A Close Run Thing

by Allan Mallinson

  Hervey smiled awkwardly, for he knew that, though the remark was in jest, an earnest particular underlay it, a particular on which the duke had expressed his disapproval many times. The commander-in-chief was in good humour, however, certainly none the worse for his tumble, and the party turned for home in high spirits.

  ‘Come ride up alongside, Hervey,’ called the duke as they set off back on long reins. ‘Tell me, what is your opinion of what Bonaparte might do here?’

  Though startled by the unexpectedness of the question, he answered at once, for it was a matter to which he had given much thought. ‘I suspect that many will think he will envelop us by a drive around our right flank, cutting us off from Ostend and the other Channel ports, perhaps fighting a holding battle on the border around Charleroi: he has made so many moves of this like before.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the duke slowly, as if surprised by the discernment of the reply and intrigued by the question posed by ‘many will think’.

  ‘But that is excessively risky,’ Hervey continued, thoroughly warming to his subject. ‘His strategic aim must surely be to knock us – the British I mean, sir – out of the fight, back into the sea, and to send the Prussians back across the Rhine. It seems to me, your Grace, that if he puts his effort into an envelopment, then what he is doing is trying to use sheer weight to achieve his design. He might not have enough weight, and he might also drive us towards, rather than away from, the Prussians – and then he would simply have too big an army to defeat.’

  The duke was about to say something, but Hervey failed to notice and instead pressed on to his second conclusion.

  ‘If, however, Bonaparte strikes direct for Brussels he might drive a wedge so deep between the two armies that each falls back along its own lines of communication, and he would thereby have achieved his strategic purpose by the indirect method. That I am sure is much more at the heart of what he seeks to do with his so-called “manoeuvre”, yet everyone – excuse me, your Grace – many seem only to see the movement rather than the purpose.’

  ‘Well, well!’ replied the duke. ‘Whoever would have thought it! I have officers in the cavalry who have studied Bonaparte rather than just Reynard! Do not take offence, Mr Hervey: the two have much in common!’

  There was more laughter.

  ‘So you are acquainted with Bonaparte’s so-called “Strategy of the Central Position”?’ continued the duke.

  ‘Yes, sir; I have read much on the subject. It is the strategy that I believe would give the best chance of success here.’

  ‘Well, then, describe it – briefly – for the benefit of my friends here,’ he added, indicating the three staff officers who were now looking at Hervey with evident regard, rather than merely through him as before.

  ‘Briefly, sir, divide et impera. His army, divided into two echelons, drives between the two opposing armies. He uses just sufficient force to fix one in place and then concentrates the rest to defeat the second. He does not have to destroy the second completely, just to destroy any hope of its assisting the other. He then turns to defeat in detail the first army which he has fixed in place.’

  ‘And what are the prerequisites of the strategy?’ asked the duke, his eyes now fastened on him, hawk-like.

  ‘Pre-requisites, sir?’ Hervey began, stressing the anticipatory so as to be wholly clear of what his answer was conditional upon. ‘Surprise and security.’

  ‘Just so,’ nodded the duke pensively, and without another word he broke into a trot.

  * * *

  It was midday by the time they returned to the commander-in-chief’s forward headquarters at Ghent. Hervey had fallen back to his original place next to Jessope, who was much amused by the ‘strategic tutorial’ as he called it. As they entered the courtyard of the inn which had been pressed into military service, the duke turned to them both. ‘Thank you, Mr Hervey. I have much enjoyed your company,’ he said warmly. ‘Captain Jessope, you must bring your thinking friend out again. Yes, gentlemen, surprise and security: they are everything!’

  It became even hotter in the days that followed. Supply, as far as it affected the Sixth, seemed to be much better, although the troops were still scattered about numerous villages in order to take forage direct from the farms rather than through the system of depots. And while this suited them in many ways it still made mustering for drill difficult: the brigade had only been able to hold two field days since arriving, although there had been yet another change of location, this time to the River Dendre around Grammont. Here, though, they were plagued by midges, and it was not long before sweet itch appeared, particularly in those horses billeted in the poorer, unkempt farms where there was little cover and scant waste-discipline. Never had the regiment suffered from it so badly. In ‘C’ Troop one morning sixteen horses could not be saddled, so abraded were their backs, and Edmonds became affeard of an epidemic. There was no agreement, even, as to its cause, for many believed the connection with midges to be circumstantial. Neither was there unanimity as to treatment. The new veterinary officer, young and active, had no doubts, however, and managed to procure large quantities of sulphur, treating all the cases with his own foul-smelling potion. It had unusually early results, although three of the worst cases had to be dispatched by the farrier’s axe. Captain Lankester had sniffed when he heard of the losses, for each day he had had all his troop horses brought in before dawn, and again before dusk, when the midges were the most active, and had lit fires to smoke them away. As a consequence they had lost not one trooper, nor had any been unfit for saddling for more than a day. His own chargers he anointed with a most precious lotion he had bought the previous year in London on the recommendation of a tea-planter: oil of citronella, one of the East India Company’s most exotic and expensive imports (the planter had sworn by it). It had a most pleasing smell yet was wholly repugnant to any flying insect, and Lankester had been able to enjoy his shooting and fishing unplagued after daubing his face and hands with it. And he had now been able to transfer exactly this protection to his beloved hunters.

  But if the new billets did not favour the horses they certainly suited many of the officers, since it took less than two hours to get to Brussels. The capital had almost as many theatres as London, and dances and levees carried on apace. At one of these (and he had only been to the one) Hervey had met Lady Fitzroy Somerset.

  ‘Are you the officer who courses hares with his sabre?’ she had asked laughingly.

  To which Hervey had replied that he could have done better with a lance.

  ‘My husband tells me that your conversation with my uncle set him thinking for several hours. Quite an achievement, Mr Hervey!’

  ‘I am sure the duke is thinking constantly, madam,’ had been Hervey’s reply. It had been the best he could manage, for he was not as yet at ease in that company, and Lady Fitzroy Somerset put him in mind of Henrietta Lindsay and of his initial awkwardness in her company. It had been a charming enough exchange, no doubt the inconsequential talk of such gatherings, but even if there had been only a fraction of truth in the idea that the duke had found his discourse stimulating, then it was some comfort for a man whose prospects, still, were so comprehensively blighted by General Slade.

  Then, in the second week of the month, Hervey received another invitation from Jessope to ride out with the duke. The party, a bigger affair than before, assembled in the courtyard of the Hôtel de Ville in Halle, on the Mons-to-Brussels high road, and it soon became apparent that its purpose was more than morning exercise. Standing beside a large map fixed to the double doors of the empty stables was Sir William de Lancey. ‘He acts as the duke’s chief of staff until Sir George Murray arrives from Canada,’ explained Jessope. ‘And those other two officers are the duke’s artillery and engineer commanders, Sir George Wood and Sir James Smyth. I think we shall see good sport this morning!’

  The duke duly appeared, walked to the map and, taking the pointing-stick which de Lancey proffered, began to address the assembled party. ‘Gen
tlemen, I want today to complete my reconnaissance of defensive positions in the event of Bonaparte’s making a direct move against Brussels – a move which I am still far from convinced he will make. Nevertheless I intend being ready for him if he does. If he should strike for Brussels, it will not be to take possession of the lace factories.’ There was polite but restrained laughter. ‘His purpose will be to divide the Prussians and ourselves. Although it may seem, therefore, that he has the initiative – in that he chooses the time of attack – he does not entirely choose the place. He must attack astride the junction of the two armies – and that junction is where the good General Blücher and I make it. And where we make it is as far east as we dare without exposing my right flank and Ostend. So we shall of course make plans to cover the Mons–Brussels road, but that is not his likely axis since the junction will be further east towards Charleroi,’ he explained, pointing to the features on the map. ‘Now,’ he continued, with a pause for further emphasis, ‘we will not hold him forward on the border: there is little chance of our being able to concentrate there in time. But we will delay him there – make him pay the price of time – and we will stop him along this line here, through Braine-l’Alleud, Mont St-Jean and Wavre. And this morning we shall examine a defensive position astride the chaussée on this ridge at Mont St-Jean which, if these maps are at all faithful, promises to have capability – as that other landscaper might have described it.’

  There was more polite laughter. ‘Torres Vedras, Duke?’ asked his engineer. ‘Capability Brown would have approved of our landscaping efforts there!’

  ‘No, Sir James, the effort is too great for so slender an eventuality. But, more to the point, we could never keep the enterprise secret – and in that lay half the strength of Torres Vedras.’

  Colonel Smyth seemed disappointed.

  ‘You will not allow me to raze any bridges, Duke, and now you do not want me to throw up any earth-works!’

  ‘The bridges will be more use to us when we move against France than they will be to Bonaparte if he moves against us, and I am afraid that I cannot spare troops for digging!’ he replied with an emphatic smile.

  Soon afterwards they left the inn yard, preceded by a half-troop of hussars from the King’s German Legion, and headed south along the Nivelles road and then east along a poor cart-track towards Mont St-Jean. Jessope and Hervey were soon covered in the grime of the road, and so fell back just far enough to escape the dust cloud.

  ‘I for one should recommend he blow up all the bridges,’ called Hervey when they were well out of earshot.

  ‘Should you indeed!’ replied Jessope with a smile.

  ‘Yes. The duke’s predicament is that he has no absolute intelligence of where Bonaparte will strike, and so he must watch a considerable front. Before Bonaparte strikes you may be sure that he will have taken all manner of measures to deceive us, but the one thing which will reveal his hand is the location of his engineers and their bridges. It will be very difficult to mask such activity.’

  ‘No doubt the duke has considered it.’

  ‘Of course; I was merely expressing my judgement, that is all.’

  ‘Your judgement made a great impression the latter day, you know. I should not wonder but that the duke will write to your colonel on the matter.’

  ‘I wish he would write to General Slade!’ replied Hervey with a resigned shrug, and as they trotted on towards Mont St-Jean he recounted to Jessope, for the first time, the events of the previous November.

  It was a long day. The duke made the keenest inspection of the ridge running east to west, to the south of the village of Waterloo, astride the Charleroi – Brussels chaussée. Although low-lying it suited his purpose well, he told the party. Its reverse slopes would give his infantry protection from artillery fire, his supplies and reserves could move undetected and he could, if all else failed, withdraw into the cover of the Forêt de Soignes behind and continue the fight there. What he especially prized was the fortuitous situation of several clusters of buildings just forward of the ridge (the small château of Hougoumont to the west; in the east the settlements at La Haie and Papelotte; and in the centre La Haye Sainte farm) which, when garrisoned, might serve, in his words, as anchors for the whole line.

  Throughout, the duke had not spoken to Hervey, but at the end of the reconnaissance, as they gathered on the crest of the ridge at the point where the chaussée bisected it, and just above one of the anchors – La Haye Sainte farm – the duke called him over. ‘Now, Mr Hervey, what would you say was the principal weakness in this position?’

  Hervey was even more astounded than the first time the duke had asked his opinion, for that time it had begun as mere banter: now the duke seemed wholly in earnest. ‘Your Grace,’ he began, pausing for no more than the fraction of a moment, ‘it is a very advantageous position indeed – as strong as I have seen outside the mountains of Spain. The approaches in the centre and his left are so open that Bonaparte could scarcely attempt them without the most fearful loss. He will in all likelihood, therefore, seek to envelop your left flank – he has cover to move his troops a good way round, and the country beyond Papelotte is so trappy that—’

  ‘Yes, yes – so what is the answer?’ the duke interrupted impatiently.

  But Hervey was not fazed. ‘The Prussians must threaten that flank from the outset so that he dare not risk the manoeuvre – and two full brigades of cavalry will be needed on the left of our line as additional insurance.’

  Hervey’s confidence in his opinion, which brought smiles to the artillery and engineer officers, was at once vindicated: ‘Hervey, if you had said anything else, then I should have written you off as a mere hare-chaser after all. Yours is precisely my appreciation, too, except that I would go further. If Bonaparte gets this far, and if the Prussians are still with us as you say, he will have surmised that our left – the east flank – is too risky an essay. Our right will be then his best course. But, look, I wager that he will be tempted by desperation to force his way straight through the centre – the high road to Brussels. I am not intimidated by all this talk of manoeuvre. He has never yet had to face a stubborn sepoy general – of whom he appears to think not a great deal – and I perceive that he might receive a very great shock in that respect here.’

  No one spoke. Not a word.

  ‘Well, come then, gentlemen, we must survey our delaying position next. The crossroads at Quatre-Bras, I think – three leagues south. It should not take long!’

  Hervey returned to the regiment’s billets so late on 15 June, after yet another solitary excursion, that Captain Lankester and the other officers from First Squadron had left for the grand ball in Brussels without him. He toyed with the idea of riding there alone but gave it up: by the time he arrived the best part of the dance would be over, supper especially. It was not as if there had been a personal invitation: he would be one of the party comprising

  The Officer Commanding

  His Majesty’s 6th Lt. Dragoons,

  and Three Officers

  as the card specified, whereas Lankester and most of the others had had their own cards. Edmonds had politely refused the invitation. ‘Poor old Richmond!’ he had said on receiving it. ‘Comes out to Brussels hoping to get a corps and all he gets instead is the duchess spending his money! I’ll not embarrass them: they were not expecting it to be me in command when she wrote it. I shall pass it to Lord George.’

  Hervey had in any case kept his own company for so long during the preceding weeks that the notion of such a gathering at this time was unappealing. At the beginning of the month he had ridden into Brussels and returned – to the astonishment of his fellows – with a great sheaf of Ferraris et Capitaine maps which had cost him all of twenty pounds (over a month of his pay), and he had ridden out since, each day, not returning until after dark. When pressed by his fellow cornets and lieutenants to answer for what he had been about, he was invariably less than specific: he had been riding the country between Quatre-Bras and Mo
nt St-Jean. Lankester, however, always insisted he recount his day’s reconnaissance, and on one occasion, after Hervey had explored as far as the border, they had as a consequence ridden over to Edmonds’s headquarters billet to apprise him of the duke’s plan for that sector – the only plan, indeed, that they had the least knowledge of. Edmonds had made one remark only: ‘Can’t think why he doesn’t blow the damned bridges!’ And Hervey had smiled to himself.

  When he returned, during this evening of the 15th, with more to inform Lankester of than ever before, his troop leader’s absence at the ball put him in a quandary. He rode to Edmonds’s headquarters to tell him of the sound of intense cannon fire which he had heard from the direction of Charleroi: indeed, on returning to his own billet after the reconnaissance he had been surprised to find that there were no movement orders. Edmonds had asked if he had heard anything in the direction of Mons, but he could only say that he had encountered two of General Dornberg’s Hanoverians taking routine dispatches to Brussels and they had reported that all was quiet on that front. The major decided nevertheless to send a report to the brigade commander with his evening returns, and a copy direct to Lord Uxbridge. He then stood Hervey down: ‘All my instinct, Matthew, is that we are about to be tested as never before. I intend turning in early, and I implore you to do the same.’

  * * *

  Hervey woke abruptly, just after three o’clock, to the trumpeter’s short reveille. It was a less insistent call than ‘Alarm’, but long experience said that the short reveille portended something. Almost at the same time Lankester and the others returned from Brussels with the news that the French were across the border at Charleroi and engaging the Prussians, the news having been brought to Wellington himself at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball. A few minutes later Edmonds arrived in ‘A’ Troop’s billet to find out what Lankester knew.

  ‘I do not understand it,’ the major began. ‘We have just had orders to concentrate at Ninove – but that is north of here.’