Wall, Stone, Craft

by Walter Jon Williams

  “Yes.”

  “We went along there.” His hand sketched a line across the opposite horizon. “This road was choked with retreating French, so we went around them. With two squadrons of Vandeleur’s lads, the 12th, the Prince of Wales’s Own, all I could find once the French gave way. I knew Boney would be running, and I knew it had to be along this road. I had to find him, make certain he would never trouble our peace. Find him for England.” He dropped right fist into left palm.

  “Boney’d left two battalions of the Guard to hold us, but I went around them. I knew the Prussians would be after him, too, and their mounts were fresher. So we drove on through the night, jumping fences, breaking down hedges, galloping like madmen, and then we found him at Genappe. The bridge was so crammed with refugees that he couldn’t get his barouche across.”

  Mary watched carefully as George, uninvited, told the story that he must, by now, have told a hundred times, and wondered why he was telling it now to someone with such a clear distaste for things military. His color was high, and he was still breathing hard from his exercise; sweat gleamed on his immaculate forehead and matted his shirt; she could see the pulse throbbing in his throat. Perhaps the swordplay and sight of the road had brought the memory back; perhaps he was merely, after all, trying to impress her.

  A female, of course. Damn the man.

  “They’d brought a white Arab up for him to ride away,” George went on. “His Chasseurs of the Guard were close around. I told each trooper to mark his enemy as we rode up— we came up at a slow trot, in silence, our weapons sheathed. In the dark the enemy took us for French— our uniforms were similar enough. I gave the signal— we drew pistols and carbines— half the French saddles were emptied in an instant. Some poor lad of a cornet tried to get in my way, and I cut him up through the teeth. Then there he was— the Emperor. With one foot in the stirrup, and Roustam the Mameluke ready to boost him into the saddle.”

  A tigerish, triumphant smile spread across George’s face. His eyes were focused down the road, not seeing her at all. “I put my dripping point in his face, and for the life of me I couldn’t think of any French to say except to tell him to sit down. ‘Asseyez-vous!’ I ordered, and he gave me a sullen look and sat down, right down in the muddy roadway, with the carbines still cracking around us and bullets flying through the air. And I thought, He’s finished. He’s done. There’s nothing left of him now. We finished off his bodyguard— they hadn’t a chance after our first volley. The French soldiers around us thought we were the Prussian advance guard, and they were running as fast as their legs could carry them. Either they didn’t know we had their Emperor or they didn’t care. So we dragged Boney’s barouche off the road, and dragged Boney with it, and ten minutes later the Prussians galloped up— the Death’s Head Hussars under Gneisenau, all in black and silver, riding like devils. But the devils had lost the prize.”

  Looking at the wild glow in George’s eyes Mary realized that she’d been wrong— the story was not for her at all, but for him. For George. He needed it somehow, this affirmation of himself, the enunciated remembrance of his moment of triumph.

  But why? Why did he need it?

  She realized his eyes were on her. “Would you like to see the coach, Miss Godwin?” he asked. The question surprised her.

  “It’s here?”

  “I kept it.” He laughed. “Why not? It was mine. What Captain Austen would call a fair prize of war.” He offered her his arm. She took it, curious about what else she might discover.

  The black mastiff began slavering at her the second she set foot inside the courtyard. Its howls filled the air. “Hush, Picton,” George said, and walked straight to the big gold-trimmed blue coach with vermilion wheels. The door had the Byron arms and the Latin motto CREDE BYRON.

  Should she believe him? Mary wondered. And if so, how much?

  “This is Bonaparte’s?” she said.

  “Was, Miss Godwin. Till June 16th last. Down, Picton!” The dog lunged at him, and he wrestled with it, laughing, until it calmed down and began to fawn on him.

  George stepped to the door and opened it. “The Imperial symbols are still on the lining, as you see.” The door and couch were lined with rich purple, with golden bees and the letter N worked in heavy gold embroidery. “Fine Italian leatherwork,” he said. “Drop-down secretaires so that the great man could write or dictate on the march. Holsters for pistols.” He knocked on the coach’s polished side. “Bulletproof. There are steel panels built in, just in case any of the Great Man’s subjects decided to imitate Marcus Brutus.” He smiled. “I was glad for that steel in Paris, I assure you, with Bonapartist assassins lurking under every tree.” A mischievous gleam entered his eye. “And last, the best thing of all.” He opened a compartment under one of the seats and withdrew a solid silver chamber pot. “You’ll notice it still bears the imperial N.”

  “Vanity in silver.”

  “Possibly. Or perhaps he was afraid one of his soldiers would steal it if he didn’t mark it for his own.”

  Mary looked at the preposterous object and found herself laughing.

  George looked pleased and stowed the chamber pot in its little cabinet. He looked at her with his head cocked to one side. “You will not reconsider my offer?”

  “No.” Mary stiffened. “Please don’t mention it again.”

  The mastiff Picton began to howl again, and George seized its collar and told it to behave itself. Mary turned to see Claire walking toward them.

  “Won’t you be joining us for breakfast, my lord?”

  George straightened. “Perhaps a crust or two. I’m not much for breakfast.”

  Still fasting, Mary thought. “It would make such sense for you to give up meat, you know,” she said. “Since you deprive yourself of food anyway.”

  “I prefer not to deny myself pleasure, even if the quantities are necessarily restricted.”

  “Your swordplay was magnificent.”

  “Thank you. Cavalry style, you know— all slash and dash. But I am good, for a’ that.”

  “I know you’re busy, but— ” Claire bit her lip. “Will you take us to Waterloo?”

  “Claire!” cried Mary.

  Claire gave a nervous laugh. “Truly,” she said. “I’m absolutely with child to see Waterloo.”

  George looked at her, his eyes intent. “Very well,” he said. “We’ll be driving through it in any case. And Captain Austen has expressed an interest.”

  Fury rose in Mary’s heart. “Claire, how dare you impose— ”

  “Ha’ ye nae pity for the puir lassie?” The Scots voice was mock-severe. “Ye shallnae keep her fra’ her Waterloo.”

  Claire’s Waterloo, Mary thought, was exactly what she wanted to keep her from.

  George offered them his exaggerated, flourishing bow. “If you’ll excuse me, ladies, I must give the necessary orders.”

  He strode through the door. Pásmány followed, the swords tucked under his arm. Claire gave a little joyous jump, her shoes scraping on cobbles. “I can hardly believe it,” she said. “Byron showing us Waterloo!”

  “I can’t believe it either,” Mary said. She sighed wearily and headed for the dining room.

  Perhaps she would dare to sip a little milk.

  *

  They rode out in Napoleon’s six-horse barouche, Claire, Mary, and Bysshe inside with George, and Smith, Somerset, and Captain Austen sharing the outside rear seat. The leather top with its bulletproof steel inserts had been folded away and the inside passengers could all enjoy the open air. The barouche wasn’t driven by a coachman up top, but by three postboys who rode the right-hand horses, so there was nothing in front to interrupt the view. Bysshe’s mule and little carriage, filled with bags and books, ate dust behind along with the officers’ baggage coaches, all driven by George’s servants.

  The men talked of war and Claire listened to them with shining eyes. Mary concentrated on enjoying the shape of the low hills with their whitewashed farmhouses and red til
e roofs, the cut fields of golden rye stubble, the smell of wildflowers and the sound of birdsong. It was only when the carriage passed a walled farm, its whitewash marred by bullets and cannon shot, that her reverie was marred by the thought of what had happened here.

  “La Haie Sainte,” George remarked. “The King’s German Legion held it throughout the battle, even after they’d run out of ammunition. I sent Mercer’s horse guns to keep the French from the walls, else Lord knows what would have happened.” He stood in the carriage, looked left and right, frowned. “These roads we’re about to pass were sunken— an obstacle to both sides, but mainly to the French. They’re filled in now. Mass graves.”

  “The French were cut down in heaps during their cavalry attack,” Somerset added. “The piles were eight feet tall, men and horses.”

  “How gruesome!” laughed Claire.

  “Turn right, Swinson,” said George.

  Homemade souvenir stands had been set up at the crossroads. Prosperous—looking rustics hawked torn uniforms, breastplates, swords, muskets, bayonets. Somerset scowled at them. “They must have made a fortune looting the dead.”

  “And the living,” said Smith. “Some of our poor wounded weren’t brought in till two days after the battle. Many had been stripped naked by the peasants.”

  A young man ran up alongside the coach, shouting in French. He explained he had been in the battle, a guide to the great Englishman Lord Byron, and would guide them over the field for a few guilders.

  “Never heard of you,” drawled George, and dismissed him. “Hey! Swinson! Pull up here.”

  The postboys pulled up their teams. George opened the door of the coach and strolled to one of the souvenir stands. When he returned it was with a French breastplate and helmet. Streaks of rust dribbled down the breastplate, and the helmet’s horsehair plume smelled of mildew.

  “I thought we could take a few shots at it,” George said. “I’d like to see whether armor provides any protection at all against bullets— I’ll wager not. There’s a movement afoot at Whitehall to give breastplates to the Household Brigade, and I suspect they ain’t worth the weight. If I can shoot a few holes in this with my Mantons, I may be able to prove my point.”

  They drove down a rutted road of soft earth. It was lined with thorn hedges, but most of them had been broken down during the battle and there were long vistas of rye stubble, the gentle sloping ground, the pattern of plow and harvest. Occasionally the coach wheels grated on something, and Mary remembered they were moving along a mass grave, over the decaying flesh and whitening bones of hundreds of horses and men. A cloud passed across the sun, and she shivered.

  “Can ye pull through the hedge, Swinson?” George asked. “I think the ground is firm enough to support us— no rain for a few days at least.” The lead postboy studied the hedge with a practiced eye, then guided the lead team through a gap in it.

  The barouche rocked over exposed roots and broken limbs, then ground onto a rutted sward of green grass, knee-high, that led gently down into the valley they’d just crossed. George stood again, his eyes scanning the ground. “Pull up over there,” he said, pointing, and the coachman complied.

  “Here you can see where the battle was won,” George said. He tossed his clanging armor out onto the grass, opened the coach door and stepped out himself. The others followed, Mary reluctantly. George pointed with one elegant hand at the ridge running along the opposite end of the valley from their own, a half-mile opposite.

  “Napoleon’s grand battery,” he said. “Eighty guns, many of them twelve-pounders— Boney called them his daughters. He was an artillerist, you know, and he always prepared his attacks with a massed bombardment. The guns fired for an hour and put our poor fellows through hell. Bylandt’s Dutchmen were standing in the open, right where we are now, and the guns broke ’em entirely.

  “Then the main attack came, about two o’clock. Count d’Erlon’s corps, 16,000 strong, arrayed 25 men deep with heavy cavalry on the wings. They captured La Haye and Papelotte, those farms over there on the left, and rolled up this ridge with drums beating the pas de charge ... ”

  George turned. There was a smile on his face. Mary watched him closely— the pulse was beating like d’Erlon’s drums in his throat, and his color was high. He was loving every second of this.

  He went on, describing the action, and against her will Mary found herself seeing it, Picton’s division lying in wait, prone on the reverse slope, George bringing the heavy cavalry up, the cannons banging away. Picton’s men rising, firing their volleys, following with the bayonet. The Highlanders screaming in Gaelic, their plumes nodding as they drew their long broadswords and plunged into the fight, the pipers playing “Johnnie Cope” amid all the screams and clatter. George leading the Household and Union Brigades against the enemy cavalry, the huge grain-fed English hunters driving back the chargers from Normandy. And then George falling on d’Erlon’s flanks, driving the French in a frightened mob all the way back across the valley while the British horsemen slashed at their backs. The French gunners of the grand battery unable to fire for fear of hitting their own men, and then dying themselves under the British sabres.

  Mary could sense as well the things George left out. The sound of steel grating on bone. Wails and moans of the wounded, the horrid challenging roars of the horses. And in the end, a valley filled with stillness, a carpet of bodies and pierced flesh...

  George gave a long sigh. “Our cavalry are brave, you know, far too brave for their own good. And the officers get their early training in steeplechases and the hunt, and their instinct is to ride straight at the objective at full gallop, which is absolutely the worst thing cavalry can ever do. After Slade led his command to disaster back in the Year Twelve, the Duke realized he could only commit cavalry at his peril. In Spain we finally trained the horse to maneuver and to make careful charges, but the Union and Household troops hadn’t been in the Peninsula, and didn’t know the drill... I drove myself mad in the weeks before the battle, trying to beat the recall orders into them.” He laughed self-consciously. “My heart was in my mouth during the whole charge, I confess, less with fear of the enemy than with terror my own men would run mad. But they answered the trumpets, all but the Inniskillings, who wouldnae listen— the Irish blood was up— and while they ran off into the valley, the rest of us stayed in the grand battery. Sabred the gunners, drove off the limbers with the ready ammunition— and where we could we took the wheels off the guns, and rolled ’em back to our lines like boys with hoops. And the Inniskillings— ” He shook his head. “They ran wild into the enemy lines, and Boney loosed his lancers at ’em, and they died almost to a man. I had to watch from the middle of the battery, with my officers begging to be let slip again and rescue their comrades, and I had to forbid it.”

  There were absolute tears in George’s eyes. Mary watched in fascination and wondered if this was a part of the performance, or whether he was genuinely affected— but then she saw that Bysshe’s eyes had misted over and Somerset was wiping his eyes with his one good sleeve. So, she thought, she could believe Byron, at least a little.

  “Well.” George cleared his throat, trying to control himself. “Well. We came back across the valley herding thousands of prisoners— and that charge proved the winning stroke. Boney attacked later, of course— all his heavy cavalry came knee-to-knee up the middle, between La Haie Sainte and Hougoumont,” gesturing to the left with one arm, “we had great guns and squares of infantry to hold them, and my heavies to counterattack. The Prussians were pressing the French at Plancenoit and Papelotte. Boney’s last throw of the dice sent the Old Guard across the valley after sunset, but our Guards under Maitland held them, and Colborne’s 52nd and the Belgian Chasseurs got round their flanks, and after they broke I let the Household and Union troopers have their head— we swept ’em away. Sabred and trampled Boney’s finest troops right in front of his eyes, all in revenge for the brave, mad Inniskillings— the only time his Guard ever failed in attack, and
it marked the end of his reign. We were blown by the end of it, but Boney had nothing left to counterattack with. I knew he would flee. So I had a fresh horse brought up and went after him.”

  “So you won the battle of Waterloo!” said Claire.

  George gave her a modest look that, to Mary, seemed false as the very devil. “I was privileged to have a decisive part. But ’twas the Duke that won the battle. We all fought at his direction.”

  “But you captured Napoleon and ended the Empire!”

  He smiled. “That I did do, lassie, ay.”

  “Bravo!” Claire clapped her hands.

  Harry Smith glanced up with bright eyes. “D’ye know, George,” he said, “pleased as I am to hear this modest recitation of your accomplishments, I find precious little mention in your discourse of the infantry. I seem to remember fighting a few Frenchies myself, down Hougoumont way, with Reille’s whole corps marching down on us, and I believe I can recollect in my dim footsoldier’s mind that I stood all day under cannonshot and bursting mortar bombs, and that Kellerman’s heavy cavalry came wave after wave all afternoon, with the Old Guard afterward as a lagniappe... ”

  “I am pleased that you had some little part,” George said, and bowed from his slim cavalry waist.

  “Your lordship’s condescension does you more credit than I can possibly express.” Returning the bow.

  George reached out and gave Smith’s ear an affectionate tweak.

  “May I continue my tale? And then we may travel to Captain Harry’s part of the battlefield, and he will remind us of whatever small role it was the footsoldiers played.”

  George went through the story of Napoleon’s capture again. It was the same, sentiment for sentiment, almost word for word. Mary wandered away, the fat moist grass turning the hem of her skirt green. Skylarks danced through the air, trilling as they went. She wandered by the old broken thorn hedge and saw wild roses blossoming in it, and she remembered the wild roses planted on her mother’s grave.

  She thought of George Gordon Noël with tears in his eyes, and the way the others had wanted to weep— even Bysshe, who hadn’t been there— and all for the loss of some Irishmen who, had they been crippled or out of uniform or begging for food or employment, these fine English officers would probably have turned into the street to starve...