Man of Honour (16 page)

Steel was suddenly aware of a commotion from the rear of the column. He looked back along its length and saw that Jennings was trotting towards them. He was mouthing unintelligible words. The Dutch officer saw him too.

‘You have another officer?’

‘My superior. Our Adjutant. He prefers to travel towards the rear.’

The Dutchman shook his head. The English army never ceased to amuse him. Pleasant men to be sure, but such amateurs. They wage no war for seven years and then they
march into the continent and blithely expect to take command. Someone had even told him recently that the English were now claiming to have invented the new system of firing by platoon which the Dutch infantry had been using for at least five years. He laughed and Steel smiled back. Jennings grew closer.

‘Mister Steel. What’s this? Introduce me.’

‘Major Jennings, Captain van der Voert of the dragoons, in the army of our friends in the United Provinces.’

Jennings flashed a disarming smile at the Dutchman.

‘My dear Captain. How very fortunate. Now we shall all travel together. The country is teeming with French troops and brigands of every description. My own command was attacked and we have lately fought an action against Frenchmen of the foulest sort …’

Van der Voert cut him short.

‘Major, I am indeed alarmed to hear of your encounters. But I am afraid that we cannot be travelling companions. We have specific orders, direct from the high command of the allied army. We proceed due west, Sir, and canot divert from our course.’

Steel interjected:

‘The Captain is under orders from the Duke of Marlborough himself, Sir. He is to lay waste Bavaria.’

Jennings stared at Steel, tight-lipped.

‘Then clearly we must not delay the good Captain from his duty. Good day to you, Sir.’

The Dutchman nodded.

‘Herr Major, Lieutenant. I am afraid that we must leave you. We have pressing work, you know. Your Lord keeps us busy.’

Steel grimaced. The Captain touched his hat and the others followed suit, then he turned with his men and rode back to
the troop. Closing with them, he barked a gutteral order and with an impressive single movement, the dragoons returned their swords to their scabbards. Jennings, without a word, turned his horse and trotted back towards the rear of the column. Steel turned to Slaughter.

‘Stand the men down, Sarn’t.’

He watched the Dutch Captain lead his men off the road and into the fields so that they might ride past Steel’s column to ease its passage.

Steel looked at Slaughter:

‘Come on, Sarn’t. Let’s get to the bloody town before that inn, if it really exists, burns down.’

He sighed. ‘Christ, Jacob. I hope we find the army soon. I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.’

‘Sir?’

‘Major Jennings, Sarn’t. You know well enough what I mean.’

Slaughter smiled.

‘I know, Sir. And I know that we shouldn’t still be down here. We need to get back to the regiment. And if we don’t get back soon I reckon we’ll not just miss whatever battle there is. We’ll miss the whole bloody war.’

The town of Sielenbach, when they finally arrived there, was nothing less than Steel had expected. A smoking, charred ruin of what had once been the pride of its citizens. The redcoats advanced carefully up the long main street, pausing briefly at every road junction to look both ways, before crossing and peering into the ragged rooms of every ruined house to make sure that no one had indeed been left to die.

Steel knew that the men were tired and, worse than that, thirsty and low in morale. For them this whole expedition had been an inexplicable loss of face. They had covered them
selves in blood and glory at the Schellenberg, only to be sent on this sutler’s errand. Steel, they would have followed anywhere, given the prospect of action, but now they were deep in the Bavarian heartland, guarding a wagon train of flour. They had rescued a senior officer and a company of musketeers. Had beaten off an attack by as ruthless a bunch of Frenchmen as you could ever encounter, with no help it seemed from that same officer, their own Adjutant, who had himself recently carried out a ruthless and undeserved punishment on one of their number. They had discovered a terrible massacre and buried the dead, including women and babes, and now they saw towns being put to the torch by their own side and the ordinary people, people like themselves, being forced out into the countryside. Steel knew his men would be wondering what was going on and right now the last thing he wanted to do was answer questions.

The Grenadiers looked up to Steel and believed in him as much as they did in anything. They knew his war record, that he had served with the Swedes and come through that hell unscathed. There was something very special about Mister Steel. He was lucky and, like all soldiers who were deeply superstitious, they thought that perhaps some of his luck would rub off on them. But at the end of the day, he would always be an officer. Steel, too, felt the distance between them at times like this. Oh, he knew that he could rely upon Slaughter to keep them in order. But unless they rested – really rested and found their humour once more – he knew that he might all too easily have a mutiny on his hands.

For better or worse, Steel had taken the flogged man, Cussiter, into his half-company on the day following his punishment. The man had come to him personally and begged to be admitted. Cussiter had real spirit and Steel knew instinctively that, given time he would make a fine Grenadier. But
Cussiter was also full of hatred, in particular for Farquharson and Jennings. Given the mood of the men, who knew what slight provocation might be needed for Cussiter to give way to his feelings. Here in the heart of enemy territory, where anything might happen, no one would ever be the wiser. It was better surely to pre-empt any trouble. Get to the damned inn – if it still stood. Stand each man a flagon or two of the local brew and let them get some rest. Soldiers were easy to handle, if you knew their ways. It was all very fine for Colonel James (or was it Septimus) Hawkins to tell his nephew that the key to being a good officer was to maintain respect, but Steel knew better. Keep them in good humour and they’d fight for you. Provoke them too strongly and you were as much a dead man as the nearest Frenchie.

Steel reined in and jumped down from the saddle. Best now to show solidarity, get down among them and lead by example. Besides, his status as an officer on entering a town might as well go to blazes here. He was hardly expecting a reception committee from the Mayor. Slaughter looked at him, equally cheerless.

‘Begging your pardon, Sir, but was you proposing that we would spend the night here? In this godforsaken blackened hole?’

‘That I was, Jacob. That I was. This is Sielenbach and it seems to me to be as fine a place as any to kick off your boots.’

Then, almost as an afterthought, he added:

‘And remember. As far as we know the inn is still standing.’ Slaughter smiled. He said nothing, but began to walk with a new spring in his step.

‘The men seem dispirited, Jacob. I am not wrong?’

‘Never more true, Sir. There’s talk at all times of what they’re doing down here now and you know as well as I do,
Mister Steel, that when a soldier lets those words cross his lips then them other thoughts cannot be far away.’

‘Cussiter?’ ‘Oh, the lad’ll be fine, Sir. But it’s not just him as is grumbling.’

Slaughter paused, thoughtfully.

‘Best to stop here, as you say, Sir. And, just so you know, I’m keeping Dan Cussiter as far away as I can from our friend the Major. If you know what I mean. Bit of bad luck Jennings being the other officer to come with us. If you don’t mind my saying so.’

‘No, Jacob. I don’t mind you saying that at all.’

The crash of the men’s boots echoed on the dry, soot-stained cobbles and resounded through the empty streets. There was no other sound save the rattle of equipment and the trundle of the wagons as the column slid noisily into the town.

There were no dogs barking here, nor even any birdsong. The smell of burning timber hung heavy on the air.

It was the height of the morning now, a sunny summer day, when normally the street would have been alive with noise as tradesmen and townspeople went about their business. Today, though, Kirchenstrasse stood empty, the tall, proud houses that had lined its sides no more than burnt-out, smoking ruins, like the stumps of so many blackened, rotten teeth. In places the fires still smouldered, the embers a mocking reminder of the vanished comfort of their hearths.

Possessions lay littered across the cobbles where they had been abandoned or forgotten in the headlong rush of a populace eager to escape further horrors. Clothes, shoes and bags lay everywhere. Dolls and other toys, scorched and filthy, along with larger items. Chairs, wooden boxes, musical instruments. Naturally, anything of particular value left behind
by the townspeople had been taken by the Dutch. There were a few exceptions. A gilt-framed painting of Christ in Majesty lay in a gutter and a grandfather clock stood incongruously in the centre of the road junction, where its owners, having tried desperately to save their most precious possession, had been forced to leave it. Books lay strewn around and everywhere sheaves of paper blew through the deserted streets.

At length they came in view of the church. As the first building that they had seen in the place that had not been reduced to cinders, it stunned them with its simple majesty. Rounding the corner and entering the square, where the church façade rose high against the brilliant blue of the sky, Steel saw that close to the basilica stood another building. The inn was indeed still there, just as the Dutch Captain had told him. With its gaily painted timberwork and bright blue gilly flowers growing in pots, it made a grotesque contrast with the devastation that lay all around it.

‘Sarn’t, I think we’ll stop here.’

Slaughter turned his head to the right:

‘Column, halt.’

‘Stand the men easy, Sarn’t Slaughter. Allow them fifteen minutes rest.’

Williams rode up, and with him Jennings. The Major seemed indignant:

‘Mister Steel. We have stopped. Tell me why?’

‘Why, Sir. Because this is our bivouac for the night.’

‘The night, Steel? But it is barely three o’clock of the afternoon. We surely have two more hours to march?’

‘The men, Major, need to stop. And this is as good a place as any. Indeed it is better, on many counts. And it has an inn.’

Jennings looked across the street where a painted sign with a running grey horse hung above the inn door.

‘Well, Steel. If you are convinced. Although I don’t suppose for a moment that they’ll have anything half decent.’

He turned to face the column.

‘Sarn’t Stringer. Where the devil is the oaf? Stringer. My bag.’

Jennings dismounted and strode across the square, followed by the ever-attendant Stringer, who had retrieved Jennings’ bag from the coach.

Steel called after him:

‘Oh, Major. There’s a landlord who’s old and sick and his daughter. Look out for them.’

He glanced at Slaughter.

‘I do hope that the Major finds the accommodation to his liking. Come on, Sarn’t, we’d best get this lot sorted for the night. We’ll leave the wagons here on the street. There’ll be no traffic through here in the next few hours. Oh, and Jacob.’

‘Sir.’

‘Find the men somewhere to sleep. There’s what looks a likely field over there, behind the church. Tell the Grenadiers they might have two flagons of ale apiece in the inn – if it’s to be had at all. Tell them I … tell them Lord Marlborough will stand the cost.’

‘Very good, Sir.’

‘Oh, and Jacob. Just so that you know, I shall be joining you out in the field. Jennings is in the inn – with his monkey – and nothing on earth could possibly persuade me to sleep under the same roof.’

Across the town square, Jennings pushed open the door of the inn and stepped inside, closely followed by his Sergeant. Rather than the dirty wine glasses and half-empty tankards of ale that he had expected to find still on the tables where the last customers might have left them, he was surprised to
find the interior neat and tidy. The parlour was deserted, although a fire had been laid in the grate and a pile of plates stood on a dresser, ready to be set.

‘Hallo. Anyone? Hallo.’

A door opened at the back of the room and a girl walked in. Jennings knew real beauty when he saw it and it took only a moment for him to decide that by whatever means, before they left this place, he was going to seduce her.

She addressed him in the local dialect.

‘Good day. Oh. You are a soldier?’

‘Yes, English, Miss. Major Aubrey Jennings, Farquharson’s Regiment, at your service.’

He gave a low bow and removed his hat.

‘You are English? Then I speak to you in English.’

Her voice was wonderfully gentle. A sweet contrast to the harsh, masculine world he had just left outside. Her words though were bitter.

‘Tell me, Sir. Why should I trust the English? Your men come here and burn our town. Why? What have we done? We do not make war on you. Why? Why?’

Jennings, taken aback, said nothing. Then a thought entered his mind. Quite brilliant. ‘Dear Miss, excuse me, you have me at a disadvantage. I do not have your name, Miss …’

‘Weber. My name is Louisa Weber and this is my father’s inn.’

‘Dear Miss Weber. I have come to apologize. On behalf of his Grace the Duke of Marlborough, I offer you and your fellow townspeople his Grace’s most sincere apologies. We encountered some of your friends on our way here and have attempted to recompense them for any damage that has been done. Obviously the village is beyond redemption, but we must do what we can. I beseech you to believe me, on my honour as a soldier and a gentleman that this was no doing
of the English. It was the action of our Dutch allies and will be punished with the death of those responsible.’

For a moment the girl stared at him. Then she took his meaning.

‘Oh. No, I. I did not want that. No killing. But the Dutch Captain explained to me. He said that they did this under orders from your Duke. That this was done to injure the Elector Max Emmanuel. To make him leave the French. That it is the English who ordered our town to be burnt.’