Rules of War. Iain Gale

Don’t play word games with me, Major. I know what I’m fighting for and so do you. But if you want to continue your little charade, then don’t mind me. It’s amusing to watch, a game, if you like. But it’s not war.’

      Van Cutzem stared at him and his cheeks coloured. After a few moments he spoke, staring at the ground. ‘War? Do you know what war is, Steel? I’ll tell you what war is. War is three decades of misery and terror. War is a tale of horror told at a fireside by a maimed father, to his young son. A tale punctuated by sobbing and silence. It is a tale sometimes so painful that it can never be told.’ Van Cutzem, his rage now visible in his ice-blue eyes, stared hard into Steel’s face. ‘My grandfather was killed in cold blood, in front of his children. He was stripped and tied to a cross and roasted alive while his wife was raped and then had her throat slit. The children, my own father among them, were cast out into the fields to live like animals. Happily for me my father survived, although he lost a hand in the process. His sisters did not survive. We do not know their fate. That, Captain, is what war means in these parts.’ The Dutchman spoke quietly now: ‘That, Mister Steel, is why we use these “absurd” conventions and rules. That is why it is so important to obey such rules of war. We never want to descend into that hell again. We will do anything to avoid it. Anything. And so we fight the French. But it must never again come to that.’ His bitterness subsiding, van Cutzem lowered his eyes. ‘Please God that we shall never have to witness such things again. That is why, Captain Steel.’

      Steel nodded: ‘I’m sorry, Major, truly. I should have thought. Forgive me if I have offended you. It was not intended.’

      Of course, he longed to tell the major that he did understand only too well what he was talking about, that he had seen such atrocities. Committed not a hundred years ago, but ten. In Sweden and Russia and again, most hauntingly in his mind, only two years ago in Bavaria. The sights which informed his dreams and woke him, sweating hard, in many a cold night. Whole populations massacred, regardless of their age and sex. A village put to the sword. Women raped, children spitted like rabbits. This was not the stuff of history or folk myth, this was happening in their time. Even, for all he knew, as they spoke. They lived in an age of war and terror. He was tempted to tell van Cutzem, but half of him realized that the man would not, did not want to believe him. Why dispel his illusions of this courtly warfare? Steel knew that world to be coming to an end, just as Marlborough had forged a new army and was rewriting the rules of engagement. So as they participated in these great events they were making a modern era. And whenever it finally happened, tomorrow or five years hence, sometime within their own life span – if they were yet spared a French bullet – the old world would soon be gone for ever. Steel would allow the major his dream of chivalry. He knew the reality. Then his gaze settled on something over to the left. For an instant Steel doubted his own vision and his reason and wondered whether van Cutzem was not after all right and perhaps the age of chivalry had returned.

       THREE

      Looking across to his left, past the Dutch infantry in their serried dark-blue ranks, Steel beheld a sight which left him open-mouthed. On the plain below their position, formed up in a line which stretched between the villages of Taviers and Ramillies and the huge grass-covered mass of what Hansam had lately and with some authority informed him was an ancient Celtic burial mound, lay a hundred squadrons of allied cavalry: perhaps fifteen thousand men. The sunlight glinted off their drawn sabres and flashed on polished cuirasses and harnesses. Not even as a young ensign, while serving in the northern wars between Sweden and Russia, did Steel remember having witnessed such an awesome spectacle of military might.

      Van Cutzem too was staring at the cavalry: ‘Now we shall see a fight. This is why Marlborough has brought the French to battle here. This must mean victory.’

      Steel watched as the horsemen began to trot into position and felt the ground start to tremble. ‘I do believe you may be right, Major. But what are we to do? Do we attack Ramillies itself? Certainly our cavalry may defeat the French, but they cannot take a position which has been so heavily fortified by the enemy. We will have won the open ground but in all truth the field will not be ours.’

      Van Cutzem shook his head: ‘That may be so, Captain. But our orders are to stand. We are to wait until the cavalry have attacked. My generals believe that the day will be resolved by a cavalry battle, not by the infantry. I’m sorry. My orders and yours too, are to stand here.’

      Steel put a hand to his head: ‘And be shot to shreds by the French guns?’

      ‘If that is what it takes. Those are my orders, Mister Steel. And I am very much afraid that at the present time, as you find yourself under my command, you must obey them also.’ A horseman cantered up to the major and the rider, a Dutch dragoon, muttered a few words of Flemish. ‘And now excuse me, please. I am summoned by my brigadier. Perhaps we shall advance after all.’

      Van Cutzem took his horse from the orderly who had been holding her, mounted and rode towards the rear of his regiment. Steel bit his lip and shook his head. First they had been pulled out of a hard-won foothold and now seemed destined to be left to the mercies of the French artillery. The first decision he had understood. But the second? Sometimes he wondered whether his own commanders were fully aware of any of the many wasted opportunities offered by a battlefield. His musings were interrupted by activity to the front as a body of men approached them.

      Slaughter had seen them too: ‘Grenadiers. Stand to. Charge your muskets.’

      Forty weapons were levelled towards the horsemen, bayonets fixed. Steel looked at the advancing troops and as they grew closer saw with relief from the green cockade in their hats that they were of the allied side.

      ‘At ease, men. They’re ours.’

      As the ragged column neared them he began to hear snatches of broad Scots dialect. He also saw that, whoever they were, these men had been badly mauled. This bloody mess was, it seemed, what had once been a battalion or more of redcoats. And Scottish troops at that. But under whose command were they, he wondered.

      Slaughter came to his side: ‘That’s not a sight I ever like to see, sir. Unsettles the men too. Poor buggers.’

      A man passed them, a junior officer, perched on a makeshift seat made from a musket carried by two of his men, one of whom was sobbing. The officer’s left leg had been sheared clean away from the bone and his calf was hanging by the thinnest of tendons. To judge from the colour of his face he had lost a great deal of blood. He said nothing but stared with glazed eyes to his front, still in deep shock. Steel wondered how he would fare when the pain finally cut in. The longer the shock, they said, the worse the agony when it came. Slaughter cursed. Evidently they had been repulsed with some force. It impressed Steel that they were not in rout, but retreating in a controlled manner, their sergeants keeping them in line despite their evident exhaustion and distress. As Steel stood watching, one man – a big fellow with an almost bald head, walking at a fast pace – pushed past him, knocking against his arm with some force. The man did not apologize but carried on.

      Steel, regaining his composure, shouted after him: ‘Mind your step, sir. Have a care. Even on a field of battle we yet have manners.’

      The man turned and Steel saw, even through the mud and blood which had spattered across his once-white breeches, that he was an officer. He turned and walked back towards Steel and as he did so wiped a hand across his face, removing some of the dirt which cloaked his features. ‘And who might you be, sir?’

      His accent was not unlike Steel’s own; soft and with a slight Scottish burr.

      ‘Captain Steel. Sir James Farquharson’s Regiment of Foot. I command the Grenadiers. Who, may I ask, might want to know?’

      Again the man wiped his face and stared hard at Steel: ‘D’you not know me?’

      ‘I was not aware that I should, sir.’

      The man smiled and Steel registered his confidence: ‘Well, you certainly are aware now, Captain Steel. Argyll is my name. I command those Scots regiments in Dutch service which for the last hour have