Steel blanched. ‘You want me to live in the Hôpital des Invalides? As an inmate? With the French? For how long?’
‘Only a few nights. Two at the most. You must. There is no other way to meet Major Charpentier. Not only must you enter but you must take up residence there, as if you were passing through the city and had sought out the major as an old friend. No one must suspect that you are a British officer.’
Marlborough interjected, ‘I am aware that it is much to ask of you, Captain Steel. You should know too that with Louis now living at Versailles the hospital has become the de facto headquarters of the French army. But we only ask you, Steel, on account of the service you have given in the past. A little more wine?’
He signed to a footman who hurried across and replenished Steel’s glass. The red wine was of a local vintage, strong and pungent and packing a kick which brought home to Steel the full importance of his task. As he drank, a question came to his mind, and although he at first hesitated to ask it he ultimately could no longer resist.
He looked directly at the Duke. ‘Do not be offended, sir, and please do not think that I shirk from the task, but it merely occurs to me that perhaps Simpson might treat himself with the major and tell him of your intentions?’
Marlborough replied, ‘Well asked, Captain Steel. The fact is that Major Charpentier needs proof of our faith in this matter before he takes it to the King and risks his own neck.’
Hawkins continued: ‘You see, Jack, he might want peace, but for obvious reasons he does not trust the English as a race. You will carry a letter to King Louis from the Duke himself. This the major, if he has faith in what you say, will convey to Versailles. It’s up to you to persuade him that you are to be trusted. Besides, Simpson is precisely the sort of man he detests: a spy. He will only parlay with a brother officer, and one lately returned from the front. You are the only man for the job, Jack. Particularly since you were wounded at Oudenarde. To be honest, he’ll love you.’
‘But what about a disguise? An alias? What name shall I have? And how shall I get back?’
Hawkins replied, ‘Choose your own alias, within reason. I suggest that from now on you will be a captain in the Irish brigade in King Louis’s army. You may choose the regiment too. See the Quartermaster General and he will find you a suit of clothes. God knows we took enough to clothe a company after Oudenarde. As for returning here, Simpson has his methods. Have no worries. We shall get you back. And have no fears for Lady Henrietta’s safety. We shall look after her, Jack.’
Marlborough looked up from the map over which he had been poring. ‘You’re quite happy with the arrangements, Captain?’
Steel nodded – and lied: ‘Quite happy, sir.’
‘Good. And please be assured that should you accomplish your task – as we are sure you must – we shall be most grateful.’
Steel bowed and wondered what form that gratitude would take, should he live long enough to see it. ‘Thank you, Your Grace. I am honoured to be of service once again. You may trust that I shall do my utmost to ensure that Major Charpentier is convinced of our sincerity.’
‘I do trust in that, Steel. And you may trust that if you succeed you will play a part in ending this war and saving a great many lives. Your own included.’
The coach crested the hill and pulled up abruptly with a jolt, and Steel thanked God that it had. For the last five days he had travelled in this infernal machine, and even though the banquettes were upholstered after a fashion the wheels themselves lacked proper suspension, the carriage being merely hung by leather straps from the wood and metal framework, and every rock and bump in the road had been painfully amplified.
He had had only two travelling companions. For the first day he had enjoyed the company of a young captain of foot assigned temporarily to the artillery, who had been seconded from the camp to assist with the transportation of a parcel of French guns captured on the retreat of the enemy from Flanders. The two of them had played a few hands of piquet, and Steel, characteristically discarding the low cards, had taken five consecutive tricks. He had won four guineas and had teased the captain about the ruts in the road having been caused by the earlier passage of artillery. The captain, a jovial chap and a fellow career soldier driven, he said, into the army by a spendthrift father, had not seemed to mind at all and had entertained Steel with tales of the mishaps of cannon and the actual prowess of that neglected arm which would soon come to become an integral part of the army rather than contracted as Ordnance.
Sadly he had left all too soon, and Steel had been joined instead by the man who now sat facing him: a rubicund major of dragoons by the name of Cousins. The man was as tedious as Steel’s previous companion had been amusing, and he wondered quite what the lumpish oaf was doing in command of anything more than a dining table. The man’s entire conversation, as one might have guessed from his figure, concerned nothing save food and drink. As the hours had passed, Steel had become adept at shutting out the man’s words, but somehow they now began to seep into his mind.
‘Well, this is my stop and I must bid you adieu, Captain Johnson.’
For a moment Steel looked puzzled at the name, and then quickly answered to his new alias: ‘And farewell to you, Major.’
‘Until we meet again. I must say, Captain, I have enjoyed your company.’
Steel smiled and nodded. ‘Likewise, Major, of course. And good luck with the dragoons. Be sure to keep the French busy, sir.’
The major laughed and made what Steel presumed was intended to be an impressive display of swordplay with his hand, but which instead looked merely comic. ‘Oh, you may be sure of that. And good luck to you, Captain, whatever your business might be. You never did get round to telling me.’ He paused by the door, as if expecting to hear now the nature of Steel’s mission.
‘No. I never did,’ said Steel bluntly. He had done his utmost not to talk about himself, which with the garrulous major had not been difficult. He had revealed only his name, the alias of Johnson, which he had borrowed from his mother’s side of the family. Steel had used it before as a cover on the Duke’s business, and it was sufficiently familiar to ensure that he would not be caught out for more than an instant should he be addressed by it. Closing the door firmly behind the major, he pointed to a group of tired-looking, red-coated horsemen sitting by a small spinney. ‘Oh look, Major, your men have come to welcome you back.’
As he watched the major leave, with his attendant dragoons, Steel stretched his legs and allowed himself a few minutes’ rest. He would have preferred to travel the entire way to Paris by horse, but Hawkins had insisted that he should take a carriage as far as the farthest Allied lines. Steel recalled his words: ‘It is absolutely imperative that you should preserve your strength for your mission. God knows you will have need of it, Jack.’ The words filled him with foreboding, but also with the thrill of the challenge that was sure to come. Soon he would be alone in enemy territory, too far from the Allied lines to rely on any help other than his own guile and that of his contact in Paris.
Taking leave of Hawkins, he had trundled out of the gates of Menin and through Flanders with an escort of a half-troop of dragoons. All the while, forty miles a day, Steel had remarked on the fact that they had seen only red-coated troops – Marlborough’s men, all of them, hellbent on undertaking the Duke’s work of reducing Flanders by fire. For a little of the time Steel had managed to snatch some sleep, glad to make the most of the opportunity to store up his energy, for he knew he would have need of it in the days to come. Waking, he had been conscious of the names of towns called out by the coachman, names which, once familiar as enemy strongholds, he now knew now under changed circumstances: Arras, Péronne, St Quentin. And the further they had penetrated into the heartland of northern France the more acutely aware he became of the brilliance of Marlborough’s original, thwarted plan to press on to Paris, and the utter folly of the Dutch decision to prevent such a move.
Now alone, Steel ran a hand over his face and felt the stubble. He had not had the opportunity to shave these past two days, since their last stop at an inn, and without a servant there was no water to be had, hot or cold. He would have to wait till Paris to address his appearance. He cast his eyes into the distance, and from his vantage point within the carriage watched and waited until the major and the other horsemen were quite out of sight. Then, opening the door, he climbed down from the carriage and called up to the coachman: ‘Matthews. My bag, if you will. And you can untie my horse.’
Matthews, a wiry Cornishman, lately a sergeant in the foot and now a driver in the personal employ of Colonel Hawkins, climbed down and handed Steel the modest carpet-bag which contained his effects. ‘There you are, Captain Steel, sir. An’ I don’t know what it is the colonel’s got you doing now, sir, but I can only say I’m damned glad it’s not me as is doing it.’ He shivered. ‘Gives me the creeps, this does, being so deep in France. Durn’t seem right.’
Steel undid the bag and took out a coat as Matthews un-tethered the chestnut mare that had been tied to the rear of the coach during their journey. ‘Yes, you’re right there, Matthews. But if my becoming better acquainted with the Frenchies is going to help win this war, then it’s got to be right, somehow.’
The coachman grinned, then shrugged and grunted as Steel shook out the heavy serge coat. He removed his own Grenadier’s uniform, stripped down to breeches and shirt and donned the new waistcoat, of a vivid red. It was a tight fit over his muscular form, but not wholly uncomfortable. He reached for the coat that he had handed to Matthews and drew it on. It too was scarlet in colour and faced with bright yellow rather than his own regiment’s distinctive dark blue. The lace too was subtly different, stitched in the French manner, and the large gilt buttons on the cuff lay in a plain line. In contrast the edge of the coat was richly festooned with gold lace. This was not the coat of a British officer. Steel had chosen it himself with some care. It had come from a bundle of clothing lately stripped from the bodies of the dead of O’Brien’s regiment of dragoons, Irishmen in the service of France originally raised by the late Lord Clare. Steel’s choice had been coloured by the fact that he had known its commander when, both as young lieutenants of foot in the Guards, the two had fought side by side for King William. But Steel had also seen his erstwhile friend killed in cold blood in the village of Ramillies after surrendering to a British officer – a fellow Scot who lately had been his brigade commander at Oudenarde. Well, that was an old story. And for now the coat of poor Clare’s old regiment would serve him well and he would wear it with pride, partly in memory of a brave man unjustly killed.
Matthews raised his eyebrows. ‘Very handsome, sir. You look quite the Paddy officer. And hardly a mark on it, neither.’
‘You recognize the coat then?’
‘Could I not? Fought against Clare’s at Blenheim, sir. Took off one of my fingers, the Irish bastards.’ He held up his maimed left hand. ‘I won’t forget the bloody Paddies in a hurry. Mind you, sir, they won’t forget me, neither.’
Steel laughed, and, having buckled on his sword, handed Matthews the carpet-bag into which he had placed his regimental uniform. ‘I’m sure they won’t. But now you shall forget me, Matthews. And that’s an order. You never saw me. From this moment, for as long as it takes, Captain Jack Steel ceases to exist. Meet Captain Johnson of the Irish Brigade. And now you may take that news back to the colonel.’
Matthews nodded. ‘I’ll tell him, sir, just as you told me. Good luck, Captain.’
Putting his boot in the stirrup which hung at the mare’s left flank, Steel swung himself up easily into the saddle and ordered his reins. He smoothed his great, broad-bladed sword in its scabbard over the saddlecloth and patted the animal lightly on the neck. Then he turned in the saddle and gave Matthews a last look and exchanged a nod before digging his knees into the horse’s flanks and urging her forward into a gentle trot. He went on for some way before casting a single backward glance at the fast-disappearing coach, then he pulled the horse away from the road and onto the grassland of a hillside, speckled with alder trees. The uneven ground was a little soft under her hooves and Steel took a few minutes to relax into her easy stride after so many days in the carriage. Soon, though, he felt reborn, at one with the countryside and back in control of his destiny, as far as that was ever possible. After a few hundred yards trotting gently around the contour of the hill and away from the road, Steel pulled up and took stock of the prospect before him.
Below him stretched the plain of Picardy, a lush valley cross-hatched with a complex patchwork of fields of crops – corn and wheat, he guessed, much of it now cut for the harvest. It was good country, he thought, tended carefully by its tenants and respected by its owners for its bounties. Soon, though, he knew that it must surrender to the attentions of Marlborough’s dragoons, and that even after they had passed anything spared would be trampled beneath the feet of the oncoming armies. That was the way of it in this country, long used to war. It was astonishing, he thought, that the peasants should invest so much time in their land when they must know that at any moment it would likely as not be ravaged once again by men who came from far away intent on but one thing – to win the next battle.
He reckoned that it would always be thus. Flanders and Picardy formed a fatal avenue between Catholic France and its Protestant neighbours, and Steel knew that nothing could change this flawed geography. Since Agincourt and Crécy men had come here from France and Spain and the Rhine, and from Britain, come to fight and to die, and in centuries to come they would come again when, just as the bows had surrendered to matchlock and grenade, new and more terrible weapons of destruction overtook their current armoury. For an instant his head was filled with a dreadful, blood-soaked vision of destruction. This was a truth of such epic, biblical proportions that he shuddered at the thought.
At that moment a chill breeze caught the treetops and cut through the dead Irishman’s red coat, freezing Steel’s blood. But it lasted only a few seconds. Bringing himself to the present, Steel clicked his tongue at the grazing mare and dug the heels of his boots into her ready flanks, and the road fell away before him. He urged her down the slope of the hill, away from the threatening form of the trees and his momentary apocalyptic vision, and within a few minutes his mood had been transformed. Steel thanked God now that he had listened to Hawkins, for despite his tedious companion and the cramped, uncomfortable coach, he knew that he had rested and was now free to feel the exhilaration of the ride. The wind felt good on his face and he knew that from now on he was on his own. In enemy territory.
He thought himself into his new persona. He was Captain Cormack Johnson, if you please. Born in Cork and raised at home by a governess, he had joined the colours at the age of seventeen and served at Neerwinden, Dixemude and Huy – all actions with which Steel himself was familiar, on occasion meeting the Irish ‘Wild Geese’ face to face. There would be no slip up there, certainly. Of course Steel had no Irish accent, but then he did not suppose that he would require one. Many of the Irish gentry he had come across, including poor Clare, had spoken with an anglicized tongue, and while they might have had a command of the Gaelic, which he did not have, to an untutored ear and, he presumed, to any Frenchman it would not have sounded so very dissimilar to his own Lowland Scottish accent.
He reckoned that it must by now be close to ten o’clock in the morning, and swore once again that come the next engagement, whenever the chance presented itself, he would find as fine a timepiece as had been liberated by Hansam from the body of a French officer at Blenheim. The early chill was passing now and the sun beat down upon the countryside. He began to itch under the thick coat and scratched at his neck.
He prayed to God that the poor bugger who was the last owner of this coat had not been severely infested. No more at least than Steel himself. For all the army, officers and men alike, even up to the great commander himself, carried with them their little friends the lice, who, living in the seams of their garments, would only be destroyed if burnt or smoked out. No, thought Steel, the coat was just naturally itchy, coarser perhaps than the British model. It was a combination of that and the heat. Who knew, perhaps in Paris he might even take a bath. For a moment he revelled in the prospect. The city, so it was said, was the very seat of worldly luxury and pleasure – a cradle of vice – with such a profusion of gold ornament and decorative splendour as the world had not seen since the Roman Empire. You could, they said, get anything you desired in Paris.