The third and final line, led by Principe Alberto himself, was virtually annihilated, suffering the cannon fire at long range and the reloaded, multi-shot muskets closer in. Pete Fletcher’s new shops at York had been laboring hard, day and night, and now almost every musketeer of the Royal Army bore one of the deadly weapons.
Through his long Venetian spyglass the aging condottiere had the immense satisfaction of watching helmet and head torn off the Principe by, presumbly, a piece of grape. Even • while his brain spun busily with alternatives that might give him some bare chance of a victory, despite the loss of almost all his cavalry, he grimly reflected that the army was already the better off for the loss of that arrogant, ranting pig of a Spaniard.
Cardinal Ahmed did not see the death of Alberto; he had kept his own glass trained upon the English lines, though little could be seen save black, flame-shot smoke eddying about and among the tercios on a gentle breeze. Ahmed was not and had never been a soldier, but his father and brothers had been, so he was as keenly aware as any of the calamity that had here befallen the Crusaders. Cavalry were the very eyes and ears of any army—he recalled his hawknosed, blue-eyed father saying that many times over—and there, thanks to a stubborn and headstrong Spaniard, lay the cavalry of the Church, become little save bloody flesh and scrap metal While the recall sounded for the pitiful remnant of those thousands of armored horsemen, he ordered the steel carriage drawn to the small knoll whereon stood the grim-faced Wenceslaus, Count Horeszko, his bald, scar-furrowed head glinting in the sun.
Laying aside his dignity of rank in the press of the moment, the thin, wiry churchman dismounted from the coach and paced up to stand beside his employee. “Are then the English foot all musketeers, my son?”
“No, Your Eminence,” answered the old soldier gravely. “It would appear that they possess a new musket that fires seven times without reloading. From what little I noticed before the smoke got too thick, I would say that the charges are contained in big iron cylinders affixed under the breeches of their weapons, but I could not tell you more without examining one.”
The Cardinal shook his head. “Scant chance of that, my son. I suppose that our tercios would fare as poorly as the horse, were we to attack. What would you advise our movement be?”
“The tercios would be ground up Just like the cavalry, Your Eminence, ground more finely, mayhap. We could try to maneuver, but with no horse to screen our movements …” He shrugged and grunted. The only thing on which we could depend would be that those fast-firing muskets would be waiting to receive our attack, from whatever angle. Damn that Spanish whoreson! God’s eyes, if only—”
The Cardinal laid a fine-boned, parchment-skinned hand upon the steel-plated shoulder. “Blaspheme not, my son. What has transpired is assuredly done. You then would advise .. .”
That we break off the action and withdraw, Your Eminence”. We have the siege train at Bournemouth, some fortifications already are dug and prepared, and we can throw up more. Muskets are heavy enough, and with those clumsy-looking devices added to them, I doubt me they’d be much good on the attack. Entrenched, lack of cavalry will be no detriment to us.”
The Cardinal sighed and nodded. “So be it. I shall give the order.”
So the ranks formed into column and retraced their way to the river, harassed and menaced every step of the way by English horse—dragoons, lancers and irregulars. Many a Crusader prayed for sight of the river and the waiting barges that would bear them back downstream to safety.
But such salvation was not to be. The van arrived to find the riverside camp sacked, the barges either awash with great holes knocked in their hulls or missing entirely from their moorings, presumably set adrift. Most of the bargemen were dead and the draft teams had all been herded off. There was nothing for it but to try to march down the river edge to Bournemouth.