Rules of War Read Online Free Page B

concern another command came from the centre of the line.
    â€˜â€™Tallion will prepare to advance. Charge your bayonets.’ The steel-tipped muskets which till now had been carried either at the high port or snugly in the shoulder, were brought down until they were level with the ground.
    â€˜â€™Tallion – Advance!’
    Again the drums struck up, this time a less noisome rattle. More of a tap, but a sound which when recognized, Steel knew, would bring a chill to the hearts of any enemy of Queen Anne. Grimly, the battalion moved up the hill and still the shot crashed down among them like a scythe reaping the corn. As they came up against the first houses of the little village of Autre-Eglise, it became obvious that the French had not been idle. Every street, every alleyway had been fortifiedwith anything that had come to hand. Domestic furniture mainly, taken from the abandoned houses; prized possessions pressed into more practical service. But though hastily erected, Steel could see that the barricades had been made with experienced hands. Chairs and tables had been lashed together and stuck through with swords and bayonets – anything which would make their passage more hazardous.
    Behind the fortifications stood the French and as the Grenadiers broke like a wave upon the wooden wall, the white-coated ranks let go with a devastating volley. But it was not enough to stop the red tide. Steel, seeing an opportunity, placed his foot on a table leg and leapt on top of a barricade. Below him a dark-skinned French infantryman looked up and attempted to stick him with his bayonet, but Steel was too quick and, parrying aside the weapon with his sword, brought its razor-sharp blade humming down into the man’s head, cleaving in half his black tricorne and with it the head within.
    Exultant, Steel turned back momentarily towards the redcoats: ‘With me, Grenadiers. We’re in, lads. Death to the French.’
    Followed by a half-dozen of his men, Steel threw himself over the wall and landed in a knot of white-coated soldiers. Such was their surprise that two of them dropped their muskets and ran back into the village. Of the others three were engaged by Steel’s men. Matt Taylor, a corporal and the company apothecary, used the butt of his musket like a club and hammered it hard into a Frenchman’s jaw. Steel winced at the crack. He found himself face to face with the tallest of the group, a huge mustachioed hulk of a man, a sergeant who wielded his spontoon like a farmer’s scythe and stood grinning just beyond the reach of Steel’s blade. Steel began to fence with him, cutting at the wooden staff and carefullysidestepping the stabs and swings of the evil pointed head. Treating the man’s weapon as if it were a sword, Steel cut to the left and parried it away and then with one swift movement lunged in fencing-salle style and skewered the big Frenchman squarely through the heart. The man stopped in mid-swing, stared wildly at the tall British officer and then, blood spouting from his mouth, fell backwards, stone dead.
    Retrieving his sword from the corpse, Steel looked around. To his left more Grenadiers had succeeded in storming the village and were steadily pushing back the French and Walloon lines. He turned to his men: ‘The village is ours. Well done, lads.’ He looked to Slaughter: ‘Stand the men easy for a moment, Sarn’t; and post a guard. They’ll be back. We can be sure of that.’
    Slaughter threw him a grin. ‘That was a fine fight, sir. Did you see ’em run?’
    â€˜They ran all right. But we must have suffered in the assault. What’s our strength?’
    â€˜Hard to say, sir. I know that a score of the lads went down on the hill and I dare say we may have lost half as much again in the fight.’
    â€˜Yes. I thought as much.’
    Still, he thought, thirty per cent casualties was what you might expect in a frontal attack