by Iain Gale
The young Ensign, stupefied, began to get about his task and as Steel was about to walk back up to the barn, Jennings caught his arm. He spat out his name, smiling.
‘Steel. Why don’t I try and find Herr Kretzmer too. You stay here and see if you can get this mess cleared up.’
Steel was silent. It occurred to him that if Jennings were to find Kretzmer himself then the man might mistake him for Steel and offer him the vital papers. What, Steel wondered, would the Major make of them? It was imperative that he find Kretzmer. How though, he wondered, might he decline Jennings’ offer. To do so would be to disobey what amounted to a direct order.
He was still wondering when the cellar door of a small one-storey house directly behind Jennings banged open against the ground and up from the basement, like some demon emerging on to the stage of one of Mr Pinkeman’s famous plays, a white-faced figure emerged. The man was a civilian, his pallid features topped off by a dusty brown wig, his ample form straining against the buttons of a dark red velvet coat and somewhat under-generous pair of cambric breeches. From the state of his clothes and the straw in his wig, he had evidently contrived to get into some place of safety when the French had fallen upon the hapless villagers. The man caught sight of the red-coated soldiers and smiled, hopefully.
Jennings, unaware of the newcomer’s presence, stood grinning at Steel, still believing him to have been outfoxed. Steel smiled and coughed, pointing slowly towards the door.
Jennings turned around. Steel spoke:
‘Gentlemen. I think that we may have found our man.’
He nodded to the newcomer. ‘Herr Kretzmer?’
The man nodded. Jennings turned, unable to believe this latest stroke of bad luck. Steel continued, speaking in French.
‘Lieutenant Steel, Sir. You have, I believe, a quantity of flour that I am charged to purchase on behalf of Her Majesty’s army.’
Kretzmer smiled. ‘Thank God you are here. The French. I was terrified. It was dreadful. I managed to hide myself in the cellar. I just heard the screams. Did they kill them all?’
‘Everyone.’
Kretzmer looked at the ground. Wiping his eyes with his hand he shook his head.
Steel spoke: ‘Come, Herr Kretzmer. Let us do business. You have the flour?’
Kretzmer, ever the businessman, looked Steel in the eye and nodded. ‘Yes. I have the flour. If you like it.’
Jennings cut in. ‘I’m sorry, Herr Kretzmer. Aubrey Jennings, Major, Farquharson’s Foot. I am Lieutenant Steel’s commanding officer.’
Not quite yet you aren’t, however much you might wish it, thought Steel.
Jennings continued: ‘We have business, Herr Kretzmer. Shall we?’
Kretzmer led them across the village square to a tall stone building that stood by the church. He took a large iron key from his pocket and turned it in the lock, then opened one of the two doors. Inside they saw sacks piled high upon one another. There was enough flour here, thought Steel, to keep the army fed for at least two weeks. He called across to the cook, sent by Hawkins.
‘You there. Cook. Come here. Time to work for your keep.’
It had become common practice for civilian contractors to mix in sand with grain or flour. The only way to tell if it was right was to open a sack at random and the only person sufficiently skilled to estimate the likelihood of it being representative of the entire consignment was a cook.
Sitting himself down at a low table that stood in a corner of the store, Steel watched as the man slit open one of the bags, allowed a little of the fine white powder to trickle to the floor and then put his hand in. He put it to his lips.
‘That’s flour, Sir. Fine flour, Sir. As good as any we’ve had.’
‘Fine. Well that’s good enough for me. Herr Kretzmer.’ Steel motioned to the merchant and produced a purse. ‘You may count it out if you wish.’
The merchant, his sad eyes now bright with greed, sat down on a hay bale and undid the drawstring on the purse before emptying the contents on to a small bench table. Eagerly, expertly, he counted out the coins and flipped them back into the purse.
Jennings watched attentively and turned to Steel.
‘Best get the money put away once he’s finished, before the men have sight of it. Never good for them to see money, eh, Steel? But I don’t suppose that you see very much of it either.’
The door opened and Stringer entered.
‘Major Jennings, Sir. I think you had better come. It’s Murdoch. He’s asking to see you, Sir. Reckon he won’t last much longer, Major.’
Darting an anxious glance back at the two men, Jennings followed his Sergeant from the room. Alone now with Kretzmer, Steel watched as he finished counting the coins, then turned away. Now, he thought. The dying wish of Private Murdoch, wounded in the fight with the peasants, to see his officer had given him what might be his only chance.
He crossed the floor of the store and stood at the bench just as the man dropped the last coin into the purse and drew the string. Then, saying nothing, Steel placed his fists on the bench and slid one hand deftly over the purse, wresting it easily from Kretzmer.
‘And now, Sir. I believe that we have other business. You have something else for me. Something for which I am also contracted to pay you?’
Steel produced another bag of gold coins from his valise.
Kretzmer pretended surprise and smiled. ‘Yes, Lieutenant. I have your papers. Come. I will take you to them.’
High up on the lush, green eminence which overlooked what had been the peaceful village of Sattelberg, Major Claude Malbec, second in command of the Grenadiers Rouge, the most unruly, immoral and consistently victorious regiment in King Louis’ army, knelt down on the dew-sodden grass before his men and reflected on the little vignette that had unfolded beneath him. He smiled. He had not expected his quarry to be cornered quite so easily. He twisted an end of his moustache and considered his good fortune. Following the fight at Schellenberg, he had been sent here with his battered command by his senior officer, Colonel Michelet, with orders to find a Bavarian merchant bearing some papers vital to the war effort. Not plans or orders, he had been told, but personal papers of some significance to the Duke of Marlborough. It was a prestigious mission and Malbec was honoured. They had arrived earlier that day, but of the Bavarian there was no trace. Some of the townspeople said they had seen such a man. But no one knew where he was now. It had occurred to Malbec that they might be hiding him, but even under interrogation the men had denied knowledge of his whereabouts.
The massacre had been a little twist of his own, fuelled by his rising frustration at having failed in his mission. In truth though, he thought it now a stroke of inspiration. How it would incense the Bavarian peasantry against the British and their German allies and as word of it spread throughout the countryside, it would also undo any ill-feeling against their own leader and the French wrought by Marlborough’s burnings. True, a couple of his men had expressed their opposition to the killings. But for the most part there had been no problem. Besides, however much his commanders and those back in Paris might decry what Marlborough was doing, it was no different, in fact less severe, than the devastation the French themselves had wrought upon the Palatinate in Lower Bavaria barely twenty years ago. What hypocrites, he thought, in the high command. How long would they ever survive in the field. What did they know of the cruel reality of war?
Acting on a hunch that sooner or later the British would arrive to find the merchant, Malbec had taken his men off to this hill. And now his perception had paid off. He watched as the tall redcoat officer, who, with his strange appearance, looked curiously familiar, emerged from the building with the fat Bavarian. Together the two men walked across the square and the German descended steps into the cellar of a building. He re-emerged carrying a small chest. Malbec watched as the man unlocked the wooden box and carefully withdrew a small package. This must be what he had been sent to take. Now all that remained was for him and his men to relieve the Br
itish of their prize.
Standing in the town square, Steel looked away from Kretzmer for a moment and up towards the barn. It seemed to him from here as if his Grenadiers might have already filled one of the shallow grave pits dug in the field behind the building. Several of them, he could see, bareheaded and in their shirtsleeves, were starting to pull out yet more of the bloodied bodies. He turned back to Kretzmer and saw that he had extracted a bundle of papers from the chest. Steel was just stretching out his hand to take it, when he heard the first shot. A musket ball whirred past his head and struck the wall of the tall white house behind him.
‘Christ.’
Steel ducked instinctively to the ground, as he did so pushing over the merchant on to the cobbles.
‘Get down.’
To their left he heard a word of command in French and then more guns spat fire. Up on the hill four men went down from the Grenadiers.
‘Cover. Take cover.’
Keeping his head down, Steel pulled Kretzmer up from the ground and dragged him behind a water barrel. As other shots rang out across the street, ricocheting off stone and wood, he called towards where, from the corner of his eye, he had seen Slaughter execute a similar manoeuvre.
‘Ambush. Take cover! Sarn’t Slaughter. Are you all right?’
‘Fine, Sir. Never better. D’you think that’ll be the French then, Sir?’
‘Well I don’t suppose it’s the bloody Foot Guards. Tom? Everyone else unhurt?’
‘Sir.’
‘Evans has caught one. Think he’s dead, Sir.’
‘Where the hell are they? Anyone know?’
Slaughter answered: ‘There’s some behind that big house over on the right, Sir. A hundred yards, maybe less. Some more behind you, near the church.’
How the hell the French, if that was indeed who they were, had got into the village God only knew. But here they were and, unless he did something about it, Steel realized that slowly but surely, most of his men were going to die. And then, if these were the same men who had massacred the villagers, any who surrendered would almost certainly be butchered in cold blood. He thought fast and looked up from his position on the ground and around the village, assessing strengths and weaknesses.
The wagoners were cowering beneath their vehicles and the horses were whinnying in the traces. Three narrow roads led off the village square. One leading up the hill went to the barn and the corpses. As far as he was aware, despite the casualties, there was still the best part of a platoon of Grenadiers up there, under Corporal Taylor. Thirty more Grenadiers were in one of the roads off to the right with Slaughter and the remainder close to him and Williams. Of Jennings there was no sign. Steel knew that they had laid the wounded men from Jennings’ company in a large house further up the hill towards the barn and presumed that the Major might still be there with what men remained fit to fight. He would have to make do with the Grenadiers. Better that way, they were men he could trust. He shouted across the street.
‘Sarn’t Slaughter. You take care of the lot to my rear. We’ll do what we can up the hill. See you back at the camp. Good luck.’
He realized that Kretzmer was still with him. The merchant, shaking like a leaf, was stuffing the bundle of papers inside his waistcoat and trying to make himself invisible behind a barrel. Steel had no idea of the strength of their enemy. Certainly the fire had been strong initially, although since they had taken cover it had become more sporadic.
There was nothing for it. He turned to Williams.
‘Tom. I’m going to take ten men and create a diversion. When you can see where they’re firing at me from, take the rest and rush their position. You should only have thirty yards or so to run. They won’t have time to reload. Prime your grenades before you go and throw them when you’re ten yards out. Got that? Ten yards, then hit the ground. Wait for the explosions and then in you go with the bayonet. Right?’
‘Sir.’
Williams’ eyes were alive, the adrenalin pumping through him.
Steel looked around at the men crouching behind the barrels.
‘Tarling, Bannister, Hopkins. Come with me. The rest of you, go with Mister Williams. Grenades boys. Send them to hell.’
Steel looked at his men, then down at Kretzmer, who was whimpering. Steel cursed:
‘Oh Christ.’
He tugged at the man’s sleeve. ‘Come on. Venez avec moi. And run like blazes.’
Leaping from the cover of the wooden casks, they erupted into the street, Steel dragging the fat Bavarian at his side. Instantly the enemy musketeers opened up. Head down, legs like lead in a lolloping run, Steel, his arm firmly around Kretzmer’s flabby waist, cast a look over his shoulder. He could see two ranks at least, maybe more. White coats and brown moustachioed faces topped with bearskin hats. French Grenadiers. A half company or more. Regular infantry. Could these men really have been the authors of the crime in the barn? Steel was making for the safety of an open door in a half-timbered house across the street when he felt the balls from the first volley smacking the air around his head. He sensed that one of his men had gone down, but had no idea who. And then they were inside the door. Looking out into the street, Steel saw Bannister lying face upwards, a hole through his temple, and looking down the street he could see the French reloading, priming their pans. Come on, Tom. Where the hell was the young Ensign? In an instant it would be too late. Then, not a moment too soon and with an animal roar, Williams and his ten men appeared from behind the wagon. They charged down the street straight towards the French Grenadiers, the young officer, his sword drawn leading the way, his face split in a rictus of anger. Steel watched as the French, their loading not yet completed, start incredulously as the ten Grenadiers came straight for them. It was lunacy, eleven men charging nigh on five times their number, drawn up in line three ranks deep, their flanks secure against two sides of a street. But this was a madness for which the French had not allowed.
Steel watched with fascination as their expressions turned to alarm and then surprise as, at ten yards out, the Grenadiers stopped short and hurled their fizzing black iron balls. Then the full horror of the situation hit the French. He looked on at the different reactions. Some men turned and ran. One threw down his musket. Others stood rooted to the spot and watched in silence as the black orbs glided through the air towards them. Their officer, standing at their side, his sword raised ready to command another volley, stood open mouthed. Williams and his men threw themselves down on the cobbles, covering their heads with their hands. And then the bombs exploded. All of them.
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.’
