The First of the English: A Novel
skate?”
“Oho! this is a (winter) garden party with dames and wenches and
lighted fires upon the ice,” jeers the boatswain.
Without giving answer to this ’t Hoen goes off and buys for every man
that can perform upon them a pair of long, sharp Friesland skates.
Bringing these on board the ship he says, “Captain Chester, we’ll run
away with these if the worst comes to the worst,” which gives Corker a
glum face, he not liking the idea of deserting ship even to save his
life.
These preparations are made with such energy by Chester and his men
that they are delayed at Delft scarce four hours.
Crowding sail upon the Dover Lass they the next day enter that ocean
lake of Holland called the Zuyder Zee, and passing Enkhuyzen, get news
that Alva is preparing to cut off Haarlem from succor and provisions.
That evening, getting off Amsterdam, they lie off and on, ready to
sneak past the place in the darkness into the Y, and by the next
morning would reach Haarlem before Alva and save the girl from the
danger of the siege.
But that night the providence of God in numbing, freezing weather and
chilling breath just from the Arctic, is upon them. The placid water
becomes ice. The breeze is not strong enough to give them headway to
crush through it.
The next morning all about them is a vast sheet of deep blue ice, and
imprisoned within it is their vessel and three others of the Gueux,
fortunately all near together, perhaps bound upon a similar errand.
They are now helpless, they cannot retreat, they cannot go forward.
The city of Amsterdam, filled with Alva’s army, is looking at them,
only four miles away.
CHAPTER XV.
THE BATTLE ON SKATES.
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