Man of Honour Read Online Free

caps off.’
    Slowly, bent double and making sure to keep his own head well below the bank, Steel began to make his way along the ditch. He looked back and saw that the Grenadiers were following suit. After twenty yards the ditch turnedsharply back down the hill, towards the allied army. For a ghastly moment Steel panicked. What if he were wrong? What if this gulley did not lead parallel to the fortifications, as he had guessed, but away from the French and the battle? What then? Desertion? Court martial? He began to sweat. There was nothing for it now though but to continue, whatever the consequences. He would take all the blame and exonerate Hansam. He would face the terrible charge of desertion in the face of the enemy on his own. Steel slipped on the muddy floor of the ditch, and swore. His thighs and back had begun to ache from the exertion of travelling bent over. They seemed to be taking an eternity to cover such a small distance. At length, after some eighty yards, they came to another junction. Steel saw that the main route of the gulley led left, back up the slope, towards the French lines. He muttered an imprecation of thanks to the Almighty under his breath. Heard Slaughter too, tucked in tight behind him: ‘Thank God.’
    They followed the line of the new ditch, climbing steadily as they went. Another fifty yards and the gulley came to an abrupt dead end. This was it then. Steel turned back, still crouching, and motioned the men to stay down. It was quieter here, away from the cannonade that was still taking its toll of the main force away to their left. He signed to the Grenadiers to sling their fusils on their backs, unbutton their pouches and withdraw one of the three grenades that it contained. Then indicated by sign language that, once they were within range of the enemy, they should ignite the fuse of the missile from the slow-burning match that each man wore strapped to his wrist. Creeping over to the southern side of the gulley he peered over the top. As he had suspected, some 200 yards down the slope, he could make out the plumes and horses of the allied commanders, concealed in a similargulley. He beckoned to a Grenadier: Pearson. Fastest runner in the company.
    ‘Take yourself off to Marlborough. He’s down there, see? Tell him that we’ve found a gap in the line. That I’m going to attack and the way is open. Got that? The way is open.’
    The young man nodded and, crawling out of the ditch, was soon up and running for the allied lines. Steel crept back to the other side of the gulley. Then, taking a deep breath, he stood up, hauled himself up on top of the forward bank, placed his foot on the turf at the top, sprang out and straightened up. He found himself standing, horribly prone, not ten yards away from a stretch of crude, basketwork gabions, behind a shallow ditch. He had not realized that they might end up quite so close to the enemy lines. What was even more alarming though was the fact that he found himself staring directly into the terrified eyes of a French sentry. For a second both men stood stock still. Then, with one motion they both reached for their weapons.
    The Frenchman fumbled with the lock of his musket. Steel, having returned his sword to its scabbard to travel down the gulley, pulled at a wide leather strap on his shoulder and grasped the stock of the short-barrelled fusil which was standard-issue to every officer of Grenadiers. His gun though, was subtly different. It had begun life as a fowling piece, whose ingenious maker had contrived somehow to create a weapon light enough to carry all day out in the hunting field. It was able to fire tight-packed game-shot or a single ball with equal ease and was cut to fit Steel alone. So that – whether his quarry might be a Frenchman or a partridge – when he raised it to his cheek it slipped as neatly into place as if it were an extension of his arm. To mount it was the work of less than a second. And he knew it to be