Bugles at Dawn

by Charles Whiting

  Felton-Hervey held up his hand for silence. ‘Colonel Colborne, I am afraid, sir, this is a matter between this officer and His Grace. I am not allowed to speak about it. Now, O’Hara, are you ready?’

  ‘You can borrow Captain Burrows’ mount, O’Hara,’ Colborne interjected.

  O’Hara looked from the honest face of his CO to that of the staff officer, his mind racing wildly. ‘Ready, sir,’ he answered as firmly as he could manage.

  They were flogging a private soldier outside the Duke’s HQ in the little white peasant house in Waterloo’s muddy, traffic-choked main street. As usual when there was no tripod available they had strapped him to a cart wheel, tying his wrists to it with his own crossbelts. Now a sweating provost sergeant was laying into the half-naked man with the cat-o’-nine-tails, ripping the young soldier’s back to scarlet shreds with each fresh blow, while at his side a bored clerk counted off the strokes in a disinterested voice, as if he had done this a dozen times before.

  Hurriedly the worried young ensign turned his gaze away. He did not like the traditional brutality of the British Army, although he knew it was necessary. The men, even the youngest among them, were a tough bunch who would rape and loot indiscriminately at the very first chance if they weren’t kept in check. And, according to the Duke, the only way that that could be achieved was with the stick and lash.

  ‘All right, Ensign,’ Felton-Hervey rasped from the open door of the little house, ‘His Grace will see you now.’

  Squaring his shoulders and wishing he could have shaved, O’Hara hurried through into what had once been the kitchen, now crowded with senior officers, including General Maitland of the Guards. Maitland shot O’Hara a black look, then continued with his conversation as the staff officer forced a path through the throng. Many of them were flushed and too animated as if they had been drinking to celebrate this great victory. Or perhaps it was the fever — half the army was suffering from the flux and high temperatures.

  The Duke of Wellington was at a make-shift desk, parchments tied with blue ribbon rolled up neatly in front of him, quill pen in hand. In one corner a carpet-shrouded bundle lay on a camp bed. It was that of his quartermaster who had died of his wounds there that night, with the Duke sacrificing his own precious bed for his fellow officer.

  For a while the Duke appeared not to notice their presence, but kept dipping the quill into the inkwell and signing the dispatches. O’Hara had time to observe his sharp lined face dominated by a great beak of a nose. This morning the strain of the last three days was all too obvious; the Duke looked a good ten years older than his forty-six.

  Finally the Duke put down his quill and nodded quietly to Felton-Hervey. The aide opened the door. O’Hara caught a fragment of General Maitland snorting, ‘The fellah’s a blackguard, sir! Fancy a line officer striking one of my Guards officers. Where will it end, sir, I say?’ and then the door closed.

  The Duke surveyed the young officer with bright blue eyes for a moment and O’Hara was tempted to lower his own gaze under such intensity. The Duke’s piercing look was calculated to frighten anyone. Suddenly he spoke, his voice hoarse but powerful and dominant: the voice which had in the last years imposed its will on the British Army and led it from defeat to victory.

  ‘You are a very bold fellow, sir, a very bold one indeed. Do you not realize it is a serious military offence to strike a superior officer, sir?’

  ‘Your Grace,’ he stuttered, feeling himself go red.

  ‘Yes, sir, you as a junior officer struck a senior officer, Captain Hartmann of the Second Guards. Indeed,’ he added very severely, ‘you did more. You sword-whipped him and there is no use denying it. I saw the incident with my own eyes. Now, sir, what have you to say for yourself?’

  O’Hara hesitated.

  The Duke tut-tutted impatiently. ‘Well,’ he demanded, eyes like gimlets, ‘I am waiting.’

  He stammered, ‘I did strike Captain — er — Hartmann of the Second Guards and I know now it was wrong of me to do so. All I can say in my defence, Your Grace,’ he ended a little lamely, suddenly fully aware of the gravity of his offence, ‘is that I did so in the heat of the battle because I felt that his er ... reluctance to advance would endanger the left flank of the Fifty-Second.’

  Again the Duke snapped, ‘Do you realize that it is the most serious breach of discipline that an army can suffer when an inferior strikes a superior? The discipline of the whole formation can easily collapse thereafter.’

  In misery Ensign O’Hara nodded and murmured, ‘Yes, Your Grace.’

  ‘Now if Captain Hartmann were prepared to duel with you, I should let him do so in an instant and the whole affair could be settled on the field of honour.’ The Duke frowned suddenly and tugged at the end of his beaked nose. ‘But he is not prepared to do so.’ For a moment his voice took on a certain derisive note, as if he could not comprehend an officer who was not prepared to fight for his honour. ‘So what am I going to do with you, sir? If you were a common soldier I would have you flogged like that screaming wretch out there.’ Contemptuously he indicated the private tied to the cart wheel, his back torn to scarlet ribbons now. ‘He took one hundred guineas from his own wounded officer. Most probably he would have slit the poor gentleman’s throat afterwards if he had not been apprehended in time. I could even have you hanged. It wouldn’t be the first time I have hanged a man under my command.’

  ‘Yessir,’ O’Hara answered, his head reeling now. Everyone in the army knew just how ruthless the Iron Duke could be. In his ten years of campaigning in India he had always maintained that instant savagery was the only way to subdue the natives who outnumbered his small European army a thousandfold, and he had slaughtered the Indians without mercy.

  The Duke let his words sink in. There was a sudden silence in the room, broken only by the muted chatter of the officers next door and the fading screams of the soldier being flogged who was now relapsing into blessed unconsciousness. Wellington assessed O’Hara as if he was trying to see something in those features that only he could recognize and understand.

  Abruptly he spoke. ‘If Captain Hartmann’s section of the Second Guards had hesitated much longer,’ he said quietly, as if afraid he might be overheard in the outer room, ‘the Imperial Guard might well have rallied and turned the left flank of the Fifty-Second Foot. If I had been in your place, O’Hara, as a hotblooded young man, I might have done the same as you. There is no place in the British army for cowards. Yesterday we had an officer who deserted his colours on the field of battle by pretending he had been stunned. Another actually fled the field on a French cavalryman’s horse. Totally dishonourable and both officers are already on their way back to London in disgrace. They will be drummed out of the army, I can assure you, sir!’

  O’Hara’s heart leapt. The Duke was taking his side! There was hope after all.

  The Commander-in-Chief noted the change in his expression and said harshly, ‘Young man, don’t raise you hopes too soon. For you have made a bitter enemy of a man of wealth and importance — too much importance in my humble opinion,’ he added a little bitterly. ‘The first Hartmanns came over with the first King George at the beginning of last century, and ever since have had great influence at court. The present Lord Hartmann, Captain Hartmann’s father, has even succeeded in becoming an intimate friend of both the Duke of York and the Prince Regent.’ He tapped the side of his long nose significantly.

  O’Hara knew what the Duke meant. The two brothers, the Duke of York who commanded the British Army, and the Prince Regent who ruled in place of his mad father, old George III, were deadly enemies. Lord Hartmann certainly had to be a man of great wealth and influence to remain friends with both of them.

  ‘So, young man, what do you think would be the reaction of such — er — illustrious personages if I let you go unpunished for an offence against the son of their greatest crony, eh?’ He glared fiercely at O’Hara.

  ‘But Your Grace,’ O’Hara protested hotly in the manner of young
men who always believe that right and justice must triumph, ‘you did say that Captain Hartmann’s actions were those of a coward!’

  ‘I did. But they were actions of a high-born coward with the greatest connections in the land, while you are a mere brave nobody.’ He snapped his fingers and O’Hara started. Suddenly the Duke was all energy, his brain racing as it always did when he was planning some new action. ‘We have to make a decision, do something before the Maitland clique in the Guards acts. Ensign O’Hara must disappear this very instant. You are a bold young fellow, so I now christen you Bold without benefit of bell, book and candle. Pray what is your first name?’

  ‘Jean-Paul, sir. My mother was French — ’

  The Duke waved him to silence. ‘John, you shall be. John Bold, yes I like the ring of it. John Bold — nomen est omen, as the Romans said.’

  Hastily, while the young man’s head spun at this sudden change of identity, the Duke picked up a fresh piece of parchment and scribbled furiously. ‘I made my name and fortune, Bold, in the Indian sub-continent. Like so many other Englishmen, I went

  there at the turn of the century, an unknown ... a poor man. I returned with money and a name. You, with luck and your boldness, might well do the same.’

  Bold gaped. What did he know of India save what little he had learned of that remote continent in his dame school and his father’s tales of soldiering there before he had been captured by the French?

  ‘Now,’ the Duke continued, ‘I am writing to the Marquis of Hastings, the Governor-General and a friend of mine, recommending that John Bold who served under me bravely here at Waterloo should be given a commission in the John Company’s — er, the East India Company’s — native infantry. That won’t cost you a penny piece, for there on the other side of the world you do not have to purchase your commission.’ He gave a crooked smile. ‘If the plague does not carry you off, the native wars will. There is always a great need for white officers out there.’

  ‘India ... commission in the East India Company ... ’ Bold stuttered in confusion. ‘I am afraid I don’t understand Your Grace ... ’

  The Duke signed the parchment with a great flourish, sanded his writing and rolled the message before securing it with his personal green ribbon. He looked up. ‘Then I’ll make it perfectly clear to you, Mister John Bold. Five minutes ago I made a certain Ensign Jean-Paul O’Hara disappear. Now I’m going to do the same with John Bold. Once he leaves this room, all trace of him must vanish. He will be on his way to India and a new life.’ He thrust back the simple wooden peasant chair and rose.

  As Bold stiffened to attention, the Duke waved him to relax. ‘You are no longer a soldier, sir, just a mere civil person, and civil persons do not stand to attention even for commanders-in-chief.’ He forced a wintry grin. ‘Now I am going to my privy to make water. There you see my cloak’ — he indicated the blue cloak he habitually wore. ‘You shall take off your shako now and don the cloak. It will cover your regimentals until you are able to possess yourself of civilian attire ... Oh, yes’ — he picked up a bag of coins — ‘these are the hundred guineas that soldier out there stole. His poor unfortunate officer will need them no more — he died of his wounds during the night. Now they are yours.’ He tossed them to a gaping John Bold who somehow managed to catch them. ‘They will see you to India, if you are careful. Now I will make water while you escape, after stealing my cloak, through yon window.’

  ‘But sir,’ he said fervently, ‘how can I thank you for what you have done for me. Sir? I don’t — ’

  Wellington held up his hand for silence. ‘You blotted your copybook because you felt you were doing the right thing. Unfortunately you do not know the ways of the rich and powerful. For that you must pay the price of youthful stupidity.’ The Duke’s rasping voice softened a little. ‘Nevertheless, you have my best wishes for the future. Good luck to you in India, John Bold. And now I must piss ... ’

  *

  Cautiously John Bold crouched and spied out the ground. Undoubtedly he would have no more than five minutes before the Duke raised the alarm and every man’s hand would be against him. He must be out of this village before then. But which way? What would his pursuers expect a fugitive to do? Swiftly he had his answer. He’d be assumed to have taken the road to Nivelles, following the defeated French, hoping to find succour among them. It was the usual thing with deserters. Besides they might already know he was half French. So instead he would ride towards Brussels and somehow branch off to the east before he reached the capital, which would be full of Allied troops.

  The clip-clop of hooves indicating a mount ridden at a sharp canter broke into his reverie. Coming up from the direction of Hougemont on a fine white Arab, lotioned, powdered and dressed in elegant regimentals, was the man who had caused his downfall and was now sending him into exile — Captain Hartmann of the Second Guards!

  Bold’s face contorted and flushed with sudden rage as his hand fell to his sword. But he controlled himself. He would not even have the chance to fell the scoundrel to the ground. Revenge must wait for another year. He watched Hartmann descend from his horse and enter the Duke’s HQ, obviously to exact his pound of flesh.

  John Bold waited no longer, but bolted for his horse. He was on his way into the unknown ...

  FOUR

  His parents, when they had been young and happy, untroubled by exile and the worries of money, must have ridden this same road, mused John Bold as he cantered along the dusty pavé, eastwards towards the hills on the horizon. With her help, Father had flown the notorious Revolutionary gaol, the Citadel at Verdun, the two of them posing as Flemish weavers returning home.

  They had made a new life in a country foreign to them both, England. There his father, newly returned from years in India, had hoped to regain his broken health, while his wife, the last of the de la Mazieres, had waited for the counter-revolution which would restore her fortune. But their plans had come to naught. What use was a sick half-pay lieutenant of the Fifty-second Foot when England was not at war?

  As he cantered along the dead-straight road that led to the Walloon township of Bande, Bold thought of his parents, living in the past with their impossible dreams.

  ‘Why didn’t ye know, my boyo, that the O’Briens, the O’Connors and the O’Haras are the last descendants of Old Ireland’s Kings?’ his father would chortle, face as red as his hair, when he had earned a few extra pence to enjoy a pannikin of cheap rum. ‘Why, my spark, you might rightly have been on the throne of Ireland if things had been different.’

  Not to be outdone, his mother, fingers blistered from making fine lace, her only skill, which she sold to the fine ladies of Brighton, would then launch into the history of the de la Mazieres of Lorraine and the great estates they had once owned before the Revolution. It was always before the Revolution before that scum, the canaille, had taken the house, the grounds, the farms — everything — away from them.

  Two poor people, living for each other and finding that only the past gave any substance to their lives, the one outdoing the other with more outrageous lies. For as he saw it now, there had been no hope for them right from the start: a Catholic Irishman with no money to purchase a regiment and no hope of advancement in the service unless there were another war; and a spoiled French woman who barely spoke English. How could such a pair survive in the harsh Protestant climate of southern England?

  Things had changed a little when Wellington had returned to England from India and begun recruiting a new army for the Peninsular campaign in Spain in 1805. By the time the Duke had landed with his new army at Mondego Bay to begin his long battle against the French in that country, Bold’s father was a captain again in the Fifty-second and had begun sending money home. There had been bitter defeats and glorious victories, with Captain Patrick O’Hara, a true fighting Irishman, always at the forefront of battle — and the subsequent looting. Money and prize money had started to flow into the little cottage in the shadow of the ruined castle at Dover. For Bold’s
mother had insisted on living as close to France as possible so that when that ‘foreign parvenu’ Napoleon was defeated, they could return speedily to Lorraine and claim the estates of the de la Mazieres. But that wasn’t to be. In 1812, three years ago when Bold had been a skinny boy running wild, his father had lost a leg in the assault on the great fortress at Badajoz. The brief good times were over, and his father returned home to die.

  Six months later his mother had followed, more of a broken heart than any physical cause, as their old apothecary Joshua Atkins had told the sorrowing boy. But right to the end his mother had retained her French thriftiness. She had left behind two diamond brooches worked in the shape of the rose of Lorraine, the family crest. They were antique, the silver mounts tarnished, but the diamonds worth enough to buy an ensign commission in his father’s old regiment, the Fifty-second Foot. It had been the natural choice of occupation for a half-educated boy with no parents, no fortune and no other future. He would devote his life to soldiering, come what may, just as his father had done and generations of O’Haras before him.

  Now, Bold reflected bitterly as he trotted by another huge pile of abandoned French equipment — brass helmets, shakos, weapons, broken carts piled with loot, to be plundered by peasants from the local villages — his military career was over, at least in the British Army. Dressed in shabby civilian clothes purchased from a merchant en route, he was riding to an uncertain future on the other side of the world. He considered once again the rough plan he had worked out since fleeing the Duke’s headquarters the day before. When his father had first sailed for India, Britain had been at peace with pre-revolutionary France, and travellers for that far country had first crossed France by coach, sailed from Marseilles to Egypt, then crossed the desert and taken another ship from the Persian Gulf to Bombay or Madras. The alternative was a long voyage with all its attendant perils — disease, pirates, storms, hunger — from Portsmouth right round the Cape and thence to India.