by Iain Gale
He gazed towards the ridge. The sun, having spent most of the day obscured by cloud, was nearing the horizon, pouring its light over the ghastly field. Napoleon folded his arms and, looking straight across the valley, tried to estimate how long it might be until nightfall. An hour, perhaps an hour and a half. That, he thought, is all I have. One hour and a half. If I can win the battle in that time, then I will win the war.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Mont St Jean farm, 7 p.m. De Lancey
The surgeon stooped low over De Lancey. Smiled down into his face, adjusted his spectacles and cleared his throat. He smelt of brandy, carbolic soap, sweat and blood.
‘Now, Colonel, I’m just going to turn you over on to your side. It may hurt a little.’
As the two orderlies grasped hold of him, De Lancey closed his eyes. At least he knew this physician. John Gunning. Deputy Inspector of Medical Services, no less. Officer commanding at the field hospital of Mont St Jean.
He felt hands around his shoulders and waist. Slowly the two men began to lift.
Despite his best intentions, he was unable to stifle a groan. The pain cut through him. It was in his back. In his side. Everywhere. A raw, deep, burning pain that pierced his very soul. He bit deep into his lip. If only they would allow him to lie still. Only when he lay motionless did the agony leave him. But with the slightest movement it returned. If only they would let him be. He tried to speak. Managed a hoarse whisper: ‘Doctor Gunning. You’re wasting your time. You should have let me die in peace. On the field.’
‘Nonsense, my dear chap. You’re not going to die. You’ve been damned lucky. The ball appears to have only broken a few ribs. Granted, you are badly bruised. And it’s hard to tell any internal damage. But in my professional opinion, you’ll live.’
De Lancey knew it to be untrue. He had seen just such an injury before. At Salamanca. A young captain of the Blues. Musgrave, wasn’t it? Seconded to the staff. De Lancey had been sitting close by him at the moment that he had been hit by a ricocheting roundshot. He too had been thrown from his horse. Had suffered a bloody back and eight broken ribs. The surgeons had bound him up. Had bled him frequently. Had talked for five days of his imminent recovery. On the sixth day the boy had died. De Lancey would not survive. He knew it. He did not care for himself. He had had a good life. A soldier’s life. But Magdalene. Magdalene troubled his every thought.
Through the red mist of his pain De Lancey heard Gunning call now to an officer across on the other side of the room.
‘Doctor Hume. An opinion if you will.’
He saw John Hume turn round from binding up the freshly amputated leg stump of an infantry colonel. Hume was Wellington’s favoured doctor. The Duke had made him his personal physician. He was famously charming. He walked up to De Lancey, wiping his blood-covered hands on a piece of flannel. Smiled. ‘Oh, I say. De Lancey, isn’t it? My dear chap. I am sorry. How perfectly dreadful. Gunning?’
‘Sir William received a cannonball on his back. More precisely a cannonball en ricochet, which glanced off his back. You will observe the contusions. The impact, though not severe, has I fear broken several of his ribs. But as to the extent of the internal damage we can merely guess. Nevertheless, he does seem in good humour, as I’m sure you will agree. I find the prognosis favourable on the whole. Your thoughts?’
Hume pondered. Gazed for a while at De Lancey’s back. Still the orderlies held him on his side. How much longer? De Lancey wondered. How long could they take to decide whether a man was to live or die. A simple question to which in his own mind he already had a simple answer. The awful pain was beginning to drain him. He felt faint. Made a conscious effort. Must hold on. Dignity. Example.
Hume wandered away. Beckoned Gunning. De Lancey watched them confer in private and, after what seemed an eternity, return to him. Hume spoke.
‘Well, Sir William, I am quite satisfied that you are in no immediate danger. We shall, however, have to try to find somewhere rather more comfortable to put you, in due course. But do not concern yourself as to your condition. I believe you’ll live.’ And then, almost as an afterthought, he added: ‘Have you any next of kin?’
‘My wife. Magdalene. She’s in Antwerp.’
‘Best to inform her then.’
‘Oblige me then, if you will, sir. I need to find an officer. My cousin, Colonel De Lancey Barclay, of the Foot Guards. He is Assistant Adjutant-General. Could you possibly find him for me?’
‘Of course, Sir William. Rest easy. We shall find your cousin. And, I pray you, do not worry. You will not die.’
Lying on his front, his head supported on a filthy coat, he was able now to observe his surroundings more closely. This small, gloomy room must he guessed, have been the farm’s kitchen. The stone-flagged floor, strewn with straw, was now discoloured with blood. The whitewashed walls, the same. The principal furnishings consisted of a plain deal table and chairs and a dresser. Other pieces of furniture, more elaborate, stood scattered about. Incongruous here, he thought. Brought in to act as beds. Around the walls, on shelves and hanging from hooks, the medical orderlies had placed torches of tallow which now, as the day slowly began to draw to its close, cast a flickering light over the gruesome scene, giving it the appearance of some dramatic performance. Shakespeare perhaps, he thought. The last act of a bloody tragedy. Finale. He tried to laugh. Found it hard to move his head. Then, through a process of counting the number of coughs emanating with irritating regularity from the improvised cots that surrounded him, he was able to reckon, after a few minutes, that he shared this unholy billet with perhaps a dozen other men, most probably all officers. Aside from the coughing, the sound of quiet groaning provided a constant undertone, punctuated by the occasional scream. Words came in staccato bursts. Oaths or imprecations mostly. One man in the far corner called feebly for his mother. De Lancey fixed his gaze on the wall nearest the window and the door. As he watched, a new patient was brought into the room. A colonel of hussars. His ashen face wore a blank expression. De Lancey looked with interest to see where he had been hurt. His left leg was hanging, half-severed, suspended by only a few shiny, white muscles. The skin hung down in strips from the bone which had splintered into jagged shards, like the remains of a shattered tree-stump.
A doctor walked up to the hussar. Appeared to know him. The two men exchanged pleasantries. De Lancey heard the word ‘amputate’. The colonel nodded grimly and rested his head. Two redcoats arrived bearing a rustic door, ripped from some outhouse. On it they placed the wounded man. As they picked him up he turned to De Lancey and managed a pathetic smile. And then they were gone.
He had no idea how much time had elapsed when his cousin arrived and woke him with a loud cough.
‘William. I say. You poor chap. Are they looking after you? This is a hell-hole. And the stench. Poor wretches. You know, I’ve just seen the most amusing thing. Farmer’s wife, d’you see. Refused to leave her precious home. This house, as it were. She’s been here all day, William. Up in the damned attic. Balls falling all round her. And now she’s blaming us. Not only for the destruction of her precious house, but the slaughter of her livestock. Naturally, they’ve all been blown to atoms. D’you know I actually saw her arguing with the adjutant of the ordnance. Out there, in the yard. All quite comical.’ He laughed to himself. ‘Really most amusing. I say, William. Your poor back does look bad. How can I help?’
De Lancey loved his cousin dearly. But he was in no mood for laughter. He called him closer. Whispered instructions. ‘Barclay. I would be much obliged if you would convey a note to my wife. To Magdalene. In Antwerp. Be a kind fellow. Break to her the news of my passing in person. And gently. Tell her that I love her. I shall always love her.’
‘Your passing? But the doctors assure me that you will recover. What nonsense, William.’
‘I tell you, Barclay, I know that I shall die. I only wish they had left me on the field. To perish with honour. Instead they have brought me … to this stinking hole.’
&nbs
p; ‘Well, that’s one thing we can arrange right away. I’m going to have you moved. Wait there, William. Don’t move. Ah. I’m sorry. Of course you are unable … Wait. I shall return instantly. And then I shall fetch Magdalene.’
De Lancey tried to rise. To stop him. Too late. Thought, she must never see me like this. Must never see this place of putrefaction. He must order Barclay to keep her away. For just as long as it took him to die. Better to lie to her. Better to say he were dead already.
He saw Barclay re-enter the room. So soon?
‘William. It seems that the farm is to be evacuated. The French have taken La Haye Sainte. A swift attack now and they will be here. Gunning has been ordered to move the wounded back to the village and thence to Waterloo. We must get you to Brussels. I shall ride to Magdalene. She can join you there. Do not worry. Prince Blücher has come across. Boney may have the upper hand for the moment, William, but he is hard pressed. They say that the day will yet be ours. What would you have me do?’
‘I beg you, do not fetch Magdalene. Tell her only that I died on the field. There is a letter for her. A letter in my valise. But I do not know where it might be.’
He thought for a moment. Began to try to reach down into his clothes. ‘Here. Take this.’ His hand scrabbled desperately beneath his chest, pressed down against the table top by the weight of his immobile body. Tried to locate his waistcoat pocket. Could not. ‘Here, Barclay. Reach down here. Into my pocket. There’s a stone.’
His cousin fumbled with the bloody buttons. At last managed to find the hole in the ragged cloth. Probed with his fingers. Grasped.
‘There. There. You have it.’
De Lancey gazed at the pebble. At its smooth coolness, shining in the half-light. Barclay stared at it too. He wore a quizzical expression.
‘Yes. I see. But, I can’t think what …’
‘Take it to Magdalene, Barclay. Tell her not to mourn me. That I shall be always with her. Be sure to tell her that she is free.’
‘William. This is nonsense. You will not die.’
‘Do this, Barclay. For me. Take it. I beseech you.’
‘Very well. I shall do as you ask. But I cannot tell her you are dead.’
He turned towards the door. Barked a command to two orderlies who were loafing in the doorway. ‘You men there. Move the colonel on to a board. Carry him further up the chaussée. Into the village. There are two houses at the junction of the roads. Place him in one of them. And be sure to do it gently. And then one of you, see if you can find his servant. He’ll be with the General Staff.’
He turned back to De Lancey. ‘Well, William, adieu then. I shall inform the doctors where they are taking you. Someone is sure to attend you. Good luck.’
The two reluctant stretcher-bearers lifted De Lancey with surprisingly less pain than previously and laid him on a door covered with a grey blanket, which they wrapped around him. On this they carried him from the room, out into the yard and on to the Charleroi road. It was a scene of chaos and human devastation. Everywhere wounded men walked or crawled in the direction of Brussels. The lucky few had been piled into tumbrils. At the same time reinforcements, cavalry mostly, were making for the battle, regardless of who stood in their way. Twice De Lancey’s party was forced off the cobbles and on to the verge beside the ditch. The noise was indescribable. The roar of cannon and musketry. Shouts and screams. Orders, in English and German, shouted from all points. Bugle calls, drums and fifes. Bagpipes. Horses. De Lancey looked up at the sky. Cannonballs flew high above his head. Seemingly in every direction. Slowly they moved from the ridge and down into the village of Mont St Jean. After having gone he estimated perhaps 300 yards, they entered a small house on the south side of the junction of the main highway and the Nivelles road. It was as simple a peasant’s cottage as he had ever seen. It seemed surprisingly deserted, save for a kilted Highlander, quite dead, slumped in one of the corners in a pool of his own blood.
The men laid him down, still on his door, on top of the kitchen table. One of them, an Irishman, spoke in a thick brogue.
‘We’ll leave you here then, sir, if you please. Good day to you, and good luck, Colonel.’
De Lancey smiled. Thanked them as best he could and positioned his head so that he might see out of the room’s single window.
He had just watched incredulously as an entire squadron of Hanoverian cavalry streamed past his view in the direction of Brussels, apparently in retreat, when a man entered the room.
‘Colonel de Lancey? James Powell. Surgeon.’
Barclay had been as good as his word.
‘I am instructed by Dr Hume to bleed you, sir. Now we’ll just have to make you a little more comfortable.’ De Lancey noticed that Powell was accompanied by three orderlies.
‘I’m rather afraid that it may hurt a little. May I have your permission, sir?’
De Lancey nodded. Sighed, closed his eyes. Thought of the captain of the Blues. Five days of agony. As he felt the orderlies’ cold hands begin to raise him on to his side, he whispered a silent prayer. Please, dear God, let me die now. How long, for pity’s sake, could it take a man to die?
TWENTY-EIGHT
Above Hougoumont, 7.15 p.m. Macdonell
Out of the falling twilight they came in through the shattered north gate. Black-coated soldiers with great, plumed shakos and short, braided coats. A battalion of Brunswick light infantry. In the Peninsula the redcoats had joked that these Germans ate anything they could find – rats, hedgehogs. They would even, it was said, steal the officers’ pet dogs. These men though, he saw only too clearly, were hardly the bloodthirsty dog-eaters of Spain. They were no more than boys. But they were reinforcements, and at this present moment Macdonell would have gratefully welcomed in the Prince of Orange himself to help him defend what was left of the château.
The house itself was now no more than a burnt-out wreck, in which huge flames crackled and leaped up twenty, thirty feet. The fire had spread to the little chapel but, miraculously, had stopped abruptly at the feet of the life-size crucifix that hung on the back wall. The men had called it a miracle. James Graham, the devout Irishman, had solemnly declared that the place was blessed.
That wasn’t the word that Macdonell would have used. He looked around the courtyard. At the exhausted men, their white faces coloured matt black from the soot of incessant musket fire. All had one thing in common. Their eyes. Bloodshot, red-rimmed, they stared blankly from their sunken sockets with the fatigue that came only with battle. Those men who could still do so stood to at the walls. The lightly wounded sat around the blazing courtyard, unable to move. The worst cases had been crowded into the tiny gardener’s house, which of all the buildings was the least damaged. The dead lay piled in the ruins of the great barn. Macdonell tapped the blade of his sword on the slippery cobbles, in between which the blood had mixed with mud in small pools.
‘Hold to the last extremity.’ Those had been Wellington’s words. To the last man. The last round. For eight hours now they had been holding. Soon they would be down to but a few rounds per man. They were nearing the last extremity.
As three guardsmen slammed the gates shut after the Brunswickers, Macdonell sensed a momentary lull in the ebb and flow of the fighting which all but surrounded the stronghold. Best use this, he thought. Take stock.
He found Biddle by the burnt-out stable block, attempting to staunch a splinter-cut in his neck with a length of torn white shirting. Seeing his superior, the sergeant dropped the bloody rag and snapped to attention.
‘Sar’nt Biddle. What’s our state?’
‘By my reckoning, sir, we have close on 700 men fit for duty. Then there’s the Nassauers, what’s left of them. Those black Germans as have just come in; nigh on 500 of them, sir.’
‘How many of our men are wounded?’
‘Hard to say, sir. There’s some as have died, and others is back on the walls. But it must be close on 200.’
‘And the French?’
‘We’ve got o
ne officer, minus his hand. A sergeant, perhaps a score of men and two drummers, sir.’
‘Thank you, Biddle. You’d better see to that cut.’
So that was it. He had perhaps 1,500 men and no hope, he guessed, of further reinforcements. Fifteen hundred to face the dogged French army corps of possibly ten times that number that all day had thrown itself against the walls. It would have to do. Macdonell knew that the remainder of the brigade, Hepburn’s Scots, save the companies left with the colours, were now gathered on the edge of the orchard, along with Saltoun’s light companies of the First Guards. How they were faring, though, was anyone’s guess.
He turned to Colonel Woodford, who was gazing down distractedly at the body of his horse, whose neck had been almost severed by a shard of falling shell.
‘Sir. I wonder if we shouldn’t give the men a tot of the rum that came in with the ammunition cart. It’s unorthodox, I know. But it might do them some good.’
The colonel continued to stare at the dead mare. Seemed not to have heard.
‘Rum, sir. A small tot might do the men some good.’
‘What. No, no. Can’t you see? The beast’s dead, man. Stone dead.’
‘The men, sir. The rum ration. Now might be a good time.’
‘Oh. Yes. As you will, James.’
Macdonell found Henry Wyndham attempting to steady the ragged defenders of the west wall.
‘Henry. The colonel and I thought that it might be a good idea if we were to give the men a portion of their rum ration. That barrel that Drummond found. Might put a bit of fire into them, eh?’
Wyndham smiled. ‘I’ll see to it. Sar’nt Miller.’
‘Sir.’
‘Rum ration. Now.’
‘Rum, sir? Now, sir?’