by Iain Gale
‘I am so sorry, Williams. But you see, the truth is, none of what I have just told you was quite true.’
Williams froze.
‘And now that you know my little secret, you leave me no alternative. Goodbye, Tom.’
Williams could smell the cognac-soaked breath. Felt the tip of the sword begin to press slowly into his chest. But, as Jennings prepared to skewer the boy against the wall with the twenty-six-inch blade, he was suddenly struck by the glimmer of a smile in Williams’ eyes. And then the room exploded with noise. A bullet whipped the sword from Jennings’ hand and threw it to the floor. It also blew off the tip of his forefinger before embedding itself in the wall beside Williams’ head. The Major paused in shock for an instant then let out a shriek as the pain bit in and he clutched at his bloody hand. Williams leapt at him with his bare hands, but the Major was faster and more experienced. Before the boy saw what he was about, he had brought up his heavy ammunition boot and kicked it hard into Williams’ groin. Then, as Williams crumpled up, Jennings made a fist of his undamaged hand and punched it down hard upon his neck, pushing him to the floor, where he lay moaning. It was done in an instant. Jennings spun round and through the white smoke saw a familiar figure.
Framed in the doorway stood Louisa Weber. She was shaking and she held in her hand a smoking musket, topped with a bayonet. Jennings’ face contorted with fury:
‘You! You little bitch.’
Louisa stood frozen to the spot. She had expected the bullet to kill Jennings, or at least to drop him to the ground. But not this. She backed away, unsure as to what she should do now. The gun, though unloaded, was still a weapon, a length of wood topped by a lethal seventeen-inch bayonet. But Louisa had no idea how to use it. Tentatively, as she edged away, she poked it towards the Major.
‘Stay … stay away.’
Jennings, scowling, drew a handkerchief from his pocket and bound it round the stump of his finger. He winced at the pain.
‘How did you find me?’
Louisa smiled with satisfaction and steadied herself.
‘I heard Lieutenant Steel tell his Sergeant he would pay your Sergeant to betray you. And he did. So then I paid Sergeant Stringer again and he told me where to find you.’
‘You’re telling me that you, a woman, crossed a battlefield to get here?’
Louisa spoke breathlessly but with a flat deliberance, ‘When a woman wants something badly enough, you would be surprised what she can do, Major.’
Jennings moved towards her and she poked at him with the bayonet. ‘Get back. I’ll kill you.’
‘Don’t be stupid. You’re out of your depth. Sergeant Stringer knows where I am. You said so yourself. He’s sure to be here soon. Then he’ll slit your throat.’
Louisa thought for an instant and smiled again.
‘The last time I saw Sergeant Stringer, he was riding for Augsburg with a saddle-bag full of my money.’
Emboldened now, she took a step towards him and Jennings noticed that, in doing so she had dropped the angle of the musket by no more than a couple of degrees. He took his chance. Springing to the side of the bed, he picked up the two pistols, one of which was loaded, the other left empty through his own arrogance. Which he wondered was which? It was of no consequence. He turned to face the bayonet and before she could move the unwieldly weapon, had used his injured hand to push away the musket barrel. At the same time he raised his other hand and brought the butt of the pistol down upon her head, knocking her to the ground, senseless.
A groan from behind told him that Williams was struggling to his feet. The sword still lay on the ground where it had fallen, its hilt twisted by the impact of the bullet. Seeing it, Williams reached out for it, but again, Jennings was faster and kicked the weapon across the floorboards to the window.
‘No, Tom. Now, where were we? Ah yes. I was about to kill you.’
Williams had regained his breath:
‘You bastard.’
‘Now. That’s no way to talk to a superior officer.’
Williams said nothing.
Keeping the pistol in his right hand, Jennings bent down and retrieved the sword. Then he swopped hands and held the tip back against Williams’ chest. Deftly, he flipped the pistol round in his left hand so that his finger closed around the trigger. ‘There, now we’re ready. So tell me how would you like to die. By the bullet, Tom or by the blade?’
Williams was shaking with fear. Jennings continued to hold the sword against him. He pushed it a little so that the tip began to penetrate the boy’s flesh. A pinprick of red showed, spreading to a small circle. As Williams tried to back away into the wall, Jennings cocked the pistol and held it to the Ensign’s head.
‘Tell me, Tom. How shall I kill you? Shall I stick you through the heart or spatter the wall with your brains?’
Williams’ eyes, wide with terror, seemed to focus for an instant on something beyond Jennings. The Major smiled:
‘Now, boy. Don’t suppose you can fool me with that trick. I won’t be taken in again. Now come. I’ve given you a choice. What is your preferred way to die. Come on. I’m a fair man, but I don’t have all the time in the world.’
‘You, Major Jennings? You haven’t any time at all for this world.’
The voice came from the doorway.
Jennings turned. Steel was standing over Louisa. In one hand he held the basket-hilted broadsword, in the other the second of Jennings’ pistols.
‘Ah, Steel. I wondered when you would turn up. I gather that Stringer betrayed me.’
‘One traitor should never trust another, Major. Wouldn’t you agree?’
Jennings laughed:
‘You call me a traitor, again, Steel. How little you understand.’
‘There is nothing to understand, Major. There are good men in this world and bad men. No guesses as to which camp you belong.’
Jennings spun round on the ball of his foot and, still looking at Steel, smashed his elbow hard back into William’s ribcage, winding him. Then, in a classic fencing salle style, he executed a perfect balestra and lunged at Steel with the boy’s thin sword.
Steel raised his own blade to parry and with a flick of the wrist took it around Jennings’ and cut him across the upper arm. The Major yelped, surprised at his own carelessness, but managed to recover and brought his sword up, so that the point was level with Steel’s eyes. Steel took his weight on his right leg and parried with a straight cut. But Jennings had anticipated him and dropped his blade, making its point run wickedly along the outside of Steel’s forearm, leaving a six-inch-long gash. Steel winced with pain and backed off two paces, being careful to avoid Louisa. He began to edge round to the other side of the room, towards Williams, who had recovered and was now looking for a weapon. It was his only chance. He threw Williams his own sword. Williams caught the great blade and turned on Jennings just as Steel pointed the pistol towards the Major, cocked it and pulled the trigger. It snapped home with an empty click. The gun was unloaded. Jennings extended his sword arm towards Williams who, having seen his skill against Steel, dithered now as to how he should best engage him. The indescision was costly. For in the next instant, seizing his advantage, Jennings raised his pistol in the direction of Steel and squeezed the trigger. The shot filled the room with noise and smoke and the ball struck Steel clean in the left shoulder. He fell to the floor, clutched at his wounded shoulder and attempted to struggle to his feet. Jennings rounded on Williams.
‘Now, Tom, where were we?’
Deftly, he circled the slim infantry sword around the larger blade and with a single action whipped the broadsword out of the Ensign’s hand, throwing it across the room. Then he brought his own blade back down to point directly at William’s throat. He grinned.
But even as Williams watched, anticipating the end, Jennings’ smile turned to bewilderment; his eyes widened and his mouth froze open. And then, with what seemed like an infinite slowness, a bloody blade began to appear from his chest. Jennings looked down
at the bayonet that had punctured his back. He dropped William’s sword to the floor and clutched with his maimed hand at the seventeen-inch-long blade and then quickly found it with his good hand too. But now the full length of the bayonet was deep inside him. Behind him, Steel let go of Louisa’s discarded musket which now protruded from Jennings’ back and walked round before him.
‘That was careless, Aubrey. Forgetful.’
Jennings staggered backwards, trying to keep his balance, despite the weight of the musket that threatened to pull him down on to his back. He groaned at Steel in breathy whispers:
‘You. You can’t kill me, Steel. Damn you. You’re not worthy.’
‘Not worthy?’
Steel pointed to Louisa.
‘Was she worthy? And what about the army, and your country, Jennings? Were they worthy of you? You traitorous bastard.’
Jennings was gasping now, his face deathly white. His mouth cloyed with blood. He choked out the words:
‘How dare you. I’ll see you in hell, Steel.’
Steel grasped Jennings by the shoulders and forced him down on to the floor, hard against the length of the musket.
‘Perhaps you will, Major. But not for a very, very long time, if I can help it.’
The wood splintered with a crack and the weapon split in two as the socket of the bayonet made contact with Jennings’ back and pushed deeper between his shoulder blades. Despite the burning pain in his shoulder, Steel continued to push and Williams watched as the Major’s stare widened to one of pure terror and his hands flailed wildly around the blade. For a moment it was as if they could not find it. And then they stopped. Frozen in space, they clawed at the air. Steel let go of Jennings’ limp body and stood up. He turned and knelt by Louisa who had regained consciousness. As he cradled her head in his hands, she opened her eyes.
‘Jack?’
‘Tom, come and help Miss Weber.’
Williams eased Louisa to her feet and Steel walked over to Jennings’ corpse. Bending down, he delved carefully around the bayonet, opened the expensive red coat, stained a deeper red now by Jennings’ blood and, reaching into the right hand side, pulled out the bundle of letters. He wiped it clean of blood and opening it, scoured the contents before placing it snugly inside his own coat pocket.
Williams and Louisa were sitting on the bed. The tears were chasing each other down her face.
‘Is he dead?’ She spoke in a whisper.
Steel nodded.
‘Quite dead.’
Louisa wiped her eyes.
‘What did you take from him? Money?’
Steel shook his head and clutched at his wounded arm where he could now feel the real pain cutting in.
‘No, not money. Something more precious than that. Something that no money could ever buy.’
He looked down into Jennings’ lifeless eyes.
‘A man’s honour.’
EPILOGUE
Evening crept over the field and brought the pale summer moonlight to touch the bodies of the dead and dying. The air was thick with the smell of powder and the honey-sweet scent of death and the blood ran free in the furrows of the fields and coloured the waters of the Nebel and the little Meulweyer. Blenheim itself lay silent, save for the groans of the wounded and the crackle of the flames. Within an area of barely four square miles, 15,000 Frenchmen, 6,000 British, Dutch and Germans and 3,000 of Prince Eugene’s men lay united in death. For once the corpses were spared the attention of the plunderers who usually descended on them after a battle.
Marlborough had ordered his army to ‘sleep upon its guns’ and everywhere, across the great plain of Hochstadt, the living lay down with the dead in the sleep of exhaustion and victory. Here and there the orange glow of a fire indicated where those still filled with the spirit of battle chose to celebrate. The bodies of the horses lay almost as thick as those of the soldiers. Those animals not yet dead neighed and snorted in their agonies. Cutts’ division and the British left wing had lost over 2,000 men in the fight for Blenheim village and Steel had long since stopped trying to discover which men of his regiment still lived. He knew from Slaughter how many of the Grenadiers had been killed. At least a dozen for certain and seven more missing. He knew that Cussiter, Taylor, Hansam and fifteen others, though wounded, would fight again. And that McCance, Collins and ten others would not.
He stood on the high ground above the villages, on what had been the French lines. The enemy had left some 3,000 of their tents standing and those men who could – officers mostly – had commandeered them for the night. Standing in one now, with Slaughter and Louisa, Steel was looking at some of the personal possessions which its previous occupant had left on a small table. A book of verse, a letter to his wife, three bottles of red wine, a pipe, playing cards and all manner of foodstuffs. Vegetables and herbs of all kinds. Slaughter stood in wonder:
‘What d’you make of all this, Sir? An’ I thought we were well supplied.’
‘This, Sarn’t, is what is called living off the land. Your French soldier is a born plunderer. You can be sure that nothing here was paid for, all of it stolen from the poor peasantry. Still. We can’t exactly return it now, can we? How are you as a cook, Jacob?’
‘You know, that is something that I’ve just never got on with, cooking. Women’s work I’d say.’
Louisa laughed.
‘Oh, I can fricassee a nice piece of beef, or horse if needs be. Nice that is. And taters is taters, isn’t that a fact? But anything else is lost on me, Mister Steel.’
‘Truly, I wish I hadn’t asked. Who’s the company cook then, would you say? No, let me guess.’
‘Well, I’m willing to bet that Corporal Taylor could get us up a nice ragout from all this.’
‘Well, best find him then, Jacob. Mustn’t let it go to waste.’
Henry Hansam, his right arm in a sling, stuck his head through the tent flap:
‘Steel. Have you heard. We have taken Marshal Tallard and forty generals. Forty of them, Jack. And close on 130 of their colours. But there is better news still. The Guards have found a hundred oxen, ready skinned and delivered this morning to the French. I’m taking a party to see if I can liberate one.’
‘You see, Jacob, I told you our luck was in. You’d better raise Corporal Taylor from his sick bed quick, Jacob. We’ll have a nice French beef ragout tonight.’
Their laughter was broken by the arrival of one of Marlborough’s running footmen:
‘Lieutenant Steel. The Captain-General desires to speak with you, Sir. At once, if you will.’
Steel walked with the boy across the trampled stubble. From time to time a wounded man would stretch out an arm towards them, but so set was the messenger on delivering his commander’s guest, that neither of them took the time to stop.
They passed the corpses of the nine battalions of French infantry who had sought to oppose Marlborough’s centre, lying dead in square, mown down in parade-ground formation by the devastating bird-shot from Colonel Blood’s cannon. Steel could not help but look at their faces in the soft light. They seemed incredibly young. Some of them perhaps just sixteen.
At length they came to the mill at the edge of Hochstadt that the French had used to store gunpowder and that the Duke had now commandeered as his lodging for the night.
The runner held open the door for Steel. The room was filled with pipe smoke, loud voices and senior officers: Germans, Dutch and men from the Imperial forces. He recognized Hawkins and a few others, Prince Eugene among them. In the centre of all stood Marlborough. General Lumley, the celebrated cavalry commander was in full flow:
‘You never saw such a thing. The finest cavalry of France off like a bride on her wedding night. Full tilt and straight into the Danube. How many were drowned only God knows.’ Marlborough looked stern:
‘Yes, Lumley. It was a great tragedy that so many brave soldiers should have suffered such an ignominious fate.’
Colonel Hawkins coughed.
‘Mister Steel, Your G
race.’
‘Ah, Mister Steel.’
Steel came conspicuously to attention. Marlborough smiled and, walking across the room, took two glasses of wine from the silver tray on the sideboard with which, along with several other items, the Duke’s servants had hastily furnished his new quarters. He handed one to Steel.
‘A drink, Mister Steel. You saved your regimental colour, Sir, I am told by Sir James Farquharson. Lord Cutts here believes that your action helped to save his brigade.’
Cutts nodded in his direction.
‘It was nobly done, Steel. Gentlemen, forgive me for a moment. I have a small matter to discuss with Lieutenant Steel.’
Leaving the Generals to compare their tales of the French defeat, Marlborough drew Steel to one side of the fug-filled room.
‘You saved a colour, Steel, and the best part of a brigade and by God man, you have saved me. Colonel Hawkins gave me the papers that you retrieved. Don’t worry, all are there. It was well done, Steel. And what of Major Jennings?’
‘He is dead, Your Grace. I saw to it personally.’
Marlborough nodded.
‘For that too you have my thanks. I am in your debt. Although perhaps I may do something now to repay your service.’ He called across the room, ‘Colonel Hawkins. I believe that you have a paper for Mister Steel.’
Hawkins, spilling wine from a brimming goblet, hurried over. ‘Ah. Yes. Indeed.’
Reaching inside his coat, the Colonel pulled out a folded sheet of paper.
‘Here we are.’
‘Well give it to him, James.’
Hawkins handed the piece of paper to Steel who unfolded it.
Marlborough continued:
‘You must know that your commission was not undertaken as I had originally understood, nor as I would have desired. But it was done. And it was done well, Mister Steel. Or should I say Captain Steel?’
Steel read the paper:
‘His Grace the Duke of Marlborough commands that the undermentioned should immediately be gazetted Captain of Grenadiers in the regiment of Sir James Farquharson. Effective from this moment.’