LITMIR.BIZ

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killed or horribly mutilated and the unparalleled exhilaration which came after a battle, that delirious moment when you knew that you had cheated death, once again. There must now be an opportunity for him to impress again, to bring himself to the attention of Marlborough and even the queen herself. He would be gazetted captain.

      A voice brought him back to the present. Slaughter cocked his musket: ‘Rider, sir. Coming from our left.’

      Again, instinctively, Steel’s hand closed around the grip of his sword and he made to draw the blade.

      The cavalryman rode straight at them through the mist. Steel saw a scarlet coat, but knowing that the French too dressed many of their finest cavalry in red, did not relax his hold on the sword but drew it further from its sheath. Slaughter took aim. It was only at ten yards that they realized that the man had not yet drawn his sword and seconds later they saw the green cockade that he wore in his tricorne hat: the allied field recognition symbol for the campaign. Steel recognized him as a young cornet of English cavalry.

      The man reined up, doffed his hat and spoke in clipped and haughty tones which marked his position as an aide-de-camp. ‘Cornet Hamilton, sir. Attached to the general staff. I carry orders from Lord Orkney for Colonel Farquharson. Can you direct me to him? Where is he?’

      Steel smiled at him and indicated the mist: ‘You’re guess is as good as mine, Cornet. I think you’d be just as well to give them to me. Captain Steel – I command Farquharson’s Grenadier company.’

      Hamilton frowned and weighed up his options. ‘Very well. Your regiment is to halt at once, Captain. You have advanced too far. The French are standing just beyond this ground. Ten battalions of them at least, as far as we can tell. You will halt and form your lines, here. No further.’

      Steel nodded; ‘Thank you.’ He turned towards Williams who had appeared from the mist. ‘Mister Williams, go and find the colonel. Tell him to halt at once. Form lines here.’

      As Williams hurried over to the left of the regiment, Hamilton replaced his hat and pulled round his horse. Steel watched him gallop away into the mist and losing sight of him, returned to the business in hand.

      A hundred yards away to the left, Cornet Hamilton picked his way with care through the redcoated ranks who now stood at ease in their regiments scattered across the hillside. As he approached the rear formations the mist gradually became thinner until he eventually emerged on the crest of a ridge. From here, even through the clouds of grey, the entire allied army was laid out before him. He rode slowly along the front of a regiment of Dutch infantry and found a knot of mounted officers, some of whom were attempting through their telescopes to get a better view of the situation unfolding below them. Looking quickly and unobtrusively at their faces he found the man he was seeking and trotting up, reined in, saluted and whispered towards him.

      Close by, but out of earshot, to the front and centre of the group, an upright figure in a red coat emblazoned with a garter star, his gold-trimmed hat crowning an expensive, full-bottomed wig, darted piercing emerald green eyes across the field. John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, captain-general of the allied army, turned to speak to the man at his side, William Cadogan, his trusted quartermaster-general: ‘You know, William, I would that we had gone into Italy, as I had originally planned. But I do believe that we shall beat the French today. So I really must not protest at that prospect. All things told, you must agree that this is good ground. What say you, Field-Marshal Overkirk? Will it suit your Dutch?’

      ‘We will fight the French wherever we may, Your Grace. This is as good a position as I have seen to cross swords with them. My men will not let you down.’

      ‘I am certain of it, Field-Marshal. I have every faith in them.’ He turned back to Cadogan: ‘Is that not so, William? We rank our Dutch allies quite as highly as our own boys.’ Cadogan opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by a small, dark-haired man with a prominent nose who wore a modest, blue civilian-style coat and sat on a bay horse alongside the duke.

      Mijnheer Sicco van Goslinga, the newly arrived Dutch field deputy to the general staff, had been deep in thought for some minutes. Now he was frowning. He shook his head: ‘I am sorry Your Grace, but I must protest at your opinion. It will not do to deploy on our right. You see the ground there is no more than marsh. With such hedges, ditches and marshes it would be madness to move infantry over such ground. You must agree, sir.’

      Marlborough smiled back at him: ‘Thank you for your advice, Mijnheer. And I shall take note of it and if it should indeed be madness then I give you my word that should it fail I shall summon a physician.’

      Cadogan suppressed the beginnings of a smile.

      Marlborough quickly turned back to his left: ‘Hawkins? Have we intelligence from the right flank? Are Lord Orkney’s men in place?’

      Colonel James Hawkins broke off from his conversation with Cornet Hamilton and nodded to Marlborough. ‘Aye, sir. I have it from the cornet here. They are this moment halted above the village. The right of your line is secure, Your Grace. Although Hamilton here tells me that we just stopped the infantry in time, or our lads would have been on the French already by now.’

      Marlborough laughed. ‘They shall be at them soon enough, James. That will do for the moment.’

      Half a mile away, to Marlborough’s right, another knot of officers stood before their men. Steel peered across the valley. At last the mist was lifting and the countryside was revealed to them. In the course of reforming the line, they had fallen back some fifty yards and found a small area of less boggy ground. Steel gazed now across acres of fields green with young corn, a rolling plateau of open country, quite without hedges or walls of any sort.

      Hansam spoke: ‘This is good cavalry country, Jack. The horse’ll have a field day.’

      ‘I daresay they will, Henry, but it looks rotten bad for us. We’re to take that village and as far as I can see as soon as we step off you can bet that the French artillery will open up. And not so much as a ditch for cover. Nothing to stop a ball from carrying away four, six … ten files of infantry. I wonder that our guns will not do the same, ere long.’

      Beyond the marshes which flanked the stream running below their position on a gentle hill beyond the waving corn, the entire Franco-Bavarian army stood before them, strung out on a front four miles long. White and blue uniforms as far as the eye could see, punctuated only by the red of the Irish mercenary regiments in French pay – the Wild Geese – and that of the cavalry of King Louis’ own bodyguard, the Gens d’ Armes. It was the whole might of France. Well, he thought, they had broken them at Blenheim and they could damn well do it again today.

      Williams spoke: ‘Seems to me there’s more of them here than there were at Blenheim, sir.’

      ‘You may be right, Tom. King Louis has half a million men under arms, they say.’

      ‘But we shall best them again, sir. Of that I’m certain.’

      Steel smiled and clapped the ensign on the back. ‘Aye. I’m as sure as you. Now, look to the men. Don’t have them standing-to for too long at a time. Stand them at ease a while.’

      As Williams looked to his order, Steel gazed down at the ground. For the last few minutes he had been aware that his right leg was slowly sinking into the boggy field. He cursed and began to doubt Williams’ certainty. Not here too? The whole area was sodden. How did Marlborough intend them to advance on this? Struggling to keep his balance and desperate not to reveal his plight to the men, he reached down with both hands to ease his leg free from the mud into which it was disappearing and swore gently into the cool morning. He gave one last pull and with a squelch the tall black boot emerged from the boggy ground. Steel shook his leg, tried to remove some of the mud and looked over his right shoulder.

      Slaughter was grinning, shaking his head. ‘You’re like me, sir. Must ’ave ate too big a breakfast. Don’t know when to stop. Always like that before a fight. Nerves, it is.’

      ‘Jacob, if I wanted your homespun wisdom on the subject of my diet I would ask for it. It’s the ground, man. D’you see? Too soft. Even here.’

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