WILLIAM LE QUEUX: 15 Dystopian Novels & Espionage Thrillers (Illustrated Edition). William Le Queux
under Major W. Brodie, V.D., and the Artists, under Capt. W. L. Duffield and Lieut. Pott, the road was in a few minutes strewn with horses and men dead and dying.
Still onward there rushed along the valley great masses of French infantry, but the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Volunteer Battalions of the Royal Fusiliers, under Col. G. C. Clark, V.D., Col. A. L. Keller, and Col. L. Whewell respectively; the 2nd V. B. Middlesex Regiment, under Col. G. Brodie Clark, V.D.; the 3rd Middlesex, under Col. R Hennell, D.S.O., late of the Indian Army; and the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th West Surrey, under Col. J. Freeland, V.D., Col. G. Drewitt, V.D., Col. S. B. Bevington, V.D., and Col. F. W. Haddan, V.D., engaged them, and by dint of desperate effort, losing heavily all the time, they defeated them, drove them back, and slaughtered them in a manner that to a non-combatant was horrible and appalling. Time after time, the enemy, still being harassed by the British Regulars on their right, charged up the valley, in order to take the battery at Harestone Farm; but on each occasion few of those who dashed forward survived. The dusty roads, the grassy slopes, and the ploughed lands were covered with corpses, and blood draining into the springs and rivulets tinged their crystal waters.
As afternoon passed and the battle continued, it was by no means certain that success in this fierce final struggle would lie with us. Having regard to the enormous body of invaders now concentrated on the Surrey border, and striving by every device to force a passage through our lines, our forces, spread over such a wide area and outflanking them, were necessarily weak. It was therefore only by the excellent tactics displayed by our officers, and the magnificent courage of the men themselves, that we had been enabled to hold back these overwhelming masses, which had already desolated Sussex with fire and sword.
Our Regulars operating along the old Roman highway through Blindley Heath — where the invaders were making a desperate stand — and over to Lingfield, succeeded, after very hard fighting, in clearing the enemy off the railway embankment from Crowhurst along to South Park Farm, and following them up, annihilated them.
Gradually, just at sundown, a strong division of the enemy were outflanked at Godstone, and, refusing to lay down their arms, were simply swept out of existence, scarcely a single man escaping. Thus forced back from, perhaps, the most vulnerable point in our defences, the main body of the enemy were then driven away upon Redhill, still fighting fiercely. Over Redstone Hill, through Mead Vale, and across Reigate Park to the Heath, the enemy were shot down in hundreds by our Regulars; while our Volunteers, whose courage never deserted them, engaged the French in hand-to-hand encounters through the streets of Redhill and Reigate, as far as Underhill Park.
In Hartswood a company of the 4th East Surrey Rifles, under Major S. B. Wheaton, V.D., were lying in ambush, when suddenly among the trees they caught glimpses of red, baggy trousers, and scarlet, black-tasselled fezes, and a few seconds later they found that a large force of Zouaves were working through the wood. A few moments elapsed, and the combat commenced. The Algerians fought like demons, and with bullet and bayonet inflicted terrible punishment upon us; but as they emerged into the road preparatory to firing a volley into the thickets, they were surprised by a company of the 2nd Volunteer Battalion of the East Surrey Regiment, under Capt. Pott, who killed and wounded half their number, and took the remainder prisoners.
Gradually our Volunteer brigades occupying the long range of hills united with our Regulars still on the enemy's right from Reigate to Crawley, and closed down upon the foe, slowly narrowing the sphere of their operations, and by degrees forcing them back due westward. Russians and French, who had attacked Dorking, had by this time been defeated with heavy loss, and by dusk the main body had been thrown back to Newdigate, where in Reffold's Copse one or two very sanguinary encounters occurred. These, however, were not always in our favour, for the Civil Service Volunteers here sustained very heavy losses. On the railway embankment, and on the road running along the crest of the hill to Dorking, the French made a stand, and there wrought frightful execution among our men with their machine guns. Around Beare Green, Trout's Farm, and behind the "White Hart" at Holmwood, the enemy rapidly brought their guns into play, and occupied such strong strategic positions that as night drew on it became evident that they intended to remain there until the morrow.
The defenders had but little cover, and consequently felt the withering fire of the French very severely. The latter had entrenched themselves, and now in the darkness it was difficult for our men to discern their exact position. Indeed, the situation of our forces became very serious and unsafe as night proceeded; but at length, about ten o'clock, a strong force of British Regulars, including the Sikhs and a detachment of Australians, swept along the road from Dorking, and came suddenly upon the French patrols. These were slaughtered with little resistance, and almost before the enemy were aware of it, the whole position was completely surrounded.
Our men then used their field search-lights with very great advantage; for, as the enemy were driven out into the open, they were blinded by the glare, and fell an easy prey to British rifles; while the Frenchmen's own machine guns were turned upon them with frightful effect, their battalions being literally mowed down by the awful hail of bullets.
CHAPTER XL
"FOR ENGLAND!"
Through the whole night the battle still raged furiously. The enemy fought on with reckless, unparalleled daring. Chasseurs and Zouaves, Cuirassiers, Dragoons, and infantry from the Loire and the Rhone struggled desperately, contesting every step, and confident of ultimate victory.
But the enemy had at last, by the splendid tactics of the defenders, been forced into a gradually contracting square, bounded by Dorking and Guildford in the north, and Horsham and Billinghurst in the south, and soon after midnight, with a concentric movement from each of the four corners, British Regulars and Volunteers advanced steadily upon the foe, surrounding and slaughtering them.
The horrors of that night were frightful; the loss of life on every hand enormous. Britannia had husbanded her full strength until this critical moment; for now, when the fate of her Empire hung upon a single thread, she sent forth her valiant sons, who fell upon those who had desecrated and destroyed their homes, and wreaked a terrible vengeance.
Through the dark, sultry hours this awful destruction of life continued with unabated fury, and many a Briton closed with his foe in death embrace, or fell forward mortally wounded. Of British heroes there were many that night, for true pluck showed itself everywhere, and Englishmen performed many deeds worthy their traditions as the most courageous and undaunted among nations.
Although the French Commander-in-chief had been killed, yet the enemy still fought on tenaciously, holding their ground on Leith Hill and through Pasture Wood to Wotton and Abinger, until at length, when the saffron streak in the sky heralded another blazing day, the straggling, exhausted remnant of the once-powerful legions of France and Russia, perspiring, dust-covered, and bloodstained, finding they stood alone, and that the whole of Sussex and Surrey had been swept and their comrades slaughtered, laid down their arms and eventually surrendered.
After these three breathless days of butchery and bloodshed England was at last victorious!
In this final struggle for Britain's freedom the invader had been crushed and his power broken; for, thanks to our gallant citizen soldiers, the enemy that had for weeks overrun our smiling land like packs of hungry wolves, wantonly burning our homes and massacring the innocent and unprotected, had at length met with their well-merited deserts, and now lay spread over the miles of pastures, cornfields, and forests, stark, cold, and dead.
Britain had at last vanquished the two powerful nations that had sought by ingenious conspiracy to accomplish her downfall.
Thousands of her brave sons had, alas! fallen while fighting under the British flag. Many of the principal streets of her gigantic capital were only parallel lines of gaunt, blackened ruins, and many of her finest cities lay wrecked, shattered, and desolate; yet this terrible ordeal had happily