by A D Swanston
* * *
The first shells exploded away to the right, from somewhere near a farm partly hidden from view by woods and about mid-way between the French and the allied lines. The roar of the guns ripped through the valley and along the ridge, soon followed by plumes of smoke rising into the morning sky and the whiff of gunpowder borne on a fluke of wind. The battle had started.
The French cannon were answered by the allied artillery – crash after crash of heavy shells smashing into the wood, uprooting trees and sending up great sprays of earth. In no time, the button seller’s head was throbbing. He held his hands to his ears and marvelled at the stoicism of the men along the ridge, quietly awaiting their turn to be targets for the French gunners.
They had a long wait. It was at least an hour before the French gunners turned their attention to the centre of the allied lines and the first shells began to fall amongst them. Half-deafened, the button seller instinctively ducked when a volley landed nearby. The terrified cob did its best to unseat him but he held on with hands and knees and managed to calm it. He had found a place on the other side of the crossroads from the elm tree, where the duke and his entourage were still watching through telescopes. His view was not quite as good as it had been from under the elm but it was good enough. He could see the battle raging at the farm away to his right and, when it was not wholly obscured by smoke, almost all the battlefield. Beyond it, the lines of blue still stood awaiting the order to advance.
Twenty yards away a French shell exploded against an allied cannon. The cannon disintegrated in a storm of metal shards which scythed through its crew and left heads and limbs detached from bodies and strewn across the mud. He was close enough to feel the air move and the heat of the explosion. His stomach heaved and voided itself of his half-digested breakfast.
To his right, back from the ridge, artillery crews scrambled to load and fire their guns, slipping about in the mud and struggling to keep their feet. Behind them, cavalry horses, terrified by the noise, bucked and shrieked and tried to unseat their riders. In front, infantrymen lay flat on the ground, allowing the shells to scream over their heads. Everywhere the wounded lay unattended among the dead. In his bag he carried a small flask of brandy. He pulled it out and swallowed a mouthful.
Very soon the air was filled with smoke and the stench of gunpowder and he could see little. He edged closer to the elm tree, hoping that he would see more from there. The duke and six of his party were still there, telescopes to their eyes, looking over the valley towards the French lines. They appeared unmoved by the shells exploding around them.
As if sensing the presence of a stranger, the duke lowered his telescope and turned his head towards the button seller. ‘You, sir,’ he called out, using the telescope as a pointer, ‘I do not know who you are, but you are in grave danger.’
The button seller touched his hat. ‘No more so than your Grace.’ The duke nodded and returned his gaze to the French lines.
The bombardment went on and on. Heavy balls of iron crashed into the allied ranks, severing limbs and slicing bodies in two. Through fleeting gaps in the smoke, he watched the carnage, horrified and unable to move or to think clearly.
And then, at last, it stopped and a strange silence descended upon the field. But not for long. From down in the valley came the sound of drums beating out the rhythm of the charge, at first far off, but soon close and getting closer. The drums were joined by voices raised in the joy of battle. The French were singing. The button seller’s skin crawled and he had to force himself to raise his head to look. When he did, he saw line after line, column after column of blue jackets advancing through the valley and up the slope. In the allied lines, barely a man moved or spoke, but waited silently, muskets at the ready for the order to fire.
When the order came, the leading French troops were almost at the base of the slope up to the ridge. The British infantry rose from their crouched positions and sent a volley of musket balls crashing into them. The French fell in a mass of screaming, writhing bodies. There was a second volley and a third, each of them cutting bloody swathes through the blue columns.
The button seller closed his eyes and mouthed a prayer. What in the name of God had induced him to come here? Why had he not returned to Brussels? Even the Blinks brothers could hardly complain if he had chosen to go home when the French crossed the Sambre. Buttons would be the very last thing on any soldier’s mind; there would be no more orders and he might as well take ship for England. At that moment, had he been asked why he was mounted on an elderly cob on the ridge at Mont St Jean while all around him was bloodshed and death, he would not have been able to offer a single reason. Yet here he was.
He glanced over to the elm tree. There was no-one under it. Wellington and his aides must have ridden off to take stock of the battle from some other vantage point. It crossed his mind – fleetingly – that he might do the same, but he decided to stay where he was. If he rode along the ridge, he would only get in the way.
The French guns had fallen silent for fear of their shots landing short and killing their own men, but the allied artillery were still pounding away, sending their eight- and ten-pound balls into the thick of the French infantry and beyond them to where their cavalry waited.
Then the allied guns also went quiet, the smoke cleared and, on both sides of the road, the cavalry charged over the crest of the ridge and straight at the French infantry. The button seller watched in awe as they galloped headlong into the enemy ranks, sabres slicing and thrusting into defenceless flesh.
Not a Frenchman, he thought, would have been left alive had their cavalry not galloped up to join the fray. Then it became a battle of sabre against lance and lance against pistol. Infantrymen used their muskets as clubs, cavalrymen crushed wounded bodies under the hooves of their horses. Away to the right, the farmhouse was burning, straight ahead another farm was being attacked by French cavalry. It was quite impossible to detect any pattern or to judge which side, if any, had the advantage. The button seller, scarcely able to comprehend the slaughter, simply sat, motionless, and watched.
Three or four times, the French riders turned back towards their own artillery lines, only to regroup and charge again up the slope. For perhaps two hours this went on, the number of dead and wounded mounting with each charge. By mid-afternoon, the ridge and the valley were strewn with the bodies of men and horses. When the French cavalry came too close, the British infantry formed their squares and waited for them to lose patience and go away. From near the elm tree, the button seller saw it all.
Each time he saw the duke, he was accompanied by fewer aides. And when he next appeared from the direction of the burning farmhouse, he was alone. He halted his chestnut under the tree and peered down into the melee below, then looked about as if surprised that he had not a single aide with him. Catching sight of the button seller, he beckoned him closer. ‘You, sir,’ he shouted above the roar of the battle, ‘who are you?’
The button seller took a calling card from his pocket and handed it to the duke, who peered at it. ‘Blinks and Blinks, eh? Well, I fear there’s no order for you today, but do you see that man down there?’ The button seller followed the direction of the duke’s arm to where, about two hundred yards away, a troop of cavalry stood in line, ready to receive an enemy charge. Their commander, easily identifiable by his uniform and bearing, stood at their front. ‘That is Marshal Kempt, Commander of the British 8th Brigade. Would you be so good as to ride down there and tell him to refuse his right?’ The button seller looked again. A troop of French cavalry, hidden from the British by a fold in the land, were approaching Marshal Kempt’s line from his right. If the brigade did not turn to face them, they would be taken by surprise and cut to pieces.
If the button seller was surprised he did not show it. ‘Certainly, your Grace,’ he replied without a moment’s pause, and set off on the little cob down the slope into the valley across which the battle was raging.
The cob was nimble enough and manag
ed to pick its way through and around bodies and debris while musket fire whistled about over their heads. They were no more than ten yards from the line of cavalry when the cob fell, blood pouring from its flank. The button seller was thrown off, landed on grass and picked himself up. Other than a bruise on his shoulder he fancied himself unhurt. Unarmed and unable to put the cob out of its misery, he half-ran, half-stumbled to the cavalry line. The cavalrymen were too intent on their business to pay him heed and he reached Marshal Kempt without being impeded.
He explained his business and delivered the duke’s message. The marshal peered at him and asked him to repeat what he had said. He did so. The marshal glanced back up to the ridge to where Wellington sat, tipped his hat, thanked the messenger, and immediately passed on an order to an aide.
His task completed, the button seller ran back to the dying cob, retrieved his leather roll of samples and flask of brandy and set off to climb back up the slope. He had gone only a few paces when he felt a tug at his trousers. Startled, he looked down. A soldier lying face up had reached out and grabbed him as he passed. The fallen man had lost an eye and his tunic was so ripped and splattered with blood and mud that the button seller could not identify it. He dripped a few drops of brandy on to the wretch’s lips and went on.
His legs were heavy and his mind numb from the unceasing noise. Several times he slipped and fell but each time he managed to get back to his feet, the thought of a French sabre at his neck driving him on.
Holding tight to the samples, he bent forwards against the incline and kept his head low. Behind him were the enemy, whose cavalry might at any moment launch another attack, and in front British sharpshooters who could not know that the man in the black coat scrambling up towards them was there on the orders of the Duke of Wellington. For all they knew, he was a up to some French trickery and should be shot.
With a grunt of relief he reached the top unscathed and with his samples intact, intending to report to the duke that he had carried out his task successfully. But the vantage point under the elm tree was deserted. No duke and no aides. And, now, no cob. Just what he stood up in, his flask and his leather roll. Still, other than a bruised shoulder, he was intact. He tucked the flask and the sample roll under his shirt and made his way around behind the lines, not knowing where he was going or with what purpose, but knowing that he was no longer merely a spectator.
The Drummer Boy
The boy would never forget the day that the news reached Paris. As it usually was in the evenings, his father’s inn near the Porte St Denis was crowded with noisy drinkers, many of them old comrades in the emperor’s army who like nothing better than to share a bottle or two of wine and talk about victories they had shared in his service.
As long as he was not needed to wipe tables or collect glasses and carry them out to be washed by his mother, the boy liked to sit quietly in a corner and listen to the old soldiers telling their stories. He heard them speak of great victories in Bavaria and Spain and Austria and in a place called Borodino. At times they argued – perhaps about who had done what – but they never spoke of defeats. One day he plucked up the courage to ask his father if the emperor’s army had ever been defeated. ‘Never!’ his father had replied, thumping his fist on a table. ‘The emperor’s army has never been defeated. We suffered setbacks, as all armies do, but never defeat. And do not let any man tell you otherwise.’ The boy did not ask why then the emperor lived not in Paris but on a small island in the Mediterranean Sea. There would be a good reason, and he did not want to upset his father by asking what it was.
He was wiping tables when the inn door was thrown open and a man he knew by sight but not by name burst in. ‘Napoleon has escaped!’ he bellowed. ‘The emperor has returned to us!’
Immediately, every man in the inn was on his feet, waving a glass or a bottle in the air and shouting ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ at the top of his voice. Bottles rattled on the tables, a glass or two was knocked off and broken. No-one bothered to sweep up the glass.
When the noise eventually died down, the bringer of the news was given a glass of wine and told to report everything he knew. The inn went quiet while the messenger collected himself, squaring his shoulders, clearing his throat and evidently enjoying the attention of his audience. He drained his glass and held it out to be refilled. Then he began.
‘Gallopers arrived this afternoon from Orléans. The emperor landed near the town of Cannes on the first day of this month, with a thousand loyal men. Already they have been joined by the fifth and seventh infantry regiments. Men are flocking to his service. He will be in Paris within the week!’ At this, the inn erupted. Bearded old men hugged each other, the fat butcher from next door grabbed a serving girl and insisted she dance with him, and the apothecary climbed on to a table and tried to sing. His voice was not strong enough to be heard over the din and soon he gave up.
The news was certainly good for business, or it would have been if his father had collected payment for every bottle drunk. By midnight, however, he was too drunk to care and was sloshing wine into glasses without bothering to ask for money. Every few minutes one or other of the drinkers would raise his glass and shout ‘Vive l’Empereur’ or ‘Vive la France’ and call for more wine.
In his bedroom above the inn, the boy lay awake listening to the celebrations until dawn. He was not sure what the news meant but he was too excited to sleep.
Despite the quantity of wine he had drunk, his father was still in high spirits the next morning. Together they set about clearing up the mess and getting the inn ready for another day, while his mother washed glasses and counted the money they had taken. ‘They drank a lot but paid little,’ she complained, gathering up coins into a canvas bag. ‘At this rate we will soon be penniless.’
‘Nonsense,’ replied the innkeeper. ‘The emperor is returned to us. Mark my words, glory and prosperity lie ahead.’
* * *
Almost every day for the next two weeks more news arrived. Napoleon’s army was growing apace, King Louis and the royal family had left Paris and fled to England, Marshal Né, the one known as ‘the bravest of the brave’, had joined the emperor with six thousand veterans of the invincible Imperial Guard. Flag-waving supporters thronged the streets of every town, officials read out declarations of loyalty in the squares and markets. Very soon France would be at war again.
On the evening of the day that Napoleon finally arrived at the city gates, the boy heard his parents arguing. ‘You cannot join the army,’ shrieked his mother, in a voice he had never heard before. ‘How will we cope without you? I cannot look after the inn and our son alone.’
‘The boy will come with me. I will leave the inn in your care.’
‘Come with you? For the love of God, he is only twelve years old. How will he defend himself against the English? With his sling-shot? Every son of France knows that the scum of England are cruel and merciless. They will carve him up and roast him over their fires.’
The innkeeper laughed. ‘That I doubt. And he will carry no weapon. We march to the sound of the drums. He will be a boy drummer. There will be many others like him.’
‘It is monstrous,’ wailed his mother, ‘Twelve-year-old boys should be at their lessons, not on a battlefield. What if he is killed? How will I bear the loss?’
‘By knowing that your son died gloriously fighting for France, that is how. Now let there be no more talk of this. Tomorrow I will take him to a recruiting station and we will join the emperor’s army.’
The boy heard all of this and was happy that his father had prevailed in the argument. He did not want to stay at home and wipe tables. He wanted to go with his father and join the emperor’s army. He too wanted victories and glory.
* * *
The queue outside St Agnes’s Church, which was being used as a recruiting station, stretched down the street and around the corner. The boy and his father joined the end of it and for three hours shuffled slowly forward until at last they reached the church door
s.
The innkeeper had taken his old uniform from the chest in which it had lain for nearly five years, brushed it down and proudly put it on. The jacket bulged a little over his stomach but otherwise it still fitted well enough. It was the uniform of the infantry regiment in which he had chased the British through the mountains of northern Spain to Corunna and routed the Spanish at Medellin. The recruiting sergeant recognised the uniform and shook the innkeeper by the hand. ‘An old soldier, I see,’ he said. ‘And a brave one.’ He looked at the boy. ‘Is this your son?’
‘It is, sir. He wishes to serve as a drummer.’
The sergeant beamed. ‘Then he shall do so.’ He made a note of their names and told them to be at the training depot set up outside the Porte de la Chapelle at seven o’clock the next morning. ‘Bonne chance et vive la France.’
‘Vive l’Empereur.’ The boy and his father had replied as one.
That evening the family did not open the inn but dined together on a chicken roasted with carrots and garlic, fresh bread baked by the boy’s mother, and an apple tart made with last year’s crop. They spoke little and later the boy heard his mother sobbing before he went to sleep.
* * *
The depot outside the Porte de la Chapelle consisted of rows and rows of tents, lines of wagons loaded with weapons and equipment and dozens of harassed officers trying to bring order to the chaos.
Once again the boy and his father joined a queue and waited to collect their uniform, musket, ammunition and rations. The innkeeper did not expect to be issued with a new uniform, his own being perfectly serviceable, but when they reached the front of the queue, the sergeant looked him up and down and told him that he and his son would be in the Light Regiment of the 1st Brigade of the 6th Division, to be commanded by General Prince Jerome, the emperor’s brother, and that the emperor wished every man in his army to have a new uniform whether or not he had served before.