CHAPTER XII.
THE SHADOW ON THE LAND.
It was still drizzling in the morning, with brown drifting clouds and adamp chilly wind. It was a queer thing for me as I opened my eyes tothink that I should be in a battle that day, though none of us everthought it would be such a one as it proved to be. We were up andready, however, with the first light, and as we threw open the doors ofour barn we heard the most lovely music that I had ever listened toplaying somewhere in the distance. We all stood in clusters hearkeningto it, it was so sweet and innocent and sad-like. But our sergeantlaughed when he saw how it pleased us all.
"Them are the French bands," said he; "and if you come out here you'llsee what some of you may not live to see again."
Out we went, the beautiful music still sounding in our ears, and stoodon a rise just outside the barn. Down below at the bottom of the slope,about half a musket-shot from us, was a snug tiled farm with a hedge anda bit of an apple orchard. All round it a line of men in red coats andhigh fur hats were working like bees, knocking holes in the wall andbarring up the doors.
"Them's the light companies of the Guards," said the sergeant. "They'llhold that farm while one of them can wag a finger. But look over yonderand you'll see the camp fires of the French."
We looked across the valley at the low ridge upon the further side, andsaw a thousand little yellow points of flame with the dark smokewreathing up in the heavy air. There was another farm-house on thefurther side of the valley, and as we looked we suddenly saw a littlegroup of horsemen appear on a knoll beside it and stare across at us.There were a dozen Hussars behind, and in front five men, three withhelmets, one with a long straight red feather in his hat, and the lastwith a low cap.
"By God!" cried the sergeant, "that's him! That's Boney, the one withthe grey horse. Aye, I'll lay a month's pay on it."
I strained my eyes to see him, this man who had cast that great shadowover Europe, which darkened the nations for five-and-twenty years, andwhich had even fallen across our out-of-the-world little sheep-farm, andhad dragged us all--myself, Edie, and Jim--out of the lives that ourfolk had lived before us. As far as I could see, he was a dumpysquare-shouldered kind of man, and he held his double glasses to hiseyes with his elbows spread very wide out on each side. I was stillstaring when I heard the catch of a man's breath by my side, and therewas Jim with his eyes glowing like two coals, and his face thrust overmy shoulder.
"That's he, Jock," he whispered.
"Yes, that's Boney," said I.
"No, no, it's he. This de Lapp or de Lissac, or whatever his devil'sname is. It is he."
Then I saw him at once. It was the horseman with the high red featherin his hat. Even at that distance I could have sworn to the slope ofhis shoulders and the way he carried his head. I clapped my hands uponJim's sleeve, for I could see that his blood was boiling at the sight ofthe man, and that he was ready for any madness. But at that momentBonaparte seemed to lean over and say something to de Lissac, and theparty wheeled and dashed away, while there came the bang of a gun and awhite spray of smoke from a battery along the ridge. At the sameinstant the assembly was blown in our village, and we rushed for ourarms and fell in. There was a burst of firing all along the line, andwe thought that the battle had begun; but it came really from ourfellows cleaning their pieces, for their priming was in some danger ofbeing wet from the damp night.
From where we stood it was a sight now that was worth coming over theseas to see. On our own ridge was the chequer of red and bluestretching right away to a village over two miles from us. It waswhispered from man to man in the ranks, however, that there was too muchof the blue and too little of the red; for the Belgians had shown on theday before that their hearts were too soft for the work, and we hadtwenty thousand of them for comrades. Then, even our British troopswere half made up of militiamen and recruits; for the pick of the oldPeninsular regiments were on the ocean in transports, coming back fromsome fool's quarrel with our kinsfolk of America. But for all that wecould see the bearskins of the Guards, two strong brigades of them, andthe bonnets of the Highlanders, and the blue of the old German Legion,and the red lines of Pack's brigade, and Kempt's brigade and the greendotted riflemen in front, and we knew that come what might these weremen who would bide where they were placed, and that they had a man tolead them who would place them where they should bide.
Of the French we had seen little save the twinkle of their fires, and afew horsemen here and there upon the curves of the ridge; but as westood and waited there came suddenly a grand blare from their bands, andtheir whole army came flooding over the low hill which had hid them,brigade after brigade and division after division, until the broad slopein its whole length and depth was blue with their uniforms and brightwith the glint of their weapons. It seemed that they would never havedone, still pouring over and pouring over, while our men leaned on theirmuskets and smoked their pipes looking down at this grand gathering andlistening to what the old soldiers who had fought the French before hadto say about them. Then when the infantry had formed in long deepmasses their guns came whirling and bounding down the slope, and it waspretty to see how smartly they unlimbered and were ready for action.And then at a stately trot down came the cavalry, thirty regiments atthe least, with plume and breastplate, twinkling sword and flutteringlance, forming up at the flanks and rear, in long shifting, glimmeringlines.
"Them's the chaps!" cried our old sergeant. "They're gluttons to fight,they are. And you see them regiments with the great high hats in themiddle, a bit behind the farm? That's the Guard, twenty thousand ofthem, my sons, and all picked men--grey-headed devils that have donenothing but fight since they were as high as my gaiters. They've threemen to our two, and two guns to our one, and, by God! they'll make yourecruities wish you were back in Argyle Street before they have finishedwith you."
He was not a cheering man, our sergeant; but then he had been in everyfight since Corunna, and had a medal with seven clasps upon his breast,so that he had a right to talk in his own fashion.
When the Frenchmen had all arranged themselves just out of cannon-shotwe saw a small group of horsemen, all in a blaze with silver and scarletand gold, ride swiftly between the divisions, and as they went a roar ofcheering burst out from either side of them, and we could see armsoutstretched to them and hands waving. An instant later the noise haddied away, and the two armies stood facing each other in absolute deadlysilence--a sight which often comes back to me in my dreams. Then, of asudden, there was a lurch among the men just in front of us; a thincolumn wheeled off from the dense blue clump, and came swinging uptowards the farm-house which lay below us. It had not taken fifty pacesbefore a gun banged out from an English battery on our left, and thebattle of Waterloo had begun.
It is not for me to try to tell you the story of that battle, and,indeed, I should have kept far enough away from such a thing had it nothappened that our own fates, those of the three simple folk who camefrom the border country, were all just as much mixed up in it as thoseof any king or emperor of them all. To tell the honest truth, I havelearned more about that battle from what I have read than from what Isaw, for how much could I see with a comrade on either side, and a greatwhite cloud-bank at the very end of my firelock? It was from books andthe talk of others that I learned how the heavy cavalry charged, howthey rode over the famous cuirassiers, and how they were cut to piecesbefore they could get back. From them, too, I learned all about thesuccessive assaults, and how the Belgians fled, and how Pack and Kemptstood firm. But of my own knowledge I can only speak of what we sawduring that long day in the rifts of the smoke and the lulls of thefiring, and it is just of that that I will tell you.
We were on the right of the line and in reserve, for the Duke was afraidthat Boney might work round on that side and get at him from behind; soour three regiments, with another British brigade and the Hanoverians,were placed there to be ready for anything. There were two brigades oflight cavalry, too; but the French att
ack was all from the front, so itwas late in the day before we were really wanted.
The English battery which fired the first gun was still banging away onour left, and a German one was hard at work upon our right, so that wewere wrapped round with the smoke; but we were not so hidden as toscreen us from a line of French guns opposite, for a score of round shotcame piping through the air and plumped right into the heart of us.As I heard the scream of them past my ear my head went down like adiver, but our sergeant gave me a prod in the back with the handle ofhis halbert.
"Don't be so blasted polite," said he; "when you're hit, you can bowonce and for all."
There was one of those balls that knocked five men into a bloody mash,and I saw it lying on the ground afterwards like a crimson football.Another went through the adjutant's horse with a plop like a stone inthe mud, broke its back and left it lying like a burst gooseberry.Three more fell further to the right, and by the stir and cries we couldtell that they had all told.
"Ah! James, you've lost a good mount," says Major Reed, just in front ofme, looking down at the adjutant, whose boots and breeches were allrunning with blood.
"I gave a cool fifty for him in Glasgow," said the other. "Don't youthink, major, that the men had better lie down now that the guns havegot our range?"
"Tut!" said the other; "they are young, James, and it will do themgood."
"They'll get enough of it before the day's done," grumbled the other;but at that moment Colonel Reynell saw that the Rifles and the 52nd weredown on either side of us, so we had the order to stretch ourselves outtoo. Precious glad we were when we could hear the shot whining likehungry dogs within a few feet of our backs. Even now a thud and asplash every minute or so, with a yelp of pain and a drumming of bootsupon the ground, told us that we were still losing heavily.
A thin rain was falling and the damp air held the smoke low, so that wecould only catch glimpses of what was doing just in front of us, thoughthe roar of the guns told us that the battle was general all along thelines. Four hundred of them were all crashing at once now, and thenoise was enough to split the drum of your ear. Indeed, there was notone of us but had a singing in his head for many a long day afterwards.Just opposite us on the slope of the hill was a French gun, and we couldsee the men serving her quite plainly. They were small active men, withvery tight breeches and high hats with great straight plumes sticking upfrom them; but they worked like sheep-shearers, ramming and sponging andtraining. There were fourteen when I saw them first, and only four leftstanding at the last, but they were working away just as hard as ever.
The farm that they called Hougoumont was down in front of us, and allthe morning we could see that a terrible fight was going on there, forthe walls and the windows and the orchard hedges were all flame andsmoke, and there rose such shrieking and crying from it as I never heardbefore. It was half burned down, and shattered with balls, and tenthousand men were hammering at the gates; but four hundred guardsmenheld it in the morning and two hundred held it in the evening, and noFrench foot was ever set within its threshold. But how they fought,those Frenchmen! Their lives were no more to them than the mud undertheir feet. There was one--I can see him now--a stoutish ruddy man on acrutch. He hobbled up alone in a lull of the firing to the side gate ofHougoumont and he beat upon it, screaming to his men to come after him.For five minutes he stood there, strolling about in front of thegun-barrels which spared him, but at last a Brunswick skirmisher in theorchard flicked out his brains with a rifle shot. And he was only oneof many, for all day when they did not come in masses they came in twosand threes with as brave a face as if the whole army were at theirheels.
So we lay all morning, looking down at the fight at Hougoumont; but soonthe Duke saw that there was nothing to fear upon his right, and so hebegan to use us in another way.
The French had pushed their skirmishers past the farm, and they layamong the young corn in front of us popping at the gunners, so thatthree pieces out of six on our left were lying with their men strewed inthe mud all round them. But the Duke had his eyes everywhere, and up hegalloped at that moment--a thin, dark, wiry man with very bright eyes, ahooked nose, and big cockade on his cap. There were a dozen officers athis heels, all as merry as if it were a foxhunt, but of the dozen therewas not one left in the evening.
"Warm work, Adams," said he as he rode up.
"Very warm, your grace," said our general.
"But we can outstay them at it, I think. Tut, tut, we cannot letskirmishers silence a battery! Just drive those fellows out of that,Adams."
Then first I knew what a devil's thrill runs through a man when he isgiven a bit of fighting to do. Up to now we had just lain and beenkilled, which is the weariest kind of work. Now it was our turn, and,my word, we were ready for it. Up we jumped, the whole brigade, in afour-deep line, and rushed at the cornfield as hard as we could tear.The skirmishers snapped at us as we came, and then away they bolted likecorncrakes, their heads down, their backs rounded, and their muskets atthe trail. Half of them got away; but we caught up the others, theofficer first, for he was a very fat man who could not run fast.It gave me quite a turn when I saw Rob Stewart, on my right, stick hisbayonet into the man's broad back and heard him howl like a damned soul.There was no quarter in that field, and it was butt or point for all ofthem. The men's blood was aflame, and little wonder, for these waspshad been stinging all morning without our being able so much as to seethem.
And now, as we broke through the further edge of the cornfield, we gotin front of the smoke, and there was the whole French army in positionbefore us, with only two meadows and a narrow lane between us. We setup a yell as we saw them, and away we should have gone slap at them ifwe had been left to ourselves; for silly young soldiers never think thatharm can come to them until it is there in their midst. But the Dukehad cantered his horse beside us as we advanced, and now he roaredsomething to the general, and the officers all rode in front of our lineholding out their arms for us to stop. There was a blowing of bugles, apushing and a shoving, with the sergeants cursing and digging us withtheir halberts; and in less time than it takes me to write it, there wasthe brigade in three neat little squares, all bristling with bayonetsand in echelon, as they call it, so that each could fire across the faceof the other.
It was the saving of us, as even so young a soldier as I was could veryeasily see; and we had none too much time either. There was a lowrolling hill on our right flank, and from behind this there came a soundlike nothing on this earth so much as the beat of the waves on theBerwick coast when the wind blows from the east. The earth was allshaking with that dull roaring sound, and the air was full of it.
"Steady, 71st! for God's sake, steady!" shrieked the voice of ourcolonel behind us; but in front was nothing but the green gentle slopeof the grassland, all mottled with daisies and dandelions.
And then suddenly over the curve we saw eight hundred brass helmets riseup, all in a moment, each with a long tag of horsehair flying from itscrest; and then eight hundred fierce brown faces all pushed forward, andglaring out from between the ears of as many horses. There was aninstant of gleaming breastplates, waving swords, tossing manes, fiercered nostrils opening and shutting, and hoofs pawing the air before us;and then down came the line of muskets, and our bullets smacked upagainst their armour like the clatter of a hailstorm upon a window. Ifired with the rest, and then rammed down another charge as fast as Icould, staring out through the smoke in front of me, where I could seesome long, thin thing which napped slowly backwards and forwards. Abugle sounded for us to cease firing, and a whiff of wind came to clearthe curtain from in front of us, and then we could see what hadhappened.
I had expected to see half that regiment of horse lying on the ground;but whether it was that their breastplates had shielded them, orwhether, being young and a little shaken at their coming, we had firedhigh, our volley had done no very great harm. About thirty horses layabout, three of them together within ten yards of me, the middle onerigh
t on its back with its four legs in the air, and it was one of thesethat I had seen flapping through the smoke. Then there were eight or tendead men and about as many wounded, sitting dazed on the grass for themost part, though one was shouting "_Vive l'Empereur!_" at the top ofhis voice. Another fellow who had been shot in the thigh--a greatblack-moustached chap he was too--leaned his back against his dead horseand, picking up his carbine, fired as coolly as if he had been shootingfor a prize, and hit Angus Myres, who was only two from me, rightthrough the forehead. Then he out with his hand to get another carbinethat lay near, but before he could reach it big Hodgson, who was thepivot man of the Grenadier company, ran out and passed his bayonetthrough his throat, which was a pity, for he seemed to be a very fineman.
At first I thought that the cuirassiers had run away in the smoke; butthey were not men who did that very easily. Their horses had swerved atour volley, and they had raced past our square and taken the fire of thetwo other ones beyond. Then they broke through a hedge, and coming on aregiment of Hanoverians who were in line, they treated them as theywould have treated us if we had not been so quick, and cut them topieces in an instant. It was dreadful to see the big Germans runningand screaming while the cuirassiers stood up in their stirrups to have abetter sweep for their long, heavy swords, and cut and stabbed withoutmercy. I do not believe that a hundred men of that regiment were leftalive; and the Frenchmen came back across our front, shouting at us andwaving their weapons, which were crimson down to the hilts. This theydid to draw our fire, but the colonel was too old a soldier; for wecould have done little harm at the distance, and they would have beenamong us before we could reload.
These horsemen got behind the ridge on our right again, and we knew verywell that if we opened up from the squares they would be down upon us ina twinkle. On the other hand, it was hard to bide as we were; for theyhad passed the word to a battery of twelve guns, which formed up a fewhundred yards away from us, but out of our sight, sending their ballsjust over the brow and down into the midst of us, which is called aplunging fire. And one of their gunners ran up on to the top of theslope and stuck a handspike into the wet earth to give them a guide,under the very muzzles of the whole brigade, none of whom fired a shotat him, each leaving him to the other. Ensign Samson, who was theyoungest subaltern in the regiment, ran out from the square and pulleddown the hand-spike; but quick as a jack after a minnow, a lancer cameflying over the ridge, and he made such a thrust from behind that notonly his point but his pennon too came out between the second and thirdbuttons of the lad's tunic. "Helen! Helen!" he shouted, and fell deadon his face, while the lancer, blown half to pieces with musket balls,toppled over beside him, still holding on to his weapon, so that theylay together with that dreadful bond still connecting them.
But when the battery opened there was no time for us to think ofanything else. A square is a very good way of meeting a horseman, butthere is no worse one of taking a cannon ball, as we soon learned whenthey began to cut red seams through us, until our ears were weary of theslosh and splash when hard iron met living flesh and blood. After tenminutes of it we moved our square a hundred paces to the right; but weleft another square behind us, for a hundred and twenty men and sevenofficers showed where we had been standing. Then the guns found us outagain, and we tried to open out into line; but in an instant thehorsemen--lancers they were this time--were upon us from over the brae.
I tell you we were glad to hear the thud of their hoofs, for we knewthat that must stop the cannon for a minute and give us a chance ofhitting back. And we hit back pretty hard too that time, for we werecold and vicious and savage, and I for one felt that I cared no more forthe horsemen than if they had been so many sheep on Corriemuir. Onegets past being afraid or thinking of one's own skin after a while, andyou just feel that you want to make some one pay for all you have gonethrough. We took our change out of the lancers that time; for they hadno breastplates to shield them, and we cleared seventy of them out oftheir saddles at a volley. Maybe, if we could have seen seventy mothersweeping for their lads, we should not have felt so pleased over it; butthen, men are just brutes when they are fighting, and have as muchthought as two bull pups when they've got one another by the throttle.
Then the colonel did a wise stroke; for he reckoned that this wouldstave off the cavalry for five minutes, so he wheeled us into line, andgot us back into a deeper hollow out of reach of the guns before theycould open again. This gave us time to breathe, and we wanted it too,for the regiment had been melting away like an icicle in the sun.But bad as it was for us, it was a deal worse for some of the others.The whole of the Dutch Belgians were off by this time helter-skelter,fifteen thousand of them, and there were great gaps left in our linethrough which the French cavalry rode as pleased them best. Then theFrench guns had been too many and too good for ours, and our heavy horsehad been cut to bits, so that things were none too merry with us.On the other hand, Hougoumont, a blood-soaked ruin, was still ours, andevery British regiment was firm; though, to tell the honest truth, as aman is bound to do, there were a sprinkling of red coats among the blueones who made for the rear. But these were lads and stragglers, thefaint hearts that are found everywhere, and I say again that no regimentflinched. It was little we could see of the battle; but a man would beblind not to know that all the fields behind us were covered with flyingmen. But then, though we on the right wing knew nothing of it, thePrussians had begun to show, and Napoleon had set 20,000 of his men toface them, which made up for ours that had bolted, and left us much aswe began. That was all dark to us, however; and there was a time, whenthe French horsemen had flooded in between us and the rest of the army,that we thought we were the only brigade left standing, and had set ourteeth with the intention of selling our lives as dearly as we could.
At that time it was between four and five in the afternoon, and we hadhad nothing to eat, the most of us, since the night before, and weresoaked with rain into the bargain. It had drizzled off and on all day,but for the last few hours we had not had a thought to spare either uponthe weather or our hunger. Now we began to look round and tighten ourwaist-belts, and ask who was hit and who was spared. I was glad to seeJim, with his face all blackened with powder, standing on my right rear,leaning on his firelock. He saw me looking at him, and shouted out toknow if I were hurt.
"All right, Jim," I answered.
"I fear I'm here on a wild-goose chase," said he gloomily, "but it's notover yet. By God, I'll have him, or he'll have me!"
He had brooded so much on his wrong, had poor Jim, that I really believethat it had turned his head; for he had a glare in his eyes as he spokethat was hardly human. He was always a man that took even a littlething to heart, and since Edie had left him I am sure that he was nolonger his own master.
It was at this time of the fight that we saw two single fights, whichthey tell me were common enough in the battles of old, before men weretrained in masses. As we lay in the hollow two horsemen came spurringalong the ridge right in front of us, riding as hard as hoof couldrattle. The first was an English dragoon, his face right down on hishorse's mane, with a French cuirassier, an old, grey-headed fellow,thundering behind him, on a big black mare. Our chaps set up a hootingas they came flying on, for it seemed shame to see an Englishman runlike that; but as they swept across our front we saw where the troublelay. The dragoon had dropped his sword, and was unarmed, while theother was pressing him so close that he could not get a weapon.At last, stung maybe by our hooting, he made up his mind to chance it.His eye fell on a lance beside a dead Frenchman, so he swerved his horseto let the other pass, and hopping off cleverly enough, he gripped holdof it. But the other was too tricky for him, and was on him like ashot. The dragoon thrust up with the lance, but the other turned it,and sliced him through the shoulder-blade. It was all done in aninstant, and the Frenchman cantering his horse up the brae, showing histeeth at us over his shoulder like a snarling dog.
That was one to them, but we scored one f
or us presently. They hadpushed forward a skirmish line, whose fire was towards the batteries onour right and left rather than on us; but we sent out two companies ofthe 95th to keep them in check. It was strange to hear the cracklingkind of noise that they made, for both sides were using the rifle.An officer stood among the French skirmishers--a tall, lean man with amantle over his shoulders--and as our fellows came forward he ran outmidway between the two parties and stood as a fencer would, with hissword up and his head back. I can see him now, with his lowered eyelidsand the kind of sneer that he had upon his face. On this the subalternof the Rifles, who was a fine well-grown lad, ran forward and drove fulltilt at him with one of the queer crooked swords that the rifle-mencarry. They came together like two rams--for each ran for the other--and down they tumbled at the shock, but the Frenchman was below.Our man broke his sword short off, and took the other's blade throughhis left arm; but he was the stronger man, and he managed to let thelife out of his enemy with the jagged stump of his blade. I thoughtthat the French skirmishers would have shot him down, but not a triggerwas drawn, and he got back to his company with one sword through his armand half of another in his hand.
The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales Page 11