Colonel Audley reached the village of Waterloo a few minutes before midnight. The road through the Forest of Soignes, though roughly paved down the centre, was in a bad state, the heavy rainfall having turned the uncobbled portions on either side of the pave into bogs which in places were impassable. Wagons and tilt carts were some of them so deeply embedded in mud, and some overturned after coming into collision with the Belgian cavalry in their flight earlier in the day. In the darkness it was necessary for a horseman to pick his way carefully. The contents of the wagons in some cases strewed the road; here and there a cart, with two of its wheels in the air, lay across the pave; and several horses which had fallen in one of the mad rushes for safety had been shot, and now sprawled in the mud at the sides of the chaussee. The rain dripped ceaselessly from the leaves of the beech trees; the moonlight was obscured by heavy clouds; and only by the glimmer of lantern slung on the wagons lining the road was it possible to discern the way.
At Waterloo, lights burned in many of the cottage windows, for there was not a dwelling-place in the village, or in any of the hamlets nearby, which did not house a general and his staff, or senior officers who had been fortunate enough to secure a bed or a mattress under cover. The tiny inn owned by Veuve Bedonghien, opposite the church, was occupied by the Duke, and here the Colonel dismounted. A figure loomed up to meet him. "Is it yourself, sir?" his groom enquired anxiously, holding up a lantern. "Eh, if that's not his lordship's Rufus!"
The Colonel gave up the bridle. "Yes. Rub him down well, Cherry!" The faint crackle of musketry fire in the distance came to his ears. "What's all this popping?"
Cherry gave a grunt. "Proper spiteful they've been all evening. Pickets, they tell me. 'Well,' I said, 'we didn't do such in Spain, that's all I know'."
The Colonel turned away and entered the inn. An orderly informed him that the Duke was still up, and he went into a room in the front of the house to make his report.
The Duke was seated at a table, with De Lancey at his elbow, looking over a map of the country. Lord Fitzroy occupied a chair on one side of the fire, and was placidly writing on his knee. He looked up as the Colonel came in, and smiled.
"Hallo, Audley!" said his lordship. "What's the news in Brussels?"
"There's been a good deal of panic, sir. The news of our retreat sent hundreds off to Antwerp," replied the Colonel, handing over the letters he had brought.
"Ah, I daresay! Road bad?"
"Yes, sir, and needs clearing. In places it's choked with baggage and overturned carts. I spoke to one of our own drivers, and it seems the Belgian cavalry upset everything in their way when they galloped to Brussels."
"I'll have it cleared first thing," De Lancey said. "It's the fault of these rascally Flemish drivers! There's no depending on them."
Sir Colin Campbell came into the room, and upon seeing Audley remarked that there was some cold pie to be had; the Duke nodded dismissal, and the Colonel went off to a room upstairs which was occupied by Gordon and Colonel Canning. A fire had been lit in the grate, and several wet garments were drying in front of it. Occasionally it belched forth a puff of acrid woodsmoke, which mingled with the blue smoke of the two officers' cigars, and made the atmosphere in the small apartment extremely thick. Gordon was lying on a mattress in his shirt-sleeves, with his hands linked behind his head; and Canning was sprawling in an ancient armchair by the fire, critically inspecting a crumpled coat which was hung over a chair back to dry.
"Welcome to our humble quarters!" said Canning. "Don't be afraid! You'll soon get used to the smoke."
"What a reek!" said Audley. "Why the devil don't you open the window?"
"A careful reconnaissance," Gordon informed him, "has revealed the fact that the window is not made to open. What are you concealing under your cloak?"
The Colonel grinned, and produced his bottles of champagne, which he set down on the table.
"Canning, tell the orderly downstairs to get hold of some glasses!" said Gordon, sitting up. "Hi, Charles, don't put that wet cloak of yours anywhere near my coat!"
Canning hitched the coat off the chair back, and tossed it to its owner. "It's dry. We have a very nice billet here, Charles. Try this chair! I daren't sit in it any longer for fear of being too sore to sit in the saddle tomorrow."
Colonel Audley spread his cloak over the chair back, sat down on the edge of the truckle bed against the wall, and began to pull off his muddied boots. "I'm going to sleep," he replied. "In fact, I rather think that I'm asleep already. Where's Slender Billy?"
"At Abeiche. Horses at L'Espinettes."
The Colonel wiped his hands on a large handkerchief, took off his coat, and stretched himself full length on the patchwork quilt. "What do they stuff their mattresses with here?" he enquired. "Turnips?"
"We rather suspect mangel -worzels," replied Canning. "Did you hear the pickets enjoying themselves when you came in?"
"Damned fools!" said Audley. "What's the sense of it?"
"There ain't any, but if the feeling in our lines and the French lines tonight is anything to go by we're in for a nasty affair tomorrow."
"Well, I don't approve of it," said Gordon, raising himself on his elbow to throw the stub of his cigar into the fire. "We used to manage things much better in Spain. Do you remember those fellows of ours who used to leave a bowl out with a piece of money in it every night for the French vedettes to take in exchange for cognac? Now, that's what I call a proper, friendly way of conducting a war."
"There wasn't anything very friendly about our fellows the night the French took the money without filling the bowl," Audley remarked. "Have the French ll come up?"
"Can't say," replied Canning. "There's been a good deal of artillery arriving on their side, judging from the rumbling I heard when I was on the field half an hour ago. Queer thing: our fellows have lit campfires, as usual, but there isn't one to be seen in the French lines."
"Poor devils!" said Audley, and shut his eyes.
Downstairs, the Duke was also stretched on his bed, having dropped asleep with that faculty he possessed of snatching rest anywhere and at any time. At three o'clock Lord Fitzroy woke him with the intelligence that Baron Muffling had come over from his quarters with a despatch from Marshal Blucher at Wavre.
The Duke sat up, and swung his legs to the ground. "What's the time? Three o'clock? Time to get up. How's the weather?"
"Clearing a little, sir."
"Good!" His lordship pulled on his hessians, shrugged himself into his coat, and strode into the adjoining room, where Muffling awaited him. "Hallo, Baron! Fitzroy tells me the weather's beginning to clear."
"It is very bad still, however, and the ground in many places a morass."
"My people call this sort of thing 'Wellington weather'," observed his lordship. "It always rains before my battles. What's the news from the Marshal? Hope he's no worse?"
The Marshal Prince had been last heard of as prostrate from the results of having been twice ridden over by cavalry when his horse was shot under him at Ligny. It would not have been surprising had an old gentleman of over seventy years of age succumbed to this rough usage, but Marshal Forwards was made of stern stuff. He was dosing himself with a concoction of his own, in which garlic figured largely, and had every intention of leading his army in person again. He had ordered General Billow to march at daybreak, through Wavre, on Chapelle St Lambert, with the Second Army Corps in support; and wrote asking for information, and promising support.
After a short conference with the Duke, Muffling went back to his own quarters to send off the intelligence that was wanted, and to represent to General Gneisenau in the plainest language the propriety of moving to the support of the Allied Army without any loss of time.
The Duke, apparently quite refreshed by his short nap, sat down to write letters. "Pray keep the English quiet if you can," he wrote to Sir Charles Stuart. "Let them all be prepared to move, but neither be in a hurry nor a fright, as all will yet turn out well."
But his lordship had not forgotten the bugbear of his right wing. Only a few hours earlier, he had sent orders to General Colville, at Braine-le-Comte, to retire upon Hal, and had instructed Prince Frederick to defend the position between Hal and Enghien for as long as possible. It was his opinion that Bonaparte's best strategy would be to outflank him, and seize Brussels by a coup de main. "II se pent que l'ennemi nous tourne par Hal," he wrote to the Duc de Berri. "Si cela arrive, je prie votre Altesse Royale de marcher sur Anvers et de vows cantonner dans le voisinage."
His lordship found time to send a note to his Brussels flirt, too. His indefatigable pen warned that her family ought to make preparations to leave Brussels, but added: "I will give you the earliest intimation of any danger that may come to my knowledge. At present I know of none."
His letters all written and despatched, his final dispositions checked, the Duke sent for his shaving water; and Thornhill, his phlegmatic cook, began to prepare breakfast. His lordship was notoriously indifferent to the food he ate (he had, in fact, once consumed a bad egg at breakfast before one of his battles in Spain, merely remarking in a preoccupied tone, when he had finished it: "By the by, Fitzroy, is that egg of yours fresh? for mine was quite rotten"), but Thornhill had his pride to consider, and might be trusted to concoct a palatable meal out of the most unpromising materials.
Just before the Duke left his Headquarters, a lieutenant of hussars rode into Waterloo at a gallop, and flung himself out of the saddle at the door of the little inn. His gay dress was generously splattered with mud, but Colonel Audley, leaning against the doorpost, had no difficulty in recognising an officer of his own regiment, and hailed him immediately: "Hallo! Where are you from?"
The lieutenant saluted. "Lindsay, sir, of Captain Taylor's squadron on picket duty at Smohain. Message for his lordship from General Bulow!"
"Come in, then. What's the news at the front?"
"Nothing much our way, sir. It's stopped raining, but there's a heavy mist lying on the ground. Captain Taylor saw two corps of French cavalry, in close column, dismounted, within a carbine shot of our vedettes, and a patrol of heavy cavalry moving off to the east: to feel for the Prussians, he supposed. Captain Taylor had just moved our squadron into Smohain village when a Prussian officer with a patrol arrived with the news that General Bulow's corps was advancing and was three-quarters of a league distant. Captain Taylor sent me off at once with the intelligence."
"You'll be welcome," said the Colonel, and handed him over to Lord Fitzroy.
The Duke set out to join the Army at an early hour, and was accompanied by a numerous suite. In addition to his aides-de-camp a brilliant corps diplomatique rode with him, in all the splendour of their various uniforms. Prussia, Austria, Spain, the Netherlands, and little Sardinia were represented in the persons of Barons Muffling and Vincent, Generals Pozzo di Borgo and Alava, Counts van Reede and D'Aglie, and their satellites. Orders and gold lace glittered and plumes waved about his lordship, a neat plain figure, mounted on a hollow-backed horse of little beauty and few manners.
The Duke, whom his troops had christened Beau Douro, was dressed, with his usual care and complete absence of ostentation, in a blue frock, short blue cloak. white pantaloons, and tasselled hessians. The one touch of dandyism he affected was a white cravat instead of a black stock. His low-crowned cocked hat had no plume, but bore beside the black cockade of England, three smaller ones in the colours of Portugal. Spain, and the Netherlands. He held his telescope in his hand, and sat on an ugly horse with no particular grace.
His lordship cared nothing for the appearance of his horse. "There may be faster horses, no doubt many handsomer," he said, "but for bottom and endurance I never saw his fellow." Indeed, he had paid a long price for Copenhagen, and had used him continually in Spain. He was an unpleasant brute to ride, but he seemed to delight in going into action, and evinced far more delight at the sight of troops than the troops felt at his too near approach. "Take care of that there 'orse! We know him!" said the Peninsular veterans, keeping wary eyes on his powerful hindquarters. " 'E kicks out!"
The position which the Allied Army had taken up on the previous night was some two miles south of Waterloo, before the village of Mont St Jean, and immediately in rear of the hollow road which led westward from Wavre to the village of Braine-l'Alleud. The ground had been surveyed the preceding year, and a map drawn of it, and although it was not perhaps ideal, it possessed one feature at least which commended it to the Duke. It fell away in a gentle declivity to the north, which enabled his lordship to keep all but the front lines of his troops out of sight of the enemy. The hollow road, which dipped in some places between steep, hedge-crowned banks, was intersected by the chaussee leading from Brussels to Charleroi, and, farther west, by the main road from Nivelles, which joined the chaussee at Mont St Jean. In itself it nearly everywhere constituted the front line of the position, but there were several outposts, like bastions, dotted along the position. On the extreme left there were the farm of Ter La Haye, and the village of Papelotte, occupied by Prince Bernhard of SaxeWeimar's Nassau troops. On the left centre, situated three hundred yards south of the hollow road, upon the western side of the Charleroi chaussee, was La Haye Sainte, a semi-fortified farm, with a garden and orchard attached; and on the right, where the hollow road took a southerly bend before crossing the Nivelles highway, was the chateau and wood of Hougoument, whose main gate gave on to the short avenue leading to the Nivelles road, down which, so short a time before, Lady Worth had driven in an open barouche, on an expedition of pleasure.
The country was undulating, and to the east of the Charleroi road a valley separated the Allied front line from the ridge, where, as soon as day broke, French troops could be seen assembling. To the west of the chaussee, the banks of the hollow road became less steep; behind Hougoumont, and overlooking it, was a high plateau, bounded on the right by the ravine through which the Nivelles road ran. Across this road, another plateau was occupied by Lord Hill's Corps, drawn back en potence, and occupying the villages of Braine-l'Alleud and Merbe Braine.
The Army, retreating to this position through the storm of the previous afternoon, had spent a miserable night, exposed to a downpour that turned the ground into a bog, saturated coats and blankets, and streamed through the canvas tents. Straw, bean-stalks, sheaves of rye and barley had been collected by the men to form mattresses, but nothing could keep the wet out. Gunners sought shelter under the gun carriages; infantrymen huddled together under the lee of hedges, and many, abandoning all attempt to sleep, sat round the campfires, deriving what comfort they could from their pipes, and a comparison of these conditions with those endured in Spain. Peninsular veterans assured the Johnny Newcomes that the miseries they were undergoing were as nothing to the sufferings met with in the Pyrenees. One or two recalled the retreat of Sir John Moore's army upon Corunna, till the raw recruits, listening wide-eyed to the description of forced marches, barefoot over mountain passes deep in snow, began to feel that they were not so very badly off after all. No rations had been served out overnight, but quite a number of skinny fowls had been looted by seasoned campaigners, and were broiled in kettles over the campfires.
The rain ceased shortly before daybreak, but the atmosphere was vapoury, and heavy with damp. Men got up from their sodden beds shaking as though with ague, their garments clammy over their numb bodies, and their teeth rattling in their heads with a chill that seemed to have penetrated into their very bones. A double allowance of gin served out at dawn helped to bring a little warmth to them, but there were some who, lying down exhausted the night before, did not wake in the morning.
The vicious spitting of musketry had sounded up and down the line of pickets at intervals during the night, but with the daylight a general popping began, as the men fired their pieces in the air to clean the barrels of rust. The vedettes and the sentries were withdrawn; optimists declared the weather to be fairing up; old soldiers became busy drying their clothes and cleaning their arms; young soldiers stared over the dense mist in the valley to the ridge where the French were beginning to show themselves.
At five o'clock, drums, bugles, and trumpets all along the two-mile front sounded the Assembly. Staff officers were seen galloping in every direction; brigades began to move into their positions: here a regiment of Light Dragoons changed ground; there a battalion of blue-coated Dutch-Belgians marched along the hollow road with their quick, swinging step; or a troop of horse artillery thundered over the ground to a position in the front line. A breakfast of stir-about was served to the men; a detachment of riflemen, posted in a sandpit on the left side of the Charleroi road, immediately south of its junction with the hollow road, began to make an abattis across the chaussee with branches of trees.
A tumbledown cottage on the main road, between Mont St Jean and the hollow way, had been occupied during the night by the Colonel of the 95th Rifles, and some of his officers and men had kindled a fire against one of its walls, and had boiled a huge camp kettle full of tea, milk, and sugar over it. The Duke stopped there for a cup of this sticky beverage on his way from Waterloo; and Colonel Audley, standing beside his horse, and also sipping tea from a pannikin, found himself accosted by Captain Kincaid, whose invincible gaiety did not seem to have been in the least impaired by a night spent in the pouring rain. He had slept soundly, waking to find his clothes drenched and his horse, which he had tethered to a sword stuck in the ground, gone.
"Just drew his sword, and marched off" he said. "Did you ever hear of an adjutant going into action without his horse? You might as well go without your arms."
"Johnny, you crazy coot!" the Colonel exclaimed, laughing.
"How was I to know the brute had no proper feeling towards me? He's a low fellow: I found him hobnobbing half a mile off with a couple of artillery horses."
"You know, you have the luck of the devil!" the Colonel told him.
"I have, haven't I? You'd have said I might as well have looked for a needle in a haystack as for one horse in this mob. Have some more tea? That kettle of ours ought to get its brevet for devotion to duty. It has supplied everyone of the bigwigs with tea, from the Duke downwards."
"No, I won't have any more. Where are you stationed?"
"Oh, right in the forefront! Our 2nd and 3rd Battalions have been drafted to General Adam, and I believe are over there, on the right wing," replied Kincaid, with an airy gesture to the west. "But the rest of us are going to occupy a snug sandpit, and the knoll behind it, on the chaussee, opposite to La Haye Sainte. I've had a look at the position: we shall have our right resting on the chaussee and as far as I can see we ought to get the brunt of whatever the French mean to give us."
"Well, that'll give you something to brag about," said the Colonel, handing over his empty pannikin. "Good luck to you, Johnny!"
At nine o'clock, the Duke rode from end to end of the position, inspecting the disposition of the troops and making final alterations. There being as yet no sign of the Prussians advancing from the east, two brigades of light cavalry, Sir Hussey Vivian's hussars and Sir John Vandeleur's dragoons, had been posted to guard the left flank until the Prussians should arrive to relieve them. On Vandeleur's right, Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar's brigade of Nassau and Orange-Nassau troops held the advance posts of Papelotte and Ter La Haye. Behind him, Vincke's and Best's Hanoverians were ranged. Next came Pack's Highlanders, a skeleton of the brigade which had marched out of Brussels on June 15th; and Kempt's almost equally depleted 8th Brigade. These troops, with Vincke's Landwehr battalions, made up the 5th Division under Sir Thomas Picton, and occupied the left centre of the line. In support, some way behind the line, on the downward slope of the ground to the rear, Sir William Ponsonby's Union Brigade of English, Scots, and Irish dragoons was drawn up, with Ghigny's brigade of light cavalry some little way behind them. The hollow road, at this point, dipped between steep banks, crowned on the northern side by straggling hedges which afforded cover for the division. On the southern slope of the bank, closing the interval between Pack's right and Kempt's left, was placed Count Bylandt's brigade of Dutch-Belgians, in an uncomfortably exposed position, looking across the valley to the ridge occupied by the French. Kempt's right lay in the angle formed by the chaussee and the hollow road from Wavre. The 1st Battalion of the 95th Rifles was attached to the brigade, and their light troops were posted in a sandpit almost opposite La Haye Sainte, and on the knoll behind it, considerably in advance of the line.
La Haye Sainte itself, situated three hundred yards south of the crossroad, abutted directly on to the chaussee and was occupied by the 2nd Light Battalion of Ompteda's Germans, under Major Baring. Beyond its white walls and blue-tiled roof, the main Charleroi road descended into the valley, and rose again to where, on the southern ridge, the farm of La Belle Alliance could be seen from the Allied line.
The chaussee, cutting through the centre of the Allied line, separated Picton's division from Sir Charles Alten's, drawn up to the west of it. Colonel von Ompteda's brigade of the King's German Legion lay with its left against the chaussee, and with La Haye Sainte in its immediate front; next came Count Kielmansegg's Hanoverian line battalions; and, west of them, where the hollow road began to curve southwards, was Sir Colin Halkett's brigade of one Highland and three English regiments. From Halkett's right, to where the Nivelles road crossed the hollow way, the ground was strongly held by Cooke's division of British Guards occupying the high ground behind and overlooking the chateau, of Hougoumont. Seven companies of the Coldstream, under Sir James Macdonnell, had been thrown into the chateau, and had been busy all night strengthening the fortifications; while the four light companies of the division, under Lord Saltoun, were spent forward as skirmishers into the wood and orchard.
In the triangle of ground formed by the junction, at Mont St Jean, of the two great highways from Charleroi and Nivelles, a number of cavalry brigades were massed behind the infantry, and out of sight of the enemy. In rear of Ompteda, and separated from the Union Brigade of heavy cavalry only by the chaussee, was Lord Edward Somerset's heavy brigade of Household Cavalry: Life Guards, Dragoons and Blues, in magnificent array. Behind them, in reserve, was Baron Collaert's Dutch-Belgic cavalry division, comprising a brigade of carabiniers, under General Trip; and a brigade of light cavalry under Baron van Merlen. Immediately to the rear of Kielmansegg were General Kruse's Nassau troops, in reserve, with Colonel Arentschildt's light dragoons and hussars of the legion supporting them: and, lying against the Nivelles road, considerably withdrawn from the front, was the Brunswick contingent. Upon the plateau behind the Guards' division were posted Major-General Dornberg's light dragoons; a Hanoverian regiment known as the Cumberland Hussars; and Major-General Grant's hussar brigade, which lay directly behind Byng's Guards, against the Nivelles road, overlooking the ravine running north of Merbe Braine, and the plateau beyond.
On this plateau, drawn back en potence to guard the right flank of the line, was Lord Hill's Second Army Corps. Of this corps, Sir Henry Clinton's division occupied the ground nearest to the highway, Adam's brigade being drawn up immediately to the west of it. The village of Merbe Braine, nestling to the north behind a belt of trees, was occupied by Hew Halkett's brigade of Hanoverian militia, and Colonel Du Plat's line battalions of the legion. Some way to the west, Baron Chase's Dutch-Belgic division was stationed round Braine-l'Alleud, Colonel Detmer's brigade occupying the village itself and Count d'Aubreme's brigade being posted to the south-west, round the farm of Vieux Foriez, as an observation corps. Of General Colville's 4th Division, eight miles away at Hal with Prince Frederick's corps, only one brigade was present, Colonel Mitchell's which was formed on the west of the Nivelles road, covering the avenue which led to the great north gate of Hougoumont.
Attached to the divisions and the cavalry brigades were brigades and troops of artillery, those in front line being placed in the intervals of the infantry brigades, and slightly in advance of them. Rogers's brigade and Ross's Chestnut Troop guarded the Charleroi chaussee; Whinyates was attached to the Union Brigade with his rockets; Gardiner was Vivian's hussars; Stevenart's heroic battery with Prince Bernhard's Nassauers; Rettberg before Best; Byleveld with Count Bylandt's brigade; while, west of the chaussee, in front of Alten's and Cooke's divisions, were ranged Cleeve's and Kuhlmann's German batteries, Bean's, Webber-Smith's, Ramsay's and Bull's brigades and troops, each with six guns, manned by eighty or more gunners and drivers, half a dozen bombardiers, and the usual complement of sergeants, corporals, farriers, and trumpeters. Each troop came up in sub-divisions, an impressive cavalcade with two hundred horses, and a train of forge carts, spare-wheel carriages and extra ammunition wagons. Every horse was brought on to the field in the pink of condition, his flanks plumped out with plundered forage. A hard life, the artillery officer's, for while, on the one hand, plundering was strictly forbidden by the Duke, on the other, the allowance of forage was insufficient to put the fat on the horses which his lordship demanded. "Either way you quake in your shoes," declared Captain Mercer bitterly. "Bring your troop on to the ground with your beasts a shade thinner than the next man's, and that damned cold eye of the Duke's will see the difference in a flash. You won't be asked questions about it, and if you try to defend yourself you won't be attended to. You'll be judged out of hand as unfit for your command, and very likely removed from the Army as well. But if you plunder the poor foreigner's fields, and he reports you to the Duke - whew!"
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 a Cheval, blazing with green and gold, giant carabiniers in white, brass-casqued dragoons, hussars in every colour, Grenadiers a 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 o 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 informed 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 Muffling, knowing the Prussian chief of staff's mistrust of the Duke, was also anxious, and had already despatched one of his Jagers to try to get news of Billow'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, Billow'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 chateau 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 Muffling, and said: "They call me a Sepoy General. Well! Napoleon shall see today how a Sepoy General can defend a position!"
Muffling bowed, but thought the chances of holding the chateau 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 sweep 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 chateau, 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, sir? 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 Muffling, 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 Blucher, and was dated 9.30a.m. 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 Muffling, 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 Billow 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 chaussee 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 chaussee, 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 Dornberg," 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?"
"Dornberg 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!" retorted 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.