At daybreak he woke and went outside into the main street of the village. There was a gentle breeze, so perhaps the coming day would not be so uncomfortable. The Duke was mounting his horse outside the inn where he had made his own headquarters. He nodded to Rupert.
'Come with me, Major.'
There was no other explanation, but as Rupert hurriedly saddled his horse and followed he knew instructions would be issued briefly and effectively as soon as Wellington had decided what he needed.
They rode along the Nivelles road towards the chateau and farm of Hougoument. It was isolated from the position of the rest of the army, well forward of the ridge behind which most of the army seemed to be deployed. In front of these flags were waving, and the strains of a regimental band playing rousing tunes came to them as they rode.
Wellington beckoned to Rupert. 'There will be Germans here,' he said. 'I want you to stay and make sure they understand my orders. It's vital we hold this position.'
Rupert nodded. He would have preferred a more active role than that of interpreter, but knew how important it was to have instructions made clear. There were so many different nationalities and languages involved it would be easy for mistakes to be made. He had been intrigued to discover that Wellington and Bl̀ücher had been able to converse directly only in French.
The men, companies of Foot Guards, were already at work at the chateau. They approached from the north along a tree-lined avenue and in through a massive gate set in walls seven or eight feet high. The chateau, a pleasant country mansion, stood in the centre of a large compound. Around the walls were a dozen outbuildings, barns and stables and a small house which he assumed was for the farmer. The whole was surrounded by trees. To the south was a wood, an orchard to the east, plus an ornamental flower garden with jasmine and honeysuckle entwined along the balustrade. A carriage gate was set in the south wall, and inside were smaller walls, ditches and hedges separating the various buildings, keeping the farmyard away from the pleasure grounds.
The men were busy, using their bayonets to gouge out narrow loopholes in the walls, to enable them to fire on besiegers. Wellington spoke to a huge Scotsman, introduced as Lieutenant-Colonel James Macdonell.
'We have Nassauers and Hanoverians defending the approaches. Newark here can interpret if necessary.'
Macdonell nodded. 'Ye can depend on us, me lord,' he said, in a lilting Highland accent, and Rupert was sure they could. 'I hear the owner doesn't come here often,' he said later to Rupert. 'The farmer has fled, and left a man called Cutsem in charge.'
Rupert had lost his own weapons to his French captors, but had acquired others from soldiers wounded at Quatre Bras, so he set to work helping to make more loopholes in each outer wall. Within hours, battle would be joined.
*
In Brussels there was panic. While Sir Arthur and Louise did what they could to help the wounded from the previous day, Emily, Sir Martin and Joseph begged and cajoled the wealthy citizens and visitors for linen to make bandages and blankets for the men. As the day wore on more wounded began to appear.
'The ground were like a bog after all that rain,' one trooper whose ankle had been shattered told Louise, as she was helping Sir Arthur bandage it. 'Old Boney couldn't shift 'is cannon, and cavalry were stuck in mud most of time. But when 'e did attack us, the guns caused a lot of damage.'
'Will he win?'
'Not 'im. I were with Nosey in Spain, and 'e's the best. I'm just sick I won't be there at the finish.'
'The first attack was against that chateau,' another told them as they dealt with a bad bullet wound. He winced as Sir Arthur, having given him a stiff drink of brandy, dug out the bullet from his thigh.
'Chateau? You mean Hougoument?'
'Is that the name? Big place, hardly visible through the trees. Near the Nivelles road.'
'That was the one we saw,' Sir Arthur said. 'They're fighting there?'
'Yes. I saw plenty of French infantry attack, but they were pushed back until more came up.'
Louise wondered where Rupert was. Might he already be lying on the sodden ground, wounded or killed? She felt a desperate need to go and find him, but recognised it would be stupid. There were tens of thousands of men fighting. She would never find him, wounded or not, and even if she did he would not welcome her presence. A battlefield was not the place for anxious wives. Their duty was to sit and wait. At least she was not sitting. She was exhausted with lack of sleep and the anxiety, as well as the horrors she was seeing, which grew worse as the day wore on and men with shattered or amputated limbs, hastily bound or cauterised, were brought on carts to Brussels. The shaking of those carts over rough ground would not have helped, she thought, but perhaps the greater agony of their wounds made them ignore the discomforts of the journey. She took a deep breath and turned to the next casualty.
*
At Hougoument many of the troops protecting the orchard and woodland were forced to withdraw behind the shelter of the walls as the French attack intensified. The allied guns were aiming beyond the chateau, driving the French back so that the orchard was recaptured. It was not enough. More and more French were deployed, and those who could retreated inside the gates.
Rupert and others were carrying the wounded into one of the big barns, and giving what help and comfort they could. Few of the wounds were really serious, mostly shrapnel wounds, and the greatest difficulty was persuading men they had to lie still, and could not be useful staggering around trying to fight.
'There is nothing to do except keep the French out,' Rupert said. 'Lie there until you have recovered some strength and stopped bleeding.'
They could not see what was happening on the rest of the battlefield, the trees were obscuring the view. Holding this outpost was all important. If they lost it the French could sweep round Wellington's right flank and try to encircle him.
More French came, and with howls of glee began to attack the north gate. They were hacking at it with axes, breaking through the wood, and suddenly it gave way and a gap between the two leaves appeared. With triumphant yells the first of them pushed their way in.
Rupert started towards them, but was beaten to it by Macdonell, who, with several more Scots almost as big as he was, began to push back at the gate. For a while nothing could move. No more French could get in, and the gate remained stubbornly open. Gradually, by sheer force, Macdonell and his men pushed the gate closed and held it there. The men of the Guards, recovering from their fright, turned on the trapped French and slaughtered them out of hand. All but a young drummer boy, who was looking round in a dazed fashion and asking where his drum was. He was led away while Macdonell and others rushed to barricade the gate with logs, carts, rocks and anything they could find.
The French attacks continued, remorseless. It was well past midday when there was a cry of 'fire'. A haystack had been set alight by howitzers, and the flames spread rapidly to both the chateau and many of the outbuildings. Rupert and others tried to move the wounded out as the flames reached the barns. Some who could walk or crawl managed to get outside, but there was nowhere to go apart from a few corners not yet engulfed by the flames. The roofs collapsed, so did the one on the stables, and the cries of the dying men and the terrified whinnies of the horses filled the air. Plumes of black smoke made the air dense, and men choked as they breathed it.
Eventually the sodden ground gave the flames no more material, and with some amazement Rupert, who had managed to take a few of the wounded into the small chapel, saw the flames hesitate and then die back as they reached the small cross. Perhaps they would now be safe, those who were still alive.
Above the crackling of the flames they could hear the noise of battle outside, the booming of the guns, the shouts of the men and the screams of wounded horses. Then, as the weak sun, just visible through the smoke, began to sink in the west, they heard the sound of bugles ordering the advance. It was like a dream. Was the battle really coming to an end? Rupert, with others, was moving around trying to put
out the remaining fires, when he suddenly smelled something other than fire and smoke. After a while he realised it was the jasmine and honeysuckle, still climbing up the garden balustrade. He picked a spray of honeysuckle and stuck it through a buttonhole. It was a symbolic gesture. He would be going back to Louise after all.
*
The battle was over. As the defenders of Hougoument emerged, they saw the carnage on the battlefield. Dead and dying men lay, along with the horses. To the south the victorious cavalry were milling about on the opposite ridge. Obviously, Rupert said to some of the others, Wellington had used his familiar tactic of hiding some of the troops until they could be brought in to overwhelm the enemy. But there was work to be done. The wounded had to be found and carried from the field, burial parties organised for the dead. Already there were scavengers robbing both the dead and wounded, to be driven off. Women were searching, weeping, for their men. Others were doing what they could for the wounded, giving them water, or perhaps a hand to hold as they died.
As he did what he could Rupert heard details of the battle they hadn't been able to see from Hougoument.
'They couldn't break our squares,' an infantryman said, and smiled as he died.
'The Imperial Guard turned and fled,' another said. 'They were Boney's crack troops, but they dared not face us.'
Later Rupert heard that the Prussians, delayed until late in the battle, had arrived and attacked the French from the east. That had been the final straw, and they had been given the task of following the fleeing French and capturing Napoleon, who had departed in his carriage.
'This is the end for Napoleon,' an officer said to Rupert. 'Surely he won't be permitted to raise another army.'
All night they worked, and at daybreak Rupert was called to Wellington's headquarters where he was busy writing dispatches.
'Tell me about Hougoument.'
Rupert did his best. It was clear others had already told the Duke, for he nodded, then turned back to his pen.
'There will be all sorts of rumours in Brussels. Go back and tell them what really happened.'
Rupert, exhausted after another sleepless night, managed to find a horse and began to follow the carts carrying the wounded. It was slow progress. The ground to either side of the road was a sea of mud. The men who could walk were so weary many of them dropped to the side and simply lay down to sleep. Others hung on to the sides of the carts that were too overburdened to take them aboard, being dragged along. The few men on horseback usually had a wounded man sitting behind them, clinging onto shoulders and often in danger of falling off when they went to sleep. Rupert had pulled a man who had lost an arm onto his horse, and used his cravat to tie the fellow to him, fearing he would go to sleep and fall off.
Eventually, after what seemed hours, they reached the city, where there was a scene of confusion. Wounded men lay on the sides of the roads, in gardens and parks. There seemed to be plenty of helpers, but most of them were uncertain of what they could do to help. Rupert gave his wounded man into the care of a sensible looking woman who had kilted up her skirts and seemed to be feeding the hungry men.
'I'll look after him,' she promised. 'You look as though you need some food, so go and get rid of your horse. He's no use to you here.'
Rupert almost laughed. He did indeed no longer need the horse, which was drooping with weariness and looking as though it might collapse. He found his way to the stables Sir Martin had hired, and left the horse in the care of an excited groom who wanted to know all about the battle.
'Tomorrow,' Rupert promised. 'Care for this beast for me. I'm off to find my wife.'
*
It was only as he entered the clean house that Rupert realised he stank. There was the smell of wet clothing, the smoke that lingered from the fire at Hougoument, the blood from the wounded he had helped in the chateau and on the field, the smell of horse and his own sweat. When Miller, Sir Martin's valet came, the man said he had given orders for a bath to be prepared.
'I doubt that will be sufficient,' the Earl said, grimacing. 'Is there a pump in the garden?'
'Yes, my lord, but the water will be cold.'
'So was the rain, and at least I'll be able to dry myself afterwards. Fetch me soap and towels, and then come and man the pump.'
He went out into the garden and stripped off all his clothes, first removing the now wilted spray of honeysuckle. His boots he tossed aside. They could be cleaned. Then when Miller came out he stepped under the stream of water, washed his hair several times, and scrubbed his body until his skin tingled. He ignored the giggles from a couple of maids watching from the kitchen, sluiced off the lather and stepped aside.
'Thank you. That feels better.'
'There is a hot bath in the bedroom, my lord. It will warm you.'
'I'm warm now, but thank you,' he said as he towelled himself dry. 'Burn all those clothes. The smell will never come out. And some food, if you please. Anything.'
He wrapped a towel round himself, went up to the bedroom and, not wishing to offend the servants who had prepared the bath, sank into it for a few minutes. It both warmed him and made him sleepy. When Miller came up and asked if he would be shaved Rupert felt the incipient beard, and making a last effort said he would shave himself. Then he drank the soup brought up to him, ate some of the bread and cheese, drank the wine, and as his eyes closed rolled himself into the bed and fell asleep.
He slept for twelve hours, and woke to sunshine brightening the room. Stretching luxuriously, he paused when his hand encountered another body. For a panicked moment he though he was back on the battlefield, wounded. Then he turned his head to see Louise lying there, regarding him with tears in her eyes.
'Come here,' he murmured, pulling her to him.
There was no need for more words. Their loving was deeper and more poignant than before, and it was some time before, lying contentedly in one another's arms, they spoke again.
'Was it dreadful?' Louise asked.
'Bad,' Rupert said. 'From what I saw when I rode in it has been difficult in Brussels too.'
She sighed. 'Yes, and there is still so much to do. The wounded are pouring in. But they told us the news. It was victory, at last.'
'Yes, but not an easy one. And there are hundreds more dead to be buried and wounded to be cared for.'
'So Sir Arthur warned us. People have been very good, but there are so few helpers.'
'There will be more when the soldiers come back. But we can't go home yet awhile.'
'No. Everyone has been helping, even Joseph!'
She began to weep softly. 'I never dreamt of such injuries! Men without legs or arms, bleeding to death and nothing could be done to help. I kept imagining you losing limbs.'
'I haven't, my love. I was fortunate. But this battle will have stopped Napoleon for good, there will be no more wars. I am free of the army, free to take you home in time, and make love to you every day.'
She laughed, shakily. 'Lord Castlereagh means you to become a diplomat.'
'If he sends me to an embassy, you will come with me. We can see something of the world. He once mentioned Vienna. It's a beautiful city, you will enjoy it. And we will have time at home, to be alone if we wish.'
'I do. I love my family, and yours, but most of all I love you, and want to be with you.' She sighed. 'Love me, my darling. I've missed you so.'
'Never again will I be away from you,' he said as he gathered her into his arms.
***
THE END
Marina Oliver has written over 75 novels, all are now available as Ebooks.
For the latest information please see Marina's web site:
http://www.marina-oliver.net
More Regency Ebooks by Marina:
The Irish Bride
Brigid is happy working as a companion to Sophia, but knows she will soon have to look for a new position as governess or companion.
What she will not accept is marriage to Matthew, Sophia's brother, for she is penniless.
Can she accept, or would it be a trap from which she cannot escape?
*
The Chaperone Bride
When Joanna finds herself destitute after her gambler father's suicide, unable to find work, and is offered instead a marriage of convenience, she sees no other option.
Sir Kenelm needs a wife as a chaperone, since governesses are reluctant to live in a widower's household.
The twins, children of his first wife, refuse to accept her as a new mama. The governess, having thought she too was applying for the position of governess, resents her.
*
The Marriage Gamble
Luke, Earl of Frayne, is determined to recover Frayne Caste, even if it means marrying the present owner, Damaris Hallem, a girl he has never met.
Luke's father, an inveterate gambler, lost the Castle fifty years earlier to Damaris's grandfather, an innkeeper.
As it is the first estate his family obtained Luke wants to regain it.
Damaris, unwillingly obeying her grandfather's wishes, comes to London for the Season with her friend Mary, Lady Gordon, and her two young children.
She will be twenty-one in July, and is looking forward to controlling her inheritance, which has been in the charge of a distant cousin, Humphrey Lee.
Damaris is convinced he wants to marry her.
She doesn't want any husband, who would deprive her of such control.
Her first encounter with Luke is disastrous, but she soon finds a way out of the dilemma.
*
My Lord Tremaine
When their father, the Rector, dies Elinor and her elder sister Jane Darwen are left with very little money.
But Jane is betrothed to wealthy Edmund, Viscount Tremaine. When Napoleon escapes from Elba Edmund returns to his regiment.
Louise Page 17
