Man of Honour

by Iain Gale

  Jennings looked hard at Steel. Could he know the true reason for his coming here?

  ‘I am well aware, Mister Steel, of the urgency of your quest. That we must return as soon as we can to the army, with the flour. Nevertheless I am your superior officer and I elect to pitch our camp here for the night. Herr Kretzmer I am sure will wait for us until morning.’

  Steel glared and turned to Slaughter, who was busy binding the wound of a young Grenadier.

  ‘Sarn’t. Have the men fall out and make camp. We’re resting here tonight. Major Jennings’ orders.’

  ‘Here, Sir?’

  ‘Here, Sarn’t. Get to it.’

  Jennings walked slowly over to the body of another dead peasant. The neat, black-scorched entry wound left by the musket ball in the man’s chest belied the bloody mess where it had exited his back. Jennings kicked at the corpse and stroked thoughtfully at his own chin. He needed this delay to decide on his next course of action. Obviously the original plan to pay Kretzmer before Steel’s arrival was as dead as the man at his feet. He would have to act on his initiative alone.

  He was still hatching a plan a half-hour later, when Stringer approached him.

  ‘Beggin’ your pardon, Sir. But me and some of the men was wondering if you’d like to share in a piece of chicken, Sir. Found all legal and proper, Sir. Property of … no one in particular.’

  Jennings smiled. ‘How very kind, Sarn’t. That would be most agreeable. And as it belonged to no one in particular then no word of it any further than our own little circle, eh? Now tell me, how do you intend to cook your chicken? Will you fricassee it or do the men prefer a ragout, d’you think?’

  Steel watched the Major and his fawning Sergeant walk across to where a platoon of his musketeers were gathered about a fire over which they had suspended a stout straight branch between two cleft sticks. This was surely Stringer’s doing, he thought. He would have coerced the men into parting with some of their hard-won plunder, legal or not. As for the rest of them, he and Williams would make do with the bread and cheese he had carried in his pack for the past two days. Slaughter, he knew, had a bottle of rum.

  There had not been time to bury the dead before nightfall. They had moved them though, covered them with what leaves and branches they could find in the half-light and laid them out under the cover of the trees that grew along the riverbank; the stench would blow with the wind away from the camp. It was not ideal, but that was ever the case with war. You simply had to make the best of your lot. He reached into his pocket for a wad of tobacco and placing it in his mouth began to chew. He had sent Slaughter back for the wagons, with a full platoon. The light was fading and empty as they were, there was nothing to be gained by chancing their loss. Walking across the camp, he found Tom Williams by the bridge, staring up at the sky.

  ‘I think that’s the Plough, Sir. Am I right?’

  ‘I think you are, Tom. Well done. We’ll make a woodsman of you yet.’

  ‘Good to have Major Jennings and his men, Sir, don’t you think?’

  Steel spat a mouthful of the acrid tobacco juice on to the ground.

  ‘Yes, very good. Very good of Colonel Hawkins to keep me in his thoughts. Judging by today’s experience we will soon be glad of the extra men. But time is of the essence, Tom. We should not delay.’

  Even as he spoke, and tried to tell himself to think nothing of it, Steel could not comprehend what had possessed Hawkins to send Jennings to his aid. Nor why the Major should have elected to spend the night here, among the corpses, when the town was so close at hand. And later, as he drew his blanket tightly around his still-clothed form and lay trying to chase sleep, while the gentle sound of the running water rippled through his consciousness, he found the thought still nagging at his mind. It was insistent as the intermittent hoot of an old barn owl that had come to sit in one of the high trees by the riverbank, gazing down greedily at the wide-eyed bodies of the dead.

  FIVE

  The two men gazed at the tall column of smoke that climbed up lazily into the sky. Steel spoke:

  ‘Well, at least we know we’re not alone, Jacob. Three thousand horse dispatched as far as Munich with orders to burn and destroy all the country about it.’

  The Sergeant grimaced and muttered under his breath.

  ‘Still. Best not tell the men, Sir. They don’t like it. Goes against the grain. Doing that to civilians. And it can’t help us neither. If you ask me, Mister Steel, we’re walking into trouble.’

  ‘Better to be here, Jacob, than kicking our heels with the rest of the army in the trenches besieging Rain. Or worse still out with the damned dragoons burning innocent civilians out of their homes.’

  ‘I’m blessed if I can fathom it out, Sir. I mean what are we doing here? Why send us, Grenadiers for God’s sake, the best of all the army, to find provisions?’

  Steel shook his head and said nothing. I wish I could tell you, Jacob, he thought. But there are some things which even you cannot know. He looked ahead.

  At least this village, whose white-painted houses now began to rise up ahead of him as they crested the slope, appeared as yet to have escaped utterly the ravages of Marlborough’s dragoons. Sattelberg. The rendezvous with Kretzmer.

  ‘Look, Sarn’t. No sign of burning here, at least. Perhaps they’ve stopped. We shouldn’t find any trouble.’

  Slaughter nodded and smiled. But in his heart, Steel knew that it would not be in Marlborough’s way to finish this thing so soon. A few burnt townships would not be sufficient to make the point. If he really believed that these tactics would coerce the Elector, Steel knew that his commander would conduct a sustained campaign of terror. This was only the beginning. He grasped the pommel of his saddle and with a swift motion hoisted his leg up on to Molly’s back. Whatever his personal feelings, he also knew that to lead a column into a village required any officer to look the part.

  Steel goaded the horse into a trot and rode along to the where Williams led the column. ‘Looks a pretty little place, Tom, don’t it?’

  They had started from their bivouac an hour ago, travelling more slowly now, on account of the wagon train. Not that they had woken late. It had taken a good two hours to bury all the dead, from both sides. It was around nine in the morning now and, as they grew closer to the village Steel noticed in the neighbouring fields the cattle grazing happily and carts standing half-filled with harvested produce.

  ‘Villagers seem to be at their breakfast, Sir.’

  ‘Perhaps they’ll save some for us, Tom, eh?’

  As the redcoats entered what appeared to be the place’s major street a single sheepdog, who had been standing in the middle of the highway, barked a greeting and ran off to the left.

  Steel looked up to the windows, waiting for the usual inquisitive faces to appear. For the children to run to greet them with taunting rhymes and begging gestures. Waiting for the doors of the houses to open. For the women to stand on the thresholds. For his men to whistle at the pretty ones and mock the ugly and the old. Would they be treated, he wondered, with condemnatory silence, or openly jeered. He hardly thought it likely they would have a warm welcome. What they received though exceeded all his expectations. The column advanced still further into the half-cobbled street, until it was almost at a tall stone cross, in the very heart of the little community. Still, though the half-timbered houses stood neat and silent in black-and-white perfection, the bright summer flowers pretty in their painted wooden boxes, no doors were opened. Steel raised his hand in command.

  ‘Company, halt.’

  Everything was just as it should be. Beside a well-maintained water pump sat a clean pail, ready to be filled. Smoke curled up from the chimney of the inn to his right and from those of several other houses. He fancied that he caught the faint smell of cooking on the air. Cabbage. And something else – a strange aroma.

  On one side of the village square, beyond the cross, stood a small church, a solid enough structure of stone and wood in the local style. He
looked around to find any other building of authority. The church would do. Surely the priest would know what was going on. Grasping his pommel, Steel dismounted and, drawing his fusil from its sheath on the back of his saddle, he slung it over his shoulder.

  ‘Mister Williams. Stay here. I’m going to find someone. Sarn’t, with me.’

  With measured step, Slaughter at his side, eyes searching the windows and surrounding lanes, Steel walked towards the church. Pushing gently at the door, he found it to be open. Inside was a cool haven. It was a simple basilica of plain stone, enlivened by two large and unremarkable oil paintings of obscure Catholic saints in grizzly attitudes of martyrdom. At the far end stood an altar whose gold ornament and richness of decoration were in profound contrast to the dun-hued stone. The place reeeked of incense and damp.

  Steel yelled into the cool gloom: ‘Hello. Monsignor?’

  His words echoed around the stones. The place was quite empty.

  Nodding to Slaughter to follow him, he turned and walked out, back into the square.

  Jennings had ridden up and was talking to Williams. Steel walked over to them. ‘No one in there. No priest. No one. Where the hell is everyone?’

  Jennings gazed down at him with the supercilious disdain of someone to whom that conclusion had long been obvious.

  ‘Yes, I do wonder.’

  He took a handkerchief from his sleeve and dabbed at his nose.

  ‘So, Mister Steel. What do you suggest that we do now? As you rightly observe the place appears to be deserted. Where, d’you suppose, is our contact?’

  Steel, more bemused than irritated, shook his head. ‘I have no idea, Sir. Really. I can’t fathom it.’

  ‘Well we’d better find someone. Let me try.’

  He turned in the saddle towards the rear of the column.

  ‘Stringer.’

  The Sergeant came running, eager-eyed, from across the village square.

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘See if you can find someone in this godforsaken place. Anyone. Take … a platoon and search the houses. One by one. Kick down any doors that are locked.’

  Steel turned to Williams. ‘Tom, rest the men here. Have them sit down. Ten minutes.’

  Ignoring Jennings’ raised eyebrows, he looked at Slaughter. ‘Come on, Jacob.’

  Steel unslung his gun from his shoulder and, holding it at the ready, began to walk with the Sergeant, up the road which led away from the church to the left, and from where he could still hear the sound of the howling dog. He looked down at the dusty cobbles. There had been movement here recently. The earth, which would normally have lain in a dust across the round stones, had been displaced so that they shone in the pale sunlight. A lot of movement by the look of it. Following the line of the exposed cobblestones he looked up the road, tracing the path of those who had gone before. Houses flanked either side of the narrow street and at the top, at the edge of a field, stood a large structure, simpler than the rest. A barn.

  He turned to Slaughter. ‘Come on. Keep your eyes open.’

  Slowly, the two men made their way up the hill. From below they could hear the splinter of wood as Stringer and his men kicked in the doors of locked houses. As they neared the edge of the village he looked at Slaughter and nodded in the direction of the timber-framed barn.

  Quickly, Steel pushed open the door of the building and was barely over the threshold when he retched. Instinctively, although the place was quite dark, he closed his eyes. It was all he could do to avoid vomiting.

  The smell was vile, but what met his gaze was far worse.

  The barn was filled with bodies. Men, women and children, piled high upon one another. There must have been six score of them. All ages. And all were quite dead. He knew that without even troubling to look. Whoever had done this thing had been thorough. Not a sound came from the place save the buzzing of the flies that hovered and settled on the lifeless forms. Sattelberg had been a small farming township, with a population of barely 120 souls.

  And here they were. Murdered in cold blood and left to rot.

  Left, rather, thought Steel, with the specific intention that they should be discovered. This, he knew, was not the work of any of Marlborough’s men. But that was precisely what those who had done it wanted those who were meant to find the bodies to suppose. This had been meant to look like the work of British soldiers, but whoever had really done it had certainly not been counting upon their handiwork being discovered first by a company of genuine redcoats.

  Yet, Steel asked himself, what sort of men could have done such a thing? This sort of atrocity had not taken place in Europe for almost a hundred years. Not since the wars of Gustavus. Could this really be the way that his own age would now go to war? The assault on Schellenberg had indeed made him think. But this new horror was quite another thing. He looked down at the bloody cadavers. Saw the leg of a young girl, not yet ten, he thought, protruding at a sickening angle from beneath the torso of a half-naked woman streaked with dried blood, presumably her dead mother, her arms still wrapped around the child. He forced himself to walk deeper into the gloom. Saw the body of a boy, the top of his head blown off, and that of a girl in her teens, a gaping hole in her back marking the exit of a musket ball. Tripping over outstretched, lifeless limbs to make his way back to the door, he found the corpse of the priest, tumbled into a corner. He had died from a sword cut to his head.

  Steel staggered to the door. What sort of men killed innocents in this way? Not men at all. Mere beasts. Choking again on the stench, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it to his face. Calling out into the street, he struggled to get the words out of his dry mouth.

  ‘Sarn’t Slaughter. In here. Burial detail.’

  Slaughter walked towards him and entered the barn. For a moment he stood speechless then, covering his mouth with his hand, spoke in a quiet voice:

  ‘Holy Christ, Sir. Sweet mother of God. The poor bastards. Who the bloody hell did this? Not the French, surely? Not soldiers? Eh?’

  Steel gazed at the corpses and managed at last to speak. ‘Well, I don’t think, Jacob, that it was our men. And it surely couldn’t be the Bavarians themselves. This surely is the reason why Major Jennings was attacked by those peasants. It can only have been the French. D’you think?’

  ‘I’m learning not to think in this war, Mister Steel, Sir. Christ. Will you look at them. The poor wee babbies too. Holy Mother. It’s inhuman. Inhuman, Sir.’

  ‘And that’s just what we were meant to think, Sarn’t. And anyone else who might have found this. This wasn’t meant for us. But you’ve seen the smoke. Let’s say you were Bavarian and that you found this. What would you think? Who would you suppose had done it? What would you do?’

  Slaughter froze. ‘I … I’d say that it was us that had done it, Sir. The English. Or at least them Dutch dragoons that’s been burnin’ the villages. I’d swear to kill any redcoats that I saw. Oh Christ. I see, Sir. The bastards.’

  ‘Of course you’d think that. And of course you’d want to kill the bloody English, wouldn’t you? And you’d come looking for any of us you could find.’

  They turned and left the charnel-house, stunned momentarily by the sunlight.

  Jennings was advancing towards them up the street, his face a mask of anger. ‘What the devil’s going on, Steel? We can find no one down in the village. We’ve got work to do. There’s no time to dally here. Where’s the bloody agent? Have you found him? What’re you doin’ up here?’

  Then he noticed the open door of the barn. ‘I say, what’s in here?’

  Jennings walked up to the door, pushed it open to enter and instantly wished he hadn’t. They heard the sound of him puking on the floor and, after a few moments, he emerged, wiping his mouth and ashen faced. He dabbed at his nose with the cologne-scented handkerchief and reached into his waistcoat pocket for his snuff box. Tucking a pinch of the brown powder into each nostril, he sneezed violently and then, after a few moments, turned to Steel.

 
‘Good God. How revolting. Vile. Who? What d’you think? Must have been those brigands, eh?’

  Steel shook his head. ‘These people are Bavarians, Major. Same as your “brigands”.’

  ‘Not the French?’

  Steel nodded. Jennings struggled to regain his composure.

  ‘Of course, we had better burn the place. Burn all the bodies, eh? Poor buggers. Sarn’t. Organize a detachment. Burn the barn.’

  Steel stared at Jennings, hard. ‘Sarn’t Slaughter. You will disregard that last order. No, Major. We are going to bury them. All of them. And then, after we file our report when we return to the camp, someone will be able to come here and find them and then they’ll all get the decent Christian burial that they deserve.’

  Jennings opened his mouth to protest, but seeing the look in Slaughter’s eyes, he thought the better of it.

  Steel continued: ‘We can’t bury them individually, of course. That would take far too long and we don’t know who’s still watching us, do we? Sarn’t Slaughter. See if you can find some shovels. There are bound to be some around here. Have the men dig two pits. Over there, in that field, to the west of the barn. And they’d better be quick about it. I don’t like this place.’

  Steel turned and walked back down the hill in silence, followed at a short distance by the fuming Jennings. Reaching the square, he was struck by a sudden, ghastly thought. He turned to Williams.

  ‘Has anyone seen the agent? Tom? Take half a platoon. Visit every house in the village. See if you can find me a fat Bavarian. Any civilian, living or dead, who looks as if he might have been a man wanting to sell me some flour.’

  Williams stared at him. ‘But, Mister Steel, Sir. Where are the villagers?’

  ‘Up there. Dead. All of them. Now find that bloody Bavarian.’

  Where the hell was the man, surely not in the barn? And what of the precious papers?

  He signalled to a group of a dozen Grenadiers.

  ‘You men. Come with me. See that building at the top of the street. It’s full of bodies. Bring them out and be careful with it. And while you’re about it see if you can find someone in there. We’re looking for a fat man. A Bavarian merchant. I’ll give tuppence to anyone who finds him.’