For the present they were out of range of the French artillery, and the rain, thankfully, had eased. Macdonell stood with Harry and watched the sad procession heading north. Regiment after regiment converged on the crossroads and streamed back up the Brussels road. Dutch Nassauers, German Jägers, Brunswickers and Hanoverians, Dragoons and Militia, followed by General Picton’s 5th Division, General Cooke’s 1st and General Alten’s 3rd. Thousands of soldiers heading miserably back the way they had come. Their white trousers turned pink by the dye running from their red jackets somehow made the spectacle even worse. It was as if the jackets themselves were weeping.
Once again, the road was jam-packed with men and horses, artillery and carts, the injured and the exhausted. Wagons carrying the most seriously wounded followed each regiment, clanking over the rough road and through the blankets of dust thrown up by marching feet. For all the rain that had fallen, the road was still hard and dry. Artillery pieces were dragged along by teams of tired horses. Officers dismounted to give their mounts a rest. Villagers – squat, round-faced, glum – watched in silence. The British and their allies were leaving. Very soon French soldiers would arrive, take what they wanted and march on. It had happened before.
‘Did we lose the battle?’ asked Harry. ‘And there was I thinking we had done exactly what the peer asked of us and pushed the frogs back down the road to France.’
‘Neither won nor lost, I suppose,’ replied James. ‘But the next battle we must win. I doubt we’ll get another chance.’
‘If we have to fight without the Prussians, it won’t be easy. Outnumbered, outgunned and outsupplied we’ll be.’
‘Not to mention having an army made up of Dutchmen, Belgians and Germans as well as us. I hear that the Duke has even rounded up some companies from the Indies. Perhaps their black faces will frighten the frogs.’
‘West Indies or East Indies?’ asked Macdonell, who had served for a year in the Caribbean.
‘No idea, James. Both, hopefully. We’ll need every one of them.’
It was no time for defeatism. ‘Come along now, Harry,’ said James. ‘We have work to do.’
The light companies had found a small stand of trees to the west of the village, in which to settle down and light their fires. As usual, the Grahams were sitting together with mugs of tea in their hands. They rose to greet the colonel. ‘Tea, Colonel?’ asked Joseph. ‘I fear we have nothing stronger.’
Macdonell laughed. ‘I’ll wager you have, Corporal. But keep it for later. You will need it.’ A third man had been sitting with the brothers. He looked familiar. ‘And who is this?’ asked Macdonell.
‘Private Lester, Colonel,’ replied the man. ‘Third Foot Guards, light company.’
Macdonell remembered. The man who had so nearly defeated James Graham at Enghien. ‘Recovered from the fight, Corporal?’
‘Yes, thank you, Colonel. Lucky punch, no more. James was beaten otherwise.’
‘You fought well, Lester. As we all must tomorrow or the day after.’
‘Will Boney attack, sir?’ asked Joseph.
‘He will, you may count upon it. The risk he took in splitting his own force has paid off. Now he has split ours by defeating the Prussians. He will march to join Marshal Ney in a full assault on us.’
‘Will their strength be greater, Colonel?’ asked Lester.
‘It will, but in numbers only. In all other ways we will of course be superior. Shall we not, Corporals?’ Given the raw inexperience of so much of the Allied army, it was a doubtful proposition, but necessary.
‘That we shall, Colonel.’ The brothers spoke as one.
‘We are to march at the rear of the line,’ Harry told them. ‘We shall have cavalry cover, of course, and our job is to keep the frogs at bay.’
‘We expected as much,’ said James Graham. ‘Someone has to do it and it might as well be us.’
‘Indeed,’ replied Macdonell. ‘Be ready to move off by noon. Pass the word and tell them to eat and drink what they can. There will be no stopping once we go.’
A fighting retreat was notoriously difficult to carry off successfully. Look what had happened on the march to Corunna – loss of discipline, disorder and a retreat very nearly turned into a rout. He had not been there himself but he had heard enough from those who had. Here they would not be climbing mountains and wading through snow, but with the French cavalry in hot pursuit, it would be tempting to go too fast. That was the risk. If marching men became running men, they would be lost.
Much would depend on the cavalry shielding them. Forming square would not be easy on the march, and even if they managed it, they would fall behind the main body and might be cut off. He would order it only as a last resort. And if the French brought their artillery up quickly enough, they would be sitting ducks for their Gunners. Buonaparte himself had been an artillery man and had always insisted on training, training and more training for his gun teams. That was why they were so devastatingly accurate.
Macdonell looked at his pocket watch. It was eleven o’clock. Ney’s voltigeurs would soon discover that the farm at Gemioncourt had been abandoned and the woods deserted. Even Ney – the bravest of the brave, they called him, and just as headstrong – would be wary of a trick. He would, of course, know that the Prussians had been routed, but feigned retreats, just like the one the guards had conducted in the woods, were not uncommon. That would hold him up for a while, but it would not be long before his cavalry scouts came to reconnoitre. Once Ney was sure that the Allies really were leaving, he would send his artillery forward to bombard the village. The light companies, at the rear of the column, had better be on their way before that happened.
The word came at fifteen minutes before noon. The light companies of the Coldstream and 3rd Foot Guards were to follow the 1st Battalion out of Quatre Bras and to fall back slowly on the village of Genappe, guarding the right wing of the retreating army. Two battalions of Brunswickers would be on the left. A squadron from the 2nd Brunswicker Hussars would cover them. An army that frequently did things badly was managing the withdrawal with calm competence.
Macdonell’s mule had disappeared but his charger had survived and been stabled in the village. He brushed himself down, mounted and watched the companies preparing to march. Harry Wyndham, assisted by the ensigns, supervised their formation – some one hundred and thirty pairs, deployed behind and to the right of the Brunswickers. They must move forward whilst watching their backs and be ready to protect themselves and those in front of them against attacks by French cavalry – a cavalry doubtless abrim with confidence at seeing the backs of their enemies and all too anxious to get amongst them with lance and sabre. The dream of every lancer and cuirassier in the French army.
Macdonell allowed himself a moment of pride. They had marched more than twenty-five miles on little sleep or food, fought in the rye and in the woods for four hours, withstood attacks by cannon and cavalry, been fried by the sun and drenched by the rain and suffered torments of dust and thirst. Yet few heads were down. Their work was far from over and they would keep going until it was.
Two miles on and, as if knowing that the last of the army had left the shelter of the village, the heavens opened again. Down came the rain, threatening to render muskets and cartridges useless. Every man did his best to keep them dry but until they were tested he would not know if he had succeeded. By then it might be too late. Shoes splashed through puddles and water streamed off shakos. They could not stop. To do so might be fatal.
Macdonell could see for no more than two hundred yards. He turned his mount and cantered back along the road for about half a mile. Peering through the gloom, he saw no sign of cavalry and quickly rejoined the column. ‘Anything?’ asked Harry, wiping his eyes.
‘Nothing. How far to Genappe, Harry?’
‘About two miles, I think. An hour at this pace. Keep them moving but slow and steady. No point in coming up against the traffic in front.’
It was still pouring down when they reached the outskirts of Genappe. There the Hussars rode a short way back down the road. Macdonell ordered the light companies to take up defensive positions guarding the entrances to the village. If the French arrived he could only hope that their muskets would fire.
In the village, he found the inevitable chaos. The narrow streets were crammed with men and wagons and angry officers barked orders as their horses shied at the crush of bodies around them. It would take time to clear a route. Like it or not, the light companies would have to stay where they were, keeping watch and keeping out of trouble.
Gradually the rain eased. Harry ordered muskets fired and flints checked. There was no shortage of water to wash down a dry biscuit or a scrap of meat; those who had some took a mouthful or two of gin or rum, and he gave permission for jackets to be removed and shaken out. His own trousers had shrunk so much that he feared he would have to cut them off. Sergeant Dawson went from group to group, examining muskets and counting cartridges. Macdonell saw him and remembered. ‘Sergeant Dawson,’ he called out. ‘Have you had your arm treated?’
The sergeant jumped. ‘Quite forgot, Colonel,’ he said sheepishly, ‘I’ll do it at the next opportunity.’
Macdonell felt a spark of anger. ‘I ordered you to see a surgeon, Sergeant. You disobeyed. Why?’
Before Dawson could reply, there was a cry of alarm from the rear. Macdonell looked round. A squadron of French Light Dragoons had appeared on the road and stood facing the line of Hussars. They kept their distance and showed no inclination to attack, but they were there, still and watchful. The eight miles to Mont St Jean would be harder, much harder, than the four they had covered. The Dragoons wheeled and cantered off back down the road. Their presence had somehow been more disquieting than a full-blooded charge. In a matter of minutes, Marshal Ney would know exactly where the rear of the Allied army was.
The Hussars watched them go. All but one held their position across the road. A single man cantered back and into the village. The cavalry would need reinforcements.
The sergeant’s arm temporarily forgotten, Macdonell returned to the village. The main road through it was still blocked. He did not waste time finding out why but hurried back to find Harry. ‘Harry, we cannot get through yet and I dare not go around for fear of exposing British backsides to French sabres. Find the best defensive positions you can and tell them to hold their fire until I give the word. We do not want to waste ammunition or shoot a Hussar. We will hope the cavalry holds them and withdraw through the village when we can.’
As if they had heard him, a larger troop of Hussars – perhaps a hundred of them – came trotting up to join their comrades. They formed an extended double line across the road and the fields.
It did not take long for the first Dragoons to appear and when they did the captain of the Hussars ordered an immediate charge. Black plumes waving in the breeze, swords unsheathed and held upright, they galloped straight at the Dragoons, giving them little time to organise themselves.
The engagement was brief and bloody. A hundred or so Hussars surrounded fifty French Dragoons and slaughtered them like cattle. Swords skewered bodies and men screamed. Macdonell stood beside Gooch and Hervey and watched. He had almost forgotten what a cavalry engagement was like. ‘Wish you were in a cavalry regiment, gentlemen?’ he asked, without taking his eyes from the fight. Both shook their heads.
Just one Dragoon managed to escape the circle. Alone, he galloped towards the village, brandishing his sword and shouting his loyalty to France. He was a brave man, but doomed. Macdonell took Dawson’s musket, waited until the Dragoon was thirty yards away, and shot him through the eye. The man fell to one side, his foot trapped in a stirrup, and was dragged away over a field by his mount. Macdonell handed back the musket. ‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ he said quietly. ‘A brave man. I would not have wished for anyone else to have killed him.’
The Dragoons could only have been a scouting party and none of them had escaped back to their lines. The Hussars had bought them time. But probably not much of it. The French would soon wonder where their scouts had got to, fear the worst, and send more forward. And if they brought up artillery, there would be carnage. Streets blocked or not, it was time to move.
Halfway through Genappe, they found the cause of the delay. At a sharp bend in the main street two wagons had tipped over, spilling ammunition and supplies onto the cobbles and injuring the horses. The wagons had blocked the road. They had to be unlimbered, righted and new horses found before the column could move on. Amid the confusion, that had taken the best part of an hour. Cursing himself for not having gone forward to take charge of the mess, Macdonell led the companies through and to the road beyond the village. There they re-formed on the right. Behind them, the Hussars formed a screen across the entire width of the retreating army.
The rain which had come and gone for more than a night and a day now settled in for the afternoon. Dripping and miserable, they trudged on, never far from the rear of the column and hoping that they were safe behind the Hussars. An hour passed, then another. Macdonell reckoned they had marched four miles and had four more to Mont St Jean. There were no more villages on the road, just squelching earth and puddles of mud. The rain battered the rye and filled the streams. It went through trousers and overalls like paper, it doubled the weight of a man’s pack and it flowed like a waterfall off his shako.
Harry rode up to Macdonell with an oilskin over his shoulders. ‘At least no one will go thirsty,’ he said. ‘And there has been no sign of the frogs. Perhaps they are sheltering from it.’
‘I doubt it, Harry,’ replied James. ‘Ney will be promising the first man to kill one of us the Emperor’s undying gratitude. They will be galloping up the road, sabres at the ready and dreaming of a life of ease and wealth at the Emperor’s expense. I am only surprised that none of them has arrived yet.’
‘I hate this, James. Retreating like this. The French at our backs and goodness knows what ahead. For all we know, Buonaparte has swept down like the wolf on the fold and torn Picton’s and Alten’s to shreds.’
‘Showing off, Harry? I would not have taken you for a lover of Lord Byron.’
‘Harrow, James. They taught us all manner of odd things. Poetry, Latin, geometry …’ A shout penetrated the rain. They turned towards it. French Lancers. The Hussars had seen them and formed in line. But there was no point in taking chances. If the Lancers broke through, they would be on the infantry in seconds.
‘Form square,’ shouted Macdonell. ‘Prepare to meet cavalry.’ The weary men dragged themselves into squares around their officers, fumbled at their bayonets with slippery hands and prayed that the Hussars would save them from having to keep the Lancers at bay. In this weather, anything could happen. If a horse slipped and crashed into a square, it might break it open. And the exhausted men kneeling and crouching shoulder to shoulder and knee to knee knew it.
In the hands of an expert a lance was a brutal thing, needle-pointed and terrifying, its edges as sharp as a razor. A good lance was perfectly balanced and strong enough to withstand the impact of flesh or bone. There was no lancer more skilled than a French lancer and these Lancers had come to avenge their dead comrades in the Dragoons. They hurled themselves at the Brunswickers, heedless of the treacherous ground beneath their horses’ hooves, heads down and lances poised to kill.
The disadvantage of the lance was that if the target slipped past its point, the lancer was as good as defenceless against a hacking sabre or swinging sword. Unmoving, the Hussars stood ready to receive the Lancers’ charge.
The Brunswickers knew their business. They were there to protect the Allied army from attack from the rear or the flanks. To do that they must prevent pursuing cavalry from reaching the light companies at its rear. They met the charge of the Lancers in tight formation, deflecting the wicked blades with their sabres and thrusting under and round them into unprotected chests and stomachs. Even when a lance found its target, the lancer was as likely as not to be felled by the next man in line. If he did not pull the blade out before its victim fell, the lance would be lost and he would be at the mercy of sabre and sword. For every Hussar who fell, two or three lancers did the same.
The Lancers soon broke off the engagement and retired, sent on their way by a volley of insults and jeers from the Brunswickers. Their captain trotted back to the infantry squares and raised his hat. He noticed that it had lost its splendid blue and gold plume, regarded it distastefully and threw it into the square. He was cheered back to his line.
Twice more over the next two hours the Brunswickers resisted attacks by French cavalry – the first by another troop of Lancers, the second by breast-plated cuirassiers. Each time Macdonell ordered squares to be formed but they were not needed. Thanks to the Hussars no Frenchman came within musket range.
As soon as the French cavalry disappeared, the squares broke up and the march continued. They had to hasten to make up lost ground on the wagons and artillery ahead. It took something out of them. Feet began to drag and heads to drop. But not for long. One of Harry Wyndham’s songs, the rhythm beaten out on kettles and musket barrels, did wonders at reviving spirits.
On they marched between fields of rye and corn devastated by the rain, through puddles almost big enough to be called ponds and past exhausted soldiers huddled under hedges or prostrate on the roadside. Some were dead, others dying from their wounds or from plain fatigue. Their cries of distress were pitiful. There was no time to offer assistance. They must go on.
It was approaching six in the evening when some two hundred and sixty officers and men of General Byng’s 2nd Brigade light companies reached the village of Planchenois, from where the land dipped into a shallow valley before rising gently up towards the ridge at Mont St Jean, becoming steeper nearer the top. James and Harry stopped and stared. It was like watching an army of ants on the move. Every yard of the road and overflowing into the fields on either side was alive with men and horses and artillery and wagons as far as they could see. James had to blink to convince himself that the road itself was not moving. On the ridge and its southern slope there was endless movement this way and that as if the ants were building a new nest.
‘Have you ever seen anything like that?’ asked Harry.
‘Never. The Duke must be concentrating his entire force there.’
Harry stroked his chin. ‘If Boney’s strength is as they say, even this may not be enough to stop him. It would be reassuring to know that the Prussians are on their way.’
The final mile was the slowest. Men who could do no more than put one foot unthinkingly in front of the other trudged up the slope at the pace of those in front. Artillery teams urged their horses on with hand and whip. Dragoons rode up and down the ragged line calling absurdly for it to go faster. Unless it sprouted wings and flew, it could not.
Macdonell looked to their rear. There was no sign of the French, although they would be close. Their voltigeurs would be pushing forward through the cover of the rye, eager to pick off a retreating Englishman or two, and the best of Boney’s infantry divisions would not be far behind. By nightfall, he reckoned the battle lines would be drawn.
Beyond Planchenois they passed an inn at the tiny hamlet of La Belle Alliance. To their left they had glimpses through copses of trees of a large farm at the base of the slope. Ahead there was another farm. When they reached this one they found it being fortified with timber and stone by a company of the King’s German Legion. Macdonell asked the farm’s name. ‘La Ferme de la Haye Sainte’ he was told.
There was no doubting when they had finally reached the top of the ridge. On both sides, villages of tents and bivouacs stretched east and west, cannon were being heaved and dragged into lines and cavalry horses, safely tethered to trees or each other, were munching away at the sodden grass or at the handfuls of hay sprinkled over it. Farriers went from one to another, checking hooves and shoes. At least the animals had a feed.
At the summit a pair of mounted staff officers were directing traffic. One of them, in the uniform of a captain of the Life Guards, asked Macdonell his name and regiment. The captain consulted his list. ‘General Cooke’s division. To your left, Colonel, about two hundred yards.’
A single elm tree stood where the road met a rough lane. From there Macdonell let his eye rove over the landscape. To the north, arriving troops were making slow progress against a tide of camp followers heading away from danger. Wives and sweethearts, some carrying infants, others leading mules or pushing handcarts, walked alongside the baggage wagons. Macdonell knew the Duke well enough. Just as the captain of a frigate would order his deck cleared for action, Wellington would have ordered all unnecessary obstacles and impediments out of the way. And there were a lot of them. The exodus might go on all night.
To the east, regiments of cavalry – the redoubtable General Picton’s one of them – were bivouacked north of the lane. A high thorny hedge separated them from the infantry on the other side. To the west, on the reverse side of the ridge and thus invisible from below, infantrymen built clusters of bivouacs or huddled around meagre fires while artillery pieces were heaved into place behind them. Further back, quartermasters’ fourgons and ammunition wagons were parked in front of a dense wood. Behind them were the dressing stations. How typical of the peer, he thought, to have nature protect his rear with a wood, into which his infantry could dash for cover if they had to. On the south side of the ridge, the Duke had placed battalions of Netherlanders and Nassauers. Below them, open country was given shape and shadow by folds and hollows in the land. That would be their battleground. And how typical of the peer to have selected a ridge from which he would be able to observe the battle and issue orders. In the peninsula, he had done exactly that more than once.
He led the men in column down the rough lane to their left for about two hundred yards until he found General Cooke’s Second Division, its colours, hanging limp and bedraggled, only just recognisable. As they turned off the lane and into the field, familiar faces looked up and shouted greetings. A few raised a hand in salute. Someone called out to Sergeant Dawson. Someone else lobbed a clump of grass at Lester and shouted at him to wipe himself down. ‘Disgrace to the regiment you are, Joe Lester. Mud all over your new uniform. Get cleaned up.’ Joseph Lester picked up the clod and threw it back, gleefully knocking over the man’s tea.
They found patches of grass and earth and began to set up their bivouacs. They stuck their ramrods into the soft ground, and using the buttons and loops on their blankets to join them together, laid them across to make a roof. It was the Guards’ own way – better than nothing and in the rain it allowed kettles to be boiled for tea, pipes to be lit and frozen hands to be warmed back to life. The muskets without ramrods and flints were stacked neatly among the bivouacs. Ignoring the hubbub and bustle all around, each man concentrated on his own small space and his own affairs.
James and Harry dismounted and watched. They would not settle themselves until the men had done so. Oddly, the Graham brothers were making no attempt to build a shelter or even to light a fire. Instead, they stood together, smoking their foul-smelling pipes, under a blanket draped over their heads. Harry asked them why they were not bivouacked. ‘A feeling, sir,’ replied James, ‘that we are not yet finished for the day.’
‘Not finished?’ Harry was horrified. ‘What else would you have us do?’
‘Not us, Captain, His Grace. We’ve an idea he has more work for us before we get a rest.’
‘What work would that be?’
Joseph scratched his beard and looked thoughtful. ‘We do not know, Captain. It’s just a feeling.’
‘Well, I do hope you are mistaken.’ The brothers sucked on their pipes and looked doubtful.
Sergeant Dawson, even with help from Joseph Lester, was struggling with his bivouac. James noticed that he was favouring his right arm and cursed. He had forgotten. ‘Sergeant Dawson,’ he called out, ‘your arm. Let me see it, please.’ The sergeant let his blanket fall and hurried over. He rolled up his sleeve and held out his arm. The wound had not healed. It was red and swollen and oozing a yellow pus. Macdonell lifted the arm and sniffed it. No trace of gangrene yet, but it needed attention quickly. Without it, the arm would go and then the patient. ‘You must have it attended to at once.’
‘Oh no, Colonel. I hate hospitals and surgeons. Some of their weapons are worse than sabres. The arm will be good as new in the morning.’
‘Nonsense, Sergeant.’ He summoned Joseph Lester. ‘Escort the sergeant to the nearest dressing station and stay with him until his wound has been stitched and dressed.’
‘Yes, sir. If he tries to escape I’ll shoot him. Come on, Sergeant, you’re my prisoner now.’ Dawson fired a furious look at his colonel and trudged off with Lester.
James turned to Harry. ‘Brave as a lion in battle yet terrified of surgeons. In that he is not alone. Now, gin, I rather fancy, Harry. Would you care to take a foraging party to find a quartermaster who has some and tell him it’s badly needed here? Exaggerate our numbers a little if you have to.’
‘Delighted, Colonel,’ replied Harry. ‘And what else would you like for your supper?’
‘Beef and potatoes would serve, but I’ll settle for whatever you can find.’
‘Very good, Colonel. Leave it to me.’
James had not yet caught sight of Francis Hepburn. Unless he had found himself a more comfortable billet, Francis should be there. His battalion left Quatre Bras well before the light companies and he should by now be safely bivouacked. He asked a corporal in the Foot Guards where Hepburn might be found. ‘Gone to the hospital, Colonel,’ replied the corporal. ‘Said he would be back soon.’
‘Is he wounded?’ asked Macdonell.
‘Don’t think so, Colonel.’
‘Then why has he gone to the hospital?’
‘Couldn’t say, Colonel.’
‘And I do not imagine you know where the hospital is, Corporal.’
‘No, Colonel, I don’t.’ Francis Hepburn’s whereabouts would have to wait. A strangely disgruntled Macdonell returned to his duties.
So much for new uniforms. Mud-splattered, ripped, sopping. Ruined beyond repair. And still it was raining. If it rained all night, would they be able to fight? Would a single musket fire or cannon roar? Would heavy cavalry horses not sink into the mud and gun carriages stick fast? A bizarre image of chess pieces immersed in bloody water crossed Macdonell’s mind.
The Grahams were still making no effort to erect a bivouac. ‘Muskets and powder dry, if you please, Corporals,’ he said, ‘even if you are as wet as an Irish summer.’
‘Dry as tinder, Colonel,’ replied Joseph, holding up his oilskin-covered musket for inspection.
‘And in Ireland the sun always shines,’ added his brother. ‘It’s just that you can’t always see it.’
A troop of engineers had been touring the countryside and returned with their wagons loaded high with fence posts, doors, window frames, furniture and farm gates. They dumped the timber in heaps around the camp. The reverse side of the ridge was soon lit by scores of fires fuelled by dry wood and strong enough to resist the rain. Away to their right, towards the farm, James had noticed through the trees a huge fire had been lit. He wondered what the Duke would make of it.
Something rubbed against his thigh. The bullet. He pulled it out of his pocket and examined it again. Definitely too big to be French. It was time he had a word with Vindle.
Private Vindle was cowering in his bivouac, as ever with his accomplice Luke. ‘Up, both of you,’ he ordered, peering under the blanket. The two of them muttered something he could not hear and slithered out of the bivouac. ‘You might as well hear this too, Luke,’ he said, standing so close to them that they had to strain to see his face. He held out the bullet in his palm. ‘I found this in my pack. It is a British bullet and it knocked me down when we were feigning retreat in the wood. Fortunately for me the idiot who fired it did not use enough powder and it was almost spent by the time it hit my pack.’ He stared at Vindle. ‘Did you fire it, Vindle?’
Vindle wiped his few strands of greasy hair from his eyes and tried to look affronted. ‘I bloody well did not, Colonel. If I had mistaken you for a frog and fired in error, I would have said as much at the time and taken my punishment like a man. Luke will support me in that, won’t you, Patrick?’
‘I will, Colonel. A good soldier is Private Vindle and not one to mistake a red coat for a blue one or to spill his powder on the ground.’
Macdonell’s temper was rising. Vindle had tried to kill him but he could not prove it. ‘He is also a troublemaker and a thief, Private Luke, as are you,’ he snarled. ‘I trust neither of you and nor do Captain Wyndham and Sergeant Dawson. Tomorrow we will face Buonaparte. If you survive the day, we will speak of this again.’ Leaving them standing in the rain, he stormed off.
Francis Hepburn was still nowhere to be seen. Macdonell asked another guard about him and received the same reply. It was worrying. He would not put it past Francis to hide a wound from his men and only seek medical help when there was no fighting to be done.
He was wondering whether to visit the hospital himself, wherever it was, to find Francis, when Harry returned. Three of his foraging party had sacks slung over their shoulders, the other two carried a large wooden cask. All six of them looked as cheerful as if they had been promoted to generals. ‘Miserable lot, quartermasters, Colonel,’ said Harry as he approached. ‘Nothing but stale bread and biscuit and took a deal of persuading to let us have a drop of gin. He’ll have watered it, of course. Put it there, gentlemen, please.’ They placed the cask carefully on the ground and threw the sacks down beside it.
Macdonell prised open the lid of the cask and peered in. It was full. He lifted a sack and tipped its contents out. Loaves of bread, cheeses and a roasted chicken fell out. ‘Funny-looking biscuit,’ he said, and looked suspiciously at Harry. ‘Where did you get it?’ In Wellington’s army, theft from local people was an offence, although everyone knew that it happened all the time. Buonaparte, on the other hand, expected his troops to survive off the land by taking what they wanted. That was why they were better fed than the British.
Harry shuffled his feet. ‘Local man selling his wares. I happened to find a few shillings someone had dropped and used them to pay him.’
Macdonell believed him for not a second. Harry Wyndham had dipped into his own pocket, deep admittedly, to buy the food. ‘A lucky chance, indeed, Captain. Doubtless your health will be drunk around many fires this evening.’
From the direction of the crossroads the captain of the Life Guards who had directed them to their division trotted down the lane. ‘Colonel Macdonell, His Grace offers his compliments and requests that you send the light companies of the 2nd Guards to the chateau at Hougoumont, on our right.’ He pointed down the slope to the woods Macdonell had noticed earlier. The Château Hougoumont must be there. ‘His Grace asks that they go immediately. Lord Saltoun will be following with the light companies of the 1st Guards. You are to occupy and fortify the chateau, farm and grounds. When you have given the order to move, kindly attend His Grace. He awaits you at his quarters in Waterloo.’
That was a surprise. Why would Wellington want to see him in person? ‘Kindly inform His Grace that I shall carry out his orders immediately.’