Map of Quatre Bras
Chapter 28 – Friday 16th June, Quatre Bras
Just last week I heard some armchair general, who had never been closer to a battlefield than a painting in a gallery, loudly proclaim that Ney lost France for Napoleon at Quatre Bras. Well he did, but not for the reasons that the old duffer claimed. The man is not alone; many condemn Ney for not capturing the crossroads on the evening of the 15th or first thing on the 16th, as though his men had limitless energy and ammunition.
I would have liked to see some of his critics march thirty miles in heavy uniforms on a blistering hot day and fight two battles and then see how enthusiastic they were for a third. With the benefit of hindsight, I dare say Ney would have driven his men harder, risking losses from heatstroke and much higher casualties. But even if he had I suspect that the outcome of the day would not be much changed. For at last, very belatedly, Wellington was swinging into action. Little did we know it then, but at dawn that day thousands of men dressed in red were starting a march in our direction.
I had been woken by the clanging of metal, but when I gazed out of the cottage window it looked the perfect pastoral scene. The sun was rising in a cloudless sky that promised another hot day. Crops moved gently on the breeze for as far as the eye could see and only the noisy farrier replacing some shoes on cavalry horses gave any indication that anything unusual was happening. Downstairs I found that the village bread oven had been put to work with loaves and roast chicken to eat. I might have been one of the senior officers present, but there was little to do, for the regimental men knew their business. Disappointingly the Dutch had not taken the opportunity of night to slip away from the crossroads. In fact, early cavalry patrols indicated that they had been reinforced by another four thousand troops. But our horsemen had ranged beyond them some distance up the Brussels road and towards the British garrison at Nivelles and had seen no sign of further men heading in our direction.
The Dutch were seen as an irritation rather than a threat. Eight thousand poorly trained troops with no cavalry and few guns were not going to prove an obstacle for forty thousand French veterans. The commander of the advance guard put out a skirmish line close to the crossroads to keep the Dutch bottled up while our cavalry ranged at will to further intimidate them. Ney arrived shortly after I had finished breakfast. He was similarly unconcerned at the Dutch reinforcements. At Gossalie they were still waiting for supply wagons to catch up with the column, but once these had arrived Reille would bring the rest of his corps to Frasnes. D’Erlon’s corps was behind Reille’s but would also be up by mid-afternoon. Ney had received messages from Napoleon that indicated that he planned to use the right wing of the army to push the Prussians further, but there was no sound of any fighting to the east and we wondered if the sausage-eaters were continuing to pull back.
After meeting the local commanders, Ney took a cavalry patrol back to the vantage point we had been at the previous day; he wanted to see Quatre Bras again for himself. We stepped out of the woods onto the higher ground and studied the enemy disposition. Whoever was in charge of the Dutch was a fool. He had sent his men out in a long thin cordon more than a mile south of the crossroads in our direction. Our outposts had fallen back, realising that the thinner the enemy line was, the easier it would be to break when the main column arrived. The Dutch had more men in the wood on the far side of the Brussels road, which would be tougher to clear, but they had made no attempt to occupy the high ground we stood on, which dominated the area.
“We will place our main battery here,” said Ney. “We can see anything that moves around Quatre Bras and we are close to the road should the British try to use it. He was just about to put his telescope away when a movement caught his eye on the road that led from Brussels. Coming down it were a group of horsemen, who reined in at the crossroads. Ney passed his glass to Heymès. “What do you make of that?” he asked. “One of them I think is wearing a blue coat. Doesn’t Wellington often fight in a blue coat?” I stiffened at that and strained my eyes to see, but at that distance I could barely make out the number of dark dots that were men, never mind the colours they were wearing. Ney’s glass was much more powerful than my own and my fingers itched to get hold of it.
“It might be blue,” agreed Heymès. “But British artillery officers wear blue too. It is much more likely to be one of their gunner officers. It could even be a Prussian searching for his army.”
“May I look?” I tried to ask as casually as I could, but my heart was racing. If it was Wellington then that had to mean a British force was on its way. I took the offered glass and focussed it on the distant junction. A group of figures swam before the lens and I twisted the tubes for a clearer view. I could not make out his features, but there was a figure in a blue coat with a familiar erect pose in the saddle. The rest of the riders with him sat a respectable distance away and I was sure it was the British general. “No, it looks like an artillery officer to me,” I told Ney. After a final look up the Brussels road for any sign of a dust cloud indicating marching men, I passed telescope back. “Wellington is probably still in bed with his mistress after the ball last night,” I suggested.
“You may be right,” Ney grudgingly admitted, sounding almost disappointed. We sat and watched the newcomers as they stared out over the peaceful rolling hills. I thought that Wellington would soon reorganise the Dutch defences, but to my dismay, he saw nothing of any concern in the landscape; a few moments later, his party turned east and started to gallop down the road towards us in the direction of the Prussians. We turned our horses back into the trees as he must have passed within some five hundred yards of our position. There was no doubt then as to his identity, at least for me, while Heymès thought that the direction of travel was proof that the man was part of the Prussian force.
I sat there inwardly fuming. Of all the half-baked incompetence; they still had no idea that an attack was headed in this direction. Surely they would realise that the capture of Brussels would be a prime goal of any invasion. Even the most junior officer studying the map should see the significance of the Quatre Bras junction. I began to seriously wonder if Wellington was losing his wits. It was well known that syphilis could cause madness and given the way that Wellington had been ploughing his way through society women it was quite possible he had caught a dose of the clap. When Ney and the others turned to go back to Frasnes, I hesitated and then announced that I would stay there and keep an eye on the Dutch position. I could not sit by and watch the allied army get destroyed without doing anything, but I had to find a way to warn them at no risk to myself.
Out in front of me was a field of rye, some if it seven feet tall. It covered a good number of acres but beyond that was a field of clover. That was just ankle-deep grazing for a few sheep. There were no animals there then – they must have been either eaten by the Dutch or taken by the farmer when he abandoned his land to the soldiers. Instead, there was a small Dutch outpost in the clover field, just half a dozen men, most of them lying with their coats off enjoying the sunshine. All I had to do was walk through the rye until I reached the clover field. I could shout a warning from there if necessary; they would not even be able to spot me among the crop.
I tied my horse to a tree and pushed my way into the tall stems. There was, I thought, little chance of me approaching with any degree of stealth with the noise of breaking stalks. The crop was not evenly cast; there were thick clumps and then patches with no plants at all. As I moved through the thinner parts for ease I kept the sun over my right shoulder to ensure I was moving north-west. It was a deceptive terrain to travel over as you could not get any bearings apart from the sun and without that it would be easy to lose your way. I became convinced that I was getting close to the edge of the field when in reality I was probably only halfway across and spent ages edging forward unnecessarily. But perhaps it was a good job I did as I nearly stepped on the boy before I saw him.
The tall crop was a paradise for those who wanted to shirk t
heir duty as it provided an easy place to hide. The boy looked little older than sixteen – he had not started shaving yet. Possibly weary after a night-time march to get here, he had slipped away for a furtive nap. I found him lying on his side, half curled up with his musket and pack lying on the ground beside him. A lone sentry caught unawares, this was even better than I had hoped. I had a sword on my hip and a pistol in my pocket, but I picked up his musket and jabbed him with the barrel. He just muttered something in Dutch and turned over to resume his slumber. I remembered the masters at Rugby trying to wake boys in the dormitory and sometimes resorting to a bucket of water. The soldier’s canteen lay beside him and so I picked that up as well. Having taken a couple of gulps to slake my own thirst, I tipped the rest over his head.
He came up then, all right, gasping and spluttering, talking vehemently in Dutch that was probably a curse on his comrades for their prank. Then he gave a small shriek of alarm as he dashed the water from his eyes and saw a French colonel standing before him, covering him with a familiar weapon.
“Keep quiet. Do you speak English?” I whispered hoarsely at him in that language.
“Ja, I am a Dutch soldier.”
“Hopefully not a typical one,” I muttered before continuing more urgently. “Listen carefully. There are forty thousand French troops marching towards this crossroads and they will be here within hours. You must get someone to tell General Wellington and tell him the message comes from Major Flashman.” The boy looked singularly unconcerned at the news of this approaching onslaught and just stared at me blankly. I grounded the musket and shook him by the shoulder. “Do you understand what I am telling you?”
“Ja, I am a Dutch soldier.”
Belatedly I realised that these were the only words of English he knew. I tried him with French and in desperation, Spanish, but with no success. He spoke to me in his own language, which contained lots of words from the back of the throat, but not one was familiar. I searched my pockets but you can never find a scrap of paper or stub of pencil when you need them. I remembered I had a pen, ink and paper in my saddlebag, but I was not going back for them. There was nothing for it but to press on with my prisoner and so, taking a glance at the sky to get my bearings, we pushed on through the long stems.
We emerged into the clover with the boy in front of me. I was holding him by the neck of his coat and shirt and had his musket under my arm. At first they did not notice me standing behind him but then the sergeant sprang to his feet shouting alarm to the others.
“Keep still,” I shouted, covering them with the musket. “Do any of you speak English?”
The sergeant hesitated in the act of reaching for his own weapon. “Ja, yes…I come from Bruges, we have many English merchants there.”
I felt relief wash over me. “Then listen carefully. I am an English spy with the French. There are forty thousand French soldiers led by Marshal Ney who will attack here in the next few hours. The French plan to march on Brussels, this is their main attack. You have to get a message to General Wellington, do you understand? Tell him it comes from Major Flashman, then he will believe you.”
The sergeant gave me a cold, calculating look. “If you are an English spy why don’t you tell the English general yourself?”
The honest answer was that from what I had seen so far, the poor devils did not have a cat in hell’s chance of surviving the afternoon and I had no intention of dying with them. No, I thought, I would be far safer with the French for the time being. But it would not have been tactful to say so. Instead, I asked my own question. “Who commands here?”
“Prince William.” A short answer that explained a lot. Prince William was the son of the new Dutch king. I knew from reports I had seen in Paris that the king had insisted his son be made second in command as a condition for adding his troops to the British force. By all accounts, the inexperienced prince thought he was a skilled tactician, at least the equal of Wellington. Davout had scoffed at the thought, although the way Wellington was behaving the prince might be right.
“General Wellington has asked me to remain with the French,” I finally said in answer to the sergeant’s question. “Now, will you pass on my message?”
“Yes, if you release Jan unharmed.” The sergeant was watching me closely and I did not like the way his eyes flicked briefly towards the stand of nearby muskets as if measuring the distance to them. But I had little choice. I pushed the boy towards them and turned to go back the way I had come. Almost instantly there was a yell from the sergeant. While I don’t know the Dutch for ‘Take him prisoner’ or ‘Kill him’, I am pretty sure I heard one of them. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the men rushing for their weapons, while I hurtled off into the crop like a startled hare. I ran straight for the first fifty yards, just going as fast as I could, holding the musket diagonally in front of me to smash the stems out of my way. Then I looked over my shoulder just in time to see a Dutch soldier emerge onto my trail. He gave a shout of triumph and charged towards me. I had no choice but to lower the musket and fire. I don’t think I hit him but he threw himself to the ground, bellowing with rage as I darted off once more.
There was the sound of people crashing through the stems all about me, but this time I had the sense not to run in a straight line. At one point I think I crossed the path I had made on my way down to the field but I darted off that way again to make a new trail. Twisting left and right I ran on. I must have covered at least another hundred, possibly two hundred yards before I stopped again. My pursuers were further away but they were still coming on and calling out to each other, probably when they came across a trail in the crop.
This was turning into a deadly version of the game blind man’s bluff. To succeed in that you had to use your ears as you could not see and I listened carefully to gauge their direction. At one point a man shouted and they all were quiet for a minute; I guessed that they were listening for the sound of me in the crops to follow. But I was making no noise at all. I silently edged behind a thick clump of rye and waited. The rustling came steadily closer, some to the left and some to the right – that side seemed slightly nearer. I crouched down behind my cover and hoped it was thick enough to conceal me. Then, squinting through the stems, I saw him. It was the sergeant. He was striding purposefully along, turning his head from side to side, but he was not looking down. He went past within a yard of me.
Well, if you betray Flashy you had better not show me your back. I silently got to my feet and hefted the musket into the air. I did not have room to swing it without making a noise and had intended to slam the brass-bound butt into the back of his skull. But as I launched forward he must have sensed I was there. He was fast and whirled around, but not quite quick enough. I adjusted my aim and hit him hard on the bridge of the nose. He staggered back, blood spurting down his nostrils and eyes watering. He gave a growl of anger. He had dropped his own musket but I saw his hand scrabbling at his back for where his bayonet was sheathed. Well, he was not going to get the chance. Never mind the fact that it is considered unseemly to hit a man when his back was turned, I am happy to hit them when they are blinded too, for already the heavy oak butt was swinging around in an arc. If the sergeant heard the stems snapping as it approached he did not have the sense to duck. The wood made a solid connection with his skull and, with a sigh, he crumpled to the ground.
His comrades had heard him shout and I could hear them crashing through the crop in my direction. It was time to run again and I took off, this time keeping the sun on my left. I sprinted away for a while and heard the shouts as they found the fallen man, but there was no sound of further pursuit.
Once I was sure I was not being followed, I took my time to push my way back up the slope. I felt I had done my duty: I had tried to pass on a warning, although it had probably not been wise to unsettle the brains of the one man who had understood my message. It was unlikely that he would be inclined to pass it on now. But even if he did, would this young Prince William have the wit to pass it
on to Wellington? If I had surrendered, the fool would probably have ordered me to join his force. His desperate defence was doomed; anyone who had marched with the French could see that. To turn myself over would have meant certain death one way or another.
I emerged from the field near the trees that I had set off from. The sun and my watch confirmed it was midday. Apart from the very occasional crackle of musketry between skirmishers, it was eerily still, like the calm before a storm. Compared to the frenetic energy and pace of the previous day, it seemed bizarre that half a day had been wasted with nothing being achieved. I craned my head but there was no noise of battle from the direction of Napoleon’s force either. It seemed the whole army had outrun its supplies and were still waiting for them to catch up. If the allies had been prepared they could have used this opportunity to reverse most of the previous day’s advance. I had no wish to go back to Frasnes. I would only have been sent back up the road to Gossalie to chivvy troops along in the heat of the day. Far better to settle back in the shade of a tree and rest.
I must have dozed for when I awoke there was a clatter of movement in the trees behind me and then just a few yards away I saw a French soldier high up in a tree calling out directions to a another officer standing underneath with a map.
“It looks like three six-pounders, twenty yards to the right of the last building.”
“What on earth is going on?” I asked.
Flashman's Waterloo (Adventures of Thomas Flashman Book 6) Page 24