at the man they had brought in. He was dripping wet and clad merely in his shirt and breeches. Steel looked at his face and knew him instantly. There could be no mistaking Sergeant Stringer’s smile.
Marlborough too was smiling. And so he might. On the stretch of ground between Blenheim and Oberglau he had managed to assemble a full eighty squadrons of horse, principally English, and no less twenty-three battalions of foot. And some of the finest of them at that. He scoured the French lines with his glass then handed it to Cardonell.
‘Tell me what you see, Adam.’
‘I see cavalry, Sir. Around fifty squadrons. And infantry, Your Grace. Nine perhaps ten battalions.’
He handed the glass back to the Duke who snapped it shut and smiled.
‘Gentlemen, I believe that we have them. They are outnumbered by two if not three to one in the centre. There is not a moment to lose. Cadogan, give the order for a general advance.’
Slowly and deliberately, the great lines of horse and foot which the Commander-in-Chief had so carefully marshalled between the villages, began to move across the plain. And the French, who had thought themselves to be in the ascendant, instantly saw that their fortunes had turned. The great mass of red and blue continued its march across the plain and up the slight slope towards the French lines. Marshal Tallard, back at last in the centre of his line after a protracted conference with Marsin, saw them come. He called for reinforcements, looked to his rear and saw nothing. Marsin turned to one of his aides. Where, he asked, were the reserves? Those twelve battalions of infantry he had earmarked specifically for this task. The aide looked at him and raised his eyebrows. He pointed and uttered but one word: ‘Clerambault’. Tallard followed the line of the man’s arm, down towards the right flank, towards the Danube and the little village of Blindheim. And in that single moment he knew that the battle was lost.
Steel could hardly credit his good fortune. If Stringer was to be believed, and there was no reason to doubt a man who would have bargained away his own mother for a tot of rum, then Jennings was in Blenheim.
‘And you saw him, Stringer?’
‘Clear as day, Sir. He’s there all right. Major Jennings in the flesh. They’ve given him a command too. An’ if I know him he’ll take it. He’s nothing but a liar, Mister Steel, Sir. Beggin, your pardon. But he lied to me, told me as you was a traitor, Sir. As I should kill you. It was never my idea, Sir. He lied all along. An’ I won’t be lied to, Sir. Not me.’
Whatever his motives, and despite the fact that in their recent encounter, Steel had almost emasculated him, Stringer had done as he was bidden by the Lieutenant and betrayed his former master.
‘You have give me what I need Stringer. No more will be said.’
‘Thank you, Sir. Thank you, Mister Steel. If there’s anything else I can do. Anything at all. Any way I can be of service …’
Slaughter cut in.
‘That’s enough, I think.’
Stringer looked at him, his eyes filled with hate. He clasped the bag of coins to his sodden chest.
Steel beckoned to Slaughter to come close as the two Grenadiers marched away, and Stringer moved apart from them in the cover of the knoll, counting his money.
‘Wait until he’s finished counting it, Jacob. Two minutes. Then, quick as you can, put him under arrest and have him taken to the rear. Colonel Hawkins’ orders.’
‘My pleasure, Sir.’
Slaughter walked slowly across towards the grinning, sodden Sergeant.
Steel needed to get into the village now. When, he wondered, would they go in again? For the last two hours they had played a frustrating and costly game of cat and mouse with the French defenders. The British and Hessians would advance by platoon and fire before retiring, while the French would periodically attempt a sortie, only to be spotted and beaten back. The ground before them was littered with redcoated corpses. But for half an hour now some of the allied cannon had also been playing upon the village, and God knew what conditions were now like behind those ramparts. It was a siege in miniature. A war of nerves. And Steel was beginning to lose his patience.
Somewhere in those houses, not 200 yards to his front, lay documents vital to the allied cause and to the fate of his Commander-in-Chief. Documents too on whose safe retrieval depended his own future and his honour. And they lay with the man who had violated the woman he loved. Steel was not about to not let a few thousand Frenchmen stand in his way. Somehow, he was determined to find a way into Blenheim. To find Aubrey Jennings and to settle their quarrel once and for all.
From the position back on the eminence above Oberglau, among Marlborough’s staff, Hawkins was able to observe the advance of the centre. The cavalry under Lumley and Hompesch were moving forward steadily in three waves at a smart trot, their ranks thigh to thigh, swords drawn as had been directed. Marlborough spoke:
‘You see, James, how they have been forced to form square against our cavalry. Now we shall see wherein lies the true talent of Colonel Blood.’
As he finished a battery of nine English cannon opened up on seven large battalion squares of French infantry. It was a valiant stand, but even from this distance the results were clearly evident.
‘Partridge shot at a hundred yards, James. By God, but that man is the very father of artillery. Look.’
Holcroft Blood, Marlborough’s redoubtable Colonel-in-Chief of artillery, had loaded his cannon with partridge shot – a linen bag, containing dozens of musket balls or those more normally used in game shooting. The effect at close range was almost always devastating, killing and maiming scores of men with every shot. Two of the French squares, so bombarded, had now been reduced to little more than a rabble, attempting to form. The other had taken heavy casualties, but still appeared largely intact and was attempting to move to the rear.
Marlborough turned to Cadogan.
‘Have you the time, George?’
‘I believe that it is close on six o’clock.’
‘Send a message to Lord Cutts. Ask him if he will oblige me once more by holding the enemy a little longer. He may, if he thinks it prudent, wish to make an assault upon the village. If he cares to look he will see that Blenheim will shortly be surrounded.’
He was right.
Looking across the plain Hawkins could see the first elements of the allied cavalry sweeping across the open ground between Oberglau and Blenheim, driving before them the ragged mass of Tallard’s and Marsin’s combined horse and dragoons.
Marlborough grinned.
‘Gentlemen, I think now that I might allow myself to commune with the remaining squadrons of our horse as they take the field.’
For the first time that day, the Duke drew his own sword and raised it high in the air.
He turned his head.
‘Trumpeter. Sound ‘Charge’. Gentlemen, will you join me? We have a victory to complete.’
The order to renew the attack on the village had come as a merciful release. Like all of Cutts’ beleagured infantry, waiting on the outskirts of Blenheim, Steel and the Grenadiers could hear the unmistakable ten rising notes of the cavalry charge flooding the battlefield as squadron after squadron poured though the ever-widening gap in the centre of the French line.
One of the youngest of the Grenadiers, Collins, a Hampshire ploughboy, tapped Slaughter on the arm:
‘Look Sergeant. Look over there. The French are retreating. Look. It’s a miracle, Sergeant.’
‘If it’s a miracle then it’s His Grace the saintly Duke of Marlborough as is the miracle worker. That’s no bloody miracle, lad. That, Collins, is just the British army doing what it came here to do. Murder the bloody French. Now stop looking, lad and get killing. This place is still full of the buggers.’
There was truth in Slaughter’s b
rutal words. The centre might have broken, but the battle was far from over in the village. There was still plenty of time for men to die. Steel knew how many they might lose assaulting such a place. And yet, from what he had seen on previous forays, he guessed that now their losses might not be as crippling as they could have been. For if the French had fortified well then their infantry were in despair. He could not believe the folly. Their commanders had crammed men into every house and every street with the result that few of the infantry would be able to gain a clear field of fire to shoot at the advancing English.
He heard Frampton’s voice at the rear of the battalion:
‘Stand-to. Officers, take positions.’
This was it then. Once more and they would be in there. And then he would find Jennings. He looked across to Hansam.
‘Henry, I’ll take half the company to the left. We’ll move around the south of the village. The Guards have taken the barricade and appear to be sweeping up the flank.’
Sir James’s voice rent the air:
‘ ’Talion will advance. March attack.’
They had no drums to play them on now, for two of the drummer boys had been killed and the others who were not wounded had been detailed to collect and tend any wounded out of range of the French. As one, the regiment stepped off and immediately the French infantry in the village opened up. The musket balls came screaming in like a swarm of bees. Steel turned his head and shouted at the men, all of whom were advancing with their heads down as if in a rainstorm:
‘Forward. Keep on. Come on, with me.’
Some had gone down, but there was no time now to see who. They must be almost at the barricades now. The French reloaded again and levelled their muskets. Steel kept his gaze focused on the wooden wall. Only a few more yards. They were running now, their great red tailcoats billowing out behind them, bayonets levelled in the headlong rush. He heard the crash of the French volley and saw the flash and the smoke. Feeling a sudden stinging pain in his left arm he looked, instinctively, as he ran. A musket ball had touched his upper arm, leaving a small, smoking hole in his coat. No time now. Push on. Five yards out. They hit the barricade with an audible thud and then they were on top of it. They knew where to find a foothold now and threw themselves off the top down into the white-coated defenders. Some of the Frenchmen turned and tried to run, but caught in the press of ranks behind them, were spitted in the back on English bayonets. Others stood their ground and thrusting upwards with their own weapons, impaled their attackers as they jumped. But now the tables had turned and Steel saw that in the first rush enough redcoats had managed to find a place within the walls. He shouted to Slaughter: