The Army of the Night

by Paul Collis

9

  Waterloo, Belgium. June 18th, 1815.

  Two months later, near the small and innocent village of Waterloo, two-hundred-thousand men prepared their bedrolls in the hope of a few hours’ rest before the battle that — so their commanders told them — would determine the course of history. For many it would be the last sleep they would know. The blood of Frenchmen, Englishmen, Germans and Prussians would soon be spilled whenever metal met flesh. The crimson puddle that had been one man’s life would soon mix with another — perhaps an enemy’s. These puddles would merge with others to make pools, and the pools of blood would unite into ponds, and by the time the battle was won and lost the gentle farmland would be a marsh of hellish hue and unique metallic stench.

  While this mass of soldiers prepared for sleep, the four hundred men of the 1st St. George’s Guards tended to their breakfast. They had slept throughout the afternoon, wads of waxed cotton plugging their ears and black bandanas covering their eyes. Their reveille was sounded at 8 p.m., when there was light enough to see the difference between the sky and the low horizon. For the first meal of their day they were given bread, some hard cheese and weak ale or milk to wash it down. They were given more bread, butter, and a pound of salted beef to eat later, whenever they felt hungry, but with orders that only one man out of four could eat at the same time. Constant nocturnal vigilance was their sole purpose and duty.

  The Guards’ main contingent was billeted in a farmyard and orchard to the west of the main road that ran north to south, from Brussels to Ghent. Across from them, to the east of the thoroughfare, the remainder of their fellow riflemen occupied a disused sand quarry. Together they controlled the road, but doubted their enemies would arrive by such an obvious route. The land to either side of them formed the ridge of an escarpment, and the open plain falling away to the south was deemed unlikely ground for a surprise attack at night, especially under a clear sky. For that reason, the riflemen in the orchard trained their eyes towards the woods that encroached from the north.

  The events that occurred in and around the orchard that night were later described by some of the participants, and their words transcribed in secret. A total of twenty-two depositions were sent to the War Office, all of them from eye-witnesses. What follows is the deposition of one soldier who, despite his low rank, gave a particularly eloquent accounting.

  The following Testimony is that of Rifleman Arthur Noakes, 1st St. George’s Guards, recorded in writing by regimental clerk Sergeant H. Dawkins, on the 21st of June, 1815, at Brussels. Witnesses: Sergeant J. McIntyre, Captain G. W. Smith.

  Le Haye Sainte, Waterloo, Belgium. 17-19 June, 1815.

  Rfmn. Noakes: ‘Our regiment was set up as ordered, exposed on a small hill at the edge of an orchard of fine plum trees. We were about four or five hundred yards from the main camp. After we’d spent the day of the 17th sleeping we awoke and breakfasted under a light rain. Our commander, The Duke of Wellington himself, assembled us in close order and informed us that, as the next day’s battle was sure to decide Napoleon’s fate for ever, one way or the other, Boney might resort to dishonorable tactics. The Duke told us that the French had attacked at night before, when his back was against it and his army was outnumbered. In Spain he had overrun a camp of Spanish irregulars as it slept, and in Germany the rearguard of a regiment. He had used large dogs and mastiffs, hundreds of them, trained to hunt men in silence. So we were not to be surprised if we saw those dogs tonight. I wondered briefly if the Duke was joking, but I knew that he was not. Before the thought of such a weird thing could scare me, he ordered us to use our silver shot, as it would be more accurate against such adversaries. He made us swear to use it, and we did so upon our mothers’ honor. After we had sworn it, he told us any man caught loading regular would be flogged upon a wheel. He then told us that if any of us engaged an enemy that was not a soldier in uniform we were to keep it secret, because the enemy’s use of dogs might spread panic among the general army and it was our job and our responsibility to say nothing, or deny it. He reminded us that we were his personal guard and second to no others, neither our King’s nor the Emperor’s. He made us all swear an oath of secrecy and we did so. Then he wished us well and left us to our duties.

  We deployed in a defensive box formation, one corner pointed at the woods, and made two lines of staggered pairs around the hill, on alert but not in set firing positions. Fifty yards beyond our box were forty-eight men set out as pickets. The clouds gradually thinned out and the rain ceased, revealing a moon about three quarters full, and we could see the pickets clearly. They formed six pairs on each side, and the pairs were twenty yards apart. An hour after midnight, by the sergeant’s watch, we heard sounds out in front of us like rifles falling to the floor, or being smashed against trees. We could tell the sentries were fighting hand to hand, and we heard sounds that before, in battle, were usually mixed up with the noise of cannons, yelling and shouting, horses neighing, and the clashing of steel against steel. But at that moment I heard nothing but the sounds of slashing and gouging. Cloth ripping and flesh tearing, sounds of that sort. It was horrible.

  It was then that something ran towards us and at first I knew only that it was a beast, but as it leapt upon a soldier in the front line I saw it was a wolf. I had not seen a real wolf before, but I recognized it from pictures; it was bigger than any dog I’ve seen, more like the size of a man. Suddenly there appeared a dozen more. They were completely silent. I mean, you’d expect wolves to growl and roar but the only sound I heard was their teeth and claws doing their work. As I said, the first one I saw attacked a man in the front line, not ten yards ahead of me. Then other wolves took the men to his left and right. I saw claws ripping open chests, breaking ribs like they were matchsticks, and slashing throats and stomachs, carving out flesh like a set of knives. Teeth like daggers, biting and ripping. Crushing bone, severing limbs. The sounds came straight from hell itself. No cries from the men either — the beasts took what seemed like only an instant to kill a man, then leapt onto the next before the poor soul had a chance to cry out.

  The most frightening thing to see was the human aspect of them. They used their front claws like hands, slashing through a man’s throat. I saw one of them grip a man’s head on each side and pull it clear from the body. I saw one soldier who had climbed up a tree and onto a branch ten feet above the ground, and was about to fire his pistol at a beast below him, when another jumped up and caught him with his teeth, and shook him like a rat. He was dead before he hit the ground. In the time it took a man to run one pace they ran ten. When they leapt it was more like they was flying, it was so fast. Their speed was shocking; impossible to take in, and so impressive that I found it hard not to just stare in wonder at them.

  The killing of our fellows, although it took just moments, held up the beasts’ advance enough that we could take up our paired positions of one prone, the other kneeling, and aim our first rifles. Suddenly there were packs upon packs of wolves from all directions, and leaping so their entire bodies were black against the sky. I believe Garnet, on my left, fired his rifle before I did, and he hit a beast at ten paces. The ball could not have killed it directly, for the wound was in a leg. The gush of blood that came out of it was black in the moonlight, and showed up strong against its light grey pelt. It fell, and for a moment writhed as if it were on fire, a most frightening spectacle, but then it suddenly lay still, which cheered me. But when the other wolves saw the fallen one they came at us with twice the ferocity, for now we did hear the most awful growling, like the lion at the zoological gardens, and that was the most scared I’ve ever been, as my breeches would soon testify. But we responded as trained, firing when ready, and a dozen of them went down in front of us, and then another dozen with our second rifles, and then it was close range with pistols. Another twenty or so fell, and then we turned to our blades to protect us. My partner Hudson’s bayonet was the first to spike one of them, and the weight of it thrashing on the end of his rifle sent him to th
e ground, but even as it died it was strong enough to tear poor Hudson’s left hand from his arm. Then one of the beasts chose me for its prey and was upon me like lightning. I held my bayonet solidly in front of me but its claw pushed it aside and it was only Sergeant Butcher’s pistol that saved me. He was perhaps three yards behind me and fired a ball into its throat that sent it rolling on the ground and clutching madly at its wound in a kind of spasm before it died. It was then that the wolves stopped attacking and disappeared back into the woods as quickly as they’d sprung out of it.

  We kept our rough formation of staggered pairs until the sun came up, all of us so shaken up we would have shot a sparrow if it chirruped. And then happened the most mysterious and unimaginable thing anyone ever saw in their lives, and I swear on the King’s bible and my mother’s grave that this is so. The daylight, when it met the corpse of a wolf, transformed it. The hair disappeared from the skin and the whole body shrunk and shaped itself to form a human shape, and within a matter of a moment what had been a wolf was become a man. Naked as a baby and no marks or nothing to suggest what it had been but a minute before, apart from the wound that had killed it. And the strangest sight was the head, as what had been twice as large as a man’s was now normal, and the face composed as peaceful as a man who’d never known a care. As God is my witness, it was this that decided me the old tales of werewolves are true, and I thanked our Lord for our silver ammunition.

  We left the wolf bodies where they fell, so they could be inspected by the Duke. He arrived about twenty minutes later, with the surgeons. Those such as me that were near to him saw him look at the damage done to the dead Guards. Then he kneeled down to inspect the naked bodies of whatever had attacked us. He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He got up and stood among us and ordered us all to repeat the oath of secrecy that we had sworn earlier. Then he told his doctors to see if they could find any markings, tattoos, birthmarks or the like, or anything that might serve to identify the enemies in any way, and take notes and drawings. We were then instructed to dig a common grave. Even though we were exhausted from the night’s exertions we buckled down, and taking it in turns we took less than an hour to make room for all the bodies — forty-eight by Captain McIntyre’s count.

  After the doctor had completed his examination the clergy were sent for, both our own Reverend Hamilton and a local Catholic. They said the usual prayers for the souls of the fallen, but each added another prayer in Latin that seemed somehow more ceremonial than usual. The Catholic brought out his holy water and dipped a silver cross in it, then touched the cross to a corpse’s lips. Then he put a thumb into a small pot of ash and marked the forehead with it. He continued on like this until he’d blessed the last creature. For my part, I hope they rot in hell.

  We lost 116 men out of the 400 of us, and 12 wounded. The pickets never got to fire a shot, and the rest who were killed were mainly in the front line. In the morning we put their bodies under canvas sheets, and then we moved to a position behind the main escarpment, to be kept in reserve for the day’s battle. Boney didn’t attack until noon, and we never joined that fight, which was won late in the afternoon but went on into the evening. Instead, at dusk, while Boney’s bravest covered his retreat, we were ordered to return to the orchard and to dig the graves of our comrades. All other troops, including the French prisoners, were kept away. We buried them that night. I’m glad to say our dear commander came fresh from the battle and spoke the honors over them and told us that our colors would soon commemorate their sacrifice. He told us ‘the victory was the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life’, and I have no cause to doubt him.

  I hereby swear that all I have said is true, and that I will not communicate any of the events herein described to any other person superior or inferior, or relative by blood or marriage, or priest or other cleric, for as long as I shall live, it being treason if I do so, on pain of court martial and summary execution.

  Signed: Arthur Noakes, Rifleman First Class.

  Witnesses: Dawkins, McIntyre, Smith.’