CHAPTER IX
ANNUS MIRABILIS
"Don't imagine, my dear lad, that they are going to make captains of mere boys like ourselves." This was the reply, given with a hearty laugh, when George Fairburn, after receiving his friend's warm congratulations at the close of the inspection, was condoling with Matthew on his failure to get his step. "A captain at twenty is somewhat unlikely," Blackett went on. "I suppose so," replied George. "After all we are only glorified schoolboys, some of our fellows tell us. Yet you look three-and-twenty, if a day. However, all will come in time, let us hope."
The brilliant operations on the defence line proved to be but the prelude to Marlborough's second great life disappointment. He saw his chance. He had but to follow up his success by a decisive victory over Villeroy's forces, and the way lay open to Paris. His hopes ran high.
Alas! the Dutch had to be reckoned with. Eager to follow up his advantage, Marlborough called for assistance, immediate and effective, from them; in vain; the assistance did not come, or came too late. With what help he could get from the Dutch, nevertheless, he went forward to the Dyle. Here again the Dutch balked him, raising objections to the crossing of that river. In despair the Duke gathered his troops, as it happened, strangely enough, on the very spot where, a hundred years later, another great Duke gained his most famous victory over the French. Could Marlborough have but had his chance with Villeroy in that spot, there is little doubt that Europe would have seen an earlier Waterloo.
But it was not to be. Just as the Margrave of Baden had stopped his advance along the Moselle into France the previous year, so now the supineness and factious opposition of the Dutch prevented Marlborough from dealing the French power a crushing blow. Deeply disgusted, he threatened once more to resign his command. "Had I had the same power I had last year," he wrote, "I could have won a greater victory than that of Blenheim." It was a bitter trial for him.
The campaign of 1705 soon after came to a close, and the Duke set off on what we may call a diplomatic tour among the allied states, his travels and negotiations producing good results. It was not till the beginning of 1706 that he went back to England, and thus it was late in the spring of that year when the campaign was reopened.
Rejoining his army in the Netherlands, he proposed to make another of his great marches, namely into Italy, there to join his friend Prince Eugene in an invasion of France from the south-east. This plan was made impossible by the crookedness of the kings of Prussia and Denmark, and some others of the Allies. Swallowing this disappointment also, as best he might, Marlborough started from the Dyle and advanced on the great and important stronghold of Namur, at the junction of the Sambre with the Meuse. Namur had always been greatly esteemed by the French, and, in dread alarm, Louis ordered Villeroy to take immediate action. The result was that the two hostile armies, each numbering about sixty thousand men, met face to face near the village of Ramillies, half way between Tirlemont and Namur, and near the head waters of the Great and Little Gheet and the Mehaigne.
Lieutenants Fairburn and Blackett from their position on a bit of rising ground could take in the general dispositions of the respective forces, and the same thought passed through both their minds. The French and Bavarian troops were drawn up in the form of an arc, whose ends rested on the villages of Anderkirk, to the north, and Tavières, on the Mehaigne, to the south. The villages of Ramillies and Offuz, with a mound known as the Tomb of Ottomond at the back of the former, were held by a strong centre. Marlborough, on his part, had disposed his men along a chord of that arc. If it came to a question of moving men and guns from one wing to the other, it was plain that the Duke had the advantage, the distance along an arc being necessarily greater than that along its chord, and it was that thought which came into the heads of the two lieutenants.
Marlborough directed his right to attack the enemy around the village of Anderkirk, backing up the assault with a contingent from his centre. Blackett and his friend were soon taking part in the gallop over the swampy ground in the neighbourhood of the village. A sharp encounter followed, the Frenchmen beginning to waver. Hereupon Villeroy in alarm promptly sent from his centre a large number of men to support his staggering left at Anderkirk, thereby leaving his centre weak.
All at once Marlborough withdrew his troops to the high ground opposite the hamlet of Offuz, as if for a fresh attack. Then sending back a part to keep up the pretence of continuing the combat in the marsh, he took advantage of the concealment afforded by the higher ground, and, cleverly detaching a large body, ordered them to slip away round to seize Tavières, on the Mehaigne. George and his friend were thus separated, the latter being of those who remained in the swamp to keep up appearances. It was a clever bit of strategy, and, before Villeroy realized the truth, Tavières had been rushed with a splendid charge. The fact that the attack on Anderkirk had been only a feint came to the French commander's understanding too late. His centre, with the village of Ramillies and the Tomb of Ottomond commanding it, the really important positions of the day, was weakened by the loss of troops sent on a wild-goose chase.
Ere Villeroy could repair the mischief and summon his men from Anderkirk, Marlborough had sent down upon the French centre a great body of cavalry under the command of Auerkerke, the Dutch general. English and Dutch horse combined in this assault, and George Fairburn found himself one of a host dashing upon the village of Ramillies. There was a terrific shock, a few moments of fierce onslaught, and the first line of the enemy gave way. Through the broken and disorganized line the cavalry swept, to charge the second.
Another shock, even greater than the first. The Frenchmen of the second line stood firm, for were they not the famous Household Regiment—the Maison du Roi—of Louis, and probably the finest troops in Europe. The advance of the Allies was instantly checked. In vain Auerkerke urged on his men; in vain those men renewed the attack. The enemy stood steadfast; they began to drive back their antagonists; the position of the Allies was becoming critical.
"Go and inform the Duke! Quick, quick!" the Dutchman called out to a young officer whom he had observed fighting with the utmost determination near by, but who had stopped for a moment to recover his breath.
It happened to be Lieutenant Fairburn, and George once more found himself face to face with the Duke, for the first time since he had met him after the rush of the French defence line near Tirlemont last year. Marlborough, the youth could see by his quick glance, knew him again. In a word or two George delivered his startling message.
"By Jove, sir," declared the subaltern, when telling his story to his colonel afterwards, "never did I see so spry a bit of work as I did when I had said my little say. The Duke was ten men rolled into one, sir. Orders here, there, and everywhere; fellows sent darting about like hares. In a few minutes—minutes! I was going to say seconds—every sabre had been got together, and we were all tumbling over each other in our hurry to get along to the fight. It was a fine thing, sir."
The commander, sword in hand, led his reinforcement to the fatal spot with the speed of the whirlwind. He had almost reached it when he was suddenly set upon by a company of young bloods belonging to the Maison du Roi. They were nobles for the most part, and utterly reckless of their lives. Recognizing the Duke, they made a desperate attempt to secure him, closing round him with a dash.
"Great Heaven!" ejaculated George Fairburn, as his eye suddenly fell upon the Duke fighting his way out of the group, and in company with fifty more he flew to the spot. At that moment Marlborough, now almost clear, put his horse to a ditch across his track. How it happened no one could tell exactly, but the rider fell, and dropped into the little trench. Marlborough's career appeared at an end. His steed was cantering madly over the field.
But friends were at hand, and before the Frenchmen could complete their work the little company had beaten them off. George leapt to the ground, and drew his horse towards the General, who had sprung to his feet in a trice, nothing the worse.
"Here, sir," said the lieutenant, handing the bridle to an officer in a colonel's uniform, who stood at hand, and the colonel held the animal while the Duke mounted.
Before the Duke had fairly gained his seat in the saddle, a ball with a rustling hum carried off the head of the unfortunate colonel. It was an appalling sight, and George Fairburn was forced to turn away his eyes.
The crisis was too serious, however, to waste time in vain regrets. Without the loss of a moment Marlborough led the charge upon the enemy. The famous Household Brigade fell back, and the village of Ramillies was taken. Then another fierce struggle, but a brief one, and the Tomb of Ottomond was secured, the position which commanded the whole field. The battle was almost at an end.
There remained only the village of Anderkirk in its marshy hollow, and Marlborough called together his forces from the various parts of the confused field. Another charge was sounded, the last. The enemy turned and fled. Ramillies was won.
The victory, quite as important in its way as Blenheim, had been gained in a little over three hours. The loss on the side of the Allies was hardly four thousand; that of the French and Bavarians, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, was four times as great. All the enemy's guns, six only excepted, fell into the hands of the victors.
There was one heavy drawback to the pride which the young Lieutenant Fairburn naturally felt at having had a humble share in the great victory. At the muster of the survivors of his regiment Blackett was missing. Half the night did George search for him, and was at last rewarded by finding the young fellow lying wounded and helpless on the boggy ground. It was an intense relief when the surgeon gave good hopes of Matthew's ultimate recovery.
"I'm done for this campaign, old friend," Blackett said with a feeble smile to George, "and must be sent home for a while. But I hope to turn up among you another year."
If to follow up a great victory promptly, vigorously, and fully, be one of the distinguishing marks of a great commander, then the Duke of Marlborough was certainly one of the greatest generals of whom history tells. Hardly anything more striking than his long and rapid series of successes in the weeks after Ramillies can be credited to a military leader, not even excepting Wellington and Napoleon. Louvain, Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges, all fell into his hands. Menin, Ostend, Dendermonde, and a few other strongholds gave pore trouble, and the brave Marshal Vendôme was sent to their assistance. It was useless; Vendôme turned tail and fled, his men refusing to face the terrible English Duke. "Every one here is ready to doff his hat, if one even mentions the name of Marlborough," Vendôme wrote to his master Louis. The remaining towns capitulated, and the Netherlands were lost to the Spanish. Of the more important fortresses only Mons remained.
But Marlborough's were by no means the only successes that fell to the Allies that wonderful year. Prince Eugene and the Duke of Savoy, the former after a rapid march, appeared before Turin, and on the 7th of September that notable place fell into the hands of the Prince, after brilliant efforts on both sides. The result was of the utmost importance; the French were demoralized; Savoy was permanently gained for the Grand Alliance; while Piedmont was lost to the French, who were thus cut off from the kingdom of Naples.
George had often wondered what had become of his old friend Fieldsend, whom he had not seen since the capture of Landau. But in the autumn of this year, 1706, while Fairburn was quartered at Antwerp, he received a letter from the lieutenant. It appeared that at his own request Fieldsend had been allowed to return to Spain, and he had served ever since under Lord Peterborough. The writer's account of the victories gained by Peterborough and the Earl of Galway in Spain that year read more like a fairy tale than real sober history. The sum and substance of it was that Peterborough had compelled the forces of Louis to raise the siege of Barcelona, and that Galway had actually entered Madrid in triumph. Had the Archduke Charles had the wit and the courage to enter his capital too, his cause might have had a very different issue from that which it was now fated to have.
Just before Christmastide George received permission to return to England on leave for a few weeks. He had never visited his old home all those years, and it was with delight he took his passage in a schooner bound for Hull. Hardly had he landed at that port when he ran across the old skipper of the Ouseburn Lassie. The worthy fellow did not at first recognize the schoolboy he had known in the sturdy handsome young fellow wearing a cavalry lieutenant's uniform, and he was taken aback when George accosted him with a hearty "How goes it, old friend? How goes it with you?" The skipper saluted in some trepidation, and it was not till George had given him a handshake that gripped like a vice that he knew his man again. Soon the two were deep in the work of exchanging histories. The crew of the captured collier brig, it appeared, had been kept at Dunkirk till the autumn of 1704, when they had been exchanged for certain French prisoners in ward at Dover. The Fairburn colliery had prospered wonderfully, and the owner now employed no fewer than four vessels of his own, one of which ran to Hull regularly. In fact, the skipper was just going on board to return to the Tyne.
Within an hour, therefore, Lieutenant Fairburn was afloat once more, to his great joy. On the voyage he learnt many things from the old captain. Squire Blackett was in very bad odour with the men of the district. For years his business had been falling off, and he had been dismissing hands. Now his health was failing; he was unable or unwilling to give vigorous attention to his trade, and he talked of closing his pit altogether. The colliers of the neighbourhood were desperately irritated, and to a man declared that, with anything like energy in the management, the Blackett pit had a fortune in it for any owner.
The well-known wharf was reached, a wharf vastly enlarged and improved, however, and George sprang ashore impatiently. Leaving all his belongings for the moment, he strode off at a great rate for home, rather wondering how it was that he did not see a single soul either about the river or on the road. He rubbed his eyes as he caught a sight of his boyhood's home. Like the wharf, the house had been added to and improved until he scarcely recognized the spot at all. "Father must be a prosperous man," was his thought. Opening the door without ceremony, he entered. A figure in the hall turned, and in a moment the boy had his mother in his arms, while he capered about the hall with her in pure delight.
The good woman gave a cry, but she was not of the fainting kind, and soon she was weeping and laughing by turns, kissing her handsome lad again and again. Presently, as if forgetting herself, she cried, "Ah, my boy, there's a parlous deed going on up at the Towers! You should be going to help." And George learned to his astonishment that the Squire's house was being at that moment attacked by a formidable and desperate gang. Fairburn had gone off to render what assistance he could. It was reported that the few defenders were holding the house against the besiegers, but that they could hold out little longer. The Fairburn pitmen had declined to be mixed up in the quarrel, as they called it.
"Good Heavens!" exclaimed George, "what a state of things!"
Bolting out of the house, he ran back at full speed to the wharf, his plan already clear in his head. Within ten minutes he was leading to Binfield Towers every man jack of the little crew, the old skipper included. The pace was not half quick enough, and when, at a turn in the road, an empty coal cart was met, George seized the head of the nag, and slewed him round, crying "All aboard, mates!" The crew tumbled in, and in an instant the lieutenant was whipping up the animal, to the utter astonishment of the carter.
Nearer to the mansion the party drew, but, hidden by the trees, it was not yet in sight. The old horse was spent, and, when a point opposite the house had been gained, George sprang out, vaulted over the fence into the wood, dashed through the growth of trees, and with another spring leapt down upon the lawn, almost on the selfsame spot where he had jumped over on the evening of the fire. For the last hundred yards he had been aware of the roar of angry voices. The sight that met his eyes, now that he was in full view of the scene, was an extraordinary one.
Scattered about the trampled grassplots was a crowd of pitmen, surging hither and thither, some armed with pickaxes, some with hedge-stakes, some with nothing but nature's weapons. One fellow was in the act of loading an old blunderbuss. Reared against the wall of the house were two or three ladders, one smashed in the middle. The lower windows had been barricaded with boards, but the mob had wrenched away the protection at one point, and men were climbing in with great shouts of triumph.
From the bedroom windows men were holding muskets, ready to fire, but evidently unwilling to do so except as a last resource. George spied his old friend Matthew at one window; at another, astonishing sight! stood no other than Fieldsend! His own father was at a third.
At that moment the fellow below raised his blunderbuss and took deliberate aim at the old Squire, who, all unconscious of his danger, was endeavouring to address the mob from an upper window. The sight seemed to grip George by the throat.
George carried a handspike, a weapon he had brought along from the collier vessel. A dozen rapid and noiseless strides over the grass brought him within striking distance, and instantly, with a downward stroke like a lightning flash, he had felled to earth man and blunderbuss. The report came as the man dropped, and with a yell one of the rioters climbing through a lower window dropped back to the ground, shot through the thigh by one of his own party.
"Saved!" the lieutenant shouted, a glance showing him that the old Squire was still unhurt. All eyes, those of the defenders no less than those of the attacking party, were immediately attracted to the new-comer, who was just in the act of seizing the blunderbuss from the grasp of the prostrate and senseless pitman.
"George!" "Fairburn!" "My boy!" came the cries from the upper windows, and the defenders cheered for pure joy.
The mob, startled for a moment, prepared to retaliate, a hasty whispering taking place between two or three of the leaders. "Look out for the rush!" cried Matthew, warningly. George, with a bound, gained the wall, where, back against the stonework, he stood ready with the handspike and the clubbed musket. So formidable an antagonist did he seem to the men that they held back, till one of them, with a fierce imprecation, dashed forward. In a trice he was felled to the ground, a loud roar of rage escaping the man's comrades. An instant later and the young lieutenant was fighting in the midst of a howling mob.
"Ah! Drat you!" came a bellow, and there rushed upon the rear of the attackers the old skipper, cutlass in hand, followed close by the rest of his little crew. This apparition, sudden and unexpected, upset the nerves of the pitmen, and in a moment they began to run, falling away from George and tumbling over each other in their haste.
"No you don't!" hissed the youngster between his firm-set teeth, and making a grab at a couple he had seen prominent in the fight, he held them with a grip they could not escape.
The attackers were routed; Binfield Towers was saved. Within a minute George was being greeted, congratulated, thanked, till he was almost fain to run for it, as the bulk of the mob had done. His father, Matthew, Fieldsend, even old Reuben—all crowded around with delight. In no long time Mrs. Maynard and Mary Blackett appeared, smiling through their tears of joy at their great deliverance. The latter had so grown that George hardly recognized her. All came up except the old Squire, and he was presently found in an alarming condition, one of his old heart attacks having come on. It was the only drawback to the joy of the meeting and the ending of the danger that had threatened the household.
Early next morning word was carried to the Fairburns that Squire Blackett was dead; he had never recovered from the shock and the seizure consequent thereon.
"Poor old neighbour!" Fairburn said, with a mournful shake of the head, "I am afraid he has left things in a sorry state."
Fairburn's fears were only too well founded. Mr. Blackett had left little or nothing, and Matthew and his sister would be but indifferently provided for. Then it was that Fairburn came out like a man. He proposed to run the colliery for their benefit. To the world it was to appear that the collieries had been amalgamated or rather that the Blackett pit had been bought up by his rival. The advantage to Matthew and Mary was too obvious to be rejected, and the required arrangements were made. Before the time came for the three young officers to go back to their duties they had the satisfaction of seeing Mrs. Maynard and Mary settled in a pretty cottage near, and the colliery in full work and prospering, the district employed and contented. Mary had been pressed by the Fairburn family to take up her abode with them, but had preferred to go into the cottage with her old governess and friend. Yet she was overwhelmed with gratitude towards the kindly couple.