Major Lord David

by Sherry Lynn Ferguson

  There was little need for orders under the circumstances. Though there was much confusion, all the men had something tangible to defend, at all costs and at any point. They were not to fall back. When, in the offices above the south gate, a guardsman slumped to the floor beside him, wounded by a ball shot through a window, David grabbed the man’s gun and headed out again to the garden wall. At an open loophole he fired at movement in the woods across the lane. The musket volley along the wall was so unrelentingly intense that the French howitzer had to be pulled back.

  David passed the musket on to a young soldier whose own weapon had jammed. Word passed along the length of the wall that Lord Saltoun’s Guards had again moved to clear the orchard. In the smoke and press of men, one could see little beyond forty or fifty feet, so David had to believe, or hope, that the relayed message was accurate. In the next lull, at midafternoon-with the orchard again reclaimed, Saltoun’s forces drawn back to the allied line, and not an inch of the garden or courtyards lost-David set men to work removing the wounded to the interiors of the buildings.

  He thought the French, even to pause so long, must have thought they’d successfully killed every one of them. But the interlude was not to last. One of the men David had sent to the end of the garden, to report on the state of the orchard, returned to say that it was still theirs, but that new columns of French infantry had been sighted marching across the field of battle, from the French center, heading for Hougoumont. Fortunately, the British guns on the ridge behind them easily fired on this new threat as it dared to cross so boldly in the open, in front of the allied position, and no French infantry reached the orchard to eject the newly resident Third regiment of foot.

  Even as David heard this heartening report, a shell or some flaming debris landed atop the roof of the thatched barn, serving then like a match to ignite the surrounding buildings, which erupted into a blaze. The west stable, the small chapel, and even the tile-roofed chateau itself were soon engulfed. David anticipated more such missiles. Though none followed, the effect of the one was pervasive and deadly.

  Confronting the triple tasks of avoiding further risks from the fires, maintaining the farm’s defenses, and removing the wounded men he had earlier placed inside the now-crumbling buildings, David worked quickly and desperately to save as many as he could. What was supposed to have been best shielded and safest had become a death trap. He and a team of others pulled several wounded from the large cart house just before the roof fell in, entombing those remaining. With faces blackened by soot and gunpowder and streaked with sweat, every man in the place still defended the torched ruins. Despite the consuming flames and ovenlike heat of the afternoon, despite the suffocating smoke, not a man left his post at the outer walls or inside the tottering buildings. The French might have destroyed the place, David thought grimly, but they would not possess the charred remains.

  Even as Hougoumont burned, at midafternoon a brave Royal wagon train driver raced down to the north gate, bringing them more ammunition from up at the line. Though the driver lost his horses to furious French fire, he supplied the soldiers with the musket balls that had flown so unremittingly. They were, David thought, the only currency between Hougoumont’s contenders.

  The stifling afternoon wore on. French attention appeared to be drawn to the center of the battlefield, giving David and the others an opportunity to reconnoiter. The wounded were removed to the south-side buildings that remained intact, and, in an effort to plug gaps, muskets and ammunition were redistributed from slain guardsmen along the garden walls. The deafening artillery from the fight to their east was such a constant accompaniment that it resolved itself into a hum. One could not shut out the groans of those injured and dying. Though David knew there should be at least two surgeons with his own regiment, he did not know where they were to be found. And at any moment the French might be relied upon to renew their assault.

  The men were cleaning their muskets. David pulled more wounded men from the garden, placing some in the small stable where Incendio and the few remaining horses were saddled and ready. Across from that stable, the once elegant chateau stood, only a shell in flames.

  “Steady, fellow,” David muttered, rubbing his black charger’s muzzle just as the French drummer boy had done earlier. Little Guillaume, hovering near, appeared to have more color in his cheeks. He asked David how much longer he must stay.

  “A few more hours, mon ami,” David said, and he repeated the words more softly to Incendio. Through the open stable door he could see that the base of the chapel was now blazing. Across the garden, upon the slope to the ridge, the 52°d regiment had formed two squares just off the northeast corner of Hougoumont. French cavalry had begun charging those squares and others, unseen upon the ridge, probably in the mistaken notion that Wellington had pulled his army back. Instead, David knew his commander was likely to be preserving his forces from French artillery by moving them behind the rise.

  Even as he questioned the fate of Alan Athington and others he knew in the 52nd, even as he watched the French cavalry charge repeatedly, David turned his weary attention to the tasks at hand. Again he entered the garden.

  “Bitte-” a young Nassauer choked, as he lay upon crushed herbs and vegetables in the once neatly plotted beds. David offered the German his own canteen, holding the injured man’s head up as he scarcely managed a sip before expiring. There were too many like him; the fighting had been fierce and prolonged. Many had struggled for hours with wounds from the first attacks, only to succumb now in the relative calm.

  David ran the length of the garden wall along the south and east of the garden. When he met his colonel, Woodford, and McDonnell, he heard that Wellington had noticed the fires at Hougoumont and had sent a note desiring that men be spared from the flames, but stressing that the farm must remain theirs. The duke had been answered with an assurance. And the chapel still stood, though the blaze had risen as high as the feet of a wooden figure of Jesus inside the door.

  David thought it a curiosity that after despairing of so much rain the night before, and though the mists and damp had persisted, he should now feel so thirsty. Given the carnage and devastation about him, it was strange to feel anything other than numbed. But he did crave water. He set a subaltern to collecting canteens from the dead and portioning the water to the men at the wall. There was a well in the north farmyard, but even that seemed too far away.

  Again they waited. David could no longer distinguish how many attacks had been rebuffed. He recognized only that this had been a ferocious bit of fighting.

  Early in the evening, the French infantry took advantage of its own cavalry movements, not to support that cavalry but to make yet another dedicated invasion of Hougoumont’s orchard. As the French swarmed onto the ground, David stayed at the east garden wall and watched Hepburn’s Third Foot Guards fight valiantly before being forced to give way.

  “There is more French, sir,” one frustrated Nassauer remarked in broken English, furiously reloading his musket, “than we are”

  “Yes,” David agreed. “But we have walls.”

  They gave the French no chance to press an advantage. The German troops and Coldstreamers along the east wall kept up such a thick and fierce barrage of musketry fire that the apple trees themselves started to waver, their branches hanging limply. The Third’s soldiers were able to recover and evict the invaders. But there was no time for celebration. The exercise was repeated: the French again moved in from the east side of the orchard, the British infantry were pushed back to the sunken road, and then the defenders at the garden wall, muskets blazing, pummeled the persistent French. On both sides the troops were nearing a state of exhaustion. This time, when the British Guards counterattacked through the trees, the French appeared set to vacate the orchard for good. The soggy ground under the orchard’s rows was covered in red, blue, and green uniforms. But now, pressing forward to the far hedge at the east side of the orchard, Hougoumont’s champions could fire into the French cavalry’
s flanks.

  It was early evening. The light was beginning to fade. David did not anticipate another attack. After such continuous, defiant effort, not one part of Hougoumont, even the much-disputed orchard, had been lost to Bonaparte’s forces, though the remaining buildings and scorched surroundings were now scarcely recognizable. Not an inch had been lost, but it seemed to David that almost every inch was covered in some form of devastation. On his return to the south yard, he had to make his way past men dead and dying, German and British. He might have spent hours simply tending to the wounded.

  He learned that the other farm, La Haye Sainte, having failed to receive a resupply of ammunition, had fallen to the French, inspiring the attackers to new efforts. But the allied center upon the ridge held firm. Bonaparte would be compelled to desperate measures if he were to carry the day. Yet the French emperor still had a chance at victory, because the muchlooked-for Prussian army had still not arrived to strengthen the allies.

  The French cavalry’s fierce charges appeared to have ended. Since the other British Guards regiments had been pulled back to support the line up upon the ridge, the slope behind Hougoumont now hosted replacement companies of Hanoverians and the King’s German Legion. After consulting with the other officers, David was tasked with informing their new German reinforcements of the state of the farm. So he retrieved Incendio, in the process cautioning little Guillaume to wait for his return. Passing through the farm’s north gate with a number of walking wounded, David made his way to the east, along the sunken way, then turning to move gradually upslope. There, more wounded British Guards, resting from the battles in the orchard, sat about looking physically spent. The fighting had been at close quarters, often with bayonet. In the absence of aid, the wounded were attempting to look after one another.

  David could at last see more of the valley, at least that part on the allied right side. In the press of battle, with the limited views, he had not comprehended just how many men had confronted one another today within a small, suffocating space. The reality was appalling. The armies were so dense, they looked not like men but waves, moving in currents across the rain-soaked, undulating ground-a great, grinding swell of sweating, bloodied, muddy humanity. The morning’s shoulderhigh crops had been so trampled and crushed that they now re sembled reed mats, a peculiar terrestrial flotsam cushioning the casualties.

  He had never seen such a slaughter. He hoped never to see it again. What had seemed like the world to him for so many intense hours at Hougoumont had been only part of this blasted whole.

  He spoke briefly with a captain of Du Plat’s King’s German Legion, which regiment thankfully gave its orders in English, and then with a lieutenant of Colonel Halkett’s Hanoverians, relaying to both the state of Hougoumont and hearing in turn their news of Wellington and the line. Prepared to go back, David turned about. As he neared a short hedge and low bank just forward of one of the 52nd infantry’s vacated squares, he heard a sharp groan. Peering under the thick holly and beech hedge, he spotted several figures lying still, and their uniforms were red.

  “Trent!” one of them croaked, before lapsing into ragged coughs.

  David dismounted instantly. Drawing Incendio behind him, he moved closer to the hedge and knelt to look into a muddy face framed by a blanket.

  “Athington!”

  Ahington! What do you do here?”

  Again Alan Athington groaned. “Put here-ahead of square. No time-take us-rear-”

  “Your wounds are bad?”

  Athington nodded. “Others..

  David checked the two other men. Neither breathed.

  “They are gone, Athington. You cannot stay here. I must take you up to the line. You see I have my horse”

  “No … time,” he said. “Do you not … hear it?”

  The guns were still firing. Seemingly the day’s cannonading had left David deaf. But in the distance he could just hear the faintest drumbeat. Ta-rum-dum, ta-rum-dum, ta-rum-a-dum, rum-a-dum, dum, dum. The beat repeated across the bloody, darkening valley. It was the French pas de charge. In the last hour before the sun set, Bonaparte was sending his tried and trusted personal guard, the Imperial Guard, against the allied line.

  “Look out … for Caswell,” Athington muttered. “He stopped … in our square”

  “Caswell!” David was hauling the boy out from under the hedge. “You mean the captain? Jack Caswell?”

  Athington’s dark gaze was unfocused. “Kit. Junior ADC. General Smallwood. Think … friend of … family. Kit … shammed it.” Again he struggled through a cough. “Jumped … inside our square … just before hit.”

  David was attempting, gently, to right him. Athington was heavier than he looked. But he could not be left there. The drumbeats sounded louder.

  “I shall keep an eye out. But, Athington, where are you wounded?”

  “Right arm-right leg. You must … cosh me, on the head. Less … painful.”

  The lad had bottom. David raised him and steadied him against Incendio’s side, then strained to shove him up across the saddle. He had to move, and quickly.

  As he urged Incendio up the slope, he thought Athington might have swooned. But then he was talking again, and garrulously.

  “Guess he’s still … in-law. But not … the same-what?” He started to laugh but halted, hacking.

  “I don’t understand you, man,” David said tightly. To hear wild chatter now distracted him. He probably should have ridden on-officers were reprimanded for stopping-but he had never quite been able to do it….

  “Hayden … marryin’ Miss Caswell. In the Times … last week”

  “That’s nonsense, Athington,” he bit out. “Miss Caswell is to marry me”

  “Not … no longer. Sanders girl-wrote Charis. M’sister’s … never wrong.” He drew a ragged breath. “Shouldn’t mind … you as … brother, Trent….”

  Handsome of you, David thought. But he said aloud, and curtly, “You’re off your head, Athington. Don’t talk anymore. Here” He wedged one of the lieutenant’s boots into a stirrup, then rearranged the muddy blanket. Given his gentler breathing, Athington must have passed out.

  David looked behind them. He could now see the Imperial Guard, Bonaparte’s Middle Guard, marching toward them in the dusk. Amid the drumbeats he heard the cries of “Vive l’Empereur! Vive l’Empereur!” The column was impressive-uniformly tall, matchlessly disciplined, dedicated, and intimidating. They looked a race of giants.

  He hurried Incendio on, as well as they could in such a carpet of dead and dying, and crested the first bank bordering the ridge’s sunken road. They crossed the road and mounted the farther bank, to find a quietly prone army of guardsmen lying in wait on the reverse side of the bank. Farther behind them was a confusion of wagons and horses and reserves, civilians, even women and children, searching for injured soldiers, calling in efforts to locate regiments-or taking the opportunity to steal the effects of the wounded and dead. The volume of activity behind the lines was amazing. Yet somehow David’s batman, Barton, found him in that melee.

  “I saw you-makin’ your way up the slope, m’lord-Major,” he gasped. He’d been running. “I feared you’d be caught in the firing.”

  David shook his head. “I’ll ask you, Barton, to take Lieutenant Athington to shelter.” He was, as carefully as possible, sliding Athington from Incendio’s back. “Find him a doctor.” David slid a hand inside his tunic to remove his watch. “Take this, should you need to pay for help or a bed. And keep Athington’s things as well. I’m back to the farm. You might find me there tonight.” He could tell that Barton had no fondness for the task. His duty, as he had always seen it, was to look after the major, not to tend the major’s friends.

  David smiled at him. “‘Twill all come right, Barton” And he watched his faithful servant gulp hard before hoisting Athington upon his broad and capable shoulders.

  David remounted Incendio and rode westward along the bank. He was not meant to be up here; he prepared to move back d
own the slope to Hougoumont. But as he again crossed the road and essayed to climb over the forward-facing bank, his gaze caught a flailing red-sleeved arm thirty paces downslope, amid the disheartening debris and growing dimness. A dozen French cavalry incursions had clearly taken a severe toll upon the line, though no squares had been broken. The British continued to fire artillery at the approaching French guard, but David knew that the firing would have to cease as the French came closer. Remembering Athington, convinced that the waving arm was in some way a signal, a supplication, he spurred Incendio down the slope.

  He was made to act; he had always acted. Invariably, when he had failed to do so, he had found himself regretting.

  British shells and grape struck just beyond him. As he slid from the saddle, he found Kit Caswell, apparently intact but wedged between a dead horse and an equally dead French cavalry cuirassier in all his heavy armor. Kit’s eyes were closed. His flailing arm must have moved merely in spasm, because the boy now looked still. He certainly felt cold enough. But that face! David could not have left that familiar face out there. And for a wounded man to be left amid this multitude was akin to a sentence of death.

  With a disheartened sense that Kit Caswell was doomed if not yet dead, David summoned a strength he had not believed he retained, rolling the French cuirassier off Kit’s side and pulling him from beneath the horse. The rum-a-dum of the French drums burned his ears. But he blessed the fading light and the confused detritus of battle about him, which hid his actions. The French columns were not yet close enough to fire-and, at that, they were unlikely to waste their shot upon just one horse and rider. Nothing else was visible to them. The cries of “Vive l’Empereur!” echoed loudly.

  Kit was lighter than Athington. Incendio stood still as David tossed the boy upon the horse and hauled him toward the ridge, the mud sucking greedily at his boots. At the first bank, in the growing dusk, he pulled Incendio farther along the rise before dropping behind it, lest he reveal the fortified dip to the French guards in the lead.