why not? It is the very purpose for which the Grenadiers were created. We are the “storm” troops. We have the height, the agility, the strength. And, by God Jack, you know we have the heart to do it.’
Steel cast a sideways look at their company. They were giants among men. Not one among them under five foot ten. They had been chosen, too, for their experience and skill with arms; their ability to move fast and to operate on their own initiative.
They were the finest infantry in Queen Anne’s army and soon he would lead them forward, up the hill and, God willing, into the fort. To death or glory and the promise of a handsome bounty. Looking up again at the dark mass of the fort, Steel could not suppress a chill shudder of apprehension. He looked away and pretended to straighten his sash. Hansam sneezed again through his snuff, wiped his nose with the now discoloured square of silk.
Steel looked at his friend, who, along with him, bore the title unique to the Grenadiers of ‘Second Company Lieutenant’. With Colonel Farquharson keen to draw for himself the additional pay that came with the nominal command of their company, Hansam and Steel between them found that they now commanded the Grenadiers in the field yet without the status or pay of a captain. Nor had they any junior officers.
Their last Ensign, a weak-livered boy of fifteen, had left them at Coblenz – invalided out with chronic dysentery. As yet they had found no replacement. Steel spoke, quietly:
‘Of course, there is the bounty money.’
Hansam raised his eyebrows.
‘Of course, Jack. We cannot delude ourselves that the men will do it entirely for the love of Queen and country. Nor even, dare I say it, for love of the Duke. Keep them happy and they’ll fight. Oh yes. They’ll fight. For the bounty.’
‘I was talking, Henry, about our own share.’
‘Oh.’
Hansam paused, then grinned.
‘Naturally, my dear fellow. Of course. We may profit too. Point of fact, I never did understand quite how someone as financially limited and indeed as frugal as yourself, had ever come to have started off in the Foot Guards. Although perhaps now I do see your reasons for transferring from that illustrious regiment to join our happy band.’
Steel nodded his head. Hansam spoke again, smiling:
‘Perhaps, Jack … if we should survive, I might persuade you to accompany me to a proper tailor, in London. I mean take a look at yourself, Jack. Why, your hat alone …’
Steel looked down at the hat which he held in his hand. Unlike some Grenadier officers, he did not choose to wear the mitre cap, but preferred his battered, gold-laced black tricorne. In fact he habitually fought bareheaded. And anyway, at six foot one, as the second tallest man in the company, he knew that a Grenadier’s mitre cap would have made him look less frightening than absurd. Besides, the most precious lesson he had got from twelve years of soldiering, nine of them with the colours, was that to survive as an officer you should not offer the enemy too obvious a target and yet at the same time must be sufficiently distinctive to be instantly recognisable to your own men.
‘Well, Henry. It does let the men know where I am.’
Hansam laughed. For both officers knew that, with or without his hat, his men could hardly mistake Steel. Apart from his height, there was his hair, which rather than cutting short and covering with a full wig, as was the fashion, he preferred to wear long and tied back in a bow with a piece of black ribbon: another practical trick learnt on the field of battle.
‘I say.’
Hansam was pointing along the line.
‘We appear to be under orders.’
Steel could see that the galloper had reached the senior commanders of the storming party now. They had dismounted, as was common practice, to lead the attack on foot. He could make out Major-General Henry Withers and Brigadier-General James Ferguson, commanders respectively of the English and Scots troops of the assault force. Beside them stood the determined figure of Johan Goors, the distinguished, middle-aged Dutch officer of engineers, well known for his opposition to Baden, to whom Marlborough had entrusted overall command of the assault.
The officers had gathered near, although not too close, to the ‘forlorn hope’, a band of some eighty men – volunteers all, drawn from Steel’s old regiment, the First Foot Guards – whose unhappy task, as their name suggested, was to go first into the defences and discover by their own sacrifice where the enemy might be strongest. To put it bluntly, they would draw the enemy’s fire on to themselves. Most of them would die. But for those who survived there would be the greatest rewards and celebrity. Immortality even. At its head Steel saw the unmistakeable tall and handsome Lord John Mordaunt. The two had served together for a time and Steel had been somewhat surprised last year when Mordaunt had been refused the hand of Marlborough’s daughter. Perhaps the honour of leading the ‘hope’ now was some self-inflicted penance for that amorous failure. Or Mordaunt’s last chance possibly to win the admiration of the man who might have been his father-in-law. From the right, a squadron of English dragoons now approached their line. Steel noticed that each trooper carried in front of him across his saddle two thick bundles of what looked like sticks, tied together with rope. The cavalry broke into open order and began to ride between each rank of the Grenadiers, handing out the bundles of fascines, one to each man. To the officers too. Steel took his own realizing how cumbersome it was. These though were the vital tools that they were to use to cross the great defensive ditch that they had discovered lay in their way at the top of the hill, a short distance in front of the breastworks.
A thunderous roar made Steel turn momentarily and up on the gentle hill behind them he saw flame spout from the mouths of ten cannon. The sum total of the allied artillery had been stationed there, close to a small village set afire by the French in an attempt to impede their progress. Ten guns. That was all that they had to soften up the defences that lay above them. The balls flew over their heads and disappeared high up on the enemy position. Well, it appeared that at least someone in the high command was trying to prepare the way for their assault.
At the foot of the Schellenberg, all now safely across the stream, stood the formed ranks of the main army. English, Scots, Dutchmen and the men from Hesse and Prussia who had joined them at Coblenz. Steel watched as the evening sun glanced off the green slopes of the hill and the brown line of the basketwork gabions. Soon, he knew, this pretty field would be transformed into a bloody killing ground.
Instinctively, with the eye of the veteran, he began to calculate how far they would have to travel to make it to the defences. Four hundred yards perhaps. Hansam smiled at him.
‘Well, that’s it then. I suppose that we had better take our stations. No point in giving their gunners too obvious a target. Until we meet again, Jack, at the top of the hill.’
‘At the top of the hill, Henry.’
Almost before he could sense the hollow ring of his words, he was suddenly aware of the reassuring presence of Sergeant Slaughter at his side.
‘Ready, Sir? I think we’re really off now.’
Steel felt the old emptiness in his stomach that always marked the approach of battle.
He knew that the only way to appear in control was to force your way through it.
‘Very good Sarn’t. Have the men make ready.’
Slaughter turned
