Man of Honour (25 page)

He knew that somewhere in that hell of glory and destruction he would find Jennings. He had made sure of it.

‘You’re sure that Sergeant Stringer will lead you to him?’

‘Tom, if there’s one thing that little man’s good for it’s sniffing out vermin. He’s got a nose for rotten flesh. And Jennings is as rotten as they come. And besides, he only has my promise of a pardon until the job’s done.’

He thought of his conversation earlier that day with Stringer. Understandably, given the unpleasant wound Steel had given him in Bachweiden, the Sergeant loathed him. The man’s company was equally odious to Steel and he had made it as quick a meeting as he could. With an eye to the future, Steel had not yet revealed to anyone Stringer’s part in Jennings’ attempt to murder him. For the moment he could maké good use of the man’s prodigious talent for deceit. He knew that Stringer, the lapdog turned Judas, knew no shame. Perhaps he thought that Steel might make a new master. But in that he could not be more mistaken.

‘I hope you find Major Jennings, Sir, and that you kill him.’

‘So do I, Tom, and now you’d best try to get some rest. Don’t want you falling asleep in the middle of your first battle, do we?’

Williams limped back to his bivouac. Somewhere in the distance a dog was barking. Steel walked slowly to the tent. He had discarded the walking stick now. He had no use for that in a battle. His leg felt firm. Firm enough anyway to carry him to the French.

Reaching the tent he lowered his head to enter and ducked inside. He looked down at Louisa, her golden hair fanned across the pillow. Sensing his presence she opened her eyes, smiled and turned back the blanket.

Later, as he held her in the ebbing blackness of the early morning, Steel felt her body move alongside his, disturbed in sleep by the irresistible rhythm of the waking army. Clinging to her harder now, he strove to shut out the insistent rattle of the drums and, closing his eyes again, tried in vain to wish away the dawn.

The mists that had hung low across the Danube marshes throughout the night were gradually being burnt off by the morning sun of what promised to be a more than usually hot August Sunday. Slowly the French cavalry scouts began to see that what they had thought to be the outlying troops of an army on the march, were nothing of the sort. From his vantage point on the rising ground to the north of Blenheim village, Marshal Tallard now found himself gazing in stupefaction upon the battle lines of the entire allied army, drawn up before him at a distance of just under a mile. At first his generals began to count the standards to estimate the number of battalions in the field. But as the numbers grew they began to realize the extent of the force and thought at last to rouse their men. At nine o’clock Tallard, panting from his exertions, joined Marshal Marsin and the Elector up in the church tower at Blenheim and the three commanders began to discuss how best they might complete their victory. For there was no doubt in any of their minds that this extraordinary action of the English milord could only bring about the utter destruction of his army.

Across the plain, Marlborough, mounted on his favourite grey mare, and accompanied by a small entourage including Cadogan, Cardonell, Hawkins, and all his principle generals, continued his progress along the long lines of red-coated infantry. He moved with deliberate slowness, inspecting the men closely, making sure that as many of them as possible would have a clear view of him. They knew him well by sight. The grey horse, the rich red uniform with its abundance of lace and most distinctive of all, the blue sash of the Order of the Garter.

This battle, a battle for his own survival as much as for the fate of Europe, would depend, Marlborough knew, upon the individual morale of every man. He looked at them with a genuinely personal interest. At their ragged hair and the week-old growths of beard. Their uniforms at least, while hardly the thing of a Horse Guards parade, were as fresh as they might be, given all that they had come through to arrive at this conclusion of the great adventure that had begun three months back in Flanders. Their shoes, too, he knew to be recently replaced and free from wear, their muskets clean and their powder dry and cartridges plentiful. They were well fed too. Bread and beer. Such were the things that made an army fit to beat the enemy. And now that day had come at last.

Marlborough had ridden with Prince Eugene out to the village of Wolperstetten in what he planned to make the centre of the allied line. They had climbed the church tower and through their spyglasses surveyed the enemy camp. Their conversation had been short and to the point. God, he thought, must surely have blessed him with this man for an ally. For Eugene was everything that Baden was not. Decisive, daring and above all, receptive to Marlborough’s plans.

Now, as the little party neared the final company of
Colonel Webb’s regiment, the Duke turned to Hawkins and Cadogan, who rode close beside him.

‘Prince Eugene assures me that he will hold the right flank against whatever the French and the Elector might throw at him there. He will thus leave us free to attack them in the centre. Just there.’

He pointed across the plain, towards the extensive open area behind the village of Unterglau.

‘The key to this battle, gentlemen, are the villages.’ He drew his finger in an imaginary line from left to right:

‘Blenheim, Unterglau, Oberglau and Lutzingen. Take the villages and you take the field. They must be ours at all costs. At all costs, gentlemen. I do not use those words lightly.’

They heard a village clock striking the hour. Eight o’clock. And as if on cue, on the French right flank a cannon opened fire. Its thunder was echoed by another and then another as the shot came flying in with terrible ferocity. Marlborough gazed coolly at the enemy guns.

‘So, it begins, gentlemen.’

A roundshot flew directly towards the group of staff. One of them, seeing it coming had the sense to duck. The ball though fell short, and hit the recently ploughed earth to the left of Marlborough’s horse, throwing up clods of soil and covering his saddle and breeches. Feigning indifference, he ignored it and rode on. Instantly the regiment nearest to him – Meredith’s – began to cheer.

Marlborough raised his hand and acknowledged them. Smiling he turned to a runner, one of several athletic, blue-coated boys that he habitually kept about him. The runners, dressed in their distinctive peaked skull caps, formed his principle means of communication with his commanders across the battlefield.

‘Take a message to Prince Eugene. Ask him whether he is now ready to advance. Tell him that it is of the utmost urgency. We shall, I perceive, very imminently be hard-pressed by the enemy cannon.’

The boy took off at a sprint and as he did so another cannonball flew over the head of General Orkney and did its deadly work among the cavalry drawn up to the rear, bisecting one mount and taking the hind legs of another as well as the foot of an unfortunate trooper.

Cadogan spoke:

‘You are quite set on this plan of action, Your Grace? We run a dreadful risk if we do this, Sir. The enemy is heavily fortified and despite our best efforts, appears to have us at an advantage in numbers.’

Marlborough smiled at his friend, and turned to Hawkins.

‘You may be surprised to learn, Hawkins, as was George, here,’ he smiled at Cadogan, ‘that I am quite well acquainted with the lie of this land. Major-General Natzmer, who commands a brigade of horse under Prince Eugene, fought here only last year. On the opposite side of that slope. Sadly, he was defeated by the French, but he has detailed knowledge of the ground to the rear of their position.’

Orkney spoke:

‘That is as maybe, Your Grace. But from where I stand, the French appear to have placed themselves in an eminently strong position. Do you really think it wise to attack them here and when we are so evidently outnumbered?’ Marlborough pursed his lips:

‘My Lord Orkney, now is not the time to reconsider whether we should attack. Merely how. Yes, I grant you this is a strong position. As strong as any I have ever seen. But I tell you, we shall yet have the best of them.’

He looked directly at Hawkins and Cadogan.

‘Have any of you yet noticed his mistake? Have you found Tallard’s Achilles heel?’

The generals craned to see across the plain.

‘You do not need to peer, gentlemen. It’s obvious enough. Observe the centre of the line. Tallard and the Elector have camped not as one, but as two separate armies. With the horse on either wing of each. See how their horses are placed boot to boot in the centre of the field.’

Orkney demurred.

‘Perhaps it is their intent. That is fine ground for cavalry. No hedges or ditches and the corn ready harvested.’

‘That may be so. But even if it is a premeditated move, you cannot deny that it has presented me with an opportunity. Tallard has placed how many, eight perhaps nine battalions of infantry in the centre. Gentlemen, it may well be a fatal error.’

As he spoke the words, a shot came spinning through the air from the French lines and hit the horse of one of his aides, a cornet of Lumley’s Horse, square on. It sheared the animal’s face and jaw clean off and carried the bloody remains on into a regiment of infantry standing close behind. Hitting the front-rank man in his chest the shot passed through his body and took the man to his rear in the stomach and the man behind him in the groin. It eventually settled some fifty yards behind the regiment, its trail marked by a grisly red streak. As the aide collected himself and attempted to disentangle his legs from the saddle of his beheaded horse, Marlborough turned back to the staff.

He sought his brother, Charles Churchill, who commanded a brigade and had been on the field since early that morning.

‘Charles. I think it would be a good idea now if the infantry were to lie down. The sun is somewhat warm and we cannot have the men over-heated before time.’

Within seconds, along the allied lines, officers and sergeants began to issue the command ‘lie down’. A train of artillery rattled past the knot of staff, on its way to higher ground. Marlborough watched it go:

‘Observe, gentlemen. Colonel Blood has an unerring eye. We may be outgunned by the French in numbers of cannon, but we will most certainly not be out-shot.’

They looked across the field, following the rain of black balls now hailing down upon the French forces. It was possible to mark quite clearly where they fell. Where the neat, white ranks were suddenly cut through with a passage of dirty red.

Seeing another cannon being heaved past them, over the undulating scrub, Marlborough motioned to the staff to follow him. They rode to the heights above Unterglau, almost exactly at the centre of the line and soon neared the place where the battery had set down and was busy unlimbering. Marlborough dismounted, gave his reins to a groom and approached the battery commander, a man of medium build in his early thirties whose bronzed features and large, calloused hands bespoke his profession.

‘Who are you?’

‘Jonas Watson, Your Grace. Major of artillery.’

‘Well, Major Watson, where do you suppose to direct your fire?’

The man smiled. He turned and pointed with deliberate precision towards the French.

‘Directly towards that large formation of horse, over there, Sir. Colonel Blood’s specific orders, Your Grace.’

The man indicated a mass of several squadrons of French cavalry, dressed in pale grey coats distinguished by black cuffs.

‘Yes. I do believe that you are right. And what trajectory would you employ to hit that target?’

‘No more than eight degrees, Your Grace.’

‘Let me see.’

Marlborough walked across to one of the great brass-barrelled twelve-pound cannon. He leant over it and aligned his eye with the five-foot-long barrel.

‘You need to depress your angle of fire by two, no, one degree only, Major Watson. There, that will take your shot directly into the heart of the enemy. Carry on, Major.’ He remounted his horse and rode back to his position, the staff following, leaving the somewhat bemused gunnery officer to his duties.

‘You see, Hawkins, how the men do love my becoming involved in what they do? They value it, as I do. It is what marks the good general out from the bad.’

Marlborough stared out towards the French and reassessed the situation. He spoke to no one in particular.

‘We must cross that stream before he realizes what we have done. You can be sure that if Marshall Tallard is anything of a general, he will attempt to prevent us. It is vital that we establish ourselves beyond the soft ground before he has time to mobilize his horse. Pray God that Prince Eugene is ready soon.’

Music was drifting over the plain now. Cacophonous for the most part and indistinct from the French side. But from time to time a tune could be discerned. The music of King Louis. The soaring voice of the Sun King’s imperialist aspirations.

Marlborough rubbed at his ear, as if in pain. He squinted and shook his head and turned to Cardonell.

‘What is that noise? I think that we can manage better than that, Adam, do you not? Have the bands strike up. Let them play what they will. Something rousing. “Lillibulero”, “Over the Hills and Far Away”, “The Grenadiers’ March”. A tune to stir the soul.’

He looked across to Hawkins.

‘Music is the thing now. It will cheer the men, and it may also unsettle the French.’

As he spoke another salvo of artillery fire broke about them, the heavy iron balls smashing into the earth with horrible ferocity before ricocheting up to land among the ranks of prostrate redcoats. Even though they were now lying down, still the cannonballs found their target.

At that precise moment, 500 yards away to the left, on the low-lying land towards the steaming marshes, exactly the same thought was beginning to gnaw at Steel’s mind. He looked out towards the enemy, across the sun-drenched field, his head heavy from the previous evening’s wine, his senses still filled with Louisa’s distinctive, musky scent. They had come here yesterday, Saturday, posted on picquet guard to the village of Schwenningen with other units from Rowe’s brigade and orders to protect the narrow pass whose passage would be so vital to the approach of the army. Ahead of them the pioneers had gone on to ensure that the roads would be managable and the day had been wrought with alarms as the picquets of both sides found each other and played out their deadly games.

At around six o’clock in the evening, they had been approached by a great body of French dragoons. But ranged in line and calling on a little assistance from the Foot Guards, the allies had seen them off. And then all had been peaceful.

For once his men had slept under cover, taking their pick of the houses in the abandoned village. Steel had taken Louisa off to a small, humble dwelling on the outskirts where she tended the garden every day. Her father, who until now had been a guest of Henry Hansam, had gone with them and was soon sleeping soundly in an open cot before the fire. The
couple had sat close to each other at the simple table of the peasant cottage, Louisa clad only in her loose shift, looking as beautiful as he had ever seen her. Black bread and ham and cheese had been their food, and more than one bottle of the local wine, which Hansam had discovered in another of the houses. And afterwards they had enjoyed what both of them knew might be their last night together.

Their sleep had been brief, and at a little after three in the morning, the army had come to them. It had crossed the Kessel on pontoon bridges, moving in eight great columns towards the west, between the wooded hills and the marshes that flanked the Danube to their left. Together they had watched the squadrons and battalions as they spread like the arms of a fan on to the plain. And then, all too soon, it was time for his own brigade to swing into line and join the general advance.

They parted without a word. Held each other until the last moment. And then, as the motion of the great machine swept him on, from high above the column of marching men, Steel kept his eyes upon hers until he could see her no more. Then, turning to the front, he was a soldier once again.