Duval at Waterloo

by Michele McGrath

  The sun broke through the clouds for a moment, hot and far too bright. Even though I screwed up my eyes against the glare, it beat down on my unprotected head and the pain leaped to a new dimension. I had to move from here and find some shelter if I wanted to survive.

  Strangely, it never occurred to me to wonder who had won the battle, them or us. From what I could see, it was a marvel that anyone lived in the whole world. I could only think of Eugénie. I had deliberately put her out of my mind since Lefebvre’s death. Now her face was clear and she remained with me for all of that evil march. My only desire was to see her again, but I did not know how to get off the battlefield, it seemed unending. I picked my way along what seemed to be the easiest route, with fewer corpses to climb over. I stopped many times and wondered if I would have the strength to keep going again. Fortunately I found canteens whose owners had no further use for them and drank deeply. If I had not had water, I am certain I would have added my bones to those already lying on that field. I put on a shako and shed my coat and waistcoat, for the heat was stifling. I bathed my head and tried to do the same for my arm but the twisting made me faint and, in the end, I left it alone. It was a surgeon’s job if I could find one.

  Voices called to me as I passed; French, English and Dutch. It didn’t matter any more. We weren’t enemies, just fellow victims of this appalling catastrophe. At first I tried to help if I could. I spent some time beside a Dutchman, dying slowly of a stomach wound. I sat holding his hand and giving him water while he tried to tell me something. I don’t speak Dutch so I replied to him in German. He thought I understood him but I had no idea what he said. Then he faded away.

  Another victim was an Englishman. His leg was trapped under the body of a dead horse. He was struggling to release himself and called to me. I found a rifle and used it as a lever to lift the horse so he could wriggle free. He thanked me in French and I wished him luck. Then we parted, going in different directions.

  I seemed to have a sort of strength at the beginning, which helped me move forward, but helping the Englishman had sapped what little I had. The evening was drawing near and I began to fear that I would not get away from the battlefield before darkness fell. I might have to spend another night there. The corpses which had lain all day in the sun were beginning to stink and the flies buzzed in swarms over their faces. I heard sounds of people moving, far away from me on my left. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to be found or not. I needed help but I did not want to be taken by the enemy and sent to a prison camp. I resolved to hide and pretend I was dead, if anyone approached. No one did.

  Then I reached an area where I could go no further. I did not have the strength to climb over the bodies and I could see no way through. I almost gave up then. I fell to my knees and started to sob. Then I stiffened as I heard a movement behind me. I expected a dagger and had braced myself to twist and grapple my assailant but no dagger came. A hand caught me under the armpit and pulled me to my feet. The man looked like a scarecrow – his face coated with mud and blood. He was so filthy it was difficult to tell the colour of his uniform but in the end, it did not matter. We seemed to be the only two still moving in that corner of the field. With our combined strength, we forced a passage through the piles. I don’t think I would have made it on my own and neither would he. One of us seemed to find strength when the other was failing. Eventually, after what seemed like hours, the bodies and the debris of war began to lessen. We did not realise it, but we must have been near to the edge of the fighting, although it did not seem so at the time. Had we been closer to the centre, I doubt we would have escaped. It would have been so easy to die of heat and thirst as well as our wounds.

  We walked more easily now, though we were both at the end of our strength. We crawled part of the way up a farm track which seemed to lead away from the battlefield. Water was trickling down a gully and we both drank from it and wet our faces. It was muddy and dank but I would have drunk far worse. We lay there for a while beside the ditch. It was not quite dark yet, being June, but night was falling. I must have dozed because the next thing that happened was the light of a lantern shining in my eyes. A horse moved restlessly nearby.

  “Are you hurt?” a man asked.

  “My arm and my head,” I mumbled.

  “Come then.” Strong arms helped me to my feet and all but carried me to a cart. My companion was already there, lying on some straw beside two others.

  “Where are you taking us?” one of the men asked. Personally I did not care as long as it was away from the battlefield.

  “To the good sisters who will look after you,” the man replied.

  I looked up at the stars, beginning to shine through the darkness and realised that we had turned south.

  ‘Good,’ I thought, ‘nearer to France.’ That is the last thing I remember for some hours.

  When I came to my senses again, I was lying on a straw palliasse inside a barn. The place smelled strongly of cows. Cautiously I stretched. Then I put a hand to my head, which was bandaged. I felt further and discovered that my arm had been wrapped up too. Someone had tended to my injuries and I had no memory of it at all. I tried to move and that brought the pain back and I groaned. A woman in the grey habit of a nun came out of the shadows.

  “I’m glad to see you are awake at last,” she said.

  “How long have I been here, ma soeur?”

  “A night and a day. The battle was two days ago, if that helps you.” She gave me some water and then she turned to go, when I had a sudden thought.

  “My companion, the man who was brought in with me. Where is he?”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know. We have so many here.”

  “He saved my life, Sister.”

  “Perhaps tomorrow, if you are fit enough, you will be able to find him.”

  Next day, I began the search for my companion. Men, wearing the uniforms of all the combatants lay scattered in and around the convent. Some, like me, had beds, palliasses or some straw. Others lay on nothing at all as the supplies ran out. I hobbled along the rows of men looking into their faces, but I did not find my friend. He had vanished as he had come. I never saw him with a clean face and I did not even know which army he belonged to, although his French was excellent. He made light of his wounds, but they might have been enough to kill him. I wandered over to the pits which had been dug to receive the dead. All I could see was the top layer of bodies and he was not among them. Perhaps he lay underneath or he had slipped away from the convent, as he had slipped away from the battlefield. I hoped so but, to this day, I never found out either his name or his fate. Certainly, he was not here now. I was returning from my fruitless search, turning over in my mind what I should do next, when I heard my name called,

  “Duval!”

  A man, sitting with his back to a tree, was waving painfully to me. Darvy! I hobbled over and sat down beside him.

  “What happened to you?”

  We compared stories and injuries for a while. By then we knew that the battle had been lost and the Emperor fled. No one knew where he was and few cared very much. One thing was certain, though, the life we had both known, Darvy in the army and me in the Police, was over. What the future would hold for us was debatable. The important thing now was to survive and face it. As soldiers in a defeated army, we would be rounded up and imprisoned by the conquerors. Personally I had no intention of waiting around to be arrested. It was surprising no one had come for us already; we could not have much time left.

  Darvy asked, “What next?”

  “Home. Paris first and then Grenoble. I left my wife and family there.”

  He grinned a pale imitation of his usual smile. “Never thought you’d end up being a family man!”

  “You and me both, but I’ve got to get home to her. What about you?”

  “Boulogne I suppose. Fishing again. To think I’ve spent all these years trying to get the smell of the fish out of my skin and now I’m going back to it again.”
/>   “You’re an unlikely fisherman.”

  “You’re an unlikely husband and father.”

  “Then our way lies together for a bit anyhow. Can you walk?”

  “Given the alternative I can,” he said firmly, but he needed my good arm to get him to his feet. His chest was tightly bandaged. Some of his ribs had been broken.

  “Look at us, what a pair of cripples!”

  “We’ll mend. Let’s get away from here.”

  As we headed towards the kitchen to beg some supplies for the journey, we met one of the surgeons.

  “Where are you two going?” he asked. The poor man looked as if hadn’t slept for a week.

  “Home.”

  “Good, we need the space, but let me look at you first.”

  He led us into one of the rooms and poked and prodded for a bit which left us gasping.

  “Rightly, I should keep you both here. You need rest and time for those injuries to heal properly, especially the ribs.”

  “If you keep us here, the cursed English will put us in prison,” Darvy said. “I’d rather die on the road than live in one of their stinking holes for months if not years. I’ve been a prisoner before, never again.”

  “Go then but take as much care as you can. God be with you.”

  We thanked him. He nodded and wished us good luck in the sort of absent minded way of someone who was already thinking about his other patients.

  We went to the kitchen and found one of the sisters in charge. We told her we wanted to leave. She made no move to dissuade us; she had far more seriously wounded soldiers to feed and worry about. Supplies were running out and she had little to give, so great was the numbers they were unexpectedly caring for. Eventually we came away with a half loaf of bread, some hard cheese and a couple of small shrivelled apples. When they were finished, we would have to live off the land — no new experience for either of us. Fortunately, none of our injuries had festered, not like some poor men we saw waiting to die. We could travel, even if slowly and not for long.

  So we began the long and dangerous walk home. We went down the lane I had been driven up before and, at the crossroads, turned south towards our own country.

  Chapter 11

  All we could think of and hope for now was survival. As we walked, I wondered what madness had possessed me after Lefebvre’s death, to make me join the army again after all those years. I hoped that the old Colonel had survived and Mourier and the rest. Darvy had no memory of where he had been. The man with the cart found him lying at the side of a lane underneath some trees and brought him to the convent. By pure chance I had walked past him near enough to be recognised. He had seen none of the others and both of us doubted whether they still lived. The regiment advanced too far before the cavalry charge and there had been too many men killed. It never occurred to either of us to look at the faces of the dead on the battlefield. Perhaps we did not want to find out. Just to be alive seemed a miracle. These thoughts accompanied us along the way.

  The first night Darvy said, “If we stick to the direct route, we’re bound to meet the English or the Germans. Then we’ll be captured.”

  “What do you suggest?” I asked.

  “Head for the coast.”

  “Why?”

  “It won’t be as heavily guarded and fewer soldiers will go that way.”

  “Even if that’s true, it doesn’t get me nearer home,” I objected.

  “We can find a ship. My father is well known all along the Manche. We used to sail both north and south, wherever we could find fish. He’s friends with lots of people and I haven’t forgotten how to handle a boat. Sailing’s far easier than walking, especially in our present condition. At Boulogne, I can ask someone to take you as far as the mouth of the Seine. Then you can take travel in one of the barges that go up the river. What do you think?”

  I thought it was a long way to walk to Paris, especially if the main roads would soon be watched, as they might be already. Perhaps heading for the coast would be the best option. In the end, that is where we decided to go.

  We travelled by the lanes and back ways. One of the farmers told us that the British and the Prussians had organised themselves at last. They were hunting down any of our men who had escaped. Sticking to the lanes made the journey longer and it was harder to find our way. Fortunately, many years ago, an old sergeant made us learn how to tell our direction from the sun or the stars. He was a crusty old man, who died in Germany but he’d done us a favour and we’d never needed his teaching more than we did at this moment.

  We can’t have walked more than a dozen kilometres that first day. We were sore and stiff so our strength soon gave out. We slept under a hedge and ate some of the food we brought away from the convent. We heard some rustling and muttering but no one came near us. We were glad, because neither of us was in any fit state to beat off an attacker if one arrived. We hoped our luck would hold and we could stay hidden from unfriendly eyes.

  We felt worse the next morning. All that forenoon I ached with ever step I took. I never knew I possessed so many muscles. I was sure they all hurt at the same time. It would take us weeks even to cross the border like this, never mind reaching the coast. I began to despair, and then we found the horse.

  He grazed peacefully under a stand of trees. A saddle had slipped some way round his belly and his reins trailed on the ground. He had obviously been in the battle for there was a gash across his hindquarters, long but not deep, which had stopped bleeding.

  Darvy and I looked at each other. This beast might be our salvation if only we could catch it.

  “You or me?” he whispered to me.

  “You. You’re a better horseman.”

  I held my breath as he circled round to approach the animal from downwind. He moved quietly, but the horse turned his head to look at him. Darvy held out one of our dried apples. The horse stretched his neck and reached for the wizened thing, grinding it with his big teeth. Darvy stroked him gently, gathered up the reins and led him back to me.

  “We’re going to have to get rid of this saddlecloth,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “It’s a French horse. Look at it. He pointed to where a regimental crest had been embroidered onto the corner. “If anyone sees us riding, they’ll know we’ve been in the battle. When we were walking we could hide under a bush. If we ride a horse, we’ll be seen.”

  My wits must have gone begging because I hadn’t realised the implications. I only thought of covering the ground more quickly and with less painful effort, but what he said made sense. We would certainly be noticed.

  “What do you suggest?” I asked.

  “Get rid of the saddle and bridle. Use a bit of rope for a headstall when we can find one and muddy the beast up. Then it’s a horse like any other and we can say we’re farm workers bringing it back from the blacksmith.”

  “Not like this, we can’t.” Both of us still wore the remnants of our uniforms and, although our breeches were filthy, they had once been white.

  “No, we’ll have to find something else to wear. There’ll be a cottage or two around here. Fancy a spot of burglary?”

  At the word my mind leaped to Lefebvre, the once famous burglar. I must have staggered because Darvy asked,

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Perhaps we could exchange the tack for clothes and some rope.”

  “And give the people the chance to betray us? Don’t be soft.”

  In the end, we hid the saddle and the saddlecloth in some bushes. Then we removed the pieces of our clothing which marked us as soldiers. We did not yet dare ride, but we led the horse for a couple of kilometres until we were under the shelter of some woods. I found a fallen tree and helped Darvy to climb up. He swung his leg over the horse with a groan, but he did not do any further damage to his broken ribs. I scrambled up behind him and we rode off quietly, watching out for anyone who might be around. We came to a small stream unchallenged and all three of us drank our fill. At the end of
the copse of trees we saw some swirls of smoke against the sunset sky.

  “A cottage. No one around that I can see.”

  “Do we ask for help or just take what we want?”

  “Ask I think but be ready for trouble.”

  Accordingly we tied the horse to a tree and I went and pounded on the door.

  “Go away,” a rough voice answered me. I took no notice and continued to knock.

  The door was pulled away with an oath and I found myself looking into the barrel of a musket.

  I fell back a step, with my hands in the air. “I mean you no harm,” I said. By this time, Darvy had circled round the back of the cottage. He knocked up the musket, which stuck out of the doorway, using a large stick. The man’s finger must have been on the trigger because the musket went off with a roar, fortunately over my head. Darvy hit down hard on the man’s hand and the gun dropped to the floor. Now it was the turn of the man to back away, shaking, into the room. We followed and discovered he was not alone. An old woman cowered in a corner and a young lad stood in front of her, brandishing a poker. I had only an instant before he swooped on me but it was enough. He was too young and untrained to know what to do and he was soon gasping on the ground, his weapon in my hand.

  “We mean you no harm,” I repeated.

  It was the old woman who suddenly came out of her corner and flew at me. “You’ve near broken my man’s arm and the young ’un’s head. That’s harm enough. What do you want from us?”