the heat, Mister Steel?’
The Lieutenant looked up. Silhouetted against the sun a tall figure in a full-bottomed wig peered down at him from horseback.
‘A trifle, Sir James.’
‘A trifle, eh? I’d have thought that you’d have been used to it after, how many years a soldier?’
‘Nigh on a dozen, Colonel.’
‘But of course. How could I forget? You earned your spurs in the Northern wars, did you not? Fighting the Rooshians. A little colder there I dare say.’
‘A little, Colonel.’
‘Can’t imagine why you should have wanted to go there at all. Narva, Riga? What sort of battles were those, eh?’
The question was not intended to have a reply.
‘Well, Steel, what think you of our chances today? Shall we do it?’
‘I believe that we can, Sir. Though it will not be easily done.’
‘No, indeed. Yet we must take this town. It is the key to the Danube and the gateway to Bavaria. And to do that we needs must take the fort. And we must do it by frontal assault. There is no other way. You would say, Steel, that the rules of war dictate we must do it by siege. And you would be right. But we have no siege guns and thus our Commander-in-Chief, His Grace the Duke of Marlborough, dictates that this is the way it shall be done. And so it shall. We will attack up that hill into the face of their guns.’
He paused and shook his head. ‘Our casualties will be heavy. God knows, Steel, this is not the proper way to win a battle. It will not be like any of the battles you saw with the Swedes, I’ll warrant. Eh? Rooshians and Swedes, Steel. Indeed I can’t fathom what you saw in it. No Rooshians today, Steel. Only the French and their Bavarian friends to beat. Still. Hot work, eh? Good day to you.’
Colonel Sir James Farquharson laughed, touched his hat to the young Lieutenant and trotted away down the line of the battalion, his voice echoing above the rising cannonfire as he shouted greetings to the other company commanders of the advance storming party:
‘Good afternoon, Charles. Good day to you, Henry. We dine in Donauwörth this evening, I believe.’
Steel shook his head and smiled. Yes, he thought. He could see why Sir James would not understand the reasons why he should have wished to fight with the Swedes. That it would never occur to his Colonel to take yourself off to find a war. Soldiering for Sir James Farquharson was a gentlemanly affair. A thing of parades and banners. But if there was one thing that Jack Steel had learnt in the last twelve years it was that there was nothing gentlemanly about war. Nothing whatsoever.
He turned his head towards his men. Saw the lines being redressed by the sergeants and the corporals, the bloody gaps filled up from the rear with fresh troops. The dismembered bodies being dragged away.
‘The Colonel seems happy, Sir. Do you suppose he thinks we’re going to win?’
The surprisingly mellifluous voice belonged to Steel’s Sergeant, Jacob Slaughter. Six foot two of Geordie and the only man in the company broader and taller than Steel himself. Gap-toothed, loose-limbed Sergeant Slaughter, who had run away to join the colours to avoid being sent to work in the new coal mines of County Durham. Towering Sergeant Slaughter who was so terrified of small spaces, who couldn’t abide the dark and was unutterably clumsy in all manner of things. But who, on the field of battle was a man transformed, as skilled and calculating a killer as Steel had ever encountered. A man next to whom, more than any other, you would want to stand when all around you the world had dissolved in a boiling surf of blood and death. Steel greeted him with a smile.
‘D’you need to ask, Jacob? Sir James doesn’t think we’ll win. He knows it. Our Colonel raised this regiment, his regiment with his name, from his own pocket. He wants us to be the finest in the British army. It’s not just our lives that’ll be at stake up there. It’s his money and his pride. He needs a few battle honours. And it’s up to us to give them to him.’
‘D’you think we’ll be going in soon then, Sir? I’m startin’ to get a dreadful thirst.’
‘By God, Jacob. That thirst of yours is no respecter of time and place. Here we stand, about to launch possibly the most desperate feat of arms to which you or I have ever been party – and quite probably our last – and you tell me you want a drink. I tell you, Sarn’t, there’ll be drink a plenty if we take this damned town. Don’t you worry. I’ll personally find you a cask of the finest Moselle.’
‘You’re as fine a gentleman as I’ve ever known, Mister Steel, and I’ll take you at your word. But if you really mean it, Sir, I’d sooner have a barrel of German ale than any bloody wine – if it’s all the same with you.’
He paused. His attention drawn by sudden movement towards the right of the line.
‘Aye aye. Looks like we might be on the move.’
Following his Sergeant’s gaze, Steel saw a galloper. A young Cornet of Cavalry mounted on a handsome black mare, racing at speed down the lines. Here then, at last, was the order. And not before time. They had marched, halted and been ordered at stand-to since three o’clock that morning. Now it was nearing six in the evening. Surely now they must go. The men were restless. They would not stand for much more delay, or they would lose their nerve. Steel looked about him. Back down the slope he was able to see the massed battalions and squadrons of the main army, including the other ten companies of his own regiment.
Guidons and colours flew from their spear-topped poles, high above serried ranks of red, blue, grey, brown, and green as the allies assembled their might to follow into the gap that it was confidently presumed would be made by the storming party.
It was more evident than ever, he thought, what a rag-bag army this was. English, Scots, Irish, and an unlikely union of Dutchmen, Hessians, Prussians and Danes. Walk through their camp and you would find men communicating with each other by sign language, or attempting some laughable patois. Steel, ironically, had always found that the easiest language to use – that most understood by his allied counterparts – was the French of their enemies. He wondered how the allied army would hold together under fire. Oh, he did not doubt the Duke’s capabilities with their own contingent. But how would so many foreigners suffer being commanded by an Englishman? Nevertheless, you could not help but admire the sight.
‘A fine view, Jack, is it not?’
Steel’s fellow officer, Lieutenant Henry Hansam, was standing beside him, holding open a small silver snuff box.
‘Care for a pinch?’
Steel waved him away. Hansam took a good pinch and inhaled deeply before continuing:
‘Although little good it does us. We are quite alone up here. They expect a miracle of us, Jack. Nothing less than a miracle.’
He let out a loud sneeze, withdrew a silk handkerchief from his sleeve and wiped his nose. Steel spoke.
‘Well, Henry. Can we manage it? Shall we give them their miracle?’
‘We are the choice troops, you know. If we cannot take this position then most certainly it cannot be achieved. We are the chosen few. Forty-five times one hundred and thirty men, plucked from each English and Scots battalion on this field.
