by Iain Gale
Steel poked his head half an inch above the parapet of a chair leg and glimpsed another line of French Grenadiers. Another fifty, perhaps sixty men. Christ, they had come in some force to do their filthy work. A company at least, and the men up on the hill. The end of the street exploded again in another volley of French fire. The British crouched as low as they could as the musket balls zinged through gaps in the flimsy wooden barricade. Two men cried out as they were hit. Another fell dead without a sound.
Slaughter spoke. ‘Begging your pardon, Sir, but do you think we might get out of here now. It’s starting to get a bit hot for my liking.’
‘My sentiments entirely, Sarn’t.’
Steel looked to his right where, as he had dropped down, he thought he had seen an open doorway. Sure enough, there it was.
‘Right, Jacob. I’ll take ten men and outflank them. We’ll go through that house. You stay put. See if you can keep them at the end of the street with ragged fire. When you hear me shout, have the men stand up and rush the Frogs. Use your grenades and then give them the bayonet. You know what to do. They won’t see you. Trust me.’
Slaughter looked at Steel. He had never had cause not to trust him and he certainly did not intend to start now.
‘Right you are, Sir.’
‘Go to it, Jacob. It’s time to make them pay for what they did to those poor bastards up on the hill.’
The Sergeant looked grim and nodded his head. He drew his bayonet from its scabbard and slotted it on to the end of his fusil. Steel edged towards the house.
‘Hopkins, Miller, Tarling. The first seven of you men. Come with me.’
Still crouching, he led them into the house and prayed that there would be a rear door through which they could exit into the next street. Inside, full plates of food on the table and a child’s doll lying on the floor bore grim testimony to the violent end of the house’s former inhabitants. Steel did not pause to think. Pushing Kretzmer into a chair, he put his finger to his lips and waved his hand parallel to the floor in an attempt to tell the man to stay there and wait for his return. He needn’t have worried. The sweating merchant, confused and terrified by what had happened earlier in the day and now aware of the full horror of which he had so nearly become a part, really didn’t look as if he wanted to go anywhere.
Moving into the kitchen Steel found what he was looking for and cautiously edged the door open. The street beyond seemed empty. Carefully unbuckling his belt, he laid it down on a table, unsheathed his sword and slung his fusil over his shoulder. His men did the same. There must be nothing about them to make any noise which might alert the enemy. The Grenadiers, bareheaded now like their Lieutenant, knew the drill that he had taught them so doggedly and soon each man was left with only his gun, with its bayonet fixed and two leather pouches, one with ammunition, the other containing two grenades. Each of them touched a slow match at the embers of the fire which still burnt in the grate and threaded it carefully through a buttonhole in his coat, where it would smoulder until needed to ignite the bombs.
Waving his hand slowly along the line of the street, Steel motioned the men to follow him and left the house. He could hear intermittent sputtering musketry from up on the hill that could only mean the burial detail was still holding out. Perhaps too Jennings, wherever he was, had managed to assemble enough men for a spirited resistance. The Grenadiers stuck close to him, following the line of the wall. This was how he had taught them to fight. To use their initiative, hugging whatever cover they could and above all being absolutely silent.
From the parallel street he could hear the sound of Slaughter’s men delivering sporadic fusil shots and the occasional crashing volley in return as the French brought all their weapons to bear on the barricade, splintering wood and tearing through fabric with lethal ferocity.
Steel and his men moved slowly, with an almost feline stealth, along the line of houses, being careful not to linger between any two buildings. Within minutes they had drawn parallel with the French line. Three houses faced directly on to their flank. That would be enough. Making a circular sign with his hands to signify a grenade, Steel dispatched three Grenadiers into each of the buildings. They would know where to position themselves to give a sweeping field of fire over the Frenchmen. Steel and the last man, Hopkins, entered the centre building and climbed the narrow stairs. He moved at a crouch across a large bedroom and positioned himself beneath a half-leaded window. The Grenadiers waited only for his command.
Steel took a long breath. He calmed himself for the moment and with painstaking precision brought up his gun. Slowly, he eased the latch on the window and swung it open, at the same time pulling back the cock of the fusil. Like all of his men he had already primed the pan. Steel reached into his ammunition pouch and drawing out a cartridge, bit off the end before pouring the powder down the barrel and spitting in the ball. With his left hand he took the ramrod from its socket and gently prodded the bullet home. Now he was ready. Edging forward to the sill, he took careful aim. The officer was his. Steel fixed him tight in the sights. He was a handsome young man, barely twenty perhaps. An Ensign. Williams’ exact counterpart. Again the thought crossed his mind. How could these men have done such a thing? Now was not the time to ask. Steel put his finger against the trigger of his gun and, comfortable with the familiar fit, began to squeeze. With a sharp crack and a puff of white smoke the image disappeared before his eyes and then all was chaos. Looking down at the street Steel could see the young French officer lying dead on the cobbles. Eight more Frenchmen lay wounded, dead and dying around him. The remainder, apparently with no officer now, had turned their eyes towards the three houses from which the Grenadiers were firing and had begun to take aim at the windows, but before they had time to fire a rain of black grenades fell into the street. The French ducked instinctively, but there was no escape. The sputtering fuses burnt deep into the packed explosive and the lethal metal shards did their job. All but two of the grenades exploded and the street became a mess of smoke and blood.
From his right, Steel heard a great cheer as the twenty men with Slaughter charged up the street and into any of the French who remained standing. Confident that the Sergeant would finish them off, Steel rattled back down the stairs and out into the street. There was no need for caution now. He could still hear musketry from high on the hill but there was something else he had to do before going to the aid of Taylor or Jennings.
Crashing back into the house where he had abandoned Kretzmer, he found the man exactly where he had left him, frozen to the chair. Two Grenadiers stood guard over him. One of them, Tom McNeil, grinned at him.
‘Thought we should make sure no harm come to him, Sir.’
Steel smiled. ‘Very good, McNeil.’
He turned to Kretzmer. He had to act now, before Jennings returned, if the Major were still alive.
‘Now, Herr Kretzmer. We have some unfinished business to conclude.’
‘Sir. Yes. I have your papers.’
Reaching into his pocket, Kretzmer held out a small package to Steel. It was wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. Quickly, still holding the gun, Steel fumbled with the twine and managed to slip it off. Placing the package on the table he deftly opened one side and slid out what appeared to be the first of several pieces of parchment. It bore the ancient royal seal of the Stuart monarchy and a Paris address and was addressed clearly, in a long spidery hand, to the future Duke of Marlborough. Yes, these were the crucial papers.
Steel pushed the second purse towards Kretzmer who weighed it in his hand. He smiled and had just slipped it inside the capacious inner pocket of his coat when the door opened and Jennings appeared. He was sweating and his face was flushed with the exhilaration of victory. There was blood on his sword. Kretzmer winced. Steel pocketed the papers.
‘We’ve done it. They’re on the run. It was a damn close thing though. Lost a few men. What happened here? See any action. Oh, I say, Steel. You appear to have cut yourself.’
Stee
l wiped his hand across his cheek and felt the blood. ‘We saw them off.’
Jennings stared at Steel, then saw Kretzmer.
‘So, do we have what we came for, Mister Steel?’
‘The flour, Sir? Yes, we have the flour.’
‘Then our business here is done, Lieutenant, is it not?’
‘So it would seem, Sir.’
Jennings looked at his sword and noticing the blood, picked up a linen tablecloth which lay across the top of a chair and wiped it clean before sheathing it. He turned to Steel.
‘Now, Lieutenant, you will take yourself off up the hill and ascertain as to whether your burial detail has finished interring those poor villagers. Then you will find another burial party from the Grenadiers and bury the dead from the later encounter.’
‘Sir?’
‘You have a problem, Steel?’
‘I am to find the burial party from the Grenadiers alone.’
‘Why certainly. My men are far too exhausted for such work. They have just fought a battle, Steel. Besides, you pride yourselves on being the biggest and the fittest men of the army. Most certainly you shall find the burial party from the Grenadiers. Now if you please, Mister Steel.’
Steel, feeling the rage rise inside him, managed a nod towards Jennings and left the room. The Major relaxed in triumph and turned to Kretzmer.
‘Now, Herr Kretzmer. I have a question for you. You came here with something more than flour, yes?’
Kretzmer eyed him carefully. Unsure how to answer.
‘Yes. That is true.’
‘You have a paper. A parcel, for which we are to pay you.’
‘Yes, Herr Major. But you have already done so. The Lieutenant …’
Jennings brought his fist hard down upon the table. ‘Damn the man to hell!’
Kretzmer shied away from Jennings’ fury.
‘I am sorry, Major. Was that not right? He knew about the paper. He had the money.’
Jennings stared at him. ‘You fool. You stupid, stupid little man.’
For a moment the terrified merchant thought that Jennings might be about to hit him. Instead, the Major turned on his heel and began to walk quickly from the room. At the door he paused and hissed back at Kretzmer:
‘Tell anyone of this, and you’re a dead man.’
Outside in the town square, red-coated soldiers were busy collecting weapons and equipment from the dead. Jennings walked towards them, his hands curled tight by his side in clenched fists.
Since being rescued by Steel he had not held out much hope of being able to purchase the papers. So now, he thought, he would have to go to the trouble of putting his plan into action. He scanned the figures in the street and at length found the man he was looking for: ‘Sergeant Stringer.’
‘Sir?’
‘I have a proposition for you. I propose to make you a very rich man.’
The Sergeant flashed a smile.
‘You will recall our conversation on the matter of Captain Stapleton’s gold and the fact that I was to pay Herr Kretzmer to procure the papers?’
‘Sir.’
‘There has been a change of plan.’
Stringer’s weasel eyes narrowed.
‘As Mister Steel contrived to speak to Herr Kretzmer before us, it would appear that he has taken the papers for himself and thus we can no longer buy them from that gentleman. In short Herr Kretzmer is no longer of any use. Lieutenant Steel, on the other hand, is vital to our plans. And here is the rub. If you are with me in this, Stringer, which I perceive from your expression you are, we must contrive some means of relieving Mister Steel of those papers. The gold of course now belongs to me. Or rather us. For if we return to Major Stapleton with the documents he will expect the gold to be forfeit. And who will say that we did not pay Herr Kretzmer?’ Stringer furrowed his brow in thought.
‘Mister Steel, Sir?’
‘Mister Steel, Stringer. Our only problem is Mister Steel. What would you say we should do to solve that problem, Stringer?’
The Sergeant thought again and then, as the solution came to him drew close to Jennings’ ear:
‘Kill him, Sir. Settle him for good.’
‘Yes, Stringer, I do think for once, that you may be right.’
SIX
Steel eased himself forward in the saddle and shifted position. Damn this leather. Surely, he should have learnt by now that anything bought as a bargain on campaign would quickly prove to be an utter waste of what little money he had. He moved again, carefully, lest the men should notice. There was a particular piece of the hard hide, just below the cantle, that kept on digging into his thigh and chafing the skin. He swore quietly and turned to the rider on his right. They sat at the head of the great column that wound for more than half a mile behind them through the sun-dappled Bavarian countryside.
‘You know, Tom, I sometimes think that we’d all be better off marching with the men than stuck up here on horses. What d’you say?’
‘My uncle says that the first duty of an officer is to maintain respect, Sir. Without respect, he says, there is no such thing as an officer.’
‘And a very wise man your uncle is, too. But what do you think?’
‘I think that I agree, Sir. I think that we should ride.’
‘Then I dare say that you and your uncle may be right. Although as you’ll learn, Tom, there is a good deal more to being an officer than merely keeping the men in order. They’ve got to trust you. How can they trust you if all they ever see of you is your horse’s backside? Eh? They may call Marlborough ‘Corporal John’. May even thank him nightly in their prayers – if they say them – for all he does to comfort them. But we must never forget, Tom, that they’re all scum at heart. They are a parcel of rogues and mercenaries. Lewd and dissipate creatures all. Where but the army would they find clothing, pay, and food? We give them all they could want. And in return they give us their lives. Marlborough knows it. You know it.’
The young Ensign smiled. Over the past week he had grown to like Steel and to value his companionship and advice freely given.
They had been on the road seven days now, the last two of which had been passed in loading the flour which would take Marlborough’s army to battle. The wagons were increasingly heavy and their pace slower by the day. Steel wished to God that they could get back to rejoin the army. His tasks, both evident and secret, had now been accomplished and the sooner he could convey the papers safely back to Colonel Hawkins, the better. At present the little bundle weighed like a lead ingot against his chest.
He turned back to Williams:
‘Quite a man, your uncle, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Uncle Septimus? Oh, I mean, Uncle James, Sir. Yes, he is rather.’
Steel laughed.
‘What did you call him?’
‘Er. Septimus, Sir.’
Again Steel laughed. Louder now. ‘Well, I’ll be buggered. Septimus.’
Williams blushed, concerned that he had betrayed Hawkins.
‘I shall remember that. Don’t worry, Tom. I shan’t tell anyone else. It’ll be our joke. Septimus indeed.’
They rode on in silence, Steel smirking at his amusing discovery, their harnesses jangling with a quite different note to the metallic rattle of the bayonets that marked the company’s every step. Behind them came half a platoon of the Grenadiers, led by Slaughter, and then the first of the forty flour wagons, on which travelled the regimental cook. Each of the wagons was flanked now by just two men apiece. One wagon had been commandeered for the wounded and after that rolled the agent’s carriage. For with their dragoons now ravaging the countryside and in light of the attack upon Jennings’ company by brigands, Herr Kretzmer had asked if he might travel with the column as far as the allied lines. Behind his coach rode Jennings. He had toyed with the idea of travelling in the carriage with Kretzmer and tethering his horse to the rear rail. How much more convenient and comfortable. But the Bavarian was piss-poor company and hardly a conversationalist, and Jennings had
elected to ride.
Behind him came Stringer, at the head of the remaining marching infantry of Jennings’ company, which made up the rearguard.
Following the encounters with the peasants and the French, they had changed formation in case of ambush and were returning to the camp by a different route from that on which either of the redcoat columns had entered Swabia. It took them a few miles further south, around the town of Aicha, and then curled up to the north-west and back again across the Lech. But it would be less obvious to anyone who might have been tracking their progress. It had been Steel’s idea and Jennings for once had accepted his advice. He knew the man prided himself on his fieldwork. That Steel had a nose for danger and that he made up what he lacked in more cosmopolitan attributes with a knowledge of country ways. For all his own farming background, rural matters were as foreign a country to Jennings as that in which they now found themselves. To him, Steel was a rustic, defined by his supreme lack of appropriate behaviour. Why, it was evident even in the way he fought. That business in the village for instance, he thought with disdain. What sort of fighting did Steel call that? Throwing bombs and picking individual targets. That wasn’t real soldiering. Nor was it particularly effective. Oh, Steel might have frightened off a few of the enemy. Might have left a few dead in the street, but that wasn’t soldiering. Jennings, on the other hand, had lined his men across the street and given fire by countermarching ranks, in the proper, prescribed manner. The French had returned his fire in the proper manner, and then both sides had retired, with honour.
Of course he had lost men. More men than Steel’s precious Grenadiers. Eleven dead and badly wounded from his remaining two score and ten, to be precise. But what of it? There would be no taking cover for his men, by God. Jennings’ men would stand and fight as all true British soldiers should. Not hide and dart about like Steel and his band of bomb-throwing misfits. In a real battle, Jennings knew, Steel would be useless. Here though, the country boy was so evidently in his element that Jennings was only too happy to use him. He indulged himself a pinch of snuff and laughed inwardly, secure in the knowledge that it would after all, be the last command that Steel would ever have.