Beautiful Star and Other Stories

by Andrew Swanston

  The order soon came to assemble in marching order. The boy took up his place like the other drummers in the centre of the columns of infantry and prepared to beat out the march. Three lines abreast, they crossed a narrow bridge over the river and entered Charleroi. As they did so, another huge cheer went up. They were at war.

  Ahead of the infantry, a regiment of green-jacketed lancers had galloped over the bridge and into the town. The boy saw them go and felt a flash of pity for any man who stood in the way of the needle-points of their lances. He had seen them training in the fields outside the camp and knew how easily a lancer at full tilt could thrust the point into a leather bag of straw, use his wrist to twist it so that straw flew out of the bag, and ride on, barely checking his pace. An enemy’s stomach would be no more difficult a target than a bag of straw. It did not occur to him that the enemy might have cavalrymen and weapons just as fearsome.

  From the other side of the river, they had waited and listened to the sound of gunfire. It did not last long and by the time their regiment entered the town, its defenders had been routed. They halted only long enough to take whatever they could find from the shops and houses in the town and were soon on their way again, marching north on the road to Brussels, their enemies fleeing before them. Soldiering was just as the boy had imagined it would be.

  But the enemy had not been entirely routed and soon the thunder of heavy cannon reached them and flat carts carrying the wounded trundled past them drawn by ponies and cobs back down the road towards Charleroi. The boy tried not to turn his head to look at the blood-soaked heads and stumps of arms and legs but he could not avoid hearing the cries of the suffering.

  That night the rain came and it was all they could do to keep their guns and powder dry. They had only their meagre rations to eat, there being no farms or villages nearby, and for the first time the boy missed home. It was cold in their sodden tent and he found himself thinking of his bed and his mother’s cooking and wondering if he and his father would see Paris again.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ said his father, ‘we will fight. Be ready.’

  His father was right. They marched at dawn, solid columns of infantry, flanked by curaissers and lancers, the artillery at their rear. All that day the battle raged in the fields and hills and woods through which ran the road. The boys were put to helping the wounded where they could and scavenging from the bodies, both friend and foe, which lay everywhere. British bullets could not be used in French muskets but enemy powder and rations were as good as their own. The boys went from body to body, taking what they could find and carrying it to the wagons while shells whistled over their heads and smashed into the woods on either side. Without having to be told, they knew that the fighting ahead was fierce.

  When darkness fell, they found themselves bivouacing in much the same place as they had pitched their tents on the night before. Having fought all day, the boy’s father was exhausted. He lay down under the branches of an elm and went to sleep with his pack as a pillow and his coat as a blanket. Relieved that his father was unhurt, the boy lay beside him.

  All that night it rained and by morning the emperor’s army was cold and sodden. The boy watched his father heave himself to his feet and try to stretch the stiffness from his legs. They drank rainwater caught in a cooking pot and ate hard biscuit taken from the pack of a dead Netherlander. All around them, men were doing the same. ‘Today we will crush the British and their allies and march on Brussels,’ said the innkeeper, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. ‘Today we will prevail for the emperor.’ The boy grinned. ‘He has marched east to destroy the Prussians, leaving us under the command of Marshal Né, the finest of his generals. We will join forces again today or tomorrow and together send the British scurrying back to their miserable little island.’

  By noon, it seemed certain that his father was right. They had advanced as far as a village named Quatre Bras, for the four arms of its crossroads. From there the enemy had retreated without much of a fight and were still retreating, harassed by French cavalry and bombarded by French shells. All afternoon they marched on in their columns, the drummers and trumpeters encouraging them on, forcing the enemy back and back. And from the east came news that the emperor, true to his word, had routed the Prussians and was marching to join them.

  In the evening they arrived at a low ridge which stretched from east to west. Before them was a shallow valley, rising to a higher ridge well within cannon range. Along that ridge the enemy had halted their retreat and were waiting for them. The emperor’s army had already arrived from their victory over the Prussians and were encamped along the lower ridge. Tomorrow the final battle would be joined and the road to Brussels would lie open before them.

  The boy was preparing food when the order came to move on. To their left, about halfway between the two lines, there was a wood, to one side of which they could make out walls and hedges, which suggested that a farm lay behind it. The Light Regiment of the 1st Brigade was to deploy to their left, taking up position on the south side of the wood. He put out the fire he had painstakingly made with twigs damp from the rain, collected his things together and joined the regiment making its way to the wood.

  As they approached, they caught glimpses of the farm and of a chateau beside it and heard the voices of the men defending them. They heard also the sounds of timber being sawn and nails being hammered into wood. Finding what cover they could from the rain which had started again, they settled down for another wet night. There was no hope of lighting a fire so they dined once more on hard biscuit and a few morsels of cheese. The boy sat with his father and half-a-dozen comrades under a makeshift roof of coats draped over branches stuck into the soft ground. The men kept their cartridge pouches under their shirts and the barrels of their muskets pointing downwards to prevent water dripping into them. The boy held his drum against his chest, trying to protect its leather skin from the rain. The roof was better than nothing but only just.

  All of the men gathered under the coats had fought before and all had something to say about what the next day would bring. One of them, a lieutenant named Legros, an enormous man – the tallest the boy had ever seen – was known as L’Enfonceur. It was he who had the most to say. ‘Our enemies are a ramshackle lot, by all accounts,’ he growled, between sips from a bottle of brandy. ‘The dregs of English prisons, cowardly Dutchmen and dog-eating Brunswickers. We will smash our way through them as if they were sheep waiting to be slaughtered. As they will be.’

  ‘And we outnumber them,’ added another of the men. ‘Blucher’s Prussians have been routed so we won’t be seeing them.’

  The innkeeper patted his son on the shoulder. ‘Tomorrow you will see the Imperial Guard for the first time and it will be a sight you will never forget. Even I, who saw them in action more than once in Spain, feel my hair stand on end when their drums beat out the march and their buglers sound the advance.’ Under their dripping roof, there were grunts of agreement. ‘It is no wonder that they have never been defeated in battle.’

  ‘What will our task be?’ asked the boy.

  L’Enfonceur replied. ‘Tomorrow is a Sunday. Our task will be to make sure that not one of the rats defending this wood and the farm beyond lives to say his prayers tomorrow or ever again. Our task will be to capture the farm and the chateau, kill every one of them, and open the way for Prince Jerome to attack the enemy’s right flank. If we get the job done by noon, we will be enjoying Belgian beer and Belgian women tomorrow night.’ He raised his bottle. ‘To victory!’

  ‘To victory!’

  The boy was too cold and too excited to sleep. He lay awake under the coats, thinking of the victory tomorrow would bring and hoping that he would have a part to play in it. Drummer boys would hardly be needed in an attack on the farm or the chateau and he hoped he would be given more than scavenging to do.

  It was dawn before the rain stopped. When it did, they gathered up their coats, checked their cartridges and fired their muskets to clear them of dirt and water.
All along the south side of the wood, the men of Prince Jerome’s Light Regiments were doing the same. The innkeeper put his arm around the boy’s shoulders. ‘It won’t be long now. Are you ready?’

  The boy nodded. ‘I am ready, Father.’

  But for an hour and then another they waited for the order to advance through the wood and launch their attack on the farm. Away to their right, lines of blue stretched as far as they could see and further back stood the artillery ready to bombard the enemy positions high on the ridge. ‘The ground is sodden,’ explained the innkeeper. ‘It may be that the emperor is waiting for it to dry out a little for the cavalry. They cannot charge through mud.’

  For the boy it was a long, long wait and he was beginning to despair of the order ever coming, when from behind them the artillery opened fire. Cannon thundered and shells screamed over their heads. They were soon followed by the artillery all along the lines and in no time the valley between the ridges was filled with the thunder and the smoke of the guns.

  For the first time, the boy felt fear. His eyes stung from the smoke and his head throbbed from the noise. His father sensed it, and tried to reassure him. ‘It will stop soon,’ he shouted over the noise, ‘and then we will advance. You will stay here with the other boys until you are told to move forward. It should not be long.’

  The boy tried not to let his fear show. He looked his father in the eye and grinned. ‘Good luck, Father.’

  Abruptly, the guns went quiet, the order to advance came and the boy watched the Light Regiment, his father among them, disappear into the trees. For an hour he could do no more than listen to the crack of musket fire and hope that the English rats were being driven back to the farm. Wounded men – not many at first – were helped back out of the wood by comrades and left in the hands of medical orderlies.

  Very soon, all across the valley between the two ridges, the battle was raging, making it impossible to tell what was happening in the wood and beyond. Then one of the men who had sat with them under the roof of coats stumbled out of the trees, one arm hanging limply at his side. The boy went to help him.

  The soldier spoke in a hoarse whisper. ‘The wood was full of Hanoverians and Nassauers. We cleared them out but there is an open gap between the trees and the walls of the farm. We were driven back when we tried to cross it and now they are trying to regain the wood.’

  ‘My father. Did you see him?’

  ‘I did not. It was so hard to see anything in the wood that we were afraid of shooting at our own men.’ The boy left the soldier to wait his turn with the orderlies and went back to wait with the others.

  But he found that he could not wait. He could not stand by while his father risked his life. He could not listen to the cries of the wounded and the crack of muskets and do nothing. He edged away from the group of drummer boys and slipped into the wood.

  He moved cautiously from tree to tree, straining his eyes to see what lay ahead but unable to make out more than shapes and shadows. But as he grew accustomed to the gloom, he began to see a little more and to his left, protected by the thick trunks of a stand of elms, he saw the backs of a troop of infantry, firing at an enemy somewhere in front of them. One of the men he knew at once from his size was Lieutenant Legros. Beside him was his father. He crept forward until he was right behind them and tapped his father on the shoulder.

  The innkeeper started and turned in surprise. ‘God in heaven, boy, what are you doing? Did I not tell you to wait for the order to move forward?’

  ‘I waited, Father, but the order did not come.’

  Legros was ramming a ball into the barrel of his musket. He spoke without looking up. ‘Nor will it until we clear this wood of vermin.’ He raised the musket to his shoulder, took careful aim and fired. A man screamed. ‘That’s one rat less.’

  A voice to their right shouted above the noise of the guns. ‘General Bauduin has been hit. Our commander is dead.’

  Legros swore. ‘Merde. He was a good man.’ He turned and sat with his back to the tree.

  ‘What do you think, Lieutenant?’ asked the innkeeper. ‘Shall we press on without him?’

  Legros pushed himself to his feet. ‘We shall.’ He took a deep breath and bellowed. ‘First Light, with me!’

  ‘Go back,’ said the innkeeper to the boy. ‘You cannot stay here.’

  Perhaps fifty men of the 1st Light Regiment appeared from behind trees and bushes and congregated around the lieutenant. He signalled for them to follow him forwards and a little to the left. Taking care not to be seen by his father, the boy followed them. One or two men went down, struck by enemy bullets, but the rest made it to the edge of the wood, where the ground opened up in front of the farm wall. Pursued by musket fire, the retreating rats scuttled across the clearing and through a gate into the farmyard.

  Legros did not lead them into the open where they would be easy targets but under cover of the trees around to their left until they reached a narrow track running alongside the farm wall. They charged past a handful of men set to block the path, killing them all with musket and sabre, and followed it around to the rear of the farm. Still, unnoticed, the boy followed.

  Outside the north wall they came to another clearing. Two high wooden gates, through which the last of a troop of British infantrymen were hurrying, were almost closed. From the walls on either side and from the roof of a building just inside the gates, riflemen opened fire on them. Ignoring the fire and the wounded, Legros ran forward, threw down his musket and picked up a long-handled axe that had been abandoned in the clearing. Just as the gates were closing he brought the axe down. The timber splintered, he put his shoulder to it and pushed. Ten men rushed to join him and gradually the gates opened under their weight. If they could get into the farm and open the gates on the south side, the farm and chateau would be theirs.

  The boy crossed the clearing and stood in the lee of the wall. Perhaps sensing him, his father turned his head. For a moment, just a moment, he stared at his son. The boy grinned and mouthed ‘push’.

  The gates were open and the lieutenant led the men through them, brandishing his axe and forcing the enemy back into a small yard. It looked as if all of them would get into the farm but some of the defenders must have stood their ground because gradually the gates began to close again. The boy darted forward and squeezed through just before they slammed shut. The British were too intent on heaving two heavy cross-pieces into place and securing the gates to pay him any attention. One unarmed drummer boy was the least of their worries.

  In the yard, L’Enforceur was smashing his way forward, using his axe like a scythe to clear a path for his comrades. Right behind him, the innkeeper used the butt of his musket to break bones and bloody heads. The others were doing the same. They charged past the chateau, hacking and thrusting, and into a second, larger yard. Keeping his back to a great barn on his right, the boy edged around the yard, still unnoticed or ignored.

  About twenty men had reached taken the defenders by surprise and reached the south wall from which the British were firing down on to the attackers in the woods and the open ground in front of them. If they could open the gates, their comrades would flood into the yard. L’Enforceur raised his axe to strike at the bricks and timber that had been piled up to reinforce the gates. But before he could bring it down, the axe fell from his grasp and blood spurted from his head. He crumpled on to the ground.

  All around musket shots rang out and one by one the French soldiers died. British musketeers, led by their colonel, had reloaded and reformed and surrounded them. The boy saw his father fall and ran to him. He had been hit in the neck by a musket ball. The boy tried to stem the blood with his hand but it was useless. The light faded from his father’s eyes and he died.

  A hand took hold of the boy’s jacket and hoisted him to his feet. All around lay bodies – French and British together. A big man in an officer’s uniform – not as tall as L’Enforceur, but broad shouldered and muscular – asked him in French what he was doing
there. The boy pointed to his father. ‘Mon père.’

  The English officer looked surprised. ‘Ton père était brave et toi aussi.’ He turned to a fat soldier beside him and said something the boy did not understand. Thinking that he was to be taken off and shot – he had heard that that was what the British often did to their prisoners – he tried not to look afraid. The soldier took him by the shoulder and marched him back towards the gates through which they had entered the farm.

  The great barn by the gates was being used for the wounded. The boy was pushed inside. The fat soldier spoke to an orderly tending to a man who had lost a leg. The orderly nodded and pointed to a heap of straw in the corner of the barn. His meaning was clear enough and the boy made his way past rows of silent, bloody men. Some had lost limbs, others eyes. Their blood and muck covered the floor and for the first time in his twelve years the boy smelt death. In the open, even at the crossroads where they had swept the British aside, he had not smelt it. In this barn it was suffocating. He held his hand to his mouth and tried not to vomit.

  Shells flew overhead, muskets fired in their hundreds, men and horses screamed. All around the terrible sounds of battle filled the air. The boy could only guess at what was happening outside in the farm, in the orchard, in the woods and away in the valley and on the ridge. He knew only that his father was dead. He curled up on the heap of straw with his hands over his ears and wept.

  For hours the battle raged, wounded men were carried into the barn, the pile of severed limbs grew larger. The surgeons and orderlies could not rest. Arm after arm, leg after leg were thrown on to the pile. Those with minor wounds were patched up and sent back out. Those for whom there was no hope were left to die. His tears dry on his cheeks, the boy sat and watched.