‘Sir?’
‘I have a proposition for you. I propose to make you a very rich man.’
The Sergeant flashed a smile.
‘You will recall our conversation on the matter of Captain Stapleton’s gold and the fact that I was to pay Herr Kretzmer to procure the papers?’
‘Sir.’
‘There has been a change of plan.’
Stringer’s weasel eyes narrowed.
‘As Mister Steel contrived to speak to Herr Kretzmer before us, it would appear that he has taken the papers for himself and thus we can no longer buy them from that gentleman. In short Herr Kretzmer is no longer of any use. Lieutenant Steel, on the other hand, is vital to our plans. And here is the rub. If you are with me in this, Stringer, which I perceive from your expression you are, we must contrive some means of relieving Mister Steel of those papers. The gold of course now belongs to me. Or rather us. For if we return to Major Stapleton with the documents he will expect the gold to be forfeit. And who will say that we did not pay Herr Kretzmer?’ Stringer furrowed his brow in thought.
‘Mister Steel, Sir?’
‘Mister Steel, Stringer. Our only problem is Mister Steel. What would you say we should do to solve that problem, Stringer?’
The Sergeant thought again and then, as the solution came to him drew close to Jennings’ ear:
‘Kill him, Sir. Settle him for good.’
‘Yes, Stringer, I do think for once, that you may be right.’
Steel eased himself forward in the saddle and shifted position. Damn this leather. Surely, he should have learnt by now that anything bought as a bargain on campaign would quickly prove to be an utter waste of what little money he had. He moved again, carefully, lest the men should notice. There was a particular piece of the hard hide, just below the cantle, that kept on digging into his thigh and chafing the skin. He swore quietly and turned to the rider on his right. They sat at the head of the great column that wound for more than half a mile behind them through the sun-dappled Bavarian countryside.
‘You know, Tom, I sometimes think that we’d all be better off marching with the men than stuck up here on horses. What d’you say?’
‘My uncle says that the first duty of an officer is to maintain respect, Sir. Without respect, he says, there is no such thing as an officer.’
‘And a very wise man your uncle is, too. But what do you think?’
‘I think that I agree, Sir. I think that we should ride.’
‘Then I dare say that you and your uncle may be right. Although as you’ll learn, Tom, there is a good deal more to being an officer than merely keeping the men in order. They’ve got to trust you. How can they trust you if all they ever see of you is your horse’s backside? Eh? They may call Marlborough ‘Corporal John’. May even thank him nightly in their prayers – if they say them – for all he does to comfort them. But we must never forget, Tom, that they’re all scum at heart. They are a parcel of rogues and mercenaries. Lewd and dissipate creatures all. Where but the army would they find clothing, pay, and food? We give them all they could want. And in return they give us their lives. Marlborough knows it. You know it.’
The young Ensign smiled. Over the past week he had grown to like Steel and to value his companionship and advice freely given.
They had been on the road seven days now, the last two of which had been passed in loading the flour which would take Marlborough’s army to battle. The wagons were increasingly heavy and their pace slower by the day. Steel wished to God that they could get back to rejoin the army. His tasks, both evident and secret, had now been accomplished and the sooner he could convey the papers safely back to Colonel Hawkins, the better. At present the little bundle weighed like a lead ingot against his chest.
He turned back to Williams:
‘Quite a man, your uncle, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Uncle Septimus? Oh, I mean, Uncle James, Sir. Yes, he is rather.’
Steel laughed.
‘What did you call him?’
‘Er. Septimus, Sir.’
Again Steel laughed. Louder now. ‘Well, I’ll be buggered. Septimus.’
Williams blushed, concerned that he had betrayed Hawkins.
‘I shall remember that. Don’t worry, Tom. I shan’t tell anyone else. It’ll be our joke. Septimus indeed.’
They rode on in silence, Steel smirking at his amusing discovery, their harnesses jangling with a quite different note to the metallic rattle of the bayonets that marked the company’s every step. Behind them came half a platoon of the Grenadiers, led by Slaughter, and then the first of the forty flour wagons, on which travelled the regimental cook. Each of the wagons was flanked now by just two men apiece. One wagon had been commandeered for the wounded and after that rolled the agent’s carriage. For with their dragoons now ravaging the countryside and in light of the attack upon Jennings’ company by brigands, Herr Kretzmer had asked if he might travel with the column as far as the allied lines.
Behind his coach rode Jennings. He had toyed with the idea of travelling in the carriage with Kretzmer and tethering his horse to the rear rail. How much more convenient and comfortable. But the Bavarian was piss-poor company and hardly a conversationalist, and Jennings had elected to ride.
Behind him came Stringer, at the head of the remaining marching infantry of Jennings’ company, which made up the rearguard.
Following the encounters with the peasants and the French, they had changed formation in case of ambush and were returning to the camp by a different route from that on which either of the redcoat columns had entered Swabia. It took them a few miles further south, around the town of Aicha, and then curled up to the north-west and back again across the Lech. But it would be less obvious to anyone who might have been tracking their progress. It had been Steel’s idea and Jennings for once had accepted his advice. He knew the man prided himself on his fieldwork. That Steel had a nose for danger and that he made up what he lacked in more cosmopolitan attributes with a knowledge of country ways. For all his own farming background, rural matters were as foreign a country to Jennings as that in which they now found themselves. To him, Steel was a rustic, defined by his supreme lack of appropriate behaviour. Why, it was evident even in the way he fought. That business in the village for instance, he thought with disdain. What sort of fighting did Steel call that? Throwing bombs and picking individual targets. That wasn’t real soldiering. Nor was it particularly effective. Oh, Steel might have frightened off a few of the enemy. Might have left a few dead in the street, but that wasn’t soldiering. Jennings, on the other hand, had lined his men across the street and given fire by countermarching ranks, in the proper, prescribed manner. The French had returned his fire in the proper manner, and then both sides had retired, with honour.
Of course he had lost men. More men than Steel’s precious Grenadiers. Eleven dead and badly wounded from his remaining two score and ten, to be precise. But what of it? There would be no taking cover for his men, by God. Jennings’ men would stand and fight as all true British soldiers should. Not hide and dart about like Steel and his band of bomb-throwing misfits. In a real battle, Jennings knew, Steel would be useless. Here though, the country boy was so evidently in his element that Jennings was only too happy to use him. He indulged himself a pinch of snuff and laughed inwardly, secure in the knowledge that it would after all, be the last command that Steel would ever have.
Steel thought it curious that, since the confrontation at the village, they had observed nothing more of the enemy. His mind was troubled by the massacre; haunted by the vision of