The King of Dunkirk

by Dominic Fielder

  Summersdale gripped the hilt of his sword tightly. The redcoats that had been visible as the jolly boat reached the shore were all dead. Bodies, pale, contorted and showing signs of being looted, were strewn around them. Faded blue canteens bore the stamp and crest of the 14th Regiment and the Marines stepped over the bodies with a degree of reverence before returning to their stride. Summersdale scanned the beach ahead, from right to left and spotted movement.

  On the horizon, coming out of the glare of the rising sun, a solitary horseman raced towards his isolated command. The man was waving, shouting something but the breeze made the words inaudible. Without instruction, the left-hand side rank of three men knelt and prepared for the words of command. Summersdale tried to distinguish if the lone rider was friend of foe. A voice behind him whispered, “He’s a Frenchie, sir. A dragoon and no mistake.”

  The horse had pitched down through the dunes at breakneck speed and Krombach had leaned back to counteract to balance himself before his French mount burst along the sand at an electrifying pace. He closed in on the group of redcoats, screaming a warning of the enemy cavalry at the top of his lungs but was flabbergasted to see their response. Instead of turning about to try and spot the impending danger from the cavalry column which would soon swamp them, they had formed a firing line and Krombach was their target.

  Only then did it dawn on him that he was wearing the riding cape and helmet of an enemy soldier. Frantically, he tore with one hand at the ties of the cape around his neck, feeling the relief as the wind caught the article and it drifted away and was about to remove the helmet when he heard the command to fire, the explosion of sound and the thud of musket balls that had found a target. As Krombach pulled hard at the reins to halt his mount, the horse plunged headlong into the sand, pitching the redcoat head over heels, landing with a heavy thump from which he did not move.

  The moment the French cavalry column had been sighted, Dowdes had barked to his crew to begin the task of lowering the elevation on the two giant mortars and preparing calculations to fire. An incorrect burst of shell would just as easily slaughter the crew of either jolly boat, as it might the enemy.

  Forty horsemen had formed two thin lines and began a steady trot. A second troop of a similar size, swept nearer the surf, fanning out from column into line, as graceful as any review but with deadly intent.

  The percussion of a staggered broadside rippled out as the Racehorse opened fire and Dowdes retrained his telescope onto the beach to study the result. The jolly boat from the Racehorse was already struggling to turn in the surf, never having made landfall. His own men were running, Summersdale had seen the threat of the cavalry too late, worse still he was encumbered by a body thrown over his shoulders.

  “Mortar number one, ready.”

  The words sang out from the deck, answered by the call from the second mortar.

  The guns of the Racehorse were reloading. Thunder would have one chance. It had to count.

  Dowdes turned, looked at the expectant gunners and yelled, “Fire.”

  The three ships sailed line astern to Ostend.

  Thunder had fired two rounds and neither of those had been at Dunkirk, the target of her original mission. Instead, they had broken with deft precision, over the heads of the horseman who threatened to maraud the shoreline and overwhelm the crew of the Thunder’s own jolly boat and her compliment of Marines. The carnage of dead and dying cavalrymen and wounded horses caused a panic that the rounds from the Racehorse, which skipped through the surf and onto the long, flat stretch of sand, exacerbated.

  The jolly boat had left, bringing with it a redcoat who looked more dead than alive. Only when he told Dowdes of the events of the previous few hours, did the Thunder’s commanding officer bring his ship alongside Racehorse so that the information could be relayed. The decision was made to repair to Ostend and see whether the delay in the siege of Dunkirk was temporary or permanent.

  Wrapped in a blanket and cradling a cup of hot tea, reinforced with a generous helping of rum, Sebastian Krombach sat and watched the French coastline disappear. He thought of Trevethan and fought back tears.

  The Queen of the Citadels

  The King’s Germans Book 3

  Prologue

  Solesmes: 12th September 1793

  Royalty did not rush decisions: Prince Josias Coburg was no exception.

  Brennan watched the Prince trace a finger along the map, absorbing the details of the report.

  “And you are certain of their course, Major Brennan?”

  “Yes sir. The French were making enough noise to wake the dead. We could easily follow their progress from this side of the Scheldt and broke contact less than an hour ago, just before dawn,” the cavalryman replied, snapping an ornate pocket watch shut on verifying the timings of his report. Brennan, British by birth, had served the Austrian Empire for more years than he cared to recall; wealth, adventure and promotion, earned by merit rather than patronage, had been the rewards of such loyalty.

  “And what say you, Mack?” Josias’s finger tapped the map, with just the slightest agitation at having to make a bold decision before breakfast, his question directed at an Austrian colonel who sipped impatiently at a cup of apple tea. Austrian spontaneity followed a very formal path.

  “They are coming here, Sir. It’s the only target that makes sense. We have forces at Saulzoir that is true but, if that was their target, the Haspres road would be the logical route. If Brennan is certain that the French are travelling through Avenes le Sec and Villers en Cauchcies, then they are coming here.” Mack hissed the words, managing to cast doubt on the voracity of the Esterhàzy officer’s report by the simple insertion of ‘if’.

  Colonel Karl Mack von Leiberich had also given every fibre of his being to the service of the Empire. A thick ridge of scar tissue which paralysed the right side of his face visible testament to his loyalty. He had once been the chief advisor to the prince before being forced aside. His advice, now informal, still carried great weight with his master. His words would soon become action. A flicker of emotion which Brennan could only assume was joy, passed over the strategist’s face.

  Josias nodded in agreement “But four thousand men and only two hundred cavalry. It’s suicidal! It doesn’t make sense at all.”

  The prince offered a dubious gaze towards Brennan, that of a stern patrician offering a child the honourable way out of confessing to some petty crime.

  “I’m certain, sir.” Brennan answered, meeting the gaze of Josias, before turning a withering look at Mack. The colonel’s ashen face was devoid of any expression: Brennan might just as easily have not been present for all that Mack acknowledged him.

  Prince Josias nodded his head. “It’s settled then. They are heading here.”

  “And the ground between Avenes and Villers, sir, open and undulating. The harvest has been collected. It’s perfect cavalry country.” Brennan added, his mind already imagining catching the enemy’s infantry and artillery strung out in marching columns.

  There would be glory for some officer no doubt but not for him. The rest of his regiment were spread in a cordon of fifteen miles or more, scouting various parts of the Scheldt river.

  “Good, good, Brennan. Exactly.” Josias’s eyes beamed a smile. “A solution before breakfast! Most perfect! What would you suggest?”

  “Cavalry sir, horse guns would be helpful. But cavalry first. Drive off the enemy’s escort and then a few games of cat and mouse. If the French are stubborn then a battalion or two of infantry to follow should settle the matter.”

  “Yes, I see it, Yes! What do we have, Mack?”

  “Cavalry: cuirassiers and hussars here, Sir. Two squadrons of the Nassau regiment and three of the Imperial Hussars, a dozen regiments of infantry too. If I might also suggest, we have the Kinsky Cheveauxlegers at Saulzoir under Prince Lichtenstein. Perhaps we could move them to threaten the left flank of the enemy and cut their line of retreat.”

  “Good work, Mack. Prince Hohenl
ohe shall have the honour of engaging the enemy today. How soon can we start?”

  “I shall draft the orders immediately, Sir. The cavalry will be in motion before nine. Just under three hours from now,” Mack spoke with a certainty that would brook no disagreement.

  “Then we can breakfast. Major, once the Colonel has completed the orders, present them to Prince Hohenlohe with my compliments. You are to accompany him. Will your men be rested by then?”

  “If we can draw fresh horses, Sir, then my hussars will be ready. No more than fifteen sabres but we will do the regiment proud!”

  The Prince nodded in satisfaction, aimed the merest glance at a waiting footman and moments later breakfast plates arrived.

  The meeting was concluded: the fate of four thousand Frenchmen had been sealed.

  Bruges: 15th September 1793

  The gardened courtyard of the English Convent, shedding greenery to a blood red in the autumnal change, was filled with the wreckage of men from the Duke of York’s army. The quick and the dead, from some biblical tragedy, Mother More, the order’s Prioress had called it, before handing the surgeon a mug filled with hot black tea. Out of politeness, the physician of Derbyshire stock had listened, all the while his hands working from patient to patient, a few simple words of German instructing the orderlies as to the fate of each casualty. The Prioress merely had to gesture and grey-robbed figures moved amongst the soldiers, offering supplication.

  Annihilation had been avoided but at some cost.

  Red-coated Englishmen and Hanoverians and blue-coated Hessians lay waiting for their fate. Hundreds of the sick had died in the three days that the wounded had been moved, by wagon and the ferry, to the safety of Bruges. The Convent had offered a home to men who had no refuge. Pristine tiled floors were already covered with thick straw but the constant traffic of stretcher bearers, moving bodies into overcrowded rooms, left a trail of debris in their wake.

  The surgeon knelt by a body sheathed in the sweat of a heavy fever. He touched the foot and shook his head slowly. The pulse was feint. A crude slash along the seam of the trousers led to a wad of heavy bandage, soaked in dull red. The body was that of a thick-set Sergeant, a man he knew from 2nd Battalion. To the side of the Sergeant, a corporal stood sentinel. Thilo Hartmann, the Ox, was Sergeant Gauner’s enforcer and trusted man.

  In the chaos of defeat on the field of Hondschoote, Hartmann had stood over the unfortunate Doctor Wexler, who had first suggested amputation as the best course of action. A rumour from the orderlies was that the Ox had simply lifted Wexler up by the throat while Gauner had hissed that the leg must remain. Since then the Sergeant had been unconscious but Hartmann had stayed by his side. Wexler had remained at Hondschoote, treating the sick and had almost certainly been captured by the French. No one was prepared to mention the matter to a Provost, Harris had little interest in investigating further when the lives of a thousand men were the burden of himself and the small band of medical staff whom the Duke had spared for the care of the wounded.

  “He might live. But if poisoning sets in, death will be a blessing. You understand me?” the surgeon looked up at Hartmann, who remained impassive. “Alright, take him inside!”

  The surgeon had spoken to a pair of orderlies at his shoulder but before the sentence was finished, the Ox knelt and scooped up the muscular frame of Gauner and followed the train of human misery being carried through a colonnade lined with honeysuckle, into the sanctuary of the English Convent.

  Paris: 16th September 1793

  The quill scratched across the page in a manner that Maurice Caillat found mildly hypnotic. Ornate letters emerged without pause or correction; the writer’s simple black clerk’s clothing belied the power of the words taking shape on the page. The quill stopped; the spell was broken. Caillat realised that small black eyes, enlarged by the silver framed glasses, held him in their stare.

  “Continue, Caillat. I can write and listen, I’m not a peasant!” Genet’s tone was clipped by the lateness of the hour and the fact that ‘Year I’ was ending. Tomorrow ‘Les Sans-Culottides’ would herald the start of Year II. Five days of public holidays ensured that no work of any value to Genet would be transacted.

  Caillat wiped away tiredness from his eyes, feeling thick tufts of stubble and returned to the final detail of the report.

  “Let there be no doubt, Declaye abandoned the field the moment our cavalry fled. Of the command that set out on such a perilous mission, two thousand are dead, a similar number have deserted or are now held captive by the Austrians. Twenty pieces of cannon and three standards were also lost. It is my sad duty to report that the morale of those soldier who remain at Cambrai is very low. Yours in earnest duty, Citizen Marceaux.”

  Caillat had tried not to picture the carnage in the fields around Avenes le Sec even as he read the report. Three battalions of infantry had crumbled under the repeated charges of Austrian cavalry. At first, the encounter had been mentioned in a dispatch from Declaye, the military commander at Cambrai, as a mere footnote of action. But Genet had earned the moniker of the ‘Spider’ on merit and those who held him in regard, or fear, from his days with the Army of the North, reported otherwise. Margeaux was one such man. The Spider had presented his information directly to Citizen Robespierre and within a few short days had been proved right.

  The writing had stopped, quill placed purposefully next to a silvered ink pot.

  “So, what say you, my young friend? What are we to do with this information?”

  Again, the round spectacles were fixed on Caillat.

  “Go to Cambrai, investigate the reports. Arrest Declaye, return him to Paris.” Caillat answered, knowing both men knew the routine. Caillat had risen from stable-boy to investigator and a Representative en Mission, one of the most powerful positions in the Republican world. But Dunkirk had changed Caillat: both men knew it.

  “Yes of course, Maurice,” Genet’s face broke into a smile. “But you are like a man who examines a masterpiece with his nose pressed against the canvas. Step back. Further back. What can we do with this information? Who issued the orders to Declaye?”

  “Houchard, of course, Citizen Genet.”

  “Exactly. And this is what Citizen Robespierre has waited for.”

  “Is it?”

  Genet’s actual powers were unspecified. Once he had served under General Dumouriez, while the traitorous General had plotted to overthrow the Republic. Now, working for Robespierre, the most powerful man on the Committee for Public Safety, it was Genet’s job to turn the aims of the Committee and Robespierre into reality. While war raged on the borders of France, the members of the Committee had little trust in their own generals. Caillat had witnessed Houchard defeat the German mercenaries of King George nine days before. But since leaving the army and returning to Paris, the redcoats had slipped away. Robespierre had wanted to drag the Duke of York or at least half a dozen German Princes, before the mob. The Sans-Culottes general who had hated everything that Caillat stood for, would pay the price for failure. As that realisation dawned on the face of Caillat, Genet broke into a grin.

  “You see it now, mon ami? Houchard will pay.”

  His hands parted and the arrest warrant was revealed.

  “And our position can be strengthened further. Carnot…”

  “Carnot?” Caillat interrupted

  “I know you idolise the man, The Worker!’” Genet sneered. “Do not fear, Carnot cannot be touched but his God-like grace can be dented. It was Carnot who appointed Houchard. His decision must face scrutiny. Just as it is Carnot who shields Grison, Tabary and Mahieu from our justice.”

  There it was. Dunkirk again. The darkness of the fisherman’s shed where Caillat had been held captive; the threat of a violent and lingering death by unseen kidnappers; a Representative’s sash of office no shield against the knife that had been placed at his throat. The worst of it had been admitting the shame of the night to Genet. But the Spider was not shocked in the least; perhaps he had alread
y known.

  “Your friend Carnot has been asking, rather clumsily in my opinion, for any files and information held on these three men. He even petitioned Robespierre to ask that previous misdemeanours be…” Genet stretched out his arms in the gesture of a priest, “absolved in their service to the state.”

  Caillat had rarely seen the man smile or even laugh, so the mocking chortle came as a surprise.

  “Mark my words Caillat. Those three and the bitch Juliet, are behind your unfortunate meeting. They want Beauvais alive. He is our bait. But I want to see each of them pay for their pasts at the pleasure of the mob.”

  Genet’s right hand rested on a thick pile of documents as the words were spoken, an oath on the holy rite of allegation and insinuation that could send a citizen to meet with the National Razor.

  In a dingy cell in the bowels of the Conciergerie, across the Seine on the Île de la Cité, lay a man, more rags and bone than flesh and blood. If he died, Caillat’s life would be forfeit too: Dunkirk had taught the young man from Bergerac that much. Despite Genet’s optimism, Caillat could find no joy in the thought of what Year II might bring.

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