“God I hate that noise.” I turned to the artillery captain and asked, half in jest, “Why the hell couldn’t you have killed him?”
The man laughed. “Let me see if I can oblige now.” With that, he gestured to his nearest gun. The crew immediately began to lever the barrel round a few degrees and lower the screw controlling its elevation.
“You surely cannot hit a single man from here?” I felt a twinge of guilt at apparently ordering the execution of one of my countrymen. But then if you inflict that hideous racket on humanity you have to deserve what you get.
“We have hit a single horseman before, so let’s see, shall we?” The grizzled old gunner nodded that he was ready and the captain gave the order to fire. Then we all took a few steps to one side, around the muzzle smoke, to get a clear view of the fall of shot. The gunner had missed, but to be fair to him the range was exactly right: the ball gauged a great lump of turf out of the ground just a yard to the right of the piper. To be equally fair to the Highlander, the bastard carried on playing without missing a note!
More French cavalry were arriving now and they allowed the three elements of the army to fight together in perfect unison. The presence of the horsemen forced the British regiments to form protective squares, a tight formation surrounded by bayonet points that the cavalry could not penetrate. But that made the men in red an easier target for French artillery and shot tore through the tightly packed ranks. The tall crops also provided perfect cover for French skirmishers, who closed in on the big lumbering formations like sharks on a whale. Inevitably the British started to fall back, they had no choice. Sometimes if they stayed too long in one place you could make out where they had stood from the lines of dead and injured that they left behind.
I knew some of those men and it was sickening to watch their destruction. I turned away and took the path back to Frasnes. As I emerged from the trees I saw marching down the road from Gossalie a huge column of men. It was D’Erlon’s corps. Twenty thousand soldiers, who would turn a battle that was already slipping away from the British into a crushing defeat. Ney would have his victory over the British to match that of the emperor over the Prussians. Oh, I might be safer among the victorious French army, but I would be ruined when I finally returned home, as in due course I must. My well-intentioned message had left the allies woefully unprepared for the attack and there would be those like Grant who would take every opportunity to suggest that I had deliberately helped the French. Many of my army friends would view me with the same contempt or suspicion that I felt for Hobhouse when I saw him. And the most frustrating thing about it was that there seemed little I could do to put things right. But opportunity is a strange beast and in this case, it came in the form of a French general.
“Hold up, Colonel.” I turned to see the officer galloping towards me along a track that came from the east, where the distant thunder of cannon indicated that the emperor’s battle was still underway.
“How go things with the Prussians, sir?” I asked the general as he reined in beside me. He had a small escort of half a dozen dragoons, who fell in behind us.
“Very well. They have fallen into the emperor’s trap and with luck, we will destroy them. Have you come from that high ground? Can you tell me how the marshal fares here?”
“Yes, I am on the marshal’s staff. We are winning here too. The British and Dutch forces are being driven steadily back to the road.”
“Excellent. Does this mean that the marshal’s men will soon be able to march to aid the emperor in his victory?”
“It is hard to say, sir. With General D’Erlon’s corps we should be able to take the crossroads, but more British keep arriving. The marshal would not want to show his flank to the enemy.”
“So the marshal is not facing the entire British army now, then?” The general pounced on my answer and I remembered the exaggerated report that Ney had sent the emperor earlier. It was clear that the emperor did not believe it and had sent this general to check.
“No, not all of it. We have not seen any British cavalry yet. But if they were to arrive behind us while the marshal was marching his army to Ligny, they could cut us up badly.”
“Quite so, quite so,” the general smiled as though I was telling him exactly what he wanted to hear, which I thought was strange. I would have expected him to want to know that Ney could assist the emperor. “Would the marshal be able to contain the British without General D’Erlon’s force, do you think?”
I gasped in surprise for I now realised what the general had been sent to consider. If Ney could not bring his whole force to help him, Napoleon was considering taking half of it back. More importantly to me, it meant that the British still had a chance.
“Good God,” I breathed as the implications set in
The general saw my reaction and understandably misread it. He reached out to grip my arm. “I know you want to be loyal to your marshal and Ney will not want to lose his reserve. But we must consider the wider campaign. The emperor is already attacking the Prussians from the south and the east. If he can add an attack from the west we will have them virtually encircled. We can destroy the Prussian army and then we can turn our attention to the British. Ney will only have to hold the British here, not beat them. Wellington will have to pull back once the emperor has won or he will risk being outflanked. So tell me, Colonel, do you think Ney can hold the British here?”
I hesitated. Rarely do you have a moment in your life when so much hangs on what you will say. I could, I thought, save the British from being routed at Quatre Bras but would that only lead to a bigger calamity later on? On the other hand, I had known Wellington for too long now to underestimate him. He had at last woken up to the danger that faced him and I now had the chance to give him some time to concentrate his forces and organise their defence. “Yes, we can hold them here,” I said quietly. “Our cavalry is pinning them down and our artillery destroys every one of their batteries as they try to set up.”
“Good man,” said the general. He reached into a pouch hanging from his saddle and extracted a sealed note. “Give this to the marshal; it explains what the emperor is doing. I will ride on and give D’Erlon his new orders.” With that he spurred his horse forward and rode away. He had not even asked my name and I did not know his. I suspected that this was deliberate as he must have guessed that Ney would be furious when he found out what was happening.
I looked down at the note in my hand. Ney was unquestionably brave, but his courage was driven by a passion for glory. He had never struck me as a man who would make a cool assessment of the facts. He wore his heart on his sleeve and he had set his heart on victory over the British. It was his way of proving his worth to those who doubted his loyalty. If Ney knew what was happening he would do everything in his power to get D’Erlon and his men back. Perhaps that was why the general had not asked my name, for it gave me another course of action to consider. After a final moment of reflection, I tore the letter into tiny pieces. Like Ney’s hopes of victory, they blew away in the wind.
Chapter 30 – Friday 16 June 6p.m., Quatre Bras
“What do you mean they are not there?” Ney looked at Heymès as though he was mad or blind. “Twenty thousand men cannot just disappear.”
Heymès twisted a corner of his jacket in agitation. I had stayed away again to make certain that I was not on hand when Ney called for reinforcements. In fact I had spent the rest of the afternoon with the Guard artillery. I had watched as more British troops arrived from Nivelles, pressing the French in the woods on that side of the battlefield. Twice British batteries had tried to set up to support them, but sharp bombardments from the accurate French guns had put them out of action.
Then I saw the familiar red jacket of Heymès galloping along the road to Frasnes and I guessed that Ney had decided to bring the gathering force of D’Erlon into the fray. I wanted to see what would happen next and found the marshal in the farm opposite the woods. I was just in time to watch as Heymès delivered the bad ne
ws.
“They told me in Frasnes that a general from the emperor arrived and ordered the entire first corps to march east to support the emperor’s attack on the Prussians.”
“What?” A look of mounting rage suffused Ney’s features as he comprehended what he was being told. Then he dashed the earthenware cup he had been drinking from against the ground. “He will not steal my victory!” he roared above the sound of smashing shards of pottery. “Do you hear me? He will not steal my victory!” The man had lost control of himself and now he picked up his sword. For a brief moment I thought he would attack Heymès and, judging from the way the aide stepped smartly back, so did the man in the red jacket. Instead Ney brought the weapon down in a massive blow on the table top. He wrenched it free, leaving a deep gouge in the wood and raised it up again. “He will not…” thwack, “…steal my victory!”…thwack. Three deep grooves in the wooden table stood as testimony to the marshal’s frustration as he lifted his head and roared his rage at the rafters. For a moment he was quiet and still as he recovered himself and then he lowered his head and, to my alarm, he looked at me.
“Moreau, you will ride after D’Erlon.” He was speaking quietly now but with a barely restrained fury still boiling within him. “Tell him, no, order him, from his direct superior, to return here at once. Threaten him with a court martial, even a firing squad if he even thinks of disobeying.”
“But the emperor…” Heymès almost squeaked the objection in terror but a glare from Ney made him stop.
“I will send you as a messenger to the emperor,” growled Ney to Heymès. “You can go with that British colonel we took prisoner. He can prove that Wellington is now in command here and that the entire British army is either here or on its way to Quatre Bras.” He glared at me. “Moreau, why are you still here? Go, man, and don’t come back without D’Erlon.”
“I am leaving now, Marshal,” I said turning hurriedly to go. As I stepped into the yard and pulled the rough plank door shut after me I heard Ney’s voice again. He was calling for General Kellermann and his cuirassiers, asking if they had also been stolen by the emperor. I made a show of galloping back up the road towards Frasnes, before turning off on a track that would take me east. But once I was out of sight of anyone around Ney’s headquarters I slowed down to a walk. I estimated it was roughly an hour since D’Erlon’s men had set off, which meant that they had probably covered three miles, taking them close to the battle at Ligny. If I took my time, with luck they would already be engaged in that conflict before I got there – which would make it near impossible for them to withdraw and return to Ney.
I heard the Guard artillery firing from in front of the woods to my left and on instinct turned my horse down the now well-travelled path towards them. It would not hurt to have one final look at the battle from that vantage point before I went on. It would waste some time but I could argue that it would enable me to paint an accurate picture of affairs for D’Erlon in the event that I did catch up with him.
“Ah, you are just in time,” called my new friend the artillery captain. “Look.” He pointed in the direction of the middle of the battlefield. I stared and could see that the British reinforcements in the far wood were now trying to push out. Three regiments were audaciously advancing in line, which was more than reckless with so many French cavalry roaming about. One was close to the edge of the woods but the other two were in the tall crops, steadily trampling the stems down as they moved in our direction. “No, not there,” called the captain. “They are the mice. Look over there to see the eagles.” I craned my head round and felt a surge of dread, for I had a horrible premonition of what was about to happen.
Coming down the road from Frasnes towards Quatre Bras was General Kellermann and his cuirassiers. In other circumstances sending some eight hundred horsemen against what must then have been over twenty thousand infantry would seem reckless. Well it was reckless, but Ney was desperate for a move that would force the allies back and these were not ordinary horsemen. All of their mounts were black to match the long horsehair plumes that flowed from their steel helmets, while their polished breast and back-plates gleamed in the late afternoon sun.
There were no bugle calls to warn their enemies of their approach and Kellermann launched them into the charge early, probably because he did not want his men to be deterred by the number of enemy that awaited them. The ground must have vibrated under the thundering hooves of those heavy horses and I saw the long straight blades glitter in the light as they were drawn. Reluctantly, with a feeling of dread, I turned my attention back to the mice.
The first to see them was the regiment near the edge of the forest. It collapsed into confusion, half the men trying to form square and the rest running for the shelter of the trees. It was not a time to be indecisive for in a moment the horsemen were up to them and cutting down the stragglers and those running between the lopsided square and the forest. The men in the square desperately tried to close up their gaps and straighten their ranks but they need not have bothered for the black horses were already veering to their right as other more vulnerable targets were seen. Hearing the screams and yells of the first regiment attacked, the second had some warning and threw itself into a tight square. It was not straight but it was effective, giving off a crackle of fire as the armoured riders swept on.
The third regiment was in a slight hollow. They could not have seen the horsemen until they were fifty yards off and to make matters worse they were inexperienced. They were, I discovered much later, the 69th, fresh from Lincolnshire, and this was the first action for nearly all of them. Some managed a stuttering volley but from the distance I stood, most of the line seemed frozen in shock at the vision of death charging towards them. Like eight hundred horsemen of the apocalypse, the cuirassiers rode straight through the line of red-coated men, which was torn apart. The big blades rose and fell as men died or fled into the crops. Then I saw one of the cuirassiers riding back with a flag, a British regimental colour, held aloft in triumph. The rest of the armoured men rode on, determined to ride through the centre of Quatre Bras itself, but the crash of volleys from better-formed squares nearer the road showed that they would have a tougher time now they had lost the element of surprise.
I turned away feeling sickened. I had never seen a regiment destroyed so quickly and comprehensively. As I watched the gunners near me preparing to shell the squares now the horsemen were out of the way, I realised that I was not as ambivalent about the outcome of this battle as I pretended. Deep down I was a redcoat and I could not stand around and watch them being annihilated. The armoured horsemen had been enough to break a regiment or two but there were not enough of them to break an army. To do that Ney needed D’Erlon and I was going to do everything I could to make sure he did not get him.
Chapter 31
Twenty thousand men leave a trail that is not hard to follow. As well as the flattened crops and wheel ruts, there were stragglers limping along with blistered and bloody feet and later, ammunition carts often carrying more injured men as well as cartridges. The noise of battle grew louder ahead. The forest that ran from the north of Frasnes and past the French artillery was still to my left and the sound of more fighting echoed through the trunks, although whether this came from Quatre Bras or Ligny it was hard to tell. Then I came across the first columns of men and saw to my surprise, that they were all standing still. I rode nearly a mile past the long line of the first corps and during that time they did not move an inch. When I finally got to the head of the formation I found a group of generals having a furious row.
“The emperor’s orders are quite clear,” one of them was yelling. “Look, you can see for yourself how an attack from here will trap them.” I rode up and stared down the hill in the direction the man was pointing. The place I took to be Ligny was in the distance, although little of it could be seen through the skeins of smoke. But you could make out that there was no fighting on our side and that the French were attacking from our right and the far sid
e.
“But Marshal Ney says he will be defeated unless we return at once,” insisted another. I found out later that he was D’Erlon’s chief of staff, who had been sent belatedly to ensure that the marshal was aware of their new orders. Ney had sent him straight back to insist on their return and this messenger had evidently overtaken me with the glad tidings. They were both looking at a third general, who kept glancing between them.
“The marshal must know of the emperor’s plan,” he offered, “and yet he still feels that his risk is the greater. It will not profit the emperor to win here and lose a third of his army to the British…”
“He won’t lose a third!” exploded the first general. “The marshal is famous for a fighting retreat and he can do so again. Look man, we can destroy the Prussians! If we do that they cannot come at us again and then we can avenge any defeat that Ney suffers.”
“Yes but Ney is my commanding officer and he is a man of great experience,” said the third man, who I now took to be D’Erlon. “What if the British break through and attack the emperor’s flank while he is still fighting the Prussians?” The man bit his lip and then looked up at the sky. “Although I suppose it will be getting dark by the time we get back to Frasnes and then on to Quatre Bras.”
I snapped open my watch and suddenly realised that D’Erlon was right. It was getting on for eight, so dusk would be in an hour and a half. It would take at least another hour to get back to Frasnes – the men were tired, and they had been marching back and forth all day – then another half an hour to march up the road to Quatre Bras. There would then be no time to deploy these exhausted troops before nightfall.
Flashman's Waterloo (Adventures of Thomas Flashman Book 6) Page 26