With Marlborough to Malplaquet Part 5

"We'll show them a bit of fight all the same," George put in eagerly.

The old salt shook his head again.

Quickly the big vessel overhauled the collier brig, and signals were made to pull down her flag, whereupon the Englishman grunted.

Within a minute a puff was seen, and a round shot whizzed close past the _Ouseburn La.s.sie's_ bows.

"Give them a reply!" George urged in great excitement.

"Wait a bit, my lad," and the skipper bided his time.

"Now!" came the order at length, and a couple of eight-pound b.a.l.l.s flew straight to the Frenchman.

"Well hit!" shouted the Englishmen, as a shower of splinters was seen to fly upwards from the enemy's deck.

"It's enough to show 'em we've got mettle in us," growled the old captain, "and that's all we can say."

His words were justified, for the next moment there came another flash, and with a crash the brig's mast went by the board.

"Done for!" groaned the skipper. "We shall see the inside of a French prison, I reckon."

The enemy's long boat put out with a crew four times that of the brig.

Within a quarter of an hour the Englishmen had all been transferred to the _Louis Treize_, and an officer and half a dozen men left in charge of the prize. The Frenchman at once set a course for Dunkirk, and, with a spanking breeze behind her, she made the port in fifteen hours.

The noon of the next day saw George Fairburn and his companions clapped into a French prison.

"A bonny come off," the old skipper grumbled, "but we shall ha' to make the best on it."

It will not be forgotten that the war just begun was, to put it bluntly, a war to determine which of two indifferent princes, Philip of France and Charles of Austria, should have the Spanish crown. Lord Peterborough declared that it was not worth his country's while to fight for such "a pair of louts."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Now!" came the order.]

Into the war, however, England had thrown herself, under the direction of Harley, the famous Tory minister now in power, at home, and with Marlborough as commander-in-chief of both the English and the Dutch forces abroad. The General's first aim was to take back from Louis XIV all those fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands which had been seized and garrisoned by the French troops as if the country were a French possession.

He started from Kaiserworth, a town on the Rhine, which his troops had captured from one of Louis's chief allies, the Elector of Cologne, before Marlborough arrived to take command. Venloo was taken in gallant style, and then the important city of Liege, on the Meuse. The result of the campaign was that the French had been chased from the Lower Rhine, and Holland, much to its relief, made far more safe from attack. Returning to England, the victorious commander was given a grand reception. And no wonder, for it was the first time for many a year that the French had received a real check.

While these things were going on in the Netherlands, another leader under the Grand Alliance, Prince Louis of Baden, took Landau, on the Rhine, from the French. In Italy, too, the allies triumphed, the gallant Prince Eugene, presently to be the warm and life-long friend of Marlborough, defeating the French brilliantly at Cremona, a fortunate thing for the Empire, which was thus secured from a French invasion through the Tyrol.

To crown the successes of the Grand Alliance during the campaign of 1702, the first of the war, the brave sailor Sir George Rooke, following the Spanish galleons and the French war vessels into the harbour of Vigo, destroyed the greater number of them. It was a repet.i.tion of Drake's famous expedition to "singe the King of Spain's beard."

All these things happened while George Fairburn and other English prisoners ate their hearts out in captivity at Dunkirk. The lad chafed under the surveillance to which he was subjected, and never pa.s.sed a day without turning over in his mind some scheme of escape. How it was to be done, he did not see. But he waited for his chance, and meanwhile, partly to avoid being suspected, and partly to while away the hours he made friends with the soldiers on guard. He already knew a little French, and with his natural quickness he soon made rapid progress. At the end of a month he could get along capitally in the language; at the end of three months he could speak the tongue fluently; at the end of nine months--for thus did his term of captivity drag itself out--he was, so far as the language was concerned, almost a Frenchman. Thus the winter pa.s.sed, and the spring of 1703 came round, George Fairburn still an inmate of a French prison, hopeless of escape, so far as he could see.

But his chance came at last suddenly and unexpectedly. One morning he was escorted to the Hotel de Ville, to interpret for an officer examining a batch of English prisoners who had been brought in from the Netherlands border. The way to the town lay at no great distance from the sh.o.r.e, and he observed how a boat lay close in on the low sandy beach, no owner in sight. His heart leapt into his mouth, and he had much ado to keep himself from betraying his thoughts by the flush that mantled hotly on his cheek.

One, two, three hundred paces the boat was left behind. Now or never!

Instantly the lad started off back to the spot, his feet flying across the sand.

A shout broke from the throats of his astonished guards, and a half score of bullets whistled after the runaway. George ducked his head and sped on unhurt. A second volley did little more harm than the first, merely grazing the lobe of his right ear. The race was furious, but the l.u.s.ty English lad was far and away the superior of the heavy Frenchmen. He gained the boat, the enemy still a hundred paces behind.

The painter was loosely wound round a large stone, and in a trice George had leapt with it into the little craft. He had just time to give a vigorous shove off before the pursuers came up, the foremost das.h.i.+ng into the sea after him.

CHAPTER V

GEORGE RECONNOITRES

Splash through the water rushed the French soldiers in full chase.

Already they were beginning to cheer, for the leading man had all but grabbed the boat, and the prisoner was as good as retaken. George looked down for something with which to strike, for he did not intend to submit without a struggle, but there was no oar on board. There had been a small boat-hook, but that he had left sticking in the sand when he gave his l.u.s.ty shove off. The pursuer, up to his neck in water, seized the boat, and for a moment his chin rested on the side. But the next instant the lad had kicked out with the clumsy wooden shoes he wore, and the soldier fell back half stunned into the sea. The rest of the fellows instantly raised their guns, but George did not wince; he perceived what they in their wild scamper after him had not noticed, that they had dragged their muskets through the water, and for the time had rendered the weapons useless. The boy laughed in spite of his predicament, as he hastily ran up the little sail.

The breeze at once caught the canvas, and the bark moved briskly away.

But two of the soldiers, who had not entered the sea, hastily reloading--they had not done so hitherto, after the recent discharges--levelled their pieces at the retreating prisoner. George flung himself to the bottom of the boat as he saw the move, and the bullets whistled harmlessly overhead. Springing up again, he perceived that he was now beyond range, and with a shout of joy he waved his cap triumphantly. The whole escape had been planned and successfully carried out in the s.p.a.ce of five minutes. He was free!

But his joy was presently tempered by the thought of what might follow. That the men would endeavour to give chase he well knew; indeed he could make out their forms running in search of another boat. However, he had gained a start; that was something. As to whither he was destined to be driven, or how he was to get food and water, these things were for the present of less consequence than the fact that he was free.

Fortune favoured him, for within ten minutes a thickness came on, and soon the boat was enveloped in fog. The chase was now rendered impossible to the enemy. Hour after hour George kept his sail hoisted, driving briskly he knew not whither.

"I am bound," said he to himself, "to stumble upon either the English or the Dutch coast, and in either case I shall be among friends." Thus the lad comforted himself.

The day wore on, and he was becoming ravenously hungry. He would have given much for a basin of even the prison _soupe maigre_. The sky was darkening and he began to feel drowsy; he resigned himself to a night of hunger. All at once he heard shouts, and the hull of a big vessel loomed up within a few yards of him. He was instantly wide awake. Was the stranger French? Thank Heaven, no! She was Dutch built, and as her flag showed, Dutch owned. Hurrah!

His cheer attracted the attention of the crew, and much wondering the sailors drew him up on deck. "A Frenchman," was the verdict in gruff Dutch. George did not understand Dutch, but he instantly guessed their meaning.

"Not I," he cried, in English, and was delighted to be answered in the same tongue by the skipper.

George's account of his escape, translated by the captain, set the fat Dutchmen a-rolling. And, after the lad had had the good square meal the skipper ordered for him, he spent the evening in going over his adventures again. The jolly-hearted English lad became an immediate favourite with the sailors and the soldiers, for, as he soon learnt, the s.h.i.+p was a Dutch transport carrying troops and stores for the war in Spain.

"Where are we, sir?" George inquired of the skipper next morning when he came on deck, to find a clear sky, and land faintly seen on the starboard bow.

"Off the Isle of Wight, my lad," replied the Dutchman.

"Can't you put me ash.o.r.e, captain?" he pleaded.

The master smiled and shook his head.

"Impossible, boy; you must go with us to Spain. And here comes a gentleman to speak with you."

An officer in military uniform approached, and the boy touched his cap. With the skipper as interpreter the major made George an offer of service under him.

"We want fellows of your sort," he said. "And there will be brave doings in Spain, and plenty of good pay, and glory to be won. Besides, you will be fighting under one of your own countrymen, most likely Sir George Rooke himself. Say the word, my good lad."

George's face flushed.

"I have always wanted to be a soldier, sir," he stammered.

"Of course you have, my lad. Then we may take it that the matter is settled. Good luck go with you, my boy."

Here then was George Fairburn, who ought to have been driving a quill in the office of Mr. Allan, s.h.i.+pping merchant, of London, sailing to join the allied forces in Spain, and to fight against the French. His head swam with the thought of it.