Rules of War. Iain Gale

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СКАЧАТЬ assume that Major van Cutzem’s order simply did not reach us. Wouldn’t you say?’

      Slaughter laughed: ‘Order, sir? I can’t mind any order from the major.’

      ‘You see. Let me do the thinking.’ Steel turned to the company: ‘Grenadiers. With me.’

      Hansam walked towards him: ‘Is this wise, Jack? To disobey an order so blatantly? It is a court-martial offence.’

      ‘I accept full responsibility. I am the senior officer, Henry. Do not worry. You are exonerated. We must take the village. We cannot rely upon our masters to notice every ebb and flow of the situation on the ground. It seems that the duke is engaged in a great cavalry battle to our left wing. It’s up to men like you and I, Henry. You know that at the crisis it is ever not the generals but the men and the officers in the field – the captains, lieutenants and ensigns and not least the common soldier – who change the course of a battle.’

      Hansam nodded: ‘Very well, Jack. But should we fail they will throw us to the dogs, for certain.’

      Steel laughed and grasped his friend by both shoulders: ‘But we shall not fail, Henry, you and I. Poor Tom – that he should miss this for naught but a scratch.’

      Slaughter had formed the company into the assault formation, doubling the ranks to extend the line and ensure that every man would be able to find a target when the moment came. ‘You heard the officer. Sling your fusils. Make ready your grenades.’

      Instantly, sixty pairs of hands draped the thick leather slings of their weapons over right shoulders and fumbled with the straps of the big black leather bags which hung at their right hips. Each of them contained four hollow three-inch-diameter iron balls weighing some two pounds filled with gunpowder, stopped with a wooden plug and topped with a fuse of hemp dipped in saltpetre: grenades. Slaughter barked another command and the company moved to the left with Steel and Hansam at their front.

      They had gone hardly twenty yards when from Steel’s left came a shout. ‘Hello! I say, wait there, Captain Steel. What are you doing? I have orders here to advance. Do not leave. You attack with us.’

      Steel raised his hand and Slaughter barked the command to halt.

      Major van Cutzem rode up to the head of the assault column. ‘Captain Steel. Where are you going? Have you new orders. From whom?’

      ‘I have, Major. Directly from Lord Argyll who commands a brigade in Dutch service. I am ordered to attack Ramillies.’

      ‘But Lord Argyll does not command you. I do. And I have orders to attack Ramillies – with you.’

      ‘I take my orders from Lord Argyll, Major.’

      Van Cutzem narrowed his eyes: ‘This is an outrage. I shall complain to the highest authority. I shall have you court-martialled.’

      ‘Perhaps so, major. But before that I shall have taken Ramillies. And then I really don’t think that it will matter. Do you?’

      The Major scowled at Steel. ‘You may assist your Lord Argyll to take the village, Captain Steel. But you will see that it will be a Dutchman to whom Ramillies falls. I shall take the village, sir. And without your assistance.’

      Without a further word, van Cutzem reined his horse around and galloped back to his regiment.

      As Sergeant Slaughter goaded the redcoats into action, Hansam looked at Steel and shook his head. ‘Really Jack. You go too far. He is Dutch, Jack. You know the Dutch. They do exactly what they say they will do. He will have you cashiered for this.’

      Steel laughed: ‘Not if we take Ramillies and all become heroes, Henry.’

      Emerging from the slight dip in the ground in which they had been sheltering, they saw before them the village of Ramillies. Around a high-spired church were clustered a few dozen houses of nondescript, vernacular design. It was clear that between these the French had constructed sturdy barriers from anything that had come to hand. If anything, thought Steel, they looked more impenetrable than those around Autre-Eglise. Argyll was right. The only way to take this place short of reducing it by bombardment, would be with a frontal assault led by Grenadiers.

      Behind the barricades the village appeared to be teeming with white-coated French infantry, among whom Steel thought he could discern flashes of light blue, which must mean they were reinforced by Bavarians.

      Hansam was at his side: ‘How many d’you think, Jack? Five battalions? Ten?’

      ‘Hard to say. God knows, they’re so packed in there. It seems that King Louis’ marshals haven’t learnt anything from Blenheim, eh?’

      It was impossible to say how many French and Bavarian infantry battalions there might be in the village, so densely were they packed. It reminded Steel with chilling closeness of that bloody Bavarian plain, and the little village which had given its name to the battle. There, down by the stream whose waters by the end of the day had flowed red with French blood, the enemy had filled Blenheim so full of men that when the allied assault had come they had not been able to manoeuvre or to fight. Perhaps, he wondered, the same fate might befall them today? Either that or they would hold the village and it would be the attackers, including Steel and his Grenadiers, who would be the ones to suffer and die on the barricades.

      Marching on, towards the village, they soon found that they were walking past and often, from necessity, on top of the bodies of the redcoats who had fallen earlier in the day attempting to take Ramillies. It was not a sight calculated to raise the spirit of an assault force. Particularly when any of those who were not actually dead reached out and grasped with desperate hands at the ankles and calves of those who now went in to the attack. Twice Steel watched as one of his company stamped upon the face of a wounded man in an attempt to shake him off and saw Slaughter move to help by using the wooden shaft of his halberd.

      Now the French artillery had got their distance and the roundshot began to fall a short way to the front. Within seconds though the red-hot metal was tearing its way into the ranks. They must advance as the book commanded: ‘As slow as foot can fall’. He knew that his men could deliver their assault at a run, but this way they would keep the equilibrium of the other battalions. To his left he saw Argyll, on foot at the head of the brigade, turning occasionally to shout encouragement and urging his officers to keep pace with him. At thirty yards out a puff of white smoke rippled along the line of the village defences and seconds later the musketballs ripped into the bodies of Steel’s men, tossing them back like puppets in a dance of death. Instinctively they lowered their heads against the storm and pressed on. At the same time the French artillery on the ridge overlooking Ramillies opened up with canister shot, each projectile spraying out a deadly hail of tight-packed iron balls into the face of the oncoming infantry.

      It seemed to Steel as if his whole world were collapsing; his command ebbing away in a sea of blood. He looked around and saw to his front the distant figure of the Duke of Argyll. The general was almost at the barricades now and the Grenadiers of his leading battalion, Borthwick’s, Steel thought, were up with him. Close by to his left Henry Hansam was screaming obscenities towards the French lines as he pushed on towards the village. Ten yards out now and closing.

      Steel cast a glance to his rear and gave the command which he hoped would be heard: ‘Uncap your fuses.’

      He saw Slaughter, his halberd pointing at an angle towards the enemy, yelling at the men, repeating his order and pushing them on. Looking back to his front, feet moving automatically one after another, he saw the village grow СКАЧАТЬ