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Monk. Julian Stafford Corbett
Читать онлайн.Название Monk
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isbn 4064066217716
Автор произведения Julian Stafford Corbett
Жанр Языкознание
Издательство Bookwire
It was about this time that Monk was promoted to the rank of captain, and found himself in a position which laid the foundations of his fortunes. He was in command of the colonel's company, that is to say, a double company, of which the colonel was nominal captain. For in the early days of the regimental system every colonel had his company just as every general had his regiment; and as the general had his lieutenant-colonel, so each colonel had his captain-lieutenant taking precedence of all the other captains. It was this rank that Monk now bore, and it was one to which great honour and responsibility were attached. It was in the colonel's company that the volunteers chiefly chose to trail their pikes, and so great was the prestige of Lord Vere's regiment, and so popular the fascinating reprobate who commanded it, that his company was sometimes half composed of unruly young gentlemen who had come abroad to see the wars and sow their wild oats. Thus it was that Monk became personally acquainted with half the officers who afterwards distinguished themselves in the coming Civil Wars, and not only did he make their acquaintance but he won their respect as well. It was only by enforcing the strictest discipline that order could be maintained amongst such a company. Monk took his profession seriously. During his service in Holland he had made deep study of the military sciences, no doubt in company with old Henry Hexham, the learned and literary quartermaster of the regiment. He had no idea of young gentlemen playing at soldiers and disgracing the name by using it only as an excuse for every kind of licence. Soldiering under Captain Monk was found to be a very serious thing. The wildest blades were soon tamed by the impassive stare and rough speech of the captain-lieutenant, young as he still was, and many there were who lived to thank him long afterwards for the severity of the lessons he taught.
Yet he was no mere soldier of the lecture-room and parade-ground either, for all his science and severity. Those who followed George Monk had to tread in thorny places, as any one who knew it not before found out at the siege of Breda. It was the last piece of service for Monk in the Low Countries, and it was the one in which he crowned his reputation for that absolute intrepidity which afterwards used to terrify the carpet-knights of the Restoration, and even make Prince Rupert hold his breath.
In 1637 Frederick found himself strong enough to invest the town with a combined army of Dutch and French, together with his English brigade. The French and English attacks were directed on an important hornwork, and here Goring's regiment had plenty of hard work and hard fighting. Monk soon found himself without a colonel; for Goring here received the wound that gave him the attractive limp the young cavaliers used afterwards so to envy, and he had to give up the active command of his regiment. But in spite of every difficulty, by the night of September 6th the English mines were almost ready. On the morrow they were to be reported complete. Monk was in command of the advanced picket in the trenches. Some attempt of the besieged to destroy the English works was only to be expected, and but for Monk's vigilance the labour of weeks might have been undone in a single night. In discharge of his duty as commander in the trenches he was making the round, and at one point he had to pass close under the hornwork. No sooner had he reached the spot than he saw a number of Spaniards dropping silently from the berme into the trenches. He had but four pikes and a couple of musketeers at his back, but without a moment's hesitation he hurled himself at the dark mass in front of him. A desperate hand-to-hand struggle ensued, till the picket, alarmed by the firing, came up, and the enemy were driven within their own works.
The mines were saved, and next morning were reported ready to be sprung. The prince at once ordered the English and French to assault, and Monk himself was told off to lead a forlorn hope of twenty musketeers and ten pikes. In support were a few sappers and two small parties like his own to right and left. After them were the whole of the gentlemen-volunteers. When all was ready the mines were discharged. A great piece of the work crumbled into ruins, and Monk, followed by his party, disappeared into the cloud of dust and smoke before it had time to settle. Without a check he reached the summit of the breach and leaped out upon a body of musketeers drawn up to resist the stormers. Completely surprised by the fury and suddenness of Monk's attack, the Spaniards broke and fled as he sprang out of the smoke. Regardless of his followers, half of whom slunk back into the breach, Monk kept on right into the enemies' work and dashed straight at a body of some six or seven score men who stood with pikes charged to receive him. But nothing would stop him now. Shouting at the top of his voice, "A Goring! a Goring!" he fell furiously on them with the handful who had followed. Fortunately the supports were close at his heels, and shaken by his desperate onslaught, the Spaniards broke before the charge of the volunteers. In disorder they fled into an interior work followed by the English and French, who rushed bravely to the rescue, and the hornwork was won.1
It was the beginning of the end. The loss of the hornwork made the city untenable, and a few weeks later the garrison surrendered. It was Monk's last stroke in the service of the States-General. In the following year, as he lay in winter-quarters at Dort, the burghers took deep offence at some disturbances of which his young reprobates had been guilty, and claimed to try them for the offence. No one had a higher sense of his duty to his employers than Monk, and no one stood up more stoutly for the rights of the men under his command. He insisted on settling the matter by court-martial. The burghers appealed to the States. Such cases were not unknown, and had always been decided in favour of the military. But Dort was an important town, and not to be offended lightly. The States-General decided in favour of the burgomaster, and the prince had to order Monk and his troops into quarters which were by no means a change for the better. Monk was highly offended. He considered the honour of the army was outraged in his person. Unable to support the indignity, and disgusted at the want of consideration shown to a man of his services, he resigned his commission, and resolved to place his sword and experience at the service of his own country.
CHAPTER II
FOR KING AND PARLIAMENT
The great drama was about to begin. The star-chamber had given judgment in Hampden's case: the prayer-book had been read in Edinburgh; and it was amidst ominous mutterings of coming evil that Captain Monk set foot once more upon his native shore.
How great a tragedy was to develope itself out of the prologue upon which the curtain was about to rise, no one as yet could tell. Still less were there any to guess that the plain Low Country officer stepping on to the Dover beach was the man who was to cut the knot of the last act and end the play in a blaze of triumph.
We can see him clearly as he rides towards London, brooding, as his manner was, on the ungrateful treatment he had received at the hands of his masters. He is now in his thirtieth year, rather short than tall, but thickset and in full possession of the physical strength which the ill-starred under-sheriff had tasted at Exeter years ago; and as with an air of dogged self-reliance he sits erect upon his horse, handsome, fresh-coloured, well-knit, he looks every inch a soldier. Quietly chewing his tobacco for company, as the fashion was, he speaks little to those who overtake him on the road, except perhaps it is to grumble at the Mynheers when the subject turns that way. He answers strangers with a blunt, almost rude brevity, at which men are offended, but which somehow they feel little inclined to openly resent. He is an ill-mannered, thick-headed soldier, they say, and it is best to leave him alone to take his own way.
And indeed he was little more. He was frankly the ideal of a soldier of fortune, versed in his art to the point of pedantry, wary to the verge of craftiness, fearless to a fault, jealous of his honour as the knight of La Mancha himself. The name by which such men were known is unfortunate, for it has led to