The TENTH were immediately led to the spot, and they engaged the French grenadiers with spirit. The commanding officer of the regiment, Lieutenant-Colonel Grove, was made prisoner, and Brigadier-General Evans, who commanded the troops at that point, was also captured; but the enemy was soon driven back into the town. On the 2nd of January, 1709, the governor surrendered; and the TENTH took up their quarters for the winter in the captured town. [Sidenote: 1709] From Ghent, the regiment marched, in the spring of 1709, to the plain of Lisle; and was afterwards encamped on the Upper Dyle. After menacing the enemy's lines, and causing Marshal Villars to draw all the troops out of the fortified towns, which could possibly be spared, to strengthen his army in the field, the allies suddenly invested _Tournay_. During the siege of the town the TENTH regiment formed part of the covering army, but when the citadel was attacked, this, with several other regiments, left the covering army, and marched to Tournay to take part in the siege. The citadel of Tournay was situated on some high ground, with a gentle ascent from the town, and the siege proved a service of the most difficult character. The peculiarities arose not so much from the strength of the fortifications, as from the multiplicity of the subterraneous works, which were more numerous than those aboveground. The approaches were carried on by sinking pits several fathoms deep, and working from thence underground, until the troops arrived at the casements and mines. The soldiers engaged in these services frequently encountered parties of the enemy, and numerous combats occurred in these gloomy labyrinths. On some occasions the men at work underground were inundated with water; on another occasion three hundred men were suffocated with smoke, and a hundred men were buried by the explosion of a mine. A detachment of the eighteenth foot was blown into the air, and their limbs scattered to a distance; and a battalion of Germans was destroyed by another mine; the TENTH foot also lost a number of men in the mines. At length it became difficult to induce the soldiers to enter these dark caverns, and engage in so appalling a service; they were, however, persuaded to persevere, and the citadel surrendered in the beginning of September. After the capture of Tournay, the allied army traversed the country with a view of besieging the city of Mons, the capital of the province of Hainault; but when on the march, the allies found the French army, under Marshals Villars and Boufflers, in position near _Malplaquet_, and resolved to hazard an engagement.