IAIN GALE

Man of Honour

Jack Steel and the Blenheim Campaign,

July to August 1704

For Sarah

Contents

Title Page Dedication Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Epilogue Historical Note Rules Of War Chapter One About the Author Also By Iain Gale Copyright About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

Upper Bavaria, July 1704

They had come here by stealth to carry the war deep into the south. An army of many nations: English and Scots, Hanoverians and Prussians, Hessians, Danes and Dutch. They had but one purpose: the defeat of France and her ally, Bavaria. The French King, Louis XIV, they knew to be a power-mad maniac, styling himself the Sun King. It was clear that he would not be content until he possessed all Europe, from Spain to Poland. And so it was, on this sultry day in early July, as afternoon drifted into evening, that fate brought these many thousands of men to Donauwö rth, a little Bavarian town with its ancient high walls and ramparts.

Above it, at the top of a steep slope, stood a fort whose hill, inspired by its distinctive shape, the local people had long ago christened ‘Schellenberg’ – The Hill of the Bell. It was abundantly and worryingly clear to all the soldiers who now stood in its shadow, that before any decisive victory could be won, before they could bring the French to battle, drive them back to Paris and remove forever the Sun King’s threat, that this hill and its little fort would have to be taken.

ONE

The tall young officer stood a few yards out in front of the company of redcoats and stared up at the fort that towered above them on the hill. For two hours now he had been awaiting the order to advance and with every passing moment the enemy position looked more forbidding. Like almost every man in the army, he had the greatest admiration and respect for his Commander-in-Chief. But at this precise moment he had begun to wonder whether, truly, this entire enterprise might not be doomed to failure. He tried to banish the thought. To maintain some degree of sang-froid before his men. But as he did so, the first cannonball fell in front of the three ranks of red-coated infantry, bounced up from the springy turf with grisly precision, and carried away four of them in a welter of blood and brains.

‘Feeling the heat, Mister Steel?’

The Lieutenant looked up. Silhouetted against the sun a tall figure in a full-bottomed wig peered down at him from horseback.

‘A trifle, Sir James.’

‘A trifle, eh? I’d have thought that you’d have been used to it after, how many years a soldier?’

‘Nigh on a dozen, Colonel.’

‘But of course. How could I forget? You earned your spurs in the Northern wars, did you not? Fighting the Rooshians. A little colder there I dare say.’

‘A little, Colonel.’

‘Can’t imagine why you should have wanted to go there at all. Narva, Riga? What sort of battles were those, eh?’

The question was not intended to have a reply.

‘Well, Steel, what think you of our chances today? Shall we do it?’

‘I believe that we can, Sir. Though it will not be easily done.’

‘No, indeed. Yet we must take this town. It is the key to the Danube and the gateway to Bavaria. And to do that we needs must take the fort. And we must do it by frontal assault. There is no other way. You would say, Steel, that the rules of war dictate we must do it by siege. And you would be right. But we have no siege guns and thus our Commander-in-Chief, His Grace the Duke of Marlborough, dictates that this is the way it shall be done. And so it shall. We will attack up that hill into the face of their guns.’

He paused and shook his head. ‘Our casualties will be heavy. God knows, Steel, this is not the proper way to win a battle. It will not be like any of the battles you saw with the Swedes, I’ll warrant. Eh? Rooshians and Swedes, Steel. Indeed I can’t fathom what you saw in it. No Rooshians today, Steel. Only the French and their Bavarian friends to beat. Still. Hot work, eh? Good day to you.’

Colonel Sir James Farquharson laughed, touched his hat to the young Lieutenant and trotted away down the line of the battalion, his voice echoing above the rising cannonfire as he shouted greetings to the other company commanders of the advance storming party:

‘Good afternoon, Charles. Good day to you, Henry. We dine in Donauwörth this evening, I believe.’

Steel shook his head and smiled. Yes, he thought. He could see why Sir James would not understand the reasons why he should have wished to fight with the Swedes. That it would never occur to his Colonel to take yourself off to find a war. Soldiering for Sir James Farquharson was a gentlemanly affair. A thing of parades and banners. But if there was one thing that Jack Steel had learnt in the last twelve years it was that there was nothing gentlemanly about war. Nothing whatsoever.

He turned his head towards his men. Saw the lines being redressed by the sergeants and the corporals, the bloody gaps filled up from the rear with fresh troops. The dismembered bodies being dragged away.

‘The Colonel seems happy, Sir. Do you suppose he thinks we’re going to win?’

The surprisingly mellifluous voice belonged to Steel’s Sergeant, Jacob Slaughter. Six foot two of Geordie and the only man in the company broader and taller than Steel himself. Gap-toothed, loose-limbed Sergeant Slaughter, who had run away to join the colours to avoid being sent to work in the new coal mines of County Durham. Towering Sergeant Slaughter who was so terrified of small spaces, who couldn’t abide the dark and was unutterably clumsy in all manner of things. But who, on the field of battle was a man transformed, as skilled and calculating a killer as Steel had ever encountered. A man next to whom, more than any other, you would want to stand when all around you the world had dissolved in a boiling surf of blood and death. Steel greeted him with a smile.

‘D’you need to ask, Jacob? Sir James doesn’t think we’ll win. He knows it. Our Colonel raised this regiment, his regiment with his name, from his own pocket. He wants us to be the finest in the British army. It’s not just our lives that’ll be at stake up there. It’s his money and his pride. He needs a few battle honours. And it’s up to us to give them to him.’

‘D’you think we’ll be going in soon then, Sir? I’m startin’ to get a dreadful thirst.’

‘By God, Jacob. That thirst of yours is no respecter of time and place. Here we stand, about to launch possibly the most desperate feat of arms to which you or I have ever been party – and quite probably our last – and you tell me you want a drink. I tell you, Sarn’t, there’ll be drink a plenty if we take this damned town. Don’t you worry. I’ll personally find you a cask of the finest Moselle.’

‘You’re as fine a gentleman as I’ve ever known, Mister Steel, and I’ll take you at your word. But if you really mean it, Sir, I’d sooner have a barrel of German ale than any bloody wine – if it’s all the same with you.’

He paused. His attention drawn by sudden movement towards the right of the line.

‘Aye aye. Looks like we might be on the move.’

Following his Sergeant’s gaze, Steel saw a galloper. A young Cornet of Cavalry mounted on a handsome black mare, racing at speed down the lines. Here then, at last, was the order. And not before time. They had marched, halted and been ordered at stand-to since three o’clock that morning. Now it was nearing six in the evening. Surely now they must go. The men were restless. They would not stand for much more delay, or they would lose their nerve. Steel looked about him. Back down the slope he was able to see the massed battalions and squadrons of the main army, including the other ten companies of his own regiment.

Guidons and colours flew from their spear-topped poles, high above serried ranks of red, blue, grey, brown, and green as the allies assembled their might to follow into the gap that it was confidently presumed would be made by the storming party.

It was more evident than ever, he thought, what a rag-bag army this was. English, Scots, Irish, and an unlikely union of Dutchmen, Hessians, Prussians and Danes. Walk through their camp and you would find men communicating with each other by sign language, or attempting some laughable patois. Steel, ironically, had always found that the easiest language to use – that most understood by his allied counterparts – was the French of their enemies. He wondered how the allied army would hold together under fire. Oh, he did not doubt the Duke’s capabilities with their own contingent. But how would so many foreigners suffer being commanded by an Englishman? Nevertheless, you could not help but admire the sight.

‘A fine view, Jack, is it not?’

Steel’s fellow officer, Lieutenant Henry Hansam, was standing beside him, holding open a small silver snuff box.

‘Care for a pinch?’

Steel waved him away. Hansam took a good pinch and inhaled deeply before continuing:

‘Although little good it does us. We are quite alone up here. They expect a miracle of us, Jack. Nothing less than a miracle.’

He let out a loud sneeze, withdrew a silk handkerchief from his sleeve and wiped his nose. Steel spoke.

‘Well, Henry. Can we manage it? Shall we give them their miracle?’

‘We are the choice troops, you know. If we cannot take this position then most certainly it cannot be achieved. We are the chosen few. Forty-five times one hundred and thirty men, plucked from each English and Scots battalion on this field. The Duke himself has had a hand in our choosing. Naturally Sir James sends only his Grenadiers. And why not? It is the very purpose for which the Grenadiers were created. We are the “storm” troops. We have the height, the agility, the strength. And, by God Jack, you know we have the heart to do it.’

Steel cast a sideways look at their company. They were giants among men. Not one among them under five foot ten. They had been chosen, too, for their experience and skill with arms; their ability to move fast and to operate on their own initiative.

They were the finest infantry in Queen Anne’s army and soon he would lead them forward, up the hill and, God willing, into the fort. To death or glory and the promise of a handsome bounty. Looking up again at the dark mass of the fort, Steel could not suppress a chill shudder of apprehension. He looked away and pretended to straighten his sash. Hansam sneezed again through his snuff, wiped his nose with the now discoloured square of silk.

Steel looked at his friend, who, along with him, bore the title unique to the Grenadiers of ‘Second Company Lieutenant’. With Colonel Farquharson keen to draw for himself the additional pay that came with the nominal command of their company, Hansam and Steel between them found that they now commanded the Grenadiers in the field yet without the status or pay of a captain. Nor had they any junior officers.

Their last Ensign, a weak-livered boy of fifteen, had left them at Coblenz – invalided out with chronic dysentery. As yet they had found no replacement. Steel spoke, quietly:

‘Of course, there is the bounty money.’

Hansam raised his eyebrows.

‘Of course, Jack. We cannot delude ourselves that the men will do it entirely for the love of Queen and country. Nor even, dare I say it, for love of the Duke. Keep them happy and they’ll fight. Oh yes. They’ll fight. For the bounty.’

‘I was talking, Henry, about our own share.’

‘Oh.’

Hansam paused, then grinned.

‘Naturally, my dear fellow. Of course. We may profit too. Point of fact, I never did understand quite how someone as financially limited and indeed as frugal as yourself, had ever come to have started off in the Foot Guards. Although perhaps now I do see your reasons for transferring from that illustrious regiment to join our happy band.’

Steel nodded his head. Hansam spoke again, smiling:

‘Perhaps, Jack … if we should survive, I might persuade you to accompany me to a proper tailor, in London. I mean take a look at yourself, Jack. Why, your hat alone …’

Steel looked down at the hat which he held in his hand. Unlike some Grenadier officers, he did not choose to wear the mitre cap, but preferred his battered, gold-laced black tricorne. In fact he habitually fought bareheaded. And anyway, at six foot one, as the second tallest man in the company, he knew that a Grenadier’s mitre cap would have made him look less frightening than absurd. Besides, the most precious lesson he had got from twelve years of soldiering, nine of them with the colours, was that to survive as an officer you should not offer the enemy too obvious a target and yet at the same time must be sufficiently distinctive to be instantly recognisable to your own men.

‘Well, Henry. It does let the men know where I am.’

Hansam laughed. For both officers knew that, with or without his hat, his men could hardly mistake Steel. Apart from his height, there was his hair, which rather than cutting short and covering with a full wig, as was the fashion, he preferred to wear long and tied back in a bow with a piece of black ribbon: another practical trick learnt on the field of battle.

‘I say.’

Hansam was pointing along the line.

‘We appear to be under orders.’

Steel could see that the galloper had reached the senior commanders of the storming party now. They had dismounted, as was common practice, to lead the attack on foot. He could make out Major-General Henry Withers and Brigadier-General James Ferguson, commanders respectively of the English and Scots troops of the assault force. Beside them stood the determined figure of Johan Goors, the distinguished, middle-aged Dutch officer of engineers, well known for his opposition to Baden, to whom Marlborough had entrusted overall command of the assault.

The officers had gathered near, although not too close, to the ‘forlorn hope’, a band of some eighty men – volunteers all, drawn from Steel’s old regiment, the First Foot Guards – whose unhappy task, as their name suggested, was to go first into the defences and discover by their own sacrifice where the enemy might be strongest. To put it bluntly, they would draw the enemy’s fire on to themselves. Most of them would die. But for those who survived there would be the greatest rewards and celebrity. Immortality even. At its head Steel saw the unmistakeable tall and handsome Lord John Mordaunt. The two had served together for a time and Steel had been somewhat surprised last year when Mordaunt had been refused the hand of Marlborough’s daughter. Perhaps the honour of leading the ‘hope’ now was some self-inflicted penance for that amorous failure. Or Mordaunt’s last chance possibly to win the admiration of the man who might have been his father-in-law. From the right, a squadron of English dragoons now approached their line. Steel noticed that each trooper carried in front of him across his saddle two thick bundles of what looked like sticks, tied together with rope. The cavalry broke into open order and began to ride between each rank of the Grenadiers, handing out the bundles of fascines, one to each man. To the officers too. Steel took his own realizing how cumbersome it was. These though were the vital tools that they were to use to cross the great defensive ditch that they had discovered lay in their way at the top of the hill, a short distance in front of the breastworks.

A thunderous roar made Steel turn momentarily and up on the gentle hill behind them he saw flame spout from the mouths of ten cannon. The sum total of the allied artillery had been stationed there, close to a small village set afire by the French in an attempt to impede their progress. Ten guns. That was all that they had to soften up the defences that lay above them. The balls flew over their heads and disappeared high up on the enemy position. Well, it appeared that at least someone in the high command was trying to prepare the way for their assault.

At the foot of the Schellenberg, all now safely across the stream, stood the formed ranks of the main army. English, Scots, Dutchmen and the men from Hesse and Prussia who had joined them at Coblenz. Steel watched as the evening sun glanced off the green slopes of the hill and the brown line of the basketwork gabions. Soon, he knew, this pretty field would be transformed into a bloody killing ground.

Instinctively, with the eye of the veteran, he began to calculate how far they would have to travel to make it to the defences. Four hundred yards perhaps. Hansam smiled at him.

‘Well, that’s it then. I suppose that we had better take our stations. No point in giving their gunners too obvious a target. Until we meet again, Jack, at the top of the hill.’

‘At the top of the hill, Henry.’

Almost before he could sense the hollow ring of his words, he was suddenly aware of the reassuring presence of Sergeant Slaughter at his side.

‘Ready, Sir? I think we’re really off now.’

Steel felt the old emptiness in his stomach that always marked the approach of battle.

He knew that the only way to appear in control was to force your way through it.

‘Very good Sarn’t. Have the men make ready.’

Slaughter turned to the ranks.

‘All right. Let’s have you. Look to it now. Smarten up. Dress your ranks.’

They were standing six deep now, rather than in the customary four ranks. Six ranks to push with sheer weight of numbers as deep as possible into the fortifications and through the men beyond. But six ranks that would give equally such easy sport to the enemy guns whose cannonballs, falling just short of the front man, would bounce up and through him before continuing to take down another five, ten, twenty in his wake. Slaughter barked the command:

‘Grenadiers. Fix …’ he drew breath.

With one motion the Grenadiers drew the newfangled blades from their sheaths fumbling with the unfamiliar fastenings. Slaughter finished:

‘… bayonets.’

With a rattle of metal against metal the company fixed the clumsy sockets on to the barrels of their fusils. A distant voice, the confident growl of General Goors, speaking in a slow and particular tone and loud to the point of hoarseness, rang out across the field.

‘The storming party will advance.’

The pause that followed, as Goors turned to his front seemed an eternity. And then his single word of command.

‘Advance.’

Along the line, the order was taken up by a hundred sergeants and lieutenants. Behind each regimental contingent two fifers began a tune that on the fifth bar, with a fast, rising roll, was taken up by the drummer boys. The familiar rattle and paradiddle of ‘the Grenadiers’ March’.

Then, with a great cheer, the line began to walk forward. Steel measured his pace. Not with the precision of the Prussians or the Dutch, who were always directed by their blessed manual of rules to walk into battle: ‘as slow as foot could fall’. But rather with the singular, slow step of the British infantry. A gentle step, as their own manual directed, designed to ensure that the men would not be ‘out of breath when they came to engage’. It was certainly an easy pace, he thought. But deadly. And under cannonfire quite the last way in which you would want to conduct yourself.

Walking forward now, as the enemy shot began to fly in earnest towards their lines, Steel felt his feet begin to sink into the soft ground. Weighed down by their bundles of faggots, the men soon found they could not gather pace. Four hundred yards, thought Steel. Good God. It seemed more like a mile now, stretching out before him up the hill. No hill now, but a mountain, from the top of which he saw guns belch more gouts of flame as the French artillery opened up with its full force. Ten, twenty roundshot at a time came leaping at them down the slope, finding a home in the ranks behind him. Steel heard the cries to his rear as his own men were blown to oblivion. He repeated a litany in his head: ‘Face the front. Keep looking to the front. Don’t be distracted. Don’t, for pity’s sake, look back.’

He heard Slaughter close behind him, through the cacophany of shot, bark another, familiar command: ‘Dress your ranks. Keep them steady. Corporal Jenkins. Your section. Keep it steady now, mind.’

Keep steady. It was madness in this hail of roundshot and grenades. But there was no other way. A cannonball flew past his left elbow. Steel felt the shockwave. Another roundshot came hurtling towards him and passed horribly close, before taking off the head of one of the second-rank men and continuing down the hill. To his left he could see Henry Hansam advancing at a similar walking pace. The drums were driving them forward now, hammering out their tattoo with frenzied rhythm. Momentarily forgetting his own advice, he looked behind. Saw Slaughter and next to him, his face covered in mud, his coat splashed with blood and brains from the man who had been killed beside him, yet still smiling through his fear, one of the infants of the company. A boy of barely sixteen. Steel grinned at him. He was a Yorkshire farmhand, if his memory served him right. Runaway, most like. He shouted through the cacophany:

‘Truman, isn’t it? All right lad?’

A bigger smile. That was good.

‘Don’t worry. You’re doing well. Not bad for your first battle. Sarn’t Slaughter, let’s get up there and show them how it’s done.’

Looking to his front he could see nothing but smoke and flying shot. The noise was indescribable. A familiar terror began to rise inside him. Like the sudden, illogical panic that could sweep through you when standing on a precipice. Must stay calm, he thought. The men must not see that I am afraid. There was a cold feeling now in the pit of his stomach. Feet like lead. I am not afraid. He bit his lip until he could taste the blood. Good. He was alive. He would live through this. Just put one foot in front of the other and walk forward. That was it. Slowly he began to advance, and got into an automatic rhythm. Easier now. He raised his sword. It was the right time to say something now. The words flew from him.

‘Grenadiers. Follow me.’

Again they started to climb the slope and with every pace more men fell, as more of the deadly black balls hurtled down towards them. Two hundred yards more now, he guessed. All they had to do was carry on and they’d be there. Just keep going. He was suddenly aware of a change in the rhythm of fire from the defences. Instantly, its cause became evident, as a hail of cannister shot – thirty iron balls blown from the cannon mouth in a canvas bag – slammed into the men standing to his left and took away a score of red-coated bodies. At the same instant a crash of musket fire signalled that the French infantry too had found their range. More men fell. Somewhere, through the drifting smoke to his left, another officer called out:

‘Charge. Charge, boys. God save the Queen.’

Steel saw the man fall, but his cry was taken up along the line and as one, the men broke into a trot. Steel too began to run. Breathing hard now, the smell of powder drifting strong and acrid into his nostrils. They passed through a mist of billowing white smoke. When they emerged on the other side of the cloud however, a sunken gulley appeared directly in front of him – from nowhere. Steel pulled up. He yelled at the men behind him to stop and found himself at the top of a muddy bank of a depth of four, perhaps five feet. Behind him the men came to a halt. All around him, and down along the line, he could hear the frantic shouts of corporals and sergeants. A corporal to his left was giving orders:

‘Right lads. This is it. Drop your fasheens. Over we go.’

As the men began to throw down their wooden bundles, Steel wondered. This could not be right. It was too soon. This was no defensive ditch. Merely a sunken track. He turned to the Corporal:

‘No, no. Don’t use them here. This is not the place. Carry on. Follow me.’

The man looked suprised, but it was too late. The front rank had already thrown their precious rolls of wood down into the lane. Men attempted to clamber across, but found the distance too great and slithered off into the mud. At the same time, cannonballs started to crash into their ranks. The French gunners had adjusted their range and were aiming directly for the thin stripe of the track. Some of the men began to panic; unsure of whether they should stand, use their fascines or drop down without them into the gulley. The more athletic managed to cross the makeshift wooden causeway, only to find themselves all the more prone to the hail of roundshot. Steel jumped down into the ditch and half clambered up the other side, using the bank as cover. He heard Slaughter’s booming voice.

‘Keep to your ranks. Dress your ranks.’

For they were ragged now. And to the Sergeant ragged ranks meant ragged discipline. Lack of confidence. Lack of nerve. Steel knew equally well that if their nerve went this soon, then the attack would just dissolve. But he could see too that, whatever Slaughter’s instinct, this was no time for parade-ground drill. He called up to the big Sergeant.

‘Jacob. Forget the bloody ranks. Get the men down here. Form on me.’

Startled out of his automatic manouevre, Slaughter checked and began to herd the men into cover. Quickly the half-company of Grenadiers descended into the gulley, followed Steel’s example and pressed themselves hard against the cover of the far bank. Removing his hat, Steel peered gingerly over the top, up towards the fort. He could see them more clearly now. The figures in white coats up on the parapet. French infantry. They were standing quite still; drawn up in silence as if on parade. They made an eerie, unnerving contrast to the shouting mass of his own men that milled around him, pressing themselves into the muddy wall of the sunken road. Up on the fort Steel saw officers begin to shout commands. Saw the front rank of the French take one pace forward. He saw them reach behind and unbuckle a black pouch. Grenadiers. He knew all too well what was coming next. He turned to the men:

‘Keep well into the bank. For God’s sake, lads, keep well in and keep your heads down and you’ll be all right.’

Two smooth black spheres, smaller than roundshot and sputtering flame bowled by the defenders underarm, like cricket balls, came bouncing into the makeshift trench. Steel looked to see where they had landed and moved quickly away from them.

Men pushed themselves deeper into the muddy bank, trying in vain to make the ground swallow them up. The fuse of one of the round black bombs fizzed to a stop and failed to detonate. The other one though, which had come to rest by the far bank of the gulley, exploded in a hail of red-hot iron, instantly killing three of the Grenadiers and blinding another who lay shrieking in the mud, clutching at the bloody ruin of his face. Steel could hear the cries of other wounded men echoing from above, where behind them, among the second-wave assault troops on the lower slopes of the hill, more grenades had found their mark. There was only one thing to do now. He turned to Slaughter.

‘We’ve got to get out of this death trap. Now. Come on.’

Looking out again above the rim of the bank, Steel tried to find a way forward. To the left lay the bulk of the storming party, mired down in the torrent of shot, not knowing whether to stand or advance. He saw men stumbling forward into the ditch. All was confusion. He thought he saw Goors himself fall. To his right though, there was no one. He and the Grenadiers were the very end of the line. The extreme right wing. For an instant a wild idea entered his mind. Might not the French, observing that the allied attack was going in on their right, perhaps have grouped their men principally towards that area? Surely that would mean that they would have weakened their own left flank. The flank that now lay obliquely to his own command. He peered through the smoke and looked hard up at the battlements. He could see where they ended – in the great bulk of the old fort – and could see too the cannon placed high on its ramparts pointing into what would soon be the flank of the attackers. But to the right of the fort he could see nothing but some hastily prepared earthworks. There were troops behind them to be sure. More white-coated infantry. But, if he guessed right, this was only a skeleton force. A plan was starting to form in his mind. Perhaps … He looked for Slaughter.

‘Jacob. Have the men follow me. Tell them to remove their caps and keep their heads down and come on in single file. We’re not going forward, Jacob. We’re going sideways. We’re going to move along the gulley. They can’t see us here. But I know where they are. We’re going to give the French a bit of a surprise.’

Slaughter smiled. He saw instantly what Steel was about and began to send word down the line. Steel beckoned to Truman.

‘Go and find Mister Hansam. Tell him that we’re going to stay in the trench. We’re going to take the Frenchies in the flank. He’ll know what I mean. Hurry now and tell him to keep his head down and to get the men to take their caps off.’

Slowly, bent double and making sure to keep his own head well below the bank, Steel began to make his way along the ditch. He looked back and saw that the Grenadiers were following suit. After twenty yards the ditch turned sharply back down the hill, towards the allied army. For a ghastly moment Steel panicked. What if he were wrong? What if this gulley did not lead parallel to the fortifications, as he had guessed, but away from the French and the battle? What then? Desertion? Court martial? He began to sweat. There was nothing for it now though but to continue, whatever the consequences. He would take all the blame and exonerate Hansam. He would face the terrible charge of desertion in the face of the enemy on his own. Steel slipped on the muddy floor of the ditch, and swore. His thighs and back had begun to ache from the exertion of travelling bent over. They seemed to be taking an eternity to cover such a small distance. At length, after some eighty yards, they came to another junction. Steel saw that the main route of the gulley led left, back up the slope, towards the French lines. He muttered an imprecation of thanks to the Almighty under his breath. Heard Slaughter too, tucked in tight behind him: ‘Thank God.’

They followed the line of the new ditch, climbing steadily as they went. Another fifty yards and the gulley came to an abrupt dead end. This was it then. Steel turned back, still crouching, and motioned the men to stay down. It was quieter here, away from the cannonade that was still taking its toll of the main force away to their left. He signed to the Grenadiers to sling their fusils on their backs, unbutton their pouches and withdraw one of the three grenades that it contained. Then indicated by sign language that, once they were within range of the enemy, they should ignite the fuse of the missile from the slow-burning match that each man wore strapped to his wrist. Creeping over to the southern side of the gulley he peered over the top. As he had suspected, some 200 yards down the slope, he could make out the plumes and horses of the allied commanders, concealed in a similar gulley. He beckoned to a Grenadier: Pearson. Fastest runner in the company.

‘Take yourself off to Marlborough. He’s down there, see? Tell him that we’ve found a gap in the line. That I’m going to attack and the way is open. Got that? The way is open.’

The young man nodded and, crawling out of the ditch, was soon up and running for the allied lines. Steel crept back to the other side of the gulley. Then, taking a deep breath, he stood up, hauled himself up on top of the forward bank, placed his foot on the turf at the top, sprang out and straightened up. He found himself standing, horribly prone, not ten yards away from a stretch of crude, basketwork gabions, behind a shallow ditch. He had not realized that they might end up quite so close to the enemy lines. What was even more alarming though was the fact that he found himself staring directly into the terrified eyes of a French sentry. For a second both men stood stock still. Then, with one motion they both reached for their weapons.

The Frenchman fumbled with the lock of his musket. Steel, having returned his sword to its scabbard to travel down the gulley, pulled at a wide leather strap on his shoulder and grasped the stock of the short-barrelled fusil which was standard-issue to every officer of Grenadiers. His gun though, was subtly different. It had begun life as a fowling piece, whose ingenious maker had contrived somehow to create a weapon light enough to carry all day out in the hunting field. It was able to fire tight-packed game-shot or a single ball with equal ease and was cut to fit Steel alone. So that – whether his quarry might be a Frenchman or a partridge – when he raised it to his cheek it slipped as neatly into place as if it were an extension of his arm. To mount it was the work of less than a second. And he knew it to be loaded.

Feeling his heart beating hard against his ribs, he pulled back the cock with his right thumb. Felt the coldness of the barrel in his left hand and pressed his cheek close into the action. At that precise moment the Frenchman levelled his own weapon. Steel heard the crack of the man’s shot, saw the flash. He felt the ball as it scudded past his cheek and that same instant gave the gentlest squeeze of his own trigger and felt the reassuring recoil as the piece jumped back into his shoulder. The Frenchman dropped stone dead, a bullet in the centre of his forehead. But the two shots had roused the other enemy sentries and the defences in front of Steel now began to fill with men in white coats who looked with dumbstruck amazement at their dead comrade and the apparently suicidal solitary British officer standing before them. Hoisting his gun coolly over his shoulder, Steel drew his sword from its sheath and turned to the redcoats in the gulley below him.

‘Grenadiers. With me. Kill the bastards.’

He turned to face the French. Raising the sword above his head, Steel turned its point towards the enemy.

‘Farquharson’s Foot, follow me. For Marlborough and Queen Anne.’

Suddenly Slaughter was up beside him. A corporal joined them and other men followed. And then, with a great cheer, they were all up and running with him towards the French defences. Steel saw out of the corner of his eye, Hansam charging forward at the head of his half-company; far beyond him on the left of the attack a milling mass of redcoats indicated that the main body of the assault was still floundering. The white-coated infantry, taken completely by surprise by the sea of redcoats that had appeared out of the ground, at last began to cock their weapons. A couple of them dropped their muskets and ran. An enemy officer appeared waving his sword and gesturing at the French Grenadiers. Five yards to go now, thought Steel. Three. At two yards the French opened up, with a ragged volley. Three Grenadiers fell. The remainder carried on and, reaching the earthworks, hurled their fizzing grenades deep over the defences exploding in a hail of flying metal and the screams of unseen men. Steel climbed on to one of the gabions:

‘Come on. Follow me. Into them.’

Managing to scramble over the top of the parapet, and followed swiftly by Slaughter and a dozen British Grenadiers, Steel slashed blindly down with his sword. The huge weapon was, apart from his gun, the only thing he had brought out of his father’s house. His first cut severed the forearm of a white-coated infantryman who collapsed screaming in the mud.

To his left he was aware of a flash of metal as a Frenchman, attempting to thrust home his bayonet into Steel’s side, was beaten off by a Grenadier corporal who swiftly turned the deadly point and stabbed home with his own bayonet, deep into the man’s gut. Another Frenchman, a huge sapper armed with a hatchet, attempted a swipe at Steel’s feet but he jumped clear and brought down his blade, splitting the man’s skull in two so that his head fell apart like two halves of a melon. A French officer approached him warily. A man almost as tall as Steel himself, with the chiselled features of an aristocrat. For a moment Steel thought that the officer was about to challenge him to single combat. Then the Frenchman saw Steel’s great sword and stopped. He nodded his head, presented his own rapier-thin weapon in a salute, close to his face, and brought it down with a flourish to his side, before making a shallow bow and backing away. Doing so, and with his piercing gaze still fixed on Steel’s eyes, he called to what was left of his command. Then, quite suddenly, the defences were empty.

Steel looked left and right and through the smoke could see nothing but white-coated bodies. He turned one over with his foot: the coat collar and cuffs were all white, the pockets cut in the upright. He searched his memory. That could mean one of three regiments: Espagny, Bandeville or Nettancourt. All of them seasoned regiments of line infantry. What were they doing here? He had been told that the place would be garrisoned by inexperienced Bavarians. Steel looked around at his own men. There were a few British down. Three looked dead for sure. One was sitting clutching a bleeding stomach wound and another had lost an eye. But the important point was that, as far as Steel could see, no one, thank God, was standing before them. He prayed that Pearson had made it through to Marlborough. That reinforcements would be with them soon. Steel turned to Slaughter. ‘Form the men up, Sarn’t. See to the wounded. We’re going to hold this place till help comes.’

Hansam appeared, covered in soot and mud, the lace hanging from his coat. ‘By God, Jack. That was hot stuff. Clever idea of yours. But what now?’

‘I’ve sent a runner for reinforcements. All we can do is stand and wait.’

Both men were looking towards the left wing at the centre of the battle. Through the drifting smoke they caught glimpses of the fighting. Men engaged at close quarters; beating each other with musket butts. Clawing at faces, gouging eyes. Then, as their vision cleared they were able to make out a body of red-clad infantry, apparently making directly for them. Hansam spoke first:

‘I sincerely hope that we don’t have long to wait.’

Steel saw what he meant.

‘Oh God. Dragoons.’ He called out: ‘Sarn’t Slaughter.’

For the French too had seen the vulnerability of their open flank and now several squadrons of their confusingly redcoated dragoons, dismounted but as deadly as ever, were advancing with calm precision to retake the salient. But they were, he guessed, still just far enough away. Steel barked an order.

‘Grenadiers. Form lines of half ranks.’

With hard-learned routine, Steel’s men formed into three ranks. Hansam too was manouevering his platoon into formation and as the men moved quickly in response, Steel sheathed his sword and unslung his fusil. Taking up a position to the right of the formation, he shouted another command:

‘Make ready.’

In as close as they were able to manage to a coordinated move, the second rank of each platoon of Grenadiers cocked their muskets while the front rank knelt down and placed the butts of their weapons on the ground, being careful to keep their thumbs on the cock and their fingers on the triggers. One of them, a recent recruit, dropped his musket and recovered it in embarassment. Slaughter growled.

‘That man. Steady. Pick it up, lad.’

The rear rank closed up behind the second, their arms at high port and, as the manual directed, locked their feet closely with those standing immediately before them. Judging the distance of the closing dragoons, Steel continued.

‘Present.’

In a single disciplined movement, eighty men eased their thumbs away from the cock of their muskets and at the same time moved their right feet a short step back, keeping the knee quite stiff, before placing the butts of their weapons in the hollow between chest and shoulder. The dragoons were almost on them now. Steel could see their faces: tanned and with thick moustaches beneath fur-topped red bonnets.

He waited. Thirty paces. Twenty now.

‘Fire!’

The centre rank of Grenadiers opened up and as they began to reload the rank kneeling in front stood up and delivered their own deadly volley before turning neatly on the left foot and moving past the rank behind. As they did so the third rank brought their muskets down and through the gaps in the ranks to deliver a third salvo. This was the new way. The proper way to use the new muskets. This was why their ‘Corporal John’ had schooled them all so carefully. This, thought Steel, was real artistry. This was modern war. Seconds later he was proved right as the smoke cleared on a pile of red-coated bodies. The second rank of French dragoons, its officers and NCSs gone in the inferno of musketry, had come to a halt and stood staring at their enemy, unsure of what to do next. Among the British ranks corporals yelled orders:

‘Reload … Re-form.’

Looking beyond the hesitant, decimated Frenchmen, Steel could now see more infantry in red coats advancing across the plateau. A second squadron with fresh officers.

He turned to Slaughter:

‘Look. More of the buggers. Fall back on the gabions. We have to hold them, Jacob.’

He turned and peered towards the allied lines down in the valley.

‘Where the hell is that relief force?’

Quickly the two platoons of British Grenadiers fell back together towards the parapet.

Steel looked for Hansam. Smiling, he shouted across to him:

‘Can you do it, Henry? Can we hold them?’

‘I’d invite them to surrender, Jack, but I think they might have other plans.’

Steel laughed, grimly, and turned to Slaughter.

‘Right, Jacob. As you will. Let’s show them how it’s done.’

Again the Grenadiers assumed their three-rank formation and again, the red ranks began to close. Desperate, Steel turned to look down towards the allied lines. Pearson had failed. There was no one coming to help them. No last minute reprieve. So much for his brilliant plan. Their only way out was to take as many French with them to hell as they could. He strained his eyes in hope but was rewarded only with horror.

‘Oh, good God, no!’

Through the smoke, advancing up the slope towards their position, Steel began to make out tall, white-coated figures marching in close order. French infantry. A battalion. No, an entire brigade. Slaughter had seen them too:

‘Christ almighty, Sir. How the hell? They’ve got round behind us.’

Steel flung himself back against the parapet and closed his eyes.

‘I’m sorry, Jacob. This wasn’t meant to happen.’

‘Nothing’s meant to happen in war, Mister Steel. It just does.’

Instinctively Steel started to turn the men. If one rank could about-face there might just be a chance to hold off the French in both directions. At least for a little while.

But he knew that it was too late. The white-coated infantry were too close. Steel cast down his gun and drew his sword. As he prepared for the worst, a lone, foreign voice floated up towards him from the white ranks:

‘Hallo there, in the defences. Are you English?’

This, surely was the final insult. To be asked for his surrender in such a way. Well, that was one thing at least he would not concede.

‘We’re Scots. Most of us. And we hold this place in the name of Queen Anne.’

‘Then thank God, my friend. We have come to save you.’

He couldn’t place the accent, but as the man stepped out of the smoke, Steel knew instantly. These were not French but Imperial infantry and Grenadiers, like themselves. He began to laugh.

‘Christ, but I’m glad to see you. We thought you were French.’

The Austrian officer looked aghast.

‘No, my friend. We are not French. We hate the French. Excuse me. Captain Wendt, Regiment von Diesbach.’

The Imperial infantry were among them now and as they climbed in through the gabions Steel’s men clapped them on the back. But the French were still advancing.

‘Take position.’

Slaughter had seen the danger. Again the ranks formed, joined now by the long line of Wendt’s men. The French, shocked by the sudden appearance of so many of the enemy, came again to an abrupt halt. This time, Steel knew, they would not wait for the volley.

‘Fire!’

Three hundred muskets crashed in unison and the redcoated Frenchmen, caught in the act of turning, fell in scores. Then Steel was up and in front of his men.

‘Now, Grenadiers! Now. Charge!’

With a great cheer the British redcoats rushed forward, smashing, bayonets levelled, into the remains of the dragoons. The second squadron did not stay to watch the carnage. Seeing his chance to press the advantage, Steel moved through the mêlée, waving his sword high above his head.

‘Grenadiers. To me. We’ve got them, boys. Follow up. Follow up. Come on. Follow me.’

Leaving the wounded French dragoons to the tender mercies of the Imperial infantry, the redcoats ran quickly to join Steel and Hansam, pouring pell-mell towards the centre of the fortification. To their left more Austrians were now climbing unhindered over the breastworks. There must, he thought, be a good 500 on the plateau by now. Yet the day was not yet complete. Suddenly, in a clatter of sword and harness, and with a chilling cheer, a squadron of red-coated cavalry swept past their right flank. At their head Steel recognized Lord John Hay. Marlborough was sending in the Scots dragoons. Some said they were the finest horsemen in Europe. Steel watched as their sabres swung and chopped at the heads of the French infantry like tops of barley. The Grenadiers pressed on now too, along the slope and directly into the exposed flank of the main French garrison. Then with a great cheer the entire allied line – the British and Dutch who for nigh on two hours had suffered at the hands of the defenders, broke in over the parapet. And then it was over. The French line simply fell to pieces.

Steel glimpsed a senior French officer – a full General he thought – riding hell for leather down past the ruined fort, towards the town, pursued by five of his aides and a party of British dragoons. Isolated groups of French infantry began to surrender. Some succeeded. Others fell under the unforgiving bayonets of the allied infantry. Steel looked away. He knew what happened in the aftermath of an assault. It was unlike any other battle. No room for gentlemanly conduct here. He watched instead, transfixed, as the allied cavalry and dragoons careered down the reverse slope towards Donauwö rth, in pursuit of the French who were dropping anything that might slow their progress: packs, muskets, hats, all were thrown off in the desperate rush for safety. Some of the Frenchmen made it across the single narrow bridge. The less fortunate were forced into the waters of the Danube. Few emerged. He saw horses trampling men into the mud as the cavalry swung their sabres and the allies exacted their murderous revenge. Hansam patted him gently on the back.

‘Well, Jack. I told you I’d see you at the top of the hill, and here we are. You know I am a man of my word.’

‘We did cut it a little fine, don’t you think?’

Hansam smiled, picking langrously at a soot-encrusted fingernail.

‘Oh, I knew we’d do it.’

And so they had. Against all the odds and against all the rules of military logic they had done it. But at a terrible cost. Steel looked back down the hill towards the allied lines where the main body of the army was now preparing to advance. There seemed to be no grass any more. Just a carpet of bodies. Redcoats mostly. Among them men sat nursing wounds and wives and lovers looked for their men. Hansam sneezed and tucked away his snuff handkerchief.

‘I’d better rejoin my men. They look set to chase the Frenchies all the way to Paris.’

As Hansam hurried off to secure the prisoners, Steel found Slaughter kneeling over the dead body of a Grenadier. Pearson. His face looked quite serene, despite the fact that a musket ball had passed into his cheek and blown off the back of his head. The Sergeant spoke quietly.

‘Poor sod. He did bloody well. Saved the lot of us, I reckon. Close thing, Sir, weren’t it?’

‘I never knew a bloodier fight.’

‘Nor me.’

Slaughter paused, pushing the dead boy’s hair away from his brow.

‘Do you think this is how it will be, Mister Steel? The rest of the campaign. The rest of the war?’

‘I do, Jacob. This is how the Duke chooses to make war. This is war without limits. War such as even you and I had not seen until today. As savage and bloody and brutal a war as Europe has seen for nigh on eighty years. Since this place was built.’

Steel kicked the earth wall of the ruined fort. ‘It is not the way that gentlemen like to fight. When that war ended gentlemen drew up rules for the conduct of war designed to prevent such a thing ever happening again. Well, Jacob. Today we threw away the rule book. Now it’s up to men like you and me to make sure that there’s still such a thing as honour on a battlefield.’

‘We have to write our own rules, you mean, Sir?’

‘Our own rules. Yes. That’s it exactly.’

Steel looked down at the broken body of the young Grenadier that lay at his feet. ‘If we must fight in such a way as this, Jacob, then at least let’s do it with honour. God knows this life is short enough. We might as well take pride in what we do.’

He raised his sword and, stooping to pick up a length of neck cloth that lay on the ground, wiped the big blade clean of blood, before sliding it firmly back into the scabbard.

‘And now, Sarn’t, I believe there was the matter of a cask of wine.’

‘Ale, Sir.’

Steel laughed.

‘Ale, Jacob. Find what’s left of the platoon and be sure to tell Mister Hansam where we’re going. I think it’s time to see what the good people of Donauwö rth have to offer us.’

TWO

General Van Styrum was dead. Cut clean through the skull by a French officer’s sword the moment he reached the ramparts. Goors too had been sent to oblivion with a bullet through his brain and with him a score more of the army’s senior officers. In all six lieutenant-generals were dead, five more wounded, together with four major-generals and twenty-eight brigadiers and colonels.

Steel counted off in his head the names of close on a hundred lieutenants and captains, among them some old friends. Names that now stood as undeniable proof of their death on the hand-written list of officer casualties pinned that morning to one of the beams of the wooden-framed inn which served as temporary officers’ mess for James Ferguson’s Brigade of Marlborough’s army. To Steel’s surprise Mordaunt had survived, though God alone knew how. His element of the Guards had been decimated in throwing itself time and again against the French breastworks until the men had to tread upon piles of their own dead and dying to advance.

The victors’ entry into Donauwö rth had not been as easy as they had presumed it might. The French garrison had only abandoned the defences when they realized that the allies’ efforts to bridge the Danube were sure to cut them off from the rest of their army. Then they had run; a pell-mell rattle of a retreat to join the main army. That had been two days ago. The cautious, curious townspeople had welcomed in the British redcoats and allied soldiers, uncertain of their fate and with recent memories of the slaughter of another war fresh in their minds. They needn’t have worried. For the time being even the roughest elements of Marlborough’s army had had enough of killing. Besides, pursuit of the French and Bavarians would be impossible until the engineers had finished their bridges. So the soldiers settled down to a few days of unexpected rest. Most of the officers had managed to secure billets within the private houses of wealthy merchants. For the NCOs and other ranks more humble dwellings or stables and outhouses made comfortable enough barracks. The wounded, who had not been transported by wagon or walked or crawled back to the headquarters camp at Nördlingen while the battle still raged, had been placed in tents outside the city walls, such were their numbers.

Steel knew that a third of them would not survive their horrific wounds. Even now, three days after the fighting, the burial parties were still at work and the bitter-sweet stench of death hung heavy in the air. It was the moment that Steel liked least in any war. That time directly after a battle, when he was as conscious of loss as much as any victory. This was a fallow period when the men might be capable of anything, from drunkenness to desertion – or worse. For those who had survived the attack – officers and other ranks – the few days of rest while the engineers rebuilt the destroyed bridge spelt a welcome chance to enjoy local food and drink, not to mention the soft sheets and sensual delights available at the city’s whorehouses. Steel presumed that it was at one such establishment that he might now find most of his company, but he was not of a mind to try. They were not the type to let the lull persuade them that a better life lay away from the army. It was three hours since he had left Slaughter in command of the half-company on the improvised drill ground behind the city walls. The men deserved their simple pleasures and he knew that the Sergeant would keep them straight.

For his own part, while he was not averse to the diversions of the flesh, the horror of the last few days had dispelled any such craven desires within Steel. They had in fact quite the opposite effect that victory in battle would have normally had on his libido. And so, rather than seek out the upmarket brothels where so many of his fellow officers were currently being entertained, he had come with Hansam to sit in this tavern. To drink and talk and savour these precious few hours of freedom. Steel gazed long at the names on the casualty list. He thought of home, of the news of the death of these officers reaching into so many vicarages and manor houses. Of mothers and sisters disconsolate with grief and fathers who gazed rheumy-eyed out of windows and over empty fields. Turning, he crossed to a table and sat down beside his friend. He took a long draught of wine, scratching at the irritating bites on his neck. Perhaps tomorrow he would find somewhere to have his uniform cleaned. His shirts and stocks at least. At length he spoke:

‘This is a sad moment for Britain, Henry.’

Hansam, who had been staring into his wine, deep in thought, turned to his friend.

‘Sad, yes, but surely you must admit, it was a glorious victory.’

‘I doubt whether the Tories back in London will see it that way.’

‘You cannot be sure, Jack.’ Tis said that the enemy lost 7,000 and another 2,000 drowned in our pursuit. Every day more bodies are being washed ashore. And we have taken nigh on 3,000 prisoners.’

‘But, Henry, what of our losses? Look at this butcher’s bill. Six thousand men dead and wounded and 1,500 of them English and Scots. One and a half thousand men. I tell you, I never knew a day so costly.’

‘And on account of it we have the town and all that it contains. We have stores, Jack, and a strong strategic base. And you know there was no other way.’

He turned to attract the attention of the pretty, buxom teenage girl who was moving deftly between the tables of red-coated officers, balancing in the crook of each well-muscled forearm two pewter pitchers of wine.

‘Another one over here. Madame. If you will, Madamoiselle. S’il vous plait. Une autre, ici.’

He turned to Steel:

‘D’ye know any German, Jack?’

Steel grinned and shook his head. Hansam tried again.

‘Ah. Yes. That’s it. Bitte. Wine, bitte.’

The girl nodded at him and smiled. Hansam turned back to Steel.

‘There, that should do it. But, Jack. You especially must know that there is no point in regret. There was no other way. We would have been held up there for a week. Ten days. With many more casualties, and far less glory.’

‘Glory? We lost good men on that hill, Henry. Morris. Roberts. Perkins. I visited the wounded this morning in that butchers’ shop they call the field hospital.’

‘But we won the battle, dammit Jack. It’s war. Just war. You of all men know that. Ours is a bloody business and that was a job well done. Besides …’

He was drowned out by a guffaw of laughter and furious applause from a nearby table. Steel looked across at the source of the noise. Major the Honourable Aubrey Jennings was clearly in his element. This was just the sort of opportunity for which he had been waiting. A real chance to puff his ego and spread word of his military prowess throughout the army.

Jennings sat at the head of a long table, surrounded by the eager faces of a dozen rosy-cheeked junior officers from his regiment and others of the Brigade. They listened with rapt attention to his exploits in the recent engagement. Boys of sixteen, seventeen, nineteen, all of whom had been at the rear of the engagement and were thirsty now for a flavour of the battle they had missed and which they would re-tell back in England, with a few key embellishments placing themselves in the centre of the action. That was, after all, the way to win the ladies. Jennings placed his hands on the table, sweeping them this way and that in movements of apparent strategic significance, knocking plates and cutlery to the floor.

‘And so we climbed past the first ditch and advanced on up the slope.’ Jennings flashed his brown eyes to make sure they were still listening. They were his best feature. In truth his only attractive feature in a thin, sallow face with high cheekbones that gave him a slightly ape-like appearance.

Jennings had joined the army to avoid a minor scandal involving a simple serving girl. His father, whose memory he worshipped as that of a saint, (though in truth he had been far from saintly) had purchased Aubrey the commission as a Captain a few weeks before his death in a hunting accident in a new regiment being raised by his brother-in-law, Sir James Farquharson. The family estate – 20,000 acres in Hampshire, mostly arable, had naturally passed automatically to Jennings’ older brother. For his own small but adequate living he was forced to rely upon the revenue from some modest London property bequeathed by his mother and whatever he could glean, by whatever means possible, from his new profession. So, he thought, it had all come right in the end. If he could only keep himself from serious injury on the field of battle, he might return home a hero and then who would bother over the matter of a twopenny whore? Besides, the army suited him.

In Jennings’ mind he had been born a soldier. There was something about the uniform that felt so reassuringly familiar. Something about the cut and the feel of it that transformed him whenever he put it on. It fitted his frame so well. He was not after all a muscular man, not athletic in the conventional sense, but he considered himself to cut a real dash in the scarlet coat of Farquharson’s. It was true that Jennings looked every bit a soldier, and he certainly acted the part.

In the few months he had served with the colours he developed his own philosophy of war. Naturally, as he had observed other officers do, he tended to avoid the hot spots of battle. Why sacrifice yourself when good officers like him were always in short supply? He must be preserved. You might throw the men into the thick of it by all means. That after all was their purpose. They were expendable. Scum. No more than gutter scrapings. But officers like him were rare.

Jennings knew that officers were born to it and was assured by his Sergeant, a morally decrepit ex-highwayman named Stringer, whose company he tolerated, and who, when he was not out whoring followed him like an obsequious terrier, that the men looked up to him. Those who did not could be certain that he would make them suffer until they did. Either that or they would die.

The other sergeants he knew did not bear him any real respect, but they still looked up to him as an officer and that was tolerable. His brother officers he thought a mixed bunch. Fair-weather friends mostly whose affections were easily bought. The younger subalterns and captains he knew he could keep in his thrall with tales of high valour. The older ones he was able to charm with flattery and weasel words. Only one officer troubled Jennings. Steel was different. Steel was a problem. A problem that he simply did not understand. And when Jennings could not understand something there were only two solutions. Ignore it or snuff it out.

For his part, Steel had always made a point of avoiding Jennings and had taken pains to keep at a distance since joining the regiment. Of course with the Major’s seniority there was no avoiding taking orders, although the Grenadiers were allowed to operate on their own more than any other company. Steel had hoped that with the correct degree of propriety he might be able to avoid any confrontation until either of them was killed in battle or transferred out of the regiment.

Now however, it seemed as if that hope might have proved in vain.

Listening closely to Jennings’ boasts, Steel chewed on a piece of tobacco and tried to block the false words from his ears. But there was no getting away from the Major this morning. His blood was up.

‘… One particularly big French Lieutenant lunged at me. I parried and thrust home and voilà. Another of King Louis’ favourites had gone to meet his maker …’

Jennings slammed his fist hard down on the table. Steel spat the tobacco out on to the filthy floor and spoke under his breath.

‘I’d like to help him meet his maker.’

Hansam smiled, and fixed Steel’s gaze with a raised eyebrow:

‘Now, Jack. Control yourself. Surely you do not dare to question the conduct of our brave Major?’

‘You know Henry as well as I do. You were there. Remind me. Where was the good Major Jennings when we were fighting on the ramparts? He was standing at the foot of the hill with the colours and the remainder of the regiment. I tell you. He dishonours the memory of our fallen comrades. You and I have not come 400 miles, have not marched down here through the Moselle and the Rhine to listen to some popinjay strut such falsehoods.’

‘Jack. If you want my advice, you’d best to leave it. Allow him his moment. The truth will out when we engage the enemy again, which I trust will not be before too long. He’s quite harmless. I tell you, in the next fight he’ll get a French bullet through what little brain he possesses. Now where’s that damned wine Madame. Ici. Here. Oh. Bitte. D’you think she saw me? I tell you, Jack the only unhappy people in this town are the regimental sutlers. And I can’t say I’m displeased. Have another glass of wine.

‘They take every opportunity to rob us blind, invent the prices on everything in the mess to double that you might pay at White’s. And then, the moment we have the option to pay the natives for our grog what happens, the sutlers run complaining to the quartermaster-general with cries of “unfair” and not proper practice. Are you listening?’

But Steel had not been listening to Hansam for some time. He had ears only for Jennings, who had become still more eloquent in the account of his personal bravery at the Schellenberg.

Two of subalterns sprang to their feet vying to buy their hero another bottle.

‘Well, gentlemen, what a fight it was, indeed. And now I reckon you’ll all be in line for promotion. Terrible losses. Terrible. So many brave officers. But manage it we did. And with what an army.’ He turned to a young, pink-faced Lieutenant.

‘Eh, Fortescue? What think you of our allies? Prussia, Holland, Austria. We fight a war of allies. Of course I saw little of them on the ramparts …’

As Jennings droned on, Steel, distracted for a moment, began to wonder. It had been a feat to keep the army together in the face of such an assault. He had heard that there had been some dissent among the commanders as to whether or not to attack. He knew the whole enterprise to manage the Austrians and persuade the Dutch to Bavaria had been Marlborough’s doing. The Dutchmen had a reputation for not shifting off their own soil so it was nothing short of a miracle.

Jennings’ voice rose again above the hubbub of the room.

‘… For all the use they are. The Dutch you know have never been good soldiers. And as for the Prussians … No give me an Englishman every time …’

Steel wondered whether Jennings had forgotten that he himself served in a Scottish regiment and if he was aware that Marlborough’s army included more Irish and Scots than it did pure-bred Englishmen. The thought merely increased his anger. If there was one thing guaranteed to incur Steel’s wrath it was officers who pretended their bravery. He had long suspected Jennings to be just such a soldier. Son of the brother-in-law of Sir James Farquharson, Jennings was de facto second in command of the regiment despite only recently arriving from home duty in London and quite fresh to the campaigning life. Steel knew that Jennings had paid his way into the regiment with substantially more than the usual 1,000 pounds required for a Captain’s commission and clearly he believed that his money would buy him not only a company but glory too. Jennings’ voice rose again:

‘So there I was, standin’ on the very parapet of the defences and I turned to my men. “Men,” I says. “Men, come with me now and we shall write such a chapter in Britain’s history as has never been seen. I intend to take this place and you shall be with me.” And then, with a great huzzah we were upon them. I can honestly say that my blade did not rest until the job was done. And so many dead. What brave boys. Quite tragic …’

Jennings looked across to where Steel was sitting. Noticing the look of revulsion on his face and realizing that here might be an opportunity, he called across:

‘Ah, Mister Steel. I had quite forgotten you. I was just enlightening these young gentlemen as to the nature of our late engagement. Gentlemen, Mister Steel was also there at the Hill of the Bell. Although I am not certain as to in precisely which part of the fight he took part. Perhaps you would care to enlighten us, Mister Steel. Were you with the pioneers, or the baggage, perhaps?’

Steel said nothing.

Jennings grinned and took a sip from his glass of Moselle.

‘A fine wine this, d’you not think, Steel? Or perhaps you do not care for it. You would prefer something more robust. A bottle of Rhenish rotgut perhaps, or a nipperkin of molasses ale? I liberated this wine me’ self from the cellars of the French commandant. You are most welcome to a glass, Steel. But do not feel obliged to accept. I do not suppose you are in a position to return my hospitality.’

It was too much.

‘I’m not sure that I properly understand you, Sir.’

‘You must do, Sir. For you forget, I am Adjutant of the regiment. I have sight of all the company accounts and unless you have rectified the matter, Mister Steel, your mess account remains unpaid from last month. And, as I recall, the month before that. Am I not right?’

Two of the subalterns laughed, briefly, then stopped, realizing that perhaps they had gone too far and that this was no longer a laughing matter. Then there was silence.

Jennings coughed and continued:

‘Of course, should you be in erm … difficulty, I would be only too happy to oblige with a small money order. For a reasonable consideration, of course.’

He smiled, narrowed his eyes, looked directly at Steel and took another sip of wine.

Steel stiffened with rage. Hansam, who had observed the conversation, now closed his eyes and was surprised by the calmness of his friend’s reply:

‘I have no need of your assistance, Major Jennings. I am informed that I shall profit from my share of the bounty due to my part in the assault party. And surely you too will benefit from that action. Or was I perhaps correct in assuming that you had actually taken no part in the fight?’

The party of subalterns let out an audible gasp. Jennings reddened, although what proportion was from embarrassment and what from indignation was not clear.

‘How dare you, Sir. You imply that I am a liar. Not merely that but a dissembling coward. Have a care how you trespass upon the reputation of a gentleman. As I am a reasonable fellow, I shall allow you to retract your accusation. Otherwise you must face my wrath, and the consequences.’

Steel pushed forward, knocking over the table and its contents. A wine bottle and two glasses smashed on the stone floor. The serving girl ran into the kitchens and the officers began to move away from the vortex of the argument. Steel spoke.

‘You will retract that comment, Sir.’

‘I think not, Mister Steel.’

‘You will retract that comment, Major Jennings, and your previous slur on my character, or pay for your insolence with your life. Although it will hardly be a fair fight. Nevertheless, you might provide me with a few moments’ sport. That is if you have the stomach for any fight. Which I very much doubt.’

Hansam spoke, quietly:

‘Jack. Do remember, duelling is not lawful. You will be court-martialled.’

Across the smoke-filled room the other officers had now stopped talking. But to those who knew the two men their confrontation came as no surprise. They knew that Jennings had long marked out Steel for just such an opportunity. And they, like Jennings, were puzzled by this curious, charismatic young man who had exchanged a prestigious commission in the Foot Guards – a position many of them would have killed for – for a lieutenancy in Farquharson’s unproven battalion of misfits.

It was plain to Jennings how he himself might profit from his association with his uncle’s regiment. He knew that money was to be made from the quartermasters’ books. Loss of stores; natural wastage. That sort of thing. Good cloth, ammunition and vittels fetched a good price on the open market and there were plenty in the regiment willing to help him for a few shillings, even if it did mean their risking the lash. And Jennings was sure that he would be able to keep himself out of harm’s way, as he had done yesterday. But people like Steel always seemed to be out to spoil his plans. Steel must be done away with and here was the opportunity, if somewhat sooner than he had expected. Jennings looked about the tavern and called to a red-coated officer.

‘Charles. A moment of your time.’

The man, a tall, lean individual with fine-boned features and a nervous twitch in the left side of his face, Steel recognized as Captain Charles Frampton of the regiment’s number two company. He knew him to be an ally of Jennings and watched as he now took his leave of his companions and walked across to the florid Major.

As the two men whispered, Hansam took Steel by the elbow.

‘Jack. You cannot do this. Not here. Not in public. If you must, then issue a challenge. Have it done in private. Of course, I shall second you. But not here. This is to invite disaster.’

Steel pulled free of his grasp. ‘Too late.’

Jennings had taken off his coat and handed it to the newcomer. ‘Mister Steel, you are acquainted with Charles Frampton. You have your own second?’

Steel nodded at the newcomer.

Hansam stepped forward.

‘Ah, Lieutenant Hansam. We are indeed honoured.’

Frampton muttered into Jennings’ ear: ‘Careful, Aubrey. I hear that he is a damned fine soldier.’

Jennings stiffened and, still smiling at Steel, spoke in a similar whisper to his second. ‘My dear Charles. Taking part in a few scraps in the Swedish war does not turn a man into a hero.’

‘They say, Aubrey, that he accounted for forty Russians single-handed at the battle of Narva. And that after Riga the King of Sweden himself presented him with a gold medal.’

‘Narva. Riga. What nonsense. Those names mean nothing. And now are we not allied to the Danes? Sweden’s enemies. I hardly think that Mister Steel will want to boast much of his relationship with the Swedish throne. Besides. Killing a few Russian savages? That’s not real war. Not the way gentlemen do battle.’

He drew from his cuff a crisp, white lace handkerchief and applied it gently to his delicate nose. ‘And that is precisely what I intend to demonstrate.’

Jennings walked forward.

‘Think now, Steel. Do you really want this end? Think on it. Do you really want to die in a tavern brawl. Were you aware perhaps that I had studied in London, under no less than the renowned Monsieur Besson? Perhaps you are familiar with him. He has taught the arme blanche in most of the courts of Europe.’

Steel did not reply. He merely drew his sword and assumed the en garde position.

Jennings instantly did the same. As Hansam hastened to Steel’s side, Jennings’ second walked to meet him. The two men shook hands and retired a few paces behind their friends.

The room had fallen silent now. Tables and chairs were pushed aside and most of the officers who had not already left began to make their exits into the street until only a small group of unwary subalterns remained. The staff too had long retreated behind the bar. The silence was broken suddenly by the sharp clang of metal on metal as Jennings tapped Steel’s blade.

Steel disengaged, circling Jennings’ sword with a deft flick of the wrist and made a slashing cut across the centre to unsettle his opponent. But Jennings had seen the move coming and side-stepped, returning to the en garde with the tip of his blade pointing directly at Steel’s side. He might have plunged it deep in, and the fact that he did not made it clear to Steel that he was only playing. Jennings spoke.

‘Oh come now, Steel. That was but a poke. I would not make use of such a thrust but with a ruffian. Have you nothing better to offer me?’ Steel raised his arm to the tierce position so that his blade was pointing directly downwards at Jennings, leaving his own body apparently unguarded. Jennings slapped at the blade with a clang of metal on metal and levelled his own sword, which came within an inch of Steel’s abdomen. Both men were sweating hard now. They pulled away for an instant, regaining their balance. Then circled and moved their blades around each other without touching. Steel’s sword made a marked contrast to Jennings’ lighter, standard issue infantry sword. But what it lacked in weight, the Major’s weapon made up in speed. Steel recovered his blade into the cavalry en garde, ready to slice at Jennings, but as he did so his opponent made a neat side-step and brought the tip of his own sword swiftly into contact with the Lieutenant’s arm, tearing the cloth of his shirt. Within seconds a thin red line had begun to darken the white cloth. Frampton spoke.

‘A hit to Major Jennings. First blood. Continue, gentlemen.’

Steel, appearing unaware of the damage to his arm, although actually in acute pain, took care to keep his blade as it was – pointing heavenward and poker-straight. If only, he thought, if only he will make one small error. Then I shall have him. He knew how easily his great blade could fall and with what force. How, given but a split-second his cut would sever Jennings’ sword arm and finish this business. But he could not find a way in. The man was too good. For all his foppishness and evident cowardice, it was clear that Jennings had not lied about his prowess with a sword. Steel began to walk to the right, encouraging his opponent to do the same until both men were circling slowly on the spot. Now. He thought. Now. If I can take the advantage. Just move for an instant to the left and then it will all be over. He prepared to make his move. Shifted the balance on his feet. Now. Now is the moment. The air hung heavy with anticipation. Now. It must be, now. But before Steel could strike the door of the tavern flew open with such force that its studded wooden surface banged hard against the wall.

The sudden noise broke the spell. Steel and Jennings stopped their dance of death and, frozen to the spot, turned their heads towards the light. Before they had a chance to renew the fight, the room had filled with a dozen redcoats armed with muskets. While two of them levelled their bayonets at the duellists, the others formed two lines through which another figure now entered the inn. A Colonel, a man in his late forties, clad in a neatly tailored dark blue coat, trimmed with red and gold lace. A Colonel on the British Staff.

The man strode forward purposefully towards Steel and Jennings, a grave expression on his face.

Hansam, moving quickly, pushed in behind Jennings to stand in front of the Colonel, attempting to block his view. He began to speak, quickly.

‘Good day, Sir. May I present myself. Lieutenant Henry Hansam of Farquharson’s. I imagine, Colonel, that you are wondering quite reasonably what exactly is taking place and I would not blame you one bit for entertaining such thoughts. What you see here, Colonel, what in fact Lieutenant Steel here was doing, Sir, was merely demonstrating to Major Jennings the relative virtues of the broadsword as opposed to the rapier.’

He wrested Steel’s sword from his grasp and proferred it to the Colonel.

‘This is the very sword in question you see, Sir. Quite a Queen amongst blades, would you not agree?’ Hansam pushed the hilt of the sword closer to the Colonel’s face, inviting inspection. ‘It was made by Ferrara, Sir, d’you see?’

But the Colonel did not care to see the sword. Fixing his gimlet eyes on Steel’s, he spoke. ‘Lieutenant. Perhaps you would care to explain to me yourself exactly what is going on here. You are aware are you not of the penalty for duelling? Particularly among officers of Her Majesty’s army in the field. And you appear to have drawn blood.’

Steel looked at his arm. The shirt around the cut was stained a deep red. ‘Sir. Yes, Sir.’

‘Yes, Sir. A court martial, Sir, with death as the ultimate penalty.’

The Colonel turned to Jennings. And you, Major Jennings. It is Major Jennings, is it not? You too should know better than this.’

‘I. Colonel …’ Jennings thought fast. ‘I have to say that I was provoked, Sir.’

‘That is as may be, Major. But you are the senior officer present, are you not?’

The subalterns attempted as best they could to melt into the shadows. The Colonel did not wait for Jennings’ reply.

‘Why don’t you just put up your sword, Sir, and we’ll say no more of it. And what of you, Mister Steel. What of you? I think that you had better come with me. Your sword, if I may, Lieutenant.’

Steel took his sword from Hansam, reversing it so that he held only the blade, and handed it hilt first to the Colonel who, signalling to two armed sentries to bring up the rear, led the way out of the tavern followed by Steel and Hansam. Steel presumed the worst. Jennings of course could be exonerated. Related to Farquharson and with power in high places, there was little he could do, save perhaps kill his commander, that would merit any serious punishment within the army. But Steel was a mere Lieutenant, of lower origins and with neither property nor capital. Perhaps he might be made an example of, in this army where only the harshest lessons would set the precedent.

Outside in the busy, foul-smelling street, where in the thin drizzle the townspeople mingled cautiously with the soldiers and the street vendors and tradesmen tried to go about their business as best they could and make the most of this sudden influx of customers, a troop of red-coated dragoons trotted past the group emerging from the tavern and Steel watched as a skinny urchin picked the pocket of an off-duty soldier.

Hawkins turned to Steel and to his surprise, gave him a wide grin. He motioned to the escort to leave them, returned the great broadsword to its owner and spoke again. This time though his voice had a quite different tone to that he had used in the tavern.

‘I’m sorry to have alarmed you in that way, Mister Steel. Forgive me. Perhaps it was just as well that I arrived when I did.’

He looked at Steel’s shoulder. ‘You might really have got into trouble. Best get that seen to. Allow me to introduce myself. Hawkins. Colonel James Hawkins, late of Colonel Hamilton’s regiment, currently on attachment to the Allied Staff.’

Steel had heard of this Colonel Hawkins and knew his reputation both in the field and out. It was said that as a younger man, during the wars of the Grand Alliance, Hawkins had taken the fort of Dixmude all but singlehanded. His capacity for drink was also well known and Steel could see from his now somewhat corpulent build and ruddy complexion that the latter at least was certainly justified. But whatever his predilections, there was precious little that James Hawkins did not know about soldiering. For all his stoutness, he still cut a dashing figure and his round face seemed to wear a fixed smile, helped by the subtle line of an old scar which ran up the side of his left cheek and which at the same time concealed behind it any inkling of what his true thoughts might have been.

He looked at Steel and the crease of a smile changed to another grin.

Steel looked puzzled.

‘Don’t worry, Lieutenant. You are not on a charge. Though I can’t say that I’m not tempted. You’ve led me a dance almost as merry as that you were leading our Major Jennings. No, I have sought you out not for punishment but for a quite different reason. Come. We’ll go to my quarters.’

He turned to Hansam.

‘Oh, Lieutenant Hansam. You may accompany us, if you wish. Come along. We do not mind. Do we Steel?’

With Steel and Hawkins walking at the front, the three officers walked together through the cobbled streets, mostly in silence although from time to time Hawkins made a comment about the inordinate amount of filth in the gutters, the changeable weather and variable quality of the local wine. They took first a left and then a right turn, ducking beneath the open galleries of the half-timbered shops and houses, until at length they arrived at a modest house whose merchant owner, wherever he might now be, had evidently spent some effort and no little money in embellishing its façade with neo-classical motifs in the latest style.

‘My servant found it. It is a little de trop, don’t you think. But still it’s comfortable enough.’

Hawkins showed the two men into the hall and through to the parlour which showed similar signs of ‘improving’ design. He motioned for them to sit before the fire and poured three large glasses of wine.

‘Now gentlemen. Or more specifically, Lieutenant Steel, to our purpose. The battle is won and you gentlemen, whatever Major Jennings might say, played a great part in its winning. It was a glorious victory, but mark you, at a price. In Vienna the Emperor talks already of making Marlborough a Prince. The Queen herself, I dare say, has written to him. We may have won a battle and strategically are in a good position. But gentlemen, in London we are undone. Fifteen hundred dead Britons does not make pretty reading. The Tories will say that Marlborough is finished. They will ask why so many men should have fallen to take one hill. And soon they will start to to call for his dismissal. We need to move fast before any such harm can be done. We must persuade the Elector, by military might, to come over to us and abandon his French allies or we must frighten him into submission. For both we need an army that is fit to fight.

‘But there is another problem. To advance we must be supplied. This town with its alehouses and courtesans may seem like the Elysian Fields to you gentlemen. But the troops are wanting. There is no bread. Flour cannot be got. Do you know how many hundredweight of bread a day this army requires merely to march, let alone fight? I will tell you. Sixty thousand men need 900 hunderweight of flour. Of course, we have our field commissary from the agency of commissioners of supply and transport. We have our agents also. And they’re all admirable men in their field: Solomon and Moses Medina. And His Grace the Duke of Würtemberg has sent to his country for 200 wagons to help bring on the stores. But first gentlemen, we must have the stores themselves. It appears that flour cannot be got from the usual channels within less than three weeks. And without flour we have no bread and without bread’, he paused ‘without bread we have no army. Brigadier Baldwin has been instructed to get all the corn he can find and lay it in the magazines at Neuberg. But we need flour immediately, or the army will starve. And that, if you’ll permit me, Mister Steel, is where you come in.’

Steel was perplexed. Having pardoned him for what was a court-martial offence, the Colonel now appeared to be commissioning him as some sort of quartermaster. Before he could ask however, Hawkins went on.

‘You will assemble your half-company of Grenadiers, Mister Steel, and you will take yourself off to the little village of Sattelberg. It’s around five days’ march from here, southwest, across the Lech and past Aicha. I don’t expect that you’ll run into any of the enemy. They’re much further north. Even the Bavarians. At Sattelberg you will meet up with a merchant. A Bavarian, by the name of Kretzmer. Nasty piece of work if you ask me and in the pay of both sides, unless I am mistaken. Which I rarely am. But I do have good reason to believe that he’ll be able to sell you some flour. And that’s what matters. At this moment I truly believe that I’d deal with the devil to get hold of enough flour to feed the army. You must of course check that it’s good. Oh, don’t worry. I know you’re no expert. I’ll be sending a cook with you – my own man – to tell the stuff.’

Steel’s face had coloured. Hawkins saw it.

‘A little more wine? It is rather stuffy in here.’

While Hawkins refilled their glasses, Steel stared intently at the painted black-and-white chequer-boarded floor and Hansam wandered across to the window, pretending to fix his gaze on the skyline.

Eventually, Steel spoke: ‘Allow me, Colonel Hawkins, to make certain that I have this quite straight in my mind. You take me away from a matter of honour, in the face of my brother officers, in the face of the regiment and the brigade. You order me to abandon a duel, albeit illegal, which I fought as a consequence of having been grossly insulted and physically harmed. And you do so in order to put me in charge of a detachment of requisition of men from the finest company in the British army, to get flour for the army’s bloody bread?’

Hawkins raised his eyebrows. He smiled bemusedly and thought about it. ‘Yes. Quite so, Mister Steel. You are right. Have you a question?’

Hansam muttered something under his breath, but Steel continued. ‘Yes, I have a question. Is this, Colonel, all the reward I get for my part in the taking of that bloody hill?’

He pointed towards the window beyond which they could see the outline of the Schellenberg, towering over the town. ‘Is this then all my bounty?’

He slammed his glass down on the table. ‘By God, Sir, I … I’ll …’

Hansam, moved to action, placed a firm hand on his friend’s arm.

Hawkins smiled. He had known for a while about Steel. Had noted the mention of his name in connection with some matter of honour here, a modest act of bravery there. It was his job to take notice of such things. To mark out men who might otherwise not come to the attention of the Commander-in-Chief. For this was an army in the making and Hawkins’ brief was to find the men to lead it. He had been waiting for this moment for some time and had known that sooner or later it would come. He had hoped that when it did Steel would not let him down. And he had not been disappointed. The Colonel spoke gently.

‘Yes. I can see that my sources were quite right about you, Mister Steel. You have a temper that knows no concept of rank. In any other circumstances, much as I like you, I would probably have had you taken out and shot for insubordination and threat. But at the present moment, I can see that you are precisely the man we need.’

Steel stared at him, quizzically.

‘You’ll hear more? Oh yes. There is more required of you. Much more.’ Steel frowned. Then began to laugh, shaking his head. ‘Colonel Hawkins. Do not, please insult me afresh. You are playing with me and this surely is not the conduct of officers. What can you mean now I wonder? Do you perhaps wish me also to procure a case of perfume for your wife. Or perhaps a trinket for your mistress?’

Steel realized he had gone too far. Hawkins though, merely stared at him, and chose his words with care.

‘Mister Steel, I have no wife. Or at least not any longer. And since she passed on I have not had eyes for any other woman.’ He paused, poured himself a glass of wine and took a long draught before continuing.

‘I do, however have a proposition for you.’

Steel nodded. ‘I am truly sorry to hear about your wife, Sir. And sorry too if I caused you offence. But believe me, Colonel, whatever you are come to offer me, I am certainly in no position to undertake favours.’

‘This is no favour, Mister Steel. It is a direct order. From His Grace.’

Steel stopped and moved Hansam’s arm from its grip on his. ‘You come from Marlborough?’

Hawkins nodded, smiling.

‘Then do please continue, Colonel.’

‘His Grace is quite aware of your prominent part in the late battle, Steel. And of the advancement it might justify. Advancement which might be particularly alacritous should you feel able to carry off this other … little business.’

Steel nodded.

‘You are aware no doubt that some ten years ago His Grace was imprisoned in the Tower of London on a charge of being a Jacobite. That of course we now know to be utterly false. Do we not, Mister Steel?’

The Colonel gazed at him hard, awaiting a reply.

‘Do we not, Mister Steel?’

‘We do, Colonel.’

‘We do. Of course we do. Quite right again. However. And this is where you come in. When you encounter our friend the flour merchant you will find that he also has something else on his person for you to deliver to me. It is a certain paper – a letter shall we say – which, were it to fall into the wrong hands would give certain parties at home in London the opportunity to engineer the removal of His Grace from command of this army. And that, Steel, is a state of affairs which I am sure you will agree would be no less than catastrophic.’

‘Sir.’

‘So now we come to the crux of the matter. What we would like you to do Steel, what His Grace requires you to do, is to relieve this merchant of his letter and return it to its rightful owner. If you do not then he will sell it to the French, who will pass it to the Duke’s enemies, of which there are a good few. And that will be the end for Marlborough, the army and you. It’s as simple as that. You’ll do it?’

Steel was silent. He thought for a moment. ‘May I ask what the letter contains, Sir? To whom it is addressed.’

‘No. You may not ask that. But I shall say merely that it contains material sufficient to destroy Marlborough forever and perhaps even to condemn him to a traitor’s death on the gallows.’

There was another pause. Steel spoke again. ‘May I ask, Colonel, as to why you have chosen me for this … honour?’

‘A good question. But it was not merely my choice. You are the Duke’s man now. Your name came to Marlborough from London. From no less than his own wife. You were recommended I believe by someone in the Duchess’s inner circle as a man who is utterly trustworthy and loyal to the Duke’s cause. And as you know there are too many in this army who would not perhaps fulfill those precise criteria. Eh, Hansam?’

‘Quite so, Colonel.’

Steel walked across to the window and gazed out on to the town below. So that was it. Steel had thought that by resigning his commission in the Guards, by removing himself from St James’s, he might evade forever the attentions of the woman whose love had first found him a career in the army.

Arabella Moore was the wife of a Director of the Bank of England; a substantial landowner. She had done well for the younger daughter of a West Country parson. But lovely Arabella was fifteen years her husband’s junior, and it had been clear for some time to those who spoke of such things in society circles, that for all his wealth and the evident care he took of her, in certain matters her dear husband was unlikely to satisfy his young bride’s voracious appetite. Steel had been seduced in an instant by her ravishing looks and infectious gaiety. They had met at a dance in Edinburgh, at Mister Patrick’s assembly rooms in the High Street.

Steel had been an impressionable youth of eighteen, she a high-ranking married woman of twenty-eight. Their summer flirtation had grown to become something more and on her return to London, Arabella had been only too happy to pay for her young lover’s commission into the Guards. And so, for five glorious years, although careful to be discreet, they had enjoyed each other to the full. And in that time Steel had grown from boy to man, loving his mistress and his regiment with at first an equal passion but gradually realizing that while the bedchamber yielded delights that were gone in an instant, his love affair with the army had somehow blossomed without his knowing it into something altogether more enthralling.

And so he had fallen out of love with Arabella and had spent more time with his other love. Evenings in the mess and mornings at drill. As other men returned from the wars in Flanders and he thrilled to their tales, the parade ground duties which at first had seemed so grand, began to pall. Peace in 1697 seemed to set the seal on his fate. But Steel wanted action and, with a guile learnt from his lover, managed to engineer his way into an attachment to the command of the Swedish army, then newly embarked on a war with Russia. It had been clear though that something more drastic was required to distance himself from Arabella. He had thought that a move to Farquharson’s and this new war might suffice. But now she had found him again and with that devilish skill he knew so well had placed him in such a position that he could not possibly refuse the honour offered to him. Recommended for the task directly by Sarah Churchill, his Commander-in-Chief’s wife and the Queen’s own confidante, he could do nothing but accept this unlooked-for mission, whatever it might bring. He smiled at the impossibility of his situation. How very, very clever she was. He turned to Hawkins. Hansam saw that he was smiling broadly.

‘Of course, Colonel, I accept. What else might I do? I am honoured. So tell me, please. When do we start? How many men do I take? Can I choose them? Have you any more precise information? Have we plans? Names?’

Hawkins clapped him on the shoulder.

‘Wait, my boy, patience. All in good time, Steel. More immediately, I have arranged a meeting for you with Marlborough. He wishes to see for himself this man who comes to him so highly recommended. And then you will go. In four days’ time.’

Steel raised his eyebrows. Four days. It was time enough, presumably, to gather his men. Hawkins went on:

‘And you’ll have company. An Ensign of Grenadiers, newly arrived from England. A Mister Williams. A pleasant lad. He’s my late wife’s nephew. Your Colonel’s agreed to take him in. Be sure to take care of him, Steel. Oh, and try to behave yourself. It would do to forget that business with Jennings. You can be sure that you cannot avoid him on this campaign.’

He smiled to himself.

‘Just remember that the man’s a fool and consider the likelihood that like any fool who serves with the army, he’ll meet a fool’s death,’ ere long. Do not take the trouble, Steel, to take upon yourself a task which fate has so clearly marked out as a foregone conclusion.’

Steel smiled back at the Colonel. He was warming to the man, but was still unsure as to quite how to take his comment. Whether it was meant in jest or in deadly earnest.

Hawkins laughed. ‘And now, gentlemen, we have a war to fight. And I am afraid that I must take my leave of you. Might I suggest that you repair to another establishment. I hear good things of an inn on the other side of the city, close by the bridge, at the sign of the running horse. At least there you are not likely to encounter the good Major. And Steel, you’d best have that arm looked at. You’ve a busy time ahead of you, and you know how the Commander-in-Chief is most particular about the condition of his officers. Especially those whom he chooses to engage in his personal service. We wouldn’t want you to come to any harm before you’ve even set out.’

THREE

Saluting the sentry posted outside, Colonel Hawkins walked through the shade of the striped entrance awning and into Marlborough’s tent. Inside the General Staff stood gathered in silence around their Commander-in-Chief. It was gloomy and unpleasantly humid, the airless atmosphere adding to the inescapable tension of what had evidently been a difficult briefing. Major-General Withers, Goors’ deputy, now promoted to command of the Advance Guard, was rubbing nervously at his lapel. Beside him, staring intently at a map stood Henry Lumley, commander of the English horse. Marlborough’s own brother Charles, who commanded twenty-four battalions, the bulk of the army, stood talking quietly to Lord Orkney, while in a corner of the tent, on a folding camp chair, sat the Margrave of Baden, his foot bandaged from the wound to his toe he had received at Schellenberg, with his own half-dozen commanders. Marlborough turned to greet the Colonel:

‘Ah, Hawkins. Have you any news for us? Do the cannon arrive, at last?’

Hawkins shook his head.

‘I am sorry to report, Your Grace, gentlemen, that we have no intelligence save that our last action very much disheartened the enemy. There is of course the important matter of victualling the army. For while our German friends’, he smiled at Baden, ‘will certainly march on with empty bellies, the British soldier I am afraid will not do without his bread. But I can report that we now have the matter in hand.’

Hawkins lowered his voice.

‘There is another matter, Your Grace. That rather delicate matter of which we have spoken before and on which I must speak to you now in person.’

Marlborough nodded to Hawkins and addressed the company:

‘Well, gentlemen. That it would seem is that. We are in agreement then. There is no other course of action. And as regards the more pressing matter of the attack on the town of Rain, you are all clear as to your duties?’

The British commanders nodded and quickly took their leave. Baden, it seemed for a moment to Marlborough, might be about to make yet another protest. But then, as if by some miracle, his face grew ashen-white and he closed his eyes. Clearly his wound was giving him considerable pain. Reopening his eyes and leaning on one of his commanders for support, he rose from the chair and with a hasty goodbye left the tent.

Marlborough relaxed and leant back against the table.

Only Hawkins now remained in the tent, along with a single servant clearing away the remains of the hasty breakfast which had preceded their meeting. Marlborough spoke.

‘So then, James. I take it that you have informed the officer in question of his mission?’

‘Lieutenant Steel, Sir. Yes, he is now fully apprised of what he must do.’

‘Good. And you truly think that he can do it, James?’

‘I am in no doubt, Sir. I’ve seen him fight. He is, I am convinced, one of the finest officers in your army.’

‘He is something of an individual, I believe.’

‘He transferred to Farquharson’s from the Guards, his commission into that regiment having been purchased for him by a lady. He’s of modest stock, Sir. The second son of a Scots farmer. He has no private income to speak of and he is hungry for patronage and promotion. An ideal man for the job.’

Marlborough toyed with a silver snuff box which lay on the table, opening and closing the lid.

‘He is over-familiar with the men. Is that right?’

‘I would not have put it quite that way, myself. Although he is perhaps more ready to take the advice of his Sergeant and he shares Your Grace’s own concern for the welfare of his soldiers. “Eccentric” they call him in the officers’ mess. But the men, and those who have served with him before, say that there are few better than Steel in all your army. And make no mistake, he’s a shrewd one, Sir, and a wit. As you will recall, it was your own lady who recommended him to us.’

‘That, as you know, James, is quite beside the point. It is my decision to employ Mister Steel in this matter and mine alone. My dear wife must be kept quite apart from the whole affair. For, should he fail in his mission. Should, God forfend, those who wish me ill get hold of that paper, the Duchess must not be implicated in the slightest degree.’

Hawkins sensed that it would be politic to change the subject. He looked up at the map, running his hand across the black squares which represented the towns and villages of the Electorate, which he knew might soon be nothing more than smouldering ruins.

‘You are quite set on laying waste to Bavaria?’

Marlborough looked down and tapped the red velvet-covered baton – the symbol of his rank – on the small, polished oak table which had been placed against the wall of the tent.

‘I shall dispatch men from this army to burn as many of the towns and villages of Bavaria as we find within reach. Just the houses mind you. We shall spare the woodlands and of course leave anything of the Elector’s property. Seeing that still standing can surely only help to turn his own people against him. And the people themselves shall be safe, I will not have any of them harmed. It is mere coercion, not rape, but it is the only way. We must force the Elector’s hand. It is of particular sadness to me in a country of such neat domestic husbandry as I have ever seen outside England.’

Hawkins shook his head. ‘If you are set on it, then I cannot divert your mind. But this is not warfare as you and I have known it these past twenty years. And if you really want to know my opinion it will not have the effect you believe. The Elector will not turn, whatever you do to his country. And be careful, Your Grace. I know soldiers as well as you do. For all your care of this army, Sir, it is still made up to a large extent of brigands and cut-throats. We shall have to keep a watch on them.’

Sensing how sombre the mood in the tent had now become, Hawkins added with a smile: ‘For I know how you hate anything that is not properly accounted for.’

Marlborough laughed. From outside the tent, above the general hubbub, they caught the sound of the drums and fifes of a regimental band striking up to keep the men in good spirits. ‘Lillibulero’. Marlborough smiled and began to drum his fingers on the table top. It was a favourite tune.

‘You still know how to divert me from my black moods, James. Thank God at least for that. But I am so tired. More tired, my friend than I can possibly remember.’ He rubbed hard at his forehead. Pressed his temples together.

‘My entire head aches to bursting. My blood is so terribly heated. I think that I shall call for the physician, presently. Did you know that I have had rhubarb and liquorice sent across from England. The Queen herself advised its use to Lady Sarah as a cure for the headache. But, even so, I am not fully persuaded. I am certain that by this evening I shall yet again be compelled to take some quinine. And you know how sick of the stomach that makes me. But even quinine cannot cure what really ails me.’

He looked into Hawkins’ eyes with a child’s gaze of hopeless yearning.

‘You know to what I refer. All my troubles, James. What times have come upon me. And who now remains with me in whom to place my trust? Poor Goors is dead. He, you know, was my chief help in moments such as this. Others too are gone. Tell me who, save you, old friend, who can I now turn to?’

Hawkins placed a gentle hand upon his Commander’s shoulder. ‘Do not despair, Sir. You are merely unsettled by your headaches. There is hope. As you say, you yet have me. And there is George Cadogan, Your Grace. He has ever been true. And Cardonell too.’

‘True, James. Quite true. Cadogan and Cardonell are a constant strength. Yet that is the measure of it. Just so. Two men and yourself, James. That is the sum of my family. How can I know who else to trust? How to know where my enemies may have placed their spies? God, how I long for this business to be over.’

Removing his wig to reveal his closely cropped hair, Marlborough draped it carefully over the stand made for the purpose that stood with his other personal effects on a small console table in the corner of the tent next to his camp-bed. Then he sat down at the table and, resting his elbows on its surface, buried his head in his hands.

Hawkins stared down at him and wondered at the vulnerability of this man in whom the nation, indeed half the civilized world had placed all its hope and trust.

Presently, the Duke raised his face and, pressing his hands, palms down hard against the table, flat on the polished wood, looked directly up at Hawkins.

‘We must prevail, James. We must beat the French.’

He paused in the epic silence of his words, knowing that, even with his old friend he must instantly dispel any suspicion that they might not be able to do so. Marlborough continued:

‘Oh yes, we shall beat them. That I do firmly believe. But first, I pray to God in heaven that your man Steel will be able to deliver me from the greater personal peril. Or else, truly James, we shall all of us be lost beyond redemption.’

Steel sat in the small tent and carefully inscribed the names of his dead men in the company roster with a neat, tutored script. His soldier-servant, Nate Thomas, sat just within the door flap polishing his master’s boots.

Nate liked Mister Steel. Cared for him more than most of the officers in this army in which any gentleman might purchase a command but where precious few officers were gentlemen. Steel he knew to be a fair man. A man who, if he was cool at times, would always give reward where it was due. And he was a real soldier too. Not some trumped-up popinjay like so many of those who took it upon themselves to give commands. All the same, thought Nate, as he spat on the toe of Steel’s boot before buffing it again, best to give him a proper shine today. For whatever might be Steel’s odd habits, and although he was inclined to behave more like a sergeant at times, Nate knew that he must not have his officer looking untidy on battalion parade. He spat again and began to rub the polish into the leather with a round, even motion, decreasing the size of the circles to produce a glass-like finish. He was staring proudly at his handiwork when Henry Hansam appeared in the entrance. He looked down at the soldier-servant.

‘Hard at it, Nate? Making a good job of it. In truth, though, I shouldn’t bother if I were you. You know that Mister Steel will have them filthy again two minutes after you’ve finished.’

He turned to his friend. ‘Jack. We have a new travelling companion. Allow me to present Lieutenant Thomas Williams, lately arrived from England to join the regiment. More specifically to join our own company. I give you, our new Ensign.’

With a theatrical flourish, Hansam stepped into the two-man tent, holding open the flap so that his companion might enter. The newcomer was a young officer of perhaps 16 years old, with that distinctive, wiry build that came with the starvation diet prescribed by one of England’s finest private schools and a complexion that most readily reminded Steel of ripe strawberries. What most marked Williams out however, was the even brighter hue of his new scarlet coat, as yet unblemished to the drab brick-red worn by the other officers and men of the army, dulled by the dust and mud of campaigning. His crossbelt was whitened to perfection, his crossplate, sword hilt and scabbard shone fresh from the foundry and his hair was hidden beneath the rich locks of a clean, new full-bottomed chestnut-brown wig that must have cost the best part of a sergeant’s annual pay. In short, thought Steel, the boy was perfect cannon fodder.

Steel smiled and rose to greet the new arrival.

‘Mister Williams. Or might I say Thomas? Or perhaps you prefer Tom? You must know at once, Tom, that we stand on no great formality in this company.’

‘Thank you, Sir. My parents do call me Thomas, but you may call me Tom, if you wish, Sir.’

He was touched by this unusual officer’s apparent interest, and surprised. It was one of the rare instances he had found since his arrival in this army of what just might prove to be real friendship.

The younger son of a gentleman farmer from Wiltshire, Thomas Williams, with his lack of ability to absorb either the classics or the Bible and his tendency to colour and stutter when the centre of attention, had seemed from the first an unlikely candidate for the church and so his father had purchased him a commission in Farquharson’s Foot. Perhaps in a couple of years’ time, if Thomas acquitted himself well, Mr Williams senior would find the additional £300 to raise his son to a full Lieutenancy. Perhaps the army might be the making of him. For the present, however, Tom found himself on the lowest rung of the officer hierarchy and his new comrades had lost no time in letting him know it. Here though, in this curious-looking, strikingly handsome Lieutenant of Grenadiers, with his strange clothes and the unorthodox hair, Thomas Williams sensed that he might have found a kindred spirit, or perhaps at least a guardian angel. He realized that Steel was looking at him very closely.

‘Have we met?’

Steel stared hard at Williams’ eyes. Looked at the long slant of his nose, the slightly weak chin and tried to place him. Eventually it came. ‘Yes. I believe we have. I do know you now. You were with Jennings. At the tavern.’

The boy blushed and looked down at his gleaming shoes. Grasping nervously at his sword knot, Tom said nothing. Then thought the better of it:

‘I wasn’t exactly “with” Major Jennings, Sir.’

Steel smiled. Perhaps he had underestimated the lad after all. He knew how defend himself in an impossible position.

‘Yes. That’s good. Well said. And I assume, Tom, that, even if you were not “with him”, you knew better than to believe any of his arrogant twaddle?’

Williams looked up, uncertain as to how to take this or how to respond. Was it yet another example of the sort of mess-hall ribaldry to which he was fast becoming accustomed? Were they trying to make him appear a fool yet again, as he had so often been caught out at Eton and only recently, on his first week in the army when a sergeant-major at the depot in England had quite deliberately put him out of step when on parade.

‘I … I don’t quite understand, Sir. I thought that Major Jennings was considered a hero. He said that …’

Steel exclaimed and cut in: ‘You will hear Major Jennings say many things, Tom. And I dare say it is possible that some of them may well be true. So, if you choose to believe that he is the perfect martial hero he would have you think him, then you must consider that is precisely what our Major Jennings is. He is a hero as drawn on stage by the great Colley Cibber himself, or Sir John Vanbrugh. As perfect a hero as you or I might be likely to see treading the boards at Drury Lane or Dorset Fields on any night of the week, for two shillings.’

Williams frowned.

Hansam chuckled. ‘Now, Jack. Don’t tease the lad.’

Steel nodded. ‘I was forgetting myself. Hero or not, Tom, Major Jennings is a soldier nevertheless, and he will march with us and serve with us beneath the colours and he will stand with us before the shot on the field of battle and take his chances against the French just as we do.’

At the mention of battle Williams turned pale, then smiled, wanly. Steel, noticing his apprehension, attempted to ease the moment by pretending to brush something off his coat.

‘Wait. There. Restored to glory. And there is more to soldiering than battle, eh Henry? What think you to the army, Tom?’

‘I … I think it must be a very grand life, Sir. I think … that I shall very much like being a soldier.’

Both the Lieutenants laughed. Steel clapped Williams on the back.

‘And I think that perhaps I’ll ask you that question again shortly after your first battle. Then we’ll see how you reply, Tom, eh? Now, come. Time presses. Permit us to stand you a dish of tea, or something stronger if you will, in what passes for the present for our mess. Nate. My boots.’

After Steel had pulled on the shining boots and finished adjusting the other elements of his dress, the three men walked out of the tent. Before them, reflecting the pale sunshine, lay a mass of similar white tents, laid out in symmetrical lines and grids: the entire British army encamped under canvas in its temporary home. It was as if, Steel thought, a small English town had been transported to the heart of Bavaria. Along the alleyways that ran between the rows of tents bewigged officers strolled in conversation while among them dozens of children – the offspring of camp followers – ran and played, sometimes pursued by their desperate mothers. Other women sat nursing babies or were busy washing and steaming the lice-infested clothes of husbands and families or cooking suspicious-looking rations in great iron pots. Soldiers sat beside their tents darning their uniforms and attending to minor wounds and the blisters and sores which inevitably followed from a long march. In separate lines, tradesmen and craftspeople sat before their own tents making good the accoutrements required to keep 30,000 men in a battle-ready state. And with this vision of industry and idleness came the unmistakable noise and aroma of camp life. The staccato clack of metal on metal, the whinnying of the horses, the shrieks of the children, sharp against an undercurrent of chatter and music and rising above it all the not altogether unpleasant stench of food, sweat, horses and humanity. Steel watched as carts filled with provisions rumbled past the lines while others standing ready for the wounded from whatever battle was next to come, were cleaned as best they could by the sutlers of the blood and gore left by their previous unfortunate occupants.

It was a scene being enacted throughout the south German states that morning, and across the French border, Steel knew, in the camp of every army: British, French, Hanoverian, Prussian, Bavarian and the rest. But here, he thought, something was subtly different. Here, he knew that before the tent lines had been laid, the site had been carefully chosen by keen-eyed civilian commissaries sent out by Marlborough himself. And close behind them followed the army: always setting off early in the morning, at sunrise – five o’clock or before – and halting shortly after midday, thus avoiding the greatest heat and making camp so that the night’s rest gave the men the illusion of a full day’s halt. Such was the care that the General took with his army, thought Steel. He knew too that the food and provisions now so evidently on display had been carefully stockpiled to provide for just such an encampment.

This was the new army. Marlborough’s army. An army that made the old sweats mutter in amazement. For here was organization of a type never before seen in a British army on foreign soil. It was Marlborough who had made this army. Had fashioned it from the ragtag rabble that had emerged from the chaos of King William’s Glorious Revolution and brought it through the Irish wars to this great campaign. It was true that back in London, the Duke still had his enemies who even now might be plotting his removal. But here on the march, with the army, ‘Corporal John’ was God. But he was also a soldier and a man, his vulnerable mortality no different from any who filled the ranks of his army. That was the reason the soldiers would fight for him. Would die for him – a hero’s death if they were lucky. That was why they would march wherever he took them. To whatever lay over the next hill. To glory. And so, as the women cooked and sewed and the money changed hands, and the children played and the wounded died, the majority of the soldiers wondered how long they might count on being able to rest and how many more dawns they might see.

Hansam broke Steel’s reverie. ‘I see that we have our Prussian friends with us now.’

Steel too had noticed the arrival of the long marching column as it snaked its way past the lines of the British encampment. The distinctive dark blue coats of the Hanoverian and Prussian infantry, their tall Grenadiers evident in their own profusion of elegant, elaborately laced caps. These were their allies, marching to join Marlborough’s red caterpillar. There must be, he supposed, several thousand of them. Perhaps ten battalions.

Hansam spoke again: ‘You can’t help admiring their style. Can you?’

Steel gazed across at the Prussian infantry, marching in precise formation, using the recently reintroduced, artificially high ‘cadence’ step, looking for all the world as if they were on parade at Potsdam.

‘Style, Henry? That’s not style. That’s nothing more than blind obedience. Those men are more terrified of their own officers than they are of the French. Beaten regularly twice a week for the most trivial offence, they’re underfed and generally abused. They march nicely and I dare say they fight well – to command. But in truth they’re no more than walking muskets.’

Steel was no admirer of the Prussian system. Oh, he had seen it work in battle. Had watched the blue-coated juggernaut as it inched across the field through a hail of shot to smash its way through the enemy ranks. But he could not believe that this was really the way to fight. Like automatons. Certainly you must have discipline and drill. That was the only way to persuade the men to stand in rank and take the shot when it came flying towards them. How else would men stand, save by drill and discipline. And musketry too required drill. That in truth was the real secret of the system of platoon fire that had wrought such destruction on the French in the late engagement. But Steel believed, too, that in the heat of battle there was still a time to give every man his head. Then you really saw what the British infantryman was made of. Certainly, the Prussians were no cowards. But driven on by their blind rote, they could never match the individual skill and ingenuity of a British Grenadier. Nevertheless, there were, he knew, times when strict discipline was paramount. And now, he remembered, was just one such moment. Steel heard the clock in the nearby village church striking eight. Normally this would have been the time of the morning for the men of his company and indeed the entire battalion to have been engaged in their various routine duties. Sharpening bayonets at the farrier’s wheel, oiling the mechanisms of the highly prized new muskets, checking their shoes and feet for signs of wear. But he knew that none of his men, nor any of Sir James Farquharson’s Regiment of Foot had been among the redcoats sitting in the tent lines. This morning Farquharson’s men had other business on their minds. Only the camp followers and children were excused from this parade. It was, he supposed, an entertainment of sorts. A diversion intended to enhance the moral welfare of the other ranks and to reinforce the position of the officers by example. A flogging. Steel turned to the Ensign.

‘Well, Tom, you’ve certainly chosen your day to arrive. We’ve a spectacle for you. Although I am not sure how well you’ll take to it. But first, come and meet your fellow officers.’

They approached the group of captains and lieutenants who were talking together before the mess tent at one side of the small headquarters square formed by the administrative tents of the regiment. Steel introduced Williams to each in turn.

‘Gentlemen, may I present Mister Williams. Ensign Tom Williams. Newly arrived to the Grenadiers. Tom, may I introduce Monsieur le Lieutenant Daniel Laurent, our own Huguenot “refugie”, who thinks it better to fight for us and his God than his own countrymen and theirs.’

The tall Frenchman bowed, aware, as always, that his presence might seem bizarre to any newly arrived officer.

‘A votre service, Monsieur Williams.’

‘Much obliged to you in turn, Monsieur Laurent.’

Steel smiled and continued. ‘Observe too, Tom, how Monsieur Laurent retains the enviable manners of his nation.’ Laurent laughed, and raised his eyebrows.

‘And this is Captain Melville, late of my Lord Orkney’s Foot. And this gentleman over here with the permanent grin, is Lieutenant McInnery. Seamus to his friends, of whom he would have you think that there must be very many.’

He lowered his voice to a stage whisper: ‘Truth is, the poor fellow hasn’t one.’

McInnery laughed, and bowed to Williams. Steel moved between them.

‘Oh. And stay well clear of him, Thomas. He’ll lead you into bad ways. Within a week you’ll be penniless and ridden with the pox from some twopenny tart.’

McInnery shoved Steel hard in the shoulder. ‘Jack. What would you have the poor boy believe. Honestly, you go too far. I have a good mind to call you out.’

Steel looked hard at the Irishman and smiled. ‘But perhaps not today, though, Seamus. Eh?’

Steel’s attention was distracted by the arrival of the duty officer, Charles Frampton, Jennings’ crony. A bluff, Kentish man with no time for idle chatter but a seemingly unending capacity for wine which appeared to have no effect on him whatsoever.

‘Gentlemen. I think that we might address the matter in hand if we are to get it over with before midday, do you not?’

Steel whispered to Williams: ‘It seems, Tom, that our tea will have to wait. Although by the time this is finished I dare say you may be in want of something a little stronger.’

As the officers moved off to their respective companies, Steel looked about the makeshift parade ground. A square had been marked out by four flagpoles, to each of which was attached a square of red silk reserved for just such an occasion. On the farthest side of the square, directly in the centre of two of the poles a wooden frame had been erected using five halberds. Three had been tied together to form a triangle and a fourth then attached to the apex to act as a buttress thus making a tripod. The fifth had been tied directly across the centre of the triangle. At right angles to it, between the other flagpoles, stood three companies of the regiment. Steel’s, being that of the Grenadiers, was to the right and he now took his position at its rear. Nate helped him to mount his horse, a tall bay gelding. Steel looked at the bare structure of the whipping block and cursed. It never failed to astonish him that even now, with the army better fed and furnished than ever before, there were still some soldiers within its ranks foolish enough or hungry enough or just stupid enough to risk everything by stealing. And this was the army’s answer.

Slaughter, who was standing to his front spoke without turning his head.

‘It’s a bloody shame, Mister Steel, Sir. A real bloody shame. Dan Cussiter is no more a thief than I am.’

Steel lent over to pat his horse’s head. ‘Careful now, Jacob. That’s seditious talk. You know that the army no longer lives off the country. It is the Duke’s work. Every major or captain has the responsibility of telling every man in his company that if one of them steals so much as an egg they will be either hanged or flogged without mercy. And should that be the case then you know the good Major Jennings will always be on hand to ensure that justice is carried out to the letter of the law and within an inch of your life.’

Steel sat up in the saddle.

Slaughter spoke again, although he was still staring straight ahead. ‘Perhaps one day they’ll reform this army so that them as is good stays from harm and them that’s bad at heart get their just rewards.’

Steel said nothing, but entertained similar thoughts. Perhaps when some were turned to dung on the fields of Germany, then those left behind might yet benefit. But he very much doubted it. Marlborough could do many things, but he could not interfere with the very infrastructure of the army; the fact that everything worked only by example. And that meant punishing some poor bugger today, whether or not he really was a thief. Steel’s thoughts were lost in the growing thunder of a drum roll. Two men had been sentenced. As was the custom when the army was in the field, desperately attempting to preserve its manpower while unable to forgo military justice, only one was to be punished. So the two men had drawn lots to determine who would receive the flogging. The winner, a moon-faced oaf from number three company had been returned to the ranks and now stood smiling with grim satisfaction as he watched his partner in crime being led out into the square.

Cussiter stood between the Grenadiers of the escort with his head hanging down, staring at his feet, waiting for the inevitable. He had been stripped to the waist and his hands bound, ready to receive punishment, and the white of his thin flesh shone horribly stark and raw against the massed red coats of the parade and the grey of the unforgiving morning. A flogging was not the worst punishment that the army had to offer. There was death, of course, by shooting, hanging or breaking on the wheel – in which your bones were smashed with an iron bar before you were cut down and left in the dust of the parade ground to die slowly and in unimaginable agony, or until a merciful officer put his pistol to your head and blew your brains to the air. There were other ingenious punishments to suit particular crimes. Steel was familiar with the rules, some of which had been laid down by Marlborough himself for each offence.

‘All men found gathering peas or beans or under the pretence of rooting to be hanged as marauders without trial.’ There were also clear distinctions between what merited ‘severe punishment’, ‘most severe’ and ‘the utmost punishment’. Flogging, like the other common forms, was brutal and barbaric, yet Steel knew that there was really no other way. But it was hard to wipe from his mind the images of so many punishment parades and their various different methods.

There was the whirligig, in which the prisoner was placed in a wooden cage that was then spun on a spindle until he was so dizzy that at the least he suffered vomiting, involuntary defecation, urination and blinding headaches. At worst he would experience apoplectic seizures, internal bleeding and possibly death. Then there was the wooden horse on which the convicted man was compelled to sit astride while weights were gradually attached to each foot. It didn’t help if your victim happened to be among those administering the punishment, as so often seemed to be the case. It was said that a prolonged spell on the wooden horse could bring about rupture and destroy forever your chances of fathering a family; Steel had seen men very nearly gelded by the revolting contraption. But nothing, felt Steel, no product of the torturer’s ingenuity, could equal for sheer spectacle or barbarity, the horror of a simple flogging.

He wondered whether he was alone in feeling this way about what they were all about to watch. He knew that many officers shrugged it off with the casual nonchalance they might accord chastising a disobedient dog. Others though, he suspected, shared his qualms. Of course it was quite impossible to express such views. And Steel felt at times that perhaps it was a failing on his part. An inability to be quite everything that the men expected in an officer. Looking away from the tripod, Steel’s eye found his Colonel.

James Farquharson was sitting uncomfortably on his horse at the centre of one of the companies, surrounded by his immediate military family. Close to him sat Jennings and for an instant Steel contemplated how they might eventually resolve their quarrel. Whether one or both of them might die in the resolution or whether both might not be killed by the enemy first. Jennings was an unpopular enough officer. Perhaps he would die by a British bullet rather than by one of their enemies’. It happened. All too frequently in fact. Who could say in the heat of battle quite from where the deadly shot had come?

A little back from the punishment block Farquharson still felt too close for comfort and pulling at the reins of his handsome grey mare he coughed, nervously.

‘You know, Aubrey, I really do find all this so very tiresome.’

He belched and wiped his mouth with a white lace handkerchief he kept hidden in his sleeve.

‘I suppose that I must really remain until the end, eh. Until it is erm … finished?’

Jennings smiled. ‘I really don’t see how you can do otherwise, Sir James. It is after all your regiment. Not good for the men to see you go before the … erm … finish, Sir.’

‘Quite so, quite so. It was merely that I remembered a prior engagement you understand. Staff business as it were. You were not to know. It is of no matter, no matter at all. How many lashes did you say?’

‘A round hundred, Sir James. You yourself signed the warrant.’

‘A hundred. Yes indeed. Dreadful crime. Quite dreadful. What was it again?’

Jennings turned back to the parade without answering. He knew the real reason for his commanding officer’s desire to leave. And that it had nothing to do with ‘staff business’. He did not in truth respect Farquharson any more than he respected Steel. Neither, in his opinion, was the sort of officer who was wanted in a modern army. Oh, it would suffice in the sort of army on which Milord Marlborough had set his heart. But Jennings knew that modern warfare needed a quite different sort of man in command. Ruthless, inspiring, pitiless. Certainly Marlborough had shown his grasp of the new warfare at Schellenberg. That was real war. War without mercy. But Jennings could see that their great commander, like the old fools who commanded the majority of his regiments, had no stomach for the sort of warfare he envisaged. The new breed of soldier needed nerves of steel and undaunted courage. And such a soldier could, naturally, only be commanded by men like himself. The square was almost complete now. The remaining officers of the regiment rode into place with their respective companies. Jennings was joined by Charles Frampton who had completed his immediate duties.

‘Good afternoon, Charles.’

‘Aubrey. Sir James. Bloody business this. Can’t say that I really care for it.’

Farquharson smiled. Jennings spoke:

‘Nor I, Charles, in truth. But it is what the army requires. Distasteful business though it is.’

‘Oh, I did not mean that I disapproved of it. Not at all. Quite so. Absolutely necessary. No other way. I was merely hoping to have been able to have spent the morning at drill. Most important you know. Now. Where are we? Where is the dreadful fellow?’

Another rattle of side drums signalled the approach of the prisoner and escort. Dan Cussiter was a scrawny looking Yorkshire-born Private from number three company. According to tradition, he was led by two Grenadiers and Sergeant Stringer, whose weasel face was suffused with a grin. Stringer relished all punishment parades and liked to see the men suffer. He would walk round the frame soaking up every moment of the agony, and he looked up now at Jennings with the eager anticipation of a waiting terrier.

‘Colonel, Sah. Permission to proceed with the punishment, Sah.’

Farquharson nodded to Jennings who in turn nodded to Stringer.

‘Lay it on, Sarn’t.’

Two drummer boys in their shirtsleeves had taken up their positions on the left and right of the ghastly frame. Their comrades continued the drum roll as the prisoner was led to the wooden poles. Steel barely knew Cussiter. Certainly, he had seen him many times about the camp and on the march, but the man had never made a particular impression. He seemed somewhat anonymous, not at all the sort of fellow you might mark out as a potential criminal. Steel wondered exactly what he had done to deserve this punishment. Theft certainly, but of what and of what value? True, in the measure of things a hundred lashes was relatively light. Some men were sentenced to 1,000 lashes and more to be administered over a number of days or weeks. At least in Cussiter’s case it seemed likely that it would be done in one session.

The drums stopped as the man was tied with one hand on each side of the central halberd and his feet spread out at the wide base of the triangle. A corporal pressed a piece of folded leather into his mouth, a precaution lest he bite off his own tongue with the pain, but also a gag to prevent him from screaming and thus further disgracing himself and the regiment. Stringer stood to the left of the frame and nodded to one of the young drummer boys.

‘Drummers, do your duty.’

Steel watched as the boy raised the cat o’ nine tails above his head and rotated it twice in the air as he had been taught to do by the regimental farrier. It seemed to hover in the air before the boy brought it down with a slap across the man’s back. Steel watched as the white flesh began to seep red and winced as Cussiter’s body arched away from the blow. Now it was evident why the fifth halberd was tied across the triangle. There was to be no chance that the prisoner might be able to sink his torso forward and avoid the lash.

Stringer’s cruelly jubilant voice rang out across the silent parade ground: ‘One.’

The boy’s hand came up again and again the whip journeyed round his head before falling on the white back.

‘Two.’

Now the drummer boy drew the tails of the cat through the fingers of his left hand, as he had been taught to do between each stroke, to rid them of excess blood and any pieces of skin or flesh which might have attached themselves. Again the whip descended.

‘Three. Keep ’em high, lad.’ The last thing they wanted was for the strokes to fall on the man’s vital organs thus resulting in his death or being invalided out of the regiment.

‘Four.’ The cat whistled down again, the thick knots at the top of each thong cutting into the soft flesh of Cussiter’s back.

It seemed interminable. After the first twenty-five strokes the drummers changed and with the new boy came fresh agonies for the prisoner as the strokes began to fall from a different side and with a different pace.

‘Twenty-eight,’ boomed Stringer, his face split wide in a grin.

‘Twenty-nine.’

By the time they had reached fifty, the halfway mark, Cussiter’s body was sagging down, but his head still seemed to be holding itself aloft. The drummers paused as Stringer stepped forward to investigate what seemed to be a piece of exposed bone. He addressed the Adjutant. ‘Think I can see a rib sir.’

Steel looked. It was true. There was a glint of something pearly white against Cussiter’s bloodied flesh.

Jennings spoke: ‘No matter, Sarn’t. Carry on.’

There was an audible groan from the battalion. The battalion Sergeant-Major responded: ‘Silence in the ranks there. Corporal, take names.’

Two of the officers opposite Steel also began to whisper to each other. This was certainly most irregular. The idea was not to lay the man open to the bone so quickly. The punishment should really be suspended. Jennings nodded to Stringer and the drummers began again.

‘Fifty-one.’

Having had the blissful remission of a few seconds without the lash, Cussiter’s back arched out in a new extreme of contortion as the next stroke descended with renewed fury. Blood splashed up with every cut now. The drummers were soon covered and it flowed in slow rivulets down the victim’s back to form puddles around him in the dust. Even Steel looked away and wished the thing might end. In whatever way.

Looking across the parade ground to where Williams sat, he noticed that the young Ensign’s complexion was now quite white. Farquharson face too had turned ashen and it was evident that the Colonel was attempting to divert his eyes away from the spectacle.

Jennings, on the other hand, was staring with ghoulish fascination at the wreck of Cussiter’s back. After what seemed an eternity the words came at last.

‘One hundred.’

Stringer turned away from the bloody tripod and addressed the Colonel: ‘Punishment completed, Sah.’

Farquharson, mute with emotional exhaustion, said nothing, but merely nodded. Jennings gave the command: ‘Take him down.’

At the words the battalion seemed to relax as a man with a great sigh of relief that it was finally over. Hands fumbled at the ropes binding Cussiter to the halberds and he toppled sideways into the arms of a corporal, then steadied himself on his feet and attempted to walk away. It was a brave show, but in reality he needed two men to help him back to the company lines. Steel heard the clock tower chime. Half past ten. Damn waste of time, half-flaying a man alive. He would now most certainly be late for his appointment. But how could he have excused himself from attending without giving anything away? Not waiting for the other officers, Steel quietly told Slaughter to take over and turned his horse back towards the lines.

It was a good twenty minutes past the appointed hour before he found himself within Marlborough’s campaign tent. It was quite a fancy affair he thought, as befitted the Commander-in-Chief. Its walls were lined in red striped ticking and on the ground were laid a number of oriental carpets. Several pieces of furniture stood about the walls. A handsome console table with ormolu supports and a camp-bed, draped with red silk, stood in one of the darker corners, while in the centre of the room lay a large, polished oak table covered in maps and papers and several chairs.

The Duke stood with his back to Steel, who had been announced by an aide-de-camp, who stood hovering beside the tent flap. He was hunched over one of the maps, his fists pressed down on the tabletop. In another corner of the tent, apparently absorbed in leafing through the pages of a leather-bound book, stood Colonel Hawkins. As Steel entered he looked up and smiled before looking back at the pages. Marlborough spoke, without turning round.

‘You are late, Mister Steel. Tardiness is not something of which you make a habit, I hope.’

‘Not at all, Your Grace. My sincere apologies. The regiment was paraded for punishment. A flogging.’

‘Never a very pleasant business, Mister Steel. But absolutely necessary. We must have discipline at all costs, eh? Be fair to the men, Steel, but be firm with it. That’s the way to make an army. But now, here you are.’

The Duke turned and Steel recognized that face. Although it looked somewhat care-worn now, the brow furrowed as if by pain, yet still quite as handsome in close-up as he remembered. He had met the General only once before, at a court assembly, and doubted whether the great man would remember him. Marlborough, as usual, wore the dark red coat of a British General, decorated with a profusion of gold lace and under his coat the blue sash of the Order of the Garter. Most noticeably, rather than the high cavalry top-boots, favoured by most general officers, he wore a pair of long grey buttoning gaiters. He stared at Steel for a good two minutes as if getting the measure of this man to whom he had entrusted his future. Finally, he seemed satisfied.

‘Yes. Discipline is paramount. We cannot allow the army to run amok can we. It’s all they know, Steel. Good lads at heart. But how else to keep ’em in check, eh?’

‘Indeed, Your Grace.’

‘Now, Steel, to the matter in hand. Colonel Hawkins here tells me that you have been made aware of the importance of this mission. I merely wanted to commend you on your way and to hammer home beyond doubt the absolute necessity that you should succeed. This is no less than a matter of life and death, Steel. My death and now also your own.’

He smiled.

‘If you fail in this mission, if the document you seek should find its way into the hands of my enemies, they will as surely break me up like hounds falling upon a hare. And be assured, Mister Steel, that if you do fail then they will most certainly do the same to you.’

He paused. ‘I’m told, by my sources in London and by Colonel Hawkins, that you are a man to be trusted.’

He fixed Steel with strikingly cold grey-green eyes.

Steel swallowed: ‘I very much believe that to be true, Your Grace.’

‘It had better be, my boy.’

Steel felt a sudden impetuous curiosity which momentarily overcame his nervousness. ‘May I ask by whom in London I was named to you, Sir?’

Marlborough laughed. ‘No indeed, you may not, Sir. But I guess that you must already know. Shall we just call her ‘Milady’.

‘So then, Steel. D’you think you can do it? Can you save my skin and this blessed war?’

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