The reputation of the Imperial Guard preceded them. Napoleon’s habit of allowing them free rein after a victory had led to rape and plunder on a monstrous scale. Ask any Hanoverian or Brunswicker what he thought of the French Imperial Guard and he would spit and curse and call them defilers of wives and daughters and murderers of innocent civilians and vow revenge for what they had done. If Wellington could not halt the French, the women of Waterloo and of all the towns on the road to Brussels would be at their mercy.
But, unlike Napoleon, the Iron Duke had never been defeated in battle, would have chosen his ground well and would have devised a plan to halt the oncoming French and send them scurrying, cowed and beaten, back to Paris. The button seller, despite what he had seen and heard, put aside his doubts.
He did not much relish the thought of walking on a morning already sweltering after the thunderstorms of the day before, so it was with relief that he at last found a stable with a single horse remaining and an owner willing to sell it. The sale was quickly agreed at about twice the usual rate; he loaded his bags, mounted, and set off.
The horse was a stout cob, more accustomed to pulling carts than carrying men, and it plodded along not much more quickly than the procession of local townsfolk that snaked southwards along the road. Some of them pushed carts laden with barrels of ale and cuts of meat and huge round cheeses, others carried wicker baskets on their arms. Whether the baskets were also laden or were to carry souvenirs after the battle, he could not tell, but he supposed that after any battle there would be plunder aplenty, including silver and gold buttons taken from the uniforms of fallen officers. He tried not to think of that. His job was simply to sell the buttons, not to worry himself about what happened to them.
Passing small groups of women and children heading north – no doubt ordered to leave their husbands and fathers and return to the town – the button seller made his way slowly down the road, wondering, as every other man and woman must have been wondering, what that day would bring.
The firm of Blinks and Blinks, established in the thriving jewellery quarter of the city of Birmingham, had been manufacturing and supplying buttons of excellent quality to military and naval officers and to the tailors who made their uniforms, for many years. The war in Spain and Admiral Nelson’s campaigns at sea had been undeniably good for business and the partners, two brothers, were keen further to enrich themselves by taking advantage of the unexpected opportunity presented by Napoleon’s escape from exile on Elba and his subsequent march to Paris, building his strength as he went. It was not that they had wished for this to happen, merely that it had done so and no businessman worth the name would ignore it. Belgium was awash with British officers who would not countenance a missing button on their uniform or that of a soldier under their command. Every colonel set great store by the appearance of his regiment. A ready supply of replacement buttons, obtainable from the regimental store, was essential if proper standards were to be maintained.
Blinks and Blinks manufactured buttons in pewter and brass plate and, for officers, in silver and gold plate. Every button was made with a wire shank to facilitate its hanging correctly and carried the insignia of the wearer’s regiment. The button seller’s own favourite was not military but the crown and anchor on the gold-plated button of a naval captain. He sometimes wondered what life would have brought him had he followed the advice of his father and joined the navy. He had not done so because he could not see himself as a fighting man.
The profit to be had from a single set of buttons was not great. There were other manufacturers and competition for the best customers was strong. He had been despatched to London and thence to Brussels with clear instructions from the brothers Blinks. ‘Make yourself known to the quartermasters and officers, speak to their adjutants, speak to anyone in authority. Many regiments are already our customers, some are not. Acquire them if you can. Reduce prices if you must, but do not let a competitor steal a customer from us.’ The brothers would not be happy to learn, for example, that an order from the First Foot Guards had gone elsewhere. The uniform of an officer in that regiment was incomplete without twelve large gold-plated buttons.
From Brussels he had been able to send back to Birmingham orders not only for the Guards regiments but also for the Light Dragoons, the Grenadiers, the King’s Own German Legion and smaller orders for other regiments. His book of illustrations and the samples he carried had made his task easier but he felt nevertheless that he had done well and hoped for suitable recognition when he returned. Although you never knew with the Blinks. They might be pleased or they might look down their noses at the orders and demand to know why they were not larger. He supposed that was the way of successful businessmen.
His samples – one for each officer and each private in every British regiment, over fifty in all – he guarded closely. His wife had carefully sewn each one through its shank on to a roll of soft calfskin spaced so that, when it was rolled up, no button touched another. He polished the buttons once every week and more often if needs be. He knew every regimental insignia – and of every naval rank, although he had not brought his naval samples with him on this trip – and could converse knowledgably about the history and honours of each regiment. The gold-plated buttons of an officer of the 19th Regiment of Light Dragoons, for example, were decorated with an elephant and the word ‘Assaye’, while an officer of the 6th Regiment of Foot now wore silver-plated buttons, decorated with an antelope, the regiment’s insignia having been changed a year earlier. And he knew that the way to tell a Third Foot Guard from a Coldstream was by the pattern of buttons on his tunic. There was very little the button seller from Blinks and Blinks did not know about military and naval insignia, most particularly the buttons. It was his job to do so.
Although he was used to travelling, it was the first time that he had set foot outside England or Wales. His predecessor had travelled in Scotland and Ireland but, as yet, he had not. He had crossed the Channel with mixed feelings. It was a feather in his cap to have been entrusted with the task and he looked forward to seeing a new country, learning its ways, sampling its food and wine and seeing its sights, but he was heading towards the threat of gunfire and had little idea of how long he would be away. Most of all, he had left behind his wife and infant daughter.
They had been married five years earlier when they were both in their twenty-first year, he a junior clerk in the factory of Blinks and Blinks, she a seamstress. Their daughter had been born two years later. It had been his wife who had urged him to apply for the position of salesman when the elderly incumbent could no longer manage, and had given him the confidence to do so. Without her he would have remained a clerk. ‘If you do not take the opportunity when it presents itself,’ she said, ‘it might never come again. If you put your mind to it, you will be good at it and who knows where it might lead.’
Thus encouraged, he had presented his application to the partners, although deep down he did not expect it to be successful. But she had coached him well and when the time came he so impressed them with his knowledge of the economics of the manufacturing process and of the requirements of their customers, that they offered him a trial period in the position. Within two years, he had doubled the business of his predecessor.
Yet despite this, he lacked the ebullient self-confidence of many successful salesmen. He succeeded through diligence and perseverance, never made a promise he could not keep and never let a customer down. Others might blow their trumpets and bang their drums, but his was a quiet way, efficient and, he liked to think, business-like.
It was a way that reflected both his character and his appearance. At only five and a half feet tall, narrow in the shoulder, bespectacled, his hair already receding, he knew that he could never cut a dashing figure. Nor did he seek to. When on business he wore a tall hat, a black tail coat and a white stock. It had not occurred to him until he had seen him in Brussels that it was much the same manner of dress as that favoured by the Duke of Wellington himself. He had made a mental no
te to ask his wife’s opinion on the adoption of a different style. He would not want to be accused of copying the duke, nor would he relish being teased for doing so.
A little north of the hamlet of Mont St Jean, the sights and sounds of an army preparing for battle reached him. At first, smoke from camp fires spiralling into the sky, the crash of iron upon iron and the deep thunder of hooves as the cavalry regiments took up their positions; then, as he approached, voices raised in command or complaint and the squelching of boots on ground still wet from the unseasonal rain.
Soon the road was a mass of troops and their paraphernalia converging on a crossroads from west and east as well as from the north. Carefully, fearful of getting in the way, the button seller dismounted and led his cob to the side of the road, away from the wagons and artillery pieces that were still hurrying south, and picked his way along a narrow strip of grass between the road and the mud of the fields to his left.
He reached a farm which was being prepared as a hospital. A line of ambulances waited in the farmyard while medics bustled about with bundles of linen, heaps of bandages and wooden stretchers. Among the medics were a number of women – wives and daughters and locals with their strange dog-eared caps, pressed into service. From there he caught his first sight of the allied lines. Stretched out along a ridge, partly protected by its slope, was Wellington’s army. He halted the cob and checked his pocket watch. It was ten o’clock.
As he came closer, he was able to make out some of the uniforms. To his left, the plumed helmets and red tunics of Inniskilling Dragoons, to his right the bearskins and blue jackets of the Royal Horse Artillery. Before long he had picked out Hussars, Grenadiers and the green-jacketed Riflemen.
When he reached a second crossroads, he remounted. Below the high ridge on which he stood, the French army had taken up its positions. Its front line was perhaps half a mile away. To east and west, line after line of blue waited for the order to advance. Before them lay undulating fields, rising sharply nearest the ridge. Even to his unmilitary eye, the duke had chosen his ground well. To gain the road north to Brussels, the French would have to march down into the floor of the valley before climbing up to the ridge, and they would be bombarded by cannon every step of the way. At least that was how it looked to him.
An ancient elm tree stood at the crossroads. Its canopy offered a little shelter from the sun and an excellent view of what would be the battlefield. Mounted on the little cob, he chose it as his vantage point. To left and right Wellington’s army were getting ready for battle. Camp fires were doused, artillery crews heaved their pieces into position, Horse Guards and Hussars struggled to keep their mounts steady, infantrymen checked their weapons and stood in lines abreast ready to fire down upon the advancing waves of blue. At the first threat of attack by cavalry they would form squares to present bristling lines of bayonets from which cavalry horses would shy away. He had never seen the manoeuvre carried out but he had heard it described by a cousin who had fought with Wellington in Spain. When properly formed the squares were a certain defence against cavalry but an easy target for artillery. The cousin had spoken of the terror of standing in square while the men around you were ripped to pieces by artillery shells. But it had to be done. If the square broke, the cavalry would be amongst them in a trice. Shell or sabre – take your pick.
The button seller let his eye wander over the lines. This was not an army fresh from the parade ground. Boots were splattered with mud, uniforms torn and bloodstained. After the bloody engagement at Quatre Bras there would have been no opportunity for mending or cleaning. Nor would there have been much for sleeping or eating. He could hope only that the French had fared no better.
From his right a party of riders trotted towards him along the ridge. One he recognised instantly as the duke, in white breeches, white stock, dark blue coat and cloak and cocked hat, and mounted on his favourite chestnut, Copenhagen. Behind the duke rode ten others – eight officers, his aides, and two others in civilian dress, one of whom could not have been more than fifteen years old and carried his arm in a sling. As the party came closer, he could see that the duke had a writing slope attached to his saddle. Was it this, he wondered, upon which the man who commanded the entire army would write orders that might bring victory or – he hardly dared think the word – defeat? The party rode passed him without a glance, crossed the Brussels road and proceeded on down the lane on the other side.
The button seller looked again at his pocket watch. It was fifteen minutes before eleven o’clock. Suddenly, a cheer went up along the lines. He looked about but could see no reason for it. He nudged the cob with his knees and trotted along the ridge to the nearest troop. ‘May I know what has occasioned the cheer, sir?’ he asked a young lieutenant.
The lieutenant grinned. ‘You may, sir. A galloper has arrived. Old Blucher and his Prussians will be here by midday.’ So the Prussians had not been entirely routed by Napoleon and their arrival would surely ensure victory. The button seller sighed with relief.
He thanked the lieutenant and turned to resume his vantage point under the elm. But the vantage point was no longer his. The duke and his party had returned from their inspection and had stationed themselves exactly where he had sat not five minutes earlier. He smiled. Better the commander-in-chief and his aides than an unarmed civilian should have the best seats in the house. He would have to find another spot. Seeking cover behind the lines or returning to the safety of the farmhouse they had passed did not occur to him. He had come this far and he was going to observe the battle for himself. And if the Prussians were close, victory would surely be theirs.
The first shells exploded away to the right, from somewhere near a farm partly hidden from view by woods and about mid-way between the French and the allied lines. The roar of the guns ripped through the valley and along the ridge, soon followed by plumes of smoke rising into the morning sky and the whiff of gunpowder borne on a fluke of wind. The battle had started.
The French cannon were answered by the allied artillery – crash after crash of heavy shells smashing into the wood, uprooting trees and sending up great sprays of earth. In no time, the button seller’s head was throbbing. He held his hands to his ears and marvelled at the stoicism of the men along the ridge, quietly awaiting their turn to be targets for the French gunners.
They had a long wait. It was at least an hour before the French gunners turned their attention to the centre of the allied lines and the first shells began to fall amongst them. Half-deafened, the button seller instinctively ducked when a volley landed nearby. The terrified cob did its best to unseat him but he held on with hands and knees and managed to calm it. He had found a place on the other side of the crossroads from the elm tree, where the duke and his entourage were still watching through telescopes. His view was not quite as good as it had been from under the elm but it was good enough. He could see the battle raging at the farm away to his right and, when it was not wholly obscured by smoke, almost all the battlefield. Beyond it, the lines of blue still stood awaiting the order to advance.
Twenty yards away a French shell exploded against an allied cannon. The cannon disintegrated in a storm of metal shards which scythed through its crew and left heads and limbs detached from bodies and strewn across the mud. He was close enough to feel the air move and the heat of the explosion. His stomach heaved and voided itself of his half-digested breakfast.
To his right, back from the ridge, artillery crews scrambled to load and fire their guns, slipping about in the mud and struggling to keep their feet. Behind them, cavalry horses, terrified by the noise, bucked and shrieked and tried to unseat their riders. In front, infantrymen lay flat on the ground, allowing the shells to scream over their heads. Everywhere the wounded lay unattended among the dead. In his bag he carried a small flask of brandy. He pulled it out and swallowed a mouthful.
Very soon the air was filled with smoke and the stench of gunpowder and he could see little. He edged closer to the elm tree, hoping that he woul
d see more from there. The duke and six of his party were still there, telescopes to their eyes, looking over the valley towards the French lines. They appeared unmoved by the shells exploding around them.
As if sensing the presence of a stranger, the duke lowered his telescope and turned his head towards the button seller. ‘You, sir,’ he called out, using the telescope as a pointer, ‘I do not know who you are, but you are in grave danger.’
The button seller touched his hat. ‘No more so than your Grace.’ The duke nodded and returned his gaze to the French lines.
The bombardment went on and on. Heavy balls of iron crashed into the allied ranks, severing limbs and slicing bodies in two. Through fleeting gaps in the smoke, he watched the carnage, horrified and unable to move or to think clearly.
And then, at last, it stopped and a strange silence descended upon the field. But not for long. From down in the valley came the sound of drums beating out the rhythm of the charge, at first far off, but soon close and getting closer. The drums were joined by voices raised in the joy of battle. The French were singing. The button seller’s skin crawled and he had to force himself to raise his head to look. When he did, he saw line after line, column after column of blue jackets advancing through the valley and up the slope. In the allied lines, barely a man moved or spoke, but waited silently, muskets at the ready for the order to fire.
When the order came, the leading French troops were almost at the base of the slope up to the ridge. The British infantry rose from their crouched positions and sent a volley of musket balls crashing into them. The French fell in a mass of screaming, writhing bodies. There was a second volley and a third, each of them cutting bloody swathes through the blue columns.
The button seller closed his eyes and mouthed a prayer. What in the name of God had induced him to come here? Why had he not returned to Brussels? Even the Blinks brothers could hardly complain if he had chosen to go home when the French crossed the Sambre. Buttons would be the very last thing on any soldier’s mind; there would be no more orders and he might as well take ship for England. At that moment, had he been asked why he was mounted on an elderly cob on the ridge at Mont St Jean while all around him was bloodshed and death, he would not have been able to offer a single reason. Yet here he was.
Beautiful Star and Other Stories Page 20
