The King of Dunkirk

by Dominic Fielder

  A victory had been won but little actually gained. To the south, the French positions at Artres still held. Prince Josias feared to continue; if he attacked towards Valenciennes, the cavalry could not protect his flank and the enemy could bring forces from Artres and attack the exposed flank of Count Ferraris. It was time to bring up the artillery and pound the enemy on the far bank of the scarp.

  “We have achieved our task for the morning gentlemen. Let us hope that the Duke of York is as successful and is not held up too much longer,” Josias cast an awkward glance in the direction of Murray. Behind him, the brigades of Ferraris and Abercrombie sheltered in the valley overlooked by the Fond des Vaux redoubt and waited for the guns to arrive. The Allies needed a victory at Artres before the enemy slipped away.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Rhonelle.

  Artres: 23rd May 1793

  The redcoats on the far slopes had stalled. The Black Lions had given ground grudgingly, falling back in a remarkably professional manner; a fact that pleased Captain Davide and Sergeant Jean-Baptiste Mahieu. The encounter in Raismes Forest had demonstrated that the allies could be beaten; a victory that the battalion had revelled in. But Mahieu doubted that such luck would hold. Once the allies coordinated their efforts, they would be unstoppable. There was a cold logic to that fact. This morning however such logic was yet to become reality.

  Sixth Company had been the last to scramble across the safety of the French side of the scarp. Mahieu crouched and dipped a green bottle which acted as his flask into the narrow waters of the Rhonelle while Davide kept a look out. One group of blue-coats remained in knotty resistance on the far scarp, firing up at the enemy above them.

  “Those boys are fearless, or stupid. I can’t decide.” Mahieu corked the bottle. Satisfied that it was water-tight, he yelled in the general direction of the swarm of men. “Get your sorry arses back over here! Grison, move those men back!”

  The instruction could have been aimed at either brother. Guilbert and Fabien Grison led a small group of soldiers; half a dozen at the fore, prone and in firing positions, behind these another dozen or more took what little shelter there was and reloaded with a degree of proficiency. Muskets were exchanged, live ones handed forward, spent ones returned. Captain Davide had twice signalled the group but the message had not been acted upon. Mahieu’s words left no doubt. The angle of the scarp was so steep that the guns above them could fire round shot but the results were largely useless, the enemy skirmish screen being too thinly spread for cannon balls to have an effect. Canister would be different, but for the gunners to fire that, the blue-coats needed to withdraw. If the gunners lost patience the hail of canister would cut down as many of the Black Lions as it would the enemy.

  Seeing the last of the company turn and begin to retire up the steeply rutted grass slope, Mahieu aimed a verbal volley at the grinning pair of brothers.

  “The war isn’t going to end next week. You will have plenty more chances to kill the enemy. Don’t ignore the Captain’s orders again!”

  Both affected scorned faces but exchanged glances which suggested that such dressing downs had been far more lenient than if they had crossed their father. The sergeant remembered the calmness with which Jean-Francois Grison, the boys’ father and mayor of Dunkirk, had murdered a man that Mahieu had rescued from the storm-battered shore a few months earlier. Those boys had clearly endured far worse than a sergeant’s ire.

  With a last look at the enemy silhouettes on the sky-line above, Mahieu turned and started to climb, grabbing handfuls of turf and rock to help his balance, making the lip of the earthwork that housed one of the five batteries. He caught his breath, drawing a deep lungful of air. It had been a hard climb and the enemy would struggle under the weight of the guns and the musketry of his men. On the far slope, redcoats and deep-blue jacketed light dragoons had reached the Rhonelle. But it was now their turn to be hesitant. Ahead of them lay a climb of a hundred yards into the mouth of canister and short-range musket fire. Either side of each battery, companies of infantry had deployed in loose skirmish screens and now the 6th did the same. There was no need to form close order yet, the men had settled into unspoken groups of loaders and firers. They may have lacked the professionalism of the Legere but Mahieu viewed their efforts with an air of quiet satisfaction.

  A series of hollow explosions rang out, canister churning up the ground around the Rhonelle; the guns were firing on their maximum depression down the slope but many of the projectiles impacted above the heads of the skirmishers. The enemy were pinned. Any further forward and they would meet murderous volleys of musketry, retreat would be through the storm of canister. The sound of drums and pipes carried on the wind and movement caught the eye of every Frenchman on the ridge. An officer in the battery nearest to Mahieu rapped out instructions and the first of the battery’s guns were trained on a new target.

  The massed columns of redcoats were coming and a folly was about to be compounded.

  Valenciennes: 23rd May 1793

  “Put that short piece away Krombach, unless you are hoping that the French will piss themselves with laughter and die from ruptured guts.”

  Sergeant Gauner's voice carried across the line of redcoats, each starting to fasten backpacks and shoulder muskets. It was close to midday and the full heat of the sun had baked the redcoats for the whole of the morning. Krombach had swigged from his water bottle but however much he drank, the thirst never abated. He was not alone, every man around him sweated out more water than he could hope to replace, nevertheless he had fallen out to join a line of men spraying jets of warm liquid over thankful crops just as the order to form up had been issued. Gauner could have cajoled any number of men but Krombach’s was the first he chose. The haranguing continued until the flustered redcoat returned to the line, wiped his hands on dirty white linen trousers and quickly shouldered his pack.

  The General and his staff were angry; at least that was how it seemed.

  Four brigades had advanced up the hill and across the plateau into the teeth of five French batteries in perfect order. Twenty minutes later they had retreated in much the same way, lives lost for no gain. Krombach had found himself in the front rank, a perfect view of the advance. He had flinched, like others around him, as cannonballs punched through the air yards above his head. Sergeant Gauner had yelled the men forward, Richter uttered words of quiet assurance while Roner called out the relentless instruction...’Left, Right, Left’.

  They had advanced like dumb animals. At five hundred yards the French had changed from round-shot to canister and there was nothing the redcoats could do. The scarp offered no cover. The French had not fled; the King’s Germans faced advancing four hundred yards under fire. Even if they were to make it to the foot of the scarp, the climb and assault would be suicidal.

  The brigade had been ordered to ‘halt’, ‘about face’ and ‘quick march’ away as fast as decorum allowed.

  Back at the foot of the slope, Krombach dropped to his haunches and gasped for air. Around him, he saw Reifener retch and then collapse in an undignified heap. But there had been no time to rest. More orders rang out.

  ‘Form up; columns of threes; left wheel; quick March.’

  The brigade was off, following in the trail of 1st Brigade. 2nd Brigade and the British Guards would be hard on their heels. There had been a change of plan but Krombach knew that the lot of the men around him was now to march, fight or die.

  The air burned under the full glare of day and the choke of dust; Krombach fought the stupor of the hypnotic rhythm of marching. The road wound down through the French countryside, wheat that was damp and green this morning, began to ripen under the radiance of the sun but scarcely a man noticed these details. Flies swarmed at the corners of Krombach’s mouth and eyes, searching for any moisture; his legs ached under the weight of musket and pack. His boots had held up, the one mercy of the day but his canteen was empty and at this moment he would have settled for soggy boots to cool the heat that
radiated through threadbare socks; he could feel blisters forming. Redcoats cursed the war, the blazing sun and every officer that ordered them to march.

  Then it happened.

  A glimmer of reflected light, two or three turns along the track which wound down the hill. The Rhonelle: sluggish, shallow and crystal clear.

  Krombach ran.

  Not because he wanted to, but because the men in front of him had; because the battalion in front of them had.

  A lung-bursting run and thirty seconds later he was pushing and scrambling over bodies, trying to find a clear patch of water.

  Kneeling in the river he felt cold relief pour over his burning limbs; he pushed his face in and drank until he was full. Around him sergeants from the battalions of 3rd Brigade were screaming for order but for an age chaos reigned until men were grabbed, pushed and kicked into place. Krombach saw Gauner thump half a dozen men while Krogh and Hartmann pulled others to their feet, pushing them forward, up the bank and away from the river. Krombach had taken a moment to fill his water bottle. He saw Pinsk nursing Reifener and went over to take Reifener’s arm to help haul him out of the water.

  “Come on boys. Let’s move before we get clobbered.”

  Pinsk nodded in agreement. The brigade reformed and the march resumed; the heat of the day more bearable for those few moments of rebellion. But as another hour passed, Reifener, marching in the rank ahead of Krombach began to gasp for breath before collapsing.

  Krombach had fallen out and dragged the body of his friend clear of the infantry column.

  “Remove his stock, before he chokes to death,” Pinsk had joined the pair. Krombach fumbled for the brass clasp under the sweat soaked collar of Reifener’s tunic while Pinsk held the near lifeless body upright in order that Krombach could then remove his backpack. Seconds later, an order to halt had been issued.

  “What the hell has he got in here? This weighs as much as I do,” Krombach shook his head in disbelief.

  The thick leather stock fell away, sweat soaked, revealing deep red welts carved into Reifener’s neck.

  “Here, Andreas, drink.”

  Pinsk held the water bottle to the lips of Reifener. As much water ran down his open tunic. His white under shirt was saturated to the extent that the stream of water that ran down his face made no visible impact on the garments beneath. All along the column, redcoats were suffering.

  The column had halted only twice in five hours. Once, to wait for the Austrian guns to catch up with the Hanoverian and British infantry, another time while the cavalry formed up to drive off some French hussars who had begun to show an interest around the flanks of the infantry. The heat of the day had yet to abate and the sky remained a cloudless azure. The Rhonelle was a distant memory as each drop of moisture burned away. Pinsk and Krombach perched Reifener down against his pack and set about checking the contents of their own packs for the remnants of food. Slivers of pork and two soggy halves of a loaf were the best the pair could salvage. Krombach opened Reifener’s pack, much to his feeble protestations. A dozen heavy stone jars were wedged in between a couple of shirts and threadbare socks.

  “What the hell is all this?”

  A delirious voice answered.

  “Salts, peppers, spices. I need them for cooking.”

  “Why didn’t you leave this with the baggage or the Twenty?”

  “Might get lost or stolen…I need them ‘Bastion. People expect my cooking to be perfect…” Reifener's voice trailed off feebly.

  “They don’t. Most people are glad you cook. But we are just glad of warm food that isn’t rotten. You can’t carry this around for the rest of the war.”

  “But the men expect it. I love cooking, I want food to taste good…How did you think I do it?”

  “Witchcraft? For God’s sake Andreas, Krombach is right. Carry this lot much further and we will be burying you before you can cook again.”

  Pinsk hissed hoarse words and then slumped in an awkward silence as around them, redcoats settled into wheat fields in an effort to find shade and sleep. Along the road that led back to Maresches, the long train of artillery had stopped too and behind this a number of wagons had approached. Finding the road blocked by the artillery, they had taken to the fields and now twenty or more horse teams cut a path through the crops.

  “What do you think?”

  Krombach watched the progress of the wagons with interest as did a few other soldiers, heads bobbed in the long grass. Pinsk shifted his bicorne, which had been perched over his face as a sunscreen and squinted through pebble glasses.

  “The wagons in the fields,” Krombach pointed in exaggerated manner, “...over there.”

  “I can see them, you cheeky…”

  “2nd Company; on your feet; column of threes,” Roner’s voice cut across Pinsk’s reply.

  “We can’t be marching again?”

  The sounds of the battle had receded far into the distance. Whichever destination the King’s Germans were marching towards, their work was not yet done. There was no immediate return to the march, instead redcoats filed past to receive bread, water and fresh powder, from the backs of the wagons. Two of the three were gratefully received by redcoats, most of which had yet to fire a shot in anger. Krombach, spotting ‘Old Boots’ at the reins of one of the wagons had taken the opportunity to store the contents of Reifener’s pack, to a chorus of feeble protestation. Winckler promised to deliver the contents to the Twenty, cursing the stupidity of Reifener in the same breath.

  Two more hours of marching along the gentle incline of southern road in the cool of the afternoon ended as brigades began the slow process of wheeling into battle lines. The road dipped into a valley which gently descended for around a thousand yards and then climbed steeply back onto the plateau that lead to Camp Famars and on to Valenciennes. Bushes and trees had been hacked away so that the batteries which stood behind the earthworks had an undisturbed field of fire. The Austrian guns were too far away to be brought up to unsettle the French gun; this was a job for the infantry. Every man in the battalion was grateful to shed the unwanted weight of their backpacks but preparations for war were unsurprisingly sluggish from men who had been on their feet for most of the last twenty hours. Now there would be a butcher’s bill to pay. The Duke had marched his men around the defences at Artres in an arcing left hook. Only a knock-out blow would suffice for an attack that was nine hours late.

  Camp Famars: 23rd May 1793

  Mahieu pulled his greatcoat around him, feeling the satisfaction of tobacco in his throat and lungs. The heat of the day now a distant memory and soon the warmth of the fires that his soldiers hugged would be too. Skeins of steam drifted from the battered tin cup at his side into a night sky of a million stars; for a while he shielded his eyes from the intense glow of the fire and studied the heavens before returning to earthly matters.

  The Black Lions had lost just four men during the whole day, with ten wounded. If God still existed then someone should give thanks but the Revolution had made such words tantamount to treachery so the sergeant offered his votive silently. The battalion had spent the morning holding off the British and Hanoverians at Artres and then marched two miles across the rolling wheat fields to the defences at Camp Famars. They had watched the columns of redcoats appear late in the afternoon and then braced themselves for the inevitable assault.

  But the attack had never materialised. Mahieu had some sympathy for the foot-sluggers who had made the arduous march to attempt to outflank his men; the redcoats had marched a dozen miles, winding their way across the countryside. Mahieu’s back had been drenched in sweat by the much shorter march. Had the allies attacked, those redcoats would have been exhausted; the battalions sent to reinforce the southern approach to Camp Famars would have slaughtered them.

  There would be no resumption tomorrow, at least not for the Black Lions. Captain Davide had brought the word. The army was to withdraw. Valenciennes was being left to its own fate for the time being. On the western sky-li
ne, at Fond des Vaux and Artres, camp fires burned, so too in the south, where the redcoats now camped. The allies would stir in the morning, see the French camp fires still burning and make their plans. But by then it would be too late. The Black Lions would have escaped; once again the powers of Austria, Britain and Prussia had been out-witted. Mahieu still didn’t believe such luck could last but another silent prayer to the next victory couldn’t hurt.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Siege Plans.

  Valenciennes: 28th May 1793

  The pause had brought a malaise that spread throughout the army, which the first light of dawn had done nothing to shift. The lack of a plan had brought the first idle time for the redcoats in days. Neuberg had done his best to ensure that 2nd Battalion had not wasted the lull. He expected orders within the day. If there was to be a siege, then the work promised to be arduous but it was as likely that part of the army might march off, to who knew where. Conjecture amongst the officers was rife. The most excitable plans involved bypassing Valenciennes and following up the French. Paris was just eleven days march away and only a retreating French army now stood between the allies and the French capital. Brandt waited while the Colonel studied his report under the gloom of a single candle. The dregs of a bowl of porridge, a plate of bread and pot of coffee occupied the table alongside a dozen or more sheets of paper.

  “You eaten? Help yourself to bread and coffee,” Neuberg nodded in the vague direction of the victuals. Brandt had not yet eaten and wasted no time in pouring coffee and savouring its bitter taste.