Through the smoke they could both make out how the cavalry had fallen to the rear and the infantry was calmly advancing across the plain in two long lines with the Hanoverians stepping out on their left. Aligned as on the parade ground, never halting, never hurrying, shoulder to shoulder, not a falter, not a wrinkle, the great red column in two long lines comes on to the music of its drums; to-day these English dogs will achieve the impossible if they can. But can they? Surely not. From Fontenoy shriek the cannons, from Eu roar our guns, taking them in flank and in front; there are gaps in the files—they close; a hideous rent—it is sealed up; like a great scarlet wave they roll on majestic in irresistible silence. Nothing can stop them, not all the guns in Europe—marching on, marching on, marching on unreasoning, dogged, straight into the throats of our artillery and the muzzles of our muskets, mad—mad—mad, but the madness that intoxicates the heart and ennobles the soul. Dutch and Austrians have twice faced this hellish fire and twice recoiled, but these English will come on; they said they would storm the entrenchments on the left, and get to them they will, for a promise is a promise, and they have English gentlemen to lead them.
For a time they are lost in the smoke and the roar and the gentle folds of the slope.
“They are broken,” cried St. Benôit. “Well, they did their best, but it’s a pity——”
“Broken! by God!” burst out André, “look there—they’ve done it—done it—and——”
A cry has risen from the French ranks, a cry of rage and dismay and surprise.
The smoke had suddenly lifted, cut asunder by the flashes of the guns, and it revealed a superb spectacle. Not a hundred yards from the entrenchments, right across our left front almost on the top of the slope, have suddenly emerged into sight the grim faces of those serried red lines. The English infantry are on us—actually on us! Hoarse commands, repeated, a quiver, they have halted, the drums still placidly beating, colours gently flapping, while the officers calmly re-dress their battalions.
A frenzied moment, for behind on the slope here it is our footmen’s first real sight of them, and Swiss Guards, Gardes Françaises, the regiments of Courtin, Aubeterre, and of the King are hurried, dashed, into order. What are we waiting for? Keep cool for God’s sake! We have got to fight for it now. This is going to be a serious affair.
And then a touch to stir the blood. An English officer has quietly stepped forward—it is my Lord Charles Hay. Politely he doffs his hat to the French lines and raises his flask as a man drinks a health at a banquet. “Gentlemen,” he cries in French, “I hope you will wait for us to-day and will not swim the Scheldt as you swam the Maine at Dettingen.” A dozen angry voices go up in bitter protest at the taunt, and here, in the third line, we Chevau-légers de la Garde grip our swords in ferocious wrath. My lord turns round. “Men of the King’s Company,” his voice rings out, “here,” he points with his cane, and waves his hat, “here are the French Guards. You are going to beat them to-day,” and at once rolls up in a tumultuous cresendo the thunder of an English cheer, drowning the orders of the French officers, quelling the tornado of the guns. Again and again it surges through the columns, that challenge as of blooded hounds on the quarry at bay.
“For what we are about to receive,” André heard an English officer call out, waving towards the French muskets, “may the Lord make us truly thankful,” and the cheer melts into a gay, grim laugh, cut short by a hideous volley, for the Swiss Guards have fired straight into the column at thirty paces distance. Down go red-coats by the dozen, but they remain unshaken. A minute to draw breath, and the turn of the English dogs is come at last. No more marching now; it will be bullet for bullet—and then the bayonet.
Fire! The command runs along from battalion to battalion. Fire!