The stench of death hung about Ostend for weeks. But Steel did not care. He was going home. Not to Scotland, but at least across the Channel to London. For once the prospect of leave was filled with possibilities. Filled with Henrietta. A clap on the shoulder-blade surprised him from his reverie and re-awakened pain in his raw back. He tried not to wince.
Lord Orkney raised his glass towards Steel. Clapped him again on the shoulder: ‘You’re a credit to the army, Sir. A credit. Isn’t that so, your Grace? A credit.’
Steel smiled, mumbled his thanks and looked first at Marl-borough and then towards the door. The Duke was well aware that Steel wanted to leave; to find Lady Henrietta, set off for the port and the journey home. But he was damned if he was going to waste one iota of the glory that Steel’s action had brought to his command. He extended his arm to move Steel further into the tented room, where a group of officers stood in conversation.
‘Argyll. You’ve met Captain Steel?’
‘Indeed your Grace. We are well acquainted.’
The familiar face caught Steel with its cold grey eyes and he felt a chill pass through his body. Then he thought of Sergeant McKellar, lying dead on the cobbles and smiled back. And Argyll knew and looked away.
Other officers smiled at Steel. Muttered words of congratulation. Colonel Hawkins tapped him on the shoulder: ‘You look tired, Jack. You’ve earned your leave. That was well done.’
‘But we lost Trouin. And his crew.’
‘But we took the garrison, Jack. And the town.’
Cadogan spoke: ‘We have the port, Colonel, and that is what matters. That, after all was the prime objective. It was a great success and at such little cost’.
Steel could have punched him. At little cost perhaps for the army as a whole. Five hundred men. But how many of those had been from his company? He had lost too many good men in the assault and up there on the ramparts with Hansam. Thankfully the lieutenant himself and young Williams had both come through unhurt. But too many Grenadiers would stay in Ostend forever. He thought too of Brouwer and of Lejeune, of a widow and two fatherless children in a ruined city and of a mourning mother at the court of King Louis. He realized, not for the first time, how war brought all sorts together in grief.
But this was a time for joy. He was going home – that was, if he ever got away from this damn tent and the incessant hubbub of the general staff.
Thankfully, his hearing had returned within a day. Taylor had dressed his wounds, the scratches from the explosion and the deeper hurts inflicted by Trouin’s men. He had bound up Steel’s broken rib – a simple fracture – and applied an ointment to his bruises that Henrietta said smelt of saffron and turmeric.
He wondered what Arabella would make of his relationship with her cousin, knew that she might exact some subtle form of revenge and was strangely excited by that danger. Again Steel realized that his mind had wandered and that he had missed entirely what Marlborough had just said.
‘I’m very sorry, Sir. I …’
‘Sorry? Don’t be sorry, Steel. You have nothing for which to apologise. You have earned your leave. Earned it well. But don’t stay long, Steel. We need you back here with the army. Isn’t that right, Hawkins?’
The Colonel nodded: ‘Indeed, your Grace. Even now I have a mind to put the Captain to good use.’
Marlborough laughed and walked across the room to be welcomed into another group of officers.
Steel stared at the Colonel, who said nothing and took another long draught from the glass of wine which one of the Duke’s servants had just replenished: ‘You knew. You engineered the whole affair so that I should get her out.’
‘Now Jack, don’t jump to conclusions. That may well be so, but what does it do to conjecture now? She’s out. You’re safe and Ostend is ours.’
Steel thought for a moment: ‘Did the Duke know anything of your plan?’
Hawkins ignored the question.
‘We needed to get to Trouin. To stop him from taking complete control of the channel coast. We had to have some means of luring him into the town, of persuading him to stay until we could take the port. Her ladyship seemed to be the obvious answer. He likes a pretty girl.’
‘But he got away. You risked her life and he got away.’
‘But we did take the town, Jack. And you heard Lord Cadogan. That’s what we came here for. Isn’t it?’
Steel shook his head. Such intrigue was lost upon him. He was merely a soldier.
* * *
And so Steel sailed for England with Henrietta. The bells of St Margarets rang out in his honour and at last the Queen put her name to the letter of commission for his Captaincy. And later that month the same ship that had taken him to Dover docked there again to offload its cargo of French prisoners, officers on parole. And Claude Malbec did what he had sworn he never would and set foot on English soil. And at the same moment an ocean away, on another ship – a fine brigantine bobbing at anchor in a shallow, palm-fringed bay – another man also counted himself lucky to be out of Ostend. And he swatted away the flies and drank down another glass of madiera and cursed at the heat and the dearth of pretty girls. But the worst of his curses he reserved for a tall Captain of Grenadiers.