Almost from his resumption of the command in the early spring of that year, Marlborough met with vexations and disappointments.  He had formed the great plan of invading France by way of the Moselle valley, and our two heroes, who had heard whispers as to the work being cut out for the Allies, were ready to dance with delight.  They were still frisky boys out of school, one may say.  But the plan was opposed in two quarters.  First, the Dutch, statesmen and generals alike, threw every obstacle in the way.  They would not hear of the project.  Then Louis of Baden was in one of his worst sulky fits, and for a time refused his help.  When he did consent to go, he demanded a delay, pleading that a wound he had received at the Schellenberg, in the previous year, was not yet fully healed.  The troops the Duke expected did not come in; instead of the 90,000 he wanted, but 30,000 mustered.

“It is no go,” Blackett said to his friend with a groan.

At this juncture the Emperor Leopold died, and the Archduke’s elder brother Joseph succeeded him.

“Spain is bound in the long run to drop into the hands of either France or Austria,” the two young officers agreed.  Already the lads were beginning to take an interest in great matters of state, as was natural in the case of well-educated and intelligent youngsters.  And they felt that when either event should happen it would be a bad day for the rest of Europe.

Baffled in his great scheme, Marlborough set his hand to another important work.  Across the province of Brabant in Flanders the French held a wonderful belt of strongholds, stretching from Namur to Antwerp.  No invasion of France could possibly be made from the Netherlands so long as Louis held this formidable line of defences.  Moreover, the near presence of these fortresses to Holland was a standing threat to the Dutch, and, when Marlborough made known his plans to them, they for once fell in with them.

Thus it happened that Lieutenant Blackett and his friend Cornet Fairburn found themselves once more in the thick of war.  They had had a preliminary skirmish or two not long before—­the retaking of Huy, the frightening of Villeroy from Liege, and what not—­but now something more serious was afoot.  That the task the Duke had set himself was a difficult one, every man in his service knew, but they knew also that he was not a commander likely to be dismayed by mere difficulties.  Villeroy, the leader of the French, had 70,000 troops with him, a larger force than the Allies could get together.

It was near Tirlemont that Marlborough began his operations.  The march to the place went on till it was stopped by a small but awkward brook, the Little Gheet, on the farther side of which the French were very strongly posted in great numbers.  So formidable an affair did the crossing appear that the Dutch generals objected to the attempt being made.  Marlborough, usually the best-tempered of men, was in a rage, and determined to push the attack in spite of them.  It was the morning of July 17, 1705.