Man of Honour. Iain Gale

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СКАЧАТЬ was a good twenty minutes past the appointed hour before he found himself within Marlborough’s campaign tent. It was quite a fancy affair he thought, as befitted the Commander-in-Chief. Its walls were lined in red striped ticking and on the ground were laid a number of oriental carpets. Several pieces of furniture stood about the walls. A handsome console table with ormolu supports and a camp-bed, draped with red silk, stood in one of the darker corners, while in the centre of the room lay a large, polished oak table covered in maps and papers and several chairs.

      The Duke stood with his back to Steel, who had been announced by an aide-de-camp, who stood hovering beside the tent flap. He was hunched over one of the maps, his fists pressed down on the tabletop. In another corner of the tent, apparently absorbed in leafing through the pages of a leather-bound book, stood Colonel Hawkins. As Steel entered he looked up and smiled before looking back at the pages. Marlborough spoke, without turning round.

      ‘You are late, Mister Steel. Tardiness is not something of which you make a habit, I hope.’

      ‘Not at all, Your Grace. My sincere apologies. The regiment was paraded for punishment. A flogging.’

      ‘Never a very pleasant business, Mister Steel. But absolutely necessary. We must have discipline at all costs, eh? Be fair to the men, Steel, but be firm with it. That’s the way to make an army. But now, here you are.’

      The Duke turned and Steel recognized that face. Although it looked somewhat care-worn now, the brow furrowed as if by pain, yet still quite as handsome in close-up as he remembered. He had met the General only once before, at a court assembly, and doubted whether the great man would remember him. Marlborough, as usual, wore the dark red coat of a British General, decorated with a profusion of gold lace and under his coat the blue sash of the Order of the Garter. Most noticeably, rather than the high cavalry top-boots, favoured by most general officers, he wore a pair of long grey buttoning gaiters. He stared at Steel for a good two minutes as if getting the measure of this man to whom he had entrusted his future. Finally, he seemed satisfied.

      ‘Yes. Discipline is paramount. We cannot allow the army to run amok can we. It’s all they know, Steel. Good lads at heart. But how else to keep ’em in check, eh?’

      ‘Indeed, Your Grace.’

      ‘Now, Steel, to the matter in hand. Colonel Hawkins here tells me that you have been made aware of the importance of this mission. I merely wanted to commend you on your way and to hammer home beyond doubt the absolute necessity that you should succeed. This is no less than a matter of life and death, Steel. My death and now also your own.’

      He smiled.

      ‘If you fail in this mission, if the document you seek should find its way into the hands of my enemies, they will as surely break me up like hounds falling upon a hare. And be assured, Mister Steel, that if you do fail then they will most certainly do the same to you.’

      He paused. ‘I’m told, by my sources in London and by Colonel Hawkins, that you are a man to be trusted.’

      He fixed Steel with strikingly cold grey-green eyes.

      Steel swallowed: ‘I very much believe that to be true, Your Grace.’

      ‘It had better be, my boy.’

      Steel felt a sudden impetuous curiosity which momentarily overcame his nervousness. ‘May I ask by whom in London I was named to you, Sir?’

      Marlborough laughed. ‘No indeed, you may not, Sir. But I guess that you must already know. Shall we just call her ‘Milady’.

      ‘So then, Steel. D’you think you can do it? Can you save my skin and this blessed war?’

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