Brothers in Arms. Iain Gale
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They were laughing. He presumed that they would be mocking the decision of the Hanoverian commander to send his horse into a marsh. ‘Christ almighty. You’re right. Look at them, Henry. They don’t know. Haven’t a clue. They’ll be caught off their guard. D’you see? It is brilliant. Well done, Tom.’
The Hanoverian horse were advancing at the gallop now, for, as usual on the field, the sheer weight of man and horse together did not allow them to break into a full charge. But Steel knew that they would still have more than sufficient momentum to smash into the French line with full effect. The French for their part still had not moved, even though the enemy were now apparently crossing the impassable marsh. As Steel looked on, though, he noticed some of the French officers beginning to turn their horses away from the assembly and to rejoin their squadrons and troops. Within a few moments he realized that the French would learn the salient lesson that in battle there can never be any substitute for diligent intelligence. It was a lesson that would cost many of them their lives.
He recognized the Hanoverians now, General Jørgen Rantzau’s brigade of dragoons, part of Cadogan’s own command, a blaze of white-uniformed German mercenaries in English pay whom he knew bore no love for the French or their Swiss allies stationed behind them, all of them mounted uniformly on huge bay horses. Eight squadrons of Hanoverian horse, some twelve hundred men. A sparkle of flashing light caught his eye, and Steel saw the sun glint off the long, straight cavalry swords which rested on their right shoulders, honed, he guessed, to an edge like a butcher’s cleaver and constructed specifically so that the slightest motion exerted at the hilt might make the blade fall like a hammer on whatever lay below: flesh, bone or sinew. He looked on, horribly fascinated, as the Hanoverian horse closed with the French, who still had not moved. He watched closely and saw the final moment at which the French at last realized their peril. He kept looking as in a horrible instant there was a commotion in their still static ranks. He saw the sudden movements as the unflappable officers screamed useless commands to wheel to the right, to face the oncoming enemy. To draw sabres. But it was too little and too late to save the French, and now, as the white-coated Hanoverians on the big horses drove on relentlessly, the final act of horror unfolded before him.
A noise burst across the valley, which to the new recruits in the regiment sounded curiously like the crackle of a fire in a hearth. Steel recognized it instantly as the sound of musketry. Two hundred muskets had opened up from a battalion of French infantry arrayed in line to the right of the cantering Hanoverian dragoons. They sang out in a concerted volley, belching smoke and flame, and a few of the Hanoverians seemed to leap in the saddle as they were struck and toppled from their mounts, a fair number of which also went down in the hail of bullets. But the volley had less effect than it might have done due to the pace of the fast-moving horsemen who rode on oblivious, for such now was their fury that most did not even notice the musketry any more than one might acknowledge the annoying bite of a mosquito. Steel watched as the dragoons kept going in their headlong rush, drawing ever closer to the panic-stricken target of the French horse astride the road. This, he thought, was precisely what these men had been trained to do. This was the moment of which any horseman and dragoon dreamed but never believed would actually happen – to find an army’s weakness, catch it off guard and exploit it at speed. It was textbook stuff and almost unbelievably simple, and when executed properly, as here, imbued with a savage grace.
Then Rantzau’s men were up and in the French lines, scattering the enemy in all directions, moving through them like a scythe through corn, their huge blades falling relentlessly on skulls and necks and, held á point, skewering troopers where they sat helpless while the attackers’ horses kicked and flared their nostrils and bit at the enemy’s chargers, and even the riderless mounts of the men who had fallen still bowled into the French and added their weight and fury to the chaos and carnage of the mêlée.
Steel could hear his men cheering now as they watched the enemy in their death agonies. There was no room for mercy in war, he thought. No pity here, now. There were merely winners and losers – the dead, the dying and those who managed to remain alive for one more day. The French cavalry were lost. Twenty squadrons of them were swept to oblivion because of one man’s refusal to admit that he might have been wrong. As Steel watched, the blue and red ranks simply seemed to melt away in a mayhem of screaming bodies and whinnying horses, while the great white wedge of the Hanoverians pushed further into them like a hot knife going into butter. And still the blades rose and fell, trailing gouts of blood as they went. Beneath the hooves of French cavalry that only a few minutes earlier had looked so proud and confident, patches of ground had turned to a red paste. It did not take long for Rantzau’s men to push through the bloody ruin of the cavalry, then they were out and in search of fresh quarry. And to Steel’s horror they did not stop.
Of course, he thought, they were dragoons, and they were only doing what dragoons did best. Get into the enemy on as unequal terms as you can, and then hack them to pieces until the blood runs free. He knew Jørgen Rantzau to be a brave and experienced soldier. But however well led any cavalry might be, however fearless, how could you control such men once their blood was up? Then no amount of shouted orders, no bugle calls could stop them. So Steel watched as the inevitable happened and Rantzau’s blood-crazed victors were countercharged by fresh French cavalry. The now panicked Hanoverian squadrons attempted to reform, only to be caught in the flank. Unable to stop himself, Steel stood transfixed by their nemesis.
There was a cough from his side. ‘Now that’s what I’d call a bloody shame, sir, if you don’t mind my saying so. But that’s cavalry for you. See, sir, they don’t know when to stop. But what a show they put on, eh, sir? That German cavalry. Really beat up the French. We all saw it back there. Bloody marvellous.’
‘Yes, bloody marvellous, Jacob. You’re right there. And you’re right about the cavalry. They don’t know when to stop. Same with our lot, mind you. Remember Hay’s dragoons after the Schellenberg? Roaring down that hill towards the town? The Danube ran red with enemy blood.’ He smiled, ‘But you’re a fine one to talk of restraint, Sar’nt. In our day we’ve not been much better. After Ramillies I thought the whole bloody company was going to chase the Frenchies back to Paris.’
Slaughter grinned. ‘Well, sir, sometimes you just can’t hold them. Aye, and we would’ve done that too, if the Duke hisself hadn’t stopped us. But we’ll do it today, sir. Chase ’em to Paris if you tell us to. If we ever get the chance, that is. Right to the gates of bloody Paris and down that ruddy river to Versailles. And give old Louis a bleeding nose.’
He might not have been far wrong, thought Steel. France was only fifteen miles away. If they could really prevail here today, if fate was kind to them, and for the last few years the gods of war certainly seemed to have been on their side, there was just the chance that some time soon he might be leading his men into Paris in a victory march. And what a day that would be. He laughed with the sergeant. ‘Let’s hope so, Jacob. All we can do now is hope.’
He looked again across the river. To his astonishment it appeared that the French, emboldened by their success against the repulsed Hanoverians, many of whom thankfully appeared to have managed to retire in good order to the Allied left, had begun to counterattack down the Ghent road, towards Oudenarde.
He shook his head. ‘What on earth do they mean now? Can’t they see we’re here in force?’
Both men watched as four huge columns of pale-grey-uniformed French infantry crossed the little stream of the Diepenbeek and without any opposition took the village of the same name which lay to Cadogan’s left. Steel could make out more detail among the French now. He could see their officers and sergeants quite clearly with their spear-tipped spontoons and axe-headed halberds and the frothy confections of white and silver lace in their black tricorns. The French were getting close, being drawn into Cadogan’s cauldron. At once both men guessed that their time had come at last.
‘Stand the men to, Sar’nt. I believe that we may be about to advance.’
It was approaching four o’clock by Hansam’s pocket watch and, as he had suspected, Steel did not have long to wait. Even as Slaughter and the other company sergeants were busy herding the men back into neat files, he saw a galloper from the high command racing along the hillside, making for the towering figure of Colonel