by Jane Lark
“Ma’am, we should go back and pack,” Jennifer said more urgently.
“Let us just see what is happening,” Ellen ordered, refusing to give in. With that, she pushed her way through the crowd, not looking to even see if Jennifer followed; working her way along the street as if around the corner, the next street would be quiet. Of course it was not, it was the same. Ellen saw a woman holding up her wedding ring, a woman Ellen had seen a dozen times, walking along the streets on the arm of a soldier. “Give me a seat on your carriage, sir. I only ask to sit beside the coachman?”
The man yelled at her, “Get back or I’ll drive the horses over you!” though no vehicle moved at more than a crawl. There were too many people on the street.
People were doing anything, at any cost, to escape the city.
Paul had urged Ellen to do the same, but the woman had been denied anyway.
“Ma’am!” Jennifer gripped Ellen’s arm. “If you will not leave the city, then I must leave your service. I shall find my own way back to a port.”
Horror hit Ellen. But how could she force Jennifer to stay if she wished to go? “Of course.”
Paul would shout at her if he thought she’d chosen to stay here alone without a woman to accompany her. He would think it foolish. But the pain in her heart, the warm light that burned for him, calling him home, could not leave him behind.
“If that is what you wish, Jennifer. We shall go back.”
“Come with me, ma’am.” Jennifer’s grip firmed on Ellen’s arm, urging Ellen physically too.
“No, I will stay and wait for the Captain.”
“And if he does not return?” Those words kicked with the same force as the horses who fought a path through the panicking crowd.
“He will.” Ellen turned and began pushing through the crowd towards the place she and Paul had called home for weeks. Jennifer followed.
Within their room, Ellen searched for what little money she had and then went down to Jennifer, to give it to her.
Jennifer had not been paid for four weeks; the money would be compensation. It would be unthinkable to let her go without the means to obtain a passage home.
“Madam, you need not give me all of this.”
“Just take it, Jennifer.”
“But you will need some for yourself.”
“I shall be fine once my husband returns.”
Jennifer stopped packing and gripped Ellen’s arm. “Ma’am, come with me? You should not stay. If the Captain is alive he will find you. It is better you go.”
Tears clouded Ellen’s vision. “I cannot.” It would be as if she admitted he was gone.
“Ma’am-“
“Jennifer! I will not. There is no point in urging me. I cannot leave.” The words came out in a cross voice, but only because she was in so much pain. How will I cope? How?
“Very well.” The maid let go of Ellen’s arm and turned to push a few more things into the leather bag she’d packed hurriedly. Ellen watched as she’d watched Paul.
Time felt unreal. Life felt unreal. This could not be happening.
When Jennifer’s bag was full, she secured the leather buckles, pulling them tight. She already wore her bonnet and cloak. She turned towards Ellen. “You are sure you will not come?”
Shaking her head in denial, inside uncertainty roared in Ellen’s ears. She was empty. Alone.
“Very well then.” With that Jennifer went too, she walked out of the room, across the hall to the front door, and then out of that. Gone.
As the door closed behind her, the breath slipped from Ellen’s lungs. She was truly alone now. Her limbs shaking, she stumbled backwards and sat on the stairs, almost collapsing.
Fear hung as a weight on her shoulders and something eating at her innards as she stared at the door.
She was not completely alone. The woman who owned the establishment lived in the basement below, and although everyone who’d rented other rooms seemed to have fled, she did not think the woman who owned the house would have left. It was mostly the British who were fleeing.
She covered her face with her hands. But she did not cry. She was beyond crying. The fear inside her hovered with a sense of waiting, wishing to know whether there was a need to cry or not?
Is he alive or not?
~
“Rise up!” The Lieutenant Colonel’s voice echoed through the trees. “Rise up!”
The cannons had begun pounding at about one, but Paul’s men had not been amongst the fighting; they’d been kept in the woods just north of Lac Materne, lining the Namur road, defending it in case the French broke through. For hours they’d been lying down beyond the sunken road, in amongst the trees, to avoid becoming targets for the cannon fire, listening to the battle unfold in the distance, defying the urge to move without an order.
“I said rise up men!” Now the order had come it resonated all about Paul as he moved instinctively.
Within a moment the French riflemen poured over the brow of the hill, and in the next instant after hours of waiting – no, after months of waiting – they were at war, each man fighting for his life. Kill or be killed.
“Rifles! Present!” Paul called to his men to make ready. Then having given them a moment to prepare, he yelled. “Fire!” The front row of men charging towards them fell, their screams of pain echoing as they clasped at wounds. Others looked their last at Paul with horror.
God, he’d forgotten the stench of gunpowder and blood – death.
“Make ready!” he called again, raising his arm as the second row of his men, stepped through the first who’d begun reloading. The sound of the regiment moving always stirred the patriotism in his blood. For Britain and for victory. ”Present! Fire!” Another round was released. More men collapsed to their knees. Smoke rose on the air from all the rifles. The caustic smell of gunpowder burned at the back of his throat, making his stomach lurch.
A volley released from the platoon beside theirs, as Paul’s third row stepped forward. “Prepare! Fire!” Rifle shots reverberated all around him as the third round blasted into the French.
There was time for two more rounds. Two more.
“Ready!” He yelled again, as the first row stepped through the third. “Fire!” The volley rang out.
One more. He held his nerve, willing his men to do so too. They trusted him implicitly; he knew they would. “Prepare!” The sound of rifles being lifted to shoulders and aimed repeated along the line either side of him. “Fire!” The final shots were deafening, ringing in his ears. Paul looked into a man’s eyes and watched the man’s gaze shutter with pain, the light within his soul dying out. He fell.
There was no time for compassion. None for thought. Breathe and fight. That was all he must do. He was a soldier. A British soldier. Nothing else. He lived as part of a whole on a battlefield.
“Draw arms!” Paul yelled for his men to lower their rifles and present their bayonets. The enemy were too close now for bullets.
The French shouted. “Vive l’Empereur!”
“Attack!”
“On to victory!” his men yelled, “Give them the bayonet!” The words echoed over the cries of the wounded men they ran across, and blood streamed in rivers through the mud that squelched beneath Paul’s boots.
An unearthly cry came from behind Paul’s men, shrill hollers and whoops. Then Picton’s Highlanders, the men who had been dancing jigs last night to entertain the women, came charging through the lines of Paul’s riflemen at a run, swords drawn to repel the French.
The fighting was fierce, but Paul held back, prepared to defend if the Highlanders failed, rather than waste himself by getting caught up with Picton’s men.
Paul watched as the Highlanders wore the French down with their vicious energy in an unrelenting onslaught; they hacked and parried, pushing the French back, away from the 52nd riflemen. But then the sound of thundering hoof beats vibrated through the ground.
“Form a square!” he yelled. “A square! Now! As swift as yo
u can!”
As he hollered out the order, Picton called. “Retreat! Move amongst the 52nd!”
It was the turn of Paul’s men again. Even as they moved he shouted. “Make ready!”
There was only time for action, as men ran about him; those either side of him dropping to their knees, their rifles already raised to their shoulders as above them the regiment’s flag caught on the wind, held aloft by their pole bearer.
Other men crowded in behind Paul, and the Highlanders ran back, seeking refuge amongst the riflemen.
On all four sides of the square his men had formed, there were now men on their knees. As the Highlanders ran through their boundary, the cavalry came over the hill, hooves trampling the dead and dying.
Standing with a rifle, facing a man on a horse, was terrifying, if that man got too close… “Fire!” Paul yelled. The cavalry were only paces away. Horses screamed and fell, writhing on the ground as Paul called his second line forward.
“Present.”
Men trapped beneath their mounts cried out from positions half buried within the corpses already strewn across the ground.
“Fire!” Another volley and more men and horses fell. But there was no time for another, as the cavalry thundered into the front of his men. Swords slashed and hacked, while his men presented a boundary of lethally pointed bayonets. The metal glinted catching the sunlight, trying to protect the Highlanders hidden within the square. Some had not made it.
Paul watched them cut down on the field.
“Present!” Paul yelled to the men about him, three back within the square as those at the front were still kneeling, jabbing at men and horses with the tips of the piercing blades on the ends of the rifles. “Fire.” More horses and men went down, some crushing his men.
“Make ready!” he called again, determined to keep as many men as possible alive. Determined to win. “Fire!”
His mouth was dry and his voice hoarse from breathing in the gunpowder.
Wave after wave of French assaulted their surviving square. But they were not alone. Beside them, along the brow of the hill, Paul could see other regiments also formed into squares, fighting just as hard.
The bombardment went on for hours, as they repelled line after line of the French, and after a while he heard the cannon booming to the north of them again. But there was no time for fear. No time to wonder if they would survive – if the French would tire before he did. Only time to fight.
“Fire!” he called the word again, his throat painful with thirst.
They would run out of ammunition soon.
“Fire!”
He could see his men were pale and worn.
“Fire!”
How much more?
“Fire!”
Then suddenly another charge came over the hill, a fresh wave of cavalry. But only a single battalion charging against the squares Paul could see.
There must be many more Allied squares along the line.
“Fire!” Another volley rang out, in denial of the yells of those charging, as the horses pounded over the dead and wounded, racing towards the British at a gallop. The horses were already blowing, they must have been raced at a gallop all the way up the hill.
“Fire.”
Even with another wave of cavalry charging towards them, even though they must be tired to their bones, Paul’s men did not falter. They stayed steady, bayonets held upwards and rifles hurriedly recharged.
“Fire!”
More French went down.
Paul prayed for it to be over. They could not hold much longer, but the French cavalry was already thinning.
Instead of attacking directly, the French sought to pass between the Allied lines.
“Present! Left! Right!” he yelled. The same call came from the squares beside his. Shots rang out, bringing down a dozen men or more from their horses.
“Prepare!”
The next row of rifles rose. “Fire!” Another volley and a dozen more men and horses went down as other horses reared and their cries reverberated on the air.
“Prepare!” As Paul called again, the French onslaught slowed. Those remaining turned their horses and raced away.
His heart leapt, and energy – which had been non-existent a moment before – flooded into his veins, as adrenalin pulsed into his limbs.
“Attack! Attack!” The cry came from a man on a horse racing at a gallop behind the lines. “Wellington bids you attack!”
The square closest to the rider was already breaking up, men rising and dispersing – men who had knelt for hours at the front with bayonets, stood, and were now charging forwards on unsteady legs.
“Attack!” Paul took up the cry, beckoning for his men to move forward and release the Highlanders from within. “Attack!”
In moments, they were running, with energy only a quarter-hour ago he would not have thought they had. “Attack!” he yelled again to keep his men on their feet and moving. “Attack!” The cry came from the right of his regiment now too, as the British army raced forward, running over bodies, as though bodies were no more than mud or grass, forcing the French to withdraw further and further back.
Within an hour they were no longer charging but walking, claiming more ground, as the French continued pulling back. The light turned from day to early dusk then twilight, before slipping further and further towards night. It was then the call came to camp. But there were no tents to be put up. Small fires were lit from gathered wood, and he and his men, and others further along the line crowded about them, exhausted from battle, and haunted by death, and lay down on the cold hard ground.
It was only then he thought of Ellen, left behind. A sense of concern – dread – ate into his empty stomach. Damn. How is she? She must be afraid for me. He whispered silent prayers for her again, and for his return to her, before his eyes closed. When they did, he thought of her body, of sleeping with her warmth and softness against him, letting her sooth his soul and free him from the images he’d endured today – the faces of the men he’d killed, and those he’d seen dying.
Darkness claimed him.
It was at five, when light had already flooded the sky, that he was shaken awake. As he opened his eyes, he saw men working their way along the line spreading word. “We are to move.” The words were whispered to him by a stranger. “The Duke of Wellington’s orders are to pull back to the ground by Waterloo.”
Paul knew the ground. It was the point the Generals had considered the best place to fight. There was a ridge and another wood, the Forest of Soignes, where men could hide if needs be. It was more defendable and every officer had been made accustomed to the terrain in the months they’d spent about the city.
Paul sat up and rubbed his face, urging himself to wake, as the men around him stretched and yawned, rising slowly. “Eat and drink,” he whispered. They looked at him. There was only limited water and dry biscuits in their provisions, but they must do.
It seemed this second day they marched for hours. But it was not so many. Within a day they had re-camped and positioned themselves on the Duke of Wellington’s chosen ground to take the enemy. The losses of the day before had not been as bad as Paul feared, only a couple of thousand, some of the wounded had been moved by cart back beyond the lines, but many were bandaged and ready to fight again.
Chapter Sixteen
If people had been in panic yesterday as cannons had echoed over the city, the 17th of June felt like the eye of a terrible storm. The city was quiet and unmoving. Those who were the sort to run had gone, and those who’d chosen to stay remained in their homes, waiting to hear more guns or news. No word or sound came.
Ellen was sick first thing in the morning, probably because she had not eaten anything the day before. Her stomach felt too much like a whirlpool as anxiety swirled inside her. She tried to sew but her fingers shook too much to thread a needle. She tried to read but her mind would not concentrate on a single word. When it reached two past midday, she went for a walk outside, alone, whi
ch as a genteelly bred woman she should not do, but with Jennifer gone she had no choice.
The streets, which yesterday had been full of people, were entirely empty. She walked for an hour and saw no one.
When she returned to their rooms, she moved a chair beside the window, and sat upon it with her knees lifted to her chest and gripped in her arms, as she’d sat in her room as a child, if she’d been scalded. Then, with her chin resting on her knees, she watched the street, silent and praying, her heart beating out the time.
“Where are you, Paul?”
“Where?”
“Are you alive?”
She remained where she was as she watched dusk finally fall, and still there had only been the odd servant passing through the street.
As darkness claimed the city, falling like a shroud, Ellen’s eyes closed.
When Ellen woke the next morning, she was sick once again, and her stomach ached with cramps of hunger as she vomited bile.
Paul would be angry with her if he knew how poorly she’d been taking care of herself. She should eat.
Paul would be angry with her for not leaving Brussels when she’d had the chance, if he was captured and not dead. But surely if the French had already won, they would be in the city now.
Ellen moved to pull the rope which would call down to the kitchen, and waited uncertain who, if anyone, might come, now that Jennifer had gone.
After a few minutes there was a knock on the door, and Ellen opened it to see a maid in a grey dress and white mobcap. “Madam.” She dipped into a curtsy.
“Is there any food in the kitchens? My maid has left…” Paul at least was not in debt for their rooms. The proprietor had no reason to refuse.
“There is bread and cheese, ma’am.”
“Anything,” Ellen answered as her stomach tightened with pain.
When the woman returned, Ellen accepted the food, and asked if anyone in the house had heard news of the battle. The maid said they had not, but she held a hundred opinions upon the French and proceeded to share them as Ellen sat down to eat. She did not turn the maid away; after Jennifer’s constant silence Ellen was relieved to listen to another woman’s voice as she broke her fast and drank sweetened, weak, milky tea.