Leaping from the cover of the wooden casks, they erupted into the street, Steel dragging the fat Bavarian at his side. Instantly the enemy musketeers opened up. Head down, legs like lead in a lolloping run, Steel, his arm firmly around Kretzmer’s flabby waist, cast a look over his shoulder. He could see two ranks at least, maybe more. White coats and brown moustachioed faces topped with bearskin hats. French Grenadiers. A half company or more. Regular infantry. Could these men really have been the authors of the crime in the barn? Steel was making for the safety of an open door in a half-timbered house across the street when he felt the balls from the first volley smacking the air around his head. He sensed that one of his men had gone down, but had no idea who. And then they were inside the door. Looking out into the street, Steel saw Bannister lying face upwards, a hole through his temple, and looking down the street he could see the French reloading, priming their pans. Come on, Tom. Where the hell was the young Ensign? In an instant it would be too late. Then, not a moment too soon and with an animal roar, Williams and his ten men appeared from behind the wagon. They charged down the street straight towards the French Grenadiers, the young officer, his sword drawn leading the way, his face split in a rictus of anger. Steel watched as the French, their loading not yet completed, start incredulously as the ten Grenadiers came straight for them. It was lunacy, eleven men charging nigh on five times their number, drawn up in line three ranks deep, their flanks secure against two sides of a street. But this was a madness for which the French had not allowed.
Steel watched with fascination as their expressions turned to alarm and then surprise as, at ten yards out, the Grenadiers stopped short and hurled their fizzing black iron balls. Then the full horror of the situation hit the French. He looked on at the different reactions. Some men turned and ran. One threw down his musket. Others stood rooted to the spot and watched in silence as the black orbs glided through the air towards them. Their officer, standing at their side, his sword raised ready to command another volley, stood open mouthed. Williams and his men threw themselves down on the cobbles, covering their heads with their hands. And then the bombs exploded. All of them.
For once not one sputtered out and the French Grenadiers were ripped apart by shards of red-hot metal that tore at skin, sinew and bone, cutting their evil way through heads, necks, limbs, and torsos. The street disappeared in a cloud of black and grey smoke and gouts of blood. Some fragments of the grenades hit walls and tore shards of masonry and pan-tile free, sending them showering down on the enemy troops below.
Steel, who had closed the door against the blast, opened it cautiously and surveyed the scene. Gradually, as the smoke cleared, he made out a tangle of bodies and body parts lying across the street where a few seconds before the French had been drawn up. Williams pushed himself up from the road on his palms and got to his feet, coughing away the debris in his throat and brushing the dust and brick from his coat. He was followed by his ten Grenadiers, some of whom had begun to laugh. And Williams too found himself laughing with relief. For where the Frenchmen had been, lay nothing but a heap of dead and dying men. Through the dusty air Steel glimpsed the forms of perhaps a half-dozen of the white-coated infantry running for their lives and behind them, supporting each other, another five wounded. But of the rest nothing remained save broken bodies. Steel emerged from the house and, still steering Kretzmer, making sure not to let him go, led his remaining men towards Williams.
‘Well done, Tom. Couldn’t have made a better job of it myself.’
He patted the boy on the back. Williams turned round. He was staring wildly and his mouth hung wide open.
‘They. They just disappeared. We did it. We killed them all. We did it. Look, Sir.’
Steel knew the reaction. The absolute shock of the first battle. He knew that the only thing to do now was to carry on. Move to the next killing ground.
‘Yes, Tom you did it. And bloody well. Now take your men and follow up. Get into cover over there and see if you can find out if there are any more of the buggers in the place.’
He looked down at a dead Frenchman. Now there could be no doubt as to who had committed the atrocity. The man was a Grenadier. French, wearing a dark brown bearskin cap which bore a brass plaque with a distinctive cipher which Steel had seen once before.
‘I know that uniform. This is the same regiment we met at Schellenberg. I was told there were no enemy in these parts. What the hell are these buggers doing here?’ He turned to Hopkins, Tarling and another man, Jock Miller.
‘You three, come with me. Let’s see if we can help Sarn’t Slaughter.’
At that moment he became aware of the crack of gunfire from the street leading off to the right where he had sent Slaughter. Quickly, with Kretzmer still in tow, they ran across the square. There was firing, too, coming from further up the hill, by the barn. Taylor. He would have to wait. Entering the narrow street, Steel found Slaughter and his men pinned down behind a makeshift barricade of barrels and furniture. Steel, Kretzmer and the two Grenadiers dashed for cover and slid down next to the Sergeant. Slaughter was hot with the battle, and his face was decorated with a long, shallow cut across the forehead. Steel pointed to it.
‘All right, Sarn’t?’
Slaughter put up his hand and wiped away the blood.
‘it’s nothing. Just a graze. Bastards took us by surprise, Sir. We’ve three men down, but we managed to throw together some cover.’
Steel poked his head half an inch above the parapet of a chair leg and glimpsed another line of French Grenadiers. Another fifty, perhaps sixty men. Christ, they had come in some force to do their filthy work. A company at least, and the men up on the hill. The end of the street exploded again in another volley of French fire. The British crouched as low as they could as the musket balls zinged through gaps in the flimsy wooden barricade. Two men cried out as they were hit. Another fell dead without a sound.
Slaughter spoke. ‘Begging your pardon, Sir, but do you think we might get out of here now. It’s starting to get a bit hot for my liking.’
‘My sentiments entirely, Sarn’t.’
Steel looked to his right where, as he had dropped down, he thought he had seen an open doorway. Sure enough, there it was.
‘Right, Jacob. I’ll take ten men and outflank them. We’ll go through that house. You stay put. See if you can keep them at the end of the street with ragged fire. When you hear me shout, have the men stand up and rush the Frogs. Use your grenades and then give them the bayonet. You know what to do. They won’t see you. Trust me.’
Slaughter looked at Steel. He had never had cause not to trust him and he certainly did not intend to start now.
‘Right you are, Sir.’
‘Go to it, Jacob. It’s time to make them pay for what they did to those poor bastards up on the hill.’
The Sergeant looked grim and nodded his head. He drew his bayonet from its scabbard and slotted it on to the end of his fusil. Steel edged towards the house.
‘Hopkins, Miller, Tarling. The first seven of you men. Come with me.’
Still crouching, he led them into the house and prayed that there would be a rear door through which they could exit into the next street. Inside, full plates of food on the table and a child’s doll lying on the floor bore grim testimony to the violent end of the house’s former inhabitants. Steel did not pause to think. Pushing Kretzmer into a chair, he put his finger to his lips and waved his hand parallel to the floor in an attempt to tell the man to stay there and wait for his return. He needn’t have worried. The sweating merchant, confused and terrified by what had happened earlier in the day and now aware of the full horror of which he had so nearly become a part, really didn’t look as if he wanted to go anywhere.
Moving into the kitchen Steel found what he was looking for and cautiously edged the door open. The street beyond seemed empty. Carefully unbuckling his belt, he laid it down on a table, unsheathed his sword and slung his fusil over his shoulder. His men did the same. There must be nothing about them to make any noise which might alert the enemy. The Grenadiers,