Jack Steel Adventure Series Books 1-3: Man of Honour, Rules of War, Brothers in Arms. Iain Gale
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Jennings was considered a hero. He said that …’
Steel exclaimed and cut in: ‘You will hear Major Jennings say many things, Tom. And I dare say it is possible that some of them may well be true. So, if you choose to believe that he is the perfect martial hero he would have you think him, then you must consider that is precisely what our Major Jennings is. He is a hero as drawn on stage by the great Colley Cibber himself, or Sir John Vanbrugh. As perfect a hero as you or I might be likely to see treading the boards at Drury Lane or Dorset Fields on any night of the week, for two shillings.’
Williams frowned.
Hansam chuckled. ‘Now, Jack. Don’t tease the lad.’
Steel nodded. ‘I was forgetting myself. Hero or not, Tom, Major Jennings is a soldier nevertheless, and he will march with us and serve with us beneath the colours and he will stand with us before the shot on the field of battle and take his chances against the French just as we do.’
At the mention of battle Williams turned pale, then smiled, wanly. Steel, noticing his apprehension, attempted to ease the moment by pretending to brush something off his coat.
‘Wait. There. Restored to glory. And there is more to soldiering than battle, eh Henry? What think you to the army, Tom?’
‘I … I think it must be a very grand life, Sir. I think … that I shall very much like being a soldier.’
Both the Lieutenants laughed. Steel clapped Williams on the back.
‘And I think that perhaps I’ll ask you that question again shortly after your first battle. Then we’ll see how you reply, Tom, eh? Now, come. Time presses. Permit us to stand you a dish of tea, or something stronger if you will, in what passes for the present for our mess. Nate. My boots.’
After Steel had pulled on the shining boots and finished adjusting the other elements of his dress, the three men walked out of the tent. Before them, reflecting the pale sunshine, lay a mass of similar white tents, laid out in symmetrical lines and grids: the entire British army encamped under canvas in its temporary home. It was as if, Steel thought, a small English town had been transported to the heart of Bavaria. Along the alleyways that ran between the rows of tents bewigged officers strolled in conversation while among them dozens of children – the offspring of camp followers – ran and played, sometimes pursued by their desperate mothers. Other women sat nursing babies or were busy washing and steaming the lice-infested clothes of husbands and families or cooking suspicious-looking rations in great iron pots. Soldiers sat beside their tents darning their uniforms and attending to minor wounds and the blisters and sores which inevitably followed from a long march. In separate lines, tradesmen and craftspeople sat before their own tents making good the accoutrements required to keep 30,000 men in a battle-ready state. And with this vision of industry and idleness came the unmistakable noise and aroma of camp life. The staccato clack of metal on metal, the whinnying of the horses, the shrieks of the children, sharp against an undercurrent of chatter and music and rising above it all the not altogether unpleasant stench of food, sweat, horses and humanity. Steel watched as carts filled with provisions rumbled past the lines while others standing ready for the wounded from whatever battle was next to come, were cleaned as best they could by the sutlers of the blood and gore left by their previous unfortunate occupants.
It was a scene being enacted throughout the south German states that morning, and across the French border, Steel knew, in the camp of every army: British, French, Hanoverian, Prussian, Bavarian and the rest. But here, he thought, something was subtly different. Here, he knew that before the tent lines had been laid, the site had been carefully chosen by keen-eyed civilian commissaries sent out by Marlborough himself. And close behind them followed the army: always setting off early in the morning, at sunrise – five o’clock or before – and halting shortly after midday, thus avoiding the greatest heat and making camp so that the night’s rest gave the men the illusion of a full day’s halt. Such was the care that the General took with his army, thought Steel. He knew too that the food and provisions now so evidently on display had been carefully stockpiled to provide for just such an encampment.
This was the new army. Marlborough’s army. An army that made the old sweats mutter in amazement. For here was organization of a type never before seen in a British army on foreign soil. It was Marlborough who had made this army. Had fashioned it from the ragtag rabble that had emerged from the chaos of King William’s Glorious Revolution and brought it through the Irish wars to this great campaign. It was true that back in London, the Duke still had his enemies who even now might be plotting his removal. But here on the march, with the army, ‘Corporal John’ was God. But he was also a soldier and a man, his vulnerable mortality no different from any who filled the ranks of his army. That was the reason the soldiers would fight for him. Would die for him – a hero’s death if they were lucky. That was why they would march wherever he took them. To whatever lay over the next hill. To glory. And so, as the women cooked and sewed and the money changed hands, and the children played and the wounded died, the majority of the soldiers wondered how long they might count on being able to rest and how many more dawns they might see.
Hansam broke Steel’s reverie. ‘I see that we have our Prussian friends with us now.’
Steel too had noticed the arrival of the long marching column as it snaked its way past the lines of the British encampment. The distinctive dark blue coats of the Hanoverian and Prussian infantry, their tall Grenadiers evident in their own profusion of elegant, elaborately laced caps. These were their allies, marching to join Marlborough’s red caterpillar. There must be, he supposed, several thousand of them. Perhaps ten battalions.
Hansam spoke again: ‘You can’t help admiring their style. Can you?’
Steel gazed across at the Prussian infantry, marching in precise formation, using the recently reintroduced, artificially high ‘cadence’ step, looking for all the world as if they were on parade at Potsdam.
‘Style, Henry? That’s not style. That’s nothing more than blind obedience. Those men are more terrified of their own officers than they are of the French. Beaten regularly twice a week for the most trivial offence, they’re underfed and generally abused. They march nicely and I dare say they fight well – to command. But in truth they’re no more than walking muskets.’
Steel was no admirer of the Prussian system. Oh, he had seen it work in battle. Had watched the blue-coated juggernaut as it inched across the field through a hail of shot to smash its way through the enemy ranks. But he could not believe that this was really the way to fight. Like automatons. Certainly you must have discipline and drill. That was the only way to persuade the men to stand in rank and take the shot when it came flying towards them. How else would men stand, save by drill and discipline. And musketry too required drill. That in truth was the real secret of the system of platoon fire that had wrought such destruction on the French in the late engagement. But Steel believed, too, that in the heat of battle there was still a time to give every man his head. Then you really saw what the British infantryman was made of. Certainly, the Prussians were no cowards. But driven on by their blind rote, they could never match the individual skill and ingenuity of a British Grenadier.
Nevertheless, there were, he knew, times when strict discipline was paramount. And now, he remembered, was just one such moment. Steel heard the clock in the nearby village church striking eight. Normally this would have been the time of the morning for the men of his company and indeed the entire battalion to have been engaged in their various routine duties. Sharpening bayonets at the farrier’s wheel, oiling the mechanisms of the highly prized new muskets, checking their shoes and feet for signs of wear. But he knew that none of his men, nor any of Sir James Farquharson’s Regiment of Foot had been among the redcoats sitting in the tent lines. This morning Farquharson’s men had other business on their minds. Only the camp followers and children were excused from this parade. It was, he supposed, an entertainment of sorts. A diversion intended to enhance the moral welfare of the other ranks and to reinforce the position of the officers by example. A flogging. Steel turned to the Ensign.
‘Well, Tom, you’ve certainly chosen your day to arrive. We’ve a spectacle for you. Although I am not sure how well you’ll take to it. But first, come and meet