An Infamous Army (Alastair-Audley Tetralogy 4)

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!’