Waterloo (6 page)

General Byng summoned Macdonell and Hepburn. ‘I have just received orders from the Prince,’ he told them, spreading a map on the ground. ‘We are here,’ he said, pointing with a twig to Quatre Bras. ‘The centre of our line is on and around the Charleroi Road.’ The twig ran down a line southwards from Quatre Bras. ‘On our right, the Bois de Bossu, seething with Frenchmen and a threat to our right flank. Colonel Hepburn, you will take the 3rd Foot Guards into the wood with the 1st
Brigade. Lord Saltoun’s 1st Foot Guards have already entered the wood. Clear out the enemy and secure it.’ He turned to Macdonell. ‘Colonel Macdonell, take your light companies up this slope.’ He pointed to fields on their left. ‘If this map is right, you will come to a farm.’ Byng peered closely at the map. ‘La Ferme de la Bergerie, with fields and more woods beyond it. There has been heavy fighting there and the wood and farm are also full of Frenchmen. Drive them back. I will send Captain Tanner up with the light cannon after you. Further south there is another farm.’ Again the general peered at the map. ‘La Ferme de Gemioncourt. It was taken by the French this morning and is now sheltering the artillery that is bombarding us.’ He coughed lightly. ‘The 69th took the brunt of it and were then cut down by a cavalry charge.’

‘Were they not in square, General?’asked Macdonell.

‘Alas, no. I am told that the Prince was concerned at the artillery fire they were taking.’ Macdonell shook his head in disbelief. Ordering infantry into line with cavalry nearby was tantamount to murder. ‘Your task is to prevent the French from getting around our left flank. I will send more intelligence when I have it. Any questions?’ There were none.

Macdonell ordered flints and powder checked again. He put on a light pack, specially made for him in London, in which he kept a spare shirt, a woollen blanket, a razor and a sharp knife. If his mule was lost or killed, he would need them. He left his horse with a groom, knowing that the beast would be no use in wooded areas and anyway preferring to fight on foot.

Harry Wyndham was at his shoulder, Gooch and Hervey just behind. They took neither a drummer boy nor a medical
orderly. If they were to push the French back they would have to move quietly and fast. No drums, no shouting, no stopping for the wounded. Just what light company men were trained for. With a glance behind him, Macdonell signalled the advance and four hundred men, muskets primed and loaded, followed him up the slope.

There was to be no surprise. French sharpshooters were hiding in a copse of trees on the right-hand side of the slope. The guards were no more than halfway up it when shots began whistling about their heads. Men screamed and fell. Macdonell felt a ball touch his shoulder and nearly stumbled. They were in the open, taking fire from a hidden enemy – the worst possible position and the very opposite of what light company men were used to. He yelled an order to lie flat and threw himself to the ground. The mounds and hollows on the slope offered a little protection and a man lying on his belly was a much smaller target than one standing up.

Harry wriggled up alongside him. ‘Saw us coming, James. Lucky they did not wait until we were closer before firing, stupid clods. What now?’

Macdonell grunted. He was angry with himself for not having guessed there would be voltigeurs about. They would be ahead of the main body of French troops, scouting the land and picking off the enemy when they had the chance. ‘Spread the men out, Harry, a good five yards between each pair, and in broken line. We’ll make it as hard as we can for them.’

‘I’ll shout when we’re ready,’ replied Harry, slithering away down the slope.

With luck the voltigeurs would fire their next volley as soon
as they saw their targets. At eighty yards, the casualties should be light. They would take the volley and charge up the slope to the copse of trees. That should scare the foxes from their den.

The moment Harry shouted, Macdonell was on his feet and running up the slope. He did not run in a straight line but weaved this way and that in the hope of confusing the voltigeurs. At six feet and three inches and above seventeen stone, he was not the most nimble Guards officer but he ploughed on towards the copse. Behind him, nearly four hundred men took his cue, yelling and firing into the trees. The French volley came almost at once. Twenty or so shots in all. Macdonell did not look round but from the few cries he heard, knew that it had not been effective.

He was no more than thirty yards from the trees when twenty blue jackets ran out from the side and made for the top of the slope. The Guards’ fire took down three of them, the others scuttled off. Macdonell halted his men. He had caught sight of a farmhouse roof over the ridge of the slope. There would be more frogs there. He did not want to lead the Guards headlong into a trap. But his orders were to clear the farm of the enemy. They would advance cautiously.

They moved slowly around the trees, keeping low and watching the farm. For the new men, this was their first fight. Macdonell knew how nervous they would be. Charging flat out at an enemy was one thing. Advancing slowly towards muskets they could not see was quite another. There was a risk that one would panic and run. If that happened, the panic would spread. He found he was holding his breath.

This time the voltigeurs waited until their attackers were
almost at the low farm wall before opening fire. Then they let loose. There were more French in the farm. From windows and doors a storm of bullets hit the guards. A dozen fell, dead or wounded. Fifty reached the wall and crouched behind it. The rest lay flat and fired at the windows. Macdonell peered over the wall. A shot fizzed past his head. A blue jacket was hanging out of a window. Another was on his stomach by a door, blood seeping through his uniform. He could see no others.

He vaulted over the wall and ran for the farmhouse. There were no shots. He called to Harry who signalled the fifty men to follow him and the rest to stay where they were. They skirted the house and turned up the side. Around the farmyard at the back stood a small barn, sheds and an empty pigsty. There was a haystack in one corner and a gate beside it.

Macdonell led them through the gate, which opened into another, larger yard. They stopped and stared. This yard was strewn with bodies, mostly Brunswickers in their black jackets and Nassauers in green. Many of the dead were twisted into grotesque shapes, their stomachs ripped open by sword or sabre. A dead horse lay in one corner, its legs buckled under its body and blood covering its flank. Another, headless, lay beside it. Carrion crows had lost no time in beginning their feast. They hopped on and around the corpses, pecking at eyes and squabbling over scraps. Even when they were disturbed, they carried on gorging themselves. The sight of the birds and the smell of blood and death were too much for some. They fell to their knees and emptied their stomachs on to the bloody ground. Henry Gooch was one of them.

The French had left the farm but they would not be far
away. Macdonell sent James Hervey back to bring the Guards forward. Stepping carefully over bodies, he led the fifty men into a vegetable garden enclosed by a thick beech hedge. Without warning they were under fire again. Beyond the hedge there was a small field sloping up to another wood, this one much thicker and larger than the copse on the slope. The French were firing from it.

They ran doubled up to the far end of the garden. James turned and looked for the Graham brothers. They were there. He beckoned them forwards. ‘Make a gap in the hedge about here. Just big enough for a man to get through.’

The brothers took out their bayonets and hacked at the branches of the hedge. They heaved on the roots and bent the branches back but the beechwood was thick and did not yield easily. They exchanged a look. ‘You push,’ said James. Joseph nodded. James took off his shako and stood with his back to the hedge, his arms folded over his chest. The moment he said ‘ready’, Joseph lowered his shoulder, charged forward and knocked him backwards through the hedge. James was back on his feet and safely on the right side of the hedge in a trice. He bent over to catch his breath. Joseph put an arm around his shoulders. ‘Not too hard, was it?’

James coughed and stood up straight. ‘Away with you. Our mother hits harder than that.’ Led by James Hervey, the remaining Guards had joined them. Through the hole, Macdonell took them into the field of rye beyond. They formed two ranks facing the enemy positions in the wood. The French fired again. There were shrieks of pain and two men went down. One was holding what was left of his nose, the other’s
shattered arm hung uselessly from his shoulder. The Guards got off a volley but they were firing uphill from close on a hundred paces. A direct hit would be more luck than marksmanship. Macdonell hesitated. The wise course would be to withdraw back behind the hedge and wait for the cannon to arrive. But if they did and the enemy chose to attack the farm, the cannon might be intercepted and they could be trapped. They would have to stay where they were.

He called for the wounded to be taken back to the farm and for two lines to re-form in pairs and spread out to give the French muskets less to aim at. It was a manouevre they had practised in the dull days at Enghien and they carried it out perfectly. He sensed relief among them. They were light infantrymen, skirmishers, will o’ the wisps, unaccustomed to fighting in lines. He took a position from where he could observe the accuracy of their shots and watch the reactions of the enemy.

A competent infantryman could get off three shots a minute as long as he had a pouch full of prepared cartridges. The drill was always the same and they had practised it a thousand times. Make sure the barrel and breech were clean, bite off the end of the cartridge paper, hold the ball in your mouth, set the hammer to half-cock, tip a little powder in, shut the hammer, pour the rest of the powder down the barrel, follow it with the ball and the paper for wadding, ram it home with the ramrod, cock and fire. After half a dozen shots a man’s mouth was dry as tinder from the powder and his head throbbing from the smoke and noise. It made no difference. He was trained to go on loading and firing, reloading and firing again until he had run out of cartridges or was dead.

The pairs worked together, one loading, the other firing. After every six shots they moved to a new position – a little back, a little forward or to the side. It made a Frenchman’s aim just a bit more difficult – a bit that might save their lives.

The cannon soon arrived – four six-pounders that had been hauled up the slope and around the house. Within a minute, the gun teams had loaded, primed and fired. The first salvo was short. The second landed among the French, sending bodies and muskets flying into the air. They watched the blue coats turn and flee, and Macdonell signalled the advance. Shrieking and yelling, through the smoke and the rye they ran, most of it trampled and lying flat. Yet more bodies lay everywhere – infantry and cavalry, French and British and Brunswickers. And horses, dozens of them. Men and beasts alike had suffered and died here.

On the far side of the field, they came to another house and garden surrounded by a fence. There corpses were piled high and covered in a black cloud of flies. The headless torso of a young infantry officer in bright-scarlet jacket with crimson lace lay slightly to one side. Highlanders had fought there too. Kilted bodies lay about, some obscenely exposed.

They skirted the house and garden and carried on through the rye, crouching low and making themselves as small a target as they could. They stepped over more mangled bodies and more blood-soaked limbs. ‘Eyes on the enemy,’ shouted Macdonell. ‘We can do nothing for these souls now.’ There were no wounded. Either they had managed to crawl to safety or they had been despatched by the point of a bayonet.

A cannon roared and a six-pound shell whistled over their
heads. The French had brought up artillery. Another landed a little to their right, sending up a spray of earth but doing no damage. Instinctively, the men moved left and spread out. Almost immediately there was a shout of ‘cavalry’. The French also had cavalry and had anticipated their manoeuvre. Macdonell yelled the order. ‘Form square. Prepare to meet cavalry.’ The troops ran towards their appointed leaders and began to form irregular-shaped but tightly packed squares around them, with the front line kneeling and bayonets pointing outwards. It was another manoeuvre they had practised and practised until they could do it blindfolded and it was all that stood between them and death at the point of a lance or the edge of a sabre. No horse would run in to or try to jump a line of bayonets.

The French cavalrymen, in their fine plumed helmets and green jackets and breeches, were expert and ruthless. Two of the slowest of Macdonell’s men were caught in the open and cut down with scything swipes of a sabre. The remainder had scrambled into the squares when the first of the French cavalry reached them, the last of them diving head first over a kneeling front line. Sure enough, the horses shied away and their riders were forced to bear off. But as soon as they were clear, more artillery shells exploded around the square. A phalanx of stationary soldiers made a tempting target for a Gunner.

A shell landed just in front of the first rank, broke into pieces and killed two men instantly. Their bodies were dragged aside and the gap they left closed. From the middle of his square, Macdonell shouted an order and it crabbed sideways and forwards. The others followed suit. The French cavalry stood a hundred yards away, waiting for the squares to break.
If they did, they would be on their prey in a trice, sabres held in extended arms, ready to thrust and hack at defenceless heads and bodies.

The next shell fell harmlessly in the place they had vacated. Another shouted order and again the squares crabbed sideways. Macdonell had the strange sensation of acting out a play in front of a mounted audience. Receive cannon shot, move, keep the square tight, more shot, move again. Hold the square. Never give the audience a chance to attack. More like a dance, perhaps, than a play. Men went down, blood streaming from their heads and chests. One called pitifully for his mother. Another looked Macdonell in the eye, swore mightily and died. No one moved to help the wounded. The square must be held or they would all die.