by A L Berridge
It didn’t matter anyway, we were poised for the finish. When you start a battle an army’s in different sections: left wing, right wing, centre, reserves, but when you end it the divisions disappear. We weren’t the reserves any more, Abbé, we were part of the army of France, and against us was the army of Spain. The Italians had gone, the Germans, most of the Walloon and Alsatian cavalry, we were left with just the native tercios to beat.
Forgive me if I laugh.
Carlos Corvacho
Oh no, Señor, you don’t catch a man like my Capitán leaving the field till he’s ordered, and maybe not even then. Albuquerque had gone to rendezvous with Beck, but there was no call for us to follow him, was there? We were free men now, with even the Frenchmen disappeared and no one knowing or caring where. It was every man for himself those last hours, and seeking sanctuary with any unit that could stand.
And it looks like we can. We’ve the remnants of five tercios and old Fontaine gets them sorted into a kind of square. We’ve still some cannon and odds and ends of cavalry, we’re expecting Beck any moment, my Capitán thinks we can hold. But well, the French get their artillery going again, we’ve nothing to protect our flanks, and gradually we’re whittled away from the sides. The tercio of Velandia’s gone, Castellvi, and Villalba, and still no sign of Beck. My Capitán says ‘He could have been here at dawn, Carlos, the man’s four hours late.’
Four hours was too late, and that’s all there is to it. The men cluster round the squares of the two last tercios, some to the Garciez and some like ourselves to the Albuquerque. It was home to us, if you understand me, they were part of the Army of Flanders.
Then they come. Charge after charge and we held them all. They had infantry, we had muskets to bring them down. They sent cavalry, and we’d pike and cannon to drive them back. They were losing more men than we were, and that’s the truth. Well, no, I won’t deny we’d a few casualties round the outside and Fontaine already dead on his litter, and it’s true the ammunition was running a little low, but we were holding, Señor, you don’t want to get the wrong idea about that. We were holding.
‘Of course we are,’ says my Capitán. It’s hot work in that square and he’s shed his coat and cuirass long ago, but now he drags down his collar to open his shirt, and I’ve never seen him do that before, never. He’s smiling at me too, and there’s something soft in it, almost kind. ‘Of course we are, Carlos,’ he says. ‘We’re Spain.’
He was right, Señor. You can keep the French and their little private armies, the tercios made soldiering a profession a man could be proud to put his name to. We were the best and most experienced in Europe, everything the world meant when it talked about the might and glory of the Spanish army. That’s what we were back then, Señor.
We were Spain.
Jacques Gilbert
They just wouldn’t surrender. Maybe they were waiting for Beck, but four thousand men couldn’t make a difference now. Nothing would happen now but us losing men trying to break those tercios and the Spaniards all dying to gain nothing at all.
The field went quiet and our artillery stopped. Then a trumpet sounded, a drum rolled, and a small group of horsemen moved out from our front, d’Enghien with his right hand up for parley. The Spaniards sent out men to meet him.
The silence deepened until I could even hear the distant murmur of voices as d’Enghien talked to the men of the first tercio. Next to me André’s face was frighteningly pale and his bandage sodden with blood.
Voices rose in excitement and I looked out again to the field. A big Spaniard with a grey beard was writing something on the skin of a drum, and behind him I saw the tercio sort of sagging at the sides of its square as if everyone in it had relaxed at once.
‘Thank God,’ said André. ‘Oh, thank God.’
The tercio was breaking up. It didn’t look much like a surrender to me, they were still keeping their weapons and didn’t seem to be prisoners, but they were bloody going and nobody really cared how.
D’Enghien was talking to the second tercio, and all around me people were starting to shift and ease themselves in their saddles. It sounds stupid, but your arse really aches after bouncing around for that long, I felt mine had actually changed shape.
‘Shit,’ said Stefan.
D’Enghien was already riding back, and the men of the second tercio returning to their square. Pike were levelled again, and in the middle of the square someone upraised a green-and-pink flag and waved it flamboyantly above them all. The tercio of Albuquerque was going to fight on alone.
All I remember is numbness. Orders were shouted, and we were shuffled along till every man in the French army was positioned round that single, small defiant square. No one spoke now, no one laughed, we all knew what we were going to do and what it really was.
‘Fuck them,’ said Stefan. His voice was rough with defiance, and I wasn’t the only one turned to look. ‘They came to do what they always do, to invade an innocent French town doing nothing but minding its own business. The only difference is this time we caught them at it. They won’t even surrender decently to save lives on both sides.’
‘It’s still brave,’ said André, looking wonderingly at him. ‘You’re a soldier, you can see that, it’s still brave.’
‘So’s a rat,’ said Stefan. ‘Catch one in the corn bin and you’ll see.’ He drew his pistol, and sat back in his saddle to wait for the order.
It came, and we charged. There wasn’t much gusto in it, but we rode through their musket fire and got clean to the front line before we were called back. We got a few with our pistols, but we never set steel to them and I didn’t feel cheated. We rode back and reloaded. Our musketeers were returning fire, and so was our artillery, someone had even moved the field guns to the front so we could pound the square head-on. My fingers were shaking as I closed the pan.
It couldn’t go on, it was pointless and stupid, I could hardly believe it when it was our turn to charge again. But even as we lined up I heard a chorus of voices, and then I saw it, someone waving something from the middle of the square, a shirt, anything, but it was white for parley and I almost vomited with relief.
We stood down. D’Enghien started forward with his officers, and I heard it again, that babble of voices in excited relief.
A shot, then another, and d’Enghien clamped a hand to his head as the wind of a ball nearly swept off his hat. They were shooting at him, the bastards were shooting at our own general under cover of a truce, I was almost howling with rage and so was everyone else. No one waited for the order this time, we wouldn’t have taken it from anyone, we screamed ‘D’Enghien!’ and bloody charged.
Carlos Corvacho
It was a mistake, Señor, my word of honour on it. A mistake. The army of Flanders doesn’t surrender, and if someone in the middle chose to ask for parley, then you can’t blame us for it, now can you? All we knew was young d’Enghien riding out again as it might be another charge, so we fired at him, naturally we did, it’s what you do in a battle. But the French thought it was treachery, and it made them fair boil with rage.
I’d never seen it myself what happened then, there’s few have and lived, but when a young abanderado wets his lips and says ‘The furio francese,’ I know just what he means and what we’re in for. They were madmen, Señor, madmen. They cared nothing for our bullets, they swept the pike aside like straws, they charged right through the middle of us, slashing down men like sheep. It’s all up then, our sargento mayor’s crying out the surrender his own self, and his aide ripping the shirt clean off his chest to wave as a flag of truce.
But these are animals we’re reasoning with, not men. They’re stabbing and hacking and seeing nothing but their own bloodlust. My Capitán sees one of our little drummers go down, and now he’s screaming his own self and striking out with his sword at anything that comes near. But this is butcher’s work, no room for finesse, and next thing there’s a sabre whistling between us and he’s down, my Capitán, the Don Miguel d’Estra
da, he’s down on his hands and knees like a little boy in the earth and a great red gash cut off half his ear and gone blazing across the skin of his chest. I’m yelling ‘Señor, Señor,’ but he thrusts me away and says ‘Run, Carlos, you’ve done your duty, now run.’
I don’t. There’s his voice in my head saying ‘We’re Spain’ and I don’t. I stand upright as a man should, and then I see him, Señor, the Duc d’Enghien, tall on his horse in front of the tercio and saying to his men ‘Back, back, they’re surrendering, in the name of God go back!’ He says it in the name of the Almighty himself, and I know this is a gentleman with an honour worthy of Spain. That was the Duc d’Enghien, Señor. That was Condé.
I bend to my gentleman and say ‘It’s all right, Señor, we’re surrendering, come with me to the Duc d’Enghien.’ But he says no, he says to me no and hits out like a child in a tantrum, he says ‘I’ve told you to go, now bloody go and do it.’ My gentleman, Señor, blaspheming and swearing like a trooper. I look round and see some of our men have made it safe to the Duc, clutching at his bridle, his horse’s legs, anywhere to be free of the steel and the maddened enemy, but there’s Frenchmen too far gone to heed him and they’re scything down as if we’re weeds on their land, mowing us down like grass.
A voice calls ‘D’Estrada!’ A young voice, and I know it even before I see him, the Chevalier’s fought to the front and is doing just like the Duc, rallying our own poor soldiers to his side. He reaches down his hand and calls again ‘D’Estrada!’
My Capitán shies back, and grasps his sword firmly. He says ‘I don’t ask favours.’
The French infantry have almost reached us, Señor, broadswords flailing round like soldiers of Herod his own self. De Roland leans further over, hand stretching out with fingers spread. ‘No favour,’ he says. ‘For God’s sake, man, I owe you.’
My Capitán lifts his head. De Roland does owe him and he knows it, that business with the tanner tripping him, there’s a debt of honour to be paid. I hear the sargento mayor calling hoarsely ‘Lay down your arms, do nothing to inflame them!’ and then, then my Capitán lowers his sword.
I help him to his feet, then he reaches out to de Roland, left hand to left hand, and I push him towards the Chevalier’s horse to bring him out of the path of the infantry. My Capitán stands himself calm and upright as befits a gentleman of Spain in defeat, but his hand’s firm in de Roland’s, and we’re both of us safe by his side.
Jacques de Roland
There weren’t many left to surrender. When the last survivors left the square there was only a great pile of bodies in the middle and one old man lying dead on a litter. D’Enghien knelt by the body and said ‘If I couldn’t be me today, I think I’d choose to be him.’
I was just glad to be me and alive, and the boy still in one piece. By the time he’d left d’Estrada he was swaying in the saddle from loss of blood, and Stefan said we’d got to get him seen to quick.
Charlot carried him on his own horse while we looked for a quiet place to patch him up. When everywhere’s strange you go for the thing that’s familiar, so we headed towards that wood where we’d found the musketeers. It was still chaotic even there, with d’Enghien’s scouts galloping about and Gassion’s cavalry checking round for those enemy we’d driven from the field. Most had probably gone to find Beck, but there were still odd pockets hiding round the woods, I heard gunshots cracking all over the plain. Then another banged just behind us, a man cried out and it was Charlot. I turned in horror to see him toppling off his horse with André still held to his chest, and both thudding heavily to the ground.
Everything was blurry in panic as I yanked at Tonnerre’s reins to bring him round. I thought it was just a stray shot, I wasn’t even looking, just trying to get to Charlot and the boy. I vaguely heard hooves coming from the wood, then Stefan yelled ‘Bastard!’ and I turned.
Three riders galloping at us, and the one holstering a pistol was Bouchard. I never even thought about not killing him, I just charged, wrestling out my sword as I came, but he swerved away, another man came at me with sword already drawn, and I hardly even saw him before it hit. Steel sliced down my shoulder as I hurled myself sideways, he slashed after me and I was sliding down Tonnerre’s flank, the ground hitting me in one great smashing jolt. I had time to think ‘It’s all right, I haven’t hit my head,’ and then that went bang too, like my brain was being shaken inside my skull.
It took me a second, because it does. Swords were clashing as I got my head up, and I saw Stefan and another man, both unhorsed but going at it anyway. I saw André on the ground, pale and bloody, left hand making desperate sweeps of the ground for his sword. Then boots landed with a thump in front of me as my own man dismounted and I saw the sword that was going to kill me come scything down. I closed my eyes.
A clang of blades and a rush of air before my face, I thought stupidly ‘André!’ and opened my eyes. The boy was still yards away, it was Charlot on his feet, wielding his sword two-handed to beat away the man’s thrust. His back was torn and bloody where the pistol ball had hit, but he was somehow up and fighting to save me.
It only took seconds. Charlot’s arm still had strength in it, he powered forward in the lunge and took the bastard clean through the chest, but the man’s sabre was already swinging and struck into Charlot’s side even as he went down. It wasn’t a deep blow, but Charlot was done already, his eyes went blank, his knees crumpled, and he folded gently to the earth.
I struggled over to him but his hand was limp and his face already empty. I think he died standing, I think he was dead before he fell. I whispered ‘Charlot,’ but there was nothing there, only the distant clash of steel that was Stefan and the other man still fighting. Then I remembered the third man and forgot the pain in my shoulder and the ache in my heart, I turned so bloody fast I nearly wrenched my neck.
André. He’d found his sword and managed to claw himself up on his knees, but I was looking at him through the arch of a man’s legs. A glinting sword was dangling down into the picture, and even as I watched, it flicked forward and touched the boy gently under the chin.
‘Anywhere in Europe, Chevalier?’ said Bouchard. ‘How about right here?’
Stefan Ravel
Of course I saw it, he made fucking sure I saw it, the bastard wanted an audience. Jacques was down and helpless, I had my hands full with another of them, but Bouchard was spinning the whole thing out like a play. When I next got myself facing the right way he was prodding André’s chest with his rapier, bringing up little dots of red blood.
More fool him. André was dragging himself up, elbow cradled in one hand but the sword dangling from his fingers and a glare in his eyes that told me he meant business. If I’d been Bouchard I’d have stuck him and run, but that wasn’t what he was after at all. There was a cartel out against him, he needed to duel André de Roland and win, and this was the only chance he’d ever have to do it.
André straightened. Bouchard gave a last little tickle with his rapier and André bashed it aside like a kid with a stick, then stepped back, shoved his hair off his face, and took guard. Bouchard smiled and took position opposite. He was really going to do it, Abbé. He was going to fight a one-armed man.
Even my own opponent looked dubious, though it didn’t stop him banging away at me. I’d no time for him, Abbé, there was a murder to be stopped, I slammed away his blade and gave him a good hard kick in the shin to discourage him. It seemed to be effective, or perhaps he was just starting to realize what he was involved in. He backed out of reach, looked over again at Bouchard, then turned and loped off for the woods.
I swivelled back to André. He was fighting now, or at least his sword was hitting Bouchard’s, but there wasn’t the force in it I was used to, and none of his usual fluidity. He was having to fence with his left hand while his right hung limp and useless by his side.
I belted towards them. Bouchard’s head jerked towards the movement, then he spun round and saw Jacques climbing to his feet
. He looked for his friends, saw one dead on the grass and no sign at all of the other, and glared at us in frustrated fury. He took a step back towards his horse and yelled ‘Keep back! He challenged me, you can’t interfere!’
Balls. I kept right on coming and so did Jacques, but then André swung round himself and shouted ‘Stop!’
Jacques stopped. I didn’t, Abbé, I never even broke stride. Bouchard took another step towards his horse, but André yelled ‘Wait!’ then turned back round to me. ‘Get back, Stefan, you’ve got to. He’s right, I challenged him.’
I said ‘Fuck off, André, you can’t fight him now.’
André’s bandages were blood-sodden, his face was the colour of whey, his legs weren’t even steady, but he wasn’t going to wait another day. He said ‘Yes, I bloody can.’
Jacques de Roland
We couldn’t stop him, we’d no right. We had to stand and let it happen.
I could hardly even watch. I sort of kept my eyes half open, ready to shut them any second. I heard it though, the clashing and grunting, and twice André crying out. It was the jolting of his arm that was doing it, he couldn’t balance properly, it was swinging every time he struck. Another stifled cry, and now André was nursing his wounded arm into his body, and Bouchard only pausing to choose his target before he lunged.
André slammed up his left hand to parry, Bouchard twisted to reprise, but somehow his blade sliced only air, he stumbled off balance and had to jump back. A second later it happened again, but this time André got in a quick riposte and Bouchard didn’t seem to expect it, he only just got his sword round in time to block. I opened my eyes fully, watched the next clumsy exchange, and finally understood. Bouchard was thrown by the left-handedness. He was struggling with it just as André had against d’Estrada.
And André was getting better. All that practice with his left hand, all that stuff he’d done to face d’Estrada, he was using every bit of it now. His left wasn’t as good as his right, but it was bloody good enough and his confidence was rising all the time. His rhythm was coming back, and a second later I saw him fling out his right arm for balance as naturally as he’d ever done with his left.