Battlesaurus (23 page)

“Mont-Saint-Jean,” Cambronne says, jamming a finger down on a ridge on the map. “We have found the perfect defensive position for him. If I could only persuade him to use it. Ney must capture Quatre Bras. If he does not, then our battle will be fought here, out of reach of our new war beasts.”

Thibault is still studying the map. “General, Wellington is trying to link up with Blücher's army. But if you defeat the Prussians here at Ligny, then there is no longer any point to his action and he will have to fall back anyway.”

Cambronne looks at the map, then looks directly at Thibault. “You are right, Major. I must be old, or tired, or both. When we defeat Blücher, Quatre Bras will cease to be of importance.”

“It is so,” Thibault agrees.

“Ready your men and their great beasts,” Cambronne says. “Your battle is coming.”

 

FIELD HOSPITAL

The British Field Hospital arrives at Gaillemarde in a series of wooden carts and carriages, loaded with portable cots, orderlies, surgeons, a physician, and assorted medical equipment.

Casualties begin to arrive before they have finished setting up.

Within a few hours it is clear that the staff of the hospital are never going to be able to cope with the influx of wounded, and many of the villagers volunteer or are drafted in to help.

Madame Gertruda moves among all the patients, anointing wounds with powders and giving soldiers sips of liquids she says will prevent infection.

The two surgeons look on her as a mild nuisance, but the patients seem to appreciate the attention.

Madame Claude is everywhere, bathing and bandaging wounds, applying leeches, helping the surgeons with bloodletting.

The surgeons are Mr. Sinclair and Mr. Grace, and both seem professional and efficient in their work, which mainly appears to involve removing limbs that have been shattered by musketballs or cannon shot.

Everyone from the village has been given a stern talking-to by the mayor, reminding them not to mention anything about the secret that lies buried, in a thousand pieces, on Monsieur Canari's farm to the east.

Willem was one of the first to volunteer to help. His job is to unwind bloodied bandages from those who arrive already dead, or who do not survive the surgery. The bandages are rinsed in the water trough outside the stables next door, then hung up to dry. It is not pleasant work, but still substantially less onerous than wheeling bloody barrow-loads of dinosaur meat.

Cosette is another of the helpers and he often sees her bringing pails of water from the river, some of which end up in his trough. They seldom have a chance to speak, but each time their paths cross there is time for a quiet smile.

Sometimes Willem thinks he would not make it through the day if not for those smiles.

When there are no bandages to wash, he helps in whatever way he can.

He brings a mug of tea to Mr. Sinclair, who is taking a short break after operating nonstop for four hours. He sits outside the market hall on a wooden chair.

“Thank you, son,” Mr. Sinclair says in perfect, unaccented French.

“May I ask you a question?” Willem asks.

“Of course,” Mr. Sinclair says.

“I do not understand why the soldiers always are shot in the arms and legs,” Willem says. “They never take musketballs to the body. Yet surely that should be more often hit; it is a much larger target.”

“You are right, son,” Mr. Sinclair says. “Most soldiers get shot in the chest or abdomen.”

“Where are those patients taken to?” Willem asks.

“Nowhere,” Mr. Sinclair says. “They do not generally make it off the battlefield. And if they did, there would be nothing we could do for them here.”

“It is a terrible war,” Willem says.

“This?” Mr. Sinclair waves a hand vaguely behind him. “This is a squall before the storm. I shall be much busier soon.” He sighs. “They call me a doctor, but I am merely a butcher, slicing meat. I hack off arms and legs to try and save these men's lives, and half the time they die anyway from gangrene and infection.”

The sight of a wagonload of casualties, bodies jumbled up on top of each other, causes him to rise and hand the half-drunk mug back to Willem.

“Thank you for the tea, son,” he says. “It looks like I am back to work.”

*   *   *

In the evening, after a short break for a meal, Willem is back at the hospital in the market hall.

“Son, could you come here?” Mr. Sinclair says.

Two orderlies are holding down an officer with a mangled left leg. He is young and looks terrified as the surgeon readies his saw.

“This is empty,” Mr. Sinclair says, indicating a rum bottle beside the table on which he operates. “There is another in the trunk by the door. Would you mind?”

Willem takes the empty bottle and replaces it in the trunk, swapping it for a full one. He returns it to the surgeon, who nods at a small metal cup on the table. “Just a tot in there, thanks.”

Willem pours a little into the cup and holds it to the officer, who sucks at it greedily.

At the other table Mr. Grace is preparing a young corporal for a similar operation. Willem pours another tot into the cup and is about to take it to him when Mr. Sinclair stops him with a shake of his head.

“The rum is for officers,” Mr. Sinclair says.

Mr. Grace places his saw on the man's leg and an orderly places a leather strap in his mouth, for him to bite on.

On the other side of the room there is a sudden commotion.

“Where are the leeches?” the physician asks, throwing his hands in the air. “How can I help these men if I do not have enough leeches?”

Behind Willem a man is screaming in his sleep. Next to him a tough-looking sergeant is weeping.

Two orderlies brush past Willem with a man held between them. A body. They are taking him out the back to pile him on a wagon with the others.

Willem's breath is short. The room seems to be spinning; the ground is unsteady beneath his feet. He sucks in air and stumbles to the entrance, bending over with his hands on his knees, gasping at the fresh, cool air of the evening that flows past the hall.

“Willem.”

Willem looks up at the sound of Monsieur Lejeune's voice. The blacksmith is standing right in front of him. He hadn't known he was there.

“Are you all right, Willem?” Monsieur Lejeune asks.

Willem nods. “I needed some air.”

“I must know what happened at Quatre Bras yesterday,” Monsieur Lejeune says. “There is an officer here from the Second Dutch Division but he speaks no French. Will you translate for me?”

“Of course,” Willem says. He straightens, takes a deep breath, and follows Monsieur Lejeune down the long rows of blood-spattered cots to where a man in a colonel's uniform is resting with his eyes closed. His left arm is gone below the elbow. A lucky wound, Willem has learned, because the odds of survival are much better than they are if the amputation is higher up.

Monsieur Lejeune gently touches him on the leg to let him know they are there, and the colonel opens his eyes slowly. He seems tired.

“Ask him about the battle,” Monsieur Lejeune says.

Willem does so in Dutch and almost immediately a red fire comes to the man's cheeks, and he clenches his one remaining fist.

“Quatre Bras.” He spits out the words. “I cannot believe it. All day we fought for Quatre Bras, and although several times the French dogs took it, every time we beat them back. We had but a small force against a large army, but we were resolute. The French did not … they could not take the crossroads. And yet for all our sacrifice, Wellington just gives it up. So many men died, and he just hands Quatre Bras to the French. The fool!”

Willem translates quickly.

“Wellington is no fool.” The voice comes from a man in the next cot. His uniform also is Dutch and bandages cover one of his eyes. “He retreats to the ridgeline at Mont-Saint-Jean. He draws the French to a battleground of his own choosing, where he has the high ground, and strongpoints like the chateau at Hougoumont and the farmhouse at La Haye Sainte. Had he stayed at Quatre Bras to engage the French, he would have been out in the open, and easily outflanked.”

“Mont-Saint-Jean?” Monsieur Lejeune asks, after Willem has translated. “But that will put his back right up against the forest.”

“The forest is the least of his concerns,” the second man says.

“Monsieur, the forest is the greatest of his concerns,” Monsieur Lejeune says.

Willem does not translate that.

*   *   *

That night Willem is woken by the sound of crying from Cosette's room, and lies awake waiting for the sound to subside, before himself drifting back to an uneasy and broken sleep.

 

MONT-SAINT-JEAN

The four-pounders in the valley below sound again, like yapping dogs. The white gasps of smoke that briefly obscure the cannon are followed by the familiar whistling sound of cannonballs in flight.

Jack does not flinch, as he has the previous few times. The French guns are out of range.

This time they are firing spherical case shot, but these also fall well short, except for one that, with the vagaries of gunpowder, wadding, and wind, outflies all the others to land just a few yards from Jack's position.

It embeds itself in the mud, the fuse sputtering and fizzing.

“Get your head down, boy,” Roberts yells from behind him, and Wacker grabs his arm, pulling him down just as the projectile explodes, spraying iron balls and fragments of the metal casing up into the air, clanging off the cannon, showering them with mud.

“Stand fast, men.” It is Frost's voice. He rides up behind them on Molly, his chestnut mare.

“Why don't we have at them, sir?” Wacker says. “Our nine-pounders would sort them out.”

“Captain's orders, and they come down from the duke himself,” Frost says. “We are not to engage enemy artillery.”

“We're not engaging anything at the moment,” the older Wood brother says.

“Afraid you're missing out?” Frost asks.

Another volley of shots comes from down in the valley and Molly rears and wheels around at the sound, showing them the white stockings on her back legs. Frost brings her back to face them.

“We've been here all day,” Wacker says. “Ain't even lit the linstock yet.”

Embedded in the ground at the rear of the cannon the linstock is a metal staff holding a slow match, which will be used to light the cannon fuse.

“Don't worry, Corporal,” a new voice says. It is Captain Mercer himself, riding up behind Frost. “Some of our chaps are having a pretty thick time of it. They'll find something to do with us before too long.”

The guns sound again and Jack looks out down the valley as the smoke gradually clears. If the shot has fallen anywhere nearby, there is no sign of it.

The valley is a wide plain, with vast fields of head-high corn. Here and there are scattered small woods and thickets. It is a pleasant country scene, Jack thinks, like a landscape painting.

Except for the soldiers. And the cannon. They are overlaid onto the canvas like an afterthought, by a different painter with a different style.

The gently waving stalks of yellow corn are a silky blur of restful movement, but imposed on that are the straight, vibrant lines of the infantry ranks, neat and precise, the colors softened by the veneer of smoke that drifts over them.

In front of the infantry is the long straight line of the grand battery: Napol
é
on's “beautiful daughters,” his twelve-pounder cannon. In between the two are the artillery support teams: limbers and wagons, hundreds of them, and thousands of horses.

Earlier, a quiet mist drifted up from the valley as the fields of corn, soaked in the overnight rain, were warmed by the morning sun.

Then that mist turned to dense clouds of smoke as eighty cannon began to speak, leaping back in ragged formation before being returned to their neat straight lines.

Again and again the massed cannon fired, their voices the only discordant thing on this otherwise serene and tranquil vista.

The cannon fall quiet and the colors of the infantry muddy as they march in file, threading through the long lines of limbers and wagons. It is as though the artist is mixing paints on his palette. What were neatly defined segments now blur, then separate again as the infantry passes through the lines of cannon and assembles again just in front of them.

The smoke that has muted the scene is now clearing and the hues stand bold and strong.

Jack likes these colors, just as he likes the music of the trumpets and fifes and the stir of the drums.

The banners of the French eagle flutter above the fields of gaudy dancing flowers that are the massed ranks of the infantry.

Lines of horses create outlines for the colors as they flow down into the valley. The cannon behind them now burst back into life, shouting encouragement for their troops in the form of lead shot.

Beneath the trails of the cannonballs the French troops flow like an ocean wave, sweeping up the ridgeline to where the British artillery waits.

Smoke from their own lines matches that from the French.

The British cannon draw long strokes through the French columns, as though the painter has taken a brush and daubed a streak across the picture. That must be round shot, Jack thinks, by the way it cuts such perfectly straight lines through the ranks.

Other cannon fire grapeshot, each recoiling cannon matched by a bite taken out of the French lines as though by the jaws of a giant.

Muskets open up also from the British lines, the crackling sound making little cotton wool lilies, and sending delicate ripples through the approaching columns.

But the French ranks are a never-ending sea, and they cannot be tamed by the roar and flash of metal. The French cannon once again fall silent as their troops flood up to the top of the ridge like the crashing of a wave on a sandy shore.