The great infantry attack on the Allied left centre had failed. The Household Brigade had repulsed Quiot from La Haye Sainte; Bourgeois and Donzelot had been forced to retreat with heavy loss; and Marcognet's division was shattered. The remaining column, led by Durutte, had had more success, but was forced to retire in the general retreat. Durutte had advanced against Papelotte, and had driven Prince Bernhard's Nassauers out of the village. These re-formed, and in their turn drove out the French. Vandeleur's brigade of light cavalry charged the column, and it drew off, but in good order.
On the Allied side the losses were enormous. Kempt and Pack could no longer hope to hold the line, and Lambert's brigade was ordered up from Mont St Jean to reinforce them. The Union Brigade had been cut to pieces; the Household troops were reduced to a few squadrons. Of the generals, Picton had been killed outright in the first charge; Sir William Ponsonby, leading the Union Brigade on a hack horse, was lying dead on the field with his aide-de-camp beside him; and Pack and Kempt, on whom the command of the 5th Division had devolved, were wounded. Lord Edward Somerset, unhorsed, his hat gone, the lap of his coat torn off, got to his own lines miraculously unscathed.
Lord Uxbridge, who, when the Life Guards and the Dragoon Guards ignored the Rally, had ridden back to bring up the Blues in support, only to find that they had galloped into first line before ever they had passed La Haye Sainte, listened in contemptuous silence to the congratulations of the Duke's suite upon the brilliant success of his charge. He turned away, remarking to Seymour, with a disdainful curve to the mouth: "That Troupe doree seems to think the battle is over. But had I, when I sounded the Rally, found only four well-formed squadrons coming on at an easy trot, we should have captured a score of guns and avoided these shocking losses. Well! I deviated from my own principle: the carriere once begun the leader is no better than any other man. I should have placed myself at the head of the second line."
During D'Erlon's attack, the cannonading had been kept up on the other parts of the line, while, round Hougoumont, the struggle still raged with unabated fury, more and more men of Reille's Corps being employed in the attempt to capture the chateau. The stubborn resistance of the Guards inside the chateau and garden, and of Saltoun's light companies, holding the orchard and the alley to the north in the teeth of all opposition, awoke a corresponding determination in the French generals. No attempt was made to mask the post; Jerome, Foy, and Bachelu were all sent against it; and a howitzer troop was summoned up to drop shells upon the buildings. At a quarter to three, the roof of the chateau was blazing, and the Duke, observing it, scrawled one of his brief messages in his pocket-book: "I see that the fire has communicated from the Haystack to the roof of the Chateau. You must, however, still keep your men in those parts to which the fire does not reach. Take care that no men are lost by the falling in of the roof or floors. After they will have fallen in, occupy the ruined walls inside the gardens; particularly if it should be possible for the Enemy to pass through the Embers in the inside of the house."
He tore out the leaves, and folded them, and handed them to Colonel Audley, with a curt instruction.
The Colonel made his way to the right, behind Alten's division. The going was hard, the ground being heavy from the recent storm, and the smoke from the shells bursting all round making it difficult to see the way. He caught a glimpse of some squadrons of Dutch carabiniers, drawn up considerably to the rear, with their left against the chaussee, out of range of the cannonshots; passed by General Kruse's Nassauers, held in reserve; and arrived at length on the plateau overlooking Hougoumont. Skirting a regiment of dragoons of the legion, who announced themselves to belong to General Dornberg's brigade, the Colonel took a deep breath, gave his horse a pat on the neck saying: "Now for it, my lad!" and plunged forward into the region of shot and shell bursts. As he rode past Maitland's Guards, lying down in line four-deep above the bend of the hollow road to the south, a cannonball screamed past his head, and made him duck involuntarily. An officer commanding a troop of horse artillery, a little to the west of the 1st Guards, saw him, and laughed, shouting: "Whither away, Audley?"
"To Hougoumont. Ramsay, where the devil has Byng's brigade got to?"
"In there, most of 'em," replied Ramsay, pointing to the Hougoumont enclosures. "They tell me the ditches are piled up with the dead: don't add to their number, if you can avoid it!"
"Damn you, I'm shaking with fright already!" called Audley over his shoulder.
Ramsay laughed, and waved him on. The last sight Colonel Audley had of him was sitting his horse beside his guns, as cool as though engaged on field manoeuvres, waving his hand, and laughing.
He set spurs to his horse, and galloped forward into the smoke and the heat of the fight round Hougoumont. He found himself soon among what seemed to be a steady stream of wounded, making their painful way to the rear. The lane behind the chateau, which was flanked by ditches and elm trees, was lined with some of the light companies of the Guards regiments, and in the orchard beyond a never-ending skirmish was going on. From the cover of the tree trunks, and the ditches, the Guards, stepping over their own dead, were upholding their proud reputation. The carnage was appalling, but Colonel Audley,.-making his way to the northern wicket leading into the chateau, could see no signs of dismay in even the youngest face. When a man fell, with a queer little grunt as the ball struck him, those near him would do no more than glance at him in the intervals of reloading their muskets. They were intent on their marksmanship, their strained eyes staring ahead through the drifting smoke, their muskets at the ready.
Except for a shot which carried away his horse's ear, and caused the poor beast to rear up, snorting and squealing, the Colonel reached the wicket gate without sustaining any injury, and penetrated into the courtyard.
The scene outside in the enclosures faded to insignificance before the inferno within the walls. The haystack was still blazing, and not only the roof of the chateau but also a cowshed where the wounded had been lying, had caught fire. The heat was overpowering; shells were falling on the buildings; horses, caught in flaming stables, were screaming; a few men, unrecognizable in torn and blackened uniforms, were working desperately to drag the last of the wounded out of the cowshed, while others, forming a chain, were pouring bucketful after bucketful of water on the smoking walls. On every side sounded the crash of falling timbers, the bursting of shells, and the groans of men, who, unable to move for shattered legs or ghastly stomach wounds, were scorched by the fire and driven mad by pain and thirst. A sergeant of the Coldstream shouted to Audley above the din that Colonel Macdonnell was in the garden, and thither Audley made his way, out of the heat and the fire, into what seemed an oasis set in the middle of hell.
Reille's guns were all trained on the courtyard and the surrounding buildings, and scarcely any shells had fallen in the neat garden which Barbara Childe had planned to visit again in the summer. Roses were blooming in the formal beds; the long turf walks between were shaded by fruit trees, and perfectly smooth. The Colonel had no time to waste in gazing on this refreshing scene; but its contrast with the horror of the courtyard most forcibly struck him as he strode towards the high brick wall on the southern side. Here the defenders were for the most part gathered, some firing through the rough loopholes, other mounted on the wooden platforms, and firing over the top of the wall into the infantry in the orchard and the fringe of the wood beyond. Colonel Audley soon found Macdonnell, and delivered the Duke's message. The big Scot read it, and gave a short laugh. "He need not worry: we can hold the place. But send more ammunition down to us, Audley, if you can: we're running damned short. How is it going along the rest of the line?"
"The 5th Division and the heavy brigades have repulsed an infantry attack on the left centre, sir. No one has it as hot as you, so far."
"Ah! Well, no one has troops like my fellows. Tell the Duke there's no talk of surrender here."
Making his way back again through the house and the courtyard, Colonel Audley once more reached the wicket gate, and found his horse, which he had tethered there, apparently not much troubled by the loss of his ear. He mounted, and galloped back to the main position, crossing the hollow road just below the spot where the few companies of Byng's brigade not engaged in the struggle about Hougoumont were posted. He did not see Byng himself, but gave Macdonnell's message to a senior officer, who begged him to carry it further, to the Prince of Orange's staff. He rode on towards Maitland's brigade, where he was informed the Prince was to be found, but was told there by Maitland himself that the Prince had moved to the left, towards Alten's division.
"I'll send one of my family, if you like," Maitland said. "The trouble is to get the carts through to Hougoumont."
"You have enough on your hands, sir, by the look of it. I must pass Alten's division in any case."
Maitland had his glass to his eye, and replied in a preoccupied tone: "Very well. I don't like the look of those fellows moving up round the eastern side of Hougoumont. I wonder - no, never mind: off with you!"
The Colonel left him still watching the stealthy advance of a large body of French light troops who were creeping along the eastern hedge of the Hougoumont enclosure with the evident intention of turning Saltoun's left flank, and galloped on towards the centre of the line.
The Prince of Orange, who was surrounded by numerous staff, was not difficult to pick out. He was wearing his English hussar dress, with an orange cockade in his hat, and was standing beside Halkett's bridge on the right flank of the division, his glass, like Maitland's trained on the advancing French skirmishers. The Colonel rode towards him, but arrived in his presence in a precipitate fashion which he did not intend. A shell, bursting within a few yards of him, brought his horse down in mid-gallop; the Colonel was shot over his head, feeling at the same moment something like a red-hot knife sear his left thigh, and fell almost at the feet of Lord March.
The explosion, and the heavy fall, knocked him senseless for a moment or two, but he soon came to himself, to find March's face bent over him. He blinked at it, recollected his surroundings, and tried to laugh. "Good God, what a way to arrive!"
"Are you hurt, Charles?"
"No, merely dazed," replied the Colonel, grasping his friend's hand, and pulling himself up. "My horse killed?"
"One of the men shot him. His fore legs were blown off at the knees. We thought you were gone. You are hurt! I'll get you to the rear."
"You'll do no such thing!" said the Colonel, feeling his leg through his blood-stained breeches. "I think a splinter must have caught me. I'll get one of Halkett's sawbones to tie it up. I was looking for you fellows. I've been charged by Colonel Macdonnell to see that more ammunition is sent down to him."
"I'll pass the message. Things are looking rather black at the moment." He pointed towards the hedge of the Hougoumont.
At that moment the Prince cantered up, looking pale and rather excited. "March! I've ordered the light troops not to stir from their position! They were forming to move against those skirmishers who are trying to turn Saltoun's left flank, but I'm sure the Duke will have seen that movement, and will make his own dispositions. You agree?"
"Yes, sir."
"Eh, mon Dieu, if one knew what were best to do - but no, I'm right! Charles, go at once to the rear: you awe bleeding like a pig! My dear fellow, I have so much on my hands - ah, I was right! I knew it! See there, March! The Guards are moving down to cut off his attempt! All is well then, and it is a mercy I would not permit the light troops to go. March, take Charles to the rear, and find him a horse - no, a surgeon! Au revoir, Charles. I wish - but you see how it is: I have not a moment!"
He flew off again; Audley's eyes twinkled; he said: "Has he been like this all day?"
March smiled. "This is nothing. But you mustn't laugh at him; he's doing well - quite well, if only he wouldn't get excited. Good, there's one of the assistant-surgeons! Finlayson! Patch Colonel Audley up, will you? I'll get you a trooper from somewhere, Charles. Take care of yourself!"
The Colonel's wound was found to have been caused, as he suspected, by a splinter. This was speedily, if somewhat painfully, extracted, and his leg bound up, by which time one of the sergeants of the 30th Regiment had come up, leading a trooper. The Colonel mounted, declaring himself to be in splendid shape, and rode off as fast as his heavy steed would bear him.
The Duke was standing on Alten's right flank, on the highest part of the position. The time was a little after three o'clock, and Colonel Audley rejoined his lordship just as the sadly diminished Household Brigade was returning from a charge led by Uxbridge against a French force once more attacking the farm of La Haye Sainte. Baring had been reinforced by two companies after the overthrow of D'Erlon's columns, and the little garrison, in spite of having lost possession of the orchard and garden, was stoutly defending the buildings. The second attack, which was not very rigorously pressed, had been repulsed, and the charge of the Household Cavalry seemed to have succeeded. The French infantry had drawn off again, and except for the continued but not very severe cannonade against the whole Allied front, and the bitter fight about Hougoumont, a lull had fallen on the battle. Colonel Audley seized the opportunity to ride to the rear, where, on the chaussee a little below Mont St Jean, his groom was stationed with his remaining horses. He fell in with Gordon on the way, and learned from him that the head of Bulow's crops was reported to have reached St Lambert, five miles to the east of La Belle Alliance.
"Coming along in their own good time, damn them!" said Gordon. "They say the roads are almost impassable, but I'll tell you what, Charles, if we don't get some reinforcements for our left centre before we're attacked again we shall be romped."
"Where's Lambert?"
"Just come up into the front line, which means we haven't a single man in reserve on the left - unless you count Bylandt's heroes as reserves."
"I shouldn't care to trust to them," admitted the Colonel. "Did their officers ever succeed in re-forming them?"
"I don't know. Pack's fellows have started a tale that they've all gone off for a picnic in the Forest. I never saw such a damnable rout in all my life! It was God's mercy it happened where it did, and not before some of our raw regiments. You were there, weren't you? Is it true that Picton's rascals fired after them?"
"They tried to, but we restrained them. Does anyone know what is going to happen next?"
"I certainly don't. All I do know is that I wish to God we had some of the fellows stationed at Hal here," replied Gordon candidly.
For over half an hour no sign of a fresh attack was made by the enemy. Speculation was rife in the Allied lines; no one could imagine what the next move was going to be, or against what part of the line it would be directed. At Hougoumont, all but two companies of Byng's brigade, which were left to guard the Colours, had been drawn into the fight in the orchards and wood. Colonel Hepburn, whom the Prince of Orange had seen advancing with the remaining companies of the Scots Guards to Lord Saltoun's relief, had taken over the command from him after assisting him to drive Foy's men out of the orchard; and Saltoun had retired to his brigade, with just one-third of the men of the light companies whom he had led into action.
The gradual absorption of Byng's entire brigade in the defence of the Hougoumont made it imperative to reinforce the right of the line. Shortly before four o'clock, an aide-de-camp was sent off to bring up some young Brunswick troops, held in reserve, to fill the gap. This had hardly been accomplished when the firing on the Allied right centre suddenly became so violent that after a very few minutes of it the Duke withdrew his troops farther back from the crest of the position. Old soldiers with a score of battles behind them admitted, as they lay flat on their bellies under the rain of grape, round shot, and spherical case, that they had never experienced such a cannonading. Occasionally a greater explosion than the rest would roar above the din as an ammunition wagon was struck, and a column of smoke would rise vertically in the air, spreading like an umbrella.
Everyone knew that the cannonade was the prelude to an attack, but when those on the high ground on the right of the Charleroi road saw forming across the valley on the ridge of La Belle Alliance, not infantry divisions but huge masses of cavalry, they were thunderstruck. It soon became evident that the attack was going to be directed against the right centre of the Allied line, for the squadrons, which had first appeared on the east of the Charleroi road, crossed it, obl quing to their left, and advanced slowly but in beautiful order through the fields of deep corn that lay between the advance posts of Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte.
Twenty-four squadrons of Milhaud's cuirassiers led the cavalcade in first line, their burnished breastplates and helmets making them look like a wall of steel. They were supported by nineteen squadrons of the light cavalry of the guard: red lancers with high white plumes, gaudy horse trappings, and fluttering pennons, in second line; and, in third line, the Chausseurs a Cheval in green dolmans embroidered richly with gold, black bearskin shakos on their heads, and fur-trimmed pelisses swinging from their shoulders.
It was a formidable array, terrifying to inexperienced troops, but regarded by the staff officers who watched its assembly with a good deal of criticism.
"Good God, this is too premature!" Lord Fitzroy exclaimed. "They cannot mean to attack unshaken infantry with cavalry alone!"
"Perhaps Ney's gone mad," suggested Canning hopefully. "What the devil has he done with his infantry columns?"
"I fancy the Prussians must be at something on the left," said the Duke, overhearing this interchange.
"I shall believe in the Prussians when I see them," remarked Canning to Colonel Audley.
There was no opportunity for further speculation. Orders were sent to the brigade to prepare to withstand cavalry attacks; aides-de-camp dashed off through the hail of shot; and the troops lying on the ground beside their arms were quickly formed into two lines of squares, placed chequer-wise behind the crest of the position. In support, all the available cavalry was mustered; the two British heavy brigades, now reduced to a few squadrons, under the command of Lord Edward Somerset; Trip's carabiniers; seven squadrons of Van Merlen's light cavalry; a regiment of Brunswick Hussars; Colonel Arendtschildt's brigade of the legion; and a part of Dornberg's and Grant's brigades. A demonstration by some French lancers by the Nivells road had succeeded in drawing off two of Grant's regiments and one of Dornberg's, so that of Grant's brigade only the 7th Hussars, who had suffered great loss at Genappe, on the previous day, were left to meet the attack of French cavalry; and of Dornberg's only the 1st and 2nd Light Dragoons of the legion. In all, it was a meagre force to throw against the forty-three squadrons assembling between Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte, and the want of the two British brigades guarding the left flank of the line until the Prussians should arrive to relieve them began to be acutely felt.
The Brunswickers, who had been brought up to fill the gap on Maitland's right, were raw troops, and the Duke wisely strengthened them by sending for a regiment from Colonel Mitchell's brigade, posted west of the Nivelles road, and stationing it between their two squares. Light troops were ordered to fall back upon the squares immediately in their rear, irrespective of nation or brigade; the artillery was instructed to keep up a steady fire upon the advancing cavalry until the last possible moment, and then to run for safety to the infantry squares; guns were double-loaded with shod and canister; and the squares formed four deep, the front ranks kneeling, so that each square presented four faces bristling with bayonets.
The French artillery fire ceased as the squadrons began to advance, at a slow trot. Owing to the Duke's having withdrawn his right centre slightly down the reverse slope of the position to protect it from the cannonading, the French, advancing to the crest, saw no infantry opposing them. They were met by a devastating fire of artillery, but though their front ranks were disordered by the gaps torn in the lines, they pushed on intrepidly. As the leading squadrons breasted the rise, the trumpets sounded the Charge, and the cuirassiers, cheering, and shouting "En avant!" spurred forward, and saw ahead of them, not an army in retreat, as they had been led to suppose, but motionless squares, awaiting their charge in grim British silence.
The British gunners, remaining at their posts until almost surrounded by the surge of horsemen, were firing at point-blank range. As the cuirassiers charged up to the batteries, the terrible case shot brought them down in tangled heaps of men and horses together. When the muzzles of their guns almost touched the leading squadrons, the artillery men, some detaching the wheels from their guns and bowling them along with them, rushed to the nearest squares and flung themselves down under the bayonets.
In a cacophony of shouts, trumpets calls, and the discharge of carbines, the cuirassiers charged down upon the silent squares. When they came to within thirty paces, the order to fire upon them was given, and a storm of bullets rattled against the steel breastplates, for all the world like hailstones on a glass roof. Those in the rear ranks of the squares were employed in reloading the muskets, and the repeated volleys caused the advancing columns to split, and to swerve off to right and left, only to receive a still more devastating flank of fire from the sides of the squares. In a very few moments all order was lost, the cuirassiers jostling one another in the spaces between the squares, some riding against the red walls to discharge their carbines and pistols into the set faces upturned behind the gleaming chevaux de frise of bayonets; other trotting round and round in an attempt to find a weak spot to break through.
No sooner had the cuirassiers passed the first line of squares then the artillerymen dashed back to their guns, to meet with renewed fire the second columns of lancers and chasseurs, ascending the southern slope in support of the cuirassiers. The same tactics were repeated, with the same results. The squadrons, already thrown in to some disorder by the charges of case shot exploding among them, obliqued before the frontal fire of the squares. Soon the whole plateau was covered with horsemen: lancers, chasseurs and cuirassiers, mixed in inextricable confusion, spreading right up to the second line of squares. Man after man fell in the British ranks, but the gaps were always filled, and the squares remained unbroken. Skirmishers, taking cover behind the carcasses of dead horses, kept up a steady fire on the congested mass of the enemy. Wounded and dead sprawled beneath the hooves; and unhorsed cuirassiers cast off their encumbering breastplates to struggle back through the press to the safety of their own lines. When the confusion was at its height, the Allied cavalry charged up from the rear and drove the French from the plateau.
They retired, leaving the ground littered with horses, men, piles of cuirasses, and accoutrements; but no sooner had the last of them disappeared over the crest than the punishing cannonade burst forth again, while Ney re-formed his muddled squadrons in the valley.
The attack, though it had not broken the squares, had considerably weakened them. The Duke, riding down the line, heartening the troops with the sight of his well-known figure and the sound of his loud, cheerful voice, sent aides-de-camp galloping off to bring up Clinton's division, in reserve on the west of the Nivelles road.
This consisted of General Adam's British Light Brigade, comprising the 1st battalion of Sir John Colborne's Fighting 52nd, the 71st Highland Regiment, and two battalions of the 95th Rifles; Colonel Du Plat's brigade of the legion; and Hew Halkett's Hanoverian Landwehr battalions.
Colonel Audley was one of those sent on this errand, and galloping through the hail of shot, reached the comparative quiet of the ground west of the Nivelles road, to find Lord Hill awaiting the expected instructions to send reinforcements from his corps into the front line. The Colonel, parched with thirst, coughing from the smoke of the shells, his wounded thigh throbbing, and his horse blown, sketched a salute, and thrust the Duke's message into his hand.
"Having a hot time of it in the centre, aren't you?" said Hill. He cast a glance at the Colonel's face, and added in his kindly way. "You look as though a drink would do you good. Hurt?"
"No sir!" gasped the Colonel, trying to get the smoke out of his lungs. "But we must have reinforcements before they come on again!"
"Oh yes! You shall have them!" Hill nodded to his younger brother and aide-de-camp. "Give Audley some of that wine of yours, Clement."
Audley, gratefully accepting a long-necked bottle, drank deeply, and sat recovering his breath while Lord Hill issued his instructions. It was his task to lead Adam's brigade to a strategic but dangerous position between the north-east angle of Hougoumont and the point on the higher ground behind the hollow road where the Brunswick troops stood huddled in two squares, with one British between. The boys, for they were little more, in their sombre uniforms and death's-head badges, were shaking, kept together only by the exertions of their officers, and the moral support afforded by the sight of the seasoned British regiment separating their squares.
Hew Halkett was brought up in support of the Brunswickers on Maitland's right; Du Plat was formed on the slope behind Hougoumont; and Adam's brigade, forming line four deep, came up to fill the interval between the Brunswickers and Hougoumont. The brigade was met by the Duke in person, who pointed to the cloud of skirmishers assailing theflank of the Guards defending the orchard, and briefly ordered them to: "Drive those fellows away!"
The artillery fire, which was mowing the ranks down, ceased, and the men, lying on the ground, were again ordered to form squares. The cavalry came riding over the crest as before, but this time it was seen that a considerable portion of their force was kept in compact order, and took no part in the attempt to break through the infantry squares. These horsemen were evidently formed to attack the Allied cavalry, but no sooner had the previous confusion of squadrons splitting and obliquing to right and left been repeated than the Allied cavalry, not waiting to be attacked, advanced to meet them and again drove them over the crest and down the slope.
The same tactics were repeated time after time, but with the same lack of success. The men forming the squares grew to welcome the cavalry attacks as a relief from the terrible cannonading that filed the intervals between them.
The Duke, who seemed to be everywhere at once, generally riding far ahead of the cortege that still galloped devotedly after him, was pale and abstracted, but gave no other sign of anxiety than the frequent sliding in and out of its socket of his telescope. If he saw a square wavering, he threw himself into it, regardless of all entreaties not to risk his life, and rallied it by the very fact of his presence.
"Never mind! We'll win this battle yet!" he said, and his men believed him, and breathed more freely when they caught a glimpse of that low cocked hat and the cold eyes and bony nose beneath it. They did not love him, for he did not love them, but there was not a man serving under him who had not complete confidence in him.
"Hard pounding, this, gentlemen," he said, when the cannonade was at its fiercest. "Let's see who will pound the longest."
When the foreign diplomats remonstrated with him. he said bluntly: "My Army and I know each other exactly, gentlemen. The men will do for me what they will do for no one else."
Lord Uxbridge led two squadrons of the Household Brigade against a large body of cavalry advancing to attack the squares, and although he could not drive it back, he managed to hold it in check. Major Lloyd fell, mortally wounded, beside his battery. Sometimes the cuirassiers succeeded in cutting men off from the angles of the squares, but before they could escape to the rear, staff officers galloped after them and got them back to their positions. At times, the squares, growing smaller as the men fell in them, were lost to sight in the sea of horsemen all round them.
Between four and five o'clock, convinced at last that no flanking attack was contemplated on his right, the Duke sent to order Baron Chasse up from Braine Alleud.
Staff officers were looking anxious; artillerymen, seeing little but masses of enemy cavalry swarming all over the position, waited in momentary expectation of receiving the order to retreat. The heat on the plateau was fast becoming unbearable. Reserves brought up from the rear felt themselves to be marching into a gigantic oven, and young soldiers, hearing for the first time the peculiar hum that filled the air, stared about them fearfully through the smoke, flinching as the shots hissed past their heads, and asked nervously: "What makes that humming noise like bees?"
Colonel Audley, riding back from an errand to the right wing, had his second horse killed under him close to a troop of horse artillery, drawn up in the interval between two Brunswick squares, in a slight hollow below the brow of the position, north of Hougoumont.
He-'sprang clear, but heard a voice call out: "Hi! Don't mask my guns! Anything I can do for you, sir?"
"You can give me a horse!" replied the Colonel, trying to recover his breath. He looked into a lean, humorous face, shaded by the jut of a black, crested helmet, and asked: "Who are you?"
"G Troop - Colonel Dickson's, under the command of Captain Mercer at your service!"
"Oh yes! I know." The Colonel's eyes travelled past him to a veritable bank of dead cuirassiers and horses, not twenty paces in front of his guns. He gave an awed whistle. "Good God!"
"Yes, we're having pretty hot work of it here," replied Mercer. A shell came whizzing over the crest, and fell in the mud not far from his troop, and lay there, its fuse spitting and hissing. He broke off to admonish his men, some of whom had flung themselves down on the ground. The shell burst at last, without doing much damage; and the nonchalant Captain turned back to Colonel Audley, resuming as though only a minor interruption had occurred: "- pretty hot work of it here. We wait till those steel-clad gentry come over the rise, and then we give 'em a dose of roundshot with a case over it. Terrible effect it has. I've seen a whole front rank come down from the effects of the case."
"Do you mean that you stand by your guns throughout?"
"Take a look at those squares, sir," recommended Mercer, jerking his head towards the Brunswickers, who were lying on the ground to the right and left of his rear. "You can't, at the moment, but if you care to wait you'll see them form squares, huddled together like sheep. If we scuttled for safety among them, they'd break and run. They're only children - not one above eighteen, I'll swear. Gives 'em confidence to see us here."
"You're a damned brave man!" said the Colonel, taking the bridle of the trooper which a driver had led up.
"Oh, we don't give a button for the cavalry!" replied Mercer. "The worst is this infernal cannonading. It plays the devil with us. We've been pestered by skirmishers, too, which is a damned nuisance. Only way I can stop my fellows wasting their charges on them is to parade up and down the bank in front of my guns. That's nervous work, if you like!"
"I imagine it might be," said the Colonel, with a grin. "Don't get your troop cut up too much, or his lordship won't be pleased."
"The artillery won't get any of the credit for this day's work in any case, so what's the odds?" Mercer replied. "Fraser knows what we're about. He was here a short time ago, very much upset from burying poor Ramsay."
The Colonel had one foot in the stirrup, but he paused and said sharply: "Is Ramsay dead?"
"Fraser buried him on the field not half an hour ago. Bolton's gone too, I believe. Was Norman Ramsay a friend of yours, sir? Pride of our service, you know."
"Yes," replied Audley curtly, and hoisted himself into the saddle, wincing a little from the pain of his wounded thigh. "I must push on before your steel-clad gentry come up again. Good luck to you!"
"The same to you, sir, and you'd better hurry. Cannonade's slackening."
The pause following the third onset of the cavalry was of longer duration than those which had preceded it. Ney had sent for reinforcements, and was reassembling his squadrons. To Milhaud's and Lefebvre Desnoutttes' original forty-three squadrons were now added both Kellermann's divisions and thirteen squadrons of Count Guyot's dragoons and Grenadiers a Cheval, making a grand total of seventy-seven squadrons. Not a foot of the ground, a third of a mile in width, lying between Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte, could be seen for the glittering mass of horsemen that covered it. It was an array to strike terror into the bravest heart. They advanced in columns of squadrons: gigantic carabiniers in white with gold breastplates; dragoons wearing tiger-skin helmets under their brass casques, and carrying long guns at their saddlebows; grenadiers in imperial blue, with towering bearskin shakos; steel-fronted cuirassiers; gay chasseurs; and white-plumed lancers, riding under the flutter of their own pennons. They did not advance with the brilliant dash of the British brigades, but at a purposeful trot. As they approached the Allied position the earth seemed to shake under them, and the sound of the horses' hooves was like dull thunder, swelling in volume. Fifteen thousand of Napoleon's proudest horsemen were sent against the Allied infantry squares, to break through the Duke's hard-held centre. They came over the crest in wave upon wave; riding up in the teeth of the guns until the entire plateau was a turbulent sea of bright, shifting colours, tossing plumes, and gleaming sabres. The fallen men and horses encumbering the ground hampered their advance, and once again the musketry fire from the front faces of the squares caused the squadrons to swerve off to right and left. Lancers, grenadiers, dragoons jostled one another in the press, their formation lost; but the tide swept on up to the second line of squares, and surrounded them. Some of the cavalry pushed right down the slope to the artillery wagons in the rear, and slew the drivers and horses, but though men were dropping all the time in the squares, the gaps were instantly filled, and when a square became disordered, the sharp command: "Close up!" was obeyed before the Cavalry could take advantage of the momentary confusion. For three-quarters of an hour the squares were almost swamped by the overwhelming hordes that pressed up to them, fell back again before the fire of the muskets, and rode round and round, striking with swords and sabres at the bayonets, discharging carbines, and making isolated dashes at the corners of the squares.
The French were driven off the plateau, when in hopeless confusion, by the charge of the Allied cavalry, but they retreated only to re-form. The cannonading burst forth again, and the sorely tried infantry, deafened by the roar of artillery, many of them wounded and all of them worn out by the grim struggle to keep their ranks closed, lay down on the torn ground, each man wondering in his heart what would be the end.
When the squadrons came over the crest again, Colonel Audley was nearly caught among them. He was mounted on his last horse, the Earl of Worth's Rufus, and owed his preservation to the hunter's pace. He snatched out his sword when he saw the cavalry bearing down upon him, threw off a lance by his right side, and clapping his spurs into Rufus's flanks, galloped for his life. One of Maitland's squares opened its files to receive them, and he rode into the middle of it and the files closed behind him.
"Hallo, Audley!" drawled a tall Major, who was having sticking-plaster put on a sabre cut. "That was a near thing, wasn't it?"
"Too damned near for my taste!" replied Audley, sliding out of the saddle and looping Rufus's bridge over his arm. He eased his wounded leg, with a grimace. "See anything of the Duke, Stuart?"
"Not quite lately. He went off towards the Brunswickers, I think. Some of those fellows seem to revel in this sort of thing."
"The younger ones don't like it."
The surgeon, having finished his work on the Major's arm, bustled away, and the Major, drawing his tunic on again, said, with a grave look: "What do you make of it?"
Audley returned the look. "Pretty black."
The Major nodded. He buttoned up his coat, and said: "We don't see much of it here, you know. Nothing but smoke and this damned cavalry. One of the artillery fellows who took cover in our square during the last charge said he thought it was all over with us."
"Not it! We shall win through!"
"Oh, not a doubt! But damme, if ever I saw anything like this cavalry affair! Look at them, riding round and round! Makes you feel giddy to watch them." He glanced round the square, and sighed. "God, my poor regiment!" He saw a slight stir taking place in one of the ranks, and hurried off towards the wall of red shouting: "Close up, there! Stand fast, my lads! We'll soon have them over the hill!"
The inside of the square was like a hospital, with wounded men lying all over the ground among the ammunition boxes and the debris of accoutrements. Those of the doctors attached to the regiment who had not gone to the rear were busy with bandages and sticking plaster, but there was very little they could do to ease the sufferings of the worse cases. From time to time, a man fell in the ranks, and crawled between the legs of his comrades into the square. The dead lay among the living, some with limbs twisted in a last agony, and sightless eyes glaring up at the chasing clouds; others as though asleep, their eyelids mercifully closed, and their heads pillowed on their arms.
Almost at Audley's feet, a boy lay in a sticky pool of his own blood. He looked very young; there was a faint smile on his dead lips, and one hand lay palm upwards on the ground, the fingers curling inwards in an oddly pathetic gesture. Audley was looking down at him when he heard his name feebly called. He turned his head and saw Lord Harry Alastair not far from him, lying on the ground, propped up by knapsacks.
He stepped over the dead boy at his feet, and went to Harry, and dropped on his knee beside him. "Harry! Are you badly hurt?"
"I don't know. I don't think I can be," Harry replied, with the ghost of a smile. "Only I don't seem able to move my legs. As a matter of fact, I can't feel anything below my waist."
The Colonel had seen death too many times not to recognise it now in Harry's drawn face and clouding eyes. He took one of the boy's hands and held it, saying gently: "That's famous. We must get you to the rear as soon as these hordes of cavalry have drawn off."
"I'm so tired!" Harry said, with a long sigh. "Is George safe?"
"I hope so. I don't really know, old fellow."
"Give him my love, if you see him." He closed his eyes, but opened them again after a minute or two, and said: "It's awful, isn't it?"
"Yes. The worst fight I ever was in."
"Well, I'm glad I was in it, anyway. To tell you the truth, I haven't liked it as much as I thought I should. It's seeing one's friends go, one after the other, and being so hellish frightened oneself."
"I know."
"Do you think we can hold out, Charles?"
"Yes, of course we can, and we will."
"By Jove, it'll be grand if we beat Boney after all!" Harry said drowsily. A doctor bent over a man lying beside him. The Colonel said urgently: "Can't you get this boy to the rear when the cavalry draws off again?"
A cursory glance was cast at Harry. "Waste of time," said the doctor. "I'm sorry, but I've enough on my hands with those I can save."
The Colonel said no more. Harry seemed to be dropping asleep. Audley stayed holding his hand, but looked up at a mounted officer of the Royal Staff Corps who was standing close by. "What's happening?"
"Our cavalry's coming up. By God, in the very nick of time too! I think Grant must have brought back his fellows from the Nivelles road. Yes, by Jove, those are the 13th Light Dragoons! Oh, well done! Go at them, you devils, go at them!"
His excitement seemed to rouse Harry. He opened his eyes, and said faintly: "Are we winning?"
"Yes, Grant's brigade is driving the French off the plateau."
"Oh, splendid!" He smiled. "I say, you won't be able to call me a Johnny Newcome any longer, will you?"
"No, that I shan't."
Harry relapsed into silence. Outside the dogged square Grant's light dragoons had formed, and charged the confused mass of French cavalry, hurling it back from the plateau and pursuing it right the way down the slope to the low ground near the orchard of Hougoumont. In a short while, the plateau, which had seethed with steel helmets, copper crests, towering white plumes, and heavy bearskin shakos, was swept bare of all but Allied troops, mounds of French dead and wounded, and riderless horses, some of them wandering aimlessly about with blood streaming from their wounds, some neighing piteously from the ground where they lay, others quietly cropping the trampled grass.
The Colonel bent over Lord Harry. "I must go, Harry."
"Must you?" Harry's voice was growing fainter. "I wish you could stay. I don't feel quite the thing, you know."
"I can't stay. God knows I would, but I must get back to the Duke."
"Of course. I was forgetting. I shall see you later, I daresay."
"Yes, later," the Colonel said, a little unsteadily. "Goodbye, old fellow!" He pressed Harry's hand, laid it gently down, and rose to his feet. His horse stood waiting, snorting uneasily. He mounted, saluted Harry, who raised a wavering hand in return, and rode away to find the Duke.