by Iain Gale
* * *
Marius hurried back through the quiet streets towards his house. He was barely thirty yards from his front door when he heard it. At first he thought that it must be a great clap of thunder, somewhere in the distance and instinctively he stopped. For this was the deepest thunder that he had ever heard and instantly, Marius Brouwer knew the terrible noise for what it truly was and ran, desperately, towards his door and his family.
The first six shells flew up from the bombketches and towards the town in an arc two hundred feet high and the townspeople gazed up at them in wonder. Within seconds though the more level-headed among them had realized fully what was happening. Mothers gathered their children into their arms and ran instinctively towards their homes rather than to the cellars, blockhouses, casemates and other shelters where they had been drilled to go in just such an eventuality. Vauban had planned for this very scenario many years ago and the drill had been practised diligently every month. But it did not prevent their panic. The great marshal himself had witnessed at first hand the effect of the bombardment of Le Havre by the British in 1694, had seen the people blown to pieces and the streets covered in blood and body parts. He had sworn that it would not happen again on French soil or in a French-held town.
But the shelters that he had so carefully designed were not now sufficient to embrace the growing population of a thriving sea port. Indeed they were barely large enough to contain the garrison and when that was swollen by two full crews of privateers, it was clear that Vauban’s efforts to protect the population would be all in vain. And now the unthinkable was happening.
Realizing their initial mistake, the townspeople finally began to make for the protective casemates which lay under the bastions, beneath thirty feet of solid stone. But before anyone had reached shelter the great iron balls came crashing down into the town. The first to land fell to earth in the Grote Place, its fuse still sputtering. It rolled across the cobbles towards the town hall and lay motionless, smoking. Those people who had been unlucky enough to be in the square reacted in very different ways. Three men began to run towards side alleys. A peasant girl threw herself to the ground and four other men and a woman just stood and stared at the spinning, sputtering ten-inch-diameter iron globe. One of them began to move towards it, intent on picking it up and hurling it away.
Then the fuse burnt down and within the casing, as the flame made contact with the saltpetre and the powder, the charge caught and abruptly the man’s world and that of the people about him came to an abrupt and violent end. The force of the explosion plucked cobbles from the street and hurled the girl high in the air. Of the three men nothing remained but shards of cloth and flesh. The woman alone remained. Blinded by the blast and with a bloody stump where her right arm had been severed by flying debris, she stumbled through the thick smoke and still descending stones and iron fragments. Mute. Shocked. Dying.
Then a fresh salvo of shells began to land and the great siege guns opened up from the fields and the cannon from on board the warships off the coast and Ostend recoiled in shock at the bite of modern war.
Standing on the strand, Steel gazed at the obscene, pyrotechnic beauty of the bombardment and the jarring, orange-red explosions as the shells found their targets. It always amazed him how any human being was able to live through such a storm of fire. But live they did. Some were maimed, some blinded, others barely recognizable as human. But they lived. George Forbes too was watching, with a keen interest, diligently marking the fall of each of the shells, noting any that came down too short. From time to time he called across to the signallers and as the bombs began to fall with greater accuracy, Steel felt an uncharacteristic rising nausea at what he imagined must be taking place within the walls and knew that the time had come to take his leave. He half-walked, half-skidded back down the dune, where a few minutes earlier Hansam had preceded him.
Slaughter was standing beside the lieutenant, and both men were staring at the town from which thick plumes of dirty black smoke had now begun to rise.
The sergeant was the first to find words: ‘Poor buggers. Doesn’t seem right, sir. Women and children.’
‘No, Jacob. It’s not right. But we have no alternative. We are assured that the people have shelters. Let’s hope that they have had time to find them.’
He thought again of Major van Cutzem’s words. ‘Please God that we never have to witness such things again … that we never again have to descend into that hell.’
Well, at least poor, dead van Cutzem had been spared the sight of the fresh hell that was unfolding this day in Ostend.
Seated at a stout oak table in casemate number four on the west side of the citadel, directly beneath the Florida Bastion, Major Claude Malbec of the feared Grenadiers Rouges, chewed on the stale tobacco in his mouth and spat. He drew a silk handkerchief out of the pocket of his waistcoat and dabbed gently at the corners of his mouth and the sweat on his forehead. The sweet scent of lavender pomade was curiously both comforting and disquieting. It reminded him instantly of easier times, in Paris. Of a girl he had kept as his lover, in a house behind the Place Royale. Of the gaming tables at the Palais Royal and of the carnival atmosphere of those nights in the capital when you would wake up next morning with each of your arms around a naked girl and with dried blood on your sword blade and would not remember and not care how it, or they, or you, had got there. But with that evocative fragrance there came another memory. The haunting image of his dead wife. And as always when he thought of her, and their murdered children, he thought too of the British and his mind became lost in a red sea of hate.
With the heel of his ammunition boot Malbec ground the orange spit from the tobacco hard into the straw-covered floor and turned to his sergeant who stood by the door with his arm around a serving-girl, one of the filles du regiment who had marched in here with the garrison a year ago.
From outside their sealed shelter the scream of incoming shells crept into the room followed by the crash as they impacted. The walls shook regularly, with each fresh explosion, sending dust down from the eaves. The air though, save for the ubiquitous odours of sweat and tobacco, was surprisingly fresh. Marshal Vauban had thought of that, installing complex ventilation systems in each of Ostend’s casemates, so that their inhabitants could last inside for days on end. There were latrines too, discreetly hidden behind a curtain wall, and storerooms for food and wine. A tamper-proof draw-well in the corner provided the all-important supply of fresh water.
Malbec called across to the sergeant: ‘Müller. How long has it been now?’
‘Half an hour, sir. Perhaps longer.’
‘How long do you think they’ll go on?’
‘That’s anyone’s guess, sir. But I think they mean business.’
Malbec laughed. There was a hammering at the door. Voices; first a man, then women. Pleading voices. The sergeant and his girl edged away from the door. The soldiers, who previously had been talking through the bombardment, became silent. Malbec sat motionless. At another table, across the room, his second-in-command, a captain who had joined the regiment before the recent defeat at Ramillies, looked anxiously towards the door.
‘Major Malbec, sir, with respect, d’you suppose that we should let them in? They’re being torn to pieces, sir.’
Malbec frowned and shook his head. ‘My dear Captain Lejeune. How much you have to learn about war. And how much about life.’
The soldiers had begun to talk again now.
‘I told you, Lejeune, when we locked the door. Let one of these damned peasants in here and you can be sure that the rest will follow. We cannot accommodate the whole town in this place. We must save ourselves to ensure that we can fight when the barrage lifts. That is the simple truth, Captain. Those are my orders. And you have yours. Besides, what’s it to you? They’re only Belgians.’
He laughed and spat on the floor. The captain stood up: ‘With respect, sir. They are also human beings. It’s … it’s inhuman to do this. We must admit them, Major.
You must allow it.’
The colour rose in Malbec’s tanned face. ‘We must do nothing of the sort, Captain. And if you oppose me again on this matter I shall have you court-martialled for insubordination. How long have you served with us, Lejeune? Four months?’
‘Two months, sir.’
‘Two months. And where were you before that?’
‘I served in the Regiment du Roi.’
‘And before that?’
‘I was a cadet in the royal guard sir, at the court.’
‘You were a courtier. And before that? A schoolboy. And now you presume to tell me how I should and how I should not conduct a war? Do you know how long I have served with the colours?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Too long, Lejeune. Too long to be taught my trade by a wet-nursed infant, like you. No, Captain Lejeune. I should caution you not to attempt to teach an old dog new tricks. You should have been with us in Bavaria. Shouldn’t he, Sergeant Müller? Tell him about Bavaria, Sergeant.’
Müller, a big, bald-headed Alsatian, grinned: ‘Oh, you should have seen it, sir. Terrible business it was. But we had to do it. Only way to turn those Germans against the English. Otherwise more would have died, see? Ain’t that right Major Malbec, sir? Had to do it … That’s what the major said.’
Then, remembering rather too vividly the dreadful screams as they had bayoneted the inhabitants of the little Bavarian village, the sergeant stopped and stared at the ground.
Malbec spoke: ‘And that’s why we have to do what we must do now, Captain.’
Malbec’s men, who had remained silent and motionless during the exchange went back to their chores. One man began to sing.
Auprès de ma blonde
Qu’il fait bon, fait bon, fait bon,
Auprès de ma blonde qu’il fait bon …
His song was cut short by a terrible, heart-piercing shriek from outside the doors and then … silence.
Malbec stared at the door, from beyond which there now came a low groaning. He tried to shut his ears and mind to it. Closed his eyes, and instantly saw the face of his wife. They heard a shell come in overhead, the shrill whine as it descended. Close, closer, until it was almost on top of them. Instinctively, the men covered their heads and with an earthshaking crash the bomb hit the ground only a few paces from the door of the casemate. More dust fell from the roof. Beyond the door they heard the screams begin again as people tried to run from the spinning black orb. Then the air outside the shelter was rent with a huge explosion. The door seemed to be pushed in and then sucked out by the blast. But still it held fast. Then, a dreadful stillness. And from outside the casemate there was not a sound. But then it came again. Worse this time, as the single groan was replaced with many more. Too many. Malbec opened his eyes and realized that he was pouring with sweat.
He cast a glance at Lejeune. The captain was staring at him. Malbec looked back to the door. And then, just for an instant, through the moans of misery without, he thought that he heard the particular, high pitch of a woman’s voice.
‘Save me. Save my boys. Save the children.’
And then something curious happened inside Claude Malbec’s, seething, thumping, boiling brain. He rushed towards the door and, thrusting the big sergeant aside, slipped the bolts and pushed it open. Its base slithered across the cobbles slick with blood and gobbets of flesh. Malbec peered into the awful afternoon and was greeted by a scene from hell.
The street was smoking and strewn with people and things which he realized had recently been people. Great chunks of stone had been gouged from the buildings on either side of the street and lay on the cobbles with the scorched and splintered roof tiles that had been sent crashing to the ground in their scores. Wherever he looked, it seemed to Claude Malbec that something was burning: wooden rafters, carts, horses … human flesh. A noise from above made him look up and he saw yet more bombs coming in, flying across the sky like so many evil, black comets.
Suddenly he was aware of a press of people moving towards him. People with terrible wounds, missing limbs and parts of their faces. Women carrying limp children in their arms. Other children, some covered in blood, suddenly lost, orphaned and alone, wailing in their bewilderment. Their clothes had been shredded by the explosions and their exposed flesh was covered in burns and lacerations. In the crowd he could make out two or three men who appeared to be more or less unhurt, doing their best to help the wounded. Acting, it seemed to him, almost in slow-motion, Malbec reached out and grabbed one of the children – a girl of about eight – and gathered her to him. He could hear nothing over the noise of the explosions. Beside his feet, close to the doorcase, a woman was sitting on the bloody cobbles cradling one child in her arms, while another grabbed at her desperately. She turned her face to Malbec and mouthed what he took to be the word ‘help’, but made no sound. Still holding the girl, he leant down and helped the woman to her feet. By some miracle she did not appear to have been hit, merely in shock. One of her children though, the boy in her arms, was quite dead. There was not a mark upon him. The blast must have killed him, thought Malbec and suddenly his world spun back to normal speed.
He pushed the woman and her children back through the entrance behind him and, bringing the girl with him, ducked back into the casemate and slammed the door tight. And then Sergeant Müller was sliding in the bolts as a dozen bloody fists began again to beat against the outside.
Malbec turned and saw that a few other civilians had made it in. There were around a dozen townspeople in all. Malbec turned to the woman and gently wiped her face. He looked down into her eyes and a part of his mind begged a deity that he had long abandoned in his bitterness that in them he might see his wife’s smile. But it was not Marie, could never be.
The woman stared back at him. ‘Thank you. Oh thank you, sir.’ She was shaking with shock and her hands gripped the dead child with claw-like, denying ferocity. ‘Thank you. You have saved us. Thank you for saving my sons.’
Malbec stared at her.
‘Monsieur?’
Her face was pretty, with blue eyes encased with red-rimmed skin. He looked at the boys. One, perhaps eight years old, had fair curls, the other, the one who lay dead in her arms, was around six and had straight dark hair. So like his own boys. But how old would they have been now? Eighteen and twenty. Men themselves. And if they had lived – if Marie had lived – he wondered what they would all be doing at this moment?
‘Sir, are you all right?’
Captain Lejeune was standing beside him and it was only then that Malbec realized that his own eyes were filled with tears.
‘I … Oh, yes, Captain. As you were. Damned dust.’ Malbec took the handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed away the salt water. ‘Can’t see a bloody thing. This dust.’ He staggered to a chair and sat down, heavily. ‘I just … I just thought, I was wondering …’
He paused. Inside his head a beating drum was pounding, while somewhere a small voice was reaching up from his soul: Oh God, he thought. What have I done? Marie, forgive me.
He turned to the captain: ‘Quick, open the door. Let in as many more of them as we can hold.’
Lejeune stared at him: ‘But, sir –’
‘An order, Captain. I order you to open that door and let in as many as we can hold. Now, before I change my mind. Müller, help him. And you men.’
Malbec was thinking fast now. And then, before Lejeune and the sergeant had opened the door, he knew what had to be done, how he could make the guns stop. They had allowed in thirty of the townspeople now, in all conditions. Malbec watched as the room filled up.
‘Right. That’s enough. Close the door. That’s enough of them.’
The room was full of wounded and dying people and the stench, even with the ventilation, was gut-wrenchingly rank. Sweat and blood mingled with saltpetre and powder smoke in a heavy, acrid fug. Instinctively, the French soldiers began to tend to the wounded civilians.
Malbec turned to his sergeant: ‘Müller, I want you
and the captain to go and find the governor. You should come across him in casemate number five. That’s the one by the Lanthorn Bastion; directly across town from here, past the town hall. When you’ve found him, I want you to bring him here. As quickly as you can. Don’t take no for an answer, use force if you must. We’re under martial law now. And make sure that you get that English girl too – she’s sure to be with him, he won’t let her out of his sight. Bring them both here. Hurry man, quickly. And watch your step.’
The sergeant crossed to Lejeune and after a few words both men left the room. Malbec took a long draught from the goblet of dusty wine before him and stared again at the mother and her two sons. And as he savoured the bitter, gritty liquid he sat back in the chair and listened to the terrible music of Ostend’s suffering.
How much longer could this go on, Steel wondered. How much more could the people of this town take? Three hours of bombardment and still the mortars spat out their great iron balls and the cannon below him jumped back in recoil as their barrels grew to red-hot temperatures and had to be cooled down with freshly-dampened sponges. Behind its walls and tiered defences, the port seemed to spout fire from every quarter and a huge pall of black smoke had gathered above the houses and the great church spire of St Peter and Paul, blotting out the sun. Behind him, on the narrow road to the West Gate, his men grew restless. Naturally, Steel had rejoiced at the news that he was to lead the forlorn hope. You did not get anything in this army – advancement or booty – by holding back from danger. It was the only way. Besides, he had been specifically asked to lead the attack by Colonel Hawkins, and hadn’t the order come directly from Marlborough? Behind his Grenadiers, the assault column snaked back through those plucked from other regiments. Finally at the rear came the bulk of the attacking force, under the Duke of Argyll: Mordaunt’s regiment and de Lalo’s Huguenots among them. Argyll himself was standing a little distance away, with Captain Forbes, on one of the sand dunes. And, as Steel had predicted, the two men were getting on famously.
