In the Irish Brigade Part 26

On the next day, after visiting half the stables in Paris, they purchased three horses for themselves, and Desmond bought, in addition, a serviceable animal for Mike, with a cavalry saddle and accoutrements, and ordered a uniform for him. Each provided himself with a sword and a brace of pistols.

Mike was greatly pleased when Desmond communicated his promotion and appointment to him.

"You will look grand, your honour, as a general's aide-de-camp, with your handsome uniform and your horses and all that, and 'tis glad I am that we are going to Flanders, for, from all I have heard from men who have fought in Spain, little pleasure is to be had in campaigning there. The food is vile, the roads are bad. You are choked with dust and smothered with heat.

"As to their making you lieutenant, if you had your dues, it would be a colonel they should have made you, or at any rate a major."

"There is plenty of time, Mike," Desmond laughed. "A nice colonel I should look, too, leading a thousand men into battle. If I obtain a majority in another fifteen years, I shall consider myself lucky."

Desmond did not share Mike's gratification that they were to campaign with the army of the north, instead of with that in Spain. However, as he would be fighting against English troops in either country, he concluded it would not make much difference, especially as, being an aide-de-camp, he would not himself have to enter into actual conflict with them.

His friends were heartily glad that their destination was not Spain, for all had, like Mike, heard much of the hards.h.i.+ps suffered by the troops in that country.

"I know from what you have said, Kennedy, that if you had had your choice you would have taken Spain, but, putting aside the heat there, it is but poor work, by all accounts. You are well-nigh starved, you can't get at your enemy, who knows all the mountains and the paths over them, is as difficult to catch as one of their fleas, hara.s.ses you while you are on the march, and s.h.i.+rks fighting as the old one s.h.i.+rks holy water. There has only been one fight which could be called a battle since the war began; and as for the sieges, it means that you lose a lot of men, and have little credit when you take a place, especially as the moment you go out one way the enemy enter on the other side, and there is all the work to be done over again."

"I admit that we shall see a great deal more of war in the north,"

Kennedy said, "and Marlborough and Eugene on the other side, and the Dukes of Berwick and Vendome on ours, are such skilful commanders that there will be far greater interest in the operations, than in carrying on what is little more than a partisan war in Spain."

"Not only that," O'Neil put in, "but there will be a possibility of getting decent food. While in Spain there are few great towns, and these a long distance from each other; in Flanders there are towns every few miles, and you are sure of decent quarters and good cooking."

"Why, O'Neil, I did not know that you were particular as to your food," Desmond laughed.

"I can starve as well as another, Kennedy, but when I get good food and good wine and good lodgings, I own that I prefer it vastly to the fare that our troops have to put up with, in Spain.

I can see no reason why, because you are going to risk your life in battle, you should put up with all sorts of miseries and inconveniences beforehand, if they can be avoided.

"As to fighting against the English, there are English both in Spain and Flanders, and in both armies they form but a small proportion of the force, though I grant willingly that they are the backbone of both armies. If you look at the thing sensibly, you will see that we have gained no slight advantage by Berwick's going to Flanders, instead of returning to Spain."

Three days after their preparations were completed, an orderly brought a note from the Duke of Berwick. It was brief and to the point.

The rendezvous is at six o'clock tomorrow morning, in front of La Louvre.

(Signed) Berwick.

All were glad that the summons had come. They had discussed the future from every point of view, and were already growing impatient, short as their stay had been in Paris.

Five minutes before the hour, they were at the rendezvous. As the clock struck, the duke rode up with two officers and an escort of six troopers. He looked at their accoutrements and horses, and nodded his head approvingly.

"You will do very well," he said. "I can tell you that the gloss of your uniforms will not last long, in Flanders."

The other officers were Captain Fromart, who acted as the duke's secretary, and Lieutenant d'Eyncourt. Mike fell in with the escort, behind which also rode the body servant of the duke, and the two cavalry men who were the servants of his officers.

Once beyond the limits of the town, the party broke into a trot.

The duke rode on ahead, evidently in deep thought, and the five officers followed in a group.

"I see, messieurs," d'Eyncourt said, "that only one of you has brought a servant with him."

"We only arrived in Paris a week ago," O'Neil said. "Our own regiment had left, and we did not care to ask for two soldiers from another regiment, as these might have turned out badly. We thought it better, therefore, to delay until we joined the army, and wait till we could obtain a couple of good men from one of the cavalry regiments there. As it is, Monsieur Kennedy's servant can look after the three of us, and, I have no doubt, two of the soldiers of the escort will not object to earn a few livres by looking after our horses on the way."

"I think you are right," the other said. "If one gets a good man, a soldier servant is invaluable. If, as is often the case, he is a bad one, well, one is far better without him. It is curious how men who have been smart soldiers, when in the ranks, are apt to go to the bad when they become servants. They have more time on their hands, are free from most of the parades, have no sentry duty to perform, and the consequence is that they become slovenly and careless, and in nine cases out of ten give way to drink at every opportunity. If Mr. Kennedy's servant is really a good one, you will be better off, with a third of his services, than you would be with the whole of that of an ordinary soldier servant.

"You have just returned from England, have you not? The duke told Captain Fromart that you were among those who were captured in the Salisbury, but that you had made your escape. He gave no particulars, for indeed, the duke is not given to much speech. As a general he is splendid, but it would be more pleasant for his staff if he were to unbend a little."

"Yes, we managed to give them the slip," O'Neil said, "thanks to Monsieur Kennedy and his servant. Did you return from Spain with the general, Captain Fromart?"

"Yes. There was nothing doing at the moment, and he gave us the option of accompanying him or staying behind. We vastly preferred the trip, as we considered it, for of course we had no idea that the duke was about to be sent to Flanders. You hear a good deal of the climate of Spain. It is said to be lovely. I vow that it is detestable. The heat, when it is hot, is terrible, and when it is not hot, there is a bitter wind that chills you to the bone. A great portion of the country is but half populated, and you can go a day's march without coming to a village. The roads are villainous. There is nothing to buy, and it is as much as the transport can do to get, I will not say enough bread, but a bare sufficiency to maintain the troops. Moreover, the duke has been constantly thwarted in his plans by the Spaniards, who are ready enough to make promises, but never take a single step towards their fulfilment. The duke's temper is of the shortest, and he has quarrelled openly with most of the leading Spaniards, and has threatened, four or five times, to throw up his command and return to France. He did do so a year ago, but affairs went so badly, without him, that the cause of France was seriously imperilled by his absence, and it was at the urgent request of Philip that he returned; for at that time the English general, Peterborough, was striking dismay all over the country, and if the duke's advice had not been taken, all our officers acknowledge that we should speedily have crossed the Pyrenees."

"And do the population incline towards Philip or the Austrian?"

"As a rule, they incline towards the party which seems likely to win. They would shout in Madrid as loudly for the Archduke Charles as for Philip. Catalonia and Valencia are the exceptions. There the balance of feeling is certainly in favour of the Austrian, but this is princ.i.p.ally because they are afraid of Peterborough, whom they regard as almost supernatural, and fear he would take vengeance upon those who deserted his cause. But there is no accounting for them; cities have held out as stoutly for one candidate as for the other, without any apparent reason, so far as we can observe.

"We fight for Philip because he is Louis's grandson, and it is important in the interest of France to stand closely allied with his party. But as for the Spaniards with us, I can tell you that we have but little trust in them."

"But some of them are good, are they not?"

"We do not consider any of them of much account. But then the Spaniards on the other side are no better. They seem to have lost all their military virtues, ever since their best troops were demolished at Rocroi by Conde. That and the destruction of their fleet by the English, and the drain of their resources both in men and money, entailed by the long war in Holland, altogether deprived the people of their martial spirit. The war is to some extent between the English and us, because, of the allies England, Holland, and Austria, neither the Austrians nor the Dutch take any great share in the struggle. The Dutch are wholly engrossed with the defence of their fens, the Austrians are fully occupied in Italy and on the Rhine frontier, and it is only the English, who, fortunately, are not very numerous, who are against us, for the Portuguese can scarcely be counted in the business, being, if anything, slower and more stupid than the Spaniards themselves.

"However, at present the prospect is good. Peterborough has gone.

Galway's army has been almost destroyed; though, to do them justice, the English regiments fought magnificently, and if they had been seconded by the Portuguese the result might have been altogether different."

"Then you found Spain much less rich than France?"

"There is no comparison," Captain Fromart said. "It ought to be fully as rich, but the plains lie almost uncultivated. The people seem wholly without energy, and the ruling cla.s.s are always intriguing, and seem to pay little attention to their estates. You see but few castles and chateaux, such as are dotted over France.

I do not say that, at the present moment, France can be considered a prosperous country in material matters. The expenses of the wars have been enormous, to say nothing of the Court. The people are ground down by taxation, and the misery in some parts of the country is extreme; but left to themselves the people will work, and work hard. Our soil will grow anything, and after twenty years of peace, France would altogether recover herself."

"And yet the alliance of Spain is considered as of vital importance to France!"

"Of great importance, certainly. Spain has still soldiers who can fight well, as they have proved in Italy; and were the levies at home equally well drilled and disciplined, they would no doubt turn out good soldiers. But these are, at present, almost undrilled. They desert in numbers and return to their homes, after the slightest reverse, and prefer to act as partisans under leaders of their own choosing. But with Philip once firmly seated on the throne, with French advisers and officers to a.s.sist him, and a few regiments to serve as a nucleus to his army, Spain could turn out a force which would be a very valuable addition to the strength of any European power. With Spain as our ally we can, in addition to the force that she can put in the field, neglect altogether our southern frontier, and employ our whole army elsewhere. With her as an ally of Austria or of England, we should have to keep an army in the south to guard our borders."

Two days after leaving Paris, the party arrived at Peronne, where a considerable body of troops were collected, of which, although an aide-de-camp, Desmond now learned for the first time the duke was to take the command. No movements of importance had taken place in the field, and as the force at Peronne still wanted several regiments, to bring it up to the intended strength, some weeks pa.s.sed before it was set in motion.

The four aides-de-camp, however, had a busy time of it. The main army was stationed in the neighbourhood of Lille, and frequent communications pa.s.sed between Berwick and Vendome.

The allies were inactive. Eugene had, early in April, met Marlborough at the Hague, and had concerted with him the plan for the campaign. He had then gone to Vienna to bring up reinforcements, and until these arrived Marlborough hardly felt in a position to take the offensive, as the French armies were considerably stronger than his own, and he had not yet been joined by the troops from Hanover.

Except to receive orders, the aides-de-camp saw little of their commander. He was absorbed in the difficult problems of the war, and was occasionally absent for two or three days at the camp of Vendome. He always spoke kindly to them when on duty, but at other times dispensed altogether with their attendance, and as a rule took his meals alone.

"You see him at his worst," d'Eyncourt said one day to his new comrades, "He is a different man when he is in the field. Then he is full of life and activity, looking into every detail himself, endeavouring to infuse some of his own energy into others, full of care for the comfort of his troops, though ready to endure any hards.h.i.+p himself. Then you see the real man; a n.o.ble character, idolized by the soldiers and loved by us all. You must not judge him, in the slightest degree, by what he now is. He has a great deal on his mind, and has, so it is whispered, no small trouble in keeping the peace between Vendome and Burgundy. The failure, too, of the expedition to Scotland must have greatly disappointed him, and I have no doubt he expected to be put at the head of any French army sent over to place James upon the throne. However, he may congratulate himself now that he was not with it, for no honour and no gain has been earned by any concerned in it."

"That certainly is so," Desmond agreed. "It was a mismanaged affair altogether. To begin with, twenty thousand men should have been sent instead of six thousand; and in the next place, the fleet should have a.s.sembled at Brest or Bordeaux, for in that case, although the news of its a.s.sembling would a.s.suredly have reached England, it would not have been known whether it was intended that the landing should be made in Ireland, Scotland, or on the English coast, while by gathering at Dunkirk no doubt was left as to the destination. This was proved by the fact that, when the English fleet watching the port was driven off by a gale, and an opportunity was thus given for a start, instead of coming back again, as we had hoped, only to find that we had left, it sailed straight for the north, making absolutely certain that we were bound for Edinburgh."

"Well, we must hope," O'Sullivan said, "that next time the force will, as you say, be fully twenty thousand men, will include the Irish Brigade, will be led by Berwick, and will land in Ireland."

At this moment an orderly entered.

"The duke requires your attendance, Lieutenant Kennedy."

Desmond at once went to the duke's apartments.

"You will start at once for Lille, Mr. Kennedy, and will report yourself to Marshal Vendome. I have arranged with him that one of my aides-de-camp shall accompany the force that is about to advance, and shall keep me informed of what is being done. I have selected you because I know you to be active and shrewd. The marshal is too much occupied to send me such full reports as I should wish, and I look to you not only to give me facts, but to convey to me your impressions of what you see pa.s.sing around you.