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sword.’
    â€˜That man was a Papist and a traitor and he suffered for it. I told you, Steel. I fight not only for my queen and my country. I fight for a greater Britain, for a nation free from such perverse unbelievers. I fight for truth, Steel. For truth. For freedom and against superstition. If you would care to discuss the matter further, I await your pleasure.’
    Turning, Argyll walked away from Steel and the others, pausing only to clean his sword blade on the white coat of a dead French soldier.
    Steel watched him go in silence and looked down at the body of the Irishman. Around him the Grenadiers were taking the surrender of Clare’s dragoons and he realized that the cannon seemed to have stopped firing. From beyond the town came the rolling noise of musketry and a confused cacophony which he recognized as the sound of one army in full flight and another in pursuit. It seemed that the cornet had been right. The battle was won. He shook his head, and said to no one in particular, ‘If that’s freedom and truth, then I want no part of it.’
    He thought of his younger brother, Alexander, a Jacobite who had left the family five years back. His whereabouts were currently unknown although Steel presumed that his allegiance, like that of poor, dead Clare, lay still with the old king and the old monarchy. He thought how easily it might have been Alexander rather than O’Brien who had met his end on the sergeant’s blade. He shivered and realized that one day he might meet him himself on a field of battle. He prayed that it would not be and called down a silent blessing on his brother, wherever he now was. Was it too much to hope that perhaps one day they would be reunited in a Scotland where all might be treated equally and where principle and religious bigotry did not divide families?
    Slaughter was at his side. ‘You’re right there, sir. Though I know there’s some among our own lads that’d agree with the duke.’
    â€˜I dare say there are. We’re all fighting for different things, Jacob; praying to different gods. But from what I can see, sometimes there’s no difference between Argyll’s idea of a new world and the blind bloody hatred I thought we might have left behind when Her Majesty came to the throne.’ He looked across to where the body of van Cutzem lay, among those of his men, face down in the bloody dirt. ‘I met a man on this field today who believed that war could be civilized with artificial rules and politeness. I told him that he was wrong and now he’s dead. And he was wrong, Jacob. The only way that we’re going to make a world worth living in, apart from kicking fat King Louis off his throne, is to start realizing that all war is brutal and nasty. It’s kill or be killed. The only winner is the man who gets in the first volley. Clare knew that.’ He pointed after Argyll. ‘And that man knows it too. But we shouldn’t hate like he does. That’s not war. We all have principles, our own codes of war. And we’re all afterglory, Jacob. All of us, you, me, Mister Hansam, Mister Williams. Glory and honour. Those are the only two things that matter in this life. Those and life itself. But we’re soldiers, we’re paid to take life. So they’re all that we have left. Rob us of them and you make us no better than common murderers.’
    Night came. As far as the eye could see around them dead bodies littered the ground. And most of them wore the white coat of France. They shone pale and motionless in the moonlight. Occasionally a heavy groan would reveal some still with a trace of life. But within minutes the scavenging peasants who roamed the battlefield had found the man and all was silent again.
    The heat of the day had gradually given way to night and following orders from Lord Orkney, the regiment, with the Grenadiers in the vanguard, had pressed on in the pursuit. Their passage had been