by Iain Gale
‘Good afternoon, Charles.’
‘Aubrey. Sir James. Bloody business this. Can’t say that I really care for it.’
Farquharson smiled. Jennings spoke:
‘Nor I, Charles, in truth. But it is what the army requires. Distasteful business though it is.’
‘Oh, I did not mean that I disapproved of it. Not at all. Quite so. Absolutely necessary. No other way. I was merely hoping to have been able to have spent the morning at drill. Most important you know. Now. Where are we? Where is the dreadful fellow?’
Another rattle of side drums signalled the approach of the prisoner and escort. Dan Cussiter was a scrawny looking Yorkshire-born Private from number three company. According to tradition, he was led by two Grenadiers and Sergeant Stringer, whose weasel face was suffused with a grin. Stringer relished all punishment parades and liked to see the men suffer. He would walk round the frame soaking up every moment of the agony, and he looked up now at Jennings with the eager anticipation of a waiting terrier.
‘Colonel, Sah. Permission to proceed with the punishment, Sah.’
Farquharson nodded to Jennings who in turn nodded to Stringer.
‘Lay it on, Sarn’t.’
Two drummer boys in their shirtsleeves had taken up their positions on the left and right of the ghastly frame. Their comrades continued the drum roll as the prisoner was led to the wooden poles. Steel barely knew Cussiter. Certainly, he had seen him many times about the camp and on the march, but the man had never made a particular impression. He seemed somewhat anonymous, not at all the sort of fellow you might mark out as a potential criminal. Steel wondered exactly what he had done to deserve this punishment. Theft certainly, but of what and of what value? True, in the measure of things a hundred lashes was relatively light. Some men were sentenced to 1,000 lashes and more to be administered over a number of days or weeks. At least in Cussiter’s case it seemed likely that it would be done in one session.
The drums stopped as the man was tied with one hand on each side of the central halberd and his feet spread out at the wide base of the triangle. A corporal pressed a piece of folded leather into his mouth, a precaution lest he bite off his own tongue with the pain, but also a gag to prevent him from screaming and thus further disgracing himself and the regiment. Stringer stood to the left of the frame and nodded to one of the young drummer boys.
‘Drummers, do your duty.’
Steel watched as the boy raised the cat o’ nine tails above his head and rotated it twice in the air as he had been taught to do by the regimental farrier. It seemed to hover in the air before the boy brought it down with a slap across the man’s back. Steel watched as the white flesh began to seep red and winced as Cussiter’s body arched away from the blow. Now it was evident why the fifth halberd was tied across the triangle. There was to be no chance that the prisoner might be able to sink his torso forward and avoid the lash.
Stringer’s cruelly jubilant voice rang out across the silent parade ground: ‘One.’
The boy’s hand came up again and again the whip journeyed round his head before falling on the white back.
‘Two.’
Now the drummer boy drew the tails of the cat through the fingers of his left hand, as he had been taught to do between each stroke, to rid them of excess blood and any pieces of skin or flesh which might have attached themselves. Again the whip descended.
‘Three. Keep ’em high, lad.’ The last thing they wanted was for the strokes to fall on the man’s vital organs thus resulting in his death or being invalided out of the regiment.
‘Four.’ The cat whistled down again, the thick knots at the top of each thong cutting into the soft flesh of Cussiter’s back.
It seemed interminable. After the first twenty-five strokes the drummers changed and with the new boy came fresh agonies for the prisoner as the strokes began to fall from a different side and with a different pace.
‘Twenty-eight,’ boomed Stringer, his face split wide in a grin.
‘Twenty-nine.’
By the time they had reached fifty, the halfway mark, Cussiter’s body was sagging down, but his head still seemed to be holding itself aloft. The drummers paused as Stringer stepped forward to investigate what seemed to be a piece of exposed bone. He addressed the Adjutant. ‘Think I can see a rib sir.’
Steel looked. It was true. There was a glint of something pearly white against Cussiter’s bloodied flesh.
Jennings spoke: ‘No matter, Sarn’t. Carry on.’
There was an audible groan from the battalion. The battalion Sergeant-Major responded: ‘Silence in the ranks there. Corporal, take names.’
Two of the officers opposite Steel also began to whisper to each other. This was certainly most irregular. The idea was not to lay the man open to the bone so quickly. The punishment should really be suspended. Jennings nodded to Stringer and the drummers began again.
‘Fifty-one.’
Having had the blissful remission of a few seconds without the lash, Cussiter’s back arched out in a new extreme of contortion as the next stroke descended with renewed fury. Blood splashed up with every cut now. The drummers were soon covered and it flowed in slow rivulets down the victim’s back to form puddles around him in the dust. Even Steel looked away and wished the thing might end. In whatever way.
Looking across the parade ground to where Williams sat, he noticed that the young Ensign’s complexion was now quite white. Farquharson face too had turned ashen and it was evident that the Colonel was attempting to divert his eyes away from the spectacle.
Jennings, on the other hand, was staring with ghoulish fascination at the wreck of Cussiter’s back. After what seemed an eternity the words came at last.
‘One hundred.’
Stringer turned away from the bloody tripod and addressed the Colonel: ‘Punishment completed, Sah.’
Farquharson, mute with emotional exhaustion, said nothing, but merely nodded. Jennings gave the command: ‘Take him down.’
At the words the battalion seemed to relax as a man with a great sigh of relief that it was finally over. Hands fumbled at the ropes binding Cussiter to the halberds and he toppled sideways into the arms of a corporal, then steadied himself on his feet and attempted to walk away. It was a brave show, but in reality he needed two men to help him back to the company lines. Steel heard the clock tower chime. Half past ten. Damn waste of time, half-flaying a man alive. He would now most certainly be late for his appointment. But how could he have excused himself from attending without giving anything away? Not waiting for the other officers, Steel quietly told Slaughter to take over and turned his horse back towards the lines.
It was a good twenty minutes past the appointed hour before he found himself within Marlborough’s campaign tent. It was quite a fancy affair he thought, as befitted the Commander-in-Chief. Its walls were lined in red striped ticking and on the ground were laid a number of oriental carpets. Several pieces of furniture stood about the walls. A handsome console table with ormolu supports and a camp-bed, draped with red silk, stood in one of the darker corners, while in the centre of the room lay a large, polished oak table covered in maps and papers and several chairs.
The Duke stood with his back to Steel, who had been announced by an aide-de-camp, who stood hovering beside the tent flap. He was hunched over one of the maps, his fists pressed down on the tabletop. In another corner of the tent, apparently absorbed in leafing through the pages of a leather-bound book, stood Colonel Hawkins. As Steel entered he looked up and smiled before looking back at the pages. Marlborough spoke, without turning round.
‘You are late, Mister Steel. Tardiness is not something of which you make a habit, I hope.’
‘Not at all, Your Grace. My sincere apologies. The regiment was paraded for punishment. A flogging.’
‘Never a very pleasant business, Mister Steel. But absolutely necessary. We must have discipline at all costs, eh? Be fair to the men, Steel, but be firm with it. That’s the way to make an army.
But now, here you are.’
The Duke turned and Steel recognized that face. Although it looked somewhat care-worn now, the brow furrowed as if by pain, yet still quite as handsome in close-up as he remembered. He had met the General only once before, at a court assembly, and doubted whether the great man would remember him. Marlborough, as usual, wore the dark red coat of a British General, decorated with a profusion of gold lace and under his coat the blue sash of the Order of the Garter. Most noticeably, rather than the high cavalry top-boots, favoured by most general officers, he wore a pair of long grey buttoning gaiters. He stared at Steel for a good two minutes as if getting the measure of this man to whom he had entrusted his future. Finally, he seemed satisfied.
‘Yes. Discipline is paramount. We cannot allow the army to run amok can we. It’s all they know, Steel. Good lads at heart. But how else to keep ’em in check, eh?’
‘Indeed, Your Grace.’
‘Now, Steel, to the matter in hand. Colonel Hawkins here tells me that you have been made aware of the importance of this mission. I merely wanted to commend you on your way and to hammer home beyond doubt the absolute necessity that you should succeed. This is no less than a matter of life and death, Steel. My death and now also your own.’
He smiled.
‘If you fail in this mission, if the document you seek should find its way into the hands of my enemies, they will as surely break me up like hounds falling upon a hare. And be assured, Mister Steel, that if you do fail then they will most certainly do the same to you.’
He paused. ‘I’m told, by my sources in London and by Colonel Hawkins, that you are a man to be trusted.’
He fixed Steel with strikingly cold grey-green eyes.
Steel swallowed: ‘I very much believe that to be true, Your Grace.’
‘It had better be, my boy.’
Steel felt a sudden impetuous curiosity which momentarily overcame his nervousness. ‘May I ask by whom in London I was named to you, Sir?’
Marlborough laughed. ‘No indeed, you may not, Sir. But I guess that you must already know. Shall we just call her ‘Milady’.
‘So then, Steel. D’you think you can do it? Can you save my skin and this blessed war?’
‘I shall do my utmost, Sir.’
‘Yes. I do believe you will. Bring me the papers, Steel, and I shall ensure that you are given fair reward. D’you take my meaning?’
‘Indeed, Your Grace. You are most generous. But in truth to serve you is honour and reward enough, Sir.’
Marlborough turned to Hawkins. ‘You were right, James. He does have a silver tongue. I can see what Milady must see in him. And I hear that you can fight too, Steel.’
‘I like to think I can acquit myself with a sword, Sir.’
‘I’m told you have a particular penchant for duelling, eh?’
‘Not really, Sir.’
‘Real or not, I won’t have it in the army if I can help it. Kills off my best officers before they have sight of the French. Waste of good men, Steel. Take my advice. Give it up.’ He turned back to the map.
‘What think you of the campaign thus far?’
‘Donauwö rth was a great victory, Sir.’
Marlborough looked up and raised his eyebrows. ‘Indeed it was, Steel. But tell me. Was it enough? You know that my enemies decry the casualties. What though does the army feel?’
‘It is war, Sir. Men are killed in any battle. The fact is that we took the position and drove off the enemy. It was a glorious day, Sir.’
‘It is war, Steel. But this is a new war. Tomorrow we advance on the town of Rain. We shall besiege it and we shall take it, cannon or not. But you, Mister Steel, you will not be coming with us. You have your own orders and two days to prepare for your journey. Be swift and be sure, Steel. For if you are not, then we are all ruined.’
Aubrey Jennings sat in his tent writing up the company reports. It was the most tedious part of his job and normally he would have paid a junior officer to do the task. This evening though there was a general amnesty for all lieutenants and they had leave to visit the local village. So here he sat doing the job of a quartermaster, numbering off rations and issues of clothing, equipment, ammunition, and rum. Besides, he thought, it did allow him the opportunity for a little creative accounting. Who, after all, would know that the actual number of pairs of shoes delivered was 300 and not the 600 for which he had indented? The additional money would go straight into his pocket. Not bad for an evening’s work, tiresome as it was. Jennings sat back in his chair, closed his eyes and sighed.
‘God, Charles. I can’t abide paperwork. We should have clerks to do such things. Never would have happened in the old army. You know I can’t help thinking that we may have our priorities wrong. What need have the men for new shoes when there are hundreds of perfectly serviceable pairs being discarded? The men never needed regular supplies of new shoes before. Why now? What does Marlborough suppose it will buy him? Popularity? Of course he’s right. But he doesn’t have to sit here and write up the damned papers for the bloody things. I tell you, it’s typical of the way this army is going. I don’t like it, Charles. It’s not what soldiering’s about. Reforms yes, of course we need reforms. But not like this. Not reforms for new shoes. We need reforms for new men. New officers and a new code of fighting. I’m not liked you know, in Whitehall. I’ve been passed over. I should have command of a battalion.’
Charles Frampton spoke from a corner of the tent, without looking up from his book. ‘You could always raise your own regiment, Aubrey.’
‘D’you suppose I’m made of money, Charles. Don’t be ridiculous. Waste my own money on clothing and feeding 600 men. No. I intend to rise by merit and persuasion. It is my right.’
There was a cough from outside the tent. Jennings looked up and then back down again at the ledger and took up his pen. ‘Come.’
Stringer entered, leering.
‘Yes. What is it Sarn’t?’
‘Have to report, Sir. Men are a bit low, Sir.’
Jennings looked up at the grinning Sergeant and put down his pen.
‘Perhaps I had better go and raise their spirits. D’you think?’
‘No, I wouldn’t do that. No, Sir. Not if I was you, Sir. See, it’s the effect of the flogging, Sir. Never very happy after a flogging the men aren’t. There’s talk as you should have had ’im cut down after fifty, Sir.’
‘Oh there is, is there? Well Sarn’t, see if tomorrow you can’t listen a little closer as to where that talk is coming from and then we’ll see if whatever big-mouthed miscreant is the author of that treason doesn’t get a hundred lashes or more of his own for his trouble.’
Stringer grinned his toothless smile.
‘Very good, Sir. I’ll get about it now, Sir.’
Turning, he made to leave the tent, but before he could do so an officer entered, his red coat marked out by the distinctive green facings and grey waistcoat of Wood’s Regiment of Horse. Jennings knew him as a casual acquaintance. Thomas Stapleton, a Major of no little repute, testimony to which was born out by the white scar which ran the length of his right cheek. Jennings knew him too from London.
He suspected that Stapleton, with his obvious allegiances, must be as disenchanted with the motives and ambitions of their great commander as he was himself. Wondering what business Stapleton might now have with him, he rose from the table to greet him.
‘Major Stapleton. How very pleasant to see you again. To what do we owe your presence? A drop of claret perhaps. Charles.’
Frampton poured a glass and brought it across to them.
‘Thank you, Major Jennings. That would be most agreeable.’
Stapleton had been blessed from birth with a speech impediment, pronouncing all his ‘r’s as if they were ‘w’s. It had the effect of making his already high-pitched voice still more comical. But there was nothing amusing in the expression he wore as he accepted the proferred goblet of wine from Frampton. He took a sip and got to the matter in hand.
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‘May I speak plainly?’
‘Major Stapleton. You may rest assured that you are among friends here. You know Captain Frampton?’
Major Stapleton nodded and then frowned: ‘Indeed. Nevertheless, Major Jennings.’
He raised his eyes towards Frampton. ‘If you would be so kind.’
Jennings turned to Frampton. ‘Charles. I’m afraid that I must ask you to leave us, briefly.’
Frampton walked slowly across to the entrance and Jennings, realizing that Stringer was still standing by the entrance to the tent, motioned for the Sergeant, too, to leave. Once both men had gone, Stapleton began:
‘Major Jennings. You will have heard, no doubt, that a wagon train was lately ambushed near Ingolstadt by a party of Bavarian cavalry.’
‘It is common knowledge, Major. Yes. But it was I believe of little consequence. It contained personal possessions mostly. No ammunition. No supplies.’
‘Quite true. Personal possessions certainly. A quantity of silverware and plate, fresh uniforms for the general officers. In fact the majority of it was the personal property of the Commander-in-Chief. What you were perhaps unaware of however, was that within those wagons was a chest of highly personal documents and correspondence belonging to His Grace the Duke of Marlborough.’
Jennings grinned. ‘How personal, exactly?’
‘The chest contained certain papers. Letters from his wife and so on.’
‘How very droll. Go on.’
‘The point is, Major, that finding no supplies of any military value, the Bavarian Colonel who captured the train sold on its contents to one of his countrymen, a merchant.
