Jack Steel Adventure Series Books 1-3: Man of Honour, Rules of War, Brothers in Arms. Iain Gale

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СКАЧАТЬ but the loss of an expected fortune from his uncle that had ruined the family and ensured that rather than school, his lot would be a miserable private tutor and an apparent destiny as a clerk in his uncle’s Edinburgh law firm. Steel had gone to work there at sixteen and that was what Arabella had rescued him from. And from temptation. For, coached by his fellow clerks, Steel had already begun to pilfer trifling amounts from the company books to pay for life’s little pleasures. Her arrival had taken him away from the inevitable fate to which that would have led him, and for that at least he would always be grateful. She had reopened his eyes to the beauty of life. Had reminded him that there were things truly worth having. Worth fighting for: love, honour, integrity.

      And now there was something else for which he was fighting. He was fighting for the army itself. His army. Every battle strengthened it as an army of which the new Britain – Queen Anne’s Britain, could be truly proud.

      Steel knew that however sound a job Marlborough might make of building his army, it was up to men like him, officers fighting in the field, to put the flesh on those bare bones. They were living at the dawn of a new era and Steel knew that what he wanted more than anything else in the world was to have a part in it. Although, perhaps now, he thought, there was just one more thing that he wanted. But she would have to wait.

      The rumble of iron-rimmed wheels over the cobbles signalled the arrival in the square of Kretzmer’s carriage. Steel got to his feet and walked across to where it had pulled up in front of the stone pillars of the covered market. Jennings, his horse at a trot, rode a few paces behind.

      ‘So, Mister Steel. Where have you brought us now? Another deserted town? D’you suppose there will be more cadavers to be found here?’

      He sniffed the air.

      ‘Perhaps not. But no people, for sure, hm?’

      Steel bristled.

      ‘I couldn’t say, Major. But I would hazard not. We are not far from our own lines.’

      ‘Oh, are we not? And how d’you come to that? By my reckoning we are a good ten miles from the army, if not more. Or are you lost, perhaps?’

      ‘I intend to send Williams out as soon as possible. It is my belief that he will find the army directly to the north. At no more than five miles distant.’

      Jennings smiled and dismounted.

      ‘Well, if you are so certain and the army is so close, why the urgency? We have time in hand, Steel, and an open town. Abandoned and thus legitimate booty for all to take. From what my Sergeant tells me its cellars and pantries are stuffed to bursting. Why not savour the moment? The army will wait until tomorrow.’

      ‘Do I have to remind you, Major, of the importance of our mission. Every day we delay will cost the army dearly. By tomorrow the lack of rations will start to tell. It is imperative that we return with the supplies as swiftly as we may. Williams must go forthwith.’

      ‘Do I have to remind you, Mister Steel, who commands here? In my opinion it would be far from prudent to send the boy off before morning. We have ample time. We rest here. That is an order, Steel.’

      ‘Very well, Sir.’

      Steel knew how to play this game – strictly by the book.

      ‘Ensign Williams has the column, Major. I’ll have him order the men to find billets with as little disruption as possible. The town may look abandoned, Sir, but I am certain that the Duke would not want us to indulge in plunder. I shall give orders for a moderate amount of subsistence foraging, with an inventory of all that is taken. And shall I also arrange the accommodation for Miss Weber and her father?’

      Jennings sighed.

      ‘Yes. As you will. Do what you want with them. I’ve had enough of her.’

      He turned and walked back towards the main street, calling for his Sergeant. Rank had undisclosed advantages, thought Jennings. It was vital to his purpose that they should spend the night here. Jennings knew Steel to be right, that the army was at the most a half day’s march from them. He knew that this would be his last opportunity to acquire the papers. Here, he thought, it could be easily contrived. Steel might be clever, but he was no match for Jennings and his Sergeant. Stringer was a natural assassin, as silent as a cat and as swift and sure as a butcher with a knife in the dark. He turned and looked back at Steel, who was opening the door of the carriage and wondered whether the Lieutenant had any inkling that tonight would be his last on earth.

      Steel peered into the carriage. Inside, he could make out Kretzmer’s lumpen, sleeping form, still bound and gagged. Opposite him, horribly close to her assailant, sat Louisa. She too was asleep, as was her father. Closing the door gently, Steel thought it best to leave them. He stationed a Grenadier at the carriage and walked across the square to a small terrace from which he was able to observe the bridge and the road into the town. The wagons were slowly moving in for the night although perhaps a score of them still lay on the other side of the river.

      Down in the reedy shallows he could see a half-dozen of his men. They had thrown off their clothes on to the grassy bank and were jumping about like children, stark naked, laughing and splashing each other in the simple unaccustomed joy of cold, fresh water. Watching them like that, stripped of their uniform, robbed of any vestige of military life, Steel felt more than ever like their adoptive father. They were his family. He knew their ways, their foibles, the reasons why they had joined and how they had come to be here with him. In his care. He felt a responsibility for them and prayed that they would, all of them, the good and the bad, get through whatever trials the coming days would hold.

      He was watching one man, John Simmons, a towering Glasgow navvy, as he attempted to duck a fellow Grenadier under the water for a third time, when something caught his eye upstream. A glint of sunlight on an unexpectedly bright object.

      It happened in an instant, just thirty yards from where his men were playing. At a point where the river rounded a sharp bend overhung with trees, they came into view. Fifty, no sixty cavalrymen, spurring their horses directly along the river bed, straight towards the bathers. One of the picquets fired at them but missed. The noise gave the alarm but too late.

      The water erupted in white spray under the hooves as they beat out against the sand and stones beneath and Steel felt sick to his stomach as he realized that the glint he had seen had been sunlight glancing off the polished steel blade of a drawn cavalry sabre. And then, with a great shout, they were upon the naked Grenadiers and the nightmare unfolded before him. His men never stood a chance.

      He had a passing impression of colours. Of pale blue coats, glittering with silver buttons and braid, red hats resplendent with fur and feathers and elaborate, fur-trimmed cloaks slung from one shoulder. Hussars. These were the new cavalry employed by the French. The cavalry they had modelled on the Hungarian light. Fast, skilled and deadly. He had never encountered hussars before but they were all he had expected, and more. The great curved sabres rose and fell and he saw the pale white bodies of his men go down in a sea of blood. Saw Simmons, his face half-severed by a single stroke standing incredulous, grasping at the place where his eye had been, until a second sweeping cut from a grinning hussar took him down. Another man, McCartney, stood clutching at his bare chest which had been laid open by a razor-sharp edge of steel. A third man bubbled and gasped as he collapsed in the pink froth. The horsemen rode round and round the naked soldiers, hacking at their bare flesh in a scene of nightmarish biblical horror, drawn straight from a painting by one of the Italian masters. Steel watched as the naked men clawed and grabbed at the legs of the merciless riders. Watched as one by one they went down into the shallow water, not to rise. Steel snapped away from the vision and yelled СКАЧАТЬ