CHAPTER IV

A MAN'S STRENGTH

M. de Boufflers refused to surrender; he was a Marechal de France, he had still many thousand men, including M. Megrigny, the engineer esteemed second only to M. de Vauban, and the castle was deemed impregnable. The assault was fixed for one in the afternoon. The King of England, the Elector of Bavaria, the Landgrave of Hesse, other German potentates and the officers of their staff gathered on the rocky promontory immediately below the ramparts of the citadel; before them rose the castle ringed with walls, batteries, palisades, fosses, dykes, and traverses, and set back two miles or more in elaborate ramparts and outworks.

The allies had formed a complete circumvallation round the huge fortress, and had opened their trenches at the very foot of the rock which M. de Vauban had fortified with such deadly skill.

The day was extraordinarily hot and cloudless; the sun, being now just overhead, blazed with equal light on the ruined town, the lofty castle, on counterscarp, glacis, and half-moon, on the trenches, the defences of wattled sticks lined with sandbags, on the distant spreading encampment of the allies, on the still more distant sparkle of the Meuse, which glittered across the great plain and on the walls of the Abbey of Salsines.

It shone, too, on a thousand flags, a thousand squads of men moving with bayonets and matchlocks set to the attack, and gleamed in the armour of the little group of gentlemen who were directing the operations, and sometimes sent a long ray of burning light from their perspective glasses as they turned them on the castle or the approaching regiments of their own troop as they defiled through the town.

It had been arranged that the assault was to be made in four places at once, by the Dutch, Brandenburghers, Bavarians, and English severally; the first three were tried and veteran troops, the fourth, however, consisted of recruits who were seeing their first campaign and had never been under fire before; the best English troops had marched to encounter Villeroy, and had not been summoned to the attack.

The King turned his glasses on the trenches where these regiments waited; they were under the command of John Cutts, as brave and gallant an officer as ever breathed.

William put down his glasses and looked up at the grim citadel.

"This is a severe test for them," he remarked.

The Electoral Prince was taking a bet from the exultant Kohorn that they would enter Namur by the 31st of August. William laughed.

"I am sorry that Your Highness should put money on our failure," he said. "I hear that the betting in London is greatly in our favour."

"This is a matter of dates, Your Majesty," answered M. de Bavaria. "I say 'No' only to August the 31st."

"I am glad M. de Kohorn is so confident," said William graciously to the great engineer.

M. de Hesse, who wore on his finger a watch in a great ring of brilliants, remarked that the time was near ten minutes to one; M. de Bavaria bowed profoundly and galloped off to direct his own men in person; the King looked keenly round to see that none of his servants were lurking in the line of fire. Interference was almost as unendurable to him as cowardice; more than once during the siege he had been exasperated into horsewhipping some daring footmen or valet out of the trenches. During the assault of July the 27th he had been considerably vexed to see M. Godfrey, one of the directors of the new Bank of England, among his officers, and had severely reprimanded him for his presence in so dangerous a position.

"But I run no more risk than you, sire," M. Godfrey had protested.

The King's answer and the sequel were long remembered.

"I, sir," he replied, "may safely trust to God, since I am doing my duty in being here, while you----"

The sentence remained unfinished, for a French cannon shot laid M. Godfrey dead at the King's side. William had hoped that this would prove a lesson to useless meddlers, but even since he had been provoked by various people who had business at the camp, and who strayed into the trenches to get a view of real fighting, often with no conception of the danger of the slow dropping bombs and bullets.

But this afternoon the King's eagle eyes were satisfied that the works were clear of sightseers; it had been fairly well spread abroad that this assault would be, beyond experience, terrible, and those whose duty did not take them to the front were well in the rear.

M. de Hesse and the other Germans having galloped off to their posts, the King remained alone with his staff, midway between the ramparts that were to be attacked and the English trenches, full in the cross-line of fire, and motionless and conspicuous as a target on the little jutting shelf of rock; his officers were a little way behind, and his figure was completely outlined against the blue gap of sun-filled air behind the rock slope.

He rode a huge grey Flemish horse, dark as basalt and as smooth--very lightly trapped with red leather linked with silver gilt--that he managed as well as a man can. He had always been renowned for his consummate horsemanship, and this great beast, that had taken two footmen to hold in before he mounted, he held delicately with one hand on the reins with such a perfect control, that the creature was utterly motionless on the narrow ledge of slippery rock.

The hot air was full of different distant and subdued sounds--the rattle of the guns, the clink of the matchlocks striking the cobbles of the town below, the tramp of feet, the neighing of horses, and, occasionally, the crowing of a cock on some farm outside Namur.

The King sat with his reins loose, holding in his right hand his baton that he rested against his hip. He was intently watching the English trenches.

The clocks of the churches in Namur struck one; instantly a loud report and a jet of flame came from the trenches below; two barrels of gunpowder had been blown up as a signal for the attack.

Before the smoke had cleared, all the minor sounds were silenced by the steady beat of drums and kettledrums, and the King perceived the Grenadiers marching from behind their defences and earthworks steadily towards the ramparts of Namur--these were the men of Cutt's own regiment. They were immediately followed by the four new battalions. They came on steadily, in good order, with their bright, unspoilt colours in their midst, their colonels riding before them. The King could discern the slender figure of John Cutts marching on foot before the Grenadiers with his drawn sword in his hand.

There was no sign from the castle. The English leapt, man after man, the last deep trench of their own earthworks, and suddenly, at a word from their leader, whose voice came faintly to the King's ears, broke into a run and dashed up the slope at the foot of the rock, and full at the first wall of the French fortifications.

Instantly the batteries of the garrison opened a terrible fire, and a confused echo to their thunder told that the other three divisions of the confederates were meeting a like reception.

The English kept on; the little body of the Grenadiers, with the four battalions supporting them and at the head of all John Cutts, climbed the face of the rock with no sign of disorder.

The King wheeled his horse round to face them, and his brilliant eyes never left their ranks.

The French commenced fire from the guns behind their first palisade, which swept the ranks of the advancing English with deadly effect.

Almost every officer of the Grenadiers fell on the hot, bare rock. The drums began to give a disconnected sound, the colours wavered, but the men pressed on, with Cutts still running before them and the recruits doggedly behind them.

The King sent one of his officers with orders for the English batteries to open fire as soon as the breach had been made.

There was, in the space of a few seconds, hardly an officer left among the English, the colonels, captains, and lieutenants, who had dashed forward to encourage their men, were lying scattered about the hill-side--patches of scarlet and steel--with their riderless horses running frantically back towards the camp.

Still Cutts came on. The smoke was thick about him, but the King could see him clearly as he came every moment nearer. The Grenadiers had gained a firm footing on the ledge of rock beneath the palisade, and were about to hurl themselves against it. The cannonade was now supplemented by a storm of bullets. Cutts gave a shout, raised his sword, and pitched to the ground, shot through the head, while the thinned ranks of the Grenadiers rolled backwards down the rocks.

The King uttered a passionate exclamation; a bomb, cast from the castle, burst near him, and his horse reared frantically at the explosion. When he had quieted the animal and the smoke had cleared, he saw two of the Grenadiers coming towards him supporting John Cutts between them. As they reached a deep, natural gully that cleft the rock, one fell and rolled down the precipice; the other caught his officer by the arm and swung him across the chasm; the King galloped up to them.

"Is my lord slain?" he asked.

The wounded man lifted his brown eyes and laughed. Blood blotched the left side of his face and ran through the bright brown English locks.

"Why, no, sir," he answered.

"I am glad of that," said the King. "But your men are being repulsed----"

"God help me--not for long!" cried my lord, and dashed the blood out of his eyes, and with that movement fainted.

"Call up my surgeon," commanded William to one of his officers. Lord Cutts was carried out of the firing line, and the King again directed his attention to the English, who, leaderless, were nevertheless dashing forward, though without order or method, sheer against the French fire.

"It is too much for them," muttered William.

This wild charge was suddenly checked by a deep precipice blown in the rock by underground powder magazines; the raw soldiers stood helpless, baffled. The air was of a continuous redness; the half-naked French gunners could be seen, running in and out of their vaulted galleries and crouching, behind the black shape of the guns; flying fragments of shell, masonry, and rock fell among the leaderless English, who hesitated, gave way, and retreated down the bloody slope they had gained, each rank falling back on the other in confusion, while a shout of triumph rose from the fiery ramparts of Namur.

The King urged his beautiful horse up the zigzag path. The bullets flattened themselves on the rocks about him with a dull, pattering sound; the horse laid back its ears and showed the scarlet of its nostrils; the King, with infinite skill and gentleness, brought it to a higher ridge where he could better survey the heights. The English, rolling back beneath him, looked up and saw him though the smoke, the sun darting broken rays off the star on his breast. He took off his hat covered with black plumes and waved it to them to encourage them to come on. A ragged cheer broke from them; they plunged forward again, but a terrific fire swept them back with half their number fallen. At this moment the King saw Lord Cutts, hatless and with a bandaged head, running up towards the glacis.

William rode up to him. The red fire was about them as if it had been the colour of the atmosphere.

"My lord," said the King, reining up his horse, "they cannot do it."

A young man in a splendid uniform came riding through the strong smelling smoke.

"Sire," he said, saluting, "the Bavarians are giving way--their general hath fallen----"

William spoke swiftly to the Englishman.

"Can you rally your men to the assistance of the Bavarians, my lord? 'Tis hopeless to attempt to make a breach here."

John Cutts smiled up at his master; he had to shout to make his voice heard through the rattle of the cannonade--

"'Tis done, Your Majesty!"

His gallant figure slipped, like a hound from the leash, into the smoke, towards where the English Footguards were retreating, and William, pointing with his baton to where he rode that his officers might follow him, swept round the ramparts to where the Bavarians wavered before the fire of the French. Regiment after regiment had hurled in vain against the palisades, the ditches and clefts were choked with corpses, and in every squad of men a great lane was torn every time the French gunners fired their pieces, while the Dragoons stood on the glacis, sword in hand, ready to cut down whoever should touch the palisade.

"They are very determined," remarked William calmly, glancing up at the red-hot line of fire bursting from the French batteries; "but so am I."

As he spoke a bullet passed through his hair so close to his cheek that he felt the warm whizz of it; and another, almost simultaneously, tore through the ends of his scarf.

"For God's sake, sire," cried the officer near him, "this is certain death."

But the King took no heed of him; his sparkling eyes were fastened on the faltering ranks of Bavaria, who were being borne, steadily but surely, down the slopes, leaving dead behind them, their commander, and most of their officers.

At the very moment when it seemed that they had hopelessly lost ground, John Cutts came running up with the colours of the Grenadiers in one hand and his sword in the other, behind him two hundred of the English recruits whom he had rallied from the retreat.

The Bavarians, encouraged by this help, took heart and came forward again and began climbing up the rock; but Cutts and his English dashed ahead of them right into the cannon fire, forced their way through the palisade, and engaged in a hand to hand fight with the gunners and Dragoons, who were driven back from their defences and hurled over their own ramparts on to the bayonets of the Bavarians below. In a few moments the English had captured the battery, swung the guns round and directed them at the Castle. With a shout the Bavarians dashed through the breach in the wall and, climbing over corpses of men and horses, poured into the enemy's lines.

The King watched them as they scaled ditches and trenches and palisade, then made a detour round the fire-swept face of the rock to the point the Dutch had been ordered to attack. Splendid soldiers, splendidly commanded, they had already gained the position and with very little loss; the French gunners lay in torn and mangled heaps behind their pieces, which the Dutch were engaged in turning on the garrison.

William now gave orders that his batteries were to be brought in play from every available position, both on the ramparts gained and from every rock and out-work in the possession of the allies. He himself rode through the broken wall and took up his position inside the French palisades, where his horse could scarcely find a footfall for the dead and dying. The air was so full of powder smoke that the walls and turrets of the castle appeared to hang as in a great fog with no visible foundations; the crack of musketry was incessant, and little threads of flame ran across the dark heavy vapour; fragments of rock and wall rolled continually down the slope--dislodged by bombs bursting or the explosion of barrels of gunpowder. But this was as nothing to the cannonade. When the combined batteries of the allies opened on Namur, the oldest soldier could remember no such fire--it was a bombardment such as had never been known in war. The French gunners dropped one after another before they could put their fuses to their pieces, and were obliged to take refuge in their underground galleries; the roar was unceasing, and the continual flames lit up the rocks, the chasms, the bastions with as steady and awful a glare as if the world was on fire.

A body of Dragoons made a gallant sally out on to the glacis, but were swept down to a man before they had advanced a hundred yards. The Dutch, under cover of the French palisades, picked off with musket shot every Frenchman who appeared within range, portions of the walls and curtains began to fall in, the sacking and wattles, put up to catch the bullets, caught fire and flared up through the smoke.

The King could scarcely see his own staff-officers for the glare and harsh blinding vapour. His ears were filled with the lamentations of the mangled and delirious wretches who lay scattered about the glacis, and the sharp screams of the wounded, riderless horses who galloped in their death agony across the ramparts and hurled themselves from the precipices beneath. The King caressed his own animal; the insensibility of his profession had not overcome his love of horses. He never could look with ease at the sufferings of these gallant creatures; for the rest, he was utterly unmoved. He turned his face towards the fires that made many a veteran wince, and there was not the slightest change in his composure save that he was more than ordinarily cheerful, and showed, perhaps, more animation than he had done since the death of his wife. Having satisfied himself that the Dutch had silenced all the French batteries at this point, he rode to the demi-bastion where the Brandenburghers fought the Dragoons in a terrible battle which was resulting in the French being driven back on to the fire of their own guns. Here he drew up his horse on the edge of a fosse that had a cuvette in the middle of it with a covered way along it, from which the French were still firing from platoons and muskets.

The King thrust his baton through the folds of his scarf and laid his hand on the tasseled pistol in his holster; he guided his horse commonly and by choice with his left hand, for his right arm had been shot through twice, at St. Neff and the Boyne, and was less easily fatigued with the sword than the reins. He now looked about him and perceived that his way to the Brandenburghers was completely barred by some traverses to intercept fire, besides by the fosse from the gazons of which the soldiers were firing, and, on the glacis which slopes before it, several gunners were hauling a battery into place; not far behind them a fierce fire was being maintained from a projecting javelin.

The French, lurking in the cuvette, saw the King, and, recognising him by his great star, proceeded to take deliberate aim. He looked round for his staff, whom his impetuous advance had completely out-distanced, then galloped his horse right along the counter-scarp in full range of the enemy's fire. A dozen muskets were aimed at him; he seemed not to notice them, but set his horse at a little fosse that crossed his path, and leapt over the dead French and bloody gazons that filled it. The ground on the other side was so cut, dissected, and strewn with boulders and fragments of rock, that the quivering horse paused, frightened by the shower of bullets, and, not perceiving a foothold, the King slipped out of the saddle without leaving go of the reins, ran along by the horse's head, guiding him through the debris, and mounted again without touching the saddle, a well-known feat of the riding school. He was now almost up to the Brandenburghers, who raised a great shout as they saw him galloping up through the smoke. He rode along the front of their ranks and glanced up at the French crouching on their earth-works waiting for the assault.

The King drew his sword.

"We must get nearer than this," he said to the officer in command. He set spurs to his horse, and, wheeling round, charged straight at the lines of France, the Brandenburghers after him with an irresistible rush.

An officer of Dragoons rose up from his comrades and struck up with his sword at the figure on the huge grey charger. The King leant out of the saddle, parried the thrust with his weapon. The Frenchman, hit by a bullet in the lungs, rolled over with his face towards the citadel; the last thing he saw on earth was the King of England high on the distant heights of Namur with the column of Brandenburghers behind him and before him, through the glare the tattered banner of the Bourbons waving from the keep.