HOW OUR OLD SCOTTISH BLADES POMMELED THE IMPERIALISTS.
As we had secured, sunk, or destroyed, all the boats and other craft
on the Elbe, the Imperialists had no other means of crossing but
passing, at push of pike, the long stone bridge which spanned the
river by its strong and stately arches; and as the whole line of it,
and the approaches thereto, were liable to be raked by the cannon and
musketry of the sconce, they made immediate preparations to gain the
latter by assault.
There were not less than ten thousand men approaching to force this
passage, which our five hundred Highlanders were left to defend.
They were led by the great Count of Carlstein, whose name was only
less familiar to us than that of Count Tilly. He was said to be a
distinguished soldier of fortune, on whom the ambitious but generous
Emperor had freely bestowed (that which did not belong to him) a
Bohemian coronet, together with a free gift of that magnificent
Castle of Carlstein, built by Charles IV., eight miles from Prague,
and where the regalia of the conquered palatinate were kept.
At length, then, we saw them, and were invested and surrounded by
those haughty, proud, and ferocious soldiers of the Empire, to whom
battle was a pastime, and human blood as water; the terror of the
Protestants and scourge of Bohemia; those sons of rapine and outrage,
steeped to the lips in the darkest crimes, yet flushed by the memory
of a hundred victories. Numerous though they were, our little band
of kilted clansmen stood to their arms undauntedly, feeling an honest
confidence in their own valour, with a hatred of their enemies; for
in the name of religion, with the cross of God on their standards and
on their breasts, those Imperialists, wherever they had been
victorious, at Fleura, at Bergen-op-Zoom, and after every field from
Prague to that of Lütter, had committed such atrocities as would have
made even the heart of a Nero recoil.
Full orbed, and round as the shield of Fingal, the unclouded moon
rose brightly above the Elbe; its glassy waters rolled in light, and
the woods and thickets which fringed the southern bank, together with
the old fantastic houses of Boitzenbnrg on the north, were all bathed
in that silver sheen, which in brightness contrasted so strongly with
the deep black shadows.
Under the central arch of the bridge three red lights were reflected
in the current of the river. These were the lanterns of our miners,
who, under the direction of the Laird of Balcomie, were sinking a
chamber in one of the piers, and charging it with powder. So bright
was the lustre of the July moon that we could discern every movement
of the enemy as clearly as if it were noonday.
A regiment of musketeers, clad in white buff coats and steel caps,
and having two large banners with the Austrian Eagle and Burgundian
Cross, poured along the road, and, under a discharge of their cannon
(which took possession of an eminence about five hundred yards
distant), advanced to storm and destroy the palisades which protected
the outer side of our wet-graff; two other regiments endeavoured to
outflank the redoubt, and force, by the river side, a passage to the
_tête-du-pont_, but a heavy fire met them at every angle; their
cannon-shot began to knock splinters of stone and clouds of earth
about us, or crashed into our parapets, and now began in earnest the
whole uproar of war, which now I heard for the first time.
Our company of M'Farquhars had to defend that face of the sconce
which swept the roadway; and over our earthen parapets we poured a
close and deadly fire, to which the Imperialists replied with equal
rapidity, but not with equal effect; for while our men levelled over
a rampart, which protected them breast high, the assailants were
wholly exposed, and levelled their long matchlock-muskets over iron
forks; but the front rank came on with arms slung, and using only
hatchets attacked the palisades, hewing them down frantically in
their efforts to force a passage to the ditch.
"Shoulder to shoulder, my men! fire close, and fire low!" cried Ian,
whose eyes flashed brighter as the conflict increased; and though it
was his first, he was as cool as old Dunbar, who had served with the
Scottish bands under Hepburn in Bohemia. His example strung my
heart, and recalled my somewhat scattered energies, which had become
a little confused; for every instant a heavy cannon-shot boomed over
our heads, to crash among the roofs of the town, or with a dull heavy
sound, sank deep into the turf breastwork of the sconce; while the
hiss of the musket-balls, which flew past us like a leaden storm, was
ceaseless as the splash of rain upon the casement. The whole fort
was enveloped in smoke, for as our mousquetade mingled with theirs,
we could no longer see the enemy; but we heard the crash of the axes
among the falling palisades, the cries of the wounded, and the yells
of the fierce and eager; their incessant war-cry of "Sancta Maria!
Sancta Maria!" and the din of their drums beating the charge; but
into the dark and opaque cloud, from the bosom of which all these
dire sounds proceeded, our brave clansmen shot fast and sure, at the
practised level; and Balcomie's lieutenant, a brave old soldier,
David Martin of that Ilk, inspired his pikemen to handle our brass
culverins in such wise, that every bullet must have made a frightful
lane through the dense column of attack.
A triumphant shout--the true wild _scraigh_ of the Scottish
Highlandmen--mingled with the shrill notes of the pibroch ringing
from the four angles of our fort, announced that, baffled in their
efforts to reach the bridge, the Imperialists had fallen back, and we
redoubled our efforts.
Many of our finest men lay dead or bleeding profusely around us. Ian
and I took the muskets of two, turned over their bodies, and emptying
their cases of bandoliers, fell into the front rank, and fired like
private men; but in silence, for our gallant Highlanders required
neither voice nor action to urge them to the performance of their
duty as soldiers; for they were all stanch men and true, of that old
race which, as our bards say, sprang from the soil, and which in
other years had tamed "the eagles of the kings of the world."
The assailants were now so close to us that the musket-balls pierced
breastplates and buff coats like silken vests; and as many of our
poor fellows who were unable to crawl away, bled to death just where
they fell, the planks of the platforms soon became plastered with a
horrid and slippery mire of blood and earth, for every moment the
cannon-balls of the Austrians tore the latter from the faces of the
embrasures, and cast it in showers about us. There were some
frightful wounds received by our comrades that night.
Ronald Gorm, a sergeant of pikes (in other times a rich
gentleman-drover from the braes of Lochaber), had his face shot away
by a ball from a basilisk; another had his lower-jaw torn off by the
ball of a falconet; and a piper, Red Fergus of the Clan Vurich, was
shot through the nose and eyes, but lived for three days in
blindness, and such agony that it would have been a mercy under God
to have pistoled him outright.
This was my first bout with an enemy, and that these horrors
impressed me I am not ashamed to own. More than once my heart shrank
within me on seeing a strong and stately fellow doubled up like a
tartan plaid, and hurled out of the ranks, with a cannon-ball fairly
through his body. The cries of the wounded were piteous, but there
was no time to heed them; though every instant we had to drag away
the fallen men, whose bodies encumbered the wheels of the cannon and
parapets, through the embrasures of which we suffered severely from
the fire of the assailants.
At last, seeing probably the futility of attempting to storm a work
so resolutely defended, until he had prepared means to effect the
passage of the ditch which encircled it, and which was both deep and
broad, the baffled Count of Carlstein, about midnight, and just when
the moon was waning, made his trumpets sound a retreat. The fire of
the artillery ceased on the eminence; the infantry retired under
cover of some rising grounds beyond it, where they bivouacked,
lighted their fires, and set about cooking, acting true to the
soldier's proverb--"The dead to their graves, and the quick to their
suppers;" the smoke cleared away, and we saw the shattered stockades;
the Reinsdorf road heaped with bodies piled over each other, swords,
pikes, drums, helmets and muskets; and by the light of the sinking
moon, we could see the miserable maimed, crawling on their hands and
knees towards the Elbe, seeking water to quench that fiery thirst,
which the exhaustion of the assault and the agony of their wounds
made more poignant.
I was gazing dreamily at this sudden change in the prospect from the
redoubt, and still seeming to hear the united roar of the attack in
my ears, when the loud clear voice of Dunbar aroused me.
"Piper--blow the gathering! M'Farquhar, Kildon, brave gentlemen,
muster your companies, call the roll, and number the dead!"