An Infamous Army Read online

  Hew Halkett was brought up in support of the Brunswickers on Maitland’s right; Du Plat was formed on the slope behind Hougoumont; and Adam’s brigade, forming line four deep, came up to fill the interval between the Brunswickers and Hougoumont. The brigade was met by the Duke in person, who pointed to the cloud of skirmishers assailing the left flank of the Guards defending the orchard, and briefly ordered them to: ‘Drive those fellows away!’

  The artillery fire, which was mowing the ranks down, ceased, and the men, lying on the ground, were again ordered to form squares. The cavalry came riding over the crest as before, but this time it was seen that a considerable portion of their force was kept in compact order, and took no part in the attempt to break through the infantry squares. These horsemen were evidently formed to attack the Allied cavalry, but no sooner had the previous confusion of squadrons splitting and obliquing to right and left been repeated than the Allied cavalry, not waiting to be attacked, advanced to meet them and again drove them over the crest and down the slope.

  The same tactics were repeated time after time, but with the same lack of success. The men forming the squares grew to welcome the cavalry attacks as a relief from the terrible cannonading that filled the intervals between them.

  The Duke, who seemed to be everywhere at once, generally riding far ahead of the cortège that still galloped devotedly after him, was pale and abstracted, but gave no other sign of anxiety than the frequent sliding in and out of its socket of his telescope. If he saw a square wavering, he threw himself into it, regardless of all entreaties not to risk his life, and rallied it by the very fact of his presence.

  ‘Never mind! We’ll win this battle yet!’ he said, and his men believed him, and breathed more freely when they caught a glimpse of that low cocked hat and the cold eyes and bony nose beneath it. They did not love him, for he did not love them, but there was not a man serving under him who had not complete confidence in him.

  ‘Hard pounding, this, gentlemen,’ he said, when the cannonade was at its fiercest. ‘Let’s see who will pound the longest.’

  When the foreign diplomats remonstrated with him, he said bluntly: ‘My Army and I know each other exactly, gentlemen. The men will do for me what they will do for no one else.’

  Lord Uxbridge led two squadrons of the Household Brigade against a large body of cavalry advancing to attack the squares, and although he could not drive it back, he managed to hold it in check. Major Lloyd fell, mortally wounded, beside his battery. Sometimes the cuirassiers succeeded in cutting men off from the angles of the squares, but before they could escape to the rear, staff officers galloped after them and got them back to their positions. At times, the squares, growing smaller as the men fell in them, were lost to sight in the sea of horsemen all round them.

  Between four and five o’clock, convinced at last that no flanking attack was contemplated on his right, the Duke sent to order Baron Chassé up from Braine-l’Alleud.

  Staff officers were looking anxious; artillerymen, seeing little but masses of enemy cavalry swarming all over the position, waited in momentary expectation of receiving the order to retreat. The heat on the plateau was fast becoming unbearable. Reserves brought up from the rear felt themselves to be marching into a gigantic oven, and young soldiers, hearing for the first time the peculiar hum that filled the air, stared about them fearfully through the smoke, flinching as the shots hissed pass their heads, and asked nervously: ‘What makes that humming noise like bees?’

  Colonel Audley, riding back from an errand to the right wing, had his second horse killed under him close to a troop of horse artillery, drawn up in the interval between two Brunswick squares, in a slight hollow below the brow of the position, north of Hougoumont. He sprang clear, but heard a voice call out: ‘Hi! Don’t mask my guns! Anything I can do for you, sir?’

  ‘You can give me a horse!’ replied the Colonel, trying to recover his breath. He looked into a lean, humorous face, shaded by the jut of a black, crested helmet, and asked: ‘Who are you?’

  ‘G Troop—Colonel Dickson’s, under the command of Captain Mercer—at your service!’

  ‘Oh yes! I know.’ The Colonel’s eyes travelled past him to a veritable bank of dead cuirassiers and horses, not twenty paces in front of his guns. He gave an awed whistle. ‘Good God!’

  ‘Yes, we’re having pretty hot work of it here,’ replied Mercer. A shell came whizzing over the crest, and fell in the mud not far from his troop, and lay there, its fuse spitting and hissing. He broke off to admonish his men, some of whom had flung themselves down on the ground. The shell burst at last, without, doing much damage; and the nonchalant Captain turned back to Colonel Audley, resuming, as though only a minor interruption had occurred: ‘—pretty hot work of it here. We wait till those steel-clad gentry come over the rise, and then we give ’em a dose of roundshot with a case over it. Terrible effect it has. I’ve seen a whole front rank come down from the effects of the case.’

  ‘Do you mean that you stand by your guns throughout?’

  ‘Take a look at those squares, sir,’ recommended Mercer, jerking his head towards the Brunswickers, who were lying on the ground to the right and left of his rear. ‘You can’t, at the moment, but if you care to wait you’ll see them form squares, huddled together like sheep. If we scuttled for safety among them, they’d break and run. They’re only children—not one above eighteen, I’ll swear. Gives ’em confidence to see us here.’

  ‘You’re a damned brave man!’ said the Colonel, taking the bridle of the trooper which a driver had led up.

  ‘Oh, we don’t give a button for the cavalry!’ replied Mercer. ‘The worst is this infernal cannonading. It plays the devil with us. We’ve been pestered by skirmishers, too, which is damned nuisance. Only way I can stop my fellows wasting their charges on them is to parade up and down the bank in front of my guns. That’s nervous work, if you like!’

  ‘I imagine it might be,’ said the Colonel, with a grin. ‘Don’t get your troop cut up too much, or his lordship won’t be pleased.’

  ‘The artillery won’t get any of the credit for this day’s work in any case, so what’s the odds?’ Mercer replied. ‘Fraser knows what we’re about. He was here a short time ago, very much upset from burying poor Ramsay.’

  The Colonel had one foot in the stirrup, but he paused and said sharply: ‘Is Ramsay dead?’

  ‘Fraser buried him on the field not half an hour ago. Bolton’s gone too, I believe. Was Norman Ramsay a friend of yours, sir? Pride of our service, you know.’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Audley curtly, and hoisted himself into the saddle, wincing a little from the pain of his wounded thigh. ‘I must push on before your steel-clad gentry come up again. Good luck to you!’

  ‘The same to you, sir, and you’d better hurry. Cannonade’s slackening.’

  The pause following the third onset of the cavalry was of longer duration than those which had preceded it. Ney had sent for reinforcements, and was reassembling his squadrons. To Milhaud’s and Lefebvre-Desnouttes’ original forty-three squadrons were now added both Kellermann’s divisions and thirteen squadrons of Count Guyot’s dragoons and Grenadiers à Cheval, making a grand total of seventy-seven squadrons. Not a foot of the ground, a third of a mile in width, lying between Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte, could be seen for the glittering mass of horsemen that covered it. It was an array to strike terror into the bravest heart. They advanced in columns of squadrons: gigantic carabiniers in white with gold breastplates; dragoons wearing tiger-skin helmets under their brass casques, and carrying long guns at their saddlebows; grenadiers in imperial blue, with towering bearskin shakos; steel-fronted cuirassiers; gay chasseurs; and white-plumed lancers, riding under the flutter of their own pennons. They did not advance with the brilliant dash of the British brigades, but at a purposeful trot. As they approached the Allied position the earth seemed to shake under them, and the sound of the horses’ hooves was like dull thunder, swelling in volume. Fifteen thousand of Napoleon’