The Dutch (31 page)

At the castle, despite the anxiety about the eminent conflict, Reylana kept busy helping Sara host the Frisian knights who were arriving daily. Kahilli, who had come with Gustoff's parents, were instructed by Gustoff to stay at his mother's side and be as helpful as possible. Since Henri was assisting his son during the day, Reylana liked having the likeable boy around. She had only made the trip hoping her presence would keep Henri from joining the combatants and the plan seemed to be working; Henri seemed content in helping Gustoff outfit the barges. A week after Reylana's arrival, the Baron left the encampment in the forest and made a rare appearance at the castle. It was then she learned about the threat in the east. She was present when a young nobleman from one of Delft's finest families arrived at the head of a small unit of Dutch cavalry carrying an important dispatch. He brought a formal demand from the Estates General to evacuate the women and children. Reylana was surprised when the Baron refused and more astonished when the young officer, having fulfilled his duty to the Estate, received permission from the Baron for him and his men to join the defenders. She was even more startled when she heard the Baron tell his brother, “Men fight harder when the safety of their families is at stake.” She also witnessed the Baron's delight when he learned of Jon's successful raid. He jubilantly told his brother, “Nothing can disrupt an army's morale than the death of a commander, even a foolish commander like Werner.”

The Baron knew the way he prepared the battlefield would ultimately win or lose the struggle. His scouts confirmed that Lutwaff's engineers were completing the last section of causeway near the swale. They also reported soldiers were on the march, and now a total of fourteen hundred mounted men were in position to be the first to disembark. Victor Lutwaff planned to use his cavalry to rape, plunder and pillage the countryside, while the siege guns and infantry would begin surrounding the fortified places. The Baron had six hundred mounted men, eight hundred infantry, and a hundred bowmen to stop them. The First Fort's high walls would keep it from being immediately overrun by the horsemen. For that reason alone, he wanted it to be an important part of the battlefield equation. Ordinarily, an attacker would leave a walled fort unmolested until their heavy guns pounded the fortification into submission. The Baron hoped to make the fort a focal point with his archers hidden inside. To do so, he would have to bait a trap by having the infantry form a line as near the fort as possible, looking as vulnerable as possible. For his plan to succeed, he needed an early snowstorm to hide the handy work of his wood-cutters. Their hard work had made the position of the infantry much stronger than it would appear to the enemy. He prayed to the old god's for a blizzard.

That evening, the Baron confidently assured his military commanders that the gods of their ancestors favored them. He cited as proof the newly falling snow. When the council of war began, Jon announced that both fleets were prepared to attack the enemy columns as they emerged from the Great Swamp near Karl's Isle. He and Gustoff planned to wait until the Germans began ferrying soldiers and equipment across the narrow strait. With the evacuation of the settlements, the fleets would be free to bombard anything that moved on either shoreline and they could return as often as necessary, until the relentless pounding forced the enemy to retreat back into the Great Swamp.

After Jon's presentation, the Baron detected no objections to the plan. Jon's exploits at sea and his recent success made questioning his son's judgment by others nearly impossible. However the father knew that the best of plans usually failed in the reality of war. He cautioned Jon and Gustoff that a battle with such fierce opponents is bound to be filled with uncertainties. He reminded them their mission was to delay the enemy and inflict as many casualties as possible, not to win the war by themselves. To everyone's surprise, he sternly told the two young men, “Your upcoming battle on the Lake Derick is to be one of attrition! Do not endanger your ships or your men with foolish heroics; we will need those men and boats before this crisis is over.” At this point, everyone was well aware of the greater threat posed by Prince Lutwaff's advancing force. They listened carefully as the Baron explained his own battle plan. He wanted to use the eight hundred Droger Land infantrymen as bait to lure the enemy horsemen into an all out charge across the swale and turnip fields. By placing the infantry in the open field near the First Fort, they would appear highly vulnerable to an attack by cavalry. That would be an illusion, because the woodworkers were hard at work embellishing the swale and the adjacent farmland with sharpened oak stakes adept at disabling charging horses. The night's gift of falling snow should hide any trace of their activities. He hoped the infantry would draw the enemy mounted formations to within range of the bowmen under Old Andries command and hidden within the walls. The archers could launch a volley of arrows over three hundred yards in any direction. The horsemen would also become targets for the battery of field artillery embedded on the line with the infantry and by the fort's cannons firing chain shot. Once the forward element of the enemy cavalry impaled them upon the stakes, the initial charge would falter and the enemy would attempt to flank the infantry. It was at that moment that they would find themselves flanked by the Droger Land's cavalry.

While the plan met with general agreement, a heated debate developed regarding the number of infantrymen needed to bait the trap. The Frisian lords and those responsible for protecting the women and children wanted part of the infantry held in reserve. Legitimate questions arose regarding the time needed to bring forward the cavalry units. The slightest delay would allow the Germans to annihilate the infantry. All knew footmen were no match for heavy cavalry on open ground. These deliberations were difficult. No one wanted to challenge the Baron or raise the unmentionable “what if question.” In the end, the Baron unpredictably compromised and agreed to use only half the infantry to bait the trap, allowing the rest to be held as a reserve against calamity. The Friesian knights volunteered to form up behind the infantry to challenge any attempt to flank the footmen before the main force arrived. The Baron agreed to secrete fifty of his own horsemen within the fortification for deployment if necessary. As the meeting ended, Henri whispered to Karl, “Your inflexible brother is growing wiser.”

The snowstorm was still in progress as the Baron left the next morning to return to his troops. As he exited the castle, he saw a line of about thirty mounted men approaching from the direction of the Keep. He could not distinguish their facial features in the falling snow but some helmets and breastplates seemed familiar. As the distance closed, he recognized the Magistrate and High Sheriff of Amsterdam and many of the other nobles and merchants who rode with him against the wild men. The Baron, struggling to maintain his composure, welcomed them profusely, promising each a warm seat by the castle's fire after their long journey. The Magistrate smiled and told the Baron, “It had better be a big fireplace; the Clover Militia voted to defy the politicians and all three hundred horsemen, including the Catholics, will be here by nightfall, my lord.”

The German Count Victor Alschultz had been a professional warrior all his life, which was why the Duke of Parma recruited him for the invasion. Parma wanted the campaign to have some of the professional stability that the inexperienced Prince Otto Werner and the impulsive Prince Herman Lutwaff could never provide. The two wealthy Princes had raised better equipped armies, but the Count's men were the disciplined troops. Alschultz was not surprised when word reached him of Prince Werner's demise and he found some aspects of his death advantageous. As commander of the western wing, he alone had nearly accomplished the goal of being the first to reach Lake Derick. Without consulting Lutwaff, he seized the moment and sent his second in command to divert Werner's forces to his roadway. He knew Count Parma would reward his initiative if it helped conquer the Droger Land. Although Alschultz had never met his adversary Clifford van Weir, he knew and respected his reputation. Only a fool would think such a man would miss the movement of Lutwaff's thousands of soldiers nearing his doorstep. If this formidable Dutch warlord found a way to stall Lutwaff‘s advance, his own force, now augmented by Werner's men, might still gain the glory of capturing and plundering the once invulnerable Droger Land.

It was past midnight when word came from Gypsy scouts that Alschultz had completed his roadway and had begun ferrying troops to Karl's Isle as expected. At dawn, Jon had his faster fleet in position and was awaiting the right wind conditions before sailing his gunboats against the ferrying operation. He had the oars secured, for he wanted his men's hands free to bring as much musket and swivel fire upon the enemy as possible. He had divided his gunboat fleet into two groups of three boats each. A week before, the Boatswain and some sailors from
Abraham's Youngest Son
had unexpectedly arrived to offer assistance. Jon sent the sailors to serve with Gustoff's fleet but kept the trusted Boatswain to command this second group. Jon hoped to use the morning haze to hide his first approach and his first sweep did inflict massive casualties on the unsuspecting boats ferrying troops across the water. The enemy vessels provided little protection for the occupants who were at first defenseless against his gunboats. Any vessel his gunboats rammed capsized and the heavily armored occupants began to drown as they hit the water. The fire from his swivel guns and muskets devastated the stunned enemy. Yet, these veteran German mercenaries were quick to recover and by the time the wind conditions allowed for a second sweep, the channel was now empty of enemy craft and the experienced Germans on both sides of the strait were returning a massive amount of musket fire. The hulls of the gunboats no longer seemed as iron sided as they had once been, even with the new layers of plating. His fleet was being peppered by the sheer volume of enemy fire, and men were being wounded and killed but at the same time he was doing much greater harm to the enemy standing in the open. Jon was awaiting the proper wind for a third attack when the Germans began to cheer.

The morning mist had lifted and they could see a new armada flying banners with white Horses on a red background bearing down on Jon's fleet. They presumed the men from one of the other columns were coming to their assistance. Most stood up on the shorelines welcoming their saviors; the Germans had no idea that Gustoff was using the same trick that worked so well against the Spanish fleet. Gustoff had organized his flotilla of barges into three squadrons. He commanded the last section of four barges which trailed the others upon entering the strait. He planned to direct the fire of his squadron's twelve cannons, armed with iron balls for longer range, at targets of opportunity. The leading squadron, three barges under Hector's command, was sailing close to the banks of Karl's Isle, their cannon barrels loaded with chain shot. The other section, under his father's command, would attack the soldiers on the bank of the swamp. Henri's cannons were loaded with small shot which should be highly effective at such short range. Once Gustoff decided on his target, the more exposed enemy troops on Karl's Isle, he gave the entire fleet the signal to fire. A great volley of cannon fire erupted almost simultaneously from all ten gunboats. This first volley was a complete surprise to the Germans. In but a moment, over three hundred were killed or wounded by the volley. However as the lumbering barges moved further into the straight with crews struggling to reload, other Germans emerged from the swamp and began setting up field guns. Despite the causalities, these well-discipline soldiers still wanted to fight. A second volley from Henri's barges killed more men, but his forward firing cannons could no longer be brought to bear on these new gun emplacements. Henri began to receive sporadic cannon fire to his stern, and a cascade of musket fire was erupting all along the shoreline.

Gustoff, unaware of the danger, was directing his second volley against the troops on Karl's Isle. Hector's boats, pulled through the straight by the rapid current near that shoreline, were unable to fire a second time. The surviving mercenaries on the isle were wisely hugging the ground and rising only to fire their muskets in tremendous volleys and the volume of enemy cannon fire was increasing. The newly arrived enemy artillerymen were accurately targeting the stern of Henri's and Gustoff's flotillas. Soon the Achilles heel of the barge fleet became obvious as the stern area, where the power and shot was stored became exposed to the increasing enemy fire from both shorelines. It could have been a small cannon ball or a lucky musket shot that ignited the powder on one of Henri's barges which instantly exploded. It sent a layer of thick black smoke across the strait, temporarily hiding the now sinking barge and its two sister vessels. Henri courageously dropped his own sail and tried to rescue survivors. The two remaining barges found themselves in a hellish fire storm of ball and shot from both sides of the straight. The barge that had not dropped its sail had made its way to the open lake, but with so much damage, it would soon be scuttled. Gustoff used the current in the middle of the straight to lead his trailing section to safety, but his boats too ran a gauntlet of enemy fire. He looked back with despair at the cloud of black smoke, knowing the current prohibited him from sailing to his father's assistance.

Jon, who had withdrawn his gunboats to give the barge fleet room to maneuver, sensing the situation, ordered his own gunboat's oars unlocked. He ordered his men to row to Henri's rescue. His boat took a terrible pounding until it too was obscured by the black smoke. Once alongside Henri's barge Jon's men attached a tow line. The vessel had already taken on the few survivors from the one that had exploded. Jon's gunboat was pulling the heavier barge through the hailstorm of lead when Henri was hit by a musket ball. It was a serious injury. Once clear, Jon and Gustoff consulted, both remembered the Baron's instructions and ordered a general withdrawal. Jon's own boat was so battered it too had to be abandoned on the trip home as did one from the Boatswain's section. Jon's gunboats had left nearly two hundred of the enemy on the bottom of the lake. The cannons on Gustoff's barges had accounted for at least a few hundred more. Yet four vessels were lost, and while the fleets proved themselves formidable, they were not invincible. Worse still, the man who built them might very well be dying.