The Road to Gouda Dutch Republic

The road from Rotterdam to Gouda was well made and comfortable to walk on, but extremely narrow, not allowing room for more than six men marching shoulder to shoulder. Six hundred and ninety-eight men marched shoulder to shoulder on that narrow road, with trees shading them on both flanks. MacRae and Bjornsson led the march from the front on horseback, followed by Bjornsson’s musketeers, Gunther’s pikemen, Don Alfonso’s halberdiers, Sophia’s swordsmen, and Warwick’s irregulars and artillery, the former marching in loose formation. Otto and his cavalry brought up the rear and guarded the expensive six-pound cannons and the baggage train. The commanders of each company walked on the right side of their formation.

James Fletcher had no idea what was going on. He had been absent from the briefing since he was not an officer, and Warwick had simply been telling his men that they were going to march for a bit over two weeks, looting wherever they were allowed, before they were supposed to besiege some castle in some far away country.

As he stared down at his feet contributing to the chomp-chomp-chomp of the hundreds of marching troops, his mind wandered off to thoughts of the future. He owed three pounds to the innkeeper at the Black Horse Inn, but how many florins were in a pound? Or rather, pounds in a florin? He figured that he would simply show up with three gold coins since he doubted that the tavern keeper knew the difference anyway. But the whole point of this whole endeavor was to make sure he had food on his plate, and the last thing he ate was some salted eel and cheese on the…

“Vaffanculo! Guarda dove va, idiota!”

The ground was vertical, and his hands felt wet with mud. He had fallen, and…

“Alzati, contadino stupido!”

There was a girl screaming at him in a language he could not understand. He slowly got to his feet and tried to comprehend his surroundings. His head stung a bit.

He saw the screaming girl – her hair was drenched in mud, and she was holding what might once have been a colorful beret that was now stained brown. As she shrieked at him, she gestured towards her stained hat, somehow indicating that it was his fault.

Fletcher had gotten lost in thought, and while staring at his feet, he accidentally broke formation and had managed to march straight into the formation in front of him and knock over its commander – Sophia Fortezza.

Fletcher froze. He did not know whether he was going to be hanged or stabbed to death right there on the spot. He tried to stammer out an apology, but it was no use. The girl appeared content to continue yelling at him in her sing-songy language that seemed to be fond of the letter “z”.

The chomp-chomp-chomping of men’s boots gradually became a clop-clop-clopping of horses’ hooves. Fletcher barely noticed Warwick passing him by, snickering as he passed by his fellow Englishman being chastised by a costumed teenage girl. The commander of the company of horse, however, would not take this so lightly. A black horse and similarly armored rider halted behind Fletcher’s back. Sophia fell silent.

“You think this is a party where you can just mingle about, herr Engländer?” Otto said in English, his shadow cast over the two stragglers, “return to your company or I will have you whipped.” he said to Fletcher.

“Lieutenant Bianchi,” Otto said to Sophia in French, using her alias, “we will deal with this miscreant later, but I advise you to return to your men.”

Just as Sophia wrung her hat and turned around to return to her men, a sound like thunder broke the stillness of the forest, followed by confused yelling and someone from far up in the front shouting,

“¡Emboscada! Ambush!”

20 Minutes Earlier

Graf Franz von Bulow was having a particularly slow day. The war had been hard on him and his band of cutthroats. They were once professional soldiers guarding his county but had since turned to banditry when the Holy Roman Empire was caught up in the flames of war, and pay and food became scarce.

The people he once warded over had now become his victims. Every day he neglected affairs of state to pillage the countryside or extort travelers on the road – anything to keep food in the bellies of his men. The last thing he needed was an armed mutiny.

He and his band of outlaws waited at their usual spot, hidden behind trees in a heavily forested area leading from his territory into the city of Gouda. Usually, they merely demanded a tax for travelers coming through this part of the woods. It was not good practice to kill one’s peasants. Who would grow the wheat? However, something was different today.

Von Bulow heard them before he saw them – the clanking of metal armor and the thunder of a march. Soldiers were passing through his land – and they were probably here to do the same thing he was doing, except they would not hesitate to burn down entire villages to get what they wanted. He could not see clearly through the branches, but he reckoned that they were mostly pikemen. He could hear the shafts of their pikes rattling against each other in the distance. His men were mostly musketeers and swordsmen. He was outnumbered, but if he could confuse them enough, it would probably start a rout and disperse the entire force.

The two force commanders, riding on horseback, passed him by. Good – his force remained undetected. He noticed that they were followed by musketeers, and, as he expected, a massive formation of pikemen. He had to respond now – the pikes would get entangled in the trees and it would be easy work.

He whistled, mimicking the call of the koolmees bird, a signal to get ready for an ambush. His musketeers lit their wicks and aimed their weapons at the flanks of their unsuspecting victims.

The volley of musket fire tore through the left flanks of both Gunther’s pike formation and Alfonso’s halberdiers. The don raised the alarm and ordered his men to make a facing movement towards the enemy. At the very front of the formation, MacRae halted his horse and wheeled around, barking his commands,

“Company, halt! The company will advance, left turn!”

The company’s professional musketeers halted and turned to their left in a synchronized, snappy movement. However, the novice pikemen who were taking fire began running into each other in a state of panic. Some broke formation, dropped their pikes and fled into the woods in the opposite direction, others took their pikes and charged into the woods only to be cut down by sporadic musket fire from an enemy that could not be seen. The majority, however, could not leave the formation since they were blocked in by the narrow road and their panicking comrades.

Pikemen were breaking into Don Alfonso’s halberd formation, and men were being shoved around and pushed to the ground as cowardly novices struggled to escape the fight. The don would have none of it, however, and ordered his men to attack any soldier that strayed into his formation. These beggars with pikes would hold their ground or die.

Gunther tried to keep order by screaming at his men in their native German. He was desperately trying to get them to cover. When they would not listen, he presented his sword – a five-foot monster – and swung at them to make them back up into the woods behind them. This would make room for the muskets to get into position and return fire.

Bjornsson saw his cue and did not need to be prompted by MacRae as he bellowed,

“Mousquetaires! En rang de six! Tournez à gauche! En avant, marche!”

The sergeants repeated the same command in English and the musketeers formed a line of battle six men deep pointed towards the enemy, shoving Gunther’s escaping pikemen out of the way to get into their formation.

There was a sudden lull in the enemy’s fire. Bjornsson took this opportunity to order his men to load and fire into the tree line. Even though he saw nothing, he was sure that he would at least kill a few men.

“Présentez armes! Tirez!”

A single unified volley of musket fire tore through the trees. However, before a second volley could be let off, enemy swordsmen rushed out of the tree line, shouting and cursing in German at the unprepared musketeers.

Gunther was quick to react and ordered his pikemen to reform and charge, meeting their steel with his.

As all this excitement was happening, Sophia and Otto sat in the rear with their troops. Otto’s cavalry were unable to move forward due to the narrowness of the road ahead. Sophia’s swordsmen, however, had no such restrictions.

“Lieutenant Bianchi, order us into the damn woods!” a sergeant shouted at her, “We have a perfect flanking position!”

Sophia’s head was throbbing. She had never been under so much stress before. She wrung her hat tightly in desperation and opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out, only wheezing.

“Luridi coniglio figlio di puttana!” Fucking cowardly son of a bitch, the sergeant cursed, “Men, I am taking command! Follow me!”

The sergeant drew his sword and led Sophia’s men into the flanks of the enemy. Stuck between Gunther’s pikes in front of them and the swordsmen engaging them on their right, the bandits were rapidly losing ground.

An arm wrapped around Sophia’s waist and briskly pulled her into the bushes. She drew her sword in panic, but her arm got stuck on one of the branches.

“All is well!”

It was the peasant archer who had bumped into her earlier. His firm grip loosened and he held her by the shoulders. She did not understand what he was saying, but it sounded like he was trying to reassure her. She nodded out of instinct. He was telling her to hide and wait the battle out.

Warwick saw the swordsmen move in to flank the enemy, and bid his irregulars to finish the fight and draw the enemy musketeers out of the woods.

“Forward, lads! For loot and glory!”

A crowd of eighty Scotsmen, Irishmen, Welshmen and Englishmen shook the leaves with their guttural curses and jumped into the forest without any particular formation. Sword duels with the irregulars degenerated into ferocious murder as Highlanders bit off noses and Irishmen broke skulls with their shillelaghs. The bandits’ morale was broken, and they began fleeing back into the woods under a hail of musket fire. Talbot Company had tasted their first victory in this campaign.