Читать книгу Brothers in Arms - Iain Gale, Iain Gale - Страница 7

Sitting at the folding wooden table that had been set up outside a small inn on the edge of the village of Gavre, on the road to Huysse, Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Duc de Vendôme and Marshal of France, sucked the last of the meat from a chicken bone and tossed it to his dogs. He would not be parted from the two pointers that had accompanied him throughout this campaigning season and the last, and he had come to regard them as lucky talismans. Behind the Marshal the little group of French staff officers grew restless. Vendôme ignored them; said nothing; not so much as turned his head to acknowledge them, even though among their number were the Duc de Berry, the King’s fat grandson, and James Francis Edward Stuart, claimant to the British throne. In fact, he mused, his own pedigree was hardly less august. He was the grandson of Henry IV of France and by right a Royal Prince himself. And what, he reasoned, could there possibly be to say to them? None of them had accepted his invitation to dine. Vendôme despaired of his generals and advisors almost as much as he did of his army. Oh, the French elements of his force of 85,000 – ninety battalions of foot and 170 squadrons of horse – were sound enough, most of them. It was the foreigners who supplemented their strength that caused him concern: the Swiss, the Spaniards, the Walloons and mercenaries from various German states.

At least the Duke of Burgundy, son of Louis, was not among them. Vendôme was sure the Prince, apparently sent to learn the art of war, had in fact been sent to spy on him. He had not seen eye to eye with the Sun King since Italy, Louis it seemed being more inclined to take the advice of the Elector, Max Emmanuel, than the most experienced and loyal of his generals. Continuing to eat, Vendôme spat out a piece of fat. Well, he thought, soon the King would see just how expert Vendôme was at the art of war. And then he would listen.

Somewhere out there with the enemy, Vendôme’s cousin, Prince Eugene of Savoy, was manoeuvring his troops with his master Marlborough, attempting to bring battle on their terms. But the Marshal was not overly concerned. Hadn’t he defeated Eugene three years ago at Cassano in Italy? If only that ass Burgundy were not with the French army now, and ostensibly his equal in rank. For the first time Vendôme sensed the faintest whisker of a possibility of defeat, but dared not let it invade his mind. At fifty-four years of age and after four decades with the colours he was well aware that state of mind was everything in command. He looked down at the dogs, begging for scraps. Their luck would hold, and his generalship. He must trust to fate and experience, and think positively.

The sound of approaching hoofbeats made him look up to see a horseman, an aide-de-camp to the staff by the look of it. The man had pulled up at the inn and, on foot now, was casting around for the commander in chief.

‘Marshal Vendôme?’

One of the Marshal’s own aides directed the boy towards him.

‘Sire, I bring an urgent request from General Biron. He is under attack, sire.’

Vendôme stared at the young man and grabbed the proffered dispatch. Wiping his greasy fingers on the tail of his grey coat, he opened the paper and began to read, muttering as he did so: ‘Allied units. English … Prussians. Large numbers.’ He paused. ‘What large numbers? Overwhelmed? Overwelmed by what? By how many?’

The young man stammered: ‘Why by … by the enemy, sire. The redcoats are there. Infantry and horse too. We are being pushed back. They have crossed the Scheldt at Oudenarde.’

Vendôme crushed the message into a small ball in the palm of his hand and muttered under his breath: ‘Oudenarde. I’d have taken it in two days and avoided all this.’ He frowned at the terrified aide and spoke louder. ‘Biron is asking me for reinforcements, is he not? Well, you may tell General Biron that the Allied army is nowhere near us. If they are anywhere near his positions then the devil must have carried them there, for such a march is impossible.’

The aide, unsure what to do, decided magnanimously that the probable sacrifice of his military career was justified by saving thousands of French lives. He shook his head and stood his ground. ‘I beg you, sire. Look again to the south. I swear to you, sire, the Allied army is there, at least a considerable part of it. A full vanguard of redcoats, sire. Foot and horse, with artillery too. They are pushing us back from Oudenarde. They have already seen off a regiment of Swiss foot and will surely be doing us more damage as we speak.’

Vendôme cursed the man under his breath, but he had not been a soldier for thirty-six years and a score of them a general not to know when it was prudent to take advice. Putting down his goblet of wine, he grabbed another chicken leg and walked across the road, past where the officers were conferring, to the crest of the hill.

What he saw on the low horizon stopped him in his tracks and nearly made him choke on his mouthful of chicken. Below him in the valley of the Scheldt a huge dust storm appeared to have arisen. Vendôme might have been confident, but he was no fool. He knew the signs of an army and of unavoidable battle when he saw them. He swore, turned quickly and walked smartly back to the messenger.

‘Thank you. I’m sorry to have doubted you, Lieutenant. Yes, I do see now. Take a message to General Biron at Heurne. Tell him not to worry. He must attack the force to his front with all possible speed. I myself shall lead the cavalry to our left wing in support. Wait there a moment.’ He looked across to the group of officers. ‘Puységur.’

Vendôme’s Chief of Staff walked across.

‘Puységur, go with this officer. You’re to ride to General Biron. Order him to stand where he is for the moment. We have insufficient cavalry in his vicinity to offer immediate support. He is to wait for the horse before he advances any further. And be sure to tell him that he may allow their great general Marlbrook to come across with as many of the enemy as he likes.’

Both the Chief of Staff and the courier looked askance.

Vendôme continued: ‘Don’t look so bemused, gentlemen. It is all part of my plan to trap the enemy. Now go.’

He called to his private secretary. ‘Du Capistron. Take a message to my lord Burgundy. He must move the infantry of the entire left wing directly behind my advance with the horse.’

Vendôme crossed to the table and took a swig of the wine he had abandoned. He patted one of the dogs and smiled as he congratulated himself on his swift action. For once Marlborough had blundered. If Vendôme could act now he would trap him and a good deal of his army on the wrong side of the Scheldt. Pin him down with superior numbers and the natural obstacle of the river at his back. At the very least he would drive them back over their bridges and into the Scheldt. And all that his generals had to do was to act together. Surely that was not too much to ask of anyone? Even of that idiot Burgundy?

A large black fly had settled on a morsel of the bread on his plate, and picking up a huge pewter ladle from the table he brought it down on the insect, squashing it into the metal. He would crush this Allied vanguard just as easily as he had killed that fly. And then, before my lord Marlbrook could reinforce his ailing line he, Vendôme, would be in command of the river and its strongpoints. Then their great British general would be routed from the field and a grateful King would surely reward his wholly forgiven and ever-faithful Marshal.

Vendôme turned to the group of officers. ‘Come, gentlemen. Chevalier, if you please. D’Evreux. All of you. This is no time for lunch or gossip. Dinner is at an end. Come on. We have much work to do and a battle to win.’

There can be few more spectacular sights on any field of battle than that of a brigade of cavalry in full cry, and Steel was thankful for the diversion. With the French gunners having gauged their range, his men were beginning to suffer more than the psychological hurt of their tortured minds which had plagued them for the last few hours of waiting on this hill. Now at least there was something to offer them as amusement.

Steel and Slaughter, Hansam, Williams and as many of the company as were able to find a suitable vantage point watched, with the rest of the battalion’s front rank and other regiments close to the front of the brigade, as from the Allied left wing rank upon rank of high-stepping cavalry broke out across the field. They advanced sedately at first, at a slow trot, and then, when their intention became evident to the enemy, broke into a canter and a gallop, coming on steadily towards the French right flank.

Steel looked towards their goal and saw, sitting quite still and apparently unaware across the Ghent road, a glorious body of French cavalry; dragoons and horse in elaborate blue and red coats. They seemed utterly oblivious to the men moving towards them at an increasing pace. Steel could only assume that they had been informed by their commander that the ground to their right was impassable. The Frenchmen must have seen the Hanoverian horse assembling to begin their advance. He pictured their squadron commanders, sitting high and proud on some of the finest horses to be found in France, laughing in genial conversation, although they must have been quite aware of the movement on their flank. He watched them. He too had gauged the lie of the land and had noticed the marshes that ringed the position, presuming them impassable.

He found Williams and Hansam standing at his side. ‘Well, gentlemen, what d’you make of that then? Have our generals gone quite mad? First they keep us here the best part of the day, and now it seems they intend to send the best of our cavalry into a bog.’

Williams, apparently ignoring or unaware of Steel’s comments, spoke with curious and undisguised reverence as he stared at the cavalry’s advance. ‘It’s quite brilliant. Incredible.’

Steel looked at him quizzically. ‘Tom? Is it catching, this madness? Don’t bring it near me. What the devil are you talking about? You can see as well as I that that ground is utterly unsuited to cavalry. It’s a marsh, for God’s sake. Why, even the foot would be hard pressed to pass through that quagmire. It’s madness.’

Williams spoke in a tone appropriate to his junior position, yet firm in its purpose. ‘No, sir, it’s not mad. You see, that marsh is not what it seems. I had the truth of it this morning from Harrington. I don’t think you know him. He’s a cornet in Hay’s Dragoons, attached to the staff. Sound fellow.’

‘Get on with it.’

‘Sorry, sir. Fact is, though, it’s firm ground. As firm as that on which we stand ourselves.’ He stamped his foot. ‘It merely looks like a bog from the sheen of water that it keeps on its surface. Like oil floating in a bath, if you know what I mean.’

Steel stared at him and wondered quite when the young man had taken a bath in scented oils.

Williams continued. ‘Harrington says the engineers told him it could support a train of artillery and more. It’s brilliant, sir. D’you see? For the French are not aware of the truth of the matter. They’ll be cut to ribbons.’

Steel looked again and saw that now several of the French cavalry officers were pointing in the direction of the advancing Germans. They were laughing. He presumed that they would be mocking the decision of the Hanoverian commander to send his horse into a marsh. ‘Christ almighty. You’re right. Look at them, Henry. They don’t know. Haven’t a clue. They’ll be caught off their guard. D’you see? It is brilliant. Well done, Tom.’

The Hanoverian horse were advancing at the gallop now, for, as usual on the field, the sheer weight of man and horse together did not allow them to break into a full charge. But Steel knew that they would still have more than sufficient momentum to smash into the French line with full effect. The French for their part still had not moved, even though the enemy were now apparently crossing the impassable marsh. As Steel looked on, though, he noticed some of the French officers beginning to turn their horses away from the assembly and to rejoin their squadrons and troops. Within a few moments he realized that the French would learn the salient lesson that in battle there can never be any substitute for diligent intelligence. It was a lesson that would cost many of them their lives.

He recognized the Hanoverians now, General Jørgen Rantzau’s brigade of dragoons, part of Cadogan’s own command, a blaze of white-uniformed German mercenaries in English pay whom he knew bore no love for the French or their Swiss allies stationed behind them, all of them mounted uniformly on huge bay horses. Eight squadrons of Hanoverian horse, some twelve hundred men. A sparkle of flashing light caught his eye, and Steel saw the sun glint off the long, straight cavalry swords which rested on their right shoulders, honed, he guessed, to an edge like a butcher’s cleaver and constructed specifically so that the slightest motion exerted at the hilt might make the blade fall like a hammer on whatever lay below: flesh, bone or sinew. He looked on, horribly fascinated, as the Hanoverian horse closed with the French, who still had not moved. He watched closely and saw the final moment at which the French at last realized their peril. He kept looking as in a horrible instant there was a commotion in their still static ranks. He saw the sudden movements as the unflappable officers screamed useless commands to wheel to the right, to face the oncoming enemy. To draw sabres. But it was too little and too late to save the French, and now, as the white-coated Hanoverians on the big horses drove on relentlessly, the final act of horror unfolded before him.

A noise burst across the valley, which to the new recruits in the regiment sounded curiously like the crackle of a fire in a hearth. Steel recognized it instantly as the sound of musketry. Two hundred muskets had opened up from a battalion of French infantry arrayed in line to the right of the cantering Hanoverian dragoons. They sang out in a concerted volley, belching smoke and flame, and a few of the Hanoverians seemed to leap in the saddle as they were struck and toppled from their mounts, a fair number of which also went down in the hail of bullets. But the volley had less effect than it might have done due to the pace of the fast-moving horsemen who rode on oblivious, for such now was their fury that most did not even notice the musketry any more than one might acknowledge the annoying bite of a mosquito. Steel watched as the dragoons kept going in their headlong rush, drawing ever closer to the panic-stricken target of the French horse astride the road. This, he thought, was precisely what these men had been trained to do. This was the moment of which any horseman and dragoon dreamed but never believed would actually happen – to find an army’s weakness, catch it off guard and exploit it at speed. It was textbook stuff and almost unbelievably simple, and when executed properly, as here, imbued with a savage grace.

Then Rantzau’s men were up and in the French lines, scattering the enemy in all directions, moving through them like a scythe through corn, their huge blades falling relentlessly on skulls and necks and, held á point, skewering troopers where they sat helpless while the attackers’ horses kicked and flared their nostrils and bit at the enemy’s chargers, and even the riderless mounts of the men who had fallen still bowled into the French and added their weight and fury to the chaos and carnage of the mêlée.

Steel could hear his men cheering now as they watched the enemy in their death agonies. There was no room for mercy in war, he thought. No pity here, now. There were merely winners and losers – the dead, the dying and those who managed to remain alive for one more day. The French cavalry were lost. Twenty squadrons of them were swept to oblivion because of one man’s refusal to admit that he might have been wrong. As Steel watched, the blue and red ranks simply seemed to melt away in a mayhem of screaming bodies and whinnying horses, while the great white wedge of the Hanoverians pushed further into them like a hot knife going into butter. And still the blades rose and fell, trailing gouts of blood as they went. Beneath the hooves of French cavalry that only a few minutes earlier had looked so proud and confident, patches of ground had turned to a red paste. It did not take long for Rantzau’s men to push through the bloody ruin of the cavalry, then they were out and in search of fresh quarry. And to Steel’s horror they did not stop.

Of course, he thought, they were dragoons, and they were only doing what dragoons did best. Get into the enemy on as unequal terms as you can, and then hack them to pieces until the blood runs free. He knew Jørgen Rantzau to be a brave and experienced soldier. But however well led any cavalry might be, however fearless, how could you control such men once their blood was up? Then no amount of shouted orders, no bugle calls could stop them. So Steel watched as the inevitable happened and Rantzau’s blood-crazed victors were countercharged by fresh French cavalry. The now panicked Hanoverian squadrons attempted to reform, only to be caught in the flank. Unable to stop himself, Steel stood transfixed by their nemesis.

There was a cough from his side. ‘Now that’s what I’d call a bloody shame, sir, if you don’t mind my saying so. But that’s cavalry for you. See, sir, they don’t know when to stop. But what a show they put on, eh, sir? That German cavalry. Really beat up the French. We all saw it back there. Bloody marvellous.’

‘Yes, bloody marvellous, Jacob. You’re right there. And you’re right about the cavalry. They don’t know when to stop. Same with our lot, mind you. Remember Hay’s dragoons after the Schellenberg? Roaring down that hill towards the town? The Danube ran red with enemy blood.’ He smiled, ‘But you’re a fine one to talk of restraint, Sar’nt. In our day we’ve not been much better. After Ramillies I thought the whole bloody company was going to chase the Frenchies back to Paris.’

Slaughter grinned. ‘Well, sir, sometimes you just can’t hold them. Aye, and we would’ve done that too, if the Duke hisself hadn’t stopped us. But we’ll do it today, sir. Chase ’em to Paris if you tell us to. If we ever get the chance, that is. Right to the gates of bloody Paris and down that ruddy river to Versailles. And give old Louis a bleeding nose.’

He might not have been far wrong, thought Steel. France was only fifteen miles away. If they could really prevail here today, if fate was kind to them, and for the last few years the gods of war certainly seemed to have been on their side, there was just the chance that some time soon he might be leading his men into Paris in a victory march. And what a day that would be. He laughed with the sergeant. ‘Let’s hope so, Jacob. All we can do now is hope.’

He looked again across the river. To his astonishment it appeared that the French, emboldened by their success against the repulsed Hanoverians, many of whom thankfully appeared to have managed to retire in good order to the Allied left, had begun to counterattack down the Ghent road, towards Oudenarde.

He shook his head. ‘What on earth do they mean now? Can’t they see we’re here in force?’

Both men watched as four huge columns of pale-grey-uniformed French infantry crossed the little stream of the Diepenbeek and without any opposition took the village of the same name which lay to Cadogan’s left. Steel could make out more detail among the French now. He could see their officers and sergeants quite clearly with their spear-tipped spontoons and axe-headed halberds and the frothy confections of white and silver lace in their black tricorns. The French were getting close, being drawn into Cadogan’s cauldron. At once both men guessed that their time had come at last.

‘Stand the men to, Sar’nt. I believe that we may be about to advance.’

It was approaching four o’clock by Hansam’s pocket watch and, as he had suspected, Steel did not have long to wait. Even as Slaughter and the other company sergeants were busy herding the men back into neat files, he saw a galloper from the high command racing along the hillside, making for the towering figure of Colonel Farquharson. Finding his path impeded by the sheer volume of men waiting in the column, the rider pulled up short and Steel heard the boy’s shouted words high on the breeze.

‘Sir, my lord Argyle presents his compliments and would you lead the advance across the bridges forthwith.’

The ageing colonel looked somewhat put out by this ungentlemanly behaviour on a battlefield. Nevertheless, he nodded at the young man and, taking his thin sword from its scabbard with a conscious flourish so that it caught the sunlight and drew the eye, he made a half turn in the saddle. It was now the turn of his own low, gently cultivated Highland accent to ring out over their heads.

‘My boys. You’re luck’s in at last. We’ve been ordered to advance.’

He waited for the cheer, and come it did, just as loud and hearty as he had expected from his men.

‘Now’s your chance, my lads. Do your duty and bring honour to your Queen, to your country and most important to your regiment. We fight this day for Scotland and the Union, boys. For Queen Anne and the regiment. For my regiment. For me. Now follow me to glory and fortune, lads, and I’ll pay you all in beer and golden guineas. Officers, take posts. Drummers, if you please, your sticks. Major Frampton, advance the colours.’

The adjutant, Charles Frampton, stood high in his stirrups and waved his hat three times in the air. ‘Three cheers for the colonel and the regiment. Hip hip, huzzah. Hip hip, huzzah …’

The men’s voices rang out across the field and mingled with those from the other regiments in the vanguard of the brigade who at that moment were going through the same adrenaline-raising ritual. Steel turned to the Grenadiers and raised his voice.

‘Stay with me, boys. Look to your sergeants. Look to your officers. But most of all look to me. When we go in we’ll like as not leave the rest of the battalion standing. That’s why we’re here. First in, last out, lads. Stay with me. Sergeants, keep your lines straight until we close. Halt at sixty paces and give fire. And if you do that for me, boys, and if you stand when the enemy fires on us, then bugger what the colonel has to offer. I’ll stand any man a pitcher of rum that can beat me into the French lines.’

There was another huge cheer from the company, and then Slaughter and his sergeants and corporals were dressing the lines yet again, pushing them into attacking formation, a defile column of threes. This was the only way to cross the bridge. It was the most vulnerable formation for infantry, and looking at them standing fifteen ranks deep, spaced half open, Steel worried about the potential effect of enemy gunfire. Should a single cannonball find its mark in his advancing column it would not stop but would continue to hurtle through, taking with it heads and limbs, and killing or at the least maiming an entire file.

The drums beat up the march attack, the familiar rhythm of ‘British Grenadiers’.

Steel turned back to face the front. He said quietly to Williams, ‘All right, Tom? Ready for it now?’

‘Fine, sir, and as ready as ever.’

‘Then let’s be at them.’

With Argyle riding at their head, the brigade of redcoats moved off. Steel trod firmly onto the wooden bridge and marched as steadily as he could across its creaking, swaying structure as it moved from side to side across the string of pontoons in the river. Looking to his right and his left he could see on the four other similar bridges other officers leading their men in precisely the same way. Grenadiers to the fore, the mounted colonels behind them, bringing up the battalion. It was a heart-stopping sight, and it never failed to make him puff with pride: a full brigade of British infantry marching into battle. Surprisingly, his greatest fear was unfounded, and as they were crossing no French guns found them. Evidently the gunners felt themselves unable to fire for fear of hitting their own men. Once off the bridge they began to climb a shallow slope. Soon the entire battalion was following them.

From behind he heard the adjutant taking command of the regiment: ‘’tallion will form line. Right about.’

Steel half-turned his head and in turn shouted an order to the company: ‘Form line. Right wheel. Number two platoon mark time. Form on the left.’

Steel watched as Hansam deftly guided his half-company away from Steel’s and took it to the left flank of the advancing regiment, thus ensuring that each flank was covered by half of the elite grenadiers.

Williams took up the general order, followed by Slaughter and the sergeants, and instantly Steel’s Grenadiers began to wheel to the right, followed by the other eight companies of the regiment, pivoting on the right-hand man of each rank so that within seconds they were marching towards the east. Steel led them on. Sixty paces. A hundred. That would do it.

‘Left wheel.’

Again the Grenadiers turned, this time moving on the left-hand man, and as if by a miracle of choreography found themselves again facing the front and the French lines. To their left the remaining eight companies of the regiment were spaced at roughly equal distances, having managed the same manoeuvre.

Steel let himself relax for an instant. That was the first task done. Slaughter went along the front of the line, dressing it with his halberd. Steel saw Colonel Farquharson ride to the front, accompanied by Major Frampton and the battalion drummer boys, ashen-faced with terror in their gorgeous gold and blue livery. Again the colonel lifted his hand in the air and brought it down towards the enemy. Then slowly he yelled the order to his regiment:

‘Advance!’

Steel raised his own sword high in the air and flourished it over his head three times. It was a little showy perhaps, slightly Frenchified even, but he had become used to the gesture and the men seemed to approve and be fired up. He shouted the command: ‘Advance!’ Steel lingered on the first syllable and on the last brought down the sword so that was pointing directly towards the enemy. Then he laid it gently on his shoulder. With the drums beating the steady rhythm of the Grenadiers’ march, the entire line, close on five thousand men, began to climb the hill from the river. Soon they found themselves parallel with a road running across the battlefield, southwest to northeast, lined on both sides with tall poplar trees.

Steel reckoned that they were now halfway to the French lines, and as he began to calculate the distance and how long it might take them to make contact should they continue their advance the guns on the hill in front of them opened up. He called out, ‘Steady!’ But hardly had he said it than the first cannonball whistled into their line and cut a swathe through the Grenadiers.

‘Steady, lads. With me.’

He wondered how many batteries the French had ranged against them. Cursed himself for not having counted them when he could have. Behind him the rank and file continued their advance, despite the lethal rain of shot now flying towards them. Good, he thought: words of encouragement, camaraderie and most importantly the hard pikestaffs of the sergeants were doing, had done, their job. Another fifty paces. A hundred and they were getting close enough to see the regimental facings of the enemy infantry when the drifting smoke allowed. The smell of powder invaded his nostrils and he wondered whether perhaps he shouldn’t have accepted Hansam’s generous offer of some snuff. Perhaps he would take it up before the next battle. It wouldn’t be long now, he thought. Not long until they felt the sting of musket fire from those men on the hill. Looking to the right he could see that they were beginning to draw parallel with what remained of Cadogan’s original holding force.

Suddenly, from his left three horsmen appeared. Steel recognized one of them as the Duke of Argyle. From behind he heard Frampton’s shouted battalion command and a change in the drum beat: ‘Wheel to your right.’

As one, the line of redcoats began to turn, and then, led by the Scottish general, continued to advance up the slope, obliquely towards the French guns.

This was new madness, thought Steel. A cannonball tossed at them now would bowl through them like ninepins. And, sure enough, the roundshot began to pour in. There was a cry from his rear and Steel turned momentarily to see the body of a Grenadier crumple to the ground minus its head and gouting blood, its gaiters still stained yellow with vomit. One of the new lads, he thought. Poor bugger. But at the same time, like any soldier under fire, he was well aware that it could as well have been him and he muttered a silent prayer to providence for sparing him – yet again.

Casting a glance to the left he saw that their place on that side of the line was gradually being taken by a mass of foreign infantry. Perhaps a score of battalions of Prussians and Hanoverians in blue and red had crossed over the pontoon bridges in their wake and were labouring up the hill before the French could turn their flank. In turning now they passed in line through the small hamlet of Schaerken, abandoned it seemed by its sensible inhabitants. It had not been much damaged in the fighting as yet, although one house had been set on fire. Thankfully, thought Steel, it was not the inn.

He pointed at the tavern sign and yelled out to anyone that might be in earshot: ‘There we are, boys. Didn’t I tell you if we took this field I’d buy you the best in the house? Well, there’s the bloody house. Remember it. Follow me to the French and after we’ve won I’ll wager the Duke himself will stand you to anything that’s on the menu there.’

There was a cheer, but only from the veterans. The new, green troops, he noticed, although they continued to advance doggedly, said nothing.

Another cannonball crashed into their ranks and left a sea of groaning dead and wounded men. From somewhere within the confused tangle of dead, wounded and unscathed bodies a single voice began to sing. Private Coles was doing what he always did, fending off the bullets with an invocation to the Almighty. It was a song, although Steel himself would have been the first to say that it was hardly what you might have called a melody:

‘Bless the Lord, O my soul,

And all that is within me

Bless his holy name.

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

And forget not all his benefits,

Who forgiveth all thine iniquities;

Who healeth all thy diseases;

Who redeemeth thy life from destruction;

Who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies …’

Clearly the man intended to continue, but as they walked on over the dead and wounded, trying in vain not to walk on living flesh, Steel heard another voice rise above the holy words. Slaughter growled out an order: ‘Coles. I’ll give you tender bloody mercies. There’s no mercies here. Nor no benefits or kindness either. Now shut that noise.’

‘But, Sarge, it’s the 103rd Psalm. It’s the Lord’s word.’

‘I don’t care if it’s the first bloody Psalm or if your sainted bloody mother wrote the whole of the bloody book. Shut your wailing now or you’ll be on sergeant’s orders for the rest of the month. That is if you live through this bloody battle, which, given your closeness to the Almighty, I very much doubt. He must be keen to see you, Coles, you talk to him so much. But I’ve got no appointment with him, so shut your bleeding trap or I’ll do it for you. Last thing I want on this battlefield is a bloody bible-basher. Upsets the men.’

But the God-fearing Coles was not finished: ‘But they seem to like it, Sarge.’

‘Coles. What is it you don’t understand? Are you a fool as well as deaf? I don’t care what the men like and what they don’t like. Fact is, I don’t like it! So shut your trap.’

‘Yes, Sarge.’

For all the fire pouring in on them from the hill, Slaughter’s clever outburst had broken the spell of death that had hung over the advancing company, and a few of the men were grinning now.

Then Steel heard another voice, one of the recruits: ‘Bloody hell, Sarge. I mean, look, sir.’

Steel looked up to his front and peered into the clearing smoke. What met his gaze almost brought him to a standstill. It was everything he could do to carry on. For directly in front of them, at a distance of perhaps eighty yards, was an endless, unbroken line of grey-coated French infantry. As Steel looked on they levelled their muskets until he was staring down the barrel into the blackness of oblivion.

He called back: ‘Steady, boys. Keep going now. Not long –’ But the last syllable of his words was clipped away by the crash as the fire from four hundred muskets spat four hundred three-quarter-ounce balls that ripped holes in James Farquharson’s red-coated regiment of foot. Steel looked quickly over to the left to where the colonel had been riding with the colours and drummers at his side. Miraculously Sir James appeared to be unhurt. One of the drummer boys was down and dead, and Steel saw the brass spike-tipped top of one of the flagstaffs falter, indicating that an ensign had been hit, but then the colour was raised up again. Several gaps had appeared among his own company. But this was no time to think of losses.

‘Close up. Close your ranks. Keep going. With me.’

The order was repeated along the line as sergeants and corporals ran along the files.

A faint cry arose above the cacophony of drums, cries of pain, flying shot and yelling men: ‘Halt.’

Major Frampton had halted the entire battalion sixty paces from the enemy – the exact prescribed distance for a volley. Steel noticed that the two sides were separated by a small stream which ran down from the top of the big hill they called the Boser Couter and along the entire Allied front line. He saw too that the French were already reloading. He barked out the command and slipped quickly between the ranks to a new position.

He found Slaughter. ‘We’ll give them a firefight here, Jacob. By platoons. We can do better than that ragged excuse for a volley, eh? And by God we’ll give them a shock.’

By prior orders from the brigade, Steel’s Grenadiers were not to be held as was the usual practice in reserve during such a firefight, but would loose off their own volleys, adding to the firepower of the battalion.

‘Firing by platoon, sir?’

‘Fire by platoon, Sar’nt. Three firings each of six platoons. And the only means they have of countering such a fire is to come at us, as they will, with the bayonet. And frankly, Sar’nt, I don’t think they’ve the stomach for it today. So what will they do? Stand and fire at us? They can get off three shots a minute at the most. And I warrant they’ll not manage two. And then we’ll have at them.’

Slaughter nodded, knowing the grim truth in Steel’s words: Farquharson’s, like the other regiments in the British army, was composed of nine companies each of a field strength of around fifty men, and each of those companies was subdivided into two, including the Grenadiers. In a firefight such as this they would be ‘told off’ as one and two. The trick was that within each of those two platoons another six units or small platoons had also been nominated, and it was these which provided the continuous fire which the French had come to fear so much. Using this system, Farquharson’s and the other British foot would be able to fire six small volleys every minute. And, Steel asked himself, what troops in all the world could stand under a volley every ten seconds?

He barked the command: ‘Advance to half distance. Make ready.’

Down the line the men cocked their muskets and the front rank knelt on their right knees, placing the butt on the ground with their thumbs on the cock and their finger on the trigger. Behind them the second and third ranks closed forward.

‘Sar’nt, I think that we might dress the lines. Keep the barrels down. You know the drill. The new lads might think they’re on a partridge shoot.’ He turned back to the line: ‘Present.’

Along the length of the company and all the way down the long line of the regiment, all three ranks raised their weapons: Tower Armoury weapons, the finest that modern technology could produce, forty-six inches long, brass mounted and firing a .76 calibre ball.

Slaughter smiled and wandered off to line his pike along the levelled musket barrels until they were all pointing roughly towards the enemy’s stomachs. An inaccurate musket might easily miss the killing zone of a head. But a shot that went into the torso, packed as it was with vital organs, even if it didn’t kill a man, would certainly render him hors de combat for the rest of the action.

Steel sensed that someone was behind him, and turning found the odious adjutant, Major Frampton, looking down at him from horseback as he made his way along the flank, ordering the lines.

Frampton nodded at Steel. ‘Steel. Good day. Your men look keen. Keep them to the fore, Steel. They are Grenadiers, you know.’

He smiled, not meaning the compliment, and rode off to the other flank. Steel wondered whether he would survive. Unpopular mounted officers, and few were more unpopular than Charles Frampton, made a tempting target if you had a crack shot in the battalion. He brushed fantasy aside and turned back to the job in hand.

Frampton’s voice rang out to the battalion: ‘First firing. Take care … Fire!’

But the French had now reloaded and as the guns fired from the British line, so they did from the enemy ranks. It seemed to Steel that the air had become a storm of musket balls, and he saw men fall all along the red-coated line. But then looking across he saw through the smoke to his left that the French too had taken losses. The regimental drummers beat a short preparative tattoo which had the men at the ready.

Again Frampton’s voice sang out: ‘Second firing … fire.’ The second platoon fired and more of the grey-coated infantry fell. But the slower French had not yet reloaded and were unable to return fire.

The drums beat up again. And again the command came: ‘Third firing.’ It was the turn of the Grenadiers this time. They cocked their weapons.

‘Fire!’ A deafening report was followed by billowing white smoke, and Steel knew that by now the French would be suffering badly. And all this in only thirty seconds. The theory was that it should be possible for 2,000 men to fire 10,000 rounds in a single minute. Looking down the line and all along the brigade, Steel wondered whether today might not prove the theorists right.

He shouted the command: ‘Grenadiers. Reload. Make ready.’

As he did so the first firing, already reloaded, loosed off another volley. And so it went on. Not one volley but a continuous ripple which ran up and down the Allied line. The French, now themselves reloaded, managed to fire again, and again men fell among the Grenadiers. But the storm of lead pouring out of the British ranks was just too continuous. Too relentless. Too deadly.

For fully five minutes they kept it up. Near on thirty volleys, until the barrels of the muskets began to overheat and men burnt their fingers on the metal. The smoke was chokingly dense now and there was no way to tell the condition of the enemy. Only a man on horseback, above the hell down in the ranks, might know.

Steel heard Frampton’s voice: ‘Cease firing.’

Now clearly what the commander had in mind was a manoeuvre agreed upon and ordered by the regiment and indeed every British brigade in the army. ‘Advance by platoons.’

The adjutant’s voice rang out again: ‘Advance.’

Quickly the Grenadiers went forward, making sure that their pace was fast enough to ensure that when they stopped after twenty paces their rear rank was level with the front rank of the rest of the line.

Steel shouted the command to the half company: ‘Halt. Ready. Present. Fire!’

The muskets sang and he knew that the same was happening with each individual platoon along the line.

‘Advance.’

The platoon to his immediate left repeated the Grenadiers’ move and then delivered another volley. They were nearing the French now and Steel could see the raw fear on the faces of men who had never before experienced such terrible firepower as that currently being thrown at them.

The enemy barely managed another volley. The balls rushed past Steel, most at a harmless level, and thudded into the earth as a number of the enemy turned and fled.

His blood up now, Steel half turned to his men: ‘Now, boys. Into them.’

Whirling the razor-sharp Italian broadsword above his head, he ran headlong into the French line and, sweeping aside the musket and bayonet of a terrified infantryman, hit him full in the chest with his body weight. Doing so, he sensed the entire line buckle as the best part of three thousand men made contact. The man reeled back, Steel brought down the great sword and felt it judder as it made contact with the Frenchman’s skull. Then he was on again, clambering over the bleeding corpse and pushing into the second rank. This man did not wait but turned and fled. To Steel’s left and right men went in with the bayonet. One of the Frenchmen threw down his musket, but it was too late. He died still pleading to be spared.

There was no point in trying to take prisoners in the first rush on such a field. ‘No quarter’ was the only rule of war at this level when men who had been standing under cannon fire for hours and then received close-range musketry were finally given free rein. All you could do as a defender was either to stand your ground and fight, or run. Most of the French were running.

‘Halt. Stand your ground.’

Steel knew that even though the enemy appeared to be retreating their victory would be short-lived. From their start position he had seen the French second and third lines up on the high ground and was well aware that as soon as the news arrived that the front line had collapsed they would counterattack.

He turned to Slaughter. ‘Sar’nt, we’d better get ready to receive their attack. It’s sure to come.’

Slaughter nodded and walked towards the company. ‘Come on, lads. The day’s not over yet. Let’s give them a warm welcome when they come back.’

‘D’you think they will come back, Sarge?’

It was Norris, one of the new intake, a huge costermonger’s lad from Bow who had fancied his chances with an exotic-sounding Scottish regiment and whose size was not quite matched by his intellect.

‘Nah, Norris. They’ll not come back. But their brothers will. And they’re bigger and more evil than those buggers. Twice as horrible and twice as hungry for your blood, son. So you’d better make sure that yer musket’s oiled and yer bayonet’s clean.’

The recruit stared at him in horror. ‘Yes, Sarge.’

Another of the men spoke, one of this Scots-raised regiment’s few remaining genuine Scotsmen: ‘How did you manage to see them Frenchies, Sarge? You was nowhere near ’em. Same as us.’

‘Second sight, Mister Macrone. Second sight. That’s what I’ve got, isn’t it? And you’d be best to remember that. Next time you take a fancy to some illicit booty.’

They walked among the dead and wounded, lifting whatever they could salvage in the way of equipment and ammunition. Unused French musket balls and cartridges were scooped up and stuffed into cartouche boxes. While the British infantry fired sixteen balls to the pound the French fired twenty-four, making each ball lighter and smaller. They might not fit the British muskets exactly, the excess ‘windage’ between barrel and ball causing them to fly out at erratic angles, but in the desperate moments of a long firefight, when you were down to the last few rounds a man, a few captured enemy musket balls could make all the difference between winning and losing.

Now too was the time for prisoners, though you had to be careful and it was better to poke a bayonet into a man’s ribs – just to make sure – than pay for the consequences. Steel looked away and saw, down the hill, that the pontoon bridges were brimming with grey-coated infantry, Dutchmen, who were spilling off and moving up towards the Allied left wing.

The brigade was astride a stream now as it flowed downhill and into the Scheldt, and several of the men were stooping to drink. Slaughter saw them. ‘I shouldn’t do that, Cussiter. You don’t know what’s been in it.’

Taylor echoed his advice. ‘Aye, Dan. Most likely some Frenchy’s pissed in it. Or worse.’

Cussiter spat and swore, and the others who had been moving to the water thought better of it.

Steel laughed. ‘This is thirsty work, lads. But don’t forget my promise. Anything in that inn if you take the hill, and I’m paying. Just keep the French out of the village and then send the buggers back to Paris, or send them to hell.’