Man of Honour (14 page)

For once not one sputtered out and the French Grenadiers were ripped apart by shards of red-hot metal that tore at skin, sinew and bone, cutting their evil way through heads, necks, limbs, and torsos. The street disappeared in a cloud of black and grey smoke and gouts of blood. Some fragments of the grenades hit walls and tore shards of masonry and pan-tile free, sending them showering down on the enemy troops below.

Steel, who had closed the door against the blast, opened it cautiously and surveyed the scene. Gradually, as the smoke cleared, he made out a tangle of bodies and body parts lying across the street where a few seconds before the French had been drawn up. Williams pushed himself up from the road on his palms and got to his feet, coughing away the debris in his throat and brushing the dust and brick from his coat. He was followed by his ten Grenadiers, some of whom had begun to laugh. And Williams too found himself laughing with relief. For where the Frenchmen had been, lay nothing but a heap of dead and dying men. Through the dusty air Steel glimpsed the forms of perhaps a half-dozen of the white-coated infantry running for their lives and behind them, supporting each other, another five wounded. But of the rest
nothing remained save broken bodies. Steel emerged from the house and, still steering Kretzmer, making sure not to let him go, led his remaining men towards Williams.

‘Well done, Tom. Couldn’t have made a better job of it myself.’

He patted the boy on the back. Williams turned round. He was staring wildly and his mouth hung wide open.

‘They. They just disappeared. We did it. We killed them all. We did it. Look, Sir.’

Steel knew the reaction. The absolute shock of the first battle. He knew that the only thing to do now was to carry on. Move to the next killing ground.

‘Yes, Tom you did it. And bloody well. Now take your men and follow up. Get into cover over there and see if you can find out if there are any more of the buggers in the place.’

He looked down at a dead Frenchman. Now there could be no doubt as to who had committed the atrocity. The man was a Grenadier. French, wearing a dark brown bearskin cap which bore a brass plaque with a distinctive cipher which Steel had seen once before.

‘I know that uniform. This is the same regiment we met at Schellenberg. I was told there were no enemy in these parts. What the hell are these buggers doing here?’ He turned to Hopkins, Tarling and another man, Jock Miller.

‘You three, come with me. Let’s see if we can help Sarn’t Slaughter.’

At that moment he became aware of the crack of gunfire from the street leading off to the right where he had sent Slaughter. Quickly, with Kretzmer still in tow, they ran across the square. There was firing, too, coming from further up the hill, by the barn. Taylor. He would have to wait. Entering the narrow street, Steel found Slaughter and his men pinned down behind a makeshift barricade of barrels and furniture.
Steel, Kretzmer and the two Grenadiers dashed for cover and slid down next to the Sergeant. Slaughter was hot with the battle, and his face was decorated with a long, shallow cut across the forehead. Steel pointed to it.

‘All right, Sarn’t?’

Slaughter put up his hand and wiped away the blood.

‘it’s nothing. Just a graze. Bastards took us by surprise, Sir. We’ve three men down, but we managed to throw together some cover.’

Steel poked his head half an inch above the parapet of a chair leg and glimpsed another line of French Grenadiers. Another fifty, perhaps sixty men. Christ, they had come in some force to do their filthy work. A company at least, and the men up on the hill. The end of the street exploded again in another volley of French fire. The British crouched as low as they could as the musket balls zinged through gaps in the flimsy wooden barricade. Two men cried out as they were hit. Another fell dead without a sound.

Slaughter spoke. ‘Begging your pardon, Sir, but do you think we might get out of here now. It’s starting to get a bit hot for my liking.’

‘My sentiments entirely, Sarn’t.’

Steel looked to his right where, as he had dropped down, he thought he had seen an open doorway. Sure enough, there it was.

‘Right, Jacob. I’ll take ten men and outflank them. We’ll go through that house. You stay put. See if you can keep them at the end of the street with ragged fire. When you hear me shout, have the men stand up and rush the Frogs. Use your grenades and then give them the bayonet. You know what to do. They won’t see you. Trust me.’

Slaughter looked at Steel. He had never had cause not to trust him and he certainly did not intend to start now.

‘Right you are, Sir.’

‘Go to it, Jacob. It’s time to make them pay for what they did to those poor bastards up on the hill.’

The Sergeant looked grim and nodded his head. He drew his bayonet from its scabbard and slotted it on to the end of his fusil. Steel edged towards the house.

‘Hopkins, Miller, Tarling. The first seven of you men. Come with me.’

Still crouching, he led them into the house and prayed that there would be a rear door through which they could exit into the next street. Inside, full plates of food on the table and a child’s doll lying on the floor bore grim testimony to the violent end of the house’s former inhabitants. Steel did not pause to think. Pushing Kretzmer into a chair, he put his finger to his lips and waved his hand parallel to the floor in an attempt to tell the man to stay there and wait for his return. He needn’t have worried. The sweating merchant, confused and terrified by what had happened earlier in the day and now aware of the full horror of which he had so nearly become a part, really didn’t look as if he wanted to go anywhere.

Moving into the kitchen Steel found what he was looking for and cautiously edged the door open. The street beyond seemed empty. Carefully unbuckling his belt, he laid it down on a table, unsheathed his sword and slung his fusil over his shoulder. His men did the same. There must be nothing about them to make any noise which might alert the enemy. The Grenadiers, bareheaded now like their Lieutenant, knew the drill that he had taught them so doggedly and soon each man was left with only his gun, with its bayonet fixed and two leather pouches, one with ammunition, the other containing two grenades. Each of them touched a slow match at the embers of the fire which still burnt in the grate and threaded
it carefully through a buttonhole in his coat, where it would smoulder until needed to ignite the bombs.

Waving his hand slowly along the line of the street, Steel motioned the men to follow him and left the house. He could hear intermittent sputtering musketry from up on the hill that could only mean the burial detail was still holding out. Perhaps too Jennings, wherever he was, had managed to assemble enough men for a spirited resistance. The Grenadiers stuck close to him, following the line of the wall. This was how he had taught them to fight. To use their initiative, hugging whatever cover they could and above all being absolutely silent.

From the parallel street he could hear the sound of Slaughter’s men delivering sporadic fusil shots and the occasional crashing volley in return as the French brought all their weapons to bear on the barricade, splintering wood and tearing through fabric with lethal ferocity.

Steel and his men moved slowly, with an almost feline stealth, along the line of houses, being careful not to linger between any two buildings. Within minutes they had drawn parallel with the French line. Three houses faced directly on to their flank. That would be enough. Making a circular sign with his hands to signify a grenade, Steel dispatched three Grenadiers into each of the buildings. They would know where to position themselves to give a sweeping field of fire over the Frenchmen. Steel and the last man, Hopkins, entered the centre building and climbed the narrow stairs. He moved at a crouch across a large bedroom and positioned himself beneath a half-leaded window. The Grenadiers waited only for his command.

Steel took a long breath. He calmed himself for the moment and with painstaking precision brought up his gun. Slowly, he eased the latch on the window and swung it open, at the
same time pulling back the cock of the fusil. Like all of his men he had already primed the pan. Steel reached into his ammunition pouch and drawing out a cartridge, bit off the end before pouring the powder down the barrel and spitting in the ball. With his left hand he took the ramrod from its socket and gently prodded the bullet home. Now he was ready. Edging forward to the sill, he took careful aim. The officer was his. Steel fixed him tight in the sights. He was a handsome young man, barely twenty perhaps. An Ensign. Williams’ exact counterpart. Again the thought crossed his mind. How could these men have done such a thing? Now was not the time to ask. Steel put his finger against the trigger of his gun and, comfortable with the familiar fit, began to squeeze. With a sharp crack and a puff of white smoke the image disappeared before his eyes and then all was chaos. Looking down at the street Steel could see the young French officer lying dead on the cobbles. Eight more Frenchmen lay wounded, dead and dying around him. The remainder, apparently with no officer now, had turned their eyes towards the three houses from which the Grenadiers were firing and had begun to take aim at the windows, but before they had time to fire a rain of black grenades fell into the street. The French ducked instinctively, but there was no escape. The sputtering fuses burnt deep into the packed explosive and the lethal metal shards did their job. All but two of the grenades exploded and the street became a mess of smoke and blood.

From his right, Steel heard a great cheer as the twenty men with Slaughter charged up the street and into any of the French who remained standing. Confident that the Sergeant would finish them off, Steel rattled back down the stairs and out into the street. There was no need for caution now. He could still hear musketry from high on the hill but there was
something else he had to do before going to the aid of Taylor or Jennings.

Crashing back into the house where he had abandoned Kretzmer, he found the man exactly where he had left him, frozen to the chair. Two Grenadiers stood guard over him. One of them, Tom McNeil, grinned at him.

‘Thought we should make sure no harm come to him, Sir.’

Steel smiled. ‘Very good, McNeil.’

He turned to Kretzmer. He had to act now, before Jennings returned, if the Major were still alive.

‘Now, Herr Kretzmer. We have some unfinished business to conclude.’

‘Sir. Yes. I have your papers.’

Reaching into his pocket, Kretzmer held out a small package to Steel. It was wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. Quickly, still holding the gun, Steel fumbled with the twine and managed to slip it off. Placing the package on the table he deftly opened one side and slid out what appeared to be the first of several pieces of parchment. It bore the ancient royal seal of the Stuart monarchy and a Paris address and was addressed clearly, in a long spidery hand, to the future Duke of Marlborough. Yes, these were the crucial papers.

Steel pushed the second purse towards Kretzmer who weighed it in his hand. He smiled and had just slipped it inside the capacious inner pocket of his coat when the door opened and Jennings appeared. He was sweating and his face was flushed with the exhilaration of victory. There was blood on his sword. Kretzmer winced. Steel pocketed the papers.

‘We’ve done it. They’re on the run. It was a damn close thing though. Lost a few men. What happened here? See any action. Oh, I say, Steel. You appear to have cut yourself.’

Steel wiped his hand across his cheek and felt the blood. ‘We saw them off.’

Jennings stared at Steel, then saw Kretzmer.

‘So, do we have what we came for, Mister Steel?’

‘The flour, Sir? Yes, we have the flour.’

‘Then our business here is done, Lieutenant, is it not?’

‘So it would seem, Sir.’

Jennings looked at his sword and noticing the blood, picked up a linen tablecloth which lay across the top of a chair and wiped it clean before sheathing it. He turned to Steel.

‘Now, Lieutenant, you will take yourself off up the hill and ascertain as to whether your burial detail has finished interring those poor villagers. Then you will find another burial party from the Grenadiers and bury the dead from the later encounter.’

‘Sir?’

‘You have a problem, Steel?’

‘I am to find the burial party from the Grenadiers alone.’

‘Why certainly. My men are far too exhausted for such work. They have just fought a battle, Steel. Besides, you pride yourselves on being the biggest and the fittest men of the army. Most certainly you shall find the burial party from the Grenadiers. Now if you please, Mister Steel.’

Steel, feeling the rage rise inside him, managed a nod towards Jennings and left the room. The Major relaxed in triumph and turned to Kretzmer.

‘Now, Herr Kretzmer. I have a question for you. You came here with something more than flour, yes?’

Kretzmer eyed him carefully. Unsure how to answer.

‘Yes. That is true.’

‘You have a paper. A parcel, for which we are to pay you.’

‘Yes, Herr Major. But you have already done so. The Lieutenant …’

Jennings brought his fist hard down upon the table. ‘Damn the man to hell!’

Kretzmer shied away from Jennings’ fury.

‘I am sorry, Major. Was that not right? He knew about the paper. He had the money.’

Jennings stared at him. ‘You fool. You stupid, stupid little man.’

For a moment the terrified merchant thought that Jennings might be about to hit him. Instead, the Major turned on his heel and began to walk quickly from the room. At the door he paused and hissed back at Kretzmer:

‘Tell anyone of this, and you’re a dead man.’

Outside in the town square, red-coated soldiers were busy collecting weapons and equipment from the dead. Jennings walked towards them, his hands curled tight by his side in clenched fists.

Since being rescued by Steel he had not held out much hope of being able to purchase the papers. So now, he thought, he would have to go to the trouble of putting his plan into action. He scanned the figures in the street and at length found the man he was looking for: ‘Sergeant Stringer.’