As I got closer I saw that the columns were indeed huge. Despite the misleading name, the columns were always wider than they were deep. The front rank of these contained around a hundred and fifty men and there were another twenty-four rows of men behind the first.
If he was worried about the outcome of his attack D’Erlon did not show it. “Ah, Colonel, welcome, I remember you. Do you come again from Marshal Ney?”
I passed him Ney’s note and gave him the emperor’s message. “Do you think we will get over the ridge before they can get their line established?” I asked as it was the thought that was upper most in my mind.
“Ah, I see you have fought the British before as well.” He grinned “Don’t worry, it will not matter if they do have their line. In fact, this time, it might be better for us if they do.” It was not an arrogant boast and I had already learned from my earlier encounter with him, that General D’Erlon was a very cautious man. But what he said made no sense. Why would these columns succeed against a British line when so many others had failed?
The puzzlement must have shown on my face as D’Erlon pointed to his men. “Look, instead of blocks of men, they are arranged by line. Each battalion makes up three lines. When we get close the battalions will slide out like drawers, some to the right and some to the left. The front rank and leading drawers will shield the ones behind and we will overlap any line they present. We will give them a taste of their own medicine.” He looked pleased with himself and I am bound to say that at the time I thought it was an ingenious solution. I thought that the allied troops by then must be close to breaking point. Even if enough of them could be mustered into a line, they would not be expecting the French columns to spread out and threaten to wrap themselves around their flanks. It gave the French yet another advantage. It was strange: in any other battle I would have been horrified at the thought of marching with a French column; I had seen too many of them destroyed. But this time all of my experience told me that they were destined for success.
D’Erlon turned to address his troops. “Comrades,” he shouted. “The emperor has placed the future of France in our hands. We will advance and we will conquer or die.” Well it was a short speech but it was deuced effective. There was a massive roar of Vive l’Empereur! from ten thousand throats and then the drums rolled and the vast formation began to move forward.
From my perspective, conquer my old comrades or die was a rather bleak choice. However, as Ney’s messenger, I at least had the additional option of loitering near the back and then returning to report on progress. I was glad that I would not have to stay and watch the allied soldiers being pursued from the field.
I waited for the first column to march past and then joined a group of officers riding in the middle of the second one. Other battalion officers rode along the flanks as though the formations had their own cavalry escorts. We veered to our right to start with, around the ridge crowned by the grand battery, which if anything had increased its rate of fire as the assault force started its march. As we drew level with the guns the noise became even louder and it was impossible to speak. But the officers alongside me grinned and gestured at each other, showing far more excitement than fear. We were already in a haze of gun smoke, but it got denser as we started to march down the gentle slope into the valley. At first the going was easy; the column in front of us had trampled a swathe through the crops and the flattened stems of wheat made a mat over the mud. I wondered if the allies had seen the huge formations of men descend the far ridge into the valley. Were they even now trying to work out where along their line we would emerge? Certainly, if they did not see them, they would hear them soon enough, for the regular beat of drums and shout of loyalty to the emperor was unmistakable.
We came to a halt on the valley floor. The front column had slowed down as it struggled through the heavily waterlogged ground. I saw several boots stuck in the mud; men were not able to stop and retrieve them when marching in the middle of a column. But all those who did still have their boots also had at least a pound of sticky clay attached to each one. With French shells and balls still screaming high over our heads towards the allied ridge, we re-organised ourselves for the attack. We were to attack the allied left, which meant marching to the right of the road. My column had the easiest time of it as we stayed still, while the one in front smashed through the crops until they were diagonally to our left while the column behind moved to their right. Eventually all three were in a diagonal line, and the order was given to advance again.
It was slower going now as each column had to smash its own way through the crops. Men slipped and splashed through pools of standing water and even the horses struggled as the weight of man and beast pushed their hooves deep into the mire. If the allied guns had been on the ridge and could see us they would have played merry havoc in our ranks, but we could barely see a hundred yards in the cloud of smoke and must have been invisible beyond that distance.
If the allies were shooting at other columns, I did not see the effect of their balls but surely they must know that an attack was coming. The blasted French drummers kept up their rattling beat and every minute or so they would finish with a flourish and thousands of men would roar out Vive l’Empereur! Then as we began to climb up the far slope, the allied slope, the firing from the French guns finally stopped. They did not want to risk hitting their own men. After two hours of cannonading, it was almost an eerie silence as we marched unseen through the mist. It wasn’t that quiet, of course, there were still the drums and the sound of thousands of men breaking down crops and marching over them, but now my ears were picking up a new sound: English voices.
Sound travels further in fog or smoke and I distinctly heard a man shouting, ‘Push it forward’, and others yelling for men to ‘Close up’. My mouth went dry as hearing my own language brought home to me what I was doing. How in the name of holy hell, I demanded of myself, had I ended up in a French column attacking British troops? Hearing those familiar commands reminded me of every other time I had seen a column attack a line and the bloody shambles of enemy troops that had resulted. Even a child understood that every musket in a line being able to fire meant that it always beat the column.
Suddenly I had no faith at all in D’Erlon’s scheme; instead, I had an awful premonition of being shot and some blood-spattered British redcoat plunging his bayonet in my chest. I felt trapped and stared around for a way out, but it was too late. I was in the middle of the second column, in a narrow strip of space between the battalion lines, with other French officers to my right. Staring to my left I saw that in their eagerness to close with the enemy, the ends of the ranks were pushing forward, closing the gap. I was entombed in the middle of the French attack whether I liked it or not and yes, ‘entombed’ was the word I thought of at the time. It damn nearly was my tomb too, for we were now emerging from the smoke.
I stared frantically around to get my bearings. The columns had spread out on the climb to give them room to extend their ranks. The left hand one was now ahead and close to the farm of La Haye Sainte, facing a furious fire from its defenders. But another column of French troops had advanced straight up the Brussels road and they had an escort of cuirassiers to guard their flank. Already I could see the British defenders in the farm garden pulling back into the buildings before they were overwhelmed. There was the sharper crack of rifles and in a sandpit across the road from the farm, green-jacketed soldiers were firing on the first column, trying to kill their officers, while swarms of French skirmishers were also pushing forward and threatening to encircle them.
Then on the far side of the farm, I saw a British regiment start to advance down the ridge to support the defence of the buildings. The farm was already wreathed in musket smoke but surely the colonel of that regiment could see the cuirassiers in front of them? In disbelief I watched as the British regiment came on and then wheeled to its left to fire on the French attackers. The ends of their ranks now pointed directly at the armoured horsemen. It was as thoug
h they were asking to be killed.
“Form square, you stupid bloody bastards,” I found myself yelling as I watched them. But even if they had heard me it would have been too late, for the cuirassiers were charging. I realised with horror that I had shouted in English, but no one noticed, for at that moment there was a strange whirring noise, followed by terrible screams.
The whirring noise was once described to me as the angel of death’s hum, and they were not far wrong. I had not heard it before, not like that, and I never want to hear it again. For it was the sound of canister shot whistling through the air, coming directly at you. Dozens of musket balls blasted from a cannon to create an arc of complete carnage with every shot. They came from the guns I had heard men shouting to be pushed forward. As we emerged from the smoke, some allied cannon changed their aim in our direction. Thank Christ there were only half a dozen of them on the ridge able to fire, for with the tightly packed blocks of men they could not miss.
I saw a corner of my column disappear as though a giant had swept an invisible scythe through their ranks. Men screamed, staggered and fell, but those behind did not falter and simply stepped over their comrades. Another cannon fired, this time into the centre of the column. One ball whirred right over my head like some lead hornet. Instinctively I ducked and looked round just in time to see the officer next to me plucked off his horse and hurled into the men marching behind us. The front ranks in the centre of the column were a patch of chaos; several men had been flailed apart by the storm of lead that had ripped through the air. I saw arms and legs, dismembered bodies and from some unseen soul, blood was spurting high in the air. A drummer was staggering along, one arm a bloody ruin, but incredibly, still sounding the beat of the march on his drum with his good limb. Two more cannon fired, and more men from our front line went down. I stared about me terrified, trapped in this mass of humanity, which despite this onslaught still marched to the beat of its drums.
A man shrieked beneath me as my horse must have trodden on him but I barely gave him a thought for my attention was focussed on the British gunners. They were desperately trying to reload their pieces, while in front of them French skirmishers swarmed up the slope to shoot them before they could succeed. I watched transfixed as a gunner shoved another load of canister into the cannon that had just moments before nearly killed me. A second artilleryman was stepping forward with a ramrod to press the charge home. While my voice was lost in the din of battle, I screamed at the skirmishers to kill him. The gunner fell away, hit, but I watched as another man picked up the rammer to try again. I yelled for his death too. I did not care anymore that these were British soldiers getting killed. I just wanted to live myself. There was another whir of balls and instinctively I ducked again, but this time the screams came from behind. When I looked again the second gunner was lying dead and I almost cried with relief as I saw those that were left hauling frantically to get their guns out of the way before they were captured.
I risked a glance to my left just in time to see a cuirassier wheel away with another British standard in his hand. The regiment that had marched to help the farm was destroyed, men fleeing in all directions like chickens from foxes. The farm itself was completely obscured by gun smoke but I could see the ground behind it and it was covered with allied soldiers running back up the hill in retreat. Commands were being shouted in the column ordering men to close up to fill the gaps in their ranks and then the battalions began to move outwards as the drawers opened. D’Erlon’s plan was starting to work. We were only fifty yards away from the crest of the ridge, which was already occupied by French skirmishers, and from my higher vantage point on horseback I tried to glimpse what lay in front. What I saw filled me with both hope and despair.
Allied soldiers were running in all directions. They were shouting and yelling at each other; there was the sound of distant bugle calls and teams of horses pulling guns further back. To my left I saw that the cuirassiers – there were only three hundred of them – had gained the ridge top and regiments all around them were hurriedly forming square. There were some lines of allied troops but they were well behind the crest and starting to edge further back. I would have bet my pension on them not standing. They had cuirassiers loose to their right and more men than they could ever hope to beat spreading out in front of them. Some of them fired volleys as the head of the column crested the ridge, but the range was too long to do much damage. Their smoke just added to the fog that the battle was spreading over the British position.
More bugles called and the front ranks of the column began to scramble over the road that lay in a slight dip just beyond the ridge. The allied plateau was falling and with it any hope for an allied victory. The soldiers around me sensed it and set up a cheer. They now knew that they would be able to roll up the left flank of the allied army. There might be the odd pocket of resistance, but the rest would be pushed into the forest, to run for their lives to the coast.
“We have given the emperor his victory,” shouted an officer near me. Then something caught his eye and he started to call out a warning. But as I heard that terrible whirring noise again, the words literally died in his throat. He saved my life, though, for that look of alarm was enough to trigger my poltroon’s instinct to duck down beside my horse’s neck.
Sadly though, my sturdy steed did not have the same cowardly tendency, for a canister ball smashed through its skull. I felt the impact as the animal’s neck smashed into me. Then my chest and face were covered with its gore and, with blood in my eyes, I could not see. The horse went down as if a hangman had dropped the trap from under it. One moment I had been mounted and speculating on what the French victory would mean for me; the next I was blind, possibly wounded and sprawled on a dead horse as soldiers climbed around me. The fall had winded me and it took me a moment to be certain that none of the blood was mine. I was wiping it from my eyes as the noise of battle sounded all around; there was another whir of canister and the answering volleys from the spreading ranks and those wretched bugle calls. I tried to get to my feet but was knocked down again by a rank of men marching over me. Then a hand reached under my arm and pulled me to my feet.
“Come on, Colonel, we have gaps in our rank, we can make room.” Men shuffled to one side and there I was marching in the ranks of the huge French column. The other mounted officers I had been with were either dead or further ahead for I could see nothing but a line of French soldiers’ backs and their tall shako hats. All I could do was stumble along in my place in the line. Even then I had to stay alert as I discovered when the man to my right abruptly reached out and pulled me towards him and I just avoided stepping on a wounded man.
“Are we winning, sir?” the soldier asked as he gently pushed me back into my place in the line.
“We were when I could last see what was going on,” I told him and heard the news getting repeated along the rank. You might think that marching surrounded by so much humanity would be comforting, but I found it unnerving not to know what was happening. All I had to go on were sounds and here were those bugles again and they were getting closer. Then realisation finally dawned and my blood froze.
I had not seen them when I was on horseback as the ground undulated and drifting gun smoke obscured my view, but the bugles were coming from up ahead. I knew that they were used by cavalry and unmistakably, they were sounding the charge.
Chapter 36
“Stop! Stop!” I shouted. “British cavalry are charging the front of the column. We need to get into square!”
“There is no room, sir,” replied the man beside me, still marching, and I was pushed forward by the man behind when I tried to stop. Christ, King Canute stood more chance of stopping the tide than I did of halting this huge mass as just one voice in the middle. Then we heard the first screams coming from up ahead and the sound of metal hitting metal. There was a crackle of musketry, but I knew most of the front ranks had already fired at gunners and other obstacles and had not had chance to reload. Still I was being
pushed forward, towards those swinging sabres and now I could see the weakness in D’Erlon’s scheme. Battalions in solid blocks would form square easily as the officers sat in the middle of their command, but in this formation, each battalion was in a narrow strip and hemmed in by others. It was impossible for officers to hastily form them up to defend against cavalry. I looked along my line to the left. We had been edging in that direction as our ‘drawer’ extended to the left but two-thirds of the line was still in the column itself. I caught a fleeting glimpse of some men starting to run back and then I was squashed again in a great heaving mass of humanity.
I don’t think my feet touched the ground for several seconds as I was jostled about. The men at the front of the column were pushing to go back, while those at the back, oblivious to what was happening, were still trying to advance. There were screams of agony and yells of terror from those being attacked, but I was powerless to do anything. I was just being tossed around like driftwood in a storm. As suddenly as it started, the pressure eased and men were turning and moving back. The man who had been in the rank in front of me was now in the line behind as we turned and he was shouting and pushing at me to run. But there was only room for a shuffling walk. Then we began to go faster, streaming back over the road, the noise of battle getting ever louder behind us.
If I had ever thought that there is no more terrifying sight than a cavalry charge coming towards me, well I was wrong. The most terrifying thing is knowing that a rampaging troop of murderous horsemen is hacking its way towards your back and not being able to see it. We were running now, still in a tightly packed mass as we streamed back down the allied ridge towards the French lines. My foot slipped on the leg of a man lying on the ground. I nearly stumbled but just managed to stay on my feet by grabbing at the man on my right. He was stumbling over the same corpse and, unbalanced, went down. He did not get a chance to regain his footing. As I was swept away in the throng, I heard his scream of panic as he was trampled in the stampede to escape.
Flashman's Waterloo (Adventures of Thomas Flashman Book 6) Page 30