Rules of War (19 page)

The soldiers had begun to talk again now.

‘I told you, Lejeune, when we locked the door. Let one of these damned peasants in here and you can be sure that the rest will follow. We cannot accommodate the whole town in this place. We must save ourselves to ensure that we can fight when the barrage lifts. That is the simple truth, Captain. Those are my orders. And you have yours. Besides, what's it to you? They're only Belgians.'

He laughed and spat on the floor. The captain stood up: ‘With respect, sir. They are also human beings. It's … it's inhuman to do this. We must admit them, Major. You must allow it.'

The colour rose in Malbec's tanned face. ‘We must do nothing of the sort, Captain. And if you oppose me again on this matter I shall have you court-martialled for insubordination. How long have you served with us, Lejeune? Four months?'

‘Two months, sir.'

‘Two months. And where were you before that?'

‘I served in the Regiment du Roi.'

‘And before that?'

‘I was a cadet in the royal guard sir, at the court.'

‘You were a courtier. And before that? A schoolboy. And now you presume to tell me how I should and how I should not conduct a war? Do you know how long I have served with the colours?'

‘No, sir.'

‘Too long, Lejeune. Too long to be taught my trade by a wet-nursed infant, like you. No, Captain Lejeune. I should caution you not to attempt to teach an old dog new tricks. You should have been with us in Bavaria. Shouldn't he, Sergeant Müller? Tell him about Bavaria, Sergeant.'

Müller, a big, bald-headed Alsatian, grinned: ‘Oh, you should have seen it, sir. Terrible business it was. But we had to do it. Only way to turn those Germans against the English. Otherwise more would have died, see? Ain't that right Major Malbec, sir? Had to do it … That's what the major said.'

Then, remembering rather too vividly the dreadful screams as they had bayoneted the inhabitants of the little Bavarian village, the sergeant stopped and stared at the ground.

Malbec spoke: ‘And that's why we have to do what we must do now, Captain.'

Malbec's men, who had remained silent and motionless during the exchange went back to their chores. One man began to sing.

His song was cut short by a terrible, heart-piercing shriek from outside the doors and then … silence.

Malbec stared at the door, from beyond which there now came a low groaning. He tried to shut his ears and mind to it. Closed his eyes, and instantly saw the face of his wife.
They heard a shell come in overhead, the shrill whine as it descended. Close, closer, until it was almost on top of them. Instinctively, the men covered their heads and with an earthshaking crash the bomb hit the ground only a few paces from the door of the casemate. More dust fell from the roof. Beyond the door they heard the screams begin again as people tried to run from the spinning black orb. Then the air outside the shelter was rent with a huge explosion. The door seemed to be pushed in and then sucked out by the blast. But still it held fast. Then, a dreadful stillness. And from outside the casemate there was not a sound. But then it came again. Worse this time, as the single groan was replaced with many more. Too many. Malbec opened his eyes and realized that he was pouring with sweat.

He cast a glance at Lejeune. The captain was staring at him. Malbec looked back to the door. And then, just for an instant, through the moans of misery without, he thought that he heard the particular, high pitch of a woman's voice.

‘Save me. Save my boys. Save the children.'

And then something curious happened inside Claude Malbec's, seething, thumping, boiling brain. He rushed towards the door and, thrusting the big sergeant aside, slipped the bolts and pushed it open. Its base slithered across the cobbles slick with blood and gobbets of flesh. Malbec peered into the awful afternoon and was greeted by a scene from hell.

The street was smoking and strewn with people and things which he realized had recently been people. Great chunks of stone had been gouged from the buildings on either side of the street and lay on the cobbles with the scorched and splintered roof tiles that had been sent crashing to the ground in their scores. Wherever he looked, it seemed to Claude Malbec that something was burning: wooden rafters, carts, horses … human flesh. A noise from above made him look up and
he saw yet more bombs coming in, flying across the sky like so many evil, black comets.

Suddenly he was aware of a press of people moving towards him. People with terrible wounds, missing limbs and parts of their faces. Women carrying limp children in their arms. Other children, some covered in blood, suddenly lost, orphaned and alone, wailing in their bewilderment. Their clothes had been shredded by the explosions and their exposed flesh was covered in burns and lacerations. In the crowd he could make out two or three men who appeared to be more or less unhurt, doing their best to help the wounded. Acting, it seemed to him, almost in slow-motion, Malbec reached out and grabbed one of the children – a girl of about eight – and gathered her to him. He could hear nothing over the noise of the explosions. Beside his feet, close to the doorcase, a woman was sitting on the bloody cobbles cradling one child in her arms, while another grabbed at her desperately. She turned her face to Malbec and mouthed what he took to be the word ‘help', but made no sound. Still holding the girl, he leant down and helped the woman to her feet. By some miracle she did not appear to have been hit, merely in shock. One of her children though, the boy in her arms, was quite dead. There was not a mark upon him. The blast must have killed him, thought Malbec and suddenly his world spun back to normal speed.

He pushed the woman and her children back through the entrance behind him and, bringing the girl with him, ducked back into the casemate and slammed the door tight. And then Sergeant Müller was sliding in the bolts as a dozen bloody fists began again to beat against the outside.

Malbec turned and saw that a few other civilians had made it in. There were around a dozen townspeople in all. Malbec turned to the woman and gently wiped her face. He looked
down into her eyes and a part of his mind begged a deity that he had long abandoned in his bitterness that in them he might see his wife's smile. But it was not Marie, could never be.

The woman stared back at him. ‘Thank you. Oh thank you, sir.' She was shaking with shock and her hands gripped the dead child with claw-like, denying ferocity. ‘Thank you. You have saved us. Thank you for saving my sons.'

Malbec stared at her.

‘
Monsieur?
'

Her face was pretty, with blue eyes encased with red-rimmed skin. He looked at the boys. One, perhaps eight years old, had fair curls, the other, the one who lay dead in her arms, was around six and had straight dark hair. So like his own boys. But how old would they have been now? Eighteen and twenty. Men themselves. And if they had lived – if Marie had lived – he wondered what they would all be doing at this moment?

‘Sir, are you all right?'

Captain Lejeune was standing beside him and it was only then that Malbec realized that his own eyes were filled with tears.

‘I … Oh, yes, Captain. As you were. Damned dust.' Malbec took the handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed away the salt water. ‘Can't see a bloody thing. This dust.' He staggered to a chair and sat down, heavily. ‘I just … I just thought, I was wondering …'

He paused. Inside his head a beating drum was pounding, while somewhere a small voice was reaching up from his soul: Oh God, he thought. What have I done? Marie, forgive me.

He turned to the captain: ‘Quick, open the door. Let in as many more of them as we can hold.'

Lejeune stared at him: ‘But, sir –'

‘An order, Captain. I order you to open that door and let
in as many as we can hold. Now, before I change my mind. Müller, help him. And you men.'

Malbec was thinking fast now. And then, before Lejeune and the sergeant had opened the door, he knew what had to be done, how he could make the guns stop. They had allowed in thirty of the townspeople now, in all conditions. Malbec watched as the room filled up.

‘Right. That's enough. Close the door. That's enough of them.'

The room was full of wounded and dying people and the stench, even with the ventilation, was gut-wrenchingly rank. Sweat and blood mingled with saltpetre and powder smoke in a heavy, acrid fug. Instinctively, the French soldiers began to tend to the wounded civilians.

Malbec turned to his sergeant: ‘Müller, I want you and the captain to go and find the governor. You should come across him in casemate number five. That's the one by the Lanthorn Bastion; directly across town from here, past the town hall. When you've found him, I want you to bring him here. As quickly as you can. Don't take no for an answer, use force if you must. We're under martial law now. And make sure that you get that English girl too – she's sure to be with him, he won't let her out of his sight. Bring them both here. Hurry man, quickly. And watch your step.'

The sergeant crossed to Lejeune and after a few words both men left the room. Malbec took a long draught from the goblet of dusty wine before him and stared again at the mother and her two sons. And as he savoured the bitter, gritty liquid he sat back in the chair and listened to the terrible music of Ostend's suffering.

How much longer could this go on, Steel wondered. How much more could the people of this town take? Three hours
of bombardment and still the mortars spat out their great iron balls and the cannon below him jumped back in recoil as their barrels grew to red-hot temperatures and had to be cooled down with freshly-dampened sponges. Behind its walls and tiered defences, the port seemed to spout fire from every quarter and a huge pall of black smoke had gathered above the houses and the great church spire of St Peter and Paul, blotting out the sun. Behind him, on the narrow road to the West Gate, his men grew restless. Naturally, Steel had rejoiced at the news that he was to lead the forlorn hope. You did not get anything in this army – advancement or booty – by holding back from danger. It was the only way. Besides, he had been specifically asked to lead the attack by Colonel Hawkins, and hadn't the order come directly from Marlborough? Behind his Grenadiers, the assault column snaked back through those plucked from other regiments. Finally at the rear came the bulk of the attacking force, under the Duke of Argyll: Mordaunt's regiment and de Lalo's Huguenots among them. Argyll himself was standing a little distance away, with Captain Forbes, on one of the sand dunes. And, as Steel had predicted, the two men were getting on famously.

Surely, he thought, the town would not stand much more of this firestorm? Surely soon they would either see the gates flung open and the garrison marched out under a white flag; or they would be given the signal to attack? But time passed. No men marched out, no signal came. And still the bombs rained down.

Governor de la Motte stumbled through the doorway of the Florida casemate and into the room. At any other time, the unusually swift entrance of the sweating, red-faced man would have been enough to make any of those who could
among the tortured inhabitants look round in curiosity. But it was the person who now followed the governor through the door who attracted the stares of the soldiers and the wounded townspeople of Ostend. The first thing that struck you was her beauty, which made a stark and poignant contrast to the broken and bloodied debris of humanity lying across the floor of the stinking casemate. Then there was her dress. Lady Henrietta Vaughan wore the same dress of yellow silk in which she had been captured in the Channel on the frigate that had been taking her from her father's estates in Ireland to Southampton. It was not that she did not have a change of clothes, nor that she had not been permitted to keep them by her captors; it was merely that this was her very favourite dress and she had thought that with the prospect of a successful British assault upon the town, she had better be looking her best.

Sadly however, in the course of their journey across town, the dress had become marked with soot smuts falling from the sky and at one stage had even been touched by a cinder, causing a small hole to appear in the skirt. Her face too was marked by black streaks, powder marks, but her coiffure had survived intact, which said much for the skill of her maid, who followed now in her wake. On the whole, however, Lady Henrietta was not in the best of humours. In fact she was quite out of sorts and if her ladyship's beauty was out-matched by one thing, it was her temper, as Major Malbec was about to discover.

She had made her way through the town with her face covered by a fan and flanked by servants and soldiers and had thus been mercifully unaware of the suffering unfolding around her. Brought up to remain phlegmatic, Henrietta came from a military family and was also thus not unused to the sound of cannon fire and musketry at parades. And she
had a passion for fireworks. So of all the party that now sought refuge within Malbec's casemate, Lady Henrietta was the least shaken, although she was furious. Her eyes searched out the officer in command and without casting a glance anywhere else in the room, she headed directly for Malbec.

‘Major. Please explain yourself. I am first ushered into a stinking godforsaken barrack room and confined there for the best part of three hours and then I am bidden to walk through streets, while we are under attack, merely because you desire my presence. Why, we might all have been killed. Were we not to remain within shelter on the other side of the town? It seems to me that you have brought me closer to danger here. You are aware that is expressly forbidden under the terms of my capture and parole. You will explain yourself, Major. I am aware that I have rights, as a prisoner of war.'