Jack Steel Adventure Series Books 1-3: Man of Honour, Rules of War, Brothers in Arms. Iain Gale
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one they would sooner see laid in earth. Trust me, Jack, you will not be alone in our army in having a personal score to settle in the coming battle. How many of our own officers will die I wonder, what their families will be told was a hero’s death, with a bullet in their back that was made in London?’
He thought for a moment.
‘Although perhaps this time the men will be more set on the matter in hand, than personal vendetta. For in God’s truth I’ve never seen an army so utterly resolved to its purpose. This is no gentleman’s war any longer, Jack.’
‘With respect, Colonel, it never was. And you most assuredly have no need to remind me of that.’
‘I’m sorry, dear boy. Of course. That dreadful affair in the village. Women and children too. And you know that it will surely have consequences. You know that we have now burnt close on 400 villages. The Dutch and the Danes have thrown whole populations out into the night. All done on Marlborough’s orders most certainly. But the massacre at Sattelberg is a very different matter. Of course the French have done such things before. Think of the Palatine states. Of the poor Camisards in France. Their own people, for God’s sake. But to bring such practices to our war, Jack. To revisit such evil upon these people. This is something new. It was done with the simple, malicious intent of blackening the good name of our army. This is a new kind of warfare. A warfare that plays deliberately upon the mind. Terror and infamy are its weapons. And that is another reason why you must find Jennings and kill him. An English officer who can attest to having seen such a massacre, without firmly ascribing it to the French, can only increase any case against Marlborough.’
He suddenly drew to a halt.
‘My row, I believe. And now, Jack, I’ll bid you goodnight.’
As Hawkins walked towards his tent, which was set some distance further towards the rear of the officers’ encampment, Steel lifted the flap of his own and ducked his tall frame to enter. Louisa was sitting at the little table, reading from her Bible, one of the few possessions she had brought from the inn.
She smiled up at him. ‘Was it bad?’
‘No, not bad. Just hard to admit failure.’
‘Will you fight your battle now?’
‘Tomorrow perhaps. More likely the next day.’
‘Can you fight, Jack? Your leg is not good.’
‘It’s good enough. And I have to fight. I am commanded to fight. I have to find the papers. To kill Jennings.’
She froze at the name. ‘How? How will you find him?’
‘I’ll know precisely where he is. I know a man who can sniff him out. Jennings had a Sergeant, a nasty piece of work. And if anyone can find him you can be sure it will be Sergeant Stringer. He’ll do anything to save his neck. Believe me, Louisa, I’ll find him. And then I’ll kill him.’
‘No.’
‘No? You don’t want him dead?’
‘No. I don’t want you to kill him. It is my right.’
Steel could not help but admire her passion.
‘And how do you intend to manage this?’
‘In the battle. With you. You will find him and then I will shoot him.’
Steel laughed, but quickly stopped, aware that he might hurt her feelings.
‘My dear, darling Louisa. If you are by my side where the battle rages you’ll be lucky if you come away with your life. There will be 100,000 men on that field.’
She was silent. It was true. An absurd idea. But with every fibre of her being Louisa knew that if Jennings was to die then she alone had the moral right to kill him. She looked up at Steel, her pleading eyes brimming with tears.
He gazed at her. Feeling her emptiness as the hurt surged through her. He reached out and touched her waist.
‘Will you do it? Jack, please. Take me with you in the battle. Take me to Jennings. Let me kill him. Then I will be free.’
‘I cannot. You might be killed. Or maimed. I could not live with that.’
Steel shivered.
‘You’re cold? Perhaps the fever has returned?’
‘No. It’s nothing.’
Louisa gripped him around the waist and rested her head against his chest.
‘How will it be, the battle?’
‘It will be noisy and hard and very bloody. It’ll be like nothing you ever saw before. Or the like of which you will ever want to see again.’
Steel looked down at her. He had become so used to her in such a short time. Love or not, they had become lovers and shared these last few days and nights, released from care, in each other’s arms. They still had this coming night and whatever tomorrow would bring. She smiled at him again and very gently began to pull him down on to the little folding bed.
Aubrey Jennings had ridden south at first, on the only road out of the town which led away from where he knew the allied army must lie. He had ridden hard for two days until he had reached the outskirts of Augsburg. There he had thought that surely he must find the French. But instead he had stumbled upon a party of retreating Bavarian infantry who, seeing his red coat, had fired upon him. After that he had thought it prudent to go across the river and head north-west. But without a map he had become hopelessly lost. The countryside had become increasingly wooded and Jennings found himself constantly wandering into bands of dispossessed peasants. He had bought food and beer from them, but again his coat had proved more of a hindrance and ultimately he had turned it inside out, presenting a white uniform closer in appearance to that of their French allies. But the ornate buttons and lace, now worn on the inside, had proved a constant irritation and on the tenth day of his wanderings in the great forests he had turned the coat back to British red. It was sheer bad luck of course that on that very day he should have been spotted by a party of what he rightly took for allied cavalry. The dead hussar’s horse though had proved an infinitely superior beast to their plodding supply mounts and he had outridden them with ease. On the twelfth day it had begun to rain hard and, starving and dehydrated, Jennings had resolved that his only option was to break cover. He had found himself in the town of Offingen and there, taking a welcome drink in an inn, had readily given himself up to a patrol of blue-coated French dragoons. How astonished they had been at his evident pleasure in encountering them and his willingness to surrender.
That had been two days ago. Jennings looked at his tired face now in the small, elegantly framed mirror that stood on the campaign chest in the small tent provided as his temporary quarters. He winced as the barber who had been sent to shave him pulled the skin of his cheek tight, while he dragged the blade of the razor clean down over the stubble. How very civilized the French were. Perhaps, he thought, when he was back with his own army, once Marlborough had been dismissed, he would suggest certain changes suitable for a truly modern fighting force. Those little touches of style that at present gave the French officers their edge. At his side, the servant rinsed the blade in the bowl of dirty water and handed Jennings a soft towel before leaving. As he dabbed at his face, the Major reflected on the past few weeks. At how very different his position was now. On the one hand he was a fugitive. He presumed that the survivors of the fight at Bachweiden would by now have reached the army and given their account of his part in the affair. Cussiter had gone to shoot him but then the man had a personal grudge against him. Of course Louisa would have told them now of who her real assailant had been. But what was the word of a Bavarian peasant? Jennings smiled. Who else could speak against him? Sergeant Slaughter? What would he say? Had he not discovered Kretzmer with Louisa. In Slaughter’s eyes, surely, Jennings must be a hero. In truth there was no one left to testify against Jennings. The only evidence against him was his flight itself. He pulled on his coat and checked inside the pocket for the package. He felt the string and the paper.
For the hundredth time he rehearsed again how, once back in London, he would relate