by Iain Gale
‘Officers?’
‘Mr Montagu’s been shot, sir. He’ll live, though. And Captain Moore. Mr Wyndham’s taken a scratch too, sir. Mr Blackman’s dead, of course, and Mr Vane’s been hit. Colonel Mackinnon you know about, sir. They’re in the big house. And Colonel Acheson’s missing, sir.’
‘What of the rest. D’you know?’
‘I reckon as there’s another 140 hit of the Coldstream, sir. Perhaps forty dead and dying. Dr Whymper’s cussing and blindin’ in there, sir. Says he’s got no light and precious little brandy or gin. He’s puttin’ powder on the stumps, sir.’
‘Dear God. I’m sure he knows his business. So what is our strength on the walls?’
‘I reckon we’re down to 700 able-bodied men, sir, and another fifty wounded but as can still hold a musket.’
Of nigh-on 1,000 Guards now in the château, one in six were already casualties and more than a third of those dead or dying. Macdonell wondered how many Frenchmen lay dead outside the walls.
Wondered too what was happening elsewhere on the battlefield. He was quite isolated in this place. Might as well be in another country or on a far-distant planet. For all they knew the battle might be won already. Or lost, God help them.
Colonel Woodford approached him across the yard. ‘Splendid garden, Macdonell, eh? Pity we have to ruin it. Thing of real beauty, if you want my opinion. Not quite up to my own, of course. Too many trees, eh? Don’t you think?’
‘I dare say so, Colonel.’
The colonel continued. ‘Poor Dan, eh? No more monkey business for him in the mess, eh, Macdonell? Shot in the knee, uh? Got his Byron’s limp at last. That’ll tickle him. Still, could have been worse. Could have been a few inches higher, eh? And then no business with the ladies, James. No business at all. If you do dare say so. No business at all.’
As he chortled at his joke a great shout went up from the orchard. Hepburn was leading the Third Guards through the trees to retake it from the French. Macdonell turned to Gooch.
‘Gooch. Take your men and reinforce the upper storey of the main house. See if you can fire down on the heads. And if you can, pick off the gunners before that infernal battery sets fire to the buildings. I’ll give any man a shilling who kills a gunner. See to it.’
The ensign and his men began to double across the courtyard.
Macdonell called to Gooch. ‘Henry. One moment.’ He spoke quietly. ‘Position yourself by the door to the upper room. They’re sure to shell the house soon and I want you to keep the men in there until the fire is as hot as Hades. You understand? But for God’s sake be careful not to lose any.’
‘Sir.’
As Colonel Woodford opened his mouth to impart some fresh wisdom, a cannon shot came crashing through the south gate, splintering the cross-beam and pushing the door wide open. The French outside did not lose a moment. Within seconds a score of red-plumed grenadiers were pushing their way into the inner archway.
Macdonell saw them just in time. ‘To me, Guards. Form line. Ready. Present. Fire.’
A dozen soldiers ran to him, half instinctively dropping to one knee to provide a kneeling front rank. The improvised volley crashed out from their ready-loaded muskets and immediately the twelve Coldstreamers followed up with the bayonet towards the wounded and dying Frenchmen. In a flurry of steel and crashing musket butts, they closed the gate. Kept their shoulders at it while Frazer hurried up with two other men carrying a long wooden plank as a replacement crossbar.
The French, pinned down by harrowing fire from the gatehouse, were reluctant to contest the struggle.
Macdonell walked back to his station beside the main house. Saw one of the guardsmen march a freshly captured drummer boy towards the stable in which the wounded of both sides had been placed together. He shouted to the man. Couldn’t see who it was. ‘You there. Chosen man now. Guard that archway. See that if another shot breaks it you are ready to repair the damage.’
Turning, he shouted up to the highest window of the château. ‘Mister Gooch. If you please. I think that we might deal with that cannon now. As soon as you like. And a shilling for every man who brings down a gunner.’
‘Sir.’
Shots rang out from the upper floors and as they did, as if in reply, two shells came screaming in from the wood and punched great holes in the roof. Within seconds it was alight. It was as he had feared. The French gunners had raised their trajectory and switched to carcass shot, an oblong canvas box secured with steel hoops and containing a mix of turpentine, tallow and sulphur. Once ignited by its charge it was almost impossible to put out and on contact was sure to ignite any flammable material. Now they were really in trouble. Macdonell watched as the flames began to lick upwards through the exposed roof timbers. Even as he looked it became clear that the French cannon were firing more heavily. A mixture of projectiles: carcass for the buildings, shell for casualties, and roundshot directly at the brickwork. A terrible crash made him spin round. A French ball had smashed into the gatehouse, leaving a great hole in both walls before passing out and into the courtyard. In the process it had carried away with it not only bricks but the bodies of four guardsmen. Their bloody remains now lay half tumbled out of the ragged hole. Macdonell shouted towards a group of Coldstreamers standing up on the pigsty, reloading their muskets, ready to fire down on the advancing French.
‘Someone move those bodies up there. Bring them down. Secure the position. You four up there. Now. Elrington. You take the gate. Keep alert. We must not let them in.’
Smoke now filled the compound, hanging in acrid clouds that choked and stung the throat. Macdonell placed his hand over his mouth to breathe and as he did so a shell exploded ten yards over to his right, tossing a guardsman into the air like a child’s rag-doll. A burning fragment from the shot, tumbling wickedly to the ground, fell into a barrel of gunpowder being manhandled by two more redcoats. They were blown to atoms. Another man who had been standing close by turned to Macdonell, his face a mass of blood. Macdonell did not know the man. Could not make out the features, yet saw the bloody mouth open wide in agony.
‘Oh God, help me. Oh help. I can’t see. My eyes. Oh dear God, my eyes.’
Macdonell rushed to support the man as he collapsed to the ground. ‘A surgeon. Where’s Dr Whymper? Someone find a surgeon. Help this man.’
Two redcoats came to his aid. Helped the blinded man to his feet.
Macdonell turned back to the gatehouse but as he did so the roof of the cart-house adjacent to the barn shot up in a sheet of flame. Instantly, from within came a terrible, animal screaming. ‘The horses. Save the horses.’ Macdonell watched in despair as his servant Smith ran with three others to rescue the officers’ mounts, all of which had been quartered in the cart-house. One man emerged dragging a whinnying mare. Another followed, but as they came from the door a shell fell in front of them and the horse, terrified, backed again into the stable. The man let go her rein and she was gone. Smith emerged empty-handed, his face and arms blackened by smoke, crying pathetically. That was it, then. All but one of the horses burned to death.
Macdonell was aware of an officer walking towards him from the north gate. Recognized him as Francis Home of the 3rd Guards. He offered Macdonell something in his hand.
‘A note, Macdonell. From the Commander-in-Chief, by way of Major Hamilton.’
Macdonell took the message, written on a piece of cured mule skin. Read the orders.
I see that the fire has communicated from the haystack to the roof of the château. You must however still keep your men in those parts to which the fire does not reach. Take care that no men are lost by the falling in of the roof or floors. After both have fallen in occupy the ruined walls inside of the garden; particularly if it should be possible for the enemy to pass through the embers in the inside of the house.
He turned to Biddle. ‘Come with me.’
Together they entered the main door of the château and climbed the stairs. How different it was now from the previous evening.
The walls were black from smoke, and timbers from the upper floors had fallen in across the staircase. Here and there a hole in the wall showed where a French shot had made its target, but it was the heat that struck him most. As they went higher it grew still more intense. In the great saloon lay the officer casualties: George Evelyn with his shattered arm, Montagu, Moore, Vane, his wrist in a sling. Macdonell noticed that Surgeon Whymper was carefully re-dressing Dan Mackinnon’s leg. Three other ranks were helping the wounded officers to beer from their canteens. Macdonell paused in the doorway.
‘Gentlemen. May I respectfully suggest that you get yourselves out of here with some haste. The roof is liable to fall in at any moment. Corporal. You bandsmen. Help them. And Doctor, with all respect to Colonel Mackinnon, I think that you might find rather more pressing work across in the barn. There are close on sixty men there who need your help. And do remember please to make sure that the French are comfortable too.’
Walking back to the staircase, he climbed, with the colour sergeant close behind him, up to the attic storey, and there, among the hissing, smoke-filled eaves found Gooch and his chosen men still, without much evident success, attempting to pick off at long range the gunners of the irritating howitzer battery.
Above them flames licked around the gables and roof timbers, several of which had already given way and were lying, charred, white and red-hot across the room at crazy angles.
‘Gooch, I think the time has come to abandon the house. You’ve done all you can. We need you in the courtyard.’
Visibly relieved, the handful of sharpshooters lost no time in abandoning the holes they had broken in the roof and began to file down the stairs.
Gooch smiled. ‘I’m afraid we didn’t have much luck, sir. Although you do owe a shilling to Private Clay, I believe. At least he claimed one shot, and Phillips attested to his story.’
‘Then I shall honour the debt, Henry.’
Macdonell made to leave, but on a whim turned back and peered out of a hole in the tiles. ‘By God, but that’s a view.’
Below him, through the smoke he could make out the grounds of the château sweeping away to the south. There was what remained of the garden, filled with redcoats again, and beyond it the woods, crammed with the blue-coated French. As the smoke drifted away he was just able to glimpse, to the left, what must be an entire wing of the French army. For an instant the sun managed to break through the blanket of cloud, and Macdonell gasped. For its rays had caught the shining steel breastplates of fully 5,000 cuirassiers. He had never before seen such a spectacle. And they were on the move. All of them. Advancing at a slow trot, directly, it seemed, for him.
He turned to Gooch. ‘I … Gooch. D’you see? There. Good God, man. Look there. How can we hope … ? Surely we cannot withstand that. And look.’
He pointed now as the sun broke through again and shed more light on the fields beyond the red-tiled roof of La Belle Alliance. ‘Look there, man. Yet more cavalry. Cannon too. And fresh battalions. But surely the Peer must know. He must have a plan. We can only trust in him now, Gooch.’
‘And in ourselves, sir.’
‘And indeed in ourselves, Henry. Yes. The hope of all humanity rests with us.’
TWENTY-ONE
Mont St Jean crossroads, 3.15 p.m. De Lancey
For almost half an hour they had sat here, enduring the deadly storm of shot that came in over the ridge from the thundering French cannon. All around him the ground around was strewn with bodies and parts of bodies; broken and abandoned weapons and pieces of uniform; trinkets and scraps of paper. De Lancey wondered whether perhaps he was making of himself too obvious a target. True, he could not see the enemy guns, nor they him, but it was common practice to draw your range on the enemy’s standards and he had only just realized that directly to his right, not ten yards away, stood the colour party of the 73rd. He cast them a glance. How young they seemed. Two ensigns, perhaps sixteen and seventeen years apiece, and a drummer boy of how old? No more than fifteen. On their flanks stood a sergeant and a colour sergeant. Seasoned veterans both. De Lancey could see the old salts muttering whispered words of encouragement to their pallid officers. And even as he watched a French roundshot came bounding in from the valley, bounced up from the earth before the redcoats and tore off the head of the drummer boy, still in its shako, spattering the men around him with his brains. One of the ensigns threw up. The other looked aghast. Said simply:
‘Oh! How extremely disgusting.’
The men about him burst into peals of laughter, but they stopped when moments later another cannonball came flying in and took off six bayonets in a row. It was swiftly followed by a third which, glancing off the cross-belt of one of the sergeants, threw the man to the ground. Bending over his writhing form a corporal looked up towards the commanding officer, who had now ridden over.
‘His breast bone’s broke, sir.’
The noise of the man’s screams took De Lancey back to the Peninsula. He was not the only member of their party to have been so affected by the little tragedy played out before them.
Wellington spoke: ‘Gentlemen. I think that perhaps we are a little thick on the ground. Would it do for us to disperse a little? Gordon. Would you ride over to the right flank and have General Chassé bring his division across from Merbe Braine. Have him take up position behind General Adam.’ He paused. Produced a piece of muleskin from his valise and scribbled another note. ‘Canning. Take this order to Colonel Olfermann. Have his Brunswickers move up towards Hougoumont. But do remember to tell him to keep them out of sight of the French guns.’ He turned to his right. ‘Somerset?’
‘Your Grace?’
‘The entire line will fall back behind the ridge. And have the men lie down again.’
De Lancey turned to Wellington. ‘He may commit his cavalry, sir. Do you not think? If he were to come at us with merely half of those cuirassiers, your Grace, supported by the infantry that we can see held in reserve and merely a battery of horse guns, then we should really have something of a struggle on our hands. Or do you suppose that he might bring on the Garde, sir?’
‘No, De Lancey. I know enough of this man to guess that he will keep the Garde under his personal command until he is absolutely certain of the day. Either that or until he feels himself in crisis. And it would go against all the rules of war to attempt an assault with cavalry alone. Bonaparte is fully aware of the strength of a square against even the most formidable of cavalry. No, I believe that he intends to pound us once more and to keep on pounding. That, it would appear, is his way.’
De Lancey nodded his agreement. Although he did not in truth share Wellington’s unremitting faith in the power of the square, it was without doubt the only formation in which infantry might resist cavalry. Who did not know of the fate of John Colborne’s brigade at Albuera – rolled up and annihilated by a cavalry attack in the flank? Almost 80 per cent killed and wounded, and five of six of their colours taken. But it was itself horribly vulnerable to close-range artillery and small-arms fire. And it was not, as they all knew full well, 100 per cent reliable. A square was only as strong as the men who formed it. It depended upon psychology. Upon mutual dependence. You might be the handiest lad in the army with the bayonet, or the sharpest shot. But with thousands of cavalry bearing down upon you it was all too easy for your skills to desert you. A square would only survive on the absolute faith of each man in the ability of the next man to hold firm. Only then did it work. And even then, should even the smallest breach be made in its side, the cavalry might pour in and break upon the defenders from the rear. All it took was for a dying horse to crash into two or three ranks of men. Then it would be over in a moment. Broken squares lived on in infamy: the Austrians at Wagram; the French themselves at Garcia Hernandez. And should the square not happen to be quite completed when the cavalry broke upon it – it was a complex manoeuvre at any time – then once again the enemy cavalry might pour in and turn the ranks into a bloody butcher’s shop. Why, at Quatre-Bras
only two days ago a hasty order given in the course of the manoeuvre had propelled the 69th to disaster and the loss of their colour. The 42nd had narrowly escaped the same fate. Yes, thought De Lancey. Wellington was right. To attack with cavalry alone went against all the principles of war. But Napoleon had never played by the rules. And, if he were to use his cavalry en masse here, every Allied square must be watertight and supremely confident. He looked across the right wing of the Allied army, at the columns of Brunswickers, Nassauers and Hanoverians falling back down the ridge, and for the first time began to have grave doubts. If they could only discover what Napoleon intended. Perhaps now, thought De Lancey, now was his moment. Somehow now he might absolve himself of the blame for the débâcle at Quatre-Bras and the embarrassing confusion of the promise to Blücher. Perhaps Wellington would at length forgive him. He must at all costs be seen to make himself useful. Must do his job to the utmost. What would Murray have done? He turned to the Duke.
‘Your Grace, I think that perhaps I should take a closer look at the situation. We must ascertain what Bonaparte intends.’
‘Indeed, De Lancey. If you believe that to be possible. The master plays his cards damned close. But do be quick about it. I cannot afford to lose another of you. You in particular, De Lancey. We shall follow you.’
Calling George Scovell to accompany him, along with Charles Lennox, the Earl of March and a young cornet of the Blues, De Lancey turned his horse and cantered for the crest of the ridge, back towards the elm tree which for so much of that day had been their mustering point.
Within minutes the four men had reached the brow of the hill, close to where Christian Ompteda’s Germans, along with the farmhouse and the château, marked the farthest, most advanced position of the Allied line. As he crested the ridge the air about him changed. While previously he had been conscious of the great cannonballs screaming into their midst out of the smoke, here it seemed that the very atmosphere itself had taken on a new substance. Was alive with thousands of particles of flying lead and iron. The noise was bizarre. Like a gigantic swarm of bees.
