by Iain Gale
Steel could see Cadogan’s scarlet-clad battalions now, British and Hanoverian infantry, as they clustered around the village of Eyne, eight hundred yards to their front and right. That place would surely now be his own objective, and the aim of his brigade would be to shore up the clearly ailing forces of Cadogan, thus reinforcing the entire Allied line. He looked to his right and saw that yet more Allied troops were arriving along the road from Lessines, being disposed according to Marlborough’s wishes with apparent improvisation. It showed the true genius of Corporal John, who had guided them through six years of war, first in Bavaria in the great victory at Blenheim and then back up here in Flanders.
He caught another snatch of Taylor’s song and again the words rang true:
‘For starvation and danger it will be my destiny To seek fresh employment with Marlborough and me.
Who’ll be a soldier, who’ll be a soldier …’
The singing had spread now to the other companies of the battalion and beyond to the other British regiments in the brigade who stood in line behind the grenadiers, waiting at the bridge. Waiting.
And so the afternoon wore on, and fear and frustration in their turn took hold in the minds of Steel and his men and all the others. And the men in the valley continued to die, singly at times and at times in parcels of four or six or ten, as fate directed the fall of the shot. Steel watched them as they fought in the village, in its fields and orchards and on the plain. He cursed at his commanders’ inaction and wiped his brow of sweat in the sultry July sunshine that played across the scene. Yet still they were not ordered into the attack.
He called across to Hansam, as he had done at intervals throughout the day: ‘Henry, what time d’you have?’
The lieutenant drew out his prized timepiece, a gold chronometer taken from the body of a dead French officer after Blenheim: ‘Four o’clock and thirty minutes.’
Steel nodded his thanks, swatted a fly away from his face and tucked a finger inside the sweat-stained collar band of his shirt, which had again become home to a colony of lice. He had lost them in England and kept clean too while in Brussels, but since they had been on the march the little buggers had come back – and it seemed to Steel that they were making up for their absence. What he would give for a clean shirt, a long soak in a bath, a pitcher of ale and the chance to sleep! Above all sleep. He ran his hand across his stubbled chin. That and perhaps a shave and a chance to lie with his new wife.
He noticed that he was sweating heavily now. The day had crept up on them, and the noise from the valley seemed to amplify the heat. How much longer would they stand here? he thought. Taylor and his men had long since finished their song and silence again descended upon the ranks, letting the fears back in.
Steel drew himself up and spoke in a clear voice, intending the men to hear him: ‘That was a fine piece of singing back there, Corporal Taylor. Would you mind very much if we should call upon your talents again ere long?’
Taylor grinned. ‘At your disposal as always, Captain Steel, sir. Lifts the spirits, does a song. That’s what I always say, sir.’ And by way of an afterthought he added: ‘Can’t abide this waiting though, sir.’
Slaughter glared at him. But Steel was not one, as were some officers, to chide petty impertinence, particularly at such a time as this and from one of his veterans such as Taylor. He nodded. ‘Nor I, Taylor. And you’re right about singing. We’ll hear from you again. But I dare say we’ll be at them soon. Don’t you worry.’
The man next to Taylor in the company’s front rank, a normally dour Lowland Scot, like Steel himself, named John Mackay, spoke up: ‘And we’ll see ’em off today, sir, won’t we? Just like we did at Ramillies, eh boys?’
‘When you were still at your mother’s teat,’ muttered Slaughter.
There was a short hurrah from the ranks which betrayed more about their boredom and fear than it said about their confidence. Like Ramillies, thought Steel. Perhaps it would be like Ramillies. Like Bleneim too, maybe. But Marlborough’s past triumphs seemed an age away now, as he stood on the bridge – almost another country after all that had happened to him since.
Before then he had not known his wife, Henrietta. Lady Henrietta Vaughan, to give her her full title. And this was the name by which she would forever be known, it seemed. He himself found it hard to imagine her as ‘Lady Henrietta Steel’. Would he ever become used to it? For she was his wife of little less than a year, now safely billeted in Brussels. He had not wanted her to come out with him from England, but she had prevailed, saying that other wives did as much so why should she not follow her beloved captain?
Captain Steel. Now that was a style he had no difficulty in adopting. His part in the taking of Ostend had been rewarded at Court with the confirmation of his brevet rank as a full captaincy, by no less a person than the Queen herself. He had been paraded through the streets of London as a hero of the campaign. His praises had been sung by balladeers from Covent Garden to Holborn and talked of by old campaigners in White’s, at Old Man’s coffee house and the late king’s new military hospital at Chelsea.
He had wondered at the time what his brother’s reaction might have been had he but seen him in such pomp. His elder brother Charles, that was, who had always called him ‘Jack the good for nothing’, who had introduced him as ‘Jack my hapless brother who will come to naught’. To him Steel would forever be the failed lawyer’s clerk, a penniless soldier who had accepted the commission purchased by his mistress. What would he say now to Captain Steel, the hero of Ostend?
For a moment too he thought of his younger brother, Alexander, a professed Jacobite whose ideals had split the family – what was left of it. Alexander, the baby of the three brothers, two years his junior, who had left home to join the exiled King James at his court outside Paris. Steel had not had news of him now for five years and wondered what might have become of him. Was he still alive? Had he fought for his king? In truth Steel half expected to encounter him on a battlefield in the uniform of the ‘Wild Geese’, those Irish regiments in French service who fought so well for a vanquished dynasty and a conquered land. Perhaps he was wounded or maimed. Steel was overcome by melancholy and a sense of emptiness and the understanding that now, more than ever before, he had left his childhood, youth and roots far behind in Scotland when he had taken the old king’s shilling and joined the Guards as a young lieutenant at his lover’s behest. Now he knew that his real family were those men who stood behind him on this field – them and the pretty, headstrong girl who waited for him in their small and unaffordably expensive apartment in Brussels.
Although rank and fortune were central to the plan that he had long nurtured for his career, Steel could not help but think that his real prize in the bloody affair at Ostend had been Henrietta. He had rescued her from the hands of a French privateer – no more than a pirate – in the service of the Sun King. That man had held both of them captive as together they had stared death in the face and watched a good man die horribly in an underground torture chamber. Steel had taken her out of that place, and she loved him for that. That was beyond doubt. And now, as the years went by, it would be his task to persuade her to love him for whatever else he was as a man – those virtues she had not yet seen, whatever she and her constant love had the power to make him. It was all very well to fight for yourself, to fight just to stay alive and to make a life as a soldier. But it was quite another thing to fight when you knew that back beyond the baggage lines someone was waiting. He was happy and proud that she had chosen to follow him to Flanders, though in truth he would have expected no less from her stubborn, feisty character. Marlborough’s army always brought in its wake the gaggle of camp followers that came with any army – women, children, wives and lovers. But not many of those who came were attached to officers. It was one of the things he admired about Henrietta, her independent spirit that was intertwined with an unmissable sexuality. He hoped he had made the right choice for the wife of an officer of the Grenadiers. It was clear t
hat his men had taken to her. They saw her as a natural part of the regimental family. They were aware too of what she had gone through, and respected her for it. Besides, she was Captain Steel’s wife.
A captain he might be, and on the not ungenerous sum of £170 a year, but Steel was again hungry for promotion. For, as lovely as she was, Henrietta had already begun to make something more than an emotional impact on his life. Steel had not previously been aware just how expensive a woman could be. True, she had brought with her a small dowry, but it was hardly in line with her status as the eldest daughter of the Duke of Rumney, and Steel wondered whether her father, knowing his modest station and uncertain prospects, might not have deliberately held back a portion in case of some … unseen eventuality. In addition, a great deal more money had now been necessitated by Henrietta having insisted on bringing a maid from England and her declaration that they must live in an entire suite of rooms. Where, previously, a town billet for Steel as a bachelor officer had meant a simple bed in a tavern room, it now seemed that they must live in some style and be able to entertain. Two bedchambers, a salon, an office and a dining room were the bare minimum, according to his wife. Not to mention the maid and a share in the cook and the kitchens. Not to mention her other requirements. Steel had not known that women could accumulate such … stuff. His life had been transformed, and as much as he adored Henrietta, Steel found it an added burden and began to understand what Slaughter had meant when he had advised him long ago that soldiering and matrimony did not make happy bedfellows.
Nevertheless, when he lay down in their marriage bed and held her small, softly naked form, all such thoughts left Steel’s mind and he was lost in such delights as he had never dreamed of. He had thought he might have grown soft during those months away from the war, nestling in the luxury of a feather bed and the arms of his wife. But in the past few weeks he had learnt that the regiment had seen little action, and he had passed up no chance of glory.
The shrill whine of a cannonball passing overhead snapped him back to the present. But even as he looked absently at the continuing battle his mind still pondered the prospect that before the year was out he would have to find some means of improving his situation. Promotion to major would help, bringing in another hundred a year. However, it would, he realized, as likely as not take him from his beloved Grenadiers. Unless, of course, the regimental adjutant should come to grief in the present campaign. Steel had never liked Charles Frampton, and after that episode following Ramillies with the major’s now hushed-up part in the distribution of scurrilous pamphlets against Marlborough the man was still less appealing. Naturally the business had been all but forgotten. Frampton was too good a soldier in the field to be lost. His accomplice, in truth the instigator of the scheme, had been punished and Frampton given a severe reprimand and encouraged to donate several hundred guineas to the regimental funds. Steel could hardly wish his brother officer, any officer, such ill will on the field of battle. Nevertheless, for a man in Steel’s position with mounting debts and precious little money, filling dead men’s shoes was the simplest way to get on. Perhaps, he thought, there might be booty. Marlborough might have forbidden any man to loot thus far on any campaign, on pain of death, but it seemed likely there would be legitimate plunder to be had if they prevailed this day and advanced into France. ‘If they prevailed.’ He smiled. Steel had become used to winning. But how could they win if they could not fight?
He turned to Hansam. ‘Damn whoever it is that makes us wait. Aye, even Marlborough for once for his infernal caution. Surely, Henry, we must go soon? Look at the men.’
He tested the bridge with his boot. He felt the wooden timbers give and heard them creak as they swayed and strained against the ropes that lashed them to the pontoons.
Hansam spoke. ‘It seems strong enough, Jack.’
‘It had better be. There’s an entire brigade to pass over it soon.’ Very soon, he prayed. He pointed across the river. ‘Look there, Henry. Down on the field. What d’you see?’
‘Why, our men outnumbered by the French. That surely is why we are here.’
‘But we must wait. Malborough is too clever. His plan lies in drawing out the French as quickly as possible. He shows Vendôme a part of his army as a temptation. He dares him to come and destroy Cadogan before they should arrive in force.’
‘It is bold, Jack. What if the French should succeed? If they are too quick off the mark?’
‘Then, my dear fellow, we shall have marched here for naught. For all will be up with our army and we shall need to double back up that hill to Lessines faster than we came. But imagine, Henry, should the plan succeed. If those men down there with Cadogan can hold off for just a little longer and draw in just enough of the French army without yielding, then here will be a moment when Marlborough can come up with the bulk of the army on his terms. Timing, you see, is everything. But that makes it no easier for us or the rest of the brigade. All we may do is watch and wait.’
There was a respectful cough at his side. ‘Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but when shall we go, d’you suppose? I can’t hardly remember seeing the men so peevish. They’re like terriers by a warren. Don’t know what to do with the’selves.’
Sergeant Slaughter was with him, as he had ever been since Steel had transferred into the regiment some seven years ago. Since then the two men had shared a bond of friendship of the sort that could only be forged in battle and which transcended the usual relationship between officer and sergeant. Indeed, some of Steel’s brother officers made no attempt to disguise the fact that they found it distasteful and inappropriate. But for Steel this was the way a war should be fought and the proper way for a company or a regiment to function. Hierarchy and order were vital, of course. But to share such an empathy as he had with a man like Slaughter was something rare: a bond of brotherhood that no one could know who had not been a part of it.
The French gunners on the opposite slope had changed their trajectory now, and the balls were beginning to creep closer to Steel’s brigade. A ranging shot struck the river bank and was stopped dead by the mud.
Steel turned to Slaughter. ‘That’s the last we’ll see like that. They’re just gauging our distance. The next one will strike home. Henry, time to take posts, I think.’
He had hardly finished speaking when all three men saw puffs of smoke from the enemy guns, instantly followed by the unmistakable black dots of fast-approaching cannonballs. Four ranged to their left, finding targets in the next battalion, but the remaining four came directly towards Steel and his men. There was no time to avoid them. No point. The only thing to do was to stand your ground and pray that your luck would hold. Steel watched as each black dot became a circle, then an orb, one of which, approaching him at an unthinkable speed, magically lifted at the last moment to pass over their heads, sucking the air into a vacuum as it passed. Steel breathed out audibly with relief. A few files away a sudden cry told him that others of the company had not been so lucky.
Steel turned to the sergeant again. ‘I wish to God that we were gone, Jacob. I can’t think the men can stand it much longer. They’ll lose heart or they’ll lose their edge.’
‘Aye, sir, or they’ll lose their heads.’
Another roundshot came perilously close to the company but thankfully veered right to carry away the head of the horse ridden by a field officer of Meredith’s, together with the lower portion of the unfortunate man’s leg. Steel nodded at Slaughter and noticed one of his corporals patting one of the recruits on the shoulder and placing him firmly back in the line. ‘The new lads seem to be wobbling, Jacob. Will they carry it off?’
‘They’ll do it, sir. Don’t doubt that they will. But I’m with you, sir. We must go soon.’
A ragged fanfare of bugles made them look to the left where a great cloud of dust thrown up from the earth proclaimed the beginnings of a movement of cavalry. Both men focused their attention on the ground over to the left across the river.
Slaughter spoke. ‘Tha
t’s cavalry, sir. And a good lot of them. They can’t surely intend to attack us, can they? Must be intended for the poor buggers on the edge of that village.’
Steel peered into the settling dust cloud, straining to see the uniforms and from where they came. ‘No, they’re ours, Jacob. Hanoverians. And it’s none of our men they’re making for. They’re moving up towards the French. Thank God for that, at least. Now we’ll see some sport.’
TWO
Sitting at the folding wooden table that had been set up outside a small inn on the edge of the village of Gavre, on the road to Huysse, Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Duc de Vendôme and Marshal of France, sucked the last of the meat from a chicken bone and tossed it to his dogs. He would not be parted from the two pointers that had accompanied him throughout this campaigning season and the last, and he had come to regard them as lucky talismans. Behind the Marshal the little group of French staff officers grew restless. Vendôme ignored them; said nothing; not so much as turned his head to acknowledge them, even though among their number were the Duc de Berry, the King’s fat grandson, and James Francis Edward Stuart, claimant to the British throne. In fact, he mused, his own pedigree was hardly less august. He was the grandson of Henry IV of France and by right a Royal Prince himself. And what, he reasoned, could there possibly be to say to them? None of them had accepted his invitation to dine. Vendôme despaired of his generals and advisors almost as much as he did of his army. Oh, the French elements of his force of 85,000 – ninety battalions of foot and 170 squadrons of horse – were sound enough, most of them. It was the foreigners who supplemented their strength that caused him concern: the Swiss, the Spaniards, the Walloons and mercenaries from various German states.