Waterloo (4 page)

He made another circuit of the camp, exchanged a few words with the Grahams and some of the men, made a show of checking musket barrels and boots – reminding the new recruits that an infantryman’s boots could kill him as readily as a French sabre – before retiring to his room to rest and to write to his mother in Glengarry.

He was not an artist or a diarist, as some were, preferring to hold images and words in his mind rather than commit
them to paper, but he was a dutiful correspondent. He wrote of his pride in his men and of the frustration of waiting. He wrote of the coming battle and his certainty of victory. He wrote of his friends, Harry Wyndham and Francis Hepburn, and he wrote of little things – Belgian bread, the kingfisher at the stream, a good claret. He inquired after his brothers and promised he would see them soon. The letter would go with the next despatch rider to Brussels and thence to Dover, London, Glasgow and Fort William. By the time it arrived, word would probably have already reached Glengarry that Napoleon had been defeated, but the Macdonells would have to wait a little longer to discover if James had survived.

He passed the afternoon by walking slowly around Lac d’Enghien, dozing in his room, and trying with little success to read his battered copy of
Waverley
. His mother had assured him that Walter Scott’s splendid Fergus MacIvor was modelled on his mercurial brother, Alasdair. Perhaps. After a light supper he wandered down to the north gate of the chateau to watch the carriages and cabriolets departing for the Duchess’s Ball.

Francis Hepburn, puffing at an enormous cigar, was there before him. He was raising his shako in salute to every carriage that passed and wishing its occupants a glorious evening. From General Byng’s open cabriolet, Colonel Woodford and Harry Wyndham, in sparkling dress uniforms, gleaming buttons and gold lace everywhere, waved happily to them. The general himself, all in black, looked rather miserable. ‘I don’t think Sir John will be dancing much, do you, James?’ asked Francis. ‘Looks like he’s off to a funeral.’

‘I do not blame him. He’d rather be killing Frenchmen than attempting one of their impossible dances. By the way, is it true that the ball is to be held in a coachmaker’s workshop? Seems an odd place to me.’

‘Not a workshop, a coach house, I believe. It’s probably the only place in Brussels big enough to accommodate all the guests. Everyone but us seems to have been invited. It is an odd place for a ball, though.’ He raised his shako to Major General Maitland, commander of the 1st Brigade. ‘Good man, Maitland,’ he said as Maitland’s carriage passed. ‘And a fine cricketer. Plays for the Marylebone Club.’

‘Is Miss Box attending the ball?’ asked Macdonell innocently.

‘She says not. Her papa is not senior enough. I shall be damned cross if I find she’s deceived me.’

By half past seven all the carriages had departed. ‘Ah well,’ said James, ‘there’ll be a few thick heads in the morning. Let us hope Napoleon does not have a spy at the ball to send him reports on the state of the generals.’

‘I would not put it beyond the wily little Corsican. Intelligence officers dressed as servants and furnished with something nasty to slip into the peer’s glass. We had better hope not.’

At the chateau, Francis went to his room. For a few minutes Macdonell stood at the steps enjoying the warm evening air and listening to the muffled sounds of soldiers preparing to sleep. Two familiar figures approached from his left. ‘Corporals,’ he greeted them. ‘An evening stroll?’

‘Yes, Colonel,’ replied James Graham. ‘Not quite ready to sleep. We’ve been talking and we agree.’

‘Agree about what?’

‘That we’ll march tomorrow,’ said Joseph. ‘We are sure of it.’

‘Then let us hope the ball is over before we do. Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight, Colonel.’ It was said in unison.

The news arrived by galloper an hour after midnight. The French had crossed the Sambre, taken Charleroi and were advancing rapidly towards the town of Ligny. Having delivered his report to Francis Hepburn as the duty officer, the galloper changed horses and sped on to Brussels. A second galloper had taken the direct road there but a message of such importance was commonly carried by more than one man. The Duchess’s Ball would be ending rather earlier than planned.

His servant had no need to rouse Macdonell who had been awake since retiring soon after eight. Five hours of anxious tossing and turning had done little for his humour. With a flood of relief that the waiting was over, he barely touched the mug of tea on his writing table and was up and out of the chateau within minutes. Francis Hepburn was waiting for him by the steps.

‘Bonjour, James,’ he greeted Macdonell. ‘It seems you were
right. Boney has caught us napping. I have ordered the drums to beat to arms but I suppose we had better wait for the dancers to return before marching.’

‘Let us be ready when they do.’

A bugler sounded reveille. The drummers thumped out the call to arms. In moments, the camp was awake and about its business. Torches were lit. Sergeants and corporals shouted orders and half-dressed men scurried about, getting in each other’s way and tripping over tent ropes in their haste to make ready. Red-jacketed guards poured from outbuildings, hoisting up trousers, struggling into overalls and fumbling with buttons.

By the flickering light of the torches Macdonell watched Joseph Graham help a nervous young private do up his jacket buttons. The boy was one of the many who were about to face their first battle. For every veteran of Spain or Italy, there were four or five in General Cooke’s Division who had never fired a shot in anger. Corporals strode up and down the lines urging the slowest to hurry. Sergeant Dawson aimed a kick at Private Vindle’s backside and received a gratifying yelp in reply. Campfires were lit and water boiled. It was over thirty miles to Charleroi. A long enough march, too long without beef and tea in a man’s stomach.

Within the hour, chaos had turned to order and purpose. Every man had eaten, checked his musket and cartridges, packed a clean shirt and linen into his knapsack and strapped his blanket to it. Sir John Byng’s Second Brigade, the light companies at their head, formed columns outside the chateau and were ready to go to war. It needed only the return of the
general himself and they would march to meet the French.

For another hour, they stood ready. Just after three, as the first glimmerings of a summer dawn began to lighten the sky, carriages started arriving from Brussels. Byng, Woodford and Wyndham were in the first of them. Their cabriolet came to a halt outside the chateau and they jumped out. ‘I see you have made ready, James,’ said Byng. ‘Good. We will march in ten minutes. I do not care to fight in dancing shoes.’

‘Nor I,’ agreed Woodford, before taking the steps two at a time and disappearing into the chateau.

‘My apologies, James,’ said Harry Wyndham, sounding not in the least apologetic. ‘Perhaps I should have stayed here. And the ball was tedious. Too much talk of Buonaparte and very little waltzing. Not to my taste at all.’

‘No more than you deserve, Harry,’ replied Macdonell with a grin. ‘Be off with you and get ready.’

When the officers reappeared, the trumpets sounded, the drums rolled and the columns moved off, the regimental colours of the Coldstream Guards and the Third Guards held proudly aloft. Light companies at the front, line infantry and artillery in the middle, quartermaster and his long train of carts and fourgons at the rear. From the direction of the stables, a private, his pregnant wife hanging on to his arm, came hurrying to catch the last wagon. He bundled her in and ran to join his company.

To the beat of the drums and cymbals, the deep bass of the serpents and the cheerful trill of the flutes, nearly two thousand men, horses, wagons and camp followers trundled into the town. Boots thumped down on the cobbles, wagon
wheels clanked and rattled and nervous horses kicked and snorted their displeasure, their breath hanging briefly in the morning air. Along the way, they collected men and women from their billets, the men taking their places with their companies, the women joining the supply train. On street corners and from upstairs windows, ancient Flemish women in their strange long-sided caps gaped in awe and young ones, some still in their shifts, waved fond farewells from doorways and street corners. The most daring of them darted forward to thrust a cheese or a pie into a grateful hand or for a fleeting embrace. Many wore squares of orange silk or cotton over their hair.

In the town square a score of latecomers, bleary-eyed and bad-tempered, appeared and found their places in the line. Down the Grand Avenue they marched to the steady beat of the drums. The town had woken and the going became slower through the crowds. By the time the light companies reached the edge of the town, the sun had risen in a cloudless sky. The day would be hot. They passed farmers bringing their fruit and vegetables to market and milkmaids returning from the fields. Any man who tried to grab a cabbage or an onion from a barrow or a dog cart risked the wrath of his sergeant. Macdonell, like Wellington himself, had let it be known that he would not tolerate theft from the local people. Everything must be paid for. Dawson and his corporals ensured, as far as they could, that the rule was enforced. Unlike the soldiers, small boys scrambled about grabbing whatever they could before scurrying home with their booty.

It was the best part of an hour before the entire 2nd Brigade was safely out of the town and on the road south. A mile on they joined General Maitland’s 1st Brigade, which had been billeted on the other side of the town. Four thousand men of the 1st Division of Foot Guards were, at last, on their way to war.

As the morning grew hotter, they marched on through hamlets, across shallow streams and past farms and cottages. The road was seldom more than baked earth, broken by short stretches of embedded flint and chalk or a thin layer of gravel. Farm workers, traders and innkeepers stopped their work to watch them go by. Most simply stood and stared. A few waved orange flags and shouted enouragement. At the front of the column the 2nd Battalion light companies set the pace. Macdonell, riding at their rear, made sure it was not too fast. Exhausted men would not be much use when it came to fighting.

Before taking up his commission in the Coldstream Guards, Macdonell had served as a captain in the 17th Dragoons. He was comfortable on a horse. Many infantry officers, Francis Hepburn among them, were not. For the march he had chosen a handsome grey who knew him well, beautifully turned out by the grooms. His saddle glowed, and his stirrups sparkled in
the sun. In clean overalls, he could almost have been a cavalry officer. At his side he wore his sword encased in a black leather scabbard. It was a fine weapon, given to him by his late father. At almost a yard of straight, pointed steel, with a bone handle covered in fish skin and a heavy brass guard engraved with his initials, it needed a strong man to wield it. James Macdonell was a strong man.

They marched between fields of corn and rye as high as a man’s shoulder. In grassland red and yellow poppies and blue cornflowers danced in the breeze, and in low hedgerows mallows and loosestrife took shelter from the sun. Flat the land might be, but fertile and pretty enough.

Outside the village of Braine-le-Comte the Division halted. They had marched twelve miles in four hours and needed food and rest. Seven men from the 2nd Battalion had already fallen by the wayside and Macdonell did not want to lose more. He had ordered them to be left with sufficient water and instructions to rejoin their companies when they could. If they were malingerers intending to disappear, they would not be missed.

While the men boiled their kettles and ate their beef and biscuit, he trotted back down the line to find General Byng. The further back he went the thicker the dust and the greater the number of men who had succumbed and been left to fend for themselves. Behind them, General Maitland’s 1st Division must have been suffering even more.

He found Byng with Colonel Woodford. ‘I have halted the light companies, sir,’ he reported. ‘Are we to enter the town or await orders?’

‘I wish I knew,’ replied Byng gently. ‘We believe that the Prince of Orange has set up his headquarters in the town but General Cooke has as yet received no orders from him. The general is becoming impatient.’

‘A party has been despatched to find the Prince,’ added Woodford. ‘They should have returned by now.’

‘Shall I return to my battalion, sir?’

‘Might as well stay here until we know more, James,’ replied Byng. ‘How is morale?’

‘It is good, sir, but if we are to fight today, it will be with tired men.’

From the rear of the column, a party of riders trotted towards them. One of them carried the 1st Division’s standard. ‘Ah,’ said Woodford, ‘here is General Cooke.’

Whether mounted or on foot, Major General George Cooke was a man of formidable presence and looked a good deal less than his forty-seven years. Square-jawed and broad-shouldered, he would not have been out of place in a prize fight. He had found time since leaving Brussels to change into his usual black jacket and white breeches. As he approached, he leant forward in his saddle and thundered, ‘Does anyone know what the devil’s going on? Because I certainly do not.’

‘Can the Prince not be found, General?’ asked Byng.

‘No, dammit, he cannot. My scouts report that the Hôtel du Miroir, where he is supposed to be, is deserted. The locals say that men and artillery have been passing through the village all night and the streets, I gather, are still full of them. But not a word from the young frog.’ Prince Willem Frederik van
Oranje-Nassau GCB, old Etonian, friend of the Prince Regent and Commander of 1 Corps of the Allied army, was known variously as His Royal Highness, slender Billy or the young frog.

‘Where has he gone, General?’ asked Byng.

‘He and his aides left on the Nivelles road, but whether I’m supposed to follow him or stay here, I am at a loss to know. Two Brigades, four thousand men and equipment, and no orders. It’s as bad as Flanders twenty years ago. What do you recommend, gentlemen?’

Macdonell cleared his throat. ‘If I may, General, if the streets are blocked it will take us some time to get through, but the men need rest. If we are ordered to make haste to Nivelles, it would be better to be on the other side of the town.’

General Cooke stroked his chin. ‘Very well. We will march on through Braine-le-Comte and then rest until noon. By then the Prince might have remembered to send us his orders. If not, we will go on to Nivelles. Proceed, gentlemen.’

At the front of the line, Macdonell found Harry Wyndham drinking tea with Sergeant Dawson. They jumped up when they saw him. ‘We’re on the move again, Harry,’ he said. ‘We’re to rest on the other side of the town until noon.’

‘Is the view better from there?’ asked Wyndham, grinning as broadly as ever.

‘I doubt it. It seems the town is blocked so we had best get through in case we are needed in a hurry. Get them moving, please. Quick as you can.’

Wyndham emptied the remains of his tea on the grass. ‘Thank you for the tea, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘Very good, it was. But now we must be off. Rouse the men, please, and we’ll find a
way through the town. Pass the word that we’ll rest on the other side. That should lift their spirits.’

‘I will, Captain,’ replied Dawson, straightening his jacket around his midriff, ‘although a barrel of gin would lift them more.’

The battalion was soon on its way again. This time Macdonell rode at the head of the column. If the town was really blocked, he wanted to assess for himself how bad it was.

It did not take him long to realise that it was very bad. He ordered Harry to halt the column on the edge of the town, dismounted and tethered his horse. The main street was a melee of men, horses and wagons on their way to Brussels, the lanes and alleys off it entirely blocked by carts and animals whose owners had taken refuge from the lines of retreating and advancing soldiers. Local carters and shopkeepers bawled and cursed and jostled the retreating soldiers. Just as in Enghien, carts were overturned and urchins crawled about in search of plunder. Further north the shouts had been shouts of encouragement. Here ancient crones shouted insults, accusing the cowardly British of leaving them to be robbed and raped by the French. A small boy darted forward to kick an infantryman’s bandaged leg. Another threw a handful of stones at a wagon carrying the wounded. Both disappeared down dark alleys before they could be caught.

These were the troops who were stationed near Charleroi and had taken the full force of the French attack. Among the wounded, the lucky ones were being comforted by their women. Most had to suffer alone. There was little sound of distress, as if all energy had been expended. Instead, those who
could be propped up sat and stared blankly into the distance. The rest lay silently, many curled up like babes asleep. Very few of the bloodied faces and shattered bodies looked capable of surviving the journey to Brussels. Beside them the walking wounded struggled to keep up, some holding on to the side of a wagon, others, their eyes bandaged, with a hand on a comrade’s shoulder. Among the British were Nassauers, Germans and Netherlanders in their black and green uniforms.

There was a sharp shove in the small of Macdonell’s back. He lurched forward and narrowly avoided colliding with a limping lieutenant wearing the badge of the 3rd Infantry Division. The exhausted man was using his musket as a crutch. His left trouser leg was red from waist to ankle. Macdonell apologised and asked where they had come from. ‘East of Nivelles,’ the lieutenant mumbled, where, he said, there had been heavy fighting. The wagons were taking the wounded and the women back to Brussels. ‘The Hanoverians are behind us,’ he added. ‘They have had a bloody time of it. They were caught in the open by Lancers before they could form square. The devils were hiding in the woods.’ He was slurring his words and looked ready to drop. ‘God be with you if you are heading that way, sir.’ It was little more than a whisper. The wretched man was wounded not only in body but also in mind. He would not reach Brussels.

Macdonell had seen French Lancers at their murderous work at Maida. Deceptively elegant in their blue uniforms, often with yellow collars and facings, they had ripped the heart out of an entire infantry battalion before it could form defensive squares, spearing the fleeing men with their lances,
cutting and slashing with their sabres and butchering the wounded as they lay helpless on the ground. They had revelled in their ferocity, sparing not a man and shrieking for joy as they hacked at arms and faces. He had hoped never to witness such slaughter again.

The division should wait, of course, until the town was clear before entering it. The road was not wide enough to allow two columns to pass and the side streets were blocked. But if the Hanoverians were also coming, it would be some time before the division could proceed. And if the French cavalry were on the rampage, it was time they did not have.

Macdonell recovered his horse and made his way back to where Harry Wyndham was waiting for him. ‘The town is blocked, Harry,’ he reported, ‘but we cannot wait. Take twenty men and see what you can do to clear a way for us. Don’t mind too much about the locals – they seem to have turned against us, fickle buggers. Bundle them all into side streets if you have to. Ought to try a bit of fighting themselves. Take Hervey and Gooch and the Grahams with you.’

Harry, as ever, grinned. ‘Eighteen men and two Grahams makes thirty. Should be plenty, sir.’

‘Good. Off you go. We’ll wait here. Send word when it’s clear to march on. Oh, and Harry, they’ve had a bad time of it, but we must get past.’

‘Right, sir.’

While they waited, Macdonell ordered his men to lie down. Eat when you can, rest when you can. In the heat and dust of Spain it had been Wellington’s mantra. It was an hour before a light company private trotted back from the town with a
message from Captain Wyndham that it was safe to proceed. Macdonell thanked the man and sent him straight back to report that they were coming.

In the town it was as if the entire population had been swept off the main street and crammed into the alleys and lanes running off it. Light infantrymen stood shoulder-to-shoulder across each junction, their muskets held across their chests, their backs to the main street, blithely ignoring the howls of fury and protest. An enormously fat man brandishing a leg of pork tried to push his way past a guard. He was sent crashing backwards into a cart by a sharp blow with the butt of a Brown Bess. The infantryman stepped nimbly forward, grabbed the leg of pork and stuffed it into his haversack before anyone else had moved.

The two ensigns were busy keeping an angry group of women armed with cooking pans from launching an attack from the town hall. James and Joseph Graham were marching up and down the street, lending their weight where it was needed. They nodded a greeting to Macdonell. ‘Just like herding the cows for milking,’ called out James.

‘Only cows do not throw cabbages,’ added Joseph, bending down to pick one up. He lobbed it to his brother. ‘Keep that for the pot, shall we?’

Macdonell found Harry at the far end of the town. Somehow the captain had managed to halt the retreating column outside it, clear the street, and pen the locals in the side streets. ‘How did you do it, Harry?’ asked Macdonell.

‘Bit of luck, Colonel,’ replied Wyndham. ‘Bumped in to an old friend in the Cambridgeshires, asked him to speak to
his colonel. He did and the colonel was happy to oblige, even though he has lost an eye. Said he was not going to get it back in Brussels, so he might just as well wait for us to pass. He is halted outside the town until we go through.’

‘Are they badly cut up?’

‘Pretty bad,’ he said. ‘Netherlanders and Hanoverians took the worst of it. South of a crossroads called Les Quatre Bras. Outnumbered and short of cavalry. Charlie is escorting the wounded. Hopes reinforcements will reach the crossroads before they are all wiped out.’

‘Right, let us get through as fast as we can. We’ll halt beyond the town and wait for orders to march on.’

With the street clear, both brigades marched quickly through the town, ignoring missiles and abuse, until they emerged into the countryside on the southern edge, where the Cambridgeshires were waiting. Macdonell found Colonel Hamilton, his face swathed in bandages, lying in a wagon, apparently asleep. ‘He has lost his right eye,’ said a medical orderly. ‘The left is also in danger.’

‘Artillery shell?’ asked Macdonell.

‘Yes, sir. Killed four officers.’

‘Get him back to Brussels, if you can. And thank him for his cooperation.’

‘I will, sir. And good luck. Give the frogs what they deserve.’

The fields in which four thousand men gratefully threw off their packs, laid down their weapons and lit fires for their tea, sloped gently up from either side of the road. There was no shade and in the full glare of the sun it was burning hot. Jackets were unbuttoned and shakos removed. On the march, the
buttons would be done up again and the shakos replaced. They left the wagons and artillery on the road rather than laboriously manhandle them into the fields. The horses were left in their traces with their nosebags strapped on and given water and fodder by the grooms. While they ate, farriers came forward from the rear to check their hooves and repair damaged shoes as best they could.

Enterprising traders, resentment apparently forgotten, appeared from the town with bottles of wine and loaves of fresh bread and moved among the resting men peddling their wares.

From a vantage point halfway up the slope on the left side of the road, Macdonell saw General Byng arrive at the rear of the 2nd Brigade. Byng dismounted, sat down on a camp stool provided by an aide and mopped his brow. Macdonell waited until the general had a glass in his hand before walking down.