The Cornet of Horse: A Tale of Marlborough's Wars by G. A. Henty (polar express read aloud .TXT) 📖

It was morning before the voyagers awoke, and made their way on deck. They looked round, but no sail was in sight, only an expanse of foaming sea and driving cloud. The captain was on deck.

"I suspect they have given it up and run back," he said; "and no fools either. It is not weather for anyone to be out who has a choice in the matter. But the 'Jeanne' is a good sea boat, and has been out in worse weather than this. Not but that it is a big gale, but it is from the north, and the land shelters us a bit. If it keeps on like this, I shall lie-to a few hours. The sea will be tremendous when we get beyond Ushant."

For three days the gale blew furiously, and the "Jeanne" lay-to. Then the storm broke, and the wind veered round to the south, and La Belle Jeanne flew along on her way towards England.

It was at a point on the Hampshire coast, near Lymington, that she was to run her cargo; and on the fifth day after leaving the river she was within sight of land. They lowered their sails, and lay a few miles off land until nightfall, and then ran in again. Two lights on the shore, one above the other, told that the coast was clear; and the boats were quickly lowered. The marquis, who had come well provided with gold to meet all emergencies, handed over to Maitre Nicolay fifty pounds over the sum agreed on, and in a few minutes the travellers set foot on shore.

Six days later, a post chaise brought them to the door of Windthorpe Chace, where Madame Holliday and the colonel stood on the steps to welcome Rupert's future wife. The very day after their return, Rupert mooted to the marquis the subject of an early marriage, but the latter said at once:

"I must first take a place for Adele to be married from. Mademoiselle Adele de Pignerolles must not be married like the daughter of a little bourgeois. Moreover, Rupert, it is already near the end of the year. In three months you will be setting out to join your regiment again. It would be cruel to Adele for you to marry her before the war is over, or until you at any rate have done with soldiering. You tell me that you have gone through enough, and that the next campaign shall be your last. At any rate you can obtain a year's leave after nine years of campaigning. So be it. When you return at the end of next year's campaign you shall find all ready, and I will answer for it that Adele will not keep you waiting. It is but a fortnight since you were affianced to each other. You can well wait the year."

And so it was arranged, for Rupert himself saw that it would be cruel to expose Adele to the risk of being made a widow after a few weeks only of married life.

The winter passed very quietly and happily. The marquis was always talking of taking a house, but Adele joined her voice with those of the others in saying that it would be cruel indeed for him to take her away from the Chace until it was time for Rupert to start for the war again.

In the middle of March he received orders to join his regiment, as large numbers of recruits had been sent out, and every officer was required at his post.

During the winter of 1708, Marlborough had laboured strenuously to obtain a peace which would satisfy all parties. Louis offered great concessions, which the duke urged strongly should be accepted; but the English and Dutch wanted terms so severe and humiliating that Louis would not accept them, and both sides prepared for a great final struggle.

The King of France addressed an appeal to his people, telling them that he had offered to make the greatest possible sacrifices to obtain peace for them, but that the enemy demanded terms which would place France at their mercy. He therefore appealed to their patriotism to come forward to save the country. The people responded readily to the summons, and Marshal Villars took the field in the spring with 110,000 men, a force just equal to that of the allies.

The French had taken up a position of such extraordinary strength, that it was hopeless for the allies to attempt to attack. His left wing was covered by the stream of Roubaix; his centre by the marsh of Cambriu; his right by the canal between Douai and Lille; and this naturally strong position had been so strengthened by artificial inundations, ditches, abattis, and earthworks, as to be practically impregnable.

Marlborough and Eugene made, however, as if they would attack, and Villars called to him as many men as could be spared from the garrisons round. The allies then by a sudden night march arrived before Tournai, and at once commenced its investment. Tournai was an immensely strong town, but its garrison was weak. The heavy artillery was brought up from Ghent, and on the 6th of July the approaches were commenced; and on the 29th of that month, the governor, finding that the allies were gradually winning fort after fort, and that Villars made no movement to relieve him, surrendered the town, and retired into the citadel, which was then besieged.

This was one of the most terrible sieges ever undertaken, for not only were the fortifications enormously strong, but beneath each bastion and outwork, and far extending beyond them, an immense number of galleries had been driven for mines. At all times soldiers, even the bravest, have found it difficult to withstand the panic brought about by the explosion of mines, and by that underground warfare in which bravery and strength were alike unavailing, and where the bravest as well as the most cowardly were liable at any moment to be blown into the air, or smothered underground. The dangers of this service, at all times great; were immensely aggravated by the extraordinary pains taken by those who had constructed the fortifications to prepare for subterranean warfare by the construction of galleries.

The miners frequently met underground, breaking into each other's galleries. Sometimes the troops, mistaking friend for foe, fought with each other. Sometimes whole companies entered mines by mistake at the very moment that they were primed for explosion. They were often drowned, suffocated with smoke, or buried alive. Sometimes scores were blown into the air.

It was not surprising that even the hearts of the allied troops were appalled at the new and extraordinary dangers which they had to face at the siege of Tournai; and the bravest were indeed exposed to the greatest danger. The first to mount a breach, to effect a lodgment in an outwork, to enter a newly discovered mine, was sure to perish. First there was a low rumbling noise, then the earth heaved, and whole companies were scattered with a frightful explosion.

On the 5th of August, a sally made by the besieged was bravely repulsed, and the besiegers, pressing closely upon them, effected a lodgment; but immediately a mine was sprung, and 150 men blown into the air.

On the 20th, the besieged blew down a wall which overhung a sap, and two officers and thirty-four soldiers were killed.

On the 23rd a mine sixty feet long and twenty feet broad was discovered, just as a whole battalion of Hanoverian troops had taken up their place above it. All were congratulating themselves on the narrow escape, when a mine placed below that they had discovered exploded, burying all in the upper mine in the ruins.

On the 25th, 300 men posted in a large mine which had been discovered, were similarly destroyed by the explosion of another mine below it; and the same night 100 men posted in the ditch were killed by a wall being blown out upon them.

In resisting the attack upon one side of the fortress only, thirty-eight mines were sprung in twenty-six days, almost every one with fatal effect. It is no detriment to the courage of the troops to say, that they shrank appalled before such sudden and terrible a mode of warfare, and Marlborough and Eugene in person visited the trenches and braved the dangers in order to encourage the men.

At last, on the 3rd of September, the garrison, reduced to 3000 men, surrendered; and were permitted to march out with the honours of war, and to return to France on the promise not to serve again.

This siege cost the allies 5000 men.

During all the time that the allies had been employed upon the siege of Tournai, Marshal Villars had laboured to form an impregnable line of entrenchments, barring all farther advance. Marlborough, however, a day or two previously to the fall of Tournai, sent off the Prince of Hesse Cassel, who by a rapid and most masterly march fell upon the French lines, at a part where the French had no expectation of there being an enemy within thirty miles of them. No opposition was made, and the prince marching rapidly to the plateau of Jemappes, invested Mons on the French side. The rest of the army followed. The effect caused throughout France, and indeed through Europe, by the success of this masterly movement, was immense; and it was evident that a great battle was at hand.

Villars moved his army rapidly up. A detachment of Eugene's troops were left to watch Mons, and the allied army, 93,000 strong, advanced to meet them, and on the night of the 7th bivouacked in a line three miles long, and five from that occupied by the French. Marshal Villars had with him 95,000 men. The forces therefore were as nearly as possible equal; but the allies had 105 guns, against eighty of the French.

The position taken up by Villars was of great natural strength; being a plateau, interspersed with woods and intersected with streams, and elevated from a hundred and fifty to two hundred feet above the meadowland of the Trouville, across which their assailants must pass. Malplaquet stood on this plateau. On the slopes from the plateau to the plain, the woods were extremely thick, and the only access to the plateau, for troops, were two clearings cut through the woods, known as the Trouees de la Louviere, and d'Aulnoit.

On the morning of the 8th, when the French definitely took up their position, Marlborough and Eugene were in favour of making an instant attack, before the French could add to the great natural strength of their position by entrenchments. The Dutch deputies, however, were altogether opposed to an assault on so formidable a front. Finally a compromise was adopted--a compromise which, as is often the case, was the very worst course which could have been adopted. The army should neither fall back, as the Dutch wished; nor attack at once, as Marlborough desired. It was resolved not to abandon the siege of Mons, and to attack the enemy if they would not take the offensive; but to wait until Saint Ghislain, which commanded a passage on the Haine, was taken; and until twenty-six battalions on the march from Tournai arrived.

It was two days before these conditions were fulfilled; and Villars had used these two precious days in throwing up a series of immensely strong works. The heights he occupied formed a concave semicircle, enfilading on all sides the little plain of Malplaquet, and this semicircle now bristled with redoubts, palisades, abattis, and stockades; while the two trouees, or openings, by which it was presumed that the allies would endeavour to force an entrance, were so enfiladed by cross batteries as to be well-nigh unassailable. Half the French army by turns had laboured ceaselessly at the works, during the two days which the cowardly folly of the Dutch deputies had given them; and the result was the works resembled rather the fortifications of a fortress, than ordinary field works. Marlborough and Eugene had seen from hour to hour the progress of these formidable works, and resolved to mask their front attack by a strong demonstration on the enemy's rear. The troops coming up from Tournai, under General Withers, were ordered not to join the main army; but to cross the Haine at Saint Ghislain, and to attack the extreme left of the enemy at the farm of La Folie. Baron Schulemberg was to attack the left flank of the entrenchments in the wood of Taisniere, with forty of Eugene's battalions, supported by as many cannon; while Count Lottum was to attack the right flank of the wood with twenty-two battalions. The rest of the army was to attack in front; but it was from Eugene's attack in the wood of Taisniere that success was chiefly hoped.

At three o'clock on the morning of the 11th the men were got under arms, divine service was performed at the head of each regiment, and then the troops marched to