The First of the English 15 – Gunter · Verses Across
Literature · Romance
The First of the English 15Book 2 · The Battle on Skates
18
Literature · Romance
The First of the English 15
Book 2 · The Battle on Skates
GunterEnglish
Oliver comes down excitedly from the masthead and whispers: “I can see the spire of the great church at Haarlem. We’re only twenty miles away from—the woman I love—hurry.”
“If the ice holds,” mutters Guy, “we’ll get to the next world before Haarlem. We can only stay here and die on our vessels. The Spaniards will come over the ice to attack us. We shall be overwhelmed by numbers.”
“We must have counsel with our brother Gueux,” says ’t Hoen. “Come with me. You can skate, First of the English?”
“Very well,” answers Guy. “Will the ice hold?”
“Yes, infantry now, by night accursed Spanish cannon.”
So buckling on sharp iron Friesland skates, the two fly over the smooth frozen Zuyder Zee, and in a few seconds are at the vessels of the Gueux. Here holding quick consultation, the captains decide to fight it out to the death together, no matter what force is brought against them; surrender would be suicide.
A few minutes more and they make up their minds just how to do this fighting, and electing Guy commander-in-chief, he takes action very quickly. In five minutes not only the crew of the Dover Lass are on the ice, but the crews of the other Gueux vessels, amounting in all to about five hundred men, and are working for their lives with ice picks, crowbars, ice saws and any and every implement they can use, cutting a passage around the three Gueux vessels and a water lane from the Dover Lass to bring her up to them.
By almost superhuman exertions, in something like three hours they have not only got the Dover Lass in company with the other Gueux vessels, but have cut out the ice immediately surrounding them, making the vessels float as in a little inland lake, though surrounded by an impenetrable floe.
Next getting the four vessels in the form of a parallelogram, they lash them stem and stern all round—making the broadside of each ship one side of a floating citadel. Then putting out grappling irons and small anchors set in the ice, to which are attached cables they moor their ships strongly to prevent drifting against the ice and giving chance for boarding.
“Pardieu!” exclaims Oliver. “This is a new idea. They can’t get at us.”
“Not a man of them can board our ships if our cables hold so as to prevent drift and we can keep the ice broken,” answers Guy.
At this work they all set themselves, toiling watch and watch and finding it tremendous labor, for the cold still continues, and the ice grows thicker and more resisting.
So they are all happy when the lookout from his chilly post at the masthead cries: “They’re coming!” and gazing over the frozen field they see some fifteen hundred picked Spanish and Walloon infantry tramping their slippery path to give them death.
This seems an easy task to the attacking party—vessels imprisoned in the ice—they look for a cool, comfortable butchery of their crews. And they come on in that confident manner with which Spanish infantry always met the Dutch, until after ten years of hard fighting the Hollanders had made themselves as good troops on land as any infantry in Europe.
But on the sea the Dutch are at home; so with their guns—demi-culverins, falcons and falconettes—loaded to their nozzles with arquebus bullets and nails and scraps of iron; with pikes and battle axes ready to hand, they look quite confidently and eagerly from their wooden citadel floating upon this ice-bound lake.
This moat of ice cold water will give Alva’s veterans more difficulty in escalade than the deepest fosse of any walled town they have stormed within the Netherlands. But not guessing what is before them, and the weather being bracing, the Spanish arquebusiers come on with a cheer, their commander apparently giving order for quick time.
“Thank God, these fellows are not going to keep us waiting long,” laughs Guy, beating his mailed hands together, “a steel bodice and metal hose are not over comfortable this December weather.”
This is Sir Guy Chester’s first fight since he has been dubbed Knight, and he is in full panoply, helmet, plumes and visor, breast-plate and back piece, even to golden spurs, the badge of his order. This ice slippery deck is not as convenient for displaying his Italian armor as the back of dashing war-horse on a tented field, but the age of chivalry has not quite passed away—knighthood still means military nobility—the gilded spurs still indicate blue blood and ‘daring do’—what youth could resist wearing its insignia—not Guy Chester. His crew cheer his gallant appearance, knowing well that underneath his Milan mail is a leader they can trust and follow.
“Oho!” screams Oliver, with sudden mercurial laugh. “See! The Spanish dogs are tumbling over each other. This will be a slippery affair.”
“Yes, and a bloody one—for them,” mutters Dawson savagely, sword in hand.
And it is!
The little fleet, not firing a gun, let their opponents come close to them. But as the Spanish infantry charge their front rank suddenly discovers that it is fighting in water instead of on the ice. Every man of them has to drop his arms to swim for his life, which is rather freezing work this December day.
“We’ll warm them up,” cries Guy, as the guns of the Dover Lass’s starboard battery open on the mass of struggling, drowning men. So also the Dutch ships.
But Alva’s Spanish infantry on land or sea are not to be defeated in a moment. The officer in command deploys a number of his men as skirmishers, and they, with their arquebuses, open on the ships. Soon balls are whistling over the bulwarks and through the rigging of the Dover Lass in stinging volleys, as well as scattering shots.
Others of the Spaniards crawling upon the ice try to get at the cables holding the vessels to cut them from their moorings, so they will drift to one side or the other of the lake and become accessible to escalade and boarding. Then Guy, going forward to the forecastle to direct his men to use their arquebuses defending their cables from attack, finds it is well that he is in knightly armor. Were it not for his steel breastplate some Spanish sharpshooters had done for him. Two bullets flatten against his armor and one sweeps the plume from his helmet.
But the cables are kept taut, and those who venture against them in this desperate service are all shot down and the broadside of the Dover Lass still thunders, scourging the ice with bullets.
All does not go so well upon the other side of the floating fortress; by great exertions and much loss of men the Spaniards at last succeed in cutting one Gueux cable; unable to withstand the additional strain another anchor pulls out of the ice, and the wooden citadel drifts against the solid floe.
Now is the Spaniards chance; in a moment they have their boarding ladders planted against the ship whose deck the Dover Lass’s bow overlooks, for she is a smaller craft.
As the Spaniards swarm up the ladders to fight their way upon the Dutchman’s deck—Guy calls his boarders and they spring to the assistance of their assaulted comrades—the other Gueux vessels sending detachments also to the deck of this vessel, which now becomes the focus of the fight.
Once by very force of numbers the Spaniards gain the quarter-deck of the Dutch ship, and shouting with triumph, think the day is theirs; but the murdering-pieces on the vessel’s own forecastle and two from the bow of the Dover Lass drown this cry with their reports as they cut lanes in the cheering mass. Then with a rush from the other vessels—the deck is regained, but only partially—as Alva’s veterans fight as if they were never to be beaten—their leader bearing a charmed life.
Twice he and Guy have crossed swords, but have been swept away from each other by the surging tide of battle—which is again turning to numbers, and the Spaniards. The cannon of the boarded ship are now of little use, and the guns of the other vessels will not bear upon this side of the fight—the day is looking badly for the Beggars of the Sea.
But as Guy fights he thinks, and suddenly returning to his own ship, cries out: “Load up two demi-culverins with solid shot and get them on our forecastle.”
This being done by Corker and some men, Chester directs these cannon not at the Spaniards, but at the ice upon which the Spanish boarding ladders rest.
The first discharge puts fifty men and their ladders in the water. “We’ll drown them quicker than we’ll kill them!” yell the English sailors—and a few more rounds settle the affair—the ice is destroyed under the very feet of the Spaniards, and floundering in the water’s chilling grasp, a hundred veterans sink.
The others give back. This icy citadel is too hard a nut for them to crack.
Looking on the matter as a bad job that he can only make worse by continuing, the Spanish commander, apparently unwounded, gives the order to retire, and his veterans drawing off slowly and taking their slightly wounded with them, turn their faces toward Amsterdam.
Noting in their slippery path many of his enemies fall even as they trudge along the ice, ’t Hoen, who is laughing at them, suddenly shouts: “We mustn’t let a man of them escape. After them, on skates! After them on skates!” he cries to the Dutch captains of the other vessels.
This idea seeming to strike the Hollanders to a man, the English who are capable of executing manœuvers on the ice join with them, and in less than five minutes Guy puts on the glassy field by his boats a party of seventy-five from the Dover Lass, each man armed with arquebus and sword or pike and battle axe, and each with Friesland skates upon his feet.
Even Oliver, who can hardly keep his head off the ice, accompanies them. The Dutch captains bring yet larger parties, all their men being proficient in this national pastime of Holland.
The Spaniards, totally unexpecting pursuit, are making their way slowly to the city, not even looking back, for the sight behind them of dead men drowned or butchered, and wounded comrades who are crawling, slipping and freezing on the ice, is not pleasant.
“These maimed cannot escape us,” cries Maarten Merens, one of the Dutch captains, “we’ll finish the wounded at our leisure. On for those who are not hurt,” and the Gueux speed on like swallows in their flight.
So it comes to pass that the Spanish commander hears behind him suddenly a whirring sound as the irons cut the ice, and looking backward, skimming like birds, come four hundred Dutch and English, not half the number he is bringing back.
Turning his men he would form them to receive attack, but they are not quick enough. The rapid skates bear the Dutch and English upon them like charge of cavalry, the slippery ice impedes them, and in a minute the Spanish formation is dashed to pieces, the ice becoming the scene of hundreds of individual combats, the Hollanders and the English having the best of it, attacking whom they like, retreating when they please.
It is a funny affair, though blood flows like water, and men die shaking with merriment—the guffaws mingling with death shrieks. Guy himself, as he cuts down a man, laughs at the fellow’s headless corpse turning a somersault upon the slippery ice. One Spaniard running, pursued by a Dutch skater, throws himself desperately upon the ice, and the Dutchman goes headlong over him, but being quick with his feet, gives his antagonist a lucky jab in the eye with his sharp Friesland skate, and the Spaniard is dead before the Dutchman recovers his feet.
After the first rush, Guy’s eye is on the leader of the Spanish troops, and the leader of the Spanish troops has his eye on him.
Till now the Castilian has fought very silently and very deadly; though not accustomed to the ice, his skill at fence is so great that two or three Dutchmen have gone down before him wounded, and one English sailor will never see his mother again, by force of his Toledo blade.
The Spaniard now cries: “Come on, I know you. You are the First of the English. Come on, and though you have wings, I’ll clip them!”
This kind of a challenge is not to be ignored by English knight. It is a kind that prevailed in the days of chivalry, not quite faded out of England, and Chester accepts it.
Then the two come together, the Englishman’s heavy sword giving play against the more subtle and delicate point of the Toledo, and were not Guy armored in steel this day would be the last of him.
The Spaniard has a wrist of steel and his sword’s play is of the finest Italian school; but Guy makes his heels save his head. This angers the Spaniard, and he grinds his teeth—while Chester deftly “grinds the bar,” a skater’s trick that enables him to circle round the Castilian, giving him two cuts that even his skill of fence can hardly parry.
The next shoot round his enemy Guy gets his blade on his man, wounding him slightly. But carried forward in making a cut, one of Sir Guy Chester’s knightly spurs catches in his skates and he were lost did he not by quick action drop sitting down on both skates and glide from his antagonist.
He is half a hundred yards away before he turns to find himself face to face with poor little Ensign de Busaco, who is having a hard time of it, being slightly wounded; his heavy Jack boots impeding his progress on the ice.
Chester is just in time to recognize the little Spanish ensign and save his life, as two or three Beggars of the Sea are almost upon him, and in another minute De Busaco would sleep with his fathers.
The instinct of comradeship born in Antwerp is in Guy’s heart, and his right arm knocks up two pikes that lunge at the little ensign, he crying to him: “Surrender to me; surrender to me, fool!” For the little Spaniard, with drawn sword, is striving to do his best for himself.
But just at this moment, taking lounge en tierce, the poor little fellow’s legs fly under him and his head goes down with a tremendous crack upon the ice that would stun him were it not for his steel head-piece.
“He’s mine!” says Guy, beating back the swords; “He is my prisoner. Surrender, you idiot Busaco!”
“I yield,” says De Busaco, sullenly. Then he suddenly smiles and cries: “Mon Dieu! Captain Guido Amati! Yes, I surrender to you. What ransom shall I pay to save my life? You’re not going to kill me, are you?”
“No, Busaco, you are safe. Twice you saved my life, and didn’t know it. Now I save yours.”
“Yes,” says the other; “that was curious, wasn’t it? Captain Guido Amati! From the flag flying at your masthead you are now called the First of the English?”
It is a foolish speech and nearly costs him dear, for the Englishman knows that this recognition, if reported at Spanish headquarters, means no more chance of Guido Amati’s interviews with Alva’s daughter. He says: “Yes, the First of the English, but no ransom from you.”
“No ransom,” mutters De Busaco, “I suppose you are going to kill me because I know your secret?”
“No! Swear to me by everything upon this earth you will never recognize me as the First of the English, were I to stand in Alva’s own hall before you. There’s five thousand crowns upon my head; but swear you’ll never know me as First of the English, only as Guido Amati.”
“I swear it by this cross my mother gave me,” says the little Ensign, putting crucifix to his lips. Then he laughs and adds: “The oath wasn’t necessary. I had known this before.”
“When—how long!”
“Ever since three weeks ago I met the real Colonel Guido Amati. You’ve been promoted, you know.”
“And you never mentioned this, even to Amati himself?”
“No—to no living soul!”
“Why not?”
“Santos! it involved the secret of a lady.”
“God bless you,” says Guy, hugging his prisoner to his heart. “It did, perchance, involve the good name, but not the honor, of a lady.”
“Oh, every one knows that Doña de Alva is a saint. Funny, she should love you. Curious—”
But they have no time to discuss it further. Chester seizes the young man by the hand, drags him over the ice, and to ensure his safety goes with him almost to Amsterdam. In this, Guy almost endangers his own life, for Spanish troops come out to meet them; so he leaves his charge with a squeeze of the hand and a “God bless you. Remember!”
“Don’t doubt me. I’ve seen her look at you. I know she loves you, and no one would injure her heart—but look out, my men are coming!” cries De Busaco.
Turning back on his skates Chester makes for his ship, near which he finds Antony and two or three others bending over the body of the Spanish officer Guy had left so suddenly.
“They killed him after you went on,” remarks Oliver. “I have kept them away from his body because of you. He was a very gallant gentleman.”
“Because of me?” cries Guy. “Do you think I will gloat over a fallen hero. Still if accident had not come to me I should have finished him myself, I think, though he had a rare sword’s play in his arm.”
“That would have been horrible,” says the painter.
“Why?”
“You would have committed suicide.”
“Suicide! What do you mean?”
“I mean that there will be weeping soon from eyes you love, when your death is reported to her.”
“Buffoon! What do you mean?”
“I mean that this is Colonel Guido Amati, the man Hermoine de Alva thinks you are!”
“Good heavens!” says Chester, bending over the dead man.
“I’ve searched his person and taken his valuables; not for myself, but for transmission to his family,” adds the painter; “but this letter concerns you.”
Hastily looking at the document by the light of the Northern sun that is sinking in the west, Chester gives a sudden start. It is in the handwriting he knows and loves, and has seen so little of, but does not forget, and reads:
“God bless you, gallant one; you have become a Colonel. That promotion was quick, wasn’t it? That was my doing. A word of advice to you, my hero. Capture or slay the First of the English, and you are sure to be a general; that will bring you to the church door, where Hermoine awaits you.”
“Good God! This is horrible,” mutters Guy. “Sent by the woman I love to kill me. And now she will weep for him.”
“Yes, and the more she weeps for him the dearer she loves you. You’re not dead yet. Oh, wonderful transformation scene. Fancy Hermoine’s eyes when she sees the dead alive. Oh God! if I could look upon the eyes of my love who is over there,” Oliver points toward Haarlem. “Guy, help me to save her.”
A moment after Antony suddenly cries: “Mon Dieu! what’s the matter with you?” for the Englishman is leaning heavily on him, and is muttering: “A—a bullet must have got through my breast-plate!”
Tearing off the steel the painter finds it has, though the wound is not a deep one.
Continued loss of blood through all his violent exertions makes him faint and weak, and Chester is carried upon his ship.
The Dutch captains yet look very solemn; if this cold continues, the ice will still enclose their vessels and they must be attacked by the great army at Amsterdam, who will never forgive them now they have slain four hundred of the best Spanish troops.
“It will take miracles to save us now!” remarks ’t Hoen. “The tide must rise—the wind must come—the ice must melt all at one time. It has happened, but no man has ever seen it, so I suppose old Jan Veeder, our dominé, would call it a miracle—Jan Veeder, who will preach my funeral sermon next week!”
But that very night the providence of God that sent the cold, gives them one chance of escape, the last of that winter, for the miracle does happen. The strong wind and high tide and mild thawing weather come together and the tide is high enough for them to pass over the Pampus. The wind blows the sea about smashing the rotten ice and bellies out their sails as the four ships, setting every rag they can carry, beat their way to the north, and the next morning are safe in their harbor of Enkhuyzen.
But Chester knows very little about this. He is raving with the fever of his wound.
