Chapter VII: The Action on the Geta

The Duke of Alva marched back triumphantly from Groningen, celebrated the overthrow of Louis of Nassau with arrogant and hollow rejoicings in the overawed capital, tortured and beheaded several persons of distinction—including the brilliant and loyal Burgomaster of Antwerp, Anthony van Straaten—and offered up hundreds of lesser victims as thank-offerings on the altar of his success, and melted the famous Groningen cannon to cast a statue of himself.

Meanwhile William of Orange, by tireless exertions, indomitable patience, courage, and enthusiasm, and by superhuman straining of every nerve to raise the money, had assembled an army of thirty thousand men, and exercising his right as a sovereign Prince he declared war on the Duke of Alva, issued a proclamation of his motives to the Netherlands, and marched toward the frontier of Brabant, near Maestricht, where Alva was encamped.

He wished to hazard everything on one great battle where he might wipe out the disasters of Dalem, Artois, and Jemmingen, encourage his soldiers, and hearten the Netherlands.

But Alva would not give battle; his cold and cruel genius saw that his advantage lay in delay, that William had not the money to keep his army together long, and that the German mercenaries, unpaid and inactive, would soon mutiny and desert.

William saw this too, but it was impossible for him to entice the wily Spaniard into an engagement.

Meanwhile the main difficulty remained the money; every thaler the Nassau family could raise had gone on the three lost armies and on equipping the present one for the field. In his proclamation he had said with a touching courage and cheerfulness, "We have now an excellent army of cavalry, artillery, and infantry raised all at our own expense," but this 'excellent army' could not be kept together without pay or plunder, and the generous hand that had supplied them was now empty.

William appealed to the Netherlander whom he was coming to rescue, but the three previous defeats had disheartened utterly the miserable populace, and it was but a wretched sum that the Prince received; three hundred thousand crowns had been promised to his agent, Marcus Pery, and but ten thousand reached the camp. Applications to the gentlemen who had signed Brederode's famous Compromise brought no results; and wherever the Prince's army moved the people fell away from his line of march, not daring to lift a hand in his service.

Well might one of the devices which showed on his banners be that of a pelican in her piety feeding her young with her own blood, for it was from themselves alone the Nassau Princes received support.

When the Prince mustered his army in Trêves, he had with him the dauntless Louis, the young Henry, and Hoogstraaten, and he was soon joined by Lumey, Count de la Marck, at the head of a ferocious band of followers. This nobleman, reckless, rough, and daring was a blood kinsman of Lamoral Egmont, and had joined William out of motives of personal hate and revenge against Alva.

At St. Feit the Prince crossed the Rhine, then by a bold and brilliant movement his army swam the Meuse (to Alva's incredulous rage), and marched into Brabant with all the pomp of war.

Nearly thirty times he changed his camp on the plains of Brabant, each time hoping to lure the Duke into an engagement; each time Alva, though for ever hanging on the skirts of the rebels, managed, with consummate skill, to refuse an action.

So passed the weary days of autumn; by the middle of October the Prince was at St. Trond, intending to effect a junction with a body of French Huguenots under De Genlis who were waiting at Waveren.

As always Alva was at the Prince's heels, skirmishing incessantly with the outposts, but always withdrawing his main army when William advanced for an engagement.

"This will end soon, one way or another," said the Prince. "Either we have a general action, or all is lost for this campaign."

He spoke in his tent at St. Trond to Louis and Hoogstraaten; outside were the camp noises and the slash of an autumn shower against the canvas.

Louis, almost ill with the irritation and fury of being constantly out-manœuvred, of seeing the army slip from them while Alva quietly waited, half-crazed with the thought of his own powerlessness to avert the miserable failure of the campaign, made no answer, and Hoogstraaten could only gnash his teeth.

But William remained patient; perhaps he had not expected any more glorious results from this desperate venture.

Quietly he stated the position.

"It is impossible to pay the men another penny, or even to feed them much longer. I heard to-day that Alva has dismantled all the mills in this district. There will, of course, be a mutiny—it is quite impossible to keep them together beyond November, which they take as the beginning of the winter."

"There must be an action!" cried Louis passionately. "There must be, if I ride into Alva's camp and challenge him to his face!"

And the Count shook with rage at the thought of this army, got together with such infinite sacrifices, being miserably disbanded.

But his impatience did not help, William would have reminded him of the results of his fiery recklessness at Jemmingen.

"Alva will never be enticed into an action," said Hoogstraaten, "he is as cold as this!" and he struck the steel hilt of his sword. "He is not Aremberg to be fired by his officers into an imprudence; he is a great general, though a cruel animal. God curse him."

"I salute his generalship," said William, with a bitter smile. "I admit he has defeated my hopes. One victory—one doubtful victory—and every city in the Netherlands would have opened to me, all over the country the people would have risen, for he rules by terror only. Now no one dares move—all silent, trembling—and I helpless," he added, with sudden passion, "my God, helpless!"

The exclamation was like a passionate prayer. William, young, ardent, full of courage and energy, felt that word "helpless" the most terrible of all.

But he instantly recovered himself with that mental strength that made all things possible to him.

"I must meet De Genlis, his reinforcements may be strong, he may have brought money," he said, then added with his unfailing thoughtful generosity, "Besides he has made his way through the Ardennes to meet me, and I cannot fail him."

"Alva might attack as we cross the Geta," said Louis hopefully.

"It is possible—it might be done," answered the Prince.

"He is too cautious," said Hoogstraaten; "nothing will tempt him."

William rose, went to the entrance of the tent, and lifted the flap that concealed the October night.

The rain was now over and the moon had risen large and yellow, showing the encampment and the motionless lines of the ruined windmill that crowned the high hill opposite. Behind this hill flowed the Geta on the opposite bank of which Count de Genlis waited for William.

Beyond, where the dark clouds lay heavy on the horizon, was Alva, like a crouching beast, following his prey cautiously and waiting for it to fall exhausted ere he sprang.

The Prince's face hardened as he gazed at the ominous darkness faintly sprinkled with the Spanish camp fires; he thought of Egmont and Hoorne, Brederode, and Berghen—of Adolphus, and his own stolen son, his own insulted name, his own confiscated property; and against Philip and Philip's red right hand—the hard old man crouching there with his talons deep in the flesh of the Netherlands—his whole soul went out in wrath and defiance and a hatred that was like a sensation of triumph and pleasure.

"Well, old man," he thought passionately, "I am loved here as you are hated—and some day that will tell."

He was joined by Hoogstraaten and Count Louis; all three were almost without hope; all were living, and had long been living, a life of hardship, privation, and peril; all of them faced a prospect of either violent death or utter beggary and exile, yet their mutual youth, courage, and energy communicated to each other, together with the sense of love and comradeship, made them almost joyful.

They began discussing plans for the crossing of the Geta to-morrow.

A force was to be stationed on the hill, which rose now blackly against the moonlit sky, to protect the crossing of the main body of the troops, while the rearguard under Hoogstraaten was to remain on the bank in a desperate attempt to lure Alva.

In case this was successful and the Spaniard advanced his main army, William and Louis were to recross the Geta and engage.

The plan was desperate, and William could hardly place much reliance on it, but Hoogstraaten was exultant at the chance of coming to grips with the enemy.

Louis felt some vexation that the command of the rearguard had not been given to him; the truth was William relied more on Hoogstraaten's coolness than Louis' audacity in this perilous and delicate position.

"You have Jemmingen against me!" said Louis, with a laugh, and he pulled at his orange sash with strong impatient fingers.

"Confess, Count," cried Hoogstraaten gaily, "that your retreat then was unnecessary and that Alva does not deserve to be so feared! Here we have been several days in the Netherlands and we have seen nothing of the Spaniards but their backs!"

"And when you see their faces," replied Louis, vexed, "I warrant you will remember it for the rest of your life."

Hoogstraaten caught his arm and begged his forgiveness for the rough jest.

"Ah, jest while you can," said Louis, instantly smiling again.

"A light heart never hurt any cause," said William.

He dropped the tent flap and called his page; bidding the boy give him his sword, his mantle, and his hat, and to have his horse brought, he prepared to make a tour of his forces and see all was in readiness for the morrow.

The Count Louis and Hoogstraaten departed on the same business to their several commands; first all three embraced warmly, and, in case they should not meet again before the bustle and confusion of the morning, William gave Hoogstraaten some parting words of encouragement.

Despite their terrible anxieties and the agonizing difficulties of their position, the three commanders were now cheerful, almost gay.

The night was beautiful, warm, lit by the mellow light of the harvest moon and fragrant with the smell of the earth recently moistened by the rain.

The Prince's men, as if encouraged by the decisive action promised for the morrow, were also quiet and seemed cheerful; a few days before there had been a fierce mutiny, when the Prince's sword had been shot from his side, but now all was tranquil, and William was loyally received as he went on his rounds.

Some of the refugee Netherlander were gathered together in an open space between the tents listening to the words of a Calvinist minister; little groups of others, scattered here and there, sang psalms softly to themselves.

The German mercenaries were engaged in mending their clothes, in cooking their supper, or in playing dice.

The keen smell of coarse hot soup, the strong scent of the picketed horses mingled on the fresh air; the light of the lanterns at the tent entrances and the small fires feebly rising after the shower shone on pots and pans, pieces of polished or rusty armour, bundles of kindling sticks covered with autumn leaves, and baskets of apples and pears, golden-red.

Here and there the windows of the little farmhouses and cottages where the officers were quartered glowed with a bright light.

William, riding with his little band of officers from one battalion to another, dreamt of a victory, of turning back Alva's troops, of breaking his prestige, of a whole country throwing off with groans of relief the loathed Spanish chains and welcoming her deliverers.

He had no grounds for such dreams but the sense of life and strength in his own body, in the fine horse beneath him, in the exaltation he received in gazing at the noble cloudy spaces of the sky, and the great moon that had shone on so many battles, and in the dark outlines of the hills and horizons of the hidden country.

Nor was he disheartened by the sight of the surgeon with his mule and cases going from tent to tent, nor by that of a cartful of dead men whose limbs fell limp as rags and whose bodies were defaced with gunshot; near these victims of a little skirmish was a tent of men, ill of a malarious fever, the sharp delirious voices of some came out on to the night.

The Prince continued on horseback till the dawn, when he returned to his tent to arm, and the army moved into battle array.

The sun rose strong and clear though with the mellow radiance of the Low Countries and the autumn; all that had been obscured by the dead light of the moon was now distinct: the scars and rags of the soldiers, the brilliant scarves of the officers, the disorder and dirt of the camp, the broken sails of the tall thatched windmill, the dried autumn grass on the little hill, the low waters of the Geta sparkling a sluggish gold.

Still all seemed hopeful, cheerful, full of presages of good fortune.

Birds were singing in the trees growing in the farm gardens, a few poppies and daisies blew on the hillsides, the sun was warm as summer but the air fresh with the coolness of the turn of the year.

William rode with his troops to the banks of the Geta, and sent them across in good order and safety, battalion after battalion.

The Spanish, whose outposts were near enough to observe these movements, made no sign of action.

Meanwhile, Hoogstraaten remained behind on the bank with three thousand men, while the Seigneur de Louverwal and a detachment of cavalry occupied the hill.

Steadily and successfully the Prince's army forded the river, regiment after regiment passing undisturbed, the infantry on the cruppers of the horsemen or wading at their stirrups. Again and again William glanced at the little hill where the patriotic banners of Hoogstraaten waved.

About noon the Spanish attacked.

Don Frederic, the Prior of St. John, brought up seven thousand troops and threw himself against the Netherlanders.

All was obscured in the lilac-coloured smoke of cannon and musket shot with flames; William could no longer see his banners nor the gallant lines of Hoogstraaten's men.

The Spanish did not cross the river, as the three leaders had so desperately hoped, nor could William return, as the further bank was now lined by Alva's cannon.

No news came from the fierce conflict surging to and fro by the waters of the Geta, but towards evening the foul smoke cleared, and the Spanish flag was visible floating from the shot-riddled windmill.

A little later a few soldiers escaped across the river, bringing to the Prince news that the entire rearguard had been cut to pieces, that Louverwal was a prisoner, and that the survivors of the awful day were now being massacred by Don Frederic's men.

Another miserable handful brought with them Hoogstraaten, unconscious, fastened to his horse by the reins, and with a shattered foot.

AU that night the moonlight was dimmed by the fires that burnt along the Geta.

These flames came from the farmhouses where Hoogstraaten's men had taken a despairing refuge. Don Frederic had at once ordered these buildings to be set alight, and those maddened wretches who hurled themselves from the flames found themselves impaled on the spears of the Spanish waiting without.

The nobler spirits put an end to their own lives to escape the taunts of their enemies; all alike disappeared in the same funeral pyres, the high-mounting flames of which illuminated the fierce faces of the victorious army and the stately figure of the militant priest who commanded them, and cast a red glow of blood and fire on those two triumphant symbols—the arms of the King of Spain, the cross of the Romish Church.