Before taking up his commission in the Coldstream Guards, Macdonell had served as a captain in the 17th Dragoons. He was comfortable on a horse. Many infantry officers, Francis Hepburn among them, were not. For the march he had chosen a handsome grey who knew him well, beautifully turned out by the grooms. His saddle glowed, and his stirrups sparkled in the sun. In clean overalls, he could almost have been a cavalry officer. At his side he wore his sword encased in a black leather scabbard. It was a fine weapon, given to him by his late father. At almost a yard of straight, pointed steel, with a bone handle covered in fish skin and a heavy brass guard engraved with his initials, it needed a strong man to wield it. James Macdonell was a strong man.
They marched between fields of corn and rye as high as a man’s shoulder. In grassland red and yellow poppies and blue cornflowers danced in the breeze, and in low hedgerows mallows and loosestrife took shelter from the sun. Flat the land might be, but fertile and pretty enough.
Outside the village of Braine-le-Comte the Division halted. They had marched twelve miles in four hours and needed food and rest. Seven men from the 2nd Battalion had already fallen by the wayside and Macdonell did not want to lose more. He had ordered them to be left with sufficient water and instructions to rejoin their companies when they could. If they were malingerers intending to disappear, they would not be missed.
While the men boiled their kettles and ate their beef and biscuit, he trotted back down the line to find General Byng. The further back he went the thicker the dust and the greater the number of men who had succumbed and been left to fend for themselves. Behind them, General Maitland’s 1st Division must have been suffering even more.
He found Byng with Colonel Woodford. ‘I have halted the light companies, sir,’ he reported. ‘Are we to enter the town or await orders?’
‘I wish I knew,’ replied Byng gently. ‘We believe that the Prince of Orange has set up his headquarters in the town but General Cooke has as yet received no orders from him. The general is becoming impatient.’
‘A party has been despatched to find the Prince,’ added Woodford. ‘They should have returned by now.’
‘Shall I return to my battalion, sir?’
‘Might as well stay here until we know more, James,’ replied Byng. ‘How is morale?’
‘It is good, sir, but if we are to fight today, it will be with tired men.’
From the rear of the column, a party of riders trotted towards them. One of them carried the 1st Division’s standard. ‘Ah,’ said Woodford, ‘here is General Cooke.’
Whether mounted or on foot, Major General George Cooke was a man of formidable presence and looked a good deal less than his forty-seven years. Square-jawed and broad-shouldered, he would not have been out of place in a prize fight. He had found time since leaving Brussels to change into his usual black jacket and white breeches. As he approached, he leant forward in his saddle and thundered, ‘Does anyone know what the devil’s going on? Because I certainly do not.’
‘Can the Prince not be found, General?’ asked Byng.
‘No, dammit, he cannot. My scouts report that the Hôtel du Miroir, where he is supposed to be, is deserted. The locals say that men and artillery have been passing through the village all night and the streets, I gather, are still full of them. But not a word from the young frog.’ Prince Willem Frederik van Oranje-Nassau GCB, old Etonian, friend of the Prince Regent and Commander of 1 Corps of the Allied army, was known variously as His Royal Highness, slender Billy or the young frog.
‘Where has he gone, General?’ asked Byng.
‘He and his aides left on the Nivelles road, but whether I’m supposed to follow him or stay here, I am at a loss to know. Two Brigades, four thousand men and equipment, and no orders. It’s as bad as Flanders twenty years ago. What do you recommend, gentlemen?’
Macdonell cleared his throat. ‘If I may, General, if the streets are blocked it will take us some time to get through, but the men need rest. If we are ordered to make haste to Nivelles, it would be better to be on the other side of the town.’
General Cooke stroked his chin. ‘Very well. We will march on through Braine-le-Comte and then rest until noon. By then the Prince might have remembered to send us his orders. If not, we will go on to Nivelles. Proceed, gentlemen.’
At the front of the line, Macdonell found Harry Wyndham drinking tea with Sergeant Dawson. They jumped up when they saw him. ‘We’re on the move again, Harry,’ he said. ‘We’re to rest on the other side of the town until noon.’
‘Is the view better from there?’ asked Wyndham, grinning as broadly as ever.
‘I doubt it. It seems the town is blocked so we had best get through in case we are needed in a hurry. Get them moving, please. Quick as you can.’
Wyndham emptied the remains of his tea on the grass. ‘Thank you for the tea, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘Very good, it was. But now we must be off. Rouse the men, please, and we’ll find a way through the town. Pass the word that we’ll rest on the other side. That should lift their spirits.’
‘I will, Captain,’ replied Dawson, straightening his jacket around his midriff, ‘although a barrel of gin would lift them more.’
The battalion was soon on its way again. This time Macdonell rode at the head of the column. If the town was really blocked, he wanted to assess for himself how bad it was.
It did not take him long to realise that it was very bad. He ordered Harry to halt the column on the edge of the town, dismounted and tethered his horse. The main street was a melee of men, horses and wagons on their way to Brussels, the lanes and alleys off it entirely blocked by carts and animals whose owners had taken refuge from the lines of retreating and advancing soldiers. Local carters and shopkeepers bawled and cursed and jostled the retreating soldiers. Just as in Enghien, carts were overturned and urchins crawled about in search of plunder. Further north the shouts had been shouts of encouragement. Here ancient crones shouted insults, accusing the cowardly British of leaving them to be robbed and raped by the French. A small boy darted forward to kick an infantryman’s bandaged leg. Another threw a handful of stones at a wagon carrying the wounded. Both disappeared down dark alleys before they could be caught.
These were the troops who were stationed near Charleroi and had taken the full force of the French attack. Among the wounded, the lucky ones were being comforted by their women. Most had to suffer alone. There was little sound of distress, as if all energy had been expended. Instead, those who could be propped up sat and stared blankly into the distance. The rest lay silently, many curled up like babes asleep. Very few of the bloodied faces and shattered bodies looked capable of surviving the journey to Brussels. Beside them the walking wounded struggled to keep up, some holding on to the side of a wagon, others, their eyes bandaged, with a hand on a comrade’s shoulder. Among the British were Nassauers, Germans and Netherlanders in their black and green uniforms.
There was a sharp shove in the small of Macdonell’s back. He lurched forward and narrowly avoided colliding with a limping lieutenant wearing the badge of the 3rd Infantry Division. The exhausted man was using his musket as a crutch. His left trouser leg was red from waist to ankle. Macdonell apologised and asked where they had come from. ‘East of Nivelles,’ the lieutenant mumbled, where, he said, there had been heavy fighting. The wagons were taking the wounded and the women back to Brussels. ‘The Hanoverians are behind us,’ he added. ‘They have had a bloody time of it. They were caught in the open by Lancers before they could form square. The devils were hiding in the woods.’ He was slurring his words and looked ready to drop. ‘God be with you if you are heading that way, sir.’ It was little more than a whisper. The wretched man was wounded not only in body but also in mind. He would not reach Brussels.
Macdonell had seen French Lancers at their murderous work at Maida. Deceptively elegant in their blue uniforms, often with yellow collars and facings, they had ripped the heart out of an entire infantry battalion before it could form defensive squares,
spearing the fleeing men with their lances, cutting and slashing with their sabres and butchering the wounded as they lay helpless on the ground. They had revelled in their ferocity, sparing not a man and shrieking for joy as they hacked at arms and faces. He had hoped never to witness such slaughter again.
The division should wait, of course, until the town was clear before entering it. The road was not wide enough to allow two columns to pass and the side streets were blocked. But if the Hanoverians were also coming, it would be some time before the division could proceed. And if the French cavalry were on the rampage, it was time they did not have.
Macdonell recovered his horse and made his way back to where Harry Wyndham was waiting for him. ‘The town is blocked, Harry,’ he reported, ‘but we cannot wait. Take twenty men and see what you can do to clear a way for us. Don’t mind too much about the locals – they seem to have turned against us, fickle buggers. Bundle them all into side streets if you have to. Ought to try a bit of fighting themselves. Take Hervey and Gooch and the Grahams with you.’
Harry, as ever, grinned. ‘Eighteen men and two Grahams makes thirty. Should be plenty, sir.’
‘Good. Off you go. We’ll wait here. Send word when it’s clear to march on. Oh, and Harry, they’ve had a bad time of it, but we must get past.’
‘Right, sir.’
While they waited, Macdonell ordered his men to lie down. Eat when you can, rest when you can. In the heat and dust of Spain it had been Wellington’s mantra. It was an hour before a light company private trotted back from the town with a message from Captain Wyndham that it was safe to proceed. Macdonell thanked the man and sent him straight back to report that they were coming.
In the town it was as if the entire population had been swept off the main street and crammed into the alleys and lanes running off it. Light infantrymen stood shoulder-to-shoulder across each junction, their muskets held across their chests, their backs to the main street, blithely ignoring the howls of fury and protest. An enormously fat man brandishing a leg of pork tried to push his way past a guard. He was sent crashing backwards into a cart by a sharp blow with the butt of a Brown Bess. The infantryman stepped nimbly forward, grabbed the leg of pork and stuffed it into his haversack before anyone else had moved.
The two ensigns were busy keeping an angry group of women armed with cooking pans from launching an attack from the town hall. James and Joseph Graham were marching up and down the street, lending their weight where it was needed. They nodded a greeting to Macdonell. ‘Just like herding the cows for milking,’ called out James.
‘Only cows do not throw cabbages,’ added Joseph, bending down to pick one up. He lobbed it to his brother. ‘Keep that for the pot, shall we?’
Macdonell found Harry at the far end of the town. Somehow the captain had managed to halt the retreating column outside it, clear the street, and pen the locals in the side streets. ‘How did you do it, Harry?’ asked Macdonell.
‘Bit of luck, Colonel,’ replied Wyndham. ‘Bumped in to an old friend in the Cambridgeshires, asked him to speak to his colonel. He did and the colonel was happy to oblige, even though he has lost an eye. Said he was not going to get it back in Brussels, so he might just as well wait for us to pass. He is halted outside the town until we go through.’
‘Are they badly cut up?’
‘Pretty bad,’ he said. ‘Netherlanders and Hanoverians took the worst of it. South of a crossroads called Les Quatre Bras. Outnumbered and short of cavalry. Charlie is escorting the wounded. Hopes reinforcements will reach the crossroads before they are all wiped out.’
‘Right, let us get through as fast as we can. We’ll halt beyond the town and wait for orders to march on.’
With the street clear, both brigades marched quickly through the town, ignoring missiles and abuse, until they emerged into the countryside on the southern edge, where the Cambridgeshires were waiting. Macdonell found Colonel Hamilton, his face swathed in bandages, lying in a wagon, apparently asleep. ‘He has lost his right eye,’ said a medical orderly. ‘The left is also in danger.’
‘Artillery shell?’ asked Macdonell.
‘Yes, sir. Killed four officers.’
‘Get him back to Brussels, if you can. And thank him for his cooperation.’
‘I will, sir. And good luck. Give the frogs what they deserve.’
The fields in which four thousand men gratefully threw off their packs, laid down their weapons and lit fires for their tea, sloped gently up from either side of the road. There was no shade and in the full glare of the sun it was burning hot. Jackets were unbuttoned and shakos removed. On the march, the buttons would be done up again and the shakos replaced. They left the wagons and artillery on the road rather than laboriously manhandle them into the fields. The horses were left in their traces with their nosebags strapped on and given water and fodder by the grooms. While they ate, farriers came forward from the rear to check their hooves and repair damaged shoes as best they could.
Enterprising traders, resentment apparently forgotten, appeared from the town with bottles of wine and loaves of fresh bread and moved among the resting men peddling their wares.
From a vantage point halfway up the slope on the left side of the road, Macdonell saw General Byng arrive at the rear of the 2nd Brigade. Byng dismounted, sat down on a camp stool provided by an aide and mopped his brow. Macdonell waited until the general had a glass in his hand before walking down.
‘Ah, James,’ Byng greeted him. ‘We are all through the town. Did you encounter any problems?’
‘A vegetable or two, sir, nothing more. Has the Prince sent orders?’
‘He has not, dammit. General Cooke has worked himself into a rare fury and I cannot say that I blame him. A poor chain of command almost guarantees failure.’ Byng lowered his voice. ‘And between you and me, I am not at all sure of the Netherlanders. They’ve seen the mess their militia battalions are in and some of them, we should not forget, were fighting for Napoleon not so long ago.’
‘We can hardly tell them to go home, General,’ replied Macdonell. ‘So I suppose we must hope for the best.’
‘Hope for the best. It’s about all we seem to do at the moment. Orders. That’s what we need. Orders to march and bloody some French noses.’
Macdonell had seldom seen the general so exercised. It must have been the heat. He spoke gently. ‘The men do need a rest, sir, and food. Doubtless our orders will arrive shortly.’
The general raised an eyebrow. ‘Go and drink your tea, James. I’ll send word.’
Harry Wyndham had brewed tea in a Flemish kettle. He handed Macdonell a mug. ‘Hot and sweet, James, just like those highland lassies. Any news?’
‘Still awaiting orders. Have you made a count? Has the battalion lost many?’
‘Thirty, I think.’ Out of nearly nine hundred, that was better than might have been expected. ‘Exhaustion, mostly, and foot sores.’
‘Morale?’
‘Up and down. The wagonloads of wounded shook the new men. No one is sure about the Netherlanders and there are voices of dissent.’
‘Dissent?’
Harry affected the voice of a borderer. ‘If His Grace had not spent the night dancing we’d be among the frogs by now, not sitting in a field dripping with sweat, hungry and parched and not knowing where or when we’re going. Something like that.’
‘Make sure the new men are mixed in with the older ones. Don’t let them form their own little groups. And tell them to sing. Singing’s good for the spirit. How are Gooch and Hervey faring?’
‘Well enough. I think they’ll do.’
At noon the trumpets sounded and the drums beat to arms. Hastily they packed up, made ready and, under the watchful eyes of Captain Wyndham, Sergeant Dawson and the Corporals Graham, marched down the slope and on to the road south. General Byng was waiting to join his 2nd Division. He saw Macdonell and beckoned him over. ‘Still no orders, James, but General Cooke’s patience has run out. We are heading for the town of Nivel
les – ten miles or so east. We’ll bivouac there tonight.’ James could only hope the general was right about a bivouac. Ten more miles of heat, flies and dust, and half the division would be beyond fighting.
CHAPTER SIX
Unencumbered by artillery and wagons, the light companies drew steadily ahead of the rest of the division. After two hours’ march, they came to a cluster of farm buildings with a narrow stream running between them, where Macdonell ordered a halt. Judging by the dust cloud behind them, the wagons and artillery were a good mile behind and both men and horses needed food and water.
While the troops rested by the side of the road, Harry Wyndham led a party to buy whatever he could from the farmers. Macdonell handed him a small bag of coins, issued that morning by the quartermaster. ‘Offer them a fair price, Harry,’ he said, ‘but not too much. Hay for the horses and I see turnips and cabbages in the fields. Fresh meat if they have any. Might be a pig or two hanging in a barn.’ While Harry went in search of food, a second party was sent with buckets and kettles to fetch water from the stream.
All afternoon they had passed small groups of transports and wounded men heading west. As at Braine-le-Comte, they were mostly from Dutch and German regiments and had made way for the Guards to march past. They had obligingly hauled wagons and herded cattle off the road and even pushed the wagon carrying the Prince’s personal equipment to one side. A few words were exchanged but there was no time to dally.
Macdonell was holding the bridle as his horse munched tufts of dry grass on the edge of a field when another party appeared from the direction of Nivelles. This one was different. Twenty or so blue-coated and unarmed Frenchmen under the guard of four Brunswickers. He led his horse down the road to meet them.
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