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Webb's bravery, generosity, and very weaknesses of character caused him to be beloved in the army. "Like Hector, handsome, and like Paris, brave!" whispers Frank Castlewood. "A Venus, an elderly Venus, couldn't refuse him a pippin. Stand up, Harry. See, we are drinking the army of Wynendael. Ramillies is nothing to it. Huzzay! huzzay!"
He persisted, to his dying day, in believing that the Duke intended he should be beat at Wynendael, and sent him purposely with a small force, hoping that he might be knocked on the head there.
Major-General Webb had meanwhile made up a force of twenty battalions and three squadrons of dragoons at Turout, whence he moved to cover the convoy and pursue La Mothe: with whose advanced guard ours came up upon the great plain of Turout, and before the little wood and castle of Wynendael; behind which the convoy was marching.
All the town was indignant at my Lord Duke's unjust treatment of General Webb, and applauded the vote of thanks which the House of Commons gave to the General for his victory at Wynendael.
He seemed to know as well what was taking place in the Prince's quarter as our own: he brought the compliments of the King of England to some of our officers, the gentlemen of Webb's among the rest, for their behavior on that great day; and after Wynendael, when our General was chafing at the neglect of our Commander-in-Chief, he said he knew how that action was regarded by the chiefs of the French army, and that the stand made before Wynendael wood was the passage by which the Allies entered Lille.
"He will be at Roncq time enough to lick my Lord Duke's trenchers at supper," says Mr. Webb. Our own men lay out in the woods of Wynendael that night, and our General had his supper in the little castle there. "If I was Cadogan, I would have a peerage for this day's work," General Webb said; "and, Harry, thou shouldst have a regiment.
"Here it is Action of Wynendael here you are, General," says Frank, seizing hold of the little dingy paper that soldiers love to read so; and, scrambling over from our bench, he went to where the General sat, who knew him, and had seen many a time at his table his laughing, handsome face, which everybody loved who saw. The generals in their great perukes made way for him.
Frank laughed at my Lord Duke's glum face: the affair of Wynendael, and the Captain-General's conduct to Webb, had been the talk of the whole army. When his Highness spoke, and gave "Le vainqueur de Wynendael; son armee et sa victoire," adding, "qui nous font diner a Lille aujourd'huy" there was a great cheer through the hall; for Mr.
No more the drummer boy with a waist like a French dancing girl, wrists like Bombardier Wells, and shoulders like a wooden man out of a Noah's Ark. No more the throbbing and growling of the drums; the staccato detonations and the insolent crescendoes of the drums. No more the wild music that the bands played to the men who fought at Minden, Malplaquet and Wynendael.
With these fond friends, Blenheim and Oudenarde seemed to be mere trifling incidents of the war; and Wynendael was its crowning victory. Esmond's mistress never tired to hear accounts of the battle; and I think General Webb's lady grew jealous of her, for the General was for ever at Kensington, and talking on that delightful theme.
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