Authors: Iain Gale
Steel watched the bird again as it grew closer to the ground now. Perhaps it had finally spotted a likely prey. Riding in his place at the head of the column, he wished for once that he was not with his men.
He could hardly bear to imagine Louisa locked in the stifling coach with Kretzmer. From time to time Steel rode back to make sure that nothing was amiss, and their progress had been damnably slow. The road was dry and rutted. Recent rains had turned the earth to mud, which, pushed by passing traffic into ridges, had been baked hard in the sun. Now, unless the wheels that crossed it were iron-shod, they would eventually break on the clay. And even such carts as those provided by Hawkins could be easily unsettled.
On the previous day, two of the flour wagons had veered off the road. On the first occasion the men had managed to heave the wagon back. On the second though, the vehicle had overturned, spilling half of its contents into the roadside ditch and breaking both of the legs and crushing several ribs of the driver, who was now travelling in the wounded cart. Taylor had said that he doubted the poor man would last another day.
They had moved what could be salvaged of the spilt flour on to the other wagons, but the accident had cost them a precious two hours.
Steel tried to calculate the time remaining before they would reach the allied lines. This morning they had found the river Ach at the little town of Au and had been following it ever since. According to the map they had another eight miles before they reached the crossing of the Lech and then another day’s march back to Donauwö rth, if indeed that was where Marlborough had now taken his army. Hawkins had
intimated that there might be some movement in the main body while Steel was away on his mission. He realized that his best recourse was to dispatch Williams in search of an outlying cavalry picquet from their army, once they grew closer to the theatre of operations. He turned to the boy and pointed at the wheeling kite.
‘Look, Tom. D’you see it. Up there.’
Together they watched as the bird swooped down into a field, diving on its prey.
Steel turned to Williams.
‘Tom, I think that tomorrow I may send you on an errand.’
‘Sir?’
‘I was contemplating dispatching you to find the army. D’you think you could manage it?’
‘Of course, Sir. I’m quite certain of it.’
‘Then you’re a step ahead of me. We’re heading back towards Donauwö rth now, but in truth I’m damned if I know where His Grace might be at present. You’ll just have to keep your head low and nose around until you see some redcoats.’
‘And then make sure that they’re our redcoats, and not the French, Sir.’
‘Quite so. You would think that someone might by now have realized that it would be a great deal easier to fight a war – to actually kill your enemy – if you were able to tell at a glance whether or not they were on your side. Certainly, we British wear red coats, just as the French foot have their white and grey. But are not our friends the Danes now too in grey?
‘And the Austrians retain a different colour of coat for every regiment. Sometimes I pity our commanders almost as much as I pity the men they command.’
The boy laughed and Steel with him. They had grown closer over the days and he was anxious to give the lad as
much action as he could before they returned to the camp and prepared for the great battle which was surely soon to come.
‘How much further now, Sir, do you suppose, until we are within striking distance?’
‘I would think in the region of another six miles. The remainder of the day’s march, God willing. I intend to stop for the night at a place called Bachweiden, if I have the name correctly. Rather too many “achs” and “bachs” hereabouts for me. From your uncle’s map it appears to sit on a small river, so we should be able to water the horses. The men might even bathe, if they wish. They deserve a rest.’
They arrived at the little town at a little before five o’clock. It was a pretty place, with narrow cobbled streets which wound around a gentle hill and the half-timbered houses they had become used to in Swabia. As Steel had predicted, it sat above the confluence of two rivers beyond a gently arced stone bridge over the wider of the two. He halted the column before the bridge. The town looked deserted.
Williams approached him:
‘Shall I take a party on reconnaissance, Sir?’
‘No. I think we’ll stop here for the moment. I don’t like it.’
Williams followed his gaze across the bridge. Steel was right. The streets were quite empty. The young Ensign shivered as he recalled the carnage of Sattelberg. Steel saw him and read his mind.
‘No, Tom. I don’t think this is the work of the French again. We’re too far north here for them. Our own army, or at least our scouts might be just a few miles up that road. The French would never dare come so close.’
But in truth Steel was not sure whether he believed his own words. He could detect no sign of life in the dusty streets and
the houses stood with empty windows gazing blindly. There was the occasional crash as a door slammed or a shutter banged against a wall, caught in the breeze.
‘Sarn’t Slaughter.’
The man came running from the front of the column. Steel dismounted.
‘Sir.’
‘Follow me. Bring your men and make sure their weapons are loaded.’
As Slaughter relayed the orders, checked the flints and the powder, Steel handed Molly’s reins to Williams.
‘Tom, you stay with the column. Major Jennings is bound to try to interfere. He’ll want to move on, most likely. Blame whatever you need to on me. I shan’t be long. Bring the rest of the Grenadier company forward into the town and leave the Major’s men as a rearguard. We don’t want to be taken by surprise again.’ He slipped his gun from the leather saddlebag across Molly’s flank and, having loaded it, advanced at the head of his Grenadiers across the bridge and up the single narrow street – barely the width of one and a half of their wagons – that led from it into the town. Still there was no sign of life. Slowly the redcoats made their way up the cobbles and into the heart of the town.
As was usual in these parts, Bachweiden was centred on a small square, with an arcaded market building on one side and on the other a church with a single spire. As Steel and his men moved between the houses, the clock on the church tower above them chimed the hour. It was the time at which work would stop and the tradesmen and workers of the town would be returning home to their families. But today there were no tradesmen. No families.
Nor thankfully, thought Steel, was there anything to suggest that this had been the scene of any violent struggle or a
massacre. There were no howling dogs. No stench of rotting corpses. Nothing. He turned to Slaughter.
‘What do you make of it, Jacob?’
‘I’d say the place has been abandoned, Sir. There’s no one here. I can feel it. They’ve all buggered off. Frightened of them Dutch dragoons, if you ask me. Place doesn’t smell of death, Sir. If you know what I mean.’
Steel knew. There was an aura and an odour – honey-sweet and sickly – which hung around such places as Sattelberg. He hadn’t caught it here. He nodded.
‘Well we can’t search every house. I say we stay. Post picquets on the entrance roads and change the guard every hour. The men can take it in turns to bathe in the river. Keep them near the bridge, and make sure that the horses get watered. We’ll move the wagons into the main street. Tell the men to find what shelter they can for the night and make sure that there’s no looting. Oh, and Slaughter, tell Mister Williams to bring the carriage up to the square. I want that Bavarian bastard where I can see him tonight.’
As Slaughter hurried off, Steel sat down on the edge of the fountain. He laid the gun down beside his leg and rubbed at his eyes. He had almost accomplished what he had been sent to do for Marlborough and Hawkins. They were very nearly back with the army. Soon perhaps he might return to normality. Soon too he hoped they would face the French in the longed-for battle. Would that be an end to the war? He doubted it. Steel hoped it would not be, if that were not too dreadful a hope to nurture. War was his world. War brought him to life and he knew that would ever be the way.
He thought about what he had become and what he had come from. Of the family home and the farm and the happiness that filled them before his mother had died. He had been just eleven, poised on adulthood, ready to go to Eton and
filled with hope for the future. Her death had changed all that. Or so it had seemed. In fact it had not been her death but the loss of an expected fortune from his uncle that had ruined the family and ensured that rather than school, his lot would be a miserable private tutor and an apparent destiny as a clerk in his uncle’s Edinburgh law firm. Steel had gone to work there at sixteen and that was what Arabella had rescued him from. And from temptation. For, coached by his fellow clerks, Steel had already begun to pilfer trifling amounts from the company books to pay for life’s little pleasures. Her arrival had taken him away from the inevitable fate to which that would have led him, and for that at least he would always be grateful. She had reopened his eyes to the beauty of life. Had reminded him that there were things truly worth having. Worth fighting for: love, honour, integrity.
And now there was something else for which he was fighting. He was fighting for the army itself. His army. Every battle strengthened it as an army of which the new Britain – Queen Anne’s Britain, could be truly proud.
Steel knew that however sound a job Marlborough might make of building his army, it was up to men like him, officers fighting in the field, to put the flesh on those bare bones. They were living at the dawn of a new era and Steel knew that what he wanted more than anything else in the world was to have a part in it. Although, perhaps now, he thought, there was just one more thing that he wanted. But she would have to wait.
The rumble of iron-rimmed wheels over the cobbles signalled the arrival in the square of Kretzmer’s carriage. Steel got to his feet and walked across to where it had pulled up in front of the stone pillars of the covered market. Jennings, his horse at a trot, rode a few paces behind.
‘So, Mister Steel. Where have you brought us now? Another deserted town? D’you suppose there will be more cadavers to be found here?’
He sniffed the air.
‘Perhaps not. But no people, for sure, hm?’
Steel bristled.
‘I couldn’t say, Major. But I would hazard not. We are not far from our own lines.’
‘Oh, are we not? And how d’you come to that? By my reckoning we are a good ten miles from the army, if not more. Or are you lost, perhaps?’
‘I intend to send Williams out as soon as possible. It is my belief that he will find the army directly to the north. At no more than five miles distant.’
Jennings smiled and dismounted.
‘Well, if you are so certain and the army is so close, why the urgency? We have time in hand, Steel, and an open town. Abandoned and thus legitimate booty for all to take. From what my Sergeant tells me its cellars and pantries are stuffed to bursting. Why not savour the moment? The army will wait until tomorrow.’
‘Do I have to remind you, Major, of the importance of our mission. Every day we delay will cost the army dearly. By tomorrow the lack of rations will start to tell. It is imperative that we return with the supplies as swiftly as we may. Williams must go forthwith.’
‘Do I have to remind you, Mister Steel, who commands here? In my opinion it would be far from prudent to send the boy off before morning. We have ample time. We rest here. That is an order, Steel.’
‘Very well, Sir.’
Steel knew how to play this game – strictly by the book.
‘Ensign Williams has the column, Major. I’ll have him
order the men to find billets with as little disruption as possible. The town may look abandoned, Sir, but I am certain that the Duke would not want us to indulge in plunder. I shall give orders for a moderate amount of subsistence foraging, with an inventory of all that is taken. And shall I also arrange the accommodation for Miss Weber and her father?’
Jennings sighed.
‘Yes. As you will. Do what you want with them. I’ve had enough of her.’
He turned and walked back towards the main street, calling for his Sergeant. Rank had undisclosed advantages, thought Jennings. It was vital to his purpose that they should spend the night here. Jennings knew Steel to be right, that the army was at the most a half day’s march from them. He knew that this would be his last opportunity to acquire the papers. Here, he thought, it could be easily contrived. Steel might be clever, but he was no match for Jennings and his Sergeant. Stringer was a natural assassin, as silent as a cat and as swift and sure as a butcher with a knife in the dark. He turned and looked back at Steel, who was opening the door of the carriage and wondered whether the Lieutenant had any inkling that tonight would be his last on earth.
Steel peered into the carriage. Inside, he could make out Kretzmer’s lumpen, sleeping form, still bound and gagged. Opposite him, horribly close to her assailant, sat Louisa. She too was asleep, as was her father. Closing the door gently, Steel thought it best to leave them. He stationed a Grenadier at the carriage and walked across the square to a small terrace from which he was able to observe the bridge and the road into the town. The wagons were slowly moving in for the night although perhaps a score of them still lay on the other side of the river.
Down in the reedy shallows he could see a half-dozen of his men. They had thrown off their clothes on to the grassy bank and were jumping about like children, stark naked, laughing and splashing each other in the simple unaccustomed joy of cold, fresh water. Watching them like that, stripped of their uniform, robbed of any vestige of military life, Steel felt more than ever like their adoptive father. They were his family. He knew their ways, their foibles, the reasons why they had joined and how they had come to be here with him. In his care. He felt a responsibility for them and prayed that they would, all of them, the good and the bad, get through whatever trials the coming days would hold.