A Close Run Thing

by Allan Mallinson

  ‘But, sir, if the French were about to gain the crest in the centre, what would be the good of our remaining here? Surely—’

  ‘Canning, your shrewdness does you credit, for that is the very question on which the battle might turn. And that is why we have generals.’

  ‘I see, sir,’ replied the cornet, reassured, while Hervey merely lapsed into thoughtful silence.

  A quarter of an hour passed. Little could they make of what was happening in the centre because of the dense clouds of smoke drifting across the valley. But then, between the thunderous volleys, there came a different sound: cheering, shouting, drums, and soon, quite distinctly, although almost a mile away, cries of ‘Vive l’empereur!’ And as the cannonading fell away the distinctive beat of the drums could be made out: rum-dum, rum-dum, rummadum dummadum, dum, dum.

  ‘What is that, Hervey?’ asked Canning with a look of alarm.

  ‘It is called the pas de charge,’ he replied ominously, peering through his telescope, though still the powder-smoke was too thick to see whence the drumming came. And then the smoke cleared enough for there to be no doubt. ‘See there, Canning! That is how the French will attack – nay, do attack!’

  Canning put his own telescope to his eye and gasped. ‘But …’

  ‘But what?’ said Hervey briskly.

  ‘But they come in great columns, like Greek phalanxes. And the cavalry – I can see lancers and cuirassiers – they are on the flanks. You said they must first make our infantry form square!’

  ‘Then, if our centre is intact, they will pay dearly. How fast can our infantry volley?’

  ‘I confess I do not know, sir, for I have never seen them,’ Canning replied sheepishly.

  ‘Twice in a minute. And they do so in two ranks only, instead of three, unlike every other army in the field: hence the duke can dispose of such a long line. How many do you count in those French columns?’

  ‘I cannot rightly see, for there are so many …’

  Hervey peered even more intently through his telescope as the clouds of smoke cleared, the massed battery having halted its bombardment. ‘Well, Canning, unless I am very much mistaken those are not battalion but divisional columns. They will be even more susceptible to fire.’

  Canning continued to study them. ‘But there seem to be hundreds so tight-packed that—’

  ‘That ball and case would ravage them. Ay, indeed, and our infantry will enfilade them, too. In those French divisions there are probably eight battalions – six hundred men to a battalion. They’ll front two hundred, twenty-five ranks deep or more.’

  ‘But why …?’

  ‘Suppose yourself for a moment to be standing in the path of one of those columns. Might you not be intimidated?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I fancy that I might.’

  ‘Well, that is how Bonaparte has swept so many from the field these past years. I tell you, Canning, it takes nerves of steel to stand your ground before such a machine!’

  Hervey and Canning (every man in the Sixth, indeed) now watched with a mixture of exhilaration and dread as three divisional columns – all of fourteen thousand men – marched up the slope, astride the Brussels high road, towards the strongest part of the duke’s line, while a fourth veered towards Papelotte farm and the Nassauers below. Hervey could not at first believe it – a frontal assault, no manoeuvre, and this from the greatest proponent of that art in Europe! He felt somehow cheated that in their first direct encounter with Bonaparte they faced the tactics of the battering ram.

  But with what magnificence did that assault unfold! The drums kept up the pas de charge, almost as intimidating as the cannon fire, which had now ceased. The solid ranks of Bonaparte’s blue-coated infantry, with their whitened crossbelts, forced their way through the uncut rye which covered the slopes. The duke’s guns began now to play on them, and gaps opened, to be sealed almost at once as the ranks closed up and pressed resolutely forward. A furious fire erupted from Papelotte farm below where the Sixth stood, as the Nassauers poured volley after volley into the column as it engulfed the buildings. Further towards the centre, Bylandt’s Dutch-Belgian brigade broke and fled, but the Cameron Highlanders, behind, rallied and met the French with a storm of musketry which kept them from making any progress beyond the crest. Not a man in the Sixth could have relished the situation of the duke’s infantry, yet their enforced inactivity made them fretful once more. Might they not have harried the columns at least? The dragoons began cursing, and even the horses champed at their bits.

  But it seemed to Hervey, as he peered ever more intently through his telescope, that the momentum of the French attacks was broken. Some of the columns were at a standstill, and he could even see red-coated infantry on the forward slopes by La Haye Sainte. And then came a sight that at once both thrilled and agonized him in equal measure, for at that moment there was nowhere for a cavalryman to be but with the dense host of scarlet-coated horsemen, the Union and Household brigades with Uxbridge himself at the head, as they poured over the crest and down into the valley to set about the reeling columns. In an instant the greatest of battles would be over, and without the Sixth so much as drawing swords!

  The ground shook with the thundering hoofs of heavy horses. He saw the Greys, their mounts so conspicuous amongst the browns and blacks of the other regiments, the tall bearskins of the dragoons themselves distinctive even at that distance. They were having the best of it, scything through the disintegrating ranks of French infantry and over-running an artillery battery which had misjudged its withdrawal! He saw their heavy sabres rising and falling – again and again and again – as they cut the gunners down. But then beyond he saw also what the Greys evidently had not – lancers and cuirassiers, in prodigious numbers, moving to the counter-charge, and he cursed the unfledged heavies, blind in their ardour. They would hear of the duke’s displeasure soon enough if they ran on without rallying! But then he saw, with mounting horror, that few would live to hear that rebuke, for their horses were so blown by the heavy going of the hollow beneath the ridge that the French must surely catch them before they might retire. Sir Hussey Vivian came galloping across the front towards where Sir John Vandeleur sat with his staff equally transfixed by the Greys’ perilous situation. ‘You had better go to the heavies’ aid, Sir John,’ he shouted. ‘Take the Sixth as supports, if you will.’

  Lankester smiled: the words were keenly judged, for Vandeleur was Vivian’s senior. Hervey smiled, too. That is why we have generals, he had said to Canning. It was indeed, for he had heard the duke’s words plainly enough, and woe betide Vandeleur if he misjudged it! Lankester smiled again, more obviously this time; for they would sit in contemplation no longer. ‘Sixth Light Dragoons, Draw swords!’ he ordered. The rasp of metal on metal set Hervey’s teeth on edge as the sabres, 1796-pattern, with their wide, curved, slashing blades, were drawn from steel scabbards. Rasping meant blunting, but this time he welcomed it as the sound of grim resolve, and he knew that not one of his troopers, new or old, would be satisfied to return his sword unbloodied.

  ‘Form a third support line for Vandeleur, then, Sir Edward,’ called Vivian as he rode back. ‘Keep them up close but hold them tight to the rally; for if you, too, fall foul of the French I cannot come to your aid.’

  ‘Ay, Sir Hussey,’ replied Lankester, ‘we shall at least sweep the French out of the farms below.’ And then, as Vandeleur’s front line took off at a brisk trot, Lankester gave the order: ‘Sixth Light Dragoons will advance, First Squadron directing, Walk-march!’

  By the time the Sixth had cleared the Ohain road and angled right towards the grand battery, Vandeleur’s regiments were into a steady canter, the falling slope giving them additional impulsion. Lankester increased the pace to a brisk trot, but still the regiments were opening too great a distance, and he had to press into a canter, although the ground was so bad that dressing was soon lost. By the time they reached the bottom of the valley he had given up the struggle and they, too, were in a gallop before ascendin
g the far slope.

  Every gun in range now seemed to turn on them. Men and horses began to fall, bowled over like rabbits. There were all manner of profanities after each new explosion: ‘Close up, close up!’ Hervey called continually. Then a shell burst not ten yards to his left, the blast tumbling Nero so quickly that Hervey could not leap clear. The big black gelding fell heavily, snapping its neck and dropping stone-dead on top of him. Riderless horses galloped by so close he marvelled he was not trampled. When they had run clear he struggled to free himself, though every bit of wind seemed knocked out of him, but his leg was pinned fast by Nero’s dead weight and there was no shifting it. Searing pain shot through his head – and then darkness.

  XV

  VOILÀ GROUCHY!

  Near La Haye Sainte, 2.30 p.m.

  ‘ALLEZ, VITE, FOUILLEZ-LES!’

  He lay in fetlock-deep mud, pinned fast by Nero. The horse’s bulk obscured his sight of all in the direction of the shouting. In the other lay the blue-jacketed bodies of his troopers.

  ‘Fouillez et tuez-les – chacun, vite, vite!’

  He could just make out a lance pennant over Nero’s flank, thirty yards away, perhaps nearer. Then a pistol shot as, unseen, a lancier dispatched a half-dead trooper before searching him.

  He was closer to panic than he had ever been. He had nothing but his sabre to fight with, for Nero lay with the saddle still in place and Coates’s carbine trapped in the holster beneath. The nearside holster was empty, but even had the pistol fallen within reach he knew it would be useless after lying in the mud. And now there were more hoofs and a different voice – better French, a voice of authority rather than of mere rank. He stopped struggling, and strained to listen.

  ‘Les Prussiens vont …’ – the Prussians were making for the left flank of the English, said the lancer officer. ‘The emperor is at this very moment strengthening his flank at Plancenoit, but there is little he can do to prevent the Prussians joining the field. We must not let our brave soldiers lose heart when they appear. The emperor wishes it to be known, therefore, that he expects Marshal Grouchy’s men at any moment on that flank: the marshal is marching even now from Genappe where they have beaten the enemy. Whoever appears on that flank are not Prussians but Grouchy and our countrymen. Voilà Grouchy! Comprenez-vous, mes braves?’

  So Bonaparte would deceive his own soldiers! Yet how might they be deceived for long? he wondered. Because the battle would be a close-run affair. Even perfidy might have its reward.

  He heard the lancers moving off; but his relief was short-lived, for one of them had dismounted and begun searching a trooper’s body not three dozen yards away. He now had but one means of escaping the same fate as the wounded man – the carbine. No matter how much he heaved he could not pull it from the holster, though. He fell back in the mud, almost despairing, but his sabre lay still attached to his wrist by its knot-leather, and he could at least die sword-in-hand.

  Only then did he see how simple it was to release the carbine, for it was the holster itself which was trapping it: if he could cut it free, he could then pull both from beneath the horse. He set to work on the holster straps with his newly sharpened blade, and in a short time managed to pull it free from the saddle.

  The carbine had been more thoroughly immersed in the cloying mud than even he had been. A flintlock would now misfire for sure: could he rely on this percussion lock? He eased himself up on to an elbow again to fumble for a cartridge from his small-pouch, wiping it clean and praying once more that water had not permeated the gut casing. Still pinned fast under Nero, he fumbled to unfold the carbine’s butt. The click of the retaining pin seemed as loud as a pistol shot. He lifted open the breech and inserted the precious cartridge. He cocked the firing-hammer and brought the carbine up into the aim, steadying the foresight as it bisected the horizontal between the upper arms of the ‘V’ of the backsight. His aim wavered, for he could not lie fully prone. He waited for the lancer to come closer, until, at twenty yards, the man was now larger than the ‘V’, and the bisection was level with his chest. He breathed in and then held his breath to freeze the aim, taking up the play in the trigger. ‘Please God …’ he prayed (such long odds – a percussion cap from the Kirk and a cartridge from a sheepfarmer). ‘Please God …’

  The crack was deafening, and a curtain of powder-smoke billowed before him. Death or deliverance awaited its clearing, yet he did not doubt his aim, and the curtain parted to reveal his skill – the lancer lying stone dead, his chest a frothing crimson. Hervey now pulled himself upright. The freeing of the holster allowed him the extra reach to cut through the girth straps and, with the saddle loose, there was enough play for him to struggle from under Nero’s dead weight at last. He sprang up, half-surprised that his leg, numbed after its constraint, was in one piece, for he had seen many a leg shattered in lesser falls. The lancer’s horse stood obligingly still by its erstwhile rider. He seized the reins and leaped into the saddle despite the pain now displacing the numbness. Only then did he see Serjeant Armstrong galloping back down the hill towards him.

  ‘Oh, thank Christ, Mr ’Ervey! I thought you were done for! Come on, quick, sir – the regiment’s gone back, there’re lancers everywhere!’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me that,’ said Hervey with a grimace as he spurred after him.

  The French horse was sluggish, and he had to use the flat of his sword to move him apace through the mud, knee-deep in places.

  ‘How did we fare?’ he called to Armstrong.

  ‘We saw ’em off, sir,’ he shouted back, ‘but, Jesus, that lance is a fearsome thing. We need that bloody weapon ourselves. Some officers went down. I saw Captain Elmsall and Captain Roberts fall, an’ I think they’re dead.’

  Lankester dolefully confirmed as much when Hervey and Armstrong reached the depleted ranks of the Sixth back on the ridge above La Haye. ‘Hervey, I am doubly relieved at seeing you,’ he called as they galloped up and saluted. ‘There is but Nall left of the troop leaders, and no more than a half-dozen other officers.’

  ‘What of Cheney, sir?’ asked Hervey in dismay, ‘and Laming?’

  ‘Laming is right enough, but I think he will lose an arm. Cheney was set about by lancers while he was trying to rally Second Troop. Canning brought First out – with Strange’s help; the “boots” did well!’

  Hervey would have heard the entire muster roll, but Bonaparte’s intrigue was the more pressing, and instead he rattled off his intelligence.

  Lankester listened intently and, even with an incomplete knowledge of Wellington’s design for battle, comprehended its significance at once: ‘Very well; go immediately to Lord Uxbridge – if he is still with us, that is, for he was at the head of the heavies and in the thick of things when we reached the Greys.’

  Uxbridge had returned to the place whence he had led the heavies in the fateful charge against d’Erlon’s columns. Behind the crest of the ridge, astride the chaussée, he held, as it were, the tollgate to the Brussels road. The French infantry had paid a terrible price attempting to force that gate, and would do so once more, but there was now a change in the pace of the battle – if not quite a lull, then a perceptible slackening. Yet despite his earlier exertions the Earl of Uxbridge looked just as he did at a field day, his pelisse off the shoulder in true hussar fashion, his dolman immaculate, his shako set square. Hervey was discomfited by his own mud-spattered appearance, thankful at least that he had not lost his own shako. Uxbridge seemed not to care in the slightest. ‘Well done, Mr Hervey,’ he replied on hearing his report. ‘I am only gratified that your French was sufficient – and that you had some notion of the implication of such a ruse. But we must waste no time trying to find the duke. Marshal Blücher’s liaison officer – Baron Müffling (you will remember him, I think, from our review last month) – has this hour set out to discover what is happening with our gallant allies. Ride after him; take the Wavre road. Inform him that—No, go with him in person to the Prussians! I myself shall tell the duke.’<
br />
  Hervey thrilled at the commission. He was no mere galloper but an emissary – and from the duke himself to the dauntless Prince Blücher. He gathered his reins as calmly as he could, saluted and then sped back to the Sixth. Gone was the mare’s sluggishness, and instead she bucked for the best part of a hundred yards while he tried painfully to apply his leg to pick her up. How in God’s name did the French school their horses? he wondered.

  ‘Next time, Mr ’Ervey, sir, I’m gooin’ with yer,’ called Johnson as Hervey reached the regiment; ‘It’s not right gooin’ off in a charge an’ leavin’ me. Where’s Nero?’

  ‘Johnson, it’s as well that you did stay here or you might now be lying down there with Nero, and a lance in your back,’ he replied curtly. ‘Look, take this French trollop; I will have Jessye from you now. Where is Serjeant Armstrong?’

  ‘Here, sir!’ came the confident reply from behind.

  Hervey turned and saw his broad smile – and his sword-arm in a sling. ‘I had not appreciated that you were bloodied, Serjeant Armstrong,’ he exclaimed. ‘Is Serjeant Strange fit?’

  ‘Ay, sir. But what do you want of him?’ asked Armstrong suspiciously.

  ‘I have a dispatch for the Prussians and need of an escort.’

  ‘This arm will not fail you,’ Armstrong declared, pulling it from the sling.

  ‘No, I cannot risk it. Fetch Serjeant Strange, if you will,’ replied Hervey sharply, bringing a welter of protests from his covering-serjeant, which were only silenced in the bluntest of terms. Johnson attempted likewise to protest, and he, too, was silenced only with difficulty. When Strange came up, Hervey explained their assignment and then instructed Armstrong to tell Lankester of it, receiving a surly salute in reply as he and Strange took off down the ridge-road after the baron, Jessye bucking as violently as had the French mare.

  Half a mile beyond the flank picket of Vivian’s brigade they saw at last General Müffling and his escort, the same distance again and about to enter the Forêt d’Ohain. Hervey quickened the pace still more, though Strange’s horse was beginning to tire, and it seemed that they might close the distance before the Prussians were too deep into the forest. But he had gambled on speed alone to keep them safe, and the gamble now looked like failing; for suddenly, as if from nowhere, there came a check to their progress – perhaps even an end. Three or four hundred yards away, and trotting towards them, red tunics and tall chapkas vivid against the background of green, was a lancer patrol. Their red-and-white lance-pennants fluttered a full fifteen feet from the ground, and Hervey might have admired them had they not been standing between him and his mission. He counted a dozen (unpromising odds, to say the least) and he knew he had but two options. He might run back to the security of the allied line: it scarcely was an option, though, for Strange’s horse would soon be outpaced. He tried instead to judge the angle between them and the French, and the point where they might gain the cover of the forest, but it was so acute that a gallop in that direction offered little chance of success, either. Yet he must make a decision.