Four Days in June

by Iain Gale

  Wondering what the man could mean, Macdonell followed the soldier’s gaze. Wandered over to the blazing timbers at the side of the barn on whose flame two other, older redcoats, a private and a corporal of the 1st Guards, one wearing the long-service stripes of a Peninsular man, were cooking their own meagre supper. Seeing him, the two veterans snapped to attention and stood away from the flames. Macdonell nodded to them and looked into the fire. His curious gaze was returned from within the embers by the hollow grin of a charred human head. So that was it. The source of the fuel for the cooking fire, intended or accidental, was the burning bodies of the fallen. For once, Macdonell felt an unusual nausea in the pit of his stomach. Surely now this must be the final act of a drama played out in Hell? Looking about him in the fast-falling darkness, he watched the light of the other fires across the courtyard as they lit up the faces of its defenders, giving the appearance of so many demons rather than His Majesty’s Foot Guards.

  Walking away from the fire, he moved towards the garden and noticed the scores of bodies that lay heaped in curious attitudes. With the objectivity that came only with years of soldiering, he began, as a matter of instinct, to calculate their last movements. Here, just behind what had until recently been the wall of a building, was a man, a guardsman who, wounded and placed inside for his safety, must have been burned alive along with the house. Close by, half inside the remains of a doorway, lay another corpse. The man’s head and upper torso were perfectly recognizable. Macdonell placed him as a private of No. 2 Company. He had a nasty gunshot wound to the upper arm. His legs and feet though, and all from the waist downward, had been burned almost to ash. Evidently he had managed to crawl so far before his strength had run out and the fire had claimed him.

  Macdonell pressed a hand across his grimy forehead. Rubbed his eyes clear of smuts and cinders. The smell in the courtyard was indescribable. A vile, sweet stench that caught the back of the throat and lingered on the clothes. Burning wood and well-done pork. He swallowed hard. This was slaughter of a scale and ferocity he had not seen since Badajoz. This surely would be a final end to these long years of war? Napoleon was beaten. Routed from the field. Surely he could not hope to recover? This must then be an end to it. Let there be no more killing. No more death like this. Yet almost as he heard the prayer form in his mind, he knew it to be futile. Knew that men would continue to do these things to each other. That other men would come. Other Napoleons with their ambition, their glory, their death. And he knew too that there would always be men ready to stop them. Men like Graham, Miller and Gooch. Men like poor, dead Blackman, and Dobinson and Frost. Men like him.

  No. This was not an end to war. Merely an entr’acte between the bloody dramas that made up real life. The only life he knew. Would ever know.

  As the darkness grew deeper, he crossed the yard and found his servant. The man’s face wore a look of deep concern.

  ‘Trouble, Smith?’

  ‘It’s your valise, sir. Appears to have been, erm, misplaced in the battle, sir. Can’t say as I know where it can be at all.’

  Macdonell sighed. ‘Burnt to a cinder, I’ve no doubt. Still, Smith. No matter. What’s needed now is a horse. You must find me a horse before daybreak. I’ll wager there are a good few on this field and of no bad quality. D’you think you can manage it?’

  The man looked relieved. ‘Oh yes, sir. You can rely on me. I’ll be sure to get a good one, Colonel. A general’s horse, sir. A marshal’s horse. Boney’s very own nag.’

  Macdonell shook his head. ‘Just a horse, Smith. Don’t overreach yourself. A colonel’s horse would do very nicely.’

  He spotted Biddle. He was leaning against the parapet, polishing a gilded copper eagle prised from a Garde grenadier’s bearskin. A trophy.

  ‘Got your booty, Sar’nt?’

  ‘Sorry, sir. Didn’t see you there, sir. Didn’t I find this lying behind the wall? And you know that its owner has no further use for it. So I just thought I’d give it a bit of a shine. Take it back to the missus, sir. And now, if you’ll excuse me, sir, I was just away to see that the men were fed and watered. Or perhaps I should have them stand to, sir?’

  ‘No, Sar’nt. Not tonight. We’re to leave the Prussians to chase the Frogs. We’ve done our bit. You can tell the men to bivouac where best they can. They deserve to rest. And why don’t you see if you can find any more of that rum? Colonel Wyndham’s in command. I intend to find Colonel Mackinnon. I understand he’s been taken to the dressing station. Can’t have him there on his own. He’ll fleece all the army’s junior officers of their back pay before they know what he’s at.’

  Biddle smiled.

  ‘And be sure to look after yourself, Biddle. You’ve all earned it.’

  ‘I may have to agree with you there, sir. That was a real day, and no mistake. Such a day as we’ll not see again. I did hear one of the lads say as some of the Frogs had filled their canteens with brandy. Now that’s something I do like, sir. A nip or two of fine French conn-yak would suit me just fine right now, sir. If I might have your permission?’

  Macdonell laughed. Nodded his head. Turned and walked past the dead, towards the garden.

  So Biddle would have his brandy and Dan Mackinnon would win the annual pay of ten subalterns at whist or macao and once again all would be right with the world.

  He walked through a small doorway and into what had been the garden. Men were attempting to restore order to what in the course of the day had been transformed into a bloody wilderness. By the light of the blazing château he could see Henry Wyndham supervising a party of men clearing bodies from around the perimeter. Others were sorting the packs and weapons of the dead into separate piles.

  He turned and walked alone towards the Allied position, through the trampled parterres and muddied walkways. At length he reached the hedge which marked the northernmost boundary of the garden and which throughout the day had been the refuge of Saltoun’s men. British bodies, guardsmen mostly, lay tumbled in the ditch where they had fallen or crawled in the agonies of death. A burial party had already begun the business of sorting them into dead and wounded, officers and other ranks. Those with any chance of recovery were lifted and dragged to higher ground – the officers placed in wagons. The corpses, though, were left to lie till morning. No one had either the energy or the inclination to offer them a burial this night.

  Walking round the trees and across the track he began to ascend the slope towards the position occupied by the regimental colour party. It was hard going. The mud had been churned to a thick, clinging paste. The easiest thing would have been to have walked on the bodies that lay strewn so thickly that one might have stepped from one to another with each pace. But Macdonell, unable to bring himself to do so, took care to place his feet on the patches of ground between the corpses, using them only to steady himself as the mud caught at his legs. It seemed that every sort of soldier was here and every rank. British infantry, cavalry and artillerymen of all varieties lay alongside their French counterparts. Cuirassiers with hussars and lancers; tall grenadiers and skinny drummer-boys, their bodies contorted into impossible positions. And death was never neat or logical. Men lay blown apart, eviscerated or with half a head. Body parts littered the ground. Yet still in death it was possible to detect the vital indicators which a few hours earlier had branded these men, now united in eternity, mortal enemies. The green jackets of the Nassauers and the black of Brunswick were mixed indiscriminately with redcoats and French blue. He could see entire ranks of bearskinned French Garde grenadiers and chasseurs lying dead in formation where they had been cut down by cannon fire and musketry. And everywhere the bulky forms of thousands of dead horses transformed the contours of the ground into a new and terrible landscape.

  Towards the crest of the ridge he began to encounter groups of Allied soldiers, sitting down in small groups wherever they could, making camp for the night among the dead. Many had already fallen into an exhausted sleep, making it almost impossible at times to tell the livi
ng from the dead. They propped their heads against anything they could find: a greatcoat, a discarded blanket, a corpse.

  Macdonell paused and looked back down the hill. Took in the extent of the carnage and the rubbish that battle forever left in its wake. Clay pipes, buttons, musket flints, cartridge papers, thousands of musketballs lay strewn around. And scattered among the dead and dying were thousands of personal possessions. Things once invested with a private meaning, now meaningless. Blown, like their owners, to oblivion. Letters, snuff boxes, playing cards, coins, a sewing kit, miniature portraits of wives, lovers, children. The very stuff of life.

  On the ridge he found a single, decimated platoon of his regiment. They looked up and the corporal, whose name he could not bring to mind, recognizing him, rose to his feet and saluted. The others made to follow, but Macdonell motioned them back down. Realized that some words might be required.

  ‘Well done, all of you. Well done. You have more than done your duty today. You have made history. Get what rest you can, lads.’

  Amid the murmured thanks, he walked on and began to wonder if, like him, they were aware that this had been a battle unlike any other they had ever fought. That in the course of these nine hours not only their own lives but their whole world had been changed. A little further along the track, beside another group of guardsmen, he made out a familiar figure. George Bowles was struggling to squeeze himself into a pair of grey overalls. Macdonell approached him.

  ‘So, George, that’s it then. I say, found your overalls?’

  ‘No, damn it, James. Not mine at all. Came off some fellow in the 52nd. Damned if a sergeant of artillery didn’t just sell them to me for three guineas. Swore they’d fit me like a glove. Well, look at me, James. Do they fit?’

  ‘After a fashion, George. But does it matter? You are alive. We are alive. The battle is won. Bonaparte is beaten. The war is over.’

  Bowles gave up attempting to fasten the buttons of the undersized trousers, which had in fact belonged to a now dead, diminutive fifteen-year-old ensign half his height. He finally managed to secure them with his belt and fell to adjusting his coat and cuffs in an attempt to cut some sort of a dash.

  ‘Quite so, James. It’s over. And a bloodier business I never knew. And damned costly.’

  Macdonell, surprised, nodded gravely and was about to offer a suitably profound reply when Bowles spoke again: ‘I tell you, James, not only have I lost my valise, but my damn sword’s broke too and me hat’s gone. Damned tailors. Damned Frogs.’

  Macdonell smiled. Turned to take a last, lingering look out across the devastated battlefield and back down on the smoking ruin of Hougoumont. Then, walking over to Bowles, he patted him gently on the back.

  ‘Come along, George. Let’s see if we can find you a new sword.’

  POSTSCRIPT

  At around 9.20 in the evening Wellington and Blücher meet on the road near Le Caillou. The Allied army retires for the night and the Prussians take up the pursuit of the French. At Genappe they find Napoleon’s imperial coach and within it the Emperor’s medals and a set of diamonds which will later be worked into the Prussian crown jewels.

  Dawn brings a new horror to the battlefield. In and around an area no larger than three square miles, close on 50,000 soldiers lie dead and wounded. Wellington has lost 17,000 men, around a quarter of his force. Of the Allied officers almost a third have become casualties. Blücher’s losses amount to 7,000 dead, wounded and missing. Napoleon’s army has suffered 25,000 men killed and wounded out of a total of over 40,000 casualties including prisoners and deserters: 50 per cent of the French forces. With the exception of a few officers, taken to Waterloo and Brussels, the bodies of the dead are buried over the next few days in mass graves on the battlefield, or burned in giant funeral pyres.

  Back in Paris by 21 June, two days later Napoleon abdicates for a second time. On 7 July the Prussians enter the city, which is occupied by a joint Allied force for the next three years.

  In the newly Bourbon France a ‘White Terror’ reigns in which some 300 French Waterloo veterans of all ranks and other Bonapartists are hunted down and killed.

  For the victors of the British army, the end of the war brings mixed fortunes. All soldiers who have fought at Waterloo, whatever their rank, receive a specially struck medal, the first of its kind in the British army, bearing on one face a winged victory, on the other the head of the Prince Regent.

  However, while officers are lauded, decorated and promoted, many of the other ranks, discharged by reason of their wounds or on the reduction of the army, are left without employment and reduced to begging on the streets. Two years after the battle, every soldier of the British army who served at Waterloo is presented with prize money. A general receives £1,275; a colonel £433. Privates receive just £2 each.

  While the French attempt to christen the battle after the name of their objective of Mont St Jean and the Prussians after the inn of La Belle Alliance, it is its British name, the village that was location of Wellington’s headquarters, which sticks in the public mind.

  Waterloo will become the most written about battle in the history of warfare.

  BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

  The French

  Maréchal de Camp Comte Charles-Angelique de la Bedoyere is arrested in France by the Royalists, tried for treason and shot by firing squad on 26 August 1815, leaving a widow and a small son. Refusing to wear a blindfold, his last words are: ‘Above all, do not miss me.’ He is twenty-nine.

  Jean-Baptiste Drouet, Comte d’Erlon flees to Munich and on to Bayreuth and is condemned to death by a French court in absentia. In 1825 he receives a pardon and takes a post in the French army, at Nantes. Between 1834 and 1835 he is Governor of Algeria and in 1843 is created a Marshal of France. He dies in 1844, aged seventy-nine.

  Auguste Charles, Comte de Flahault, Napoleon’s favourite aide-de-camp, holds Napoleon up in the saddle as they flee the battlefield and goes with him to Paris. It is de Flahault who tells Napoleon at the end of June that he must leave France. Protected by his natural father, Talleyrand, he is exiled and moves to London. On 19 June 1817 he marries the Scottish heiress and friend of Byron the Hon. Margaret Elphinstone at St Andrew’s Church in Edinburgh. The daughter of the British admiral, Lord Keith, she is disinherited. The couple move to Paris. Central to the coup which enthrones Louis Napoleon, de Flahault dies in 1870, aged eighty-five, the day before the French surrender to the Prussians at Sedan. The couple have one daughter who goes on to marry the 4th Marquis of Lansdowne.

  Maréchal de Camp Gaspard Gourgaud accompanies the Emperor to St Helena where he keeps a journal recording the conversations of his master. He returns to France in 1818 and is made a general by Louis-Philippe. He dies in 1852.

  The Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte flees to Paris. On 23 June he abdicates for a second time and by 3 July is in Rochefort, planning his escape to America. Blockaded by the Royal Navy, he surrenders to the British on 15 July. He is exiled to St Helena, in the South Atlantic. His gaoler is Sir Hudson Lowe, who in 1816 marries Susan de Lancey, sister of the late Sir William de Lancey. Napoleon spends the rest of his life writing his memoirs, in which he manipulates the truth about Waterloo, laying most of the blame on Ney, d’Erlon, Soult and Grouchy. He never again sees his son, the King of Rome. He dies on 5 May 1821, aged fifty-two. Research published in 2001 suggests that the cause was not, as had long been supposed, stomach cancer, but slow poisoning by arsenic. The source remains unclear.

  Marshal Michel Ney arrives back in Paris on 20 June. Ignoring advice to leave France, he is arrested by the restored Bourbon regime and court-martialled for treason. Army officers refuse to try him and he is convicted and sentenced to death by the Chamber of Peers. He is executed by firing squad against a wall of the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris on 7 December 1815, leaving a widow and four sons. Refusing to wear a blindfold, he dies in civilian dress. He is shot eleven times, six times in the chest, three in the head, once in the neck and once in the right arm. One of h
is executioners fires into the wall above his head. Ney is forty-six years old. His final words are: ‘Soldiers of France. This is the last order I shall give you. Fire!’ He has no monument on the field of Waterloo.

  General de Division Comte Honoré Charles Michel Reille remains in the French army and in 1847 is created Marshal of France by Louis-Philippe. He dies in 1860, at the age of eighty-five.

  Marshal Nicholas Jean de Dieu Soult takes the remnants of Napoleon’s shattered army and, joining with Grouchy, fights a brave rearguard action against the Prussians. Going into exile in Düsseldorf, he is pardoned in 1819 and serves as France’s Minister of War from 1830 to 1834. In 1838 he represents France at the coronation of Queen Victoria in London. From 1832 to 1836 and from 1839 to 1840 he is Prime Minister of France. In 1847 he is created Marshal-General of France. He dies in 1851, aged eighty-two.

  The Allies

  Captain George Bowles is knighted and made Commander-in-Chief of the First West India Regiment and Lieutenant of the Tower of London. From 1845 to 1851 he is Master of the Household to the Queen. He dies in London in May 1876.

  Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Dashwood remains in the army and in 1822 marries Caroline, the daughter of Sir Robert Barlow. He is retired by 1830 and dies in April 1832.

  Captain George Evelyn leaves the army before 1824 and marries in Ireland. He dies in 1829.

  Sergeant Ralph Fraser is awarded a medal for his gallantry at Hougoumont and is discharged from the army in 1818 ‘in consequence of long service and being worn out’. He confounds this description and becomes a bedesman at Westminster Abbey. He lives until 1862, dying peacefully at the age of eighty.

  Lieutenant Henry Gooch is promoted captain in the Coldstream Guards in October 1819. He leaves the army as a lieutenant-colonel in June 1841.

  Corporal James Graham, having rescued his brother from the flames at Hougoumont, sees him die of his wounds some days after the battle. He is later nominated for an annuity from the Rector of Framlingham for being ‘the most deserving soldier at Waterloo’. He retires from the army in 1816 and dies at Kilmainham in April 1843.