An Infamous Army (Alastair-Audley Tetralogy 4)

The sun was sinking fast; in the gathering dusk musket-balls were hissing in every direction. Uxbridge, who had come scatheless through the day, was hit in the knee by a shot passing over Copenhagen’s wi

thers, and sang out: ‘By God! I’ve got it at last!’

‘Have you, by God?’ said his lordship, too intent on the operations of his troops to pay much heed.

Colin Campbell, preparing to support Uxbridge off the field, seized the Duke’s bridle, saying roughly: ‘This is no place for you! I wish you will move!’

‘I will when I have seen these fellows off,’ replied his lordship.

To the south-east of La Belle Alliance, the Prussians, driving the Young Guard out of Plancenoit, were advancing on the chaussée, to converge there with the Allied troops. Bülow’s infantry were singing the Lutheran hymn, Now thank we all our God, but as the columns came abreast of the British Guards, halted by the road, the hymn ceased abruptly. The band struck up God Save the King, and as the Prussians marched past they saluted.

It was past nine o’clock when, in the darkness, south of La Belle Alliance, the Duke met Prince Blücher. The Prince, beside himself with exultation, carried beyond coherent speech by his admiration for the gallantry of the British troops and for the generalship of his friend and ally, could find only one thing to say as he embraced the Duke ruthlessly on both cheeks: ‘I stink of garlic!’

When his first transports of joy were a little abated, he offered to take on the pursuit of the French through the night. The Duke’s battered forces, dog-tired, terribly diminished in numbers, were ordered to bivouac where they stood, on the ground occupied all day by the French; and the Duke, accompanied by a mere skeleton of the brilliant cortège which had gone with him into the field that morning, rode back in clouded moonlight to his Headquarters.

Baron Müffling, drawing abreast of him, said: ‘The Field Marshal will call this battle Belle-Alliance, sir.’

His lordship returned no answer. The Baron, casting a shrewd glance at his bony profile, with its frosty eye and pursed mouth, realised that he had no intention of calling the battle by that name. It was his lordship’s custom to name his victories after the village or town where he had slept the night before them. The Marshal Prince might call the battle what he liked, but his lordship would head his despatch to Earl Bathurst: ‘Waterloo’.

Twenty-Five

For those in Brussels the day had been one of increasing anxiety. Contrary to expectation, no firing was heard, the wind blowing steadily from the north-west. The Duke’s despatch to Sir Charles Stuart, written from Waterloo in the small hours, reached him at seven o’clock, and shortly afterwards Baron van de Capellan, the Secretary of State, issued a reassuring proclamation. After that no news of any kind was received in the town for many hours.

Colonel Jones, left in Brussels during the Duke’s absence as Military Commander, was besieged all the morning by applications for passports. Every track-boat bound for Antwerp was as full as it could hold of refugees; money could not buy a pair of horses in all Brussels. Scores of people drove off at an early hour, with baggage piled high on the roofs of their carriages; the town seemed strangely quiet and deserted; and the church bells ringing for morning service sounded to sensitive ears like a knell.

Both Judith and Barbara had slept the night through, in utter exhaustion, but neither in the morning looked as though she were refreshed by this deep slumber. Except for discussing in a desultory manner the extraordinary revelation Lucy Devenish had made on the previous evening, they did not talk much. Once Judith said: ‘If you knew the comfort it is to me to have you with me!’ but Barbara merely smiled rather mockingly, and shook her head.

In the privacy of their own bedroom, Judith had remarked impulsively to Worth: ‘I am out of all conceit with myself! I have been deceived alike in Lucy and in Barbara!’

‘You might certainly be forgiven for having been deceived in Lucy,’ Worth replied. ‘I imagine no one could have suspected such a melodramatic story to lie behind that demure appearance.’

‘No, indeed! I was never more shocked in my life. Bab says George will make her a very bad husband, and if it were not unchristian I should be much inclined to say that she will have nothing but her just deserts. But Bab! I could not have believed that she had such strength of character, such real goodness of heart! Have not you been surprised?’

‘No,’ he replied. ‘I should have been very much surprised had she not, in this crisis, behaved precisely as she has done. My opinion of her remains unchanged.’

‘How can you talk so? You cannot have supposed from her conduct during these past months that she would behave so well now!’

‘On the contrary, I never doubted her spirit. She is, moreover, just the kind of young woman who, under the stress of such conditions as these, is elevated for the time above her ordinary self.’

‘For the time! You place no dependence on this softened mood continuing, I collect!’

‘Very little,’ he answered.

‘You are unjust, Worth! For my part, I am persuaded that she repents bitterly of all that has passed. Oh, if only Charles is spared, I shall be so glad to see him reunited to her!’

‘That is fortunate, since I have little doubt that you will see it.’

‘You don’t think it will do?’

‘I am not a judge of what will suit Charles. It would not do for me. She will certainly lead him a pretty dance.’

‘Oh no, no! I am sure you are mistaken!’

He smiled at the distress in her face, and pinched her chin. ‘I daresay I may be. I will admit, if you like, that I prefer this match to the one you tried to make for Charles, my dear!’

She blushed. ‘Oh, don’t speak of that! At least there is nothing of that lack of openness in Bab.’

‘Nothing at all,’ he agreed somewhat dryly.