Waterloo

by Andrew Swanston

  James left the dining room with Francis Hepburn. ‘What did you make of it?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘I agree with you, James.’ replied Hepburn. ‘The peer is being too cautious. We should dictate terms by marching to join the Prussians and crushing Napoleon once and for all.’ He paused. ‘Still, His Grace is the field marshal and we are not. We’d best do as we are told.’

  Macdonell laughed. ‘As we always do.’ At the bottom of the chateau steps, Sergeant Dawson was waiting for Macdonell. Another colonel might have left the matter to the company captain. Macdonell insisted on dealing with all disciplinary offences himself. ‘Very well, Sergeant,’ he said, ‘where are they?’

  ‘At the stables, Colonel. Corporal James Graham is with them.’ Macdonell had considered promoting one of the Grahams to make distinguishing between them easier but had decided that would not be fair on the other.

  ‘Good. Let us hear what they have to say for themselves this time.’

  The Enghien stables, at the back of the chateau, were enormous, another legacy of bygone days. Graham and the two privates were waiting at the far end of the cobbled yard. ‘Thank you, Corporal,’ said Dawson, as they approached. ‘I will take over now. You make ready for parade.’

  ‘Very good, Sergeant.’ Graham saluted and marched off, leaving his charges to their fate. Privates William Vindle and Patrick Luke were as nasty a pair of ferret-faced, thieving, good-for-nothing drunks as could be found in any regiment of the British Army. Macdonell had never quite understood how any recruiting sergeant could have taken them into a Guards regiment and, had he been able to, he would long ago have thrown them out or, better still, hanged them from a Dutch elm. Between them they had caused more trouble than the rest of the battalion put together. ‘Right, Sergeant. What have they done?’

  ‘Drunk on watch, Colonel, and fighting.’

  ‘Fighting each other or some harmless old woman?’

  ‘Each other, Colonel.’

  ‘Why?’

  Vindle, who might never have told the truth in his life, cleared his throat and rubbed his almost hairless head. His face was filthy and pockmarked. ‘It was nothing, Colonel. A little argument.’

  ‘Were you drunk?’

  ‘No, Colonel,’ replied Luke, in his slimy, weedly voice. ‘No more than a glass of rum to wet the throat.’ Macdonell stared into the narrow eyes set under a low brow and either side of a twisted beak of a nose. They were red and rheumy from drink.

  ‘Sergeant Dawson says otherwise.’

  ‘Sergeant Dawson is wrong, Colonel,’ growled Vindle.

  Macdonell took a step forward and bellowed into Vindle’s face. ‘No, Vindle, Sergeant Dawson is not wrong.’ He sniffed. ‘You stink of rum. You were drunk and you were fighting. Over who had stolen what from whom, I daresay. If I could, I would shoot you both myself. But we are going to war and you will be needed as targets for the French sharpshooters. I hope their aim is true.’ He turned to Dawson. ‘In the meantime, Sergeant, half rations, remove every bottle they have hidden in their tents and put the wretches to clearing out the stables. They can spend the day shovelling muck. Let me know if they stop for so much as ten seconds. And count yourselves fortunate, you two. If we were not about to fight the French you’d be locked in the cellar and left for the rats. No more chances. Next time it’ll be a whipping. Take them away, Sergeant, before I lose my temper and crack their heads together.’ Macdonell disliked public whippings but these two had used up all their lives.

  ‘Very good, Colonel,’ replied Dawson.

  Macdonell turned on his heel and strode off. It was time for the light companies to parade.

  In appearance, Wellington’s army had changed in the few years since it had chased the French around Spain and over the Pyrenees. Then officers wore whatever they liked and soldiers whatever they could find. A dead Frenchman’s trousers were as good as any if they were intact. Wives and daughters were kept busy darning and sewing and making up whatever they could from bits and pieces into shirts and jackets.

  The three hundred men of the Coldstream and Third Guards Light Companies, however, had done no fighting for over a year and new uniforms had not long arrived from London. In their red jackets, white trousers, stovepipe shakos and good leather shoes, they had been formed up in four lines and looked as fine as if they were in Horse Guards Parade. The shoes, especially, were a godsend. The flimsy things they had worn in the Peninsula had lasted no time on rough Spanish roads. Each man held a musket and carried a bayonet, a pouch of cartridges, another of balls, a wooden canteen and an oilskin knapsack. Only the pattern of buttons on their jackets told the two companies apart.

  These were the skirmishers, the ghosts and spirits who would work their way close to the enemy by hiding in fields and behind trees, and would pick off as many Frenchmen as they could before withdrawing quietly whence they came. Macdonell was proud of them and, in the expectation that they would march that morning, had prepared a few words of encouragement. Nothing grand, nothing Agincourt-like, just a quiet reminder of the great traditions of their regiment. But all he could tell them was that they were going nowhere until further orders arrived from Brussels. As he spoke, faces dropped and shoulders slumped. Another day hanging about with little to do, they were thinking, and he could hardly blame them. Three months in Enghien, not a Frenchman in sight and fingers itching to pull triggers. Last night, the news that the frogs were at the Sambre would have been around the camp like the plague. Why were they not being sent to meet their advance? Would they have to wait until the frogs were hopping around the gates of Brussels before attacking?

  James Macdonell, their colonel, who had fought in Spain, France and Italy, who wore the Gold Medal for Maida, could not tell them. He could only instruct Captain Wyndham to dismiss the parade and to find what work he could to keep them busy. It was not what he or they had expected.

  Nor was it what the two young ensigns attached to the Coldstream Light Company had expected. Superficially alike – smart, ambitious, hard-working sons of well-to-do families – in temperament they were as far apart as beef and mutton. Henry Gooch, seldom lost for a word, boasted of being impatient to ‘make widows of a hundred French madames’. Thoughtful, devout James Hervey, when pressed, would say only that he prayed he would let neither his regiment nor his family down. Very different, yet perhaps no more than two sides of the same coin. A coin minted in fear of what was to come – one side braggadocio, the other prayer.

  The two of them had been standing with Captain Wyndham during the parade. ‘Why are we not marching, Colonel?’ asked Gooch, as the men dispersed.

  ‘It is not for me to say, Mister Gooch,’ replied Macdonell, ‘nor for you to ask. We shall await orders.’

  ‘But, Colonel, if the French—’

  ‘Enough, sir. Your leadership skills will be tested today.’

  ‘I daresay the order to march will come soon enough,’ ventured Hervey, ‘It sounds like Buonaparte means to fight and I wonder that the Duke did not receive earlier warning from his agents in Paris. Surely they would have known?’

  ‘An interesting point, Mister Hervey, and another to which I have no answer. Now, kindly be about your business, gentlemen. Find work for your companies and for yourselves. Muskets, drill, packs. Check and check again. Keep them busy.’

  The ensigns saluted smartly and marched off towards the camp. Macdonell watched them go. Neither had seen battle and he doubted they had much inkling of what it was like to see the head of the man next to you blown to splinters of bone, or to face ranks of cheering cavalry whose sole intention is to slice you in half, or to stand in square and face artillery round shot without flinching. They would have heard stories but they would never know the awful horror of it until they experienced it for themselves. No one did.

  The day dragged on. He walked again around the park. He watched the Coldstream band at practice. He had no ear for music and could only just tell the French horn from the serpent. Pipes and trumpets and drums and c
ymbals – the instruments of battle – were more to his liking.

  He made another circuit of the camp, exchanged a few words with the Grahams and some of the men, made a show of checking musket barrels and boots – reminding the new recruits that an infantryman’s boots could kill him as readily as a French sabre – before retiring to his room to rest and to write to his mother in Glengarry.

  He was not an artist or a diarist, as some were, preferring to hold images and words in his mind rather than commit them to paper, but he was a dutiful correspondent. He wrote of his pride in his men and of the frustration of waiting. He wrote of the coming battle and his certainty of victory. He wrote of his friends, Harry Wyndham and Francis Hepburn, and he wrote of little things – Belgian bread, the kingfisher at the stream, a good claret. He inquired after his brothers and promised he would see them soon. The letter would go with the next despatch rider to Brussels and thence to Dover, London, Glasgow and Fort William. By the time it arrived, word would probably have already reached Glengarry that Napoleon had been defeated, but the Macdonells would have to wait a little longer to discover if James had survived.

  He passed the afternoon by walking slowly around Lac d’Enghien, dozing in his room, and trying with little success to read his battered copy of Waverley. His mother had assured him that Walter Scott’s splendid Fergus MacIvor was modelled on his mercurial brother, Alasdair. Perhaps. After a light supper he wandered down to the north gate of the chateau to watch the carriages and cabriolets departing for the Duchess’s Ball.

  Francis Hepburn, puffing at an enormous cigar, was there before him. He was raising his shako in salute to every carriage that passed and wishing its occupants a glorious evening. From General Byng’s open cabriolet, Colonel Woodford and Harry Wyndham, in sparkling dress uniforms, gleaming buttons and gold lace everywhere, waved happily to them. The general himself, all in black, looked rather miserable. ‘I don’t think Sir John will be dancing much, do you, James?’ asked Francis. ‘Looks like he’s off to a funeral.’

  ‘I do not blame him. He’d rather be killing Frenchmen than attempting one of their impossible dances. By the way, is it true that the ball is to be held in a coachmaker’s workshop? Seems an odd place to me.’

  ‘Not a workshop, a coach house, I believe. It’s probably the only place in Brussels big enough to accommodate all the guests. Everyone but us seems to have been invited. It is an odd place for a ball, though.’ He raised his shako to Major General Maitland, commander of the 1st Brigade. ‘Good man, Maitland,’ he said as Maitland’s carriage passed. ‘And a fine cricketer. Plays for the Marylebone Club.’

  ‘Is Miss Box attending the ball?’ asked Macdonell innocently.

  ‘She says not. Her papa is not senior enough. I shall be damned cross if I find she’s deceived me.’

  By half past seven all the carriages had departed. ‘Ah well,’ said James, ‘there’ll be a few thick heads in the morning. Let us hope Napoleon does not have a spy at the ball to send him reports on the state of the generals.’

  ‘I would not put it beyond the wily little Corsican. Intelligence officers dressed as servants and furnished with something nasty to slip into the peer’s glass. We had better hope not.’

  At the chateau, Francis went to his room. For a few minutes Macdonell stood at the steps enjoying the warm evening air and listening to the muffled sounds of soldiers preparing to sleep. Two familiar figures approached from his left. ‘Corporals,’ he greeted them. ‘An evening stroll?’

  ‘Yes, Colonel,’ replied James Graham. ‘Not quite ready to sleep. We’ve been talking and we agree.’

  ‘Agree about what?’

  ‘That we’ll march tomorrow,’ said Joseph. ‘We are sure of it.’

  ‘Then let us hope the ball is over before we do. Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight, Colonel.’ It was said in unison.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  16th June

  The news arrived by galloper an hour after midnight. The French had crossed the Sambre, taken Charleroi and were advancing rapidly towards the town of Ligny. Having delivered his report to Francis Hepburn as the duty officer, the galloper changed horses and sped on to Brussels. A second galloper had taken the direct road there but a message of such importance was commonly carried by more than one man. The Duchess’s Ball would be ending rather earlier than planned.

  His servant had no need to rouse Macdonell who had been awake since retiring soon after eight. Five hours of anxious tossing and turning had done little for his humour. With a flood of relief that the waiting was over, he barely touched the mug of tea on his writing table and was up and out of the chateau within minutes. Francis Hepburn was waiting for him by the steps.

  ‘Bonjour, James,’ he greeted Macdonell. ‘It seems you were right. Boney has caught us napping. I have ordered the drums to beat to arms but I suppose we had better wait for the dancers to return before marching.’

  ‘Let us be ready when they do.’

  A bugler sounded reveille. The drummers thumped out the call to arms. In moments, the camp was awake and about its business. Torches were lit. Sergeants and corporals shouted orders and half-dressed men scurried about, getting in each other’s way and tripping over tent ropes in their haste to make ready. Red-jacketed guards poured from outbuildings, hoisting up trousers, struggling into overalls and fumbling with buttons.

  By the flickering light of the torches Macdonell watched Joseph Graham help a nervous young private do up his jacket buttons. The boy was one of the many who were about to face their first battle. For every veteran of Spain or Italy, there were four or five in General Cooke’s Division who had never fired a shot in anger. Corporals strode up and down the lines urging the slowest to hurry. Sergeant Dawson aimed a kick at Private Vindle’s backside and received a gratifying yelp in reply. Campfires were lit and water boiled. It was over thirty miles to Charleroi. A long enough march, too long without beef and tea in a man’s stomach.

  Within the hour, chaos had turned to order and purpose. Every man had eaten, checked his musket and cartridges, packed a clean shirt and linen into his knapsack and strapped his blanket to it. Sir John Byng’s Second Brigade, the light companies at their head, formed columns outside the chateau and were ready to go to war. It needed only the return of the general himself and they would march to meet the French.

  For another hour, they stood ready. Just after three, as the first glimmerings of a summer dawn began to lighten the sky, carriages started arriving from Brussels. Byng, Woodford and Wyndham were in the first of them. Their cabriolet came to a halt outside the chateau and they jumped out. ‘I see you have made ready, James,’ said Byng. ‘Good. We will march in ten minutes. I do not care to fight in dancing shoes.’

  ‘Nor I,’ agreed Woodford, before taking the steps two at a time and disappearing into the chateau.

  ‘My apologies, James,’ said Harry Wyndham, sounding not in the least apologetic. ‘Perhaps I should have stayed here. And the ball was tedious. Too much talk of Buonaparte and very little waltzing. Not to my taste at all.’

  ‘No more than you deserve, Harry,’ replied Macdonell with a grin. ‘Be off with you and get ready.’

  When the officers reappeared, the trumpets sounded, the drums rolled and the columns moved off, the regimental colours of the Coldstream Guards and the Third Guards held proudly aloft. Light companies at the front, line infantry and artillery in the middle, quartermaster and his long train of carts and fourgons at the rear. From the direction of the stables, a private, his pregnant wife hanging on to his arm, came hurrying to catch the last wagon. He bundled her in and ran to join his company.

  To the beat of the drums and cymbals, the deep bass of the serpents and the cheerful trill of the flutes, nearly two thousand men, horses, wagons and camp followers trundled into the town. Boots thumped down on the cobbles, wagon wheels clanked and rattled and nervous horses kicked and snorted their displeasure, their breath hanging briefly in the morning air. Along the way, they collected men
and women from their billets, the men taking their places with their companies, the women joining the supply train. On street corners and from upstairs windows, ancient Flemish women in their strange long-sided caps gaped in awe and young ones, some still in their shifts, waved fond farewells from doorways and street corners. The most daring of them darted forward to thrust a cheese or a pie into a grateful hand or for a fleeting embrace. Many wore squares of orange silk or cotton over their hair.

  In the town square a score of latecomers, bleary-eyed and bad-tempered, appeared and found their places in the line. Down the Grand Avenue they marched to the steady beat of the drums. The town had woken and the going became slower through the crowds. By the time the light companies reached the edge of the town, the sun had risen in a cloudless sky. The day would be hot. They passed farmers bringing their fruit and vegetables to market and milkmaids returning from the fields. Any man who tried to grab a cabbage or an onion from a barrow or a dog cart risked the wrath of his sergeant. Macdonell, like Wellington himself, had let it be known that he would not tolerate theft from the local people. Everything must be paid for. Dawson and his corporals ensured, as far as they could, that the rule was enforced. Unlike the soldiers, small boys scrambled about grabbing whatever they could before scurrying home with their booty.

  It was the best part of an hour before the entire 2nd Brigade was safely out of the town and on the road south. A mile on they joined General Maitland’s 1st Brigade, which had been billeted on the other side of the town. Four thousand men of the 1st Division of Foot Guards were, at last, on their way to war.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  As the morning grew hotter, they marched on through hamlets, across shallow streams and past farms and cottages. The road was seldom more than baked earth, broken by short stretches of embedded flint and chalk or a thin layer of gravel. Farm workers, traders and innkeepers stopped their work to watch them go by. Most simply stood and stared. A few waved orange flags and shouted enouragement. At the front of the column the 2nd Battalion light companies set the pace. Macdonell, riding at their rear, made sure it was not too fast. Exhausted men would not be much use when it came to fighting.