An Infamous Army

by Georgette Heyer

  ‘The 5th Division and the heavy brigades have repulsed an infantry attack on the left centre, sir. No one has it as hot as you, so far.’

  ‘Ah! Well, no one has troops like my fellows. Tell the Duke there’s no talk of surrender here.’

  Making his way back again through the house and the courtyard, Colonel Audley once more reached the wicket gate, and found his horse, which he had tethered there, apparently not much troubled by the loss of his ear. He mounted, and galloped back to the main position, crossing the hollow road just below the spot where the few companies of Byng’s brigade not engaged in the struggle about Hougoumont were posted. He did not see Byng himself, but gave Macdonnell’s message to a senior officer, who begged him to carry it further, to the Prince of Orange’s staff. He rode on towards Maitland’s brigade, where he was informed the Prince was to be found, but was told there by Maitland himself that the Prince had moved to the left, towards Alten’s division.

  ‘I’ll send one of my family, if you like,’ Maitland said. ‘The trouble is to get the carts through to Hougoumont.’

  ‘You have enough on your hands, sir, by the look of it. I must pass Alten’s division in any case.’

  Maitland had his glass to his eye, and replied in a preoccupied tone: ‘Very well. I don’t like the look of those fellows moving up round the eastern side of Hougoumont. I wonder—no, never mind: off with you!’

  The Colonel left him still watching the stealthy advance of a large body of French light troops who were creeping along the eastern hedge of the Hougoumont enclosure with the evident intention of turning Saltoun’s left flank, and galloped on towards the centre of the line.

  The Prince of Orange, who was surrounded by numerous staff, was not difficult to pick out. He was wearing his English hussar dress, with an orange cockade in his hat, and was standing beside Halkett’s bridge on the right flank of the division, his glass, like Maitland’s trained on the advancing French skirmishers. The Colonel rode towards him, but arrived in his presence in a precipitate fashion which he did not intend. A shell, bursting within a few yards of him, brought his horse down in mid-gallop; the Colonel was shot over his head, feeling at the same moment something like a red-hot knife sear his left thigh, and fell almost at the feet of Lord March.

  The explosion, and the heavy fall, knocked him senseless for a moment or two, but he soon came to himself, to find March’s face bent over him. He blinked at it, recollected his surroundings, and tried to laugh. ‘Good God, what a way to arrive!’

  ‘Are you hurt, Charles?’

  ‘No, merely dazed,’ replied the Colonel, grasping his friend’s hand, and pulling himself up. ‘My horse killed?’

  ‘One of the men shot him. His fore legs were blown off at the knees. We thought you were gone. You are hurt! I’ll get you to the rear.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing!’ said the Colonel, feeling his leg through his blood-stained breeches. ‘I think a splinter must have caught me. I’ll get one of Halkett’s sawbones to tie it up. I was looking for you fellows. I’ve been charged by Colonel Macdonnell to see that more ammunition is sent down to him.’

  ‘I’ll pass the message. Things are looking rather black at the moment.’ He pointed towards the hedge of the Hougoumont.

  At that moment the Prince cantered up, looking pale and rather excited. ‘March! I’ve ordered the light troops not to stir from their position! They were forming to move against those skirmishers who are trying to turn Saltoun’s left flank, but I’m sure the Duke will have seen that movement, and will make his own dispositions. You agree?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Eh, mon Dieu, if one knew what were best to do—but no, I’m right! Charles, go at once to the rear: you are bleeding like a pig! My dear fellow, I have so much on my hands—ah, I was right! I knew it! See there, March! The Guards are moving down to cut off his attempt! All is well then, and it is a mercy I would not permit the light troops to go. March, take Charles to the rear, and find him a horse—no, a surgeon! Au revoir, Charles. I wish—but you see how it is: I have not a moment!’

  He flew off again; Audley’s eyes twinkled; he said: ‘Has he been like this all day?’

  March smiled. ‘This is nothing. But you mustn’t laugh at him; he’s doing well—quite well, if only he wouldn’t get excited. Good, there’s one of the assistant-surgeons! Finlayson! Patch Colonel Audley up, will you? I’ll get you a trooper from somewhere, Charles. Take care of yourself!’

  The Colonel’s wound was found to have been caused, as he suspected, by a splinter. This was speedily, if somewhat painfully, extracted, and his leg bound up, by which time one of the sergeants of the 30th Regiment had come up, leading a trooper. The Colonel mounted, declaring himself to be in splendid shape, and rode off as fast as his heavy steed would bear him.

  The Duke was standing on Alten’s right flank, on the highest part of the position. The time was a little after three o’clock, and Colonel Audley rejoined his lordship just as the sadly diminished Household Brigade was returning from a charge led by Uxbridge against a French force once more attacking the farm of La Haye Sainte. Baring had been reinforced by two companies after the overthrow of D’Erlon’s columns, and the little garrison, in spite of having lost possession of the orchard and garden, was stoutly defending the buildings. The second attack, which was not very rigorously pressed, had been repulsed, and the charge of the Household Cavalry seemed to have succeeded. The French infantry had drawn off again, and except for the continued but not very severe cannonade against the whole Allied front, and the bitter fight about Hougoumont, a lull had fallen on the battle. Colonel Audley seized the opportunity to ride to the rear, where, on the chaussée a little below Mont St Jean, his groom was stationed with his remaining horses. He fell in with Gordon on the way, and learned from him that the head of Bülow’s corps was reported to have reached St Lambert, five miles to the east of La Belle Alliance.

  ‘Coming along in their own good time, damn them!’ said Gordon. ‘They say the roads are almost impassable, but I’ll tell you what, Charles, if we don’t get some reinforcements for our left centre before we’re attacked again we shall be rompéd.’

  ‘Where’s Lambert?’

  ‘Just come up into the front line, which means we haven’t a single man in reserve on the left—unless you count Bylandt’s heroes as reserves.’

  ‘I shouldn’t care to trust to them,’ admitted the Colonel. ‘Did their officers ever succeed in re-forming them?’

  ‘I don’t know. Pack’s fellows have started a tale that they’ve all gone off for a picnic in the Forest. I never saw such a damnable rout in all my life! It was God’s mercy it happened where it did, and not before some of our raw regiments. You were there, weren’t you? Is it true that Picton’s rascals fired after them?’

  ‘They tried to, but we restrained them. Does anyone know what is going to happen next?’

  ‘I certainly don’t. All I do know is that I wish to God we had some of the fellows stationed at Hal here,’ replied Gordon candidly.

  For over half an hour no sign of a fresh attack was made by enemy. Speculation was rife in the Allied lines; no one could imagine what the next move was going to be, or against what part of the line it would be directed. At Hougoumont, all but two companies of Byng’s brigade, which were left to guard the Colours, had been drawn into the fight in the orchards and wood. Colonel Hepburn, whom the Prince of Orange had seen advancing with the remaining companies of the Scots Guards to Lord Saltoun’s relief, had taken over the command from him after assisting him to drive Foy’s men out of the orchard; and Saltoun had retired to his brigade, with just one-third of the men of the light companies whom he had led into action.

  The gradual absorption of Byng’s entire brigade in the defence of the Hougoumont made it imperative to reinforce the right of the line. Shortly before four o’clock, an aide-de-camp was sent off to bring up some young Brunswick troops, held in reserve, to fill the gap. This had hardly been accomplished when th
e firing on the Allied right centre suddenly became so violent that after a very few minutes of it the Duke withdrew his troops farther back from the crest of the position. Old soldiers with a score of battles behind them admitted, as they lay flat on their bellies under the rain of grape, round shot, and spherical case, that they had never experienced such a cannonading. Occasionally a greater explosion than the rest would roar above the din as an ammunition wagon was struck, and a column of smoke would rise vertically in the air, spreading like an umbrella.

  Everyone knew that the cannonade was the prelude to an attack, but when those on the high ground on the right of the Charleroi road saw forming across the valley on the ridge of La Belle Alliance, not infantry divisions but huge masses of cavalry, they were thunderstruck. It soon became evident that the attack was going to be directed against the right centre of the Allied line, for the squadrons, which had first appeared on the east of the Charleroi road, crossed it, obliquing to their left, and advanced slowly but in beautiful order through the fields of deep corn that lay between the advance posts of Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte.

  Twenty-four squadrons of Milhaud’s cuirassiers led the cavalcade in first line, their burnished breastplates and helmets making them look like a wall of steel. They were supported by nineteen squadrons of the light cavalry of the guard: red lancers with high white plumes, gaudy horse trappings, and fluttering pennons, in second line; and, in third line, the Chaussers à Cheval in green dolmans embroidered richly with gold, black bearskin shakos on their heads, and fur-trimmed pelisses swinging from their shoulders.

  It was a formidable array, terrifying to inexperienced troops, but regarded by the staff officers who watched its assembly with a good deal of criticism.

  ‘Good God, this is too premature!’ Lord Fitzroy exclaimed. ‘They cannot mean to attack unshaken infantry with cavalry alone!’

  ‘Perhaps Ney’s gone mad,’ suggested Canning hopefully. ‘What the devil has he done with his infantry columns?’

  ‘I fancy the Prussians must be at something on the left,’ said the Duke, overhearing this interchange.

  ‘I shall believe in the Prussians when I see them,’ remarked Canning to Colonel Audley.

  There was no opportunity for further speculation. Orders were sent to the brigade to prepare to withstand cavalry attacks; aides-de-camp dashed off through the hail of shot; and the troops lying on the ground beside their arms were quickly formed into two lines of square, placed chequer-wise behind the crest of the position. In support, all the available cavalry was mustered; the two British heavy brigades, now reduced to a few squadrons, under the command of Lord Edward Somerset; Trip’s carabiniers; seven squadrons of Van Merlen’s light cavalry; a regiment of Brunswick Hussars; Colonel Arendtschildt’s brigade of the legion; and a part of Dörnberg’s and Grant’s brigades. A demonstration by some French lancers by the Nivelles road had succeeded in drawing off two of Grant’s regiments and one of Dörnberg’s, so that of Grant’s brigade only the 7th Hussars, who had suffered great loss at Genappe, on the previous day, were left to meet the attack of French cavalry; and of Dörnberg’s only the 1st and 2nd Light Dragoons of the legion. In all, it was a meagre force to throw against the forty-three squadrons assembling between Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte, and the want of the two British brigades guarding the left flank of the line until the Prussians should arrive to relieve them began to be acutely felt.

  The Brunswickers, who had been brought up to fill the gap on Maitland’s right, were raw troops, and the Duke wisely strengthened them by sending for a regiment from Colonel Mitchell’s brigade, posted west of the Nivelles road, and stationing it between their two squares. Light troops were ordered to fall back upon the squares immediately in their rear, irrespective of nation or brigade; the artillery was instructed to keep up a steady fire upon the advancing cavalry until the last possible moment, and then to run for safety to the infantry squares; guns were double-loaded with shot and canister; and the squares formed four deep, the front ranks kneeling, so that each square presented four faces bristling with bayonets.

  The French artillery fire ceased as the squadrons began to advance, at a slow trot. Owing to the Duke’s having withdrawn his right centre slightly down the reverse slope of the position to protect it from the cannonading, the French, advancing to the crest, saw no infantry opposing them. They were met by a devastating fire of artillery, but though their front ranks were disordered by the gaps torn in the lines, they pushed on intrepidly. As the leading squadrons breasted the rise, the trumpets sounded the Charge, and the cuirassiers, cheering, and shouting ‘En avant!’ spurred forward, and saw ahead of them, not an army in retreat, as they had been led to suppose, but motionless squares, awaiting their charge in grim British silence.

  The British gunners, remaining at their posts until almost surrounded by the surge of horsemen, were firing at point-blank range. As the cuirassiers charged up to the batteries, the terrible case shot brought them down in tangled heaps of men and horses together. When the muzzles of their guns almost touched the leading squadrons, the artillery men, some detaching the wheels from their guns and bowling them along with them, rushed to the nearest squares and flung themselves down under the bayonets.

  In a cacophony of shouts, trumpets calls, and the discharge of carbines, the cuirassiers charged down upon the silent squares. When they came to within thirty paces, the order to fire upon them was given, and a storm of bullets rattled against the steel breastplates, for all the world like hailstones on a glass roof. Those in the rear ranks of the squares were employed in reloading the muskets, and the repeated volleys caused the advancing columns to split, and to swerve off to right and left, only to receive a still more devastating flank of fire from the sides of the squares. In a very few moments all order was lost, the cuirassiers jostling one another in the spaces between the squares, some riding against the red walls to discharge their carbines and pistols into the set faces upturned behind the gleaming chevaux de frise of bayonets; other trotting round and round in an attempt to find a weak spot to break through.

  No sooner had the cuirassiers passed the first line of squares then the artillerymen dashed back to their guns, to meet with renewed fire the second columns of lancers and chasseurs, ascending the southern slope in support of the cuirassiers. The same tactics were repeated, with the same results. The squadrons, already thrown in to some disorder by the charges of case shot exploding among them, obliqued before the frontal fire of the squares. Soon the whole plateau was covered with horsemen: lancers, chasseurs and cuirassiers, mixed in inextricable confusion, spreading right up to the second line of squares. Man after man fell in the British ranks, but the gaps were always filled, and the squares remained unbroken. Skirmishers, taking cover behind the carcasses of dead horses, kept up a steady fire on the congested mass of the enemy. Wounded and dead sprawled beneath the hooves; and unhorsed cuirassiers cast off their encumbering breastplates to struggle back through the press to the safety of their own lines. When the confusion was at its height, the Allied cavalry charged up from the rear and drove the French from the plateau.

  They retired, leaving the ground littered with horses, men, piles of cuirasses, and accoutrements; but no sooner had the last of them disappeared over the crest than the punishing cannonade burst forth again, while Ney re-formed his muddled squadrons in the valley.

  The attack, though it had not broken the squares, had considerably weakened them. The Duke, riding down the line, heartening the troops with the sight of his well-known figure and the sound of his loud, cheerful voice, sent aides-de-camp galloping off to bring up Clinton’s division, in reserve on the west of the Nivelles road.

  This consisted of General Adam’s British Light Brigade, comprising the 1st battalion of Sir John Colborne’s Fighting 52nd, the 71st Highland Regiment, and two battalions of the 95th Rifles; Colonel Du Plat’s brigade of the legion; and Hew Halkett’s Hanoverian Landwehr battalions.

  Colonel Audley was one of those sent on this
errand, and galloping through the hail of shot, reached the comparative quiet of the ground west of the Nivelles road, to find Lord Hill awaiting the expected instructions to send reinforcements from his corps into the front line. The Colonel, parched with thirst, coughing from the smoke of the shells, his wounded thigh throbbing, and his horse blown, sketched a salute, and thrust the Duke’s message into his hand.

  ‘Having a hot time of it in the centre, aren’t you?’ said Hill. He cast a glance at the Colonel’s face, and added in his kindly way. ‘You look as though a drink would do you good. Hurt?’

  ‘No sir!’ gasped the Colonel, trying to get the smoke out of his lungs. ‘But we must have reinforcements before they come on again!’

  ‘Oh yes! you shall have them!’ Hill nodded to his younger brother and aide-de-camp. ‘Give Audley some of that wine of yours, Clement.’

  Audley, gratefully accepting a long-necked bottle, drank deeply, and sat recovering his breath while Lord Hill issued his instructions. It was his task to lead Adam’s brigade to a strategic but dangerous position between the north-east angle of Hougoumont and the point on the higher ground behind the hollow road where the Brunswick troops stood huddled in two squares, with one British between. The boys, for they were little more, in their sombre uniforms and death’s-head badges, were shaking, kept together only by the exertions of their officers, and the moral support afforded by the sight of the seasoned British regiment separating their squares.