THE KIRK-BELL OF GOMETRA--THE SORTIE.
The siege continued for several months, with various successes and
repulses--with advances on one hand, and sorties on the other. The
slaughter was great in the city, but greater in the trenches, where
the dead lay in thousands, buried in shallow holes, and where the
wild-dogs scraped away the earth by night, and the decaying masses
tainted the humid summer air. From the walls we could easily
distinguish where those hideous catacombs lay, and where the bodies,
half decayed, were sweltering among the reeds and slime of the
Frankenlake; for by day a dark cloud of flies swarmed over them, and
by night the malaria that overhung the spot assumed an almost
luminous tint. There, too, came the birds of prey; and there they
remained hovering and gorging, until a musket-shot at daybreak put
all to flight, save those whom the malaria, and their hideous repast,
had rendered somewhat indisposed to fly.
Death had thinned the number of the citizens, whose aspect of misery
increased daily; for the loss of friends, the loss of business, the
destruction of their dwellings and property, the scarcity of money
and of provisions, the prices of which were enormous, as all that our
Fourriers could collect were seized and retained for the use of the
troops; the aspect of each deserted holfe and bourse, where the
merchants were wont to meet daily for the transaction of their
lucrative and peaceful business--where vast sums once passed from
pocket to pocket, and mighty deeds of transfer were executed--was
also sorely changed. Torn down by the passing shot, columns,
arcades, and balconies were strewn in fragments among the grass and
moss that grew between the stones: here the trees, that whilome had
shaded a pleasant boulevarde, had been cut down to form an abattis;
there the pavement had been torn up to face a bastion, and vast gaps
had been beaten in the solid walls.
The scarcity of food increased, until the soldiers, at last, were
brought as low as the citizens, and we had little else to subsist on
than a few handfuls of Hamburg meal per man. This we boiled into
porridge and ate with a little butter, for we were destitute of milk;
every cow, sheep, and goat having been shot and eaten, even to the
hides and entrails, long ago. Succour and provision from Rügen and
the sea had now been cut off by various gunboats and armed crayers
sent by Wallenstein into the Sound, from whence a storm had blown the
dismantled Danish fleet. Thus we had nothing before us but
starvation or death; and Sir Donald frequently urged that we should
all sally forth, sword in hand, and cut a passage to some seaport on
the Saxon shore. But the stout Laird of Balgonie vowed that he would
never thus desert a city entrusted to his care by the princes of the
north; and that to leave the Stralsunders to their fate would be
alike unworthy of ourselves and of the ancient military fame of the
Scottish people.
This argument was conclusive, and we all resolved to make our graves
on the shore of Pomerania, if Gustavus Adolphus could not march to
our assistance. Of that we saw not the least probability, for at
that time he had his hands full of work in Poland, where, with thirty
thousand men (ten thousand of whom were Scottish infantry), he was
besieging Dantzig, storming Newbürg, Strazbürg, Dribentz, Sweitz, and
Massovia. As for the unfortunate King of Denmark, who was then
hovering near Count Tilly, off the Holstein shore, we never expected
the least relief from him. Pay we had none, and very little
provisions, but we had plenty of powder and shot of every
description. The garrison was now reduced to four thousand Scots,
and one thousand Germans, Danes, and Frenchmen, all worn by incessant
toil, and scarcity of food, for they had a strong city to defend
against a hundred thousand men, in whose rear lay all the vast
resources of Germany and Flanders; for Wallenstein could command
every thing between the Baltic and the gates of Vienna.
Pressing on their works, his pioneers laid down their sap rollers,
and dug trenches in new places, facing them internally with gabions
and fascines, over which they flung the loose earth, and thus got
rapidly under cover. Some of these pioneers were so bold in one
place as to push their sap rollers to the foot of the outer glacis.
My daily visits to Ernestine threw a bright gleam of happiness
athwart the murky cloud of war and desolation that surrounded us; and
when seated by her side, in her pretty little boudoir, I forgot the
miseries endured by us at the Frankendör, the desolation of the city,
the desperate state--the starvation and death--to which we were
hurrying, and which I strove to conceal from her for a time, but in
vain.
Once, when I led her to the Frankendör during a brief cessation of
hostilities, that she might see the white tents of her father's
brigade, the wan visage, the anxious eyes, the tattered attire and
fallen paunch of more than one once rotund and jovial city
councillor, attracted her attention, and displayed, in language too
powerful to be misunderstood, the undeserved miseries endured by the
honest and industrious people of Stralsund.
Scottish porridge is certainly very good in its way; but as the best
of food will pall the appetite by repetition, we soon tired of having
nothing but porridge for breakfast, porridge for dinner, and porridge
for supper. The tables of the Field-marshal commanding, of the
burgomaster, and all the great men of the city, were limited to the
same poor fare; and in some instances the aged, the sickly, and the
mendicant, who were unable to raise the enormous sum for which an
ounce of meal or of salted fish were sold in the market-place, were
found dead in their litters of straw, or at the threshold of their
doors, and reduced to mere skeletons.
War hardens the human heart, and love makes it selfish. I cared
little for what happened to the poor citizens, provided Ernestine
knew nothing of what they endured; but though Ian, Phadrig Mhor, and
myself, parted with every thing we could spare--selling even our
buckles, silver buttons, &c., to a Jew in the Platz, to procure the
necessaries of life for her--even these began to fail, and in common
with the rest I became desperate. About this time Sir Alexander
Leslie obtained intelligence--how, I know not--that a train of
waggons, laden with provisions for the Imperialists, were coming
towards Stralsund from Greifswalde, a fortified town of Prussian
Pomerania, situated about fifteen miles distant, at the confluence of
the Reik with the Baltic. Of those waggons he determined to possess
himself, and on that night (the first of September) ordered Sir
Donald Mackay with our regiment of Strathnaver, the Lord Spynie with
his Lowland musketeers, and Sir Ludovick Leslie with his old Scots
regiment, to march at dusk; and (while he, in person, was diverting
the enemy's attention by scouring their trenches) endeavour to fall
upon the post of the quartermaster-general, to seize some of the
laden waggons, and at all hazards bring them into Stralsund.
Of this intended outfall I did not inform Ernestine, for if I
returned safe, all would be well, and she would thus escape a few
hours of unnecessary alarm and grief; if I was slain, poor girl! she
would hear of it soon enough, for evil tidings always fly faster than
good.
We paraded in the market-place without our colours, and silently the
priming and loading was proceeded with. Fortunately the night was
gloomy, though the wind was still, and a dense vapour that came
heavily up from the sea, spread over the land and effectually
concealed us, as in three dense columns we issued from a gate of the
town, and marching between the Greifswalde road and the margin of the
Sound, on the left flank of the city, softly approached the
unconscious enemy. In this sortie there occurred an incident which I
cannot help relating, even at the risk of being considered
superstitious.
"Ochone!" said Phadrig Mhor, as he shouldered his Lochaber axe,
"there is many a pretty man marching out just now, that will never
come in again."
"Most probably, Phadrig," said I; "but why croak in this solemn tone?"
"I could name two," said he, sinking his voice into a low and
impressive whisper.
"_Two--?_"
"Ay, two, who will never march more--God bless and sain them both!"
"In the devil's name, what do you mean, Sergeant Mhor?"
"That to-night the kirk-bell of Gometra will toll."
"Well--and who will toll it?"
"How can I say, Captain Rollo--the fiend, perhaps; but this, I know,
that it is no mortal hand that stirs its iron tongue. It tolls
_whenever a M'Alpine dies_, and this night Red Angus will fall."
"Hush, Phadrig!" said I, impressed by his Highland solemnity of
manner, "at such a time as this do not think of such things."
"I cannot help it. Last night I lay on guard at the Frankendör. My
head was rolled in my plaid, and the cold earth was my bed, but I
slept as sound as if my resting-place had been on the soft heather of
Cairneilar or my dear mother's hut in Strathdee, and I had a dream
between the passing night and the grey morning. I saw M'Alpine and
M'Coll, even as you may see them now, each marching at the head of
his company, like a stately Highland gentleman; but high upon the
breast of each there was--a shroud--to mark that death was near. The
hands of Mary and her Son be over them, for they are both gallant
men! Red Angus is strong as Cuchullin, and M'Coll is unerring as
Conloch; but if they escape the black work of to-night, I will never
trust more in dreams, though my father was a Taischatr, and the
Taisch runs in the blood."
"Hush--hush!" said Sir Donald; "silence in the ranks."
"The soldiers of the quartermaster-general are Spaniards," said
M'Alpine, in a whisper; "who commands them?"
"Hector M'Lean, a gentleman of Mull."
"M'Lean of Lochdon?" asked Angus, becoming pale.
"The same," replied the colonel; "a desperate and determined fellow."
Angus sighed through his clenched teeth; his hazel eyes filled with
fire, and with a darkened brow he strode on at the head of his
company.
"'Tis M'Lean who robbed him of his wife," said the sergeant, giving
my plaid a twitch. "If they meet, there will be bloody work; and, as
I have said, before morning the bell of Gometra _will toll_."
The night was dark, and a vapour from the sea rolled over the level
land, concealing our movements. We passed the right flank of the
enemy, by keeping so far out upon the shore that we marched mid-leg
deep in the sea, where we were completely shrouded by the mist and
gloom. All was still even in the Imperial camp, which lay partly on
our right, and partly in our rear; lights twinkled at times among the
tents and trenches, and the faint sound of voices in argument or
merriment, or the scrap of some hoarse German drinking ditty, stole
upon the night; but, unheard and unseen, we reached the Greifswalde
road, and, according to the orders of Marshal Leslie, drew up in
close columns under shelter of a thick wood, which grew on each side
of the pathway. There we were to remain _en perdue_ for three hours,
after which we were to return to the city by the seashore; but, if we
were discovered, or if the foe extended his flank towards the water,
we ran the eminent risk of being cut off to a man. Even if we were
successful--that is, if we captured the whole train of waggons, and
succeeded in conveying them towards Stralsund, by breaking through
the Austrians from their rear, it appeared to me that we would be
swallowed up like Pharaoh's host, if not by waves of the sea, at
least by the masses of men who were certain to close in upon us; but
I knew not that, at the sound of the first shot, old Leslie was to
sally forth at the head of his own regiment of Fife and Angus men, to
scour the trenches of the enemy's left, and cause a complete
diversion and confusion.
All occurred just as we would have wished. After two weary and
anxious hours spent in the wood, listening to every passing sound,
the cracking of whips, the creaking of wheels, and the heavy rolling
sound of the laden wains, that groaned under their load of food (the
very idea of which spread a glow from our hungry stomachs to our
hearts), were heard approaching by the hard and dusty road from
Greifswalde. At times we heard the drivers and the Croatian cavalry,
which formed their escort, singing a wild chorus, that was swept past
us upon occasional puffs of wind.
All our field-officers were on foot; each captain was at the head of
his company; the pikemen were flanked by musketeers; the priming was
looked to, and the matches were blown. By Sir Donald's orders, the
regiments of Ludovick Leslie and the Lord Spynie drew up in line,
flanked outwards, on each side of the road, but still under cover of
the trees, and every man of them lay flat on the grass, with his
weapon beside him. Our regiment (being then about a thousand strong)
he divided into two wings. In person he led the right, and posted it
across the roadway in front of the waggons, barring all passage. Ian
led the left, with orders to "wheel, right shoulders forward, to
close upon their rear, and cut the escort to pieces without a
moment's hesitation, lest by their sharp sabres they might hamstring
the horses, or sever the traces by which they drew the waggons."
These dispositions had scarcely been made when they were amidst us,
and between our double lines--twenty waggons laden with bags of
flour, and barrels of butter, beer, and brandy, each drawn by two
horses, and escorted by two regiments of Croats and Pandoors, wearing
short doublets of fur and chain-shirts, long white breeches, and
triple-barred helmets, and armed with short crooked swords, iron
maces, and long rifled muskets slung across their bodies.
"Ready--present--fire!" cried Sir Donald.
From the muzzles of eighteen hundred muskets the streaks of fire
flashed upon the gloom of that darkened hollow, and struck the escort
with terror and confusion, piling horses and men over each other in
heaps. Then charging them headlong in the smoke, we closed in from
four points with clubbed muskets, with levelled pike, with claymore,
and Lochaber-axe; for we knew there was not a moment to be lost, as
that volley would rouse all Wallenstein's mighty camp, like one vast
hornet's nest upon us.
Taken at such disadvantage the Croats and Pandoors were soon routed,
but not without a desperate struggle; for disdaining, or unable to
use their long muskets, they attacked us with their cimetars. Their
well-trained horses, light but active animals, with hides of spotless
white, and long switch-tails, actually tore our men with their teeth
like wild beasts; thus enabling their savage riders to make a
terrible use of their slender lances, their sharp sabres, and maces
of pointed steel, by one of which Captain M'Coll of that Ilk was
struck down and left as dead. Shoulder to shoulder, Highlander and
Lowlander poured through the narrow defile on each side of the
waggons, driving out the Croats and Pandoors, forcing them by dint of
pike and musket to retire in irremediable disorder, leaving at least
five hundred men and horses strewn on the road. There, the killed
and wounded Pandoors were distinctly visible by their white breeches
and picturesque pelisses of white fur.
The waggons were now put in motion; and the drivers being all shot or
unhorsed, a number of Spynie's pikemen, who had been Lowland
plough-lads, sprang upon the trams or saddles, and grasped the reins;
sword-points, pike-heads, and whips, were applied to the sluggish
bullocks and Holsteiners; and at a tremendous pace the waggons were
driven down towards the sea, the wheels bounding and crashing over
the prostrate bodies of killed and wounded men and horses. Shrieks,
yells, and hoarse maledictions followed us as we hurried towards the
shore, forming in our ranks as we went. A partial gleam of moonlight
now shot along the water, as it seemed between two banks of vapour.
The aspect of the ocean, though it shone like a placid mirror, while
shedding silent ripples on the yellow sand, stayed the fierce career
of the horses, and they entered it fetlock deep, and then knee deep,
with a slowness and caution that enabled us to overtake the waggons,
and form in order between them and the now alarmed enemy, whose right
flank we were skirting.
At that moment, far distant on the Imperial left, we heard several
heavy volleys, and then one continued roar of musketry. This
announced to us that Sir Alexander Leslie, with his own regiment of
Scots, was scouring the trenches and causing a diversion in our
favour. As the mist began to clear, we could perceive across the
level landscape the locality of this other conflict by the murky air,
the smoky, lurid and irregular light it occasioned.
This diversion was not so complete as the marshal expected it to
prove; for the sudden clearing of the mist and the beaming of the
moon upon the water, enabled Colonel M'Lean, who commanded a brigade
of Spaniards on the Imperial right, to perceive the long and
straggling line of men, horses, and waggons, dotting, as it were,
with black spots the shining water, as they came out of one bank of
vapour and vanished into another in the direction of the city.
Filing from his trenches by a double-quick march, the colonel (a
brave soldier of fortune and a Catholic) brought his brigade of
Spanish musketeers to the shore; and there, supported by a squadron
of cuirassiers and some companies of Walloon infantry, threw forward
his left flank to give us a cross fire.
Sir Donald, with our pikes, five hundred strong, led the van, which
marched above their garters in the sea till every kilt was floating.
The Spaniards fired a volley, by which, at least, one hundred men
were shot, or drowned, by being severely wounded; but, ere they could
reload, we were among them, and at their very throats; and now ensued
one of the deadliest conflicts ever witnessed by the walls of
Stralsund, since Jaromar built them by the Baltic sea.
The three regiments formed at once in brigade order by double
companies, pikes in the centre and musketeers on the flanks; Sir
Donald was in front, with his silver target braced upon his left arm,
and his long claymore in his right hand.
"Santiago!" shouted the Spaniards of Camargo's regiment; "Santiago y
cierra Espana!"
"Keep together like a wall!" exclaimed their colonel. "God and St.
James of Compostella will open a path for us through this herd of
Scottish curs."
Then came the hoarse hurrah of the German cuirassiers, and the wilder
cheer of the Walloon infantry.
"Forward, gentlemen and comrades!" exclaimed Mackay, with a voice
that swept over the water like a trumpet; "forward at push of pike,
and hew me a passage through these Spaniards!"
"St. Andrew, St. Andrew!" cried Lord Spynie, who was on foot by his
side, and the whole brigade repeated the old Scottish war-cry, as we
swept forward splashing through the silvery water like a mighty
phalanx towards the Spaniards, upon whom we burst with incredible
fury, as I have said, before they had time to reload. Highland
clansmen and Lowland musketeers went on like a wall of steel. It was
a renewal of the wars of old; for again the dark-browed Celt and the
fair-haired Goth were fighting against the descendants of the old
Iberians.
Being formed in eight ranks deep, after the old fashion of Tilly,
they withstood our charge with a solid front, and a ferocious
conflict began; the pikemen charging with their shortened pikes,
others plying their clubbed muskets like flails, and the officers
using their claymores with both hands, or withdrawing their left only
to handle their dirks, or fire their long Scottish pistols right into
the eyes of the Spaniards.
So great was the confusion of this conflict, maintained mid-leg in
the water, that for a time I stood like a statue, with my sword
raised above my head, incapable of deciding on which side the blow
should descend.
The crash of musket-butts falling in full swing upon pike shafts and
steel caps; the sharp rasp of sword-blades against each other, or
upon tempered corslets, from which, by every thrust or blow, they
struck the sparks in showers; the discharge of firelocks and pistols;
the cries, groans, and oaths; the swaying to and fro, and the
desperate struggles of those who, on their weapons being broken,
grasped each other by the throat or beard, with hands ungloved, and
strove on this side or on that to drag their adversary down beneath
the bloodstained water, then reduced to a mass of dingy and gory mud;
and all this combined when seen under the cold, ghastly glare of a
northern moon, with the sea around us, the floating vapour on one
hand, and on the other the confused background of Stralsund, and
those trenches where old Leslie was waging a conflict as deadly, made
up one of the most infernal medleys of horror that was ever beheld by
the eye of a soldier.
Conspicuous in this melée, I perceived the high eagle's wings of Ian,
as he dealt his cuts and thrusts, now under and now over the round
shield which covered his breast; and by his side was gigantic
Phadrig, swaying his ponderous pole-axe with all the coolness and
deliberation of a mower.
Amid this brief but terrible conflict, by the irresistible decree of
fate, or the strong instinct of deadly hatred, Red Angus M'Alpine
encountered and recognised Colonel Hector M'Lean, and each greeted
the other with an exclamation of ferocious joy.
"Hector of Lochdon!" said Angus, in a hoarse voice.
"Angus Roy!" cried the Imperialist, and they pressed upon each other
with a fury too great to last. The former was fired by the memory of
his son's death; the latter by the loss of his wife, and the
undeserved sorrow, shame, and ruin, brought upon his hearth and home.
They were no longer men; they fought like wild animals; for all the
long-treasured fury of a Highlander, who has wrongs to avenge and
insults to wipe out by the sword, swelled up in their hearts, and Red
Angus was no more the same man--the same merry comrade we had known
and served with so long. Disdaining to parry the thrusts of M'Lean,
he raised his heavy sword above his head with both hands, and clove
him down through steel and bone to the edge of the gorget; at the
same moment he received a shot in the breast, and with a wild cry
threw his arms aloft, and fell lifeless, into the sandy water.
Enraged by his fall the regiment swept on, and who could resist
them?--those children of the mist and the battle--those true sons of
the sword, as Ossian called their sires in the times of old. Nor
Goth, nor Spaniard--Imperial horseman, nor Walloon musketeer--for
they were shred away like the red leaves when the autumn wind pours
down the mountain side; and there, as at Lütter and Leipzig, the
glorious valour of my Scottish comrades bore all before it.
So great was the confusion, that I do not think I struck one blow
that night.
The brigade broke through like a mighty wedge, and, with the loss of
three hundred men killed and wounded, reached Stralsund with all the
waggons save one, after giving the foe such an _alerte_ as
Wallenstein had never experienced before, while his trenches on the
other flank received such a scouring, that his trench guards kept
surer watch ever after. In fact, so severely were they handled by
Sir Donald Mackay in one place, and old Marshal Leslie in the other,
that the night of the outfall or sortie from Stralsund, was never
forgotten by the army of the Empire; but was always remembered with
mingled rage and dissatisfaction.
Among many bodies that were floated by the sea near our outworks, we
found, some days after, the remains of poor Angus M'Alpine; which,
though mutilated by the fish, and distorted by death, we could easily
recognise, by his dress, his harness, and the crape scarf, which as
usual was bound to his left arm. We buried him with all the honours
of war, placing in the same grave Sergeant M'Gillvray of Drumnaglas,
who died of a wound received by a musket-shot on the night of the
sortie.
I have since been told, though I cannot vouch for the truth of it,
that at the very time poor Angus fell (between the night and morning)
the bell of his village kirk emitted a deep and hollow sound.
Captain M'Coll was not killed, being found alive by some German
harridans who where stripping the dead; he was saved from their
knives by the famous Colonel Gordon of Tzerchkzi's regiment, by whom
he was made prisoner and sent to Wallenstein. The latter committed
him to the castle of Dillingen on the Danube (where the Scottish
Colonel Ramsay was starved to death), and there he remained in
captivity for eight long years. Being released by Count Leslie, he
returned home to find that his good lady, after waiting seven years
and a day, had become weary or despaired in his absence; and after
having him summoned by name, with all possible legal formality, by
sound of a horn, at the nearest market-cross, and thrice over at the
pier-end of Leith, had taken unto herself another spouse, who met
poor M'Coll at the door of his own dwelling, and threatened to hang
him as an impostor upon his own dule-tree.
Disgusted by such a reception, and shrinking from the shame of having
to sue for his own wife before the Lords of Session, he returned
again to Germany, and fell, as major of Sir John Hepburn's regiment,
at the great battle of Nordlingen.
Book the Thirteenth