02 - Keane's Challenge
Read 02 - Keane's Challenge Online
Authors: Iain Gale
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Heron Books
An imprint of Quercus Editions Ltd
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7th Floor, South Block
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Copyright © 2014 Iain Gale
The moral right of Iain Gale to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
HB ISBN 978 1 78087 364 0
TPB ISBN 978 1 78206 092 5
EBOOK ISBN 978 1 78087 365 7
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events portrayed in it, while at times based on historical figures and places, are the product of the author’s imagination.
You can find this and many other great books at:
www.quercusbooks.co.uk
Also by Iain Gale
James Keane series
KEANE’S COMPANY
FOUR DAYS IN JUNE
A novel of Waterloo
Jack Steel series
MAN OF HONOUR
RULES OF WAR
BROTHERS IN ARMS
Peter Lamb series
THE BLACK JACKALS
JACKALS’ REVENGE
ALAMEIN
For
Florence, Rosie and Issy
A dozen men sat low in their saddles amid the tall pines and stared at the road which wound about the hillside down below them. The sun shone through the trees and the air was heavy with the scent of pine, borne on a slight breeze, but otherwise the day was still. One of the men patted the neck of his horse, which had been startled by some movement close by: a snake perhaps. But not one of the horsemen spoke a word, and when a noise came to them at last it was that for which they had been waiting: the sound of iron-shod horses’ hooves on the hard, baked earth of the road. The sound of cavalry. The sound of the French.
Captain James Keane stood up in his stirrups and rose slightly in the saddle, straining to listen, trying to estimate the numbers of the approaching horsemen. Not enough for a squadron. A troop certainly. A company at most. Sixty men. That would do, he thought.
They could hear the jingle of harness now and the whinnying of the fast-approaching horses. And with it the occasional word or two of command, called out in French.
And then they came into view, the sun glinting on the polished
brass helmets of the leading troopers: a half-troop of green-coated French dragoons, trotting ahead in skirmish order. From the sweat-flecked flanks of their mounts Keane could see that they had been riding hard and fast for some time, and as he had predicted they would, had slowed down only when they had reached this part of the road where the climb would have made their pace impossible. A trot was the best they could manage now.
The leading party rode, well spaced out, on either side of the road, their carbines drawn, their eyes sweeping the track from side to side. Keane could sense the fear and apprehension in their minds. They were right to be afraid. Behind the scouts rode the main body of the dragoons and with them a solitary, blue-coated horseman. Anyone might have supposed that with an escort of such a size this man in blue must surely be a general or some dignitary. But closer observation revealed that his rank was that of a mere captain of infantry. Across his horse’s sweating flanks were draped two leather saddlebags and these were the reason for the escort. Keane knew he was a courier, carrying orders and messages from the French high command to officers in the field, and since the French had invaded Portugal the previous year the number of men in any such courier’s escort had grown steadily as the attacks on them had escalated.
The mountains were teeming with guerrillas, a people’s army of peasants and ex-soldiers that had risen up to drive off the invader, and over the past months their attacks had become bolder and more confident and the guerrillas ever more brutal in their treatment of their captives. Keane had seen the inhuman horror of it at first hand. He was under orders to find and intercept any French courier that he could, in particular
before the guerrillas got their hands on them and tortured them to death. Quite apart from such barbaric treatment being meted out to a fellow officer, it was far better for intelligence purposes to retrieve any courier alive than merely be handed the bloodied papers that he had carried. Now he had that rare chance.
*
Keane knew that he and his men had not yet been seen and that timing was vital. He nodded to the man on his left, a wiry youth who, putting his hands to his mouth, gave the call of a wild bird. One of the dragoons looked up at the noise but did not see them and thought nothing of it. He looked away and then, perhaps thinking the better of it, glanced again towards where the sound had come from, thinking that he might have seen a flash of sunlight, reflected on steel. But by then it was too late for him to save his life.
*
The dragoons rounded the bend in the road and, sensing something wrong, stopped in their tracks. The lead cavalryman shouted something. But it was only half finished before his head exploded, as a well-aimed bullet smashed into his temple. There were other shouts and Keane saw two of the dragoons raise their carbines to fire as the others went to draw their sabres, knowing sensibly that now that would be the only way to save their lives: with sword against sword. Then, from Keane’s left, on the road below, with a great roar, a mass of cavalry swept towards the dragoons. Blue-coated and wearing the distinctive dark brown busby of the hussar, they swung their razor-edged, curved light cavalry sabres above their heads and yelled as they spurred towards the French.
But their war cry, though familiar to Keane, was not that of Spain or Britain. It was the guttural roar of ‘
Gott Mit Uns
’ that
rose above the trees, as King George’s loyal Hanoverians took death to the French.
Keane did not wait to watch the fighting but, turning to his right, sought out his sergeant.
‘Sarn’t Ross?’
‘Sir?’
‘Down the hill. With me.’
Pulling hard against the reins to turn his mount’s head, Keane spurred his horse, pacing, down the slope and, sabre in hand, led his men out of the trees. Most of the dragoons had ridden to the front, to face the oncoming German attack, and only a skeleton guard now remained with the courier. Now Keane and his men came down hard upon them, yelling like the banshee. Keane careered into a green-coated cavalryman, knocking him back as his horse, used to the fury of battle and as keen as her master, kicked and butted hard into the other man’s mount. The dragoon was pushed off balance and struggled to stay in the saddle then, swinging wildly, he drove his long, straight Klingenthal blade towards Keane. It missed him entirely and, without bothering to parry, Keane cut to the left with his own weapon and connected with the man’s arm, nearly severing it close to the shoulder. The dragoon screamed and at last fell from his horse, which reared and scrambled down the hill, trampling the body of his dying master.
Keane carried on. All around him his men were engaged with the enemy now, but their surprise had been total and the advantage was theirs. He hacked at a green-coated back, left the man for dead, then for an instant caught himself wondering how the Germans were faring on their left. Seconds later he found himself facing a tall dragoon sergeant who smiled at him knowingly through yellow teeth before lunging at his chest. Keane
parried with a stroke to the right which deflected the blade, but in doing so felt the full force of the man’s cut: strong and powerful against his blade.
Recovering, he made his own attack at the man’s neck and was parried in turn with a skill that caught him off guard. This man was good, better than most French troopers he had met in combat, marrying a real finesse at swordplay with formidable strength. He was a veteran, Keane guessed, who must have fought through the revolutionary wars and earned his stripes in the blood of battle. The dragoon came at him again, with a stroke to the left, and Keane met it just in time. His riposte was clumsy but perhaps on that account it hit home and the man winced as Keane’s sabre caught him in the ribs, cutting clean through the green serge tunic.
The man stopped for a moment and glanced down at his stomach, seeing the blood beginning to seep through the cloth. Then he looked up again at Keane and with a snarl attacked again, with fury born of pain. The blade swung towards Keane but he was ready for it now and, anticipating the force, parried it high and forced the man’s hand down before sliding his own, deeply curved Arabian blade along the enemy sword, to connect with his chest. Keane’s sabre slid in, helped by the force of the man’s own stroke, and pierced the dragoon’s body close to the heart. The man stared at Keane with wide eyes that quickly glazed over. Keane withdrew the bloodied blade and the dragoon slumped over his horse.
Looking to his left, Keane could see the hussars in the thick of a desperate melee with the dragoons. But now his prize was in sight. At last he was on the courier. At close quarters, the captain seemed to him no more than a boy of perhaps twenty at most. He glared at Keane and raised his slim infantry sword
in a feeble defence. It would have been the work of an instant to kill him, but Keane did not cut at the officer. Instead, using the pommel of his sword hilt, he dealt the boy such a blow on the head that it knocked him senseless. Before he could fall from the saddle, though, Keane had grabbed him. He called out to one of his men, ‘Martin, take this boy up the hill. We need him alive.’