These particulars were pleasing to me, for I saw that I had come into a coil wherein affairs of state and domestic matters were close interwoven. I was never so well pleased as when I had a tangle to unravel; and the enterprise I had taken upon myself in merry sport bade fair to give me unlooked-for entertainment.
IV
On the afternoon of that day, the Spaniards made a very hot assault at a breach in the wall hard by the north gate of the city. From the commencement of the siege this had been the chief mark of their ordnance, the which had cast upon it as many as a thousand shot a day. But the burghers had diligently repaired by night the mischief wrought in daytime, so that the damage was but small; and the assaults which the besiegers had already made upon the breach had been repelled with no great difficulty.
Nevertheless, on this day the attack was exceeding fierce. The Spaniards swarmed into the breach, and endeavoured mightily at push of pike to bear down our defences. Our burghers met them with heroical courage, and quit themselves well in the close fighting upon the wall. I was not sorry that the assault had been delivered so soon after my entrance into the city, for I had thereby occasion to win the good favour of the burghers by lending them aid, thereby getting me a shrewd knock or two. There was no question of generalship or high strategy; it was sheer journeyman fighting. In this I observed that the Captain of the Guard played a right valiant part, and I saw with a good deal of satisfaction that young Jan Verhoeff pressed ever into the thickest of the fray, and plied his pike with commendable spirit. The tide of battle carried me more than once to his side, and I marked his face alit with the joy of the true warrior. We beat back the invaders, though not without losing many of our ripest pikemen and calivermen, a heavy toll upon our success.
It had not escaped my observation that the city fathers were scarce so forward at this critical moment as loyalty and good example required. I saw neither the Burgomaster nor Mynheer Volmar, but I learnt that certain of the council had posted themselves very valiantly at such parts of the defences as were not at that time threatened. As I returned with Jan Verhoeff to his mother's house I overheard two burghers speaking together of this witness to their rulers' valiancy, and Jan shot a look at me that seemed to question whether I nourished doubts of the worthy fathers. I said nothing on that head, but spoke of the tough work we had been through, the which I hoped would discourage the enemy from attempting another assault for some time. I said too that since he must be very weary, he would be loth to serve among the night watch, whereupon he told me that he was free for that night, his turn of duty coming upon every second day.
I mention this because, in the middle of the night, as I lay cogitating a scheme I purposed to put next day before the Captain of the Guard, I heard the young man, whose room was beside mine, descend the stairs and go forth of the house. This circumstance caused me to wonder somewhat what his errand might be, for after the fatigue of the day it must be a thing of moment that could draw him from his bed. But being deeply concerned with matters of my own, I gave over thinking of him, and only remembered his going forth when I saw him pale and hard of eye at our breakfast in the morning. The good lady his mother asked if he had not slept well. "Passably," he answered, and said no more, whereby I knew that, whatsoever his errand had been, it was to be kept secret from his mother.
I lost no time in seeking out the Captain of the Guard, to acquaint him with the fruit of my cogitations in the night. He had already confessed to me that he had but small training in the arts of war; wherefore, being already assured of his fidelity and of his doughtiness in fight, I had no squeamishness in offering him my counsel, which a more tried warrior might have taken amiss.
I first pointed out to him certain weak places in the defences of the city; to wit, the neighbourhood of a mill, where the city wall had not been strengthened because of some fancied assurance that the mill race was protection enough; and also the rampart by the church, where a thick clump of trees without the wall offered good cover to the enemy resolutely assaulting. The Captain was very quick to see these deficiencies when I had mentioned them, and perfectly ready to make them good.
From this I proceeded to a further matter.
"Sir," I said to him, "your men did right nobly yesterday; yet methinks we should not be content merely with having beat back the Spaniards. To endue them with a true respect for us, and our men with a true respect for themselves, it needs to repay them in their own coin: I mean, to sally out and fall upon them unawares, at some convenient spot of their camp."