‘And we’ve taken a colour, sir.’
Steel looked a the crestfallen sergeant. He knew that there was only one way out. ‘You know that I’m a man of my word, Sar’nt.’
‘Loyal, sir. That’s you through and through. Loyal.’
‘Well, make damn sure that no one else hears about it – Major Frampton or the colonel. And before they enjoy themselves at my expense they can damn well get busy collecting weapons. God knows there are enough of them.’
‘Very good, sir. The men’ll be well pleased.’
‘
No one,
Sar’nt. No one’s to know. And if any of them catches the pox I’ll have them out of the company. They can decide what risks they want to take.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you’d better have Mister Williams take that colour to the rear once the men have seen it. Tell him to find Marlborough and to tell him which regiment took it. And, Jacob, be sure to tell him to say that it was Captain Steel’s company.’
If Steel had thought that his trophy might have been presented to the Duke in splendid isolation, he was wrong. A little to the east and rear of the final position of Farquharson’s Grenadiers, Marlborough stood at the centre of a small group of officers, flanked by Prince Eugene, who had commanded the right wing throughout the battle. They were gazing at something on the ground at the Captain General’s feet: a pile of French colours to which every few minutes others were being added.
Cadogan smiled and knelt to touch the silk of one of the captured banners before standing and turning to the Duke. ‘A victory, Your Grace. And, may I say, a victory like no other. Something new for London to shout about. And what an honour for the Queen. I am informed that the enemy have lost fifteen thousand men all told, perhaps as many as twenty. Ten thousand more, they say, have deserted and run for France. On our part we have taken only three thousand casualties, perhaps a thousand killed. It was a day well won, your Grace.’
‘Yes, William, it was well won, but in truth it was too damned close for my liking. Why, had you not done such a sterling job of holding the enemy at the bridgehead, allowing us time to come up piecemeal as we did, it might have had quite a different outcome.’
‘But come you did, sir, and now all France lies open to us.’
Marlborough frowned. ‘Aye, you’re right about that. All France, ours for the taking. But how shall we exploit our victory, d’you suppose?’
Another staff officer, Overkirk, fresh from his triumph and eager for more, spoke up. ‘We should pursue the French, My Lord. With the utmost vigour and quite as far as our lines permit.’
‘Quite so, General Overkirk. Ordinarily, military science dictates that we should pursue the French, or at the very least divert and engage Marshal Berwick and his army. Ordinarily. But, as my friend Cadogan has pointed out, this was not an ordinary victory. France is wide open to us. Open, gentlemen. Do you realize what that means? If we are prudent we will have need of only one course of action. I know from Cadogan’s spies that King Louis tires of this war. Some say that he is actually desirous of peace and it is only pride and his generals that keep him in the field. His manpower and the flower of his nation’s nobility are being drained on these killing fields. Gentlemen, I have a notion.’
He beckoned to a runner who came forward and held open a map of Flanders and northern France. Marlborough traced his finger from their position at Oudenarde and took it across the map in a southwesterly direction: ‘How do you think it would be if we were to march directly on Paris? To follow up this victory, not with a mere pursuit, but to leave the remnants of Vendôme’s army to themselves and march for the capital?’
Overkirk spoke. ‘Can we do it?’
Marlborough turned to Cadogan. ‘Well, William, d’you think we can?’
Cadogan nodded. ‘I do believe we can, sir. We have the men and the resources. And I know that you have a further plan.’
Marlborough went on. ‘Paris is an open city. It has no defences. So confident was he of his armies that Louis opened it and demolished the walls some thirty years back. How pride will undo a man! Although in truth that is of no great concern to us. We have no need to take the place. We can encamp outside the gate and he will beg for peace – particularly when his scouts inform him that we have another army newly arrived from England and landed at Abbeville.’
‘We do?’
‘Not yet, but it is in my plan. Lieutenant General Erle is already embarked with his force off the Isle of Wight with an escort of naval warships. When he learns of that, as he shall, Louis will set Versailles shaking with fear. And then we shall unite with Erle at Abbeville. We shall have a hundred thousand men and supplies readily available from the coast. A swift thrust along the river Lys and we shall bypass the forts at Menin and Courtrai. Thus we avoid the bloodletting of besieging yet more of Monsieur Vauban’s painstakingly strengthened fortresses, having marched past Lille and cut south’ – again his finger moved sweepingly across the map – ‘thus through France, direct to the capital. And so, gentlemen, Holland will be free, our men will not die needlessly, our enemies at home will be confounded and the war will be won.’
Marlborough paused and waited for a response. The generals stared open-mouthed at the map. It was the boldest plan that any of them had ever encountered – surely one of the boldest plans in all military history.
Cadogan spoke up. ‘It is masterly, Your Grace. A brilliant stratagem.’
The staff nodded in assent, all save Eugene who simply stared at the map and kept his own counsel. Marlborough smiled and called for wine, and then, raising the great silver-mounted goblet made from a coconut by Queen Anne’s own goldsmiths which he always brought with him on campaign, he addressed his staff: ‘A toast then, gentlemen. For now I am resolved. Within the week we march on Paris.’
Henrietta Vaughan stretched her naked body across the crumpled white cotton sheets and arched her back with a lazy grace. Then, realizing that her husband was unable to see her, she stood up unsteadily and grasped the front cross-post of the bed frame, ensuring that her nakedness was now perfectly visible in the mirror which stood against the wall at the end of the bed. Steel saw her and muttered a quiet curse.
She was indisputably the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, with the power to make him forget whatever it was he might be engaged in and to arouse in him a passion the like of which he had never known. He looked away.
Standing before the tall cheval mirror in the best bedroom of a little inn in the town of Menin, he was attempting with his one free hand to tie his cravat. His other arm was still in a sling. Although it had been almost a month since the battle his muscles were only now beginning to regain their strength and the damage to the tendons had still not fully healed. He swore again, louder this time. ‘Dammit. Darling, will you please come and help? I am such a cripple that I cannot even tie my neckerchief.’
Henrietta hung by her hands from the cross-beam of the bed frame, stretching until the skin was taut across her pale body, save for the heavily rounded orbs of her breasts. Seeing her reflection, she smiled with pleasure and held the pose, and spoke to him with deliberate languor. ‘Jack, I do think that you might have found us something a little less rustic than these rooms. I mean, look at this bedchamber. Did you ever see such hangings and such curtains. Simple calico? And look at the floor. Bare boards, Jack!’
Steel pretended not to have heard her and continued to struggle with his tie. But she was not to be ignored. ‘Jack, can you hear me? Do you perhaps not see me? Can you see me now, Jack?’
Steel, desperately trying not to see what she might be doing to gain his attention, but conscious of it all the same, found his attention diverted from the cravat. ‘Yes, I can see you, my darling. But I wish that I did not. Not now. I have to be with the Captain General. You know that.’
In fact, while he was finding it hard to look away, she had also pricked a nerve. Steel had found them a pair of mean rooms in a little inn which quite clearly was not up to Henrietta’s exacting standards, particularly to judge by the opulent apartment which she had taken care to lease for them in Brussels and on which he now continued to pay the rent, even though away on campaign.
Henrietta laughed and, stepping lightly off the bed, crossed the floor to him with deliberate slowness, all the while using her body as only she could, in the full knowledge of the effect it would have on her husband. Henrietta knew that she was beautiful. Probably, she thought, the most beautiful of any woman in court circles at St James’s, and certainly at present the most lovely woman in all of the Low Countries.
She stood on tiptoe to reach his tie, pushing her face deliberately close to his and her naked body against his clothes and pulling him down towards her so that his eyes were level with the nape of her neck. She smelt of lavender and musk and faintly of sweat. It was a heady mix, so much so that Steel almost succumbed. He had known in his heart that it had been wrong to allow his wife to follow him here. Not merely on account of her own safety, but precisely because it would result in moments like this, when the call of duty hung in a tenuous balance with the all-too-evident temptations of the flesh.
He had not agreed at first when she had asked to come here to Menin to join him from Brussels. This was in effect the front line of the army, albeit a fortfied town held by the Allies and encircled by the entire army. But Henrietta had pleaded with him and Steel was hardly the first man to have been compelled to give in to her abundant charms. So here she was in all her nakedness, and here he was being diverted once again and already late for an appointment with the Captain General.
He snapped back to the moment. ‘Darling, perhaps I had better try to tie it again myself.’
He was too late. ‘There, it’s done.’ She stood back to survey her work, straightened the tie one last time and allowed Steel to look at her again.
He shook his head. ‘I am sorry, Henrietta. You know that I must go.’
She scowled and stuck out her tongue at him.
Steel moved to the door, opened it and shouted down the hall to his soldier-servant: ‘Sykes. My horse.’
Closing the door he moved across to his wife and gave her a deliberately fleeting embrace. ‘I don’t think that the Duke will keep me too long. And then, once I’ve finished, my love, we can spend all the day together.’
‘All the day? Are you sure? Jack, you know how long you spend with your men and how little time with me.’ Still frowning, she grabbed a gown from the bed and threw it around her shoulders. ‘Oh, I hate this place.’
‘Then, really, perhaps do you not think that you should return to Brussels? Or you might go to Antwerp, or Ostend. You know that it was not my idea that you should come here.’
‘And, in truth, I’m beginning to regret that I ever did and why I ever bothered.’ She turned away from him but he knew that she was only shamming her grief; testing him again.
Steel put a hand about her shoulders. ‘I promise that I shall make a special effort to be quick about my duties. Just for you. At least we shall have dinner together.’
She turned to him. ‘It’s not dinner that I want, Jack. It’s you.’
‘And you shall have me, my darling. Just as soon as I’ve seen the Duke. Now why don’t you get dressed? I know for a fact that cook has a dozen oysters set aside for your breakfast. I’ll see you just as soon as I return.’
He turned and opened the door, closing it quickly behind him lest he should look once more into her eyes and be diverted from his purpose. Steel walked down the dark staircase of the old house and counted himself the luckiest man in the world. A captaincy, another battle survived, a company of grenadiers and the loveliest, most devoted and doting wife in all the world.
Back in the tawdry bedroom, Henrietta sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on a silk stocking. Of course she had stopped sulking the moment Steel had left the room. She did not really care that he had gone. Jack would be back soon and then they would have as much of the day together as he could spare. Which, she thought, was probably damn little. In any case, what was there to do here in this stinkhole except make love, eat and drink? True, all three excited her, and with Jack the first was as good if not better than it had been with any of her many former lovers. But it was not enough. She craved society. And shops. Almost as much as she craved his presence in her bed. More, even. She smiled. Perhaps she would return to Brussels ere long. Campaigning was such a bore. The army was a bore – though she would never have admitted as much to dear Jack. It seemed that he was forever on duty, attending to his men in some way or another. They were like so many children, always demanding something of their officer. She wondered that they were ever able to fight a battle.
Jack, it seemed, had so little time for her here. In Brussels at least she had the company of the other wives – what there was of them. Mrs Melville, the wife of the commander of Number 4 company and the only other wife out here with the battalion, was passably agreeable. In small doses. The two of them had agreed that when she returned to Brussels, where Mrs Melville had wisely remained, they would visit the little milliner’s shop in the rue des Bouchers, where Madame Delvaux had set aside twenty yards of lace for her. It was, she had been assured, the exact same pattern lately bought by the Queen of England herself, and Henrietta was determined to have it. What matter that it might be more than seven pounds a yard? And then there was the prettiest flowered damask and an Indian stuff they called Baguzee, the like of which you never saw. She smiled to herself and rang for the maid to help her dress. Yes, she would have it all on her return. Blow the expense. In any case, Jack would be worth a great deal more in the near future if she were to have her way. Until then they would just have to exist on credit, like everyone else.
She tugged again on the tapestry bell-pull hanging on the wall to summon her maid and, as the simple girl was helping her into her clothes, placing her new-fangled, hooped petticoat over her head and over that the new ash-coloured silk quilted petticoat, she continued her musings. The maid, a timid, brainless child whose name was Maria and whom she had lately engaged in Brussels, having lost her own English maid, Bessie, to be married to a soldier, laced her in firmly into her stays and rolled her flowing blonde hair so that it hung in two curled locks about her bare shoulders. All the while Henrietta pored over her plan to divert Jack away from the front line, away even from his beloved army and back to court. Somehow she knew that she would manage it. What use was he here in Flanders? What sort of life could they enjoy? Steel was a hero already, respected in London circles and praised by the Queen. But to cultivate that influence she knew that they must be back in London. True, he did not have much money. But there were ways of changing that, ways in which a man might rise in status and fortune in the City, given the right connections and the respect due to his character. Jack Steel was a national hero and she knew that he would only remain so as long as his name was spoken. The people and those in positions of power – in the mercantile and propertied classes – had all too short and fickle memories. At the moment his star was riding high, and every moment spent here in the Netherlands was an opportunity lost to Henrietta. She must do it. Not least because she was determined to prove her father wrong. Hadn’t he mocked their marriage and derided her for marrying a soldier with few prospects? But hadn’t that been one of the major attractions of marrying Jack? Yes, he was devilishly handsome, and for the moment a hero, but Steel also represented everything that her father had always warned about. He was the epitome of the man she had been told to avoid: penniless, reckless and out for glory. In short, Steel was the perfect opportunity to prove to her father that he had been wrong. And she was determined that he should not be allowed to win.
Making their way through the back streets of the town, Steel’s horse stumbled and he looked down to see the cause. She had tripped over an outstretched leg and whinneyed in distress as the owner, who had been lying in the gutter, attempted with difficulty to rise to his feet. He wore a military red coat and an infantryman’s black cocked hat, and from the state of his clothes and the smell of alcohol, sweat and vomit, Steel guessed that he had been lying there most of the night. The man was half standing now, staggering and mouthing oaths at Steel, who looked about him for a sergeant who might arrest the drunk. He quickly gave up and settled on giving him a firm shove which sent the man flying back into the gutter.
Leaving the soldier to groan and nurse his wounds, Steel rode on. The streets of Menin were crammed with soldiery, both drunk and sober, horse and foot in uniforms of all the Allied nations in a blaze of colours, although principally the trinity of British red, Prussian blue and Danish grey. For the past four weeks since the battle Marlborough had made his headquarters here, in a key position from where he was able to threaten the key citadels of Ypres, Lille and Tournai. Prince Eugene had gone east to Ath to join his own army, to which had been attached a force of twenty-five battalions and the same of squadrons of horse. In all fifty thousand men – a reasonable army by any reckoning. It was clear to anyone that something was afoot, but equally it was anyone’s guess as yet as to what it might be. Steel wondered whether he might not be about to find out.
He had not been surprised to have been summoned to the commander’s quarters. He had become used to doing the Captain General’s business. He wondered, though, what nature of errand the Duke might now have found for him. It was a short ride from Menin to Werwicq, and save for the incident with the drunk it had been uneventful.
Steel pulled up his horse outside the town hall, which Marlborough had commandeered. Tying the reins to the wooden post provided for that purpose, he saluted the two sentries of the Foot Guards, his own old regiment, posted at the door, and walked in. The place presented the customary appearance of any temporary field headquarters, which to the layman might have appeared a form of organized chaos, with clerks and runners moving in all directions, but to Steel’s eyes and those of the general staff it seemed the very picture of a well-organized military machine.
A clerk looked up from the desk. ‘Yes.’
‘Captain Steel to see the Captain General.’
The man, a diminutive fellow with black eyes and a face which in other times would have marked him as a Puritan, looked Steel up and down and began to fiddle self-importantly with a pile of papers. ‘Captain Steel. Yes, I’m sure that I saw that order not a minute ago. Captain Steel. You’re quite sure that it was today you were expected?’
From the band around his arm Steel noticed that the clerk carried the rank of captain. He wondered which of them had seniority from the date of their commission, and hoped it would not come to a matter of pulling rank. The irritating man continued: ‘I cannot find you here. Your name does not appear on the list.’