An Infamous Army (Alastair-Audley Tetralogy 4)

They fell back. In the valley, officers were shouting to the Gordons to wheel back by sections to let the cavalry pass through. The Scots Greys tightened their grips, and came slipping and scrambling down the bank shouting: ‘Hurrah, Ninety-second! Scotland for ever!’ as they caught sight of the red-feathered bonnets in the press and the smoke below.

Greys, Royals, and Inniskillings, riding almost abreast, poured over the hedge and down into the seething valley. The Gordons were yelling: ‘Go at them, the Greys! Scotland for ever!’ and snatching at stirrup-leathers as the Greys rode through them, so that they too were borne forwards in this terrific charge. Somewhere, lost in the smoke, a pipe-major was coolly playing, Hey, Johnny Cope, are ye waukin’ yet? while all around sounded screams, shouts, musketry fire, and the clash of steel.

Many of the horses and their riders were brought down by musketballs or the desperate thrust of bayonets, but the cavalry charge had caught Marcognet’s column unawares and in confusion. The Union Brigade rode over the column, lopping off heads with their sabres, while the Gordons, who had been carried forward with them, did deadly work with the bayonet. To the right, where Donzelot’s men had fought their way through Kempt’s thin lines to the crest of the position, the Royal Dragoons, unchecked by the frontal fire that met them, charged straight for the leading column of the division. The column faced about and tried to retreat over the hedge, but there was no time to get to safety before the Royals were in their midst,

their sabres busy and their horses squealing, biting, and striking out with their iron-shod forefeet. Between the Greys and the Royals, the Inniskillings, with their blood-curdling howl, broke through Donzelot’s rear brigades. As the Royals, capturing the Eagle, charged on over the slaughtered leading column to the supporting ones behind it, and the Greys rode down Marcognet’s men, the French, utterly demoralised, began throwing down their arms and crying for quarter.

The Household Brigade, having broken the cuirassiers and smashed their way through Bourgeois’ rear column, dashed on, deaf to the trumpets sounding the Rally and to the voices of Uxbridge and Lord Edward trying to recall them, up the slope towards the great French battery on the ridge. The Union Brigade, leaving behind them a plain strewn with dead and wounded, and prisoners being herded to the rear, charged after the Household troops, and galloped up the slope to within half-carbine shot of where Napoleon himself was standing, by the farm of La Belle Alliance.

A colonel of the Greys shouted: ‘Charge! Charge the guns!’ and his men dashed after him, through a storm of shot, laming the horses, cutting the traces, and sabring the gunners.

The cavalry charge had put almost all Count D’Erlon’s Corps d’Armée to rout, but it had been carried too far. Ahead, solid columns of infantry were advancing from the French rear; and behind, from either flank, lancers and cuirassiers were riding to cut off the retreat.

A voice cried: ‘Royals, form on me!’ The Greys and the Inniskillings on the ridge, their horses blown, themselves badly mauled, looked round in vain for their officers, and tried to re-form to meet the onset of the French cavalry. The Colonel who had led them in the charge towards the battery had been seen riding among the guns like a maniac, with both hands lopped off at the wrists, and his reins held between his teeth; but he had fallen, and a dozen others with him. A sergeant called out: ‘Come on, lads! That’s the road home!’ and the gallant little band rode straight for the oncoming cavalry that separated it from its own lines.

A pitiful remnant broke through. On the Allied left wing, Vandeleur flung forward his light dragoons to cover the retreat. They cheered the heavies as they passed them, caught the lancers in flank, and drove them back in disorder. The survivors of the Union Brigade reached the shelter of their own lines, having pierced three columns, captured two Eagles, wrecked fifteen guns, put twenty-five more temporarily out of action, and taken nearly three thousand prisoners.

Twenty-Three

The great infantry attack on the Allied left centre had failed. The Household Brigade had repulsed Quiot from La Haye Sainte; Bourgeois and Donzelot had been forced to retreat with heavy loss; and Marcognet’s division was shattered. The remaining column, led by Durutte, had had more success, but was forced to retire in the general retreat. Durutte had advanced against Papelotte, and had driven Prince Bernhard’s Nassauers out of the village. These re-formed, and in their turn drove out the French. Vandeleur’s brigade of light cavalry charged the column, and it drew off, but in good order.

On the Allied side the losses were enormous. Kempt and Pack could no longer hope to hold the line, and Lambert’s brigade was ordered up from Mont St Jean to reinforce them. The Union Brigade had been cut to pieces; the Household troops were reduced to a few squadrons. Of the generals, Picton had been killed outright in the first charge; Sir William Ponsonby, leading the Union Brigade on a hack horse, was lying dead on the field with his aide-de-camp beside him; and Pack and Kempt, on whom the command of the 5th Division had devolved, were wounded. Lord Edward Somerset, unhorsed, his hat gone, the lap of his coat torn off, got to his own lines miraculously unscathed.

Lord Uxbridge, who, when the Life Guards and the Dragoon Guards ignored the Rally, had ridden back to bring up the Blues in support, only to find that they had galloped into first line before ever they had passed La Haye Sainte, listened in contemptuous silence to the congratulations of the Duke’s suite upon the brilliant success of his charge. He turned away, remarking to Seymour, with a disdainful curve to the mouth: ‘That Troupe dorée seems to think the battle is over. But had I, when I sounded the Rally, found only four well-formed squadrons coming on at an easy trot we should have captured a score of guns and avoided these shocking losses. Well! I deviated from my own principle: the carrière once begun the leader is no better than any other man. I should have placed myself at the head of the second line.’

During D’Erlon’s attack, the cannonading had been kept up on the other parts of the line, while, round Hougoumont, the struggle still raged with unabated fury, more and more men of Reille’s Corps being employed in the attempt to capture the château. The stubborn resistance of the Guards inside the château and garden, and of Saltoun’s light companies, holding the orchard and the alley to the north in the teeth of all opposition, awoke a corresponding determination in the French generals. No attempt was made to mask the post; Jérôme, Foy, and Bachelu were all sent against it; and a howitzer troop was summoned up to drop shells upon the buildings. At a quarter to three, the roof of the château was blazing, and the Duke, observing it, scrawled one of his brief messages in his pocketbook: ‘I see that the fire has communicated from the Haystack to the roof of the Château. You must, however, still keep your men in those parts to which the fire does not reach. Take care that no men are lost by the falling in of the roof or floors. After they will have fallen in, occupy the ruined walls inside the gardens; particularly if it should be possible for the Enemy to pass through the Embers in the inside of the house.’

He tore out the leaves, and folded them, and handed them to Colonel Audley, with a curt instruction.

The Colonel made his way to the right, behind Alten’s division. The going was hard, the ground being heavy from the recent storm, and the smoke from the shells bursting all round making it difficult to see the way. He caught a glimpse of some squadrons of Dutch carabiniers, drawn up considerably to the rear, with their left against the chaussée, out of range of the cannonshots; passed by General Kruse’s Nassauers, held in reserve; and arrived at length on the plateau overlooking Hougoumont. Skirting a regiment of dragoons of the legion, who announced themselves to belong to General Dörnberg’s brigade, the Colonel took a deep breath, gave his horse a pat on the neck saying: ‘Now for it, my lad!’ and plunged forward into the region of shot and shell bursts. As he rode past Maitland’s Guards, lying down in line four-deep above the bend of the hollow road to the south, a cannonball screamed past his head, and made him duck involuntarily. An officer commanding a troop of horse artillery, a little to the west of the 1st Guards, saw him, and laughed, shouting: ‘Whither away, Audley?’

‘To Hougoumont. Ramsay, where the devil has Byng’s brigade got to?’

‘In there, most of ’em,’ replied Ramsay, pointing to the Hougoumont enclosures. ‘They tell me the ditches are piled up with the dead: don’t add to their number, if you can avoid it!’

‘Damn you, I’m shaking with fright already!’ called Audley over his shoulder.

Ramsay laughed, and waved him on. The last sight Colonel Audley had of him was sitting his horse beside his guns, as cool as though engaged on field manœuvres, waving his hand, and laughing.

He set spurs to his horse, and galloped forward into the smoke and the heat of the fight round Hougoumont. He found himself soon among what seemed to be a steady stream of wounded, making their painful way to the rear. The lane behind the château, which was flanked by ditches and elm trees, was lined with some of the light companies of the Guards regiments, and in the orchard beyond a never-ending skirmish was going on. From the cover of the tree trunks, and the ditches, the Guards, stepping over their own dead, were upholding their proud reputation. The carnage was appalling, but Colonel Audley, making his way to the northern wicket leading into the château, could see no signs of dismay in even the youngest face. When a man fell, with a queer little grunt as the ball struck him, those near him would do no more than glance at him in the intervals of reloading their muskets. They were intent on their marksmanship, t

heir strained eyes staring ahead through the drifting smoke, their muskets at the ready.

Except for a shot which carried away his horse’s ear, and caused the poor beast to rear up, snorting and squealing, the Colonel reached the wicket gate without sustaining any injury, and penetrated into the courtyard.

The scene outside in the enclosures faded to insignificance before the inferno within the walls. The haystack was still blazing, and not only the roof of the château but also a cowshed where the wounded had been lying, had caught fire. The heat was overpowering; shells were falling on the buildings; horses, caught in flaming stables, were screaming; a few men, unrecognizable in torn and blackened uniforms, were working desperately to drag the last of the wounded out of the cowshed, while others, forming a chain, were pouring bucketful after bucketful of water on the smoking walls. On every side sounded the crash of falling timbers, the bursting of shells, and the groans of men, who, unable to move for shattered legs or ghastly stomach wounds, were scorched by the fire and driven mad by pain and thirst. A sergeant of the Coldstream shouted to Audley above the din that Colonel Macdonnell was in the garden, and thither Audley made his way, out of the heat and the fire, into what seemed an oasis set in the middle of hell.

Reille’s guns were all trained on the courtyard and the surrounding buildings, and scarcely any shells had fallen in the neat garden which Barbara Childe had planned to visit again in the summer. Roses were blooming in the formal beds; the long turf walks between were shaded by fruit trees, and perfectly smooth. The Colonel had no time to waste in gazing on this refreshing scene; but its contrast with the horror of the courtyard most forcibly struck him as he strode towards the high brick wall on the southern side. Here the defenders were for the most part gathered, some firing through the rough loopholes, other mounted on the wooden platforms, and firing over the top of the wall into the infantry in the orchard and the fringe of the wood beyond. Colonel Audley soon found Macdonnell, and delivered the Duke’s message. The big Scot read it, and gave a short laugh. ‘He need not worry: we can hold the place. But send more ammunition down to us, Audley, if you can: we’re running damned short. How is it going along the rest of the line?’

‘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.’