better rejoin my men. They look set to chase the Frenchies all the way to Paris.’
As Hansam hurried off to secure the prisoners, Steel found Slaughter kneeling over the dead body of a Grenadier. Pearson. His face looked quite serene, despite the fact that a musket ball had passed into his cheek and blown off the back of his head. The Sergeant spoke quietly.
‘Poor sod. He did bloody well. Saved the lot of us, I reckon. Close thing, Sir, weren’t it?’
‘I never knew a bloodier fight.’
‘Nor me.’
Slaughter paused, pushing the dead boy’s hair away from his brow.
‘Do you think this is how it will be, Mister Steel? The rest of the campaign. The rest of the war?’
‘I do, Jacob. This is how the Duke chooses to make war. This is war without limits. War such as even you and I had not seen until today. As savage and bloody and brutal a war as Europe has seen for nigh on eighty years. Since this place was built.’
Steel kicked the earth wall of the ruined fort. ‘It is not the way that gentlemen like to fight. When that war ended gentlemen drew up rules for the conduct of war designed to prevent such a thing ever happening again. Well, Jacob. Today we threw away the rule book. Now it’s up to men like you and me to make sure that there’s still such a thing as honour on a battlefield.’
‘We have to write our own rules, you mean, Sir?’
‘Our own rules. Yes. That’s it exactly.’
Steel looked down at the broken body of the young Grenadier that lay at his feet. ‘If we must fight in such a way as this, Jacob, then at least let’s do it with honour. God knows this life is short enough. We might as well take pride in what we do.’
He raised his sword and, stooping to pick up a length of neck cloth that lay on the ground, wiped the big blade clean of blood, before sliding it firmly back into the scabbard.
‘And now, Sarn’t, I believe there was the matter of a cask of wine.’
‘Ale, Sir.’
Steel laughed.
‘Ale, Jacob. Find what’s left of the platoon and be sure to tell Mister Hansam where we’re going. I think it’s time to see what the good people of Donauwö rth have to offer us.’
General Van Styrum was dead. Cut clean through the skull by a French officer’s sword the moment he reached the ramparts. Goors too had been sent to oblivion with a bullet through his brain and with him a score more of the army’s senior officers. In all six lieutenant-generals were dead, five more wounded, together with four major-generals and twenty-eight brigadiers and colonels.
Steel counted off in his head the names of close on a hundred lieutenants and captains, among them some old friends. Names that now stood as undeniable proof of their death on the hand-written list of officer casualties pinned that morning to one of the beams of the wooden-framed inn which served as temporary officers’ mess for James Ferguson’s Brigade of Marlborough’s army. To Steel’s surprise Mordaunt had survived, though God alone knew how. His element of the Guards had been decimated in throwing itself time and again against the French breastworks until the men had to tread upon piles of their own dead and dying to advance.
The victors’ entry into Donauwö rth had not been as easy as they had presumed it might. The French garrison had only abandoned the defences when they realized that the allies’ efforts to bridge the Danube were sure to cut them off from the rest of their army. Then they had run; a pell-mell rattle of a retreat to join the main army. That had been two days ago. The cautious, curious townspeople had welcomed in the British redcoats and allied soldiers, uncertain of their fate and with recent memories of the slaughter of another war fresh in their minds. They needn’t have worried. For the time being even the roughest elements of Marlborough’s army had had enough of killing. Besides, pursuit of the French and Bavarians would be impossible until the engineers had finished their bridges. So the soldiers settled down to a few days of unexpected rest. Most of the officers had managed to secure billets within the private houses of wealthy merchants. For the NCOs and other ranks more humble dwellings or stables and outhouses made comfortable enough barracks. The wounded, who had not been transported by wagon or walked or crawled back to the headquarters camp at Nördlingen while the battle still raged, had been placed in tents outside the city walls, such were their numbers.
Steel knew that a third of them would not survive their horrific wounds. Even now, three days after the fighting, the burial parties were still at work and the bitter-sweet stench of death hung heavy in the air. It was the moment that Steel liked least in any war. That time directly after a battle, when he was as conscious of loss as much as any victory. This was a fallow period when the men might be capable of anything, from drunkenness to desertion – or worse. For those who had survived the attack – officers and other ranks – the few days of rest while the engineers rebuilt the destroyed bridge spelt a welcome chance to enjoy local food and drink, not to mention the soft sheets and sensual delights available at the city’s whorehouses. Steel presumed that it was at one such establishment that he might now find most of his company, but he was not of a mind to try. They were not the type to let the lull persuade them that a better life lay away from the army. It was three hours since he had left Slaughter in command of the half-company on the improvised drill ground behind the city walls. The men deserved their simple pleasures and he knew that the Sergeant would keep them straight.
For his own part, while he was not averse to the diversions of the flesh, the horror of the last few days had dispelled any such craven desires within Steel. They had in fact quite the opposite effect that victory in battle would have normally had on his libido. And so, rather than seek out the upmarket brothels where so many of his fellow officers were currently being entertained, he had come with Hansam to sit in this tavern. To drink and talk and savour these precious few hours of freedom. Steel gazed long at the names on the casualty list. He thought of home, of the news of the death of these officers reaching into so many vicarages and manor houses. Of mothers and sisters disconsolate with grief and fathers who gazed rheumy-eyed out of windows and over empty fields. Turning, he crossed to a table and sat down beside his friend. He took a long draught of wine, scratching at the irritating bites on his neck. Perhaps tomorrow he would find somewhere to have his uniform cleaned. His shirts and stocks at least. At length he spoke:
‘This is a sad moment for Britain, Henry.’
Hansam, who had been staring into his wine, deep in thought, turned to his friend.
‘Sad, yes, but surely you must admit, it was a glorious victory.’
‘I doubt whether the Tories back in London will see it that way.’
‘You cannot be sure, Jack.’ Tis said that the enemy lost 7,000 and another 2,000 drowned in our pursuit. Every day more bodies are being washed ashore. And we have taken nigh on 3,000 prisoners.’
‘But, Henry, what of our losses? Look at this butcher’s bill. Six thousand men dead and wounded and 1,500 of them English and Scots. One and a half thousand men. I tell you, I never knew a day so costly.’
‘And on account of it we have the town and all that it contains. We have stores, Jack, and a strong strategic base. And you know there was no other way.’
He turned to attract the attention of the pretty, buxom teenage girl who was moving deftly between the tables of red-coated officers, balancing in the crook of each well-muscled forearm two pewter pitchers of wine.
‘Another one over here. Madame. If you will, Madamoiselle. S’il vous plait. Une autre, ici.’
He turned to Steel:
‘D’ye know any German, Jack?’
Steel grinned and shook his head. Hansam tried again.
‘Ah. Yes.