5 A Very Murdering Battle (28 page)

‘His entrenchments are almost impregnable and I admire him for the way he has put the enemy to flight. But I do wonder at his lack of ambition.’

‘How so, Your Grace?’ asked Morellon, surprised at the criticism.

‘He had the opportunity to sally forth and harry them before reinforcements arrived,’ said Villars. ‘By that means, Boufflers might have secured the right flank completely.’

‘It will not be pierced while he holds command.’

‘But the chance to counter-attack has been lost.’

‘He’s done what was asked of him,’ said Morellon, reasonably, ‘and that was to frustrate the attack. As you so rightly predicted, Marlborough has used his stale tactics once again, concentrating his assault on the flanks in order to draw our men out of the centre. Marshal Boufflers has driven them back heroically.’

‘I wish that the same could be said of our left flank,’ said Villars, sadly, ‘but Marlborough has committed too many troops to the area. Lottum and Schulenburg are shrewd generals and they have Prince Eugene at their heels to bring out the best in them. More worrying,’ he admitted, ‘is the news of a secondary force of foot and horse, moving in a wide arc to loop around the western edge of our defences.’

Morellon blenched. ‘If they get behind our lines, we are in dire trouble.’

‘Our first task is to hold our left flank and that can only be done with fresh soldiers. I propose to move the dozen battalions poised for the counter-attack to a position close to the Bois de Sars.’

‘But you’d be doing exactly what Marlborough intends you to do.’

‘I have no choice,’ said Villars, brusquely. ‘When Schulenburg fights his way out of the wood, he’ll find that I’ve posted a substantial force to receive him.’

Daniel arrived back at headquarters to find Marlborough in a state of controlled excitement. He’d been summoned by Schulenburg to view the advance made on the right flank. Daniel joined the party as they cantered off together. Entering the Bois de Sars for the third time, he found it even more littered with Allied corpses but the losses had not been in vain. Schulenburg’s men had forced their way out of the wood, held off the French reinforcements and somehow managed to get seven large cannon behind enemy lines. This enabled them to batter the French cavalry stationed on a ridge behind their foot and guns. Hit by a merciless salvo of shot, they were forced to pull back out of range. Schulenburg’s artillery could now turn its fury on the French entrenchments, distracting them before Orkney’s imminent attack on the enemy centre.

After all the tribulations, it was a rewarding sight for the Allied high command but it was not without danger. They were surveying the scene from just beyond the wood and within range of enemy fire. Daniel had already ducked under some musket balls and his companions also took evasive action from time to time. Prince Eugene was unlucky. As he turned his horse, he was grazed behind the ear by a musket ball that drew blood and left a stinging wound.

‘You must be attended by a surgeon at once,’ said Marlborough.

‘I wouldn’t hear of it, Your Grace.’

‘It may be more serious than you think.’

‘There’s a battle to win first,’ said the other, determined not to quit the field. ‘Besides, I’m only following the example of Captain Rawson. His injury looks worse than mine, yet he still remains in the saddle.’

‘And I intend to stay in it this time,’ said Daniel with a grin.

‘Let’s withdraw,’ advised Marlborough, as another spattering of musket balls came in their direction. ‘We offer too tempting a target.’

They pulled back into the woods now cleared of French positions. As they picked their way through the trees, a rider came hurtling towards them along a twisting track. From his uniform, Daniel identified him as belonging to one of the regiments under the Prince of Orange. The man tugged on the reins and his horse came to a skidding halt.

‘The Prince of Orange requests urgent reinforcements, Your Grace,’ he said, panting. ‘Our latest attack had fatal results and we lack the numbers to offer the French right flank sufficient threat.’

Marlborough stiffened. ‘There should have
been
no attack,’ he said. ‘I sent Captain Rawson with orders to the contrary and I know he delivered them.’

‘I did indeed, Your Grace,’ confirmed Daniel.

‘Then why was another suicidal charge made?’

‘I can’t answer that, Your Grace,’ said the messenger, ‘but I know how desperate we are for additional reserves.’

Daniel could see how angry Marlborough was. The thought that his orders had been ignored was a blow to his pride. Daniel sought to provide an explanation that might placate him slightly.

‘I cannot believe that your orders were disobeyed,’ he said. ‘The Prince of Orange was probably confused by the smoke of battle. I’ve been there, Your Grace, and know how treacherous the fog of war can be. It’s likely that he lost his way and found himself by accident at the French barricades.’

It was not impossible. Blinded by the smoke and deafened by the din, it was easy to go astray in unfamiliar territory. But Marlborough did not accept that that was the excuse here. The Prince of Orange was hot-headed. A more likely explanation was that he’d been piqued at the orders to hold back. Marlborough concealed his feelings from the messenger but Daniel could read his face. Excellent news on the right flank had been counterbalanced by bad news on the left. There was a long way to go yet.

Henry Welbeck was still involved in the battle to take the triangular redoubt constructed with such skill and solidarity. Impervious to all but the heaviest artillery, it was equipped with punitive guns and a small garrison of well-drilled soldiers whose accurate fire from behind the logs had killed or crippled wave after wave of the Allied attack. The Duke of Argyll’s brigade was under the command of Sir Richard Temple and comprised the 8
^th
, 18
^th
and 21
^st
alongside the 24
^th
Foot. Weight of numbers eventually told. Aware that they’d lost control of the Bois de Sars to their immediate left, the men in the redoubt felt their confidence being sapped. Some talked of retreat while others insisted on fighting to the last man. In the event, the decision was taken for them by a sudden charge from the Allied foot. Bayonets glinting in the sun, they ran towards the tiny stronghold.

Defying sporadic enemy fire, Leo Curry lumbered along with Welbeck.

‘This is why I joined the army,’ yelled Curry. ‘I love to kill.’

‘Save your breath, Leo. You’ll need it.’

‘I’m a fitter man than you, Henry, and a lustier one as well. Rachel prefers me because I can give her what a woman craves.’

‘No woman craves a man with as big a mouth as yours,’ snarled Welbeck.

Curry sniggered. ‘It’s not my big mouth she wants,’ he said, one hand to his crutch. ‘Farewell, Henry.’

With an unexpected burst of speed, Curry sprinted forward and was in the front line that scrambled onto some of the thick logs surrounding the redoubt on three sides. When he climbed to the top, he held his musket aloft in a gesture of triumph then fell backwards as he was shot between the eyes. He landed on his back at Welbeck’s feet. Feeling an odd sense of loss, Welbeck stepped over the dead body of his friend and clambered over the logs. In the desperate hand-to-hand encounter, he was able to shoot one man and kill two more with his bayonet. All around him French soldiers were being summarily slaughtered. When the redoubt was finally taken, he climbed back over the logs and looked down at Curry. Welbeck afforded him a sigh of regret. The other sergeant had been a foul-mouthed braggart but his bravery was beyond question. Dying in action, Curry had unwittingly done Welbeck a favour. There would only be one suitor for Rachel Rees now.

By mid-afternoon, the outcome had been decided. On the Allied right flank, Prince Eugene’s forces renewed their attack and forced the French left to retire in disarray towards Quiévrain. On the French right, the Dutch attack had been rebuffed but not before it had crossed three lines of entrenchments. Seeing that reinforcements were massing for another attack, d’Artagnan ordered a retreat in the direction of Bavay and Maubeuge. With his compatriots turning tail, all that Boufflers could do was to follow suit, ordering his squadrons to fall back beyond the Hogneau river. As their flanks gave way, the French centre also collapsed, unable to hold out on its own against a rampant enemy with the smell of victory in its nostrils. To compound his miseries, Marshal Villars was shot in the knee and carried from the field in agony.

The battle of Malplaquet was over but it was essentially a pyrrhic victory. The Allies had suffered some twenty-five thousand killed or wounded, over a third of them coming from the Dutch battalions under the Prince of Orange. The French sustained only thirteen thousand casualties and the fact that they left barely five hundred able-bodied men to be taken as prisoners showed how disciplined their retreat had been. Marlborough summed up the bloodbath in an evocative phrase. When he later wrote to Godolphin, he described it as ‘a very murdering battle’.

Welbeck knew that she was there somewhere. Various figures were moving across the battlefield and searching the corpses of French soldiers. Rachel should have been among them but he could see her nowhere. Welbeck plodded on, scanning the landscape as he did so. His hopes were faint. If she was not burrowing for loot among the enemy, there was only one explanation. She was dead. Her luck had finally run out. Rachel always took more chances than the others, scuttling along the lines of the dead and sniffing out the spoils of war. Welbeck admired her for her tenacity but wished she’d been more circumspect. Her ample frame offered too big a target. It had been a day of terrible losses for him. He’d lost Curry, Plummer and dozens of other men from his regiment. Now, it seemed, he’d lost Rachel as well and it was her death that brought a tear to his eye. It was ironic. For so many years, he’d spurned the company of women and denigrated the whole sex. Now that he’d changed his mind and found someone who’d actually aroused feelings of love in him, she’d been snatched away. It was cruel. When he and Rachel had gradually become close, there was the promise of a happiness he’d never dared to believe existed. That dizzying promise had perished on a battlefield.

With the vestigial flickers of hope slowly fading, Welbeck trudged on over broken bodies and past dead horses. A pall of silence hung over the scene now. It was like a vision of hell and it appalled him. He was still forcing his weary legs on when he heard a cry from some distance to his right.

‘Sergeant!’ yelled a man. ‘Come over here!’

‘What is it?’ called Welbeck in response.

‘I’ve found a woman – I think she’s still alive.’

Welbeck summoned up a burst of energy and broke into a trot, zigzagging past the corpses as he did so and praying that he’d found Rachel at last. There were not many women scouring the battlefield and few who’d ventured so close to the enemy. The man who’d alerted him was a scavenger himself, bending over the body and trying to revive the woman with a nip of rum. As it dribbled over her lips, Welbeck arrived. He was tense and breathless. Curled up on the ground as if she was sleeping was Rachel Rees. Welbeck was overjoyed. There was an ugly bruise on her temple and blood trickled from a flesh wound in her shoulder but she seemed otherwise unhurt. Grabbing the flask from the man, Welbeck put his other arm under her shoulder and raised her up. When he offered her the rum, her lips parted to accept it and it gurgled down her throat. After a few seconds, her eyelids blinked. Still dazed, she managed a weary smile.

‘Hello, Henry,’ she said, ‘I knew that you’d come for me.’

* * *

Pacing his horse, Daniel rode north-east through open countryside. He was acting as a courier, bearing details of the battle to Grand Pensionary Heinsius in The Hague. The report would not make comfortable reading for a Dutchman, recording, as it did, the monumental scale of Dutch losses. Having delivered the report, Daniel had expected to be recalled to take part in the continuing siege of Mons but Marlborough had shown compassion. He’d remembered Daniel’s vow to propose to Amalia after the battle and he ensured that there was minimum delay. After his visit to the nation’s capital, therefore, Daniel had been given permission to ride on to Amsterdam.

‘On an occasion like this,’ Marlborough had said with a gracious smile, ‘a lady should not be kept waiting.’

Daniel cherished those words and was overwhelmed with a feeling of gratitude towards the captain-general. It was couched in sympathy for him. Daniel knew that there’d be repercussions. The Allies had achieved a victory that was shot through with elements of defeat. The losses were staggering and blame for them would be heaped onto Marlborough. The harshest recriminations would take place back in England, where his enemies would seize the excuse to attack, malign and undermine him. Whatever else it might have done, the Battle of Malplaquet had not made peace on Allied terms inevitable. If anything, French morale had been lifted by the way their army had performed in the field. The war would go on.

It was a salutary reminder to Daniel that there would be other occasions when he’d gather intelligence behind enemy lines, bear arms once more against the French and have his horse shot from under him as at Malplaquet. Danger was ever present. For that reason, he had to make Amalia his wife so that they could enjoy some happiness together before it was too late. Settling into the long ride, he started to rehearse his proposal of marriage and found it extremely difficult to choose the right words. Amalia wouldn’t wish to be rushed. How long should he wait before he spoke to her father? Should he make his proposal in the house, the garden or at a more romantic venue? When could he expect the wedding to take place? Who would be invited? Where would they set up house? What about children?

Rocked by a startling new thought, Daniel slowed his horse to a trot.