While the Duke, accompanied by his military secretary, his aides-de-camp, the Prince of Orange, Lord Uxbridge, the diplomatic corps, and their train, was inspecting his position, the French columns were mustering upon the opposite heights. The weather was clearing fast, the mist in the hollows curling away in wreaths; and occasionally a pale shaft of sunlight would pierce through the clouds for a moment or two. The ground, intersected by hedges of beech and hornbeam, was nearly all of it under cultivation, crops of rye, wheat, barley, oats and clover standing shoulder-high, with here and there a ploughed field showing dark between the stretches of waving grain.
The bulk of the French army had bivouacked about Genappe, but at nine o’clock, just as the Duke started to ride down his lines, the heads of the columns began to appear above the ridge to the south. Drums and trumpets were first heard, and then the music of the bands, playing a medley of martial tunes. Strains of the Marseillaise, mingled with Veillons au Salut de l’Empire, floated across the valley to the Allied lines. Four columns, destined to form the first line, came marching over the hill, and deployed in perfect order, just as seven others appeared descending the slope. From the Allied lines the whole magnificent spectacle was watched by thousands of pairs of eyes. Knowledgeable gentlemen exclaimed at intervals: ‘That’s Reille’s corps, moving off to their left! . . . that’s D’Erlon! . . . those are Kellermann’s cuirassiers!’
The mist still lay white in the valley, but beyond it, less than a mile distant, the ground was gradually becoming covered with dark masses of infantry. As the divisions deployed, the cavalry began to appear. Squadron after squadron of cuirassiers galloped over the brow of the hill, their steel breastplates and copper crests occasionally caught by the feeble rays of sunlight trying to pierce through the clouds. The slope was soon vivid with bright, shifting colours, as Chasseurs à Cheval, blazing with green and gold, giant Carabiniers in white, brass-casqued Dragoons, Hussars in every colour, Grenadiers à Cheval in imperial blue with bearskin shakos, and red Lancers with towering white plumes and swallow-tailed pennons fluttering on the ends of their lances, cantered into their positions.
It was an hour and a half before the movement which brought the French Army into six formidable lines, forming six double W’s, was completed, and during that time the Duke of Wellington was employed in inspecting his own position. Sir Thomas Picton, still in his frockcoat and round hat, grimly concealing even from his aides-de-camp that an ugly wound, roughly bandaged by his servant after Quatre-Bras, lay beneath his shabby coat, had also inspected it very early in the morning, and had told Sir John Colborne, of Adam’s brigade, that he considered it to be the most damnable place for fighting he had ever seen.
Lord Uxbridge, tall and handsome in his magnificent hussar dress, preferred the position to that of Quatre-Bras, but was fretted by the impossibility, owing to the suddenness of the order to advance on June 16th, of forming his cavalry into divisions; and by the circumstance of having been formed by the Duke, at the eleventh hour, that the Prince of Orange desired him to take over the command of all the Dutch-Belgic cavalry. Uxbridge accepted the charge, but was forced to observe that he thought it unfortunate that he should have had no opportunity of making himself acquainted with any of the officers, or their regiments. He was anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Prussian corps to relieve Vivian’s and Vandeleur’s much needed brigades on the left flank, and more than once adverted to its non-appearance. The Duke, whose irritability fell away from him the moment he set foot on a battlefield, replied calmly that they would be up presently: the roads were in a bad state, which would account for their delay.
Baron Müffling, knowing the Prussian chief of staff’s mistrust of the Duke, was also anxious, and had already despatched one of his Jägers to try to get news of Bülow’s advance. He knew that the Duke had placed the weakened 5th Division on the left centre in the expectation of its being immediately strengthened by Prussian infantry: and having by this time identified himself far more with the British than with the Prussian Army, Bülow’s delay caused him a good deal of inward perturbation. Being a sensible man, he refused to permit his anxiety to oppress him, but fixed his mind instead on the problems immediately before him. He rode beside the Duke, acquainting himself with the disposition of the Allied troops, and occasionally proffering a suggestion. When he went with him into the château of Hougoumont, he felt considerable doubts of the possibility of the post’s being held by a mere detachment of British Guards. But the Duke seemed perfectly satisfied. He rode into the courtyard through the great north gate, and was met by Lieutenant-Colonel Sir James Macdonnell, a huge Highlander with narrowed, humorous eyes, a square jowl, and the frame of an ox, whom he greeted in a cheerful tone, and with marked friendliness. Macdonnell took him round the fortifications, showing him the work which the garrison had been engaged on during the night. The brick walls of the garden had been pierced for loopholes; wooden platforms erected to enable a second firing line to shoot over the walls; and flagstones, timbers, and broken wagons used as barricades to the various entrances. The Duke gave the whole a hasty survey, and, as he prepared to mount his horse again, nodded to Müffling, and said: ‘They call me a Sepoy General. Well! Napoleon shall see today how a Sepoy General can defend a position!’
Müffling bowed, but thought the chances of holding the château so small that he felt obliged to express his doubts. ‘It is not, in my opinion, sir, a strong post. I confess, I find it hard to believe that it can be held against a determined assault.’
The Duke swinging himself into the saddle, gave a short laugh, and pointed at the impassive Highlander. ‘Ah! You do not know Macdonnell!’ he said.
Those of his staff who stood near him laughed; the Duke raised two fingers to his hat, and rode off.
The Baron caught him up on the avenue leading to the Nivelles road, and began to urge the propriety of strengthening the post. His trained eye had instantly perceived that it was of paramount importance, for the possession of it by the French would enable them to enfilade the Allied lines from its shelter. ‘Even supposing that the garrison should be able to hold it against assault, Duke, how will it be if the enemy advances up the Nivelles road?’ he argued.
‘We shall see,’ responded his lordship. ‘Let us take a look at the ground.’
An inspection of the Nivelles road, and the country to the south of it, resulted in his lordship’s drawing in his right wing a little, raising a battery to swept the road, and posting some infantry in the rear. Several aides-de-camp went galloping off with brief messages scrawled on leaves torn from his lordship’s pocketbook, and the Duke turned his attention to the wood to the south of the château, which was occupied by Saltoun’s light companies of the Guards. His lordship altered this arrangement, withdrawing the Guards into the garden and orchard, and desiring the Prince of Orange to send orders to Prince Bernhard to despatch a battalion of his Nassau troops to occupy the wood. Colonel Audley was sent at the same time to bring up a detachment of Hanoverians, and rode off in a spatter of mud kicked up by his horse’s hooves.
Upon his return to the Duke, who had moved towards the centre of the position, he passed by the 1st Guards, and caught a glimpse of Lord Harry Alastair, looking rather tired, but apparently in good spirits. He called a greeting to him, and Lord Harry came up, and stood for a moment with his hand on the Colonel’s saddlebow. ‘Enjoying yourself Harry?’ asked Audley.
‘Lord, yes! You know we were engaged at Quatre-Bras, don’t you? By Jove, there was never anything like it, was there? If only poor Hay—but never mind that!’ he added hastily, blinking his sandy lashes. ‘It’s just that he was rather a friend of mine. I say, though, what do you think? I’m damned if William Lennox didn’t present himself for duty this morning! Nothing of him to be seen for bandages, and of course General Maitland sent him packing. He’s just gone off, he and his father. Devilish sportsmanlike of him to come, I thought!’ He detained the Colonel a moment longer, saying: ‘Have you seen anything of George, s
ir? They say the Life Guards were engaged at Genappe yesterday.’
‘Yes, I saw George in the thick of it, but he came out with nothing but a scratch or two!’
‘Oh, good! Give him my love, if you should happen to run into him at any time, and tell him I’m in famous shape. Goodbye! the best of luck, Charles!’
‘Thanks: the same to you!’ said the Colonel, and waved and rode on.
By ten o’clock, the Duke had completed his inspection, but the French Army was still deploying on the opposite heights, and guns, their wheels up to the naves in mud, were being dragged into position along the ridge. A little before eleven o’clock, a Prussian galopin arrived with a despatch for General Müffling, who had only a few minutes before rejoined the Duke, after making an examination of the ground beyond Papelotte, on the left wing. He had been driven back by a French patrol coming up from the village of Plancenoit, to the south, but not before he had satisfied himself that a Prussian advance by the plateau of St Lambert would not only be possible but extremely beneficial. He wrote down his views, read them to the Duke, who said, in his decided way: ‘I quite agree!’ and was in the act of sending an aide-de-camp to Wavre, with the despatch, when the Prussian galopin found him.
The despatch he had brought was from Marshal Blücher, and was dated 9.30 am from Wavre. ‘Your Excellency will assure the Duke of Wellington from me,’ wrote the Marshal Prince, ‘that, ill as I am, I shall place myself at the head of my troops, and attack the right of the French, in case they undertake anything against him.’
There was a postscript subjoined to this missive by another and more cautious hand. General Count von Gneisenau, still convinced that his English ally’s early service in India had made him a master in the art of duplicity, entreated the Baron ‘to ascertain most particularly whether the Duke of Wellington has really adopted the decided resolution of fighting in his present position: or whether he only intends some demonstration, which might become very dangerous to our Army.’
To Müffling, who profoundly respected the openness of the Duke’s character, and knew how serious the coming engagement was likely to be, this postscript was exasperating. He neither mentioned it to the Duke nor made enquiries of him which he knew to be superfluous. The despatch which he had already written must convince Gneisenau of the seriousness of his lordship’s intentions. He gave it to his aide-de-camp, telling him to be sure to let General Bülow read it, if, on his way to Wavre, he should encounter him. He could do nothing more to hasten the march of the Prussian 4th Corps, and having seen the aide-de-camp off, had little else to do but wait, in steadily growing impatience, for news of his compatriots’ approach.
The deploying movements of the French had been completed by half past ten. The music and the trumpet calls ceased, and the columns stood in a silence that seemed the more absolute from its marked contrast to the medley of martial noises that had been resounding on all sides for the past hour. As the village clocks in the distance struck eleven, the Duke took up position with all his staff, near Hougoumont, and looked through his glass at the French lines. A very dark, wiry young officer, with a thin, energetic face in which a pair of deep-set eyes laughed upon the world, came riding up to the Duke, and saluted smartly. The Duke called out: ‘Hallo, Smith! Where are you from?’
‘From General Lambert’s brigade, my lord, and they from America!’ responded Brigade-Major Harry Smith, with the flash of an impudent grin.
‘What have you got?’
‘The 4th, the 27th, and the 40th. The 81st remain in Brussels.’
‘Ah, I know! But the others: are they in good order?’
‘Excellent, my lord, and very strong,’ declared the Major.
‘That’s all right,’ said his lordship, ‘for I shall soon want every man.’
‘I don’t think they will attack today,’ remarked one of his staff, frowning across the valley.
‘Nonsense!’ said his lordship, with a snap. ‘The columns of attack are already forming, and I think I have seen where the weight of the attack will fall. I shall be attacked before an hour. Do you know anything of my position, Smith?’
‘Nothing, my lord, beyond what I see—the general line, and the right and left.’
‘Go back and half Lambert’s brigade at the junction of the two great roads from Charleroi and Nivelles. I’ll tell you what I want of you fellows.’
He rode a little way with Smith, apprising him of his intentions. The Major, who was one of his lordship’s promising young favourites, listened, saluted, and rode off at a canter to the rear. He cut across the slope behind Alten’s division, leapt a hedge, and came down on to the chaussée almost on top of Colonel Audley, who, having been sent on an errand to Mont St Jean, was riding back to the front.
‘God damn your—Harry Smith, by all that’s wonderful! I might have known it! When did you arrive? Where’s your brigade?’
‘At Waterloo. We were held up by the wagons and baggage upset all over the road from Brussels, and when we got to Waterloo we met Scovell, who had been sent by the Duke to see if the rear was clear—which, by God, it was not! He requested us to sweep up the litter before moving on! What’s the news with you, old fellow?’
‘Oh, famous! How’s Juana? You haven’t brought her out with you, I suppose?’
‘Haven’t brought her out with me?’ exclaimed the Major. ‘She was sitting down to dinner with Lambert at some village just the other side of the Forest last night!’
‘Good God, you don’t mean to tell me she’s with the brigade now?’
‘No, I’ve sent her back to Ghent with her groom,’ replied the Major coolly. ‘We’re in for a hottish day, from the looks of it. I understand my brigade will be wanted to relieve old Picton. Cut up at your little affair at Quatre-Bras, was he?’
‘Devilishly. Someone said he himself had been wounded, but he’s here today, so I suppose he wasn’t. I must be off.’
‘By Jove, and so must I! We shall meet again—here or in hell! Adios! Bienes de fortuna!’
He cantered off; the Colonel set his horse at the bank on the right of the chaussée, scrambled up, and rode past Lord Edward Somerset’s lounging squadrons up the slope to the front line.
By the time he had found the Duke it was just past eleven o’clock. He joined a group of persons gathered about his lordship, and sat with a loose rein, looking along the ridge opposite.
‘Heard about Grant?’ asked Canning, who was standing next to him.
‘No: which Grant?’ replied the Colonel absently.
‘Oh, not General Grant! Colonel Grant. He did send the information of the French massing on Charleroi on the 15th—the very fullest information, down to the last detail. It’s just come to hand!’
‘Just come to hand?’ repeated Audley. ‘How the devil did it take three days to reach us?’
‘Ask General Dörnberg,’ said Canning. ‘It was sent to him, at Mons, and he, if you please, coolly sent it back to Grant, saying that it didn’t convince him that the French really intended anything serious! Grant then despatched the information direct to the Duke, but of course, by that time, we were on the march. Good story, ain’t it?’
‘Dörnberg ought to be shot! Who the devil is he to question Grant’s Intelligence?’
‘My very words,’ remarked Gordon, who had come up to them. He glanced towards the French lines, and said, with a yawn: ‘Don’t seem to be in a hurry to come to grips with us, do they?’
The words had scarcely been uttered when the flash of cannonfire flickered all along the ridge, and the silence that had lain over the field for over an hour was rent by the boom of scores of great guns trained on the Allied position. The scream of a horse, hit by roundshot, sounded from a troop of artillery close at hand; a cannonball buried itself in the soft ground not three paces from where Colonel Audley was standing, and sent up a shower of mud. His horse reared, snorting; he gentled it, shouting to Gordon above the thunder of the guns: ‘What do you call this?’
‘Damned noisy!’ r
etorted Gordon.
The flashes and the puffs of smoke continued all along the ridge, suddenly a deafening crash, reverberating down the Allied line, answered the challenge of the French cannons, and a cheer went up: the English batteries had come into action.
Twenty-Two
The French, after their usual custom, had opened a cannonade over the whole front. Behind the quick-set hedges the first lines of British infantry remained lying down, while the second lines of cavalry, drawn back on the downward slope to the north, suffered little from shot which for the most part fell short of them. The sodden condition of the ground caused many of the shells to explode harmlessly in deep mud, but there were uncomfortable moments when shells with extra long fuses fell among the troops, hissing and burning for some time before they burnt. Some of the old soldiers lit pipes, and lay smoking and cracking jokes, but every now and then there would be a sob from some man hit by a splinter, or a groan from a boy with a limb shattered by case-shot. In front line, in the intervals between the brigades, the gunners were busy, loading the 9-pounders with round shot with a case over it, the tubes in vents, port-fires glaring and spitting behind the wheels.
The Duke was standing by Maitland’s brigade on the right, critically observing the effect of the French cannonade. The shots tore up the ground beside him, and hissed over his head, but he merely remarked: ‘That’s good practice. I think they fire better than in Spain.’
The cannonade continued until twenty minutes past eleven without any movement of infantry attack being made by the enemy. The hottest fire was being directed upon Hougoumont, but the wood on the southern side of the château to a large extent protected it. At twenty minutes past eleven, Prince Jérôme Bonaparte’s division of infantry, belonging to Reille’s corps, on the French left, began to advance in column towards the wood, with a cloud of skirmishers thrown out in front. These were met by a blaze of musketry fire from the Hanoverian and Nassau troops posted among the trees. The Duke shut his telescope with a snap, and galloped down the line, with his staff streaming behind him, to where Byng’s brigade was drawn up on the high ground behind the château. An order was rapped out; Colonel Canning wheeled his horse, and made for the spot where Captain Sandham’s field battery was stationed. ‘Captain Sandham! You are wanted immediately in front! Left limber up, and as far as you can!’