Macdonell had to shout. ‘The chateau is on fire. I will have the wounded brought into the garden. We will hold the house and the farm as long as we can and then join you here. Saltoun will hold the orchard.’
‘Saltoun’s gone. Francis Hepburn has taken over the orchard with the 3rd Guards. They cleared the lane to get there.’
Macdonell shook his head in surprise. He had no idea that Saltoun had been replaced. In the confusion, he had seen nothing and no word had reached him. Women, Saltoun, what else did the officer in charge of the defence of Hougoumont not know? Yet it was hardly surprising. The 1st Guards in the orchard had had the very worst of the fighting and must have been exhausted. ‘Then we shall be in Francis’s hands and if we hold the lane there is a chance of reinforcements.’
‘A chance. Your plan is sound, James. You have my support.’
‘Thank you. Please tell Harry, wherever he is.’
‘I will.’
At the north gates, the foul stench of burning flesh still hung heavy in the air. The roof and walls of the barn were no more, exposing its gruesome contents for all to see. Among the ashes and embers, the fire had left blackened, scorched, twisted reminders of the terror and agony it had brought.
James Hervey had lost the advantage of the cowshed roof, now a heap of smouldering timbers, but the gates were still intact. Macdonell stood on a half-barrel and looked over the wall. His arm throbbed and the palms of his hands were raw. He ignored them. French bodies covered the clearing. He stepped down and told Hervey his plan. ‘You will remain here until I send orders to withdraw into the garden,’ he said. ‘Bring with you all the muskets and ammunition you can carry. French or British, either will do. Make two trips if you have to, but be quick. The order will come only at the last minute.’
Hervey nodded. ‘I understand, Colonel.’
A shout came from a man at the wall. ‘Single rider coming down the lane, sir. Uniform of a major.’
‘Let him in,’ shouted back Macdonell. A single rider was unlikely to be a French trick.
The gates were briefly opened and the major ushered in. He did not dismount. ‘Major Andrew Hamilton,’ he introduced himself. ‘I have an order for Colonel Macdonell from His Grace.’
‘I am Macdonell. What is the order?’ The major handed him a rolled sheet of goatskin. The order was in the Duke’s hand and written in pencil. Macdonell read it twice. ‘Thank you, Major. Please assure His Grace that I shall do exactly as he orders.’ Hamilton saluted and turned his mount to leave. ‘Before you go, Major,’ called out Macdonell, ‘what news can you give us?’
‘The artillery bombardment continues, as you can hear. French cavalry threaten our squares. The farm at La Haye Sainte is barely held. His Grace believes the battle will be decided here at Hougoumont.’
‘And the Prussians?’
‘An hour away at least. Good luck, Colonel.’
‘Well, well,’ said Macdonell, when the major had gone. ‘His Grace orders us to hold the chateau, being careful to avoid falling timbers, and to retire to the garden when we have to. A happy coincidence, don’t you agree, Hervey?’
Hervey grinned. ‘I do, sir. No room for doubt or dispute.’
‘Quite. But remember. Only when I give the order and then at the run.’
The flames had reached the chapel and were playing around the door. The roof of the chateau was on fire and the top of the tower had disappeared. Henry Gooch, still unable to speak, had returned to the south gate. Macdonell gave him his orders and returned to the chateau. From there he would get the best view and would know when the moment to withdraw to the garden had come.
The hallway where the wounded had lain – those lucky enough not to have been in the barn – was, for the moment, intact. He remembered the women. He found them in the dining room, tending to rows of wounded men lying on the floor. One was dressing the stump of an arm, the other bandaging a head. ‘I am surprised to find you here, ladies,’ he shouted over the cannon and muskets, ‘although you are not unwelcome. The barn has gone and the roof of this house is on fire. I have ordered the wounded taken to the garden and treated there. You must go there yourselves. The surgeon’s assistants are dead.’
‘As you wish, Colonel,’ replied the younger woman. ‘Osborne – my husband – is in the orchard.’
‘And mine,’ added the other. ‘Tom Rogers, private.’
‘Go at once. The house is not safe. These men will be carried there.’ The women nodded.
He climbed the stairs, also intact but unsteady under his weight, and reached the upper floor. Private Lester and his three comrades were still there, firing from the windows into the wood and the far end of the clearing. Above their heads, the roof timbers were spitting and crackling in the flames. With hardly a break, the four men had been there for over four hours, relatively safe from enemy muskets but at the mercy of cannon and now from fire.
Macdonell repeated his orders to Lester. ‘We will hold the house to the last minute before withdrawing to the garden. I have ordered the wounded taken there. Is that clear, Private?’
Joseph Lester straightened up from ramming a ball into the barrel of a musket, his back to a window. In the fury of the battle outside, Macdonell did not hear the shot. It could only have been a lucky one, aimed in the general direction of the chateau. Lester fell forward, blood spurting from his shoulder.
Macdonell sighed. ‘I cannot spare another man. You must manage as you are.’ He was gone before any of them could reply.
To reach the orchard he ran back through the garden and clambered over the wall. As Charles Woodford had said, Saltoun had returned to the ridge and left the orchard and the lane in the hands of Francis Hepburn and his 3rd Guards. Beyond the hedge, so ragged it was more like a broken row of scrubby bushes, and the ditch, now a common grave, Lancers milled about in the field, preparing for their next attack. The orchard had changed hands three or four times that day and there was no saying that it would not do so again.
Francis was supervising the cleaning of muskets and distribution of ammunition. He saw James making his way between what was left of the fruit trees and waved a hand. ‘You come at a good time, James,’ he shouted. ‘A lull in the fighting, brief no doubt, and we’re in need of every man we can get.’
Macdonell came up to him. ‘As are we all. I was not aware that you had replaced Saltoun.’
‘The message probably went astray. Saltoun’s men were out on their feet and could do no more. The peer sent us down to take over. We’ve seen off one attack and we’re expecting another.’ He pointed at the Lancers in the field. ‘Look at the devils getting ready.’
‘I see them. Francis, I came to tell you our orders. We are to hold the chateau for as long as we can and then withdraw into the garden to join Charles Woodford and Harry Wyndham. You will be at our back.’
‘I do hope so. At least that will mean we are still alive.’
There was a huge explosion from the farm. A box of ammunition must have gone up. ‘We cannot fight the fire and the French at the same time, Francis,’ said James, ‘whatever the peer expects of us.’
‘I know you, James. You will find a way.’ He paused. ‘Do you know, I rather think that this might be the first battle ever in which there are no survivors at all. The carnage on the ridge is beyond words.’
‘The carnage everywhere must be beyond words. We have hundreds dead. I fear Lester is among them, your champion. I saw him fall.’ Macdonell looked over Hepburn’s shoulder. ‘It seems your Lancers are leaving.’
Francis turned to look. ‘So they are. Ah, there’s the reason.’ Down the slope from the ridge, marching steadily in line, was a battalion of green-jacketed infantry. They were followed by a second battalion. Nearly two thousand men in all. ‘King’s German Legion. Excellent troops. Now your rear will be secure, James.’
‘Good. But much of the farm has been destroyed and the chateau is on fire. I will leave the Germans to you.’
They were fighting not one batt
le to defend Hougoumont, but four – in the orchard, the garden, the farm and the chateau. Hold Hougoumont, the Duke had said, and the battle will be won. From the ridge he would have seen enough to know what was happening there. He knew the chateau was on fire and the farm and garden under bombardment. He probably knew or could guess that they had no food or water. He knew they were exhausted. He would have a good idea of their depleted numbers. He had sent two battalions of German veterans to reinforce the orchard. And he had sent down clear orders. Hougoumont must be held.
The latest attack on the south gate, like the others, had failed. The French had withdrawn to lick their wounds before trying again. In the distance cannon roared and muskets fired, but around the farm there was a strange quiet. Not silence – in battle there was never silence – but the sounds of voices and movement rather than guns.
Sergeant Dawson was sitting in the mud, his back to the wall, trying to open a cartridge of powder with his teeth. It was something he had done hundreds, thousands of times. But he could not do it. His mouth was too dry. Macdonell took the cartridge from him and bit off the end. Although he had fired less than half the number of rounds that the sergeant and his men had, his mouth too was like tinder. Dawson nodded his thanks.
There was no water. Those who could, emptied their bladders down the barrels of their muskets to cool them. Those who could not, threw their gun down and went in search for a replacement. Bleeding lips were dosed with drops of gin. Sweat and dust were rubbed from streaming eyes. Hands and fingers rubbed raw were wrapped in scraps of cloth. Macdonell inspected his own hands. They were red and sore from the barn floor. He forced a drop of saliva into his mouth and spat on them. That would have to do.
Henry Gooch, now barely recognisable, was on his feet, moving painfully from man to man, patting shoulders and shaking hands. ‘Seriously wounded to the garden, Mister Gooch,’ ordered Macdonell. ‘Everyone else to make ready for the next attack. It won’t be long coming.’ Gooch raised a hand in acknowledgement.
The roof of the chateau was still blazing but had not yet fallen in, nor had the fire spread below the top floor. The chapel and the gardener’s house were alight. The tower had gone.
At the north gates, James Hervey was bustling about, inspecting wounds and checking muskets. James Graham was on a step at the wall. From the slump of his shoulders, even he looked exhausted. His brother was propped against the draw well. His eyes were closed but his thigh had been strapped and he was losing no more blood.
Macdonell called up to Graham. ‘Take your brother to the garden, Corporal Graham. The surgeon will do what he can there. Be quick now.’ Graham stepped clumsily down and stumbled to the well. ‘Mister Hervey, I rather think we are in for another dose of angry Frenchmen and this one even nastier than the last. Are you prepared?’
From a face streaked with powder and dirt, Macdonell saw a tiny glint of teeth. A man who could smile or even try to smile after fighting for nearly six hours deserved to survive. ‘We are, Colonel, as best we can. Primed and loaded.’ The words rasped in his throat.
‘Very well. Colonel Woodford and Captain Wyndham are in the garden. I shall be at the south gate. God be with you.’
‘And with you, Colonel.’
They both knew that the next French attack would be the last. With his two thousand Germans, Francis Hepburn might hold the orchard but if Jérôme was calling up yet more troops, Hougoumont was surely doomed. A few hundred tired men could hold it no longer. They would be forced to withdraw to the garden.
The fire was still raging. The barn was gone, and the cowshed, and the stables. The chateau roof had finally collapsed, dropping timbers on to the floor below and setting it alight. The chapel was burning, the farmer’s house was burning. Round shot had destroyed the tower and reduced the yards to piles of rubble. The dead lay among bricks and timbers and ashes. There was no time to move them. Carnage, Francis Hepburn had said. It was the right word.
The captain who trotted down the lane from the ridge at the head of three companies of black-clad Brunswickers and led them through the north gates into the farm was tall and fair. Macdonell recognised him at once. ‘Captain Hellman, we meet again.’
The captain grinned and handed him a canteen of water. ‘It is my pleasure, Colonel. I have five hundred men. Where would you like them?’
Macdonell tipped water into his mouth and swilled it around before swallowing. ‘A hundred at the north gate, Captain, two hundred in the garden and the remainder here in the south yard, if you please. Do you have enough water for all?’
‘Two canteens each.’
Another volley of four-pound balls crashed into the wall. ‘Make haste, Captain. The enemy are at the gates.’
With Captain Hellman’s Brunswickers, there were now about a thousand men in the farm and the garden. Francis Hepburn, reinforced by the Germans, would have over two thousand in the orchard. How many would Jérôme hurl at them?
It did not take the light cannon much longer. Jérôme had lost patience. He wanted the affair over. Volley after volley struck the south wall, smashing holes in the brickwork and breaking it open. The holes soon became gaps large enough for one man to get through, then two, then three. The gate hung loose on its hinges. Macdonell stood with the Guards and the Brunswickers waiting for the moment. He had ordered every spare musket loaded and stacked by the fire steps along the wall. The Duke had sent reinforcements and must now be expecting them to fight on in the farm. Perhaps the Prussians had at last arrived. If so, they would be threatening the French right wing. If the Guards and Brunswickers could keep Jérôme’s troops at the burning Hougoumont, it would reduce Buonaparte’s options. Now there would be no withdrawal to the garden.
The first warning came from the men on the fire steps by the gate. Prince Jérôme might well have demanded more men but he had decided, as if to atone for not having done so earlier, to blast what remained of Hougoumont to dust. He had brought up a fresh artillery team with four-pound guns – the very guns he had used to good effect before Woodford arrived and that Macdonell himself would have gone on using. Why the Prince had not done so was a mystery.
The first volley smashed into the gardener’s house. The second into the wall. There was no point in returning fire – there was nothing to aim at. The French Gunners crouched behind their guns and in the trees. Better to save ammunition for the attack that would come the moment the wall or the gate were breached. Macdonell watched and waited.
The surgeon was directing the transfer of the wounded to the garden. Those who had lost legs or suffered serious leg wounds were carried on stretchers fashioned from jackets slung between two muskets. The stretcher-bearers scuttled back and forth between the chateau and the garden gate, closing their ears to the sobs and screams of the wounded and eager to get the job done. Mrs Osborne and Mrs Rogers were in the garden, doing what little they could.
James Graham appeared at Macdonell’s side. ‘Are you not meant to be at the north gate, Corporal Graham?’ he asked.
‘With your permission, sir, I would like to be here,’ replied Graham. The big Irishman was a fearful sight – the dye from his jacket had run down his trousers, turning them pink, and he was covered from collar to boot in streaks of blood, mud and grime. His hands and face were black.
‘You have my permission, Corporal.’
Jérôme’s light cannon were still battering the walls and the gaps in them were widening. Through them they caught glimpses of the French near the woods. It would not be long now. A round shot flew over their heads and crashed into the chateau. Another destroyed the garden gate. The gardener’s house where Macdonell had posted more men to shoot down into the clearing was battered and crumbling. He looked about. There was little left to defend. But his strange company of black Brunswickers and filthy, hollow-eyed Guards were ready.
Sergeant Dawson, at the gate, gave the signal. Macdonell bellowed the order to charge and ran. Every man in the yard followed him and did what he had been told to do. He scr
eeched and howled and screamed. At the wall they jumped over bricks and bodies and met the French head on. They fired their muskets into French faces, reversed their weapons and smashed the butts into mouths and eyes and noses. Macdonell had hoped to take the French by surprise, and he had.
Slashing and skewering, he bludgeoned a path towards a mounted French captain armed with a long cavalry sabre and desperately shouting orders. Around him, Guard and Brunswicker killed and wounded and maimed, pressing home their advantage while they could.
Macdonell reached the captain, ducked under his slash, grabbed a stirrup and tipped him off his mount. The captain lay on the ground, his sabre raised in defence. A musket fired over Macdonell’s shoulder and the captain’s eye turned to mush. ‘Easy pickings,’ snarled a voice behind him. It was Luke. Macdonell could not reply. The point of a French sword appeared under the private’s ribs, twisted brutally and withdrew. Eyes wide with shock, he fell forward, blood gushing from his back. His killer turned and disappeared into the melee.
The clearing had become a battlefield. Muskets fired, swords slashed and men died. A head taller than anyone else, James Graham towered over the crush. He hammered his musket butt down onto French shakos, crushing them into skulls and splintering cheekbones and jaws. A group of Frenchmen surrounded him. Holding his musket by the barrel and swinging it like a scythe, he scattered them.
Captain Hellman’s Brunswickers had worked their way around both sides of the clearing and trapped the French like fish in a net. They were merciless. Blue jacket after blue jacket fell and died. The Brunswickers shrugged off their own losses and clawed their way into the body of the enemy.
The French fought bravely. Despite the furious charge that had taken them unawares, they did not lose their discipline, nor did they turn and run. Rallied by their lieutenants, they began to fight back. Coldstreams fell, Brunswickers fell. The surprise had gone and the fight was in the balance. More French came out of the trees, firing as they ran and shouting for their emperor. They tipped the scales. The Guards found themselves being pushed back towards the farm.
Waterloo Page 18