‘Tell their colonel to form them up out of range of the guns!’ Uxbridge ordered.
But the Cumberland Hussars had no intention of taking part in the fight, and by the time Captain Seymour reached the Colonel again, the whole regiment was in full retreat towards Brussels.
Colonel Audley, finding the Duke at last, was sent off immediately with a scrawled message for Uxbridge. ‘We ought to have more Cavalry between the two high roads. That is to say, 3 Brigades at least . . . One heavy and one light Brigade might remain on the left.’
This note delivered into Uxbridge’s hands, Colonel Audley found himself beside Seymour, still seething with rage at the behaviour of the Hanoverians and the Dutch-Belgians. From him he learned that the head of the Prussian column, coming up to the west of Papelotte, had been sighted at about five o’clock, and that Baron Müffling, almost frantic at the delay, had ridden in person to bring up the reinforcements so desperately needed.
The farm of La Haye Sainte had caught fire from the cannonade directed upon it. Two of the French guns had been brought up to the north of it, and were enfilading Kempt’s lines on the west of the chaussée. These were speedily silenced by the 95th Rifles, terribly reduced in numbers but still holding their ground in front of Lambert’s brigade; but French skirmishers were now all round La Haye Sainte. A message from General Alten reached Baron Ompteda, requesting him, if possible, to deploy a battalion and sent it against these tirailleurs. Ompteda, knowing that they were strongly supported by cavalry, sent back this intelligence to his general, but the Prince of Orange, carried away by the excitement of the moment, and forgetful of the disaster attendant upon his interference at Quatre-Bras, impetuously ordered him to advance at once. Ompteda looked at him for one moment; then he turned and gave the command to deploy the 5th Line battalion of the legion. Placing himself at its head, he led it against the French skirmishers, and drove them back. The cuirassiers in support charged down upon him; he fell, and half his men with him, cut to pieces by the cavalry. Arendtschildt, watching from the high ground to the north, flung his hussars into the fray again. They fell upon the cuirassiers in flank and drove them back, enabling the shattered remnant of the 5th Line battalion to reach the main position. Fresh French cavalry advanced and drove the hussars back, but the riflemen, on the knoll above the sandpit across the road, who had been impatiently awaiting their opportunity, no sooner saw the ground cleared of Ompteda’s infantry than they poured in such an accurate fire that the French cavalry was thrown into confusion, and the German hussars drew off in good order.
The cavalry attacks on the right had almost ceased; the Duke sent to withdraw Adam’s brigade from its exposed position on to the high ground on Maitland’s right; and despatched Colonel Fremantle to the left wing, where the Prussians were beginning to come up, with a request for reinforcements of three thousand infantry to strengthen the line. The Colonel returned with a message from General Bülow and Ziethen that their whole Army was coming up, and they could make no detachment. He was delayed on his way back by finding Prince Bernhard’s Nassauers, who had behaved with the greatest gallantry all day, being put to rout by a Prussian battery of eight guns which was busily employed in firing on them in the mistaken belief that they were French troops.
‘A pretty way to behave after taking the whole day to come up!’ he told Lord Fitzroy wrathfully. ‘The Prince rallied his fellows a quarter of a mile behind the line, but I had to gallop all the way back to Ziethen to get him to send orders to stop his damned battery!’
‘How long before Ziethen can bring his whole force up?’ Fitzroy demanded. ‘Things are looking pretty black.’
‘God knows! Müffling is doing all he can to hasten them, but there’s only some advance cavalry arrived so far. They say they had the greatest difficulty to get here, owing to the state of the roads. Wouldn’t have come at all if it hadn’t been for old Blücher cheering them on. If it weren’t so damned serious it would be comical! No sooner did Ziethen’s advance guard get within reach of us than they heard we were being forced to retreat, and promptly turned tail and made off. You can imagine old Müffling’s wrath! He went after them like one of Whinyates’ rockets, and ordered them up at once. The main part of the Prussian Army is already engaged round Plancenoit, if Ziethen is to be believed. If they really are attacking Boney on his right flank, it would account for Ney not bringing infantry up against us. Ten to one, Boney’s had to employ most of it against Bülow.’
Uxbridge, seeing the Household Cavalry drawn up in a thin, extended line behind Ompteda’s and Kielmansegg’s brigades, sent Seymour to tell Lord Edward to withdraw his men to a less exposed position. Seymour came back with a grim answer from Lord Edward, still holding his ground: ‘If I were to move, the Dutch in support of me would move off immediately.’
The fire had been extinguished at La Haye Sainte, but the garrison had fired its last cartridge, and was forced, after holding it in the teeth of the French columns all day, to abandon the post. Fighting a hand-to-hand rearguard action against the French breaking in through every entrance, Major Baring got out of the farm, and back to the lines, with forty-two men left of the original four hundred who had occupied the farm.
La Haye Sainte had fallen, and the effects of its loss were at once felt. Quiot, occupying it in force, brought up his guns and opened a crippling fire upon the Allied centre. To the east the smoke hung so thickly that, although not a hundred yards between them, the men of the 95th, reduced to a single line of skirmishers, could only see by the flash of their pieces where the French gunners were situated. Their senior officers had all been carried off the field, and the command of the battalion had fallen upon a captain. Behind the riflemen, Sir John Lambert was standing staunchly in support, in the angle of the chaussée and the hollow road, with three regiments, two living and one lying dead in square. On the west of the chaussée, the shot and the shells from the French batteries were tearing great rents in already depleted ranks. Alten had fallen; and Ompteda was dead. Staff officers from the various brigades galloped up from all sides to beg the Duke for orders. ‘There are no orders,’ he said. ‘My only plan is to stand my ground here to the last man.’
Though his staff fell about him, he continued to ride up and down his lines, rallying failing troops, restraining men who, maddened by the rain of deadly shot, could hardly be kept from launching themselves through the smoke in a desperate charge against their persecutors. ‘Wait a little longer, my lads: you shall have at them presently,’ he promised.
‘By God, I thought I had heard enough of this man, but he far surpasses my expectations!’ Uxbridge exclaimed. ‘It is not a man, but a god!’
De Lancey, the quartermaster-general, was struck by a spent cannonball at the Duke’s side, and fell, imploring those who hurried to him not to move him, for he was done for. Behind the crumbling ranks of Alten’s division was only the extenuated line of Lord Edward’s cavalry. The Duke brought up the only remaining Brunswickers in person, and formed them to fill the gap. They marched up bravely, but the sight of the horrors all around them, and the dropping of men in their own ranks, shook them. They broke, and fell back, but shouting to his aide-de-camp to rally them, the Duke spurred after them, rounding them up, heartening them by word and gesture. Gordon and Audley raced after him, and the terrified soldiers were re-formed and led up again.
Uxbridge rode off like the wind, to bring up the cavalry from the left wing. He met Sir Hussey Vivian advancing to the centre of his own initiative, learned from him that the Prussians were at last arriving in force, and despatched a message to Vandeleur to move to the centre in Vivian’s wake.
A staff officer met Vivian’s brigade on its way to the centre, and exchanged his own wounded hunter for a trooper belonging to the 18th Hussars. ‘The Duke has won the battle if only we could get the damned Dutch to advance!’ he told one of the officers.
The brigade, coming up behind the infantry lines from their comparatively quiet position on the left flank, could see
no sign of victory in the desolation which surrounded them. Dead and dying men lay all over the ground; mutilated horses wandered about in aimless circles; cannonballs were tossing up the trampled earth in great gashes; and a pall of smoke hung over all. Vivian led the brigade over the chaussée, and saw Lord Edward Somerset, in a Life Guardsman’s helmet, with a bare couple of squadrons drawn up west of the road. He called out: ‘Lord Edward, where is your brigade?’
‘Here,’ replied Lord Edward.
Audley, engaged in rallying the Brunswickers, heard Gordon’s voice raised above the whistle and hum of shot: ‘For God’s sake, my Lord, don’t expose yourself! This is no work for you!’
The next instant Audley saw him fall, but he could neither desert his post to go to him nor discover whether he were dead or alive. Gordon was carried off; Brunswickers, their panic checked, saw Vivian’s hussar brigade in support of them, and stood their ground; the Duke rode off to another part of the line.
Colonel Audley, his senses deadened to the iron rain about him, struggled after, saw Lord March, dismounted and kneeling on the ground, supporting a wounded man in his arms, and shouted to him: ‘March! March! Is Gordon alive?’
‘Oh, my God, not Gordon too?’ March cried out in an anguished tone.
The Colonel pushed up to him, saw that the man in his arms was Canning, and almost flung himself out of the saddle.
A musketball had struck Canning in the stomach; he was dying fast, and in agony that made it difficult for him to speak. Some men of the 73rd Regiment had raised him to a sitting position with their knapsacks. He gasped out: ‘The Duke—is he safe?’
‘Yes, yes, untouched!’
A ghastly smile flickered over Canning’s mouth; he tried to clasp Audley’s hand; turned his head a little on March’s shoulder; managed to speak their names; and so died.
An agitated officer from Ghigny’s brigade came riding up while March still held Canning’s body in his arms. ‘Milord, mon Capitaine, je vous en prie! C’est Son Altesse lui même qui est en ce moment blessé! Il faut venir tout de suite!’
March, lost in grief, seemed not to hear him. Colonel Audley, hardly less distressed, laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘He’s gone, March. Lay him down. Slender Billy’s hurt.’
March raised his head, dashing the tears from his eyes. ‘What’s that?’ he glanced up at the Dutchman standing over them. The message was repeated: the Prince had been hit in the shoulder while leading some of General Kruse’s Nassauers to the charge, and had fallen so heavily from his horse that the sense seemed to have been knocked out of him. March laid Canning’s body down, and got up. ‘I’ll come at once. Where is he?’
He rode away with the Dutch officer; Colonel Audley, consigning Canning’s body to the care of an officer of Halkett’s brigade, also mounted, and plunged off through the confusion to find the Duke again.
Vandeleur had come up from the left flank with his brigade of light dragoons, and, passing behind Vivian, had formed his squadrons more to the right, immediately in rear of Count D’Aubremé’s Dutch-Belgian line battalions, brought up from Vieux Foriez to fill a gap on the right centre. Here they were exposed to a galling fire, but D’Aubremé’s men in their front were weakening, and to have withdrawn out of range of the guns would have left the road open to the Dutch-Belgians for retreat. They closed their squadron intervals, and Vivian had done, to prevent the infantry passing through to the rear, and stood their ground, while Vandeleur, with some of his senior officers, bullied and persuaded the Dutch-Belgians into forming their front again.
At seven o’clock things looked very serious along the Allied front. To the west, only some Prussian cavalry had arrived to guard the left flank; Papelotte and the farm of Ter La Haye were held by Durutte, whose skirmishers stretched to the crest of the Allied position; the gunners and the tirailleurs at La Haye Sainte were raking the centre with their fire; and although twelve thousand men of Reille’s Corps d’Armée had failed all day to dislodge twelve hundred British Guards from the ruins of Hougoumont, all along the Allied line the front was broken, and in some places utterly disorganised.
The Duke remained calm, but kept looking at his watch. Once he said: ‘It’s night, or Blücher,’ but for the most part he was silent. An aide-de-camp rode up to him with a message from his general that his men were being mowed down by the artillery fire, and must be reinforced. ‘It is impossible,’ he replied. ‘Will they stand?’
‘Yes, my lord, till they perish!’
‘Then tell them that I will stand with them, till the last man.’
Turmoil and confusion, made worse by the smoke that hung heavily over the centre, and the débris that littered the ground from end to end of the line, seemed to reign everywhere. Staff officers, carrying messages to brigades, asked mechanically: ‘Who commands here?’ The Prince of Orange had been taken away by March; three generals had been killed; five others carried off the field, too badly wounded to remain; the adjutant-general and the quartermaster-general had both had to retire. Of the Duke’s personal staff, Canning was dead; Gordon dying in the inn at Waterloo; and Lord Fitzroy, struck in the right arm while standing with his horse almost touching the Duke’s, had left the field in Alava’s care. Those that were left had passed beyond feeling. It was no longer a matter for surprise or grief to hear of a friend’s death: the only surprise was to find anyone still left alive on that reeking plain. Horse after horse had been shot under them; sooner or later they would probably join the ranks of the slain: meanwhile, there were still orders to carry, and they forced their exhausted mounts through the carnage, indifferent to the heaps of fallen red-coats sprawling under their feet, themselves numb with fatigue, their minds focused upon one object only: to get the messages they carried through to their destinations.
Just before seven o’clock, a deserting colonel of cuirassiers came galloping up to the 52nd Regiment, shouting: ‘Vive le Roi!’ He reached Sir John Colborne, and gasped out: ‘Napoléon est là avec les Gardes! Voilà l’attaque qui se fait!’
The warning was unnecessary, for it had been apparent for some minutes that the French were mustering for a grand attack all along the front. D’Erlon’s corps was already assailing with a swarm of skirmishers the decimated line of Picton’s 5th Division; and to the west of La Haye Sainte, on the undulating plain facing the Allied right, the Imperial Middle Guard was forming in five massive columns.
Colonel Audley was sent on his last errand just after seven. He was mounted on a trooper, and the strained and twisted strapping round his thigh was soaked with blood. He was almost unrecognizable for the smoke that had blackened his face, and was feeling oddly light-headed from the loss of blood he had suffered. He was also very tired, for he had been in the saddle almost continually since the night of June 15th. His mind, ordinarily sensitive to impression, accepted without revulsion the message of his eyes. Death and mutilation had become so common that he who loved horses could look with indifference upon a poor brute with the lower half of its head blown away, or a trooper, with its forelegs shot off at the knees, raising itself on its stumps, and neighing its sad appeal for help. He had seen a friend die in agony, and had wept over him, but all that was long past. He no longer ducked when he heard the shots singing past his head; when his trooper shied away, snorting in terror, from a bursting shell, he cursed it. But there was no sense in courting death unnecessarily; he struck northwards, and rode by all that was left of the two heavy brigades, drawn back since the arrival of Vivian and Vandeleur some three hundred paces behind the front line. An officer in the rags of a Life Guardsman’s uniform, his helmet gone, and a blood-stained bandage tied round his head, rode forward, and hailed him.
‘Audley! Audley!’
He recognised Lord George Alastair under a mask of mud, and sweat, and bloodstains, and drew rein. ‘Hallo!’ he said. ‘So you’re alive still?’
‘Oh, I’m well enough! Do you know how it has gone with Harry?’
‘Dead,’ replied the Colonel.
George’s eyelids flickered; under the dirt and the blood his face whitened. ‘Thanks. That’s all I wanted to know. You saw him?’
‘Hours ago. He was dying then, in one of Maitland’s squares. He sent you his love.’
George saluted, wheeled his horse, and rode back to his squadron.
The Colonel pushed on to the chaussée. His horse slithered clumsily down the bank on to it; he held it together, and rode across the pavé to the opposite bank and scrambled up, emerging upon the desolation of the slope behind Picton’s division. He urged the trooper to a ponderous gallop towards the rear of Best’s brigade. A handful of Dutch-Belgians were formed in second line; he supposed them to be some of Count Bylandt’s men, but paid little heed to them, wheeling round their right flank, and plunging once more into the region of shot and shell bursts.
He neither saw nor heard the shell that struck him. His horse came crashing down; he was conscious of having been hit; blood was streaming down his left arm, which lay useless on the ground beside him, but there was as yet no feeling in the shattered elbow-joint. His left side hurt him a little; he moved his right hand to it, and found his coat torn, and his shirt sticky with blood. He supposed vaguely that since he seemed to be alive this must be only a flesh wound. He desired nothing better than to lie where he had fallen, but he mastered himself, for he had a message to deliver, and struggled to his knees.
An Infamous Army Page 40