“Rear rank, fire!” from Simcock, then “Rear rank, fire!” from Strickland, and the ragged rolling platoon fire continued. At that range, well over one hundred yards, hits with smooth-bore muskets were nigh impossible, but some Dutch soldiers were down, and their bullets were kicking up puffs of dust or quick bursts of sparks when they hit the nearest artillery piece’s barrel.
More shrapnel shells exploded over the Dutch, then the noise of battle was increased by the eerie skirling of Highland pipes and the rattle of drums as the 93rd Regiment stepped off. Beside them, the 38th began to march forward with their muskets poised as if for a full-out charge, and their bandsmen and drummers launched into their own march music.
“I think they’ve noticed us, sir!” Lt. Westcott shouted, his face twisted into a savage grin of joy. “We’ll be having company in a minute or so!”
At least a company of Dutch infantry were leaving their lines, clambering out of the nearest trench where they had been sheltering, and began to form up in the open, three ranks deep. Lewrie put his Ferguson up to his eye, again, sought what he took to be their officer, held high, and fired. As the smoke from his lock and muzzle cleared, he could see that his shot had struck the fellow square in the chest, dropping him as if pole-axed, and spread like an X on the ground. It took the Dutch a gawping few seconds before that company’s junior officer got them to move forward. Lewrie shot down a soldier in the front rank, who stumbled backwards into his rear-rank mates, slowing them a bit more.
Dutch cavalrymen who had been re-enforcing the lines scrambled out of the waist-deep trenches for their horses in the rear, on the reverse slope.
They’ll saddle up and keep on goin’, if they’ve any sense, he thought as he reloaded yet again; But, no … they’ll come up here!
The Marine sharpshooter hit the officer at the head of their column as his horse reared and he waved his sword over his head to rally his men, and he reeled out of the saddle with one boot caught in the right-hand stirrup, to be dragged by his panicked mount down hill several yards before flopping free. The horse kept on going. Again, another junior officer took charge and urged the Dutch horsemen on, up the slope towards the centre of the British line, right at Lewrie’s sailors. The crest of the ridge was narrow as it rose to their knob, so no more than seven or eight riders could attack them, pressed together knee-to-knee.
“Front rank, ready!” Lewrie shouted, dropping his Ferguson and pacing over to stand by the front rank of sailors. “Everyone, fix bayonets and remember t’stab the horses if they get close!”
Lewrie drew the first of his double-barrelled Manton pistols and cocked the right-hand lock, then drew his hanger to prepare for the onslaught.
“Hold fire ’til I order!” Westcott sternly cautioned. “Hold fire ’til we can see their teeth, then skin the bastards!”
“A pity, arrah, sor,” Patrick Furfy said with a shake of his head, “I’ve always liked horses.”
“You’re worth more t’me and your shipmates than ten blooded hunters, Furfy!” Lewrie cried, laughing. “So be sure you kill them, no matter! That goes for all you lads! We’ll show these Dutch sons of bitches they’ve messed with the wrong crew!”
A bugle was blown, and the Dutch horsemen launched into their charge, right off, with no trotting first to approach nearer. Their surviving officers must have wagered that they would suffer less if they closed quickly, with no messing about. Sabres were levelled with the points down and the cutting edges up, stiff-armed. Spurs were cruelly thrust upon their mounts to goad them into a full gallop, and harsh, howling cries came from the enemy troopers’ throats.
“Steady … steady!” Westcott shouted.
The first rank was eight abreast, a wall of flesh and thundering hooves! Closer … closer … within fifty yards …
“First rank … fire!” Lewrie cried, thinking that he might have left it too late, and that dead horses might stumble onto his front-rank men, crushing them and opening everyone to being hacked to pieces.
No! Those first eight horses were down, kicking their legs in the air, flailing in their death throes and screaming! Half their riders were down, as well, shot and flung off, pinned under their dying horses’ great weight with shattered legs or hips, or left helpless if they had managed to leap free of their saddles. The nearest dead horse was only six yards off, but that pile of downed horses made a sudden barrier to the next rank of eight. Their horses tripped over the ones which had preceded them, making an even bigger pile-up! The charge came to a sudden halt, with Dutch troopers savagely sawing their reins to keep from tumbling into the mess!
Gunfire from Simcock’s Marines, and from Lt. Strickland’s men, had not stopped, either, tearing at the Dutch cavalrymen from either flank and killing horses and men who rode behind the leaders.
“Second rank … fire!” Westcott shouted, and the Dutchmen who sat at the halt were hit and daunted, some shot from their saddles and others slumped low over their horses’ necks, trying to turn about and go back down the slope. A bugle rang out and the rest wheeled round to retreat, still under fire, and did not stop ’til they were out of what they thought was musket-range, leaving at least two-dozen of their fellows behind. There was a reef, a shoal, of dead horses in front of Lewrie’s position, which he hoped would end any thoughts of a second try. There was still that company of infantry to deal with, though, coming up to within one hundred yards and almost in decent shooting range.
They’re lookin’ over their shoulders, though, Lewrie told himself as he dropped his spent Manton and went back to re-load his Ferguson. Sure enough, the British regiments were advancing smartly and almost within their own musket-range of the shallow Dutch trenches. The Dutch were firing at them, their artillerymen coming out of their dubious shelter and aiming their guns, readying with grapeshot loads or wicked canister. One artillery piece roared and rocked back on its trail, then another. From their knob above it all, Lewrie indeed had a grand view as the British infantry broke into a rapid uphill charge, their bayonets glittering, and hundreds of wild and feral cries, with the pipers of the 93rd breaking into what sounded as urgent as a reel, a demonic war cry all of its own.
“They’re breaking!” Lt. Strickland shouted, standing fully erect and waving his sabre over his head in glee. “They’re running!”
The Dutch cavalry troop gave the situation a quick look, and wheeled about by fours to clatter away, downhill for the plain below with hardly a backward glance.
“Huzzah! Huzzah!” the men on the knob were shouting as the British charge reached the trenches, and the Colours were carried forward. The Dutch infantry would not be as lucky as their cavalry, for they could not retreat as fast. They melted away, abandoning the trenches and turning their backs in flight. Those unable to scramble out, the laggards and the slowest, got swarmed over by British red and bayonetted. Some knelt in surrender, holding their muskets in the air or planting them muzzle down in front of them, and others just abandoned their weapons and ran like skittered deer. British blood was up, though, and the attacking troops had taken casualties and lost mates. Not all those Dutch who surrendered were taken prisoner; it would be a minute or so before sanity was restored.
The Dutch company that had tried to come up the hill to attack them were now trapped between Lewrie’s position and the British infantry who were now rampaging down the line of shallow trenches, looking for someone to shoot or bayonet. That company was now a herd of terrified men looking in all directions and looking for escape, which was now cut off. Their own retreating cavalry had delayed them too long.
“You, down there!” Lewrie shouted in his best quarterdeck roar. “Surrender to us!” He pumped both arms up several times. “Surrender! Bloody Hell, Mister Westcott. How did our old Master Gunner, Rahl, say it in German? That’s close t’Dutch, ain’t it?”
“Haven’t a single clue, really, sir,” Westcott said, shrugging.
“Soldaten!” Lt. Strickland yelled, raising his own arms as if giving up. “Haende hoch!
Kapitulation! Hinlegen deine waffen!”
The Dutch soldiers dropped their muskets as if they were red-hot fireplace pokers, and littered the ground round them with shakoes, cartridge boxes, hangers, and equipment belts, and knelt with their hands high over their heads in a twinkling.
“What was all that, after soldaten?” Lewrie asked him.
“Told them to put their hands up, surrender, and drop their weapons,” Strickland said with a grin. “I had a German nanny,” he further explained, “and she was a right bitch.”
“Whatever, it worked,” Lewrie said. “D’ye think our own soldiers’ve lost their ‘mad’, or should we stay up here awhile more? I’d not like my men shot ’cause they’re not wearin’ red.”
“Oh, I think it’s safe enough now, Captain Lewrie,” Strickland allowed. “The rest of the Heavy Brigade is coming up in march order.”
Sure enough, the two attacking regiments had rushed on past the Dutch trenches and were moving down the East side of the Blaauwberg in skirmish order, their light companies firing at the fleeing Dutch survivors now and then. The other regiments of the Heavy Brigade were coming up towards the crest in columns-of-fours with their drums rattling the pace. Bandsmen and surgeons from the 38th and 93rd were busy picking among the few British casualties, or pilfering from the Dutch dead and wounded, on the sly.
“Canteens, sir.” Lt. Westcott pointed downhill to their prisoners. “We should go take possession of some, whilst we see to our own wounded.”
“Get them down so the Army surgeons can see to ’em, aye,” Lewrie agreed. “How many, Mister Westcott?”
“One hand dead, sir, two wounded,” Lt. Westcott told him as he took a deep drink from his wine bottle canteen. “Those two not badly, thank God. We’ve lost one Marine dead, and one wounded, as well. Durbin is tending them, but he will need assistance from the Army.”
Lewrie looked down-slope for a way to leave their knob. Horses and dead Dutch cavalrymen blocked the easiest way, many of the horses still screaming and thrashing.
“First off, Mister Westcott, have the lads shoot those poor horses, and see that all our muskets are empty,” Lewrie ordered. “If the Dragoons will … Ah, Mister Strickland!” he gladly said, spotting him. “If you’d be so good as to take charge of our prisoners, whilst we clear the way for our wounded? Good. Were any of your men hurt or killed?”
“No dead, sir, and only two lightly wounded. We came off rather easily, altogether,” Strickland reported, “though it seems that your men took the brunt of it, holding the centre of our line.”
“Once down with the nearest regiment, please direct their surgeon in our direction, sir, and we’ll try to move our wounded to them,” Lewrie requested. Strickland saluted and set off.
“Mister Rossyngton?” Lewrie called over his shoulder.
“Aye, sir?” the Midshipman replied.
“You’ve young and sturdy legs,” Lewrie said. “Do you run down to our waggon and order it up.”
“At once, sir!” Rossyngton said, doffing his hat and setting off at trots and bounds.
I just hope no one takes him for Dutch in his blue coat, and shoots him! Lewrie thought.
He went to where their Surgeon’s Mate, Durbin, was binding up his men’s wounds, and knelt and spoke words of assurance and thanks to them.
“Beg pardon, sir,” Durbin said, “but, do we take the blankets from the dead Dutchies’ bed-rolls, we can fashion ways to bear our men down the hill.”
“Aye, see to it,” Lewrie agreed.
That scavenging, and the slow procession of bearing both dead and wounded off the knob, was a gruesome ordeal. There were nearly fifteen or so dead horses which had to be bridged, and dead Dutchmen to be stepped and stumbled over, with here and there some few cruelly wounded, some still pinned under their dead mounts, who reached out with weak, bloodied hands, crying “Hilfe!” and “Wasser!” Sailors who were not carrying their mates bent down to give them a drink, a pat on the shoulder, but there was little they could do for them, not ’til all the British wounded had been seen to. That was the necessary triage following combat. Lewrie looked up to the morning sky and grimaced at the sight of hideous vultures already circling, and daring to swoop near the corpses round the Dutch trenches. The warm, coppery reek of spilled blood was almost as strong as the stink of voided men’s bowels and un-ravelled horse intestines.
At last, they got past the last of the Dutch casualties, and reached the South end of the Dutch trenches, where Army bandsmen were already carrying dead soldiers, British to one trench and Dutch to another, for a quick burial.
Lewrie stood and watched as Durbin had his two dead borne to the appropriate trench, and began to compose some final words in his head to see them off. He had left his Book of Common Prayer aboard ship, and would have to depend on an Army chaplain for the bulk of it. He was interrupted, though, by loud shouts, and turned about.
“You, there! You, sir!” a senior officer of cavalry shouted, coming on astride a glossy horse with a long riding crop in a gauntletted hand. “Come here at once, do you hear me? I’ve a bone t’pick with you!”
Damned if I ain’t gettin’ tired o’ bein’ shouted at! Lewrie fumed inside; From the Thirty-fourth? Their Colonel? Serve him sweetness and light, old son … sweetness and light. He put a faint smile on his face and raised a brow as if hailed by an old school chum.
“Good morning, sir!” Lewrie perkily said, doffing his hat. “I take it that you are Colonel Laird of the Thirty-fourth Light Dragoons? Sorry we have not yet made acquaintance. I am Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet, of the Reliant frigate, which escorted part of your regiment.”
“I know who you are, sir, and I am indeed Colonel of the Thirty-fourth Dragoons!” the livid fellow barked. “Those fools, Veasey and Strickland, have already informed me of your high-handed actions which instigated this idiocy!” he roared, sweeping a hand towards the carnage on the knob. “How dare you! Who gave you the right to order my officers about, deprive me of half a troop, and lead them into un-necessary peril, sir? Damme, had we gotten orders to charge this position, I would have been under-strength!”
“Captain Veasey, Leftenant Strickland, and I considered it a reconnaisance in force, since the knob was un-occupied, sir, so we came up to discover the enemy’s forces,” Lewrie replied as congenial and casually conversational as he could and still smile. “It worked, as you see.”
“Damn your eyes, sir!” Colonel Laird exploded, frightening his horse into shivers, circles, and flat-eared, eye-blared dread. “I’ll not have a bloody sailor, who knows nothing of proper military tactics, play ‘tin soldiers’ with my regiment! And, just what the Hell are you doing up here in the first place?”
“We’re part of the Naval Brigade that Commodore Popham offered to General Baird, sir, under the command of Captain Byng of the Belliqueux,” Lewrie sweetly answered, shifting the sling of his rifled musket on his shoulder. “We were landed to get the siege guns ashore, and re-enforce the guard on the baggage train. We came up alongside the train, sir.”
“The bloody baggage train is still far down bloody there!” Colonel Laird howled, pointing downhill to the West, where the regiments of the Light Brigade were now tramping up the slope to the crest of the Blaauwberg. “Damme if I do not settle you, this instant, Lewrie, for here comes General Sir David Baird. I will see you brought before a court! I will see you sacked!”
Colonel Laird snatched the reins of his horse and sped away at a brisk gait towards a clutch of senior officers at the head of the first regiment of the Light Brigade.
“Ehm … our waggon is coming up, sir,” a cautious Midshipman Warburton announced, daring a grimace of worry. “Should I see our wounded into it when it arrives, sir?”
“Do so, Mister Warburton,” Lewrie told him, “and break out the spare scuttle-butt. Our people will have need of replenishing their water bottles when the waggon’s up.”
“Warm work, indeed, sir,” Warburton commented, then went to his work.
“Aye, sir,” his First Officer replied.
Minutes later, and Westcott was back, to whisper, “Trouble’s coming, sir,” as General Baird, Brigadier Beresford, and their staff came over. Lewrie tried not to wince, for that supercilious officer they’d met by the baggage train was with them, as was Colonel Laird.
He set his shoulders, un-slung his champagne bottle canteen, and took a sip to moisten his suddenly dry mouth, wondering if he really was “in the quag” up to his neck, this time.
“He’s drunk, by God!” Colonel Laird exclaimed. “That explains his actions, Sir David! Just as Mortimer here saw earlier. They all are! See those wine bottles, sir?”
“Good morning, sir,” Lewrie said, ignoring that rant, doffing his hat to the senior officers with more deference. “I would offer you some of our water, General Baird, but I fear it comes from our butts aboard Reliant, and is rather stale, by now,” and went to explain again how they had had to improvise before coming ashore.
General Baird took the offered bottle just long enough for a quick sniff, wrinkling his nose. “Well, I do remember how foul water becomes, after a few months in cask, Captain Lewrie,” he said in a rather kindly way. “What happened up here? Colonel Laird seems to think that you have acted rashly with some of his troops.”
“In point of fact, sir, it was a co-operative endeavour that could not have succeeded without the participation of the Thirty-fourth, and the skill and experience of Leftenant Strickland and his half-troop,” Lewrie replied.
Out of the corner of his eye, Lewrie saw disaster looming, of a sudden, and he tried not to quail. His sailors had approached the Dutch prisoners and had gotten their wood canteens, here and there in exchange, but mostly by appropriation by the victors. Patrick Furfy and a few others were looking just too damned sly-boots as they took sips, sniffed with sudden delight, and tipped the canteens back for deeper quaffs. It wasn’t just British soldiers and sailors who were mad for drink, any sort of alcoholic guzzle; the Dutch soldiers were just as guilty, and had filled their canteens with rum, brandy, or the national “treasure”, gin!
Hostile Shores Page 27
