by Simon Rumney
As Robert cantered up to the regiment their red jackets caked in black earth reminded him of the last days of his campaign in America at a time when everything had gone wrong for the British. Those poorly provisioned and harshly treated troops had died by their thousands in similar dirt at a place that had the strange name of Baltimore.
He recalled a field of black mud covered in broken cannons and broken bodies. In his mind’s eye Robert could see the carnage as clearly as the day of the battle. He felt for his poor lads as he remembered the Americans decimating their ranks in retaliation for burning the city of Washington just one month before. They just didn’t like losing their White House.
‘Good morning Sir,’ said a heavily accented Scottish voice forcing Robert back from his daydream. Looking down he saw that the stranger staring back at him was a private soldier dressed in a kilt standing at attention holding the reins of his horse. The man wore a tall bearskin hat with a checkered border around the band. On his shoulders were the black and white epaulets unique to his highland regiment. Robert admired the way he looked. It was a shame that he was not wearing one of these regimental uniforms but there had simply been no time to have one made.
Unlike many officers of his class, Robert treated every soldier under his command with respect and he clearly wanted to know this man’s name as he replied respectfully, “Good morning Private? ...”
”Braithwaite Sir.”
“Good morning indeed Private Braithwaite. I am Captain Pishiobury. How are you this fine morning.”
“I am well Sir,” snapped the well-disciplined soldier but Robert assumed that like every other soldier on the field, he felt like running away. They all knew how destructive the coming battle was going to be; they also knew that the British were greatly outnumbered and Napoleon had won most of his battles over a good many years.
“Where will I find our Commanding Officer?” asked Robert, as he dismounted.
“Please follow me Sir,” said another very strong voice in reply.
By the tone of it Robert guessed it would be a Sergeant Major and this was confirmed as he turned to find a huge non-commissioned officer standing before him.
“Sarnt major Alfrey Sir,” added the tower of strength. “Welcome to the regiment, Captain Pishiobury. Please, follow me Sir, I will take you to General Somerset.”
Having walked a short distance the Sergeant Major made Robert’s introduction to General Somerset, his bushy sideburns and a heavy mustache framing the booming baritone voice as he said, “Captain Pishiobury’s arrived, Sir.”
General Somerset stood with a group of his young officers listening to orders from the Duke being conveyed by a messenger as Robert touched his cap and snapped smartly, “Captain Robert Pishiobury reporting for duty, Sir.”
“Good morning Pishiobury welcome to the Ninety Second, we have been expecting you. It’s good to see you. We can do with an officer of your experience.”
“Thank you Sir. I will do my best. The Duke has asked me to convey his regards to you Sir.”
“Thank you for that Pishiobury.” Somerset pointed to his trusted non-commissioned officer, “Sergeant Major Alfrey will escort you to your unit.” With that he turned to speak with his more senior officers to ascertain the regimental state of readiness.
Sergeant Major Alfrey escorted Robert through the troops, who were drying their uniforms and weapons in the warm early morning sunshine and said, “The lads have heard of you Sir.”
“By my nickname I suppose?”
“Nickname Sir?” The Sergeant Major was clearly feigning ignorance. Everyone knew Roberts’s fighting name as he was famous for it but someone of his rank could never be so familiar with an officer.
“I’ll bet you are wondering how I got the name ‘Mad Bob’?”
“Yes Sir. I was curious Sir,” said Alfrey dropping the pretence.
“The good news is you will find out today. The bad news is, you’ll be with me when you do.” It was the automatic response of the schoolboy prankster that always showed itself at times of great stress. Humor was still Robert’s means of defense but his faraway voice and humorless smile did not match the joke.
Nothing further was said between them but Sergeant Major Alfrey felt the boy’s obvious pain and wondered what had happened to cause a death wish in someone who even a complete stranger could see had everything to live for.
Robert’s Waterloo
At precisely eleven on the clock Napoleon started his bombardment of the British lines. Hundreds of his heavy gun crews began rapid fire and Wellington ordered the British artillery to respond immediately. Cannons were booming on both sides of the battlefield; each sending clouds of toxic smoke billowing with every blast. Before long, one side could no longer see the other.
Due to the cunning of Wellington the British took very few casualties in the first barrage because he had prepared for Bonaparte’s love of heavy guns. Knowing that Napoleon had started his career in the army as a brilliant young artillery officer the Duke knew that his bombardment would be very effective.
In order to counter this skill with the barrage, Wellesley had masterfully moved his army to this field after their brief encounter at Quatre Bras. This daring maneuver placed the majority of his regiments on a raised strip of land which looked directly down on the field below. Apart from forcing the enemy to march up a hill the platform had the added advantage of falling slightly back from the lip and when the troops moved to the rear of this shelf they could no longer be seen by Napoleon or his cannon balls.
Just as planned, when the first shot passed over their heads Wellington simply gave the order for his troops to pull back forty paces and lay down. Miraculously his army was almost completely untouched by Napoleon’s shot. He himself was in a raised position at the back of the field and out of range of the French guns, allowing him time to watch events unfold through his telescope. The Duke loved battle and this one was going to be a big one. Everything was in readiness. To his rear stood the tiny village of Mont St Jean, his staff officers were in position around him and his messengers were standing by.
On the ground below lay Robert with his new unit snoring loudly. He was completely oblivious to the crashing noise of the guns and the choking smoke which swirled around them. He had seen so many battles begin like this and he knew it would be some time before the hand-to-hand combat began. His bravado was not built on courage or stupidity it was just that he treated death with complete contempt.
A soldier close by said in a whisper to his mate, “He is a weird one and no mistake,” and the offending soldier was immediately chastised by his Sergeant Major for insubordination.
At one hour past midday, when the sun had dried the field, the French army started marching across the valley and up the hill. As they approached in formation between the farm buildings which had been under constant siege from the very beginning of the battle the British army lying in the mud was ordered to stand and face them. Convinced that his guns had weakened their regiments Napoleon was surprised to see the lines of red form on the top of the slope his men were now climbing.
The wall of British muskets let go at once tearing into the French battalions with terrible effect. Time and again Robert ordered his unit to reload and fire. The vast group of men walking towards them simply reshuffled to repair the many gaps and continued on.
British cannon shot began firing into the French ranks at a furious pace taking out as many as twenty lines at a time but still they kept coming.
As the French marched over the lip of the hill they seemed like indestructible automatons and some of the British troops started to fall uneasily back. Seeing this weakness the Duke rode down to steady them himself. Reinvigorated by his words of courage the soldiers braced themselves and after many minutes of extremely fierce fighting the French turned to withdraw.
Running down the slope to get out of range, the French were hit in the back by driving musket balls and cannon shot and to the shock and horror of his men Robert ra
n after them waving his sword. Only when the British heavy cavalry passed him did he stop and turn back.
While Robert walked back up the hill with a look of total frustration the cavalry did its gruesome work well. The horsemen ripped into the fleeing French but instead of returning as ordered they carried on towards the French lines where they were massacred by cannon fire, the muskets of the infantry and the sabers of the French cavalry. Wellington was furious because he needed those mounted regiments to complete his plan.
“We will have to do the job with light cavalry and on foot now then!” he said, inwardly cursing the insubordinate heavy cavalry who were always taking things into their own hands in the pursuit of glory. “Bring the men back to their laying position!” he ordered as the French cannons started firing again. He did not know it but Robert was snoring in less than a minute.
“Did you see what Mad Bob did?” said Private Howatson to no one in particular.
“Yes I bloody did!” replied a very worried Braithwaite.
“He’s a bloody nutter!” said another.
“It’s just our luck to be lumbered with a suicidal maniac; no wonder they call him Mad Bob!” said even another.
Robert had only a few minutes in which to sleep before the French cavalry began to form lines ready for a full frontal charge. He was woken by the sergeant majors shouting:
“Get into squares! Form your squares!”
Every regiment in the British army had practiced this maneuver over and over again and in double time the field that the troops had been laying on looked like a vast checkerboard.
Officers walked around outside the twenty squares of men arranging them in a pattern that would allow the cavalry to ride between them and be fired upon without hitting another square. When the field was ready the officers returned to the safety of their formations.
The artillery pieces had also been rapidly moved to form a line in front of the forward squares and the gun crews stood ready looking directly down the slope at the oncoming French horses.
Wellington rode between the squares repeating the same words to the men as he went, “Be ready for them my lads; they will come to us; let them do all the work; steady now my brave lads; remember that you are the cream of the British army.”
Robert looked admiringly into the familiar face of his father’s friend as he went by and realized there was something about him that he had never noticed before. As hard as he thought about what he saw he could not work out the strange feelings being roused from somewhere deep inside him.
Completely lost in his thoughts Robert’s mind searched in vain until the boom of the British cannons brought his mind back to his square.
The big guns were tearing the mounted Frenchmen apart as they came and at the last possible moment the gun crews stopped firing, ran to their nearest square and squeezed between the tightly packed front line of soldiers who knelt with their musket butts driven hard into the ground.
Directly behind the kneeling men, standing shoulder to shoulder, was a rank of men holding their muskets outwards at the ready. In the middle of the square stood all of the other members of the regiment waiting to plug the holes as their comrades in front fell.
At the end of each musket was a highly polished eighteen-inch bayonet and viewed as a whole the formation looked like a huge steel hedgehog bristling with deadly spines. This structure was effective against cavalry because no horse could be made to charge at such an inhospitable defense.
As the brave horsemen thundered by, Robert stood inside his square shouting, “Shoot the bastards!”
The unfortunate French could not penetrate any of the squares and found themselves in the disastrous position of having to ride back through the British regiments. Riding over their own dead and wounded they were cut to pieces by the volley fire coming at them from every side until they passed down the hill and out of range.
Having taken a terrible beating the obvious thing for the French cavalry to do was return to the safety of their own lines and regroup but, of course, these were men of great pride and that is not what happened. Unfortunately, all cavalry are driven by the concept of honor and the shame of defeat overrode the logic of impossibility. So it became Bonaparte’s turn to watch his cavalry destroy itself with a second charge at the steel hedgehogs.
Observing these events Robert found Wellington’s tactics somehow familiar. The squares themselves brought to the forefront of his memory an image of the Roman legions which he had read about on so many occasions and he realized that defense had been the particular skill of Marius. In that thought a connection was made with a shock of realization and time seemed to stand still as his subconscious mind gave up the information that his conscious mind had been searching for.
“It’s the eyes!”
“Sorry Sir?” said Braithwaite wondering what Mad Bob was up to now.
“The eyes!” Robert was taking two well-worn pieces of paper out of his wallet as he spoke.
“Whose eyes, Sir?”
Without answering Robert looked into the tatty portrait of Marius and Sulla on the pages that he had carried since tearing them from the book at Cambridge. There before him were the eyes of Wellington in the faded face of Marius and in the sockets of Sulla lay a pair of eyes that were clearly those of Napoleon himself.
“I am caught between Marius and Sulla once more!” said Robert with no idea what he was saying. He was in a trance and all he could feel was the pain of his life and that of someone else whose emotions felt completely familiar whilst at the same time completely strange.
Pushing through the ranks of surprised men Robert wandered out among the bodies still clutching the crumpled pages, oblivious to the pleading of the French wounded as he walked between them with his eyes glazed over.
Arriving at the midpoint between his square and the next, Robert stopped and turned to face the French and everyone on the field wondered what the hell he was doing.
“That’s Pishiobury’s boy isn’t it?” exclaimed Wellington mounted and standing deep within one of the distant squares. Without waiting for a reply to his question the Duke started shouting, “Get him back in!”
Within no time, everyone was repeating his words, “GET HIM BACK IN!”
Hearing the commotion behind him Somerset turned and started running to the other side of his defensive position to see what was happening. As he ran he heard his trusted Sergeant Major calling out a question to one of his soldiers.
“Private Braithwaite. What did that officer say to you before he left the square?”
“He said he was caught between Mary’s ass and a sailor Sarn’t Major.”
“If I find rum in your canteen, you’ll get another flogging my lad!”
“What’s happening Sergeant Major?” interrupted General Somerset relieved that the French had not breached his square.
“Mad Bob … sorry Sir. That is, the Young Officer has walked out Sir!”
“I can see that man, go and get him back in!”
“You heard the Officer, Braithwaite take two of your mates and go and get him!”
“Me, Sir? Why me?”
“Because you let him go lad! And don’t call me Sir!”
“Yes, Sarn’t Major.” Braithwaite had resigned himself to being trampled under flailing hooves. Touching two of his mates on the shoulder he added, “Come on lads let’s go and get Mad Bob!”
The square opened as Braithwaite spoke and then closed as he and his unfortunate friends ran out into no man’s land.
Robert stood motionless, simply staring at the French cavalry who had turned to regroup for their second charge. His face like everyone else’s was blackened by powder residue from the flintlocks but unlike most his had two perfectly straight white lines running from the base of each eye to the edge of his jaw.
Oddly the tears which poured uncontrollably from Robert’s eyes were those of someone else someone in even greater pain than himself. It felt as though he was being given a glimpse at the very thing that
caused his lifetime of insecurity, and totally confused by his apparent madness, a rapid death seemed to be the only logical escape from this unknown character’s all engulfing torment.
“Be a good Officer and come back with us please Sir!” said Braithwaite in a pleading voice.
The silence on the field where they stood was made more eerie by his Officer staring at the French saying in a distant voice, “Come on Sulla. Let’s make an end of it here and now.”
“We can’t go back without you Sir!” added Private Howatson and his words seemed to break the young officer’s spell.
“What the bloody hell are you men doing out here?” shouted Robert amazed at the position he found himself in.
“We can’t go back without you Sir!” repeated Howatson.
“Christ, they’ll be upon us in a minute!” whimpered Braithwaite as he watched the angry French horsemen thundering down on such an easy target.
The British regiments cheered the four running men on and when they plunged through the lines at the very last moment everyone but the French felt total relief.
“What the bloody hell do you think you are doing jeopardizing the lives of my men, Captain Pishiobury?” shouted Somerset, who was very upset and very red in the face as he berated his young officer.
“I must confess Sir, that I have no idea what compelled me to do what I did,” replied an extremely humble Robert.
The spell once broken seemed to leave him with the beginning of an explanation for his illogical existence and even though his constant doubt still lingered, Robert desperately wanted to live long enough to understand what was hidden so deeply within him.
“Get back to your post; we will take this up at the battle’s end, if you survive that is!” The General walked away wondering what had caused the young man to behave in such a strange and suicidal manner.