There ensued an acrimonious discussion between de Flahaut and Napoleon. The Count described his Marshal’s fury at the Emperor having withdrawn d’Erlon from his command and so deprived him of a great victory. Napoleon retaliated by demanding why Ney had failed to carry out his orders to occupy the heights beyond Quatre Bras on the night of the 15th, and failed to open his battle the following day before 2 p.m. Flahaut protested that, contrary to the information given by Soult to Ney—that the latter would meet with no opposition—when his cavalry vedettes reached the heights they found them already occupied by enemy troops under Prince Bernard of Saxe-Weimar; so he had naturally given his weary men a night’s rest by halting them at Fresnes. His delay in attacking had been caused by two factors: firstly, he had only Reille’s corps with him, d’Erlon having that morning advanced no further than Thuin; secondly, while preparing to attack on the 16th, he had learned that Prussian columns were marching westward from Sombref, a movement he had feared might cut his line of communications at Fresnes. Hence his delay, until reassured by further information later in the day, that his rear was not endangered.
Meanwhile Roger learned from Flahaut’s A.D.C. what had taken place at Quatre Bras. That officer entirely supported his Marshal, and added that, as a Commander, Ney had been terribly handicapped by the fact that he had taken over only two days previously, so a staff had had to be got together for him hurriedly, some of whom he did not know and others who did not know one another.
The position behind Quatre Bras had greatly favoured the Allies, as the height was flanked on the left by Bassu wood, so it was not until Reille had pressed home his attack that the weakness of the enemy was realised. Wellington had then arrived with English and Dutch troops. They had beaten off Reille, and Ney had had to resort to using the whole of his artillery on them. It had caused terrific havoc in the Allied ranks, enabling Reille to attack again. But by then a second British division and the Brunswickers were entering the battle, and gave Wellington superiority of numbers. D’Erlon\s corps could have turned the tide, but he had disappeared. As a last resort Ney had launched Keller-mann’s heavy cavalry, and it had saved the day for the French. Both armies had fought with great stubbornness, and were terribly mauled. By nightfall the battle had ended in stalemate, Ney withdrawing to Fresnes and Wellington retiring up the Brussels road toward Genappe.
On the following morning, the 17th, Napoleon drove to St. Amand, mounted his horse there and rode over the battlefield. It was an appalling sight. The ruined villages were positively choked with bodies, the Ligny stream was full of them and dead and wounded lay scattered thickly all over both slopes of the shallow valley. It was later established that the battle had cost the French eleven thousand casualties and the Prussians fourteen thousand.
Having given orders to several officers that the enemy wounded were to be cared for equally with the French, Napoleon dismounted and was subject to one of those strange periods that had affected him in recent years. In spite of the fact that the last of the Prussian troops were only just disappearing over the horizon in the neighbourhood of Sombref, where presumably they had fallen asleep from exhaustion, the Emperor, instead of giving orders for an immediate pursuit of Blücher’s army, entered into a long discussion with Grouchy, Gérard and other senior officers about the political situation in Paris.
While they listened with obvious restlessness, the thoughts of Roger, who was standing in the background, had turned to a very different subject. As he gazed round on the thousands of dead and dying, his mind was occupied with the phenomena of death.
From the first time he had heard, many, many years before, of the theory of reincarnation from his friend Droopy Ned, one of whose hobbies was the study of Eastern religions, he had accepted it as the only logical belief. The Christian doctrine, derived from the Jews, that the dead were judged on a single life, tried by a god in the form of a huge man, and awarded either a pleasant residence above the clouds for eternity or sent to roast in hell’s flames for ever, was manifestly absurd.
How could one agree that a man who had led a saintly life but, provoked beyond bearing, committed a murder, deserved to be tortured for all time; or that a man who had been guilty of consistent meanness and sadism deserved perpetual bliss because he had given his life for a friend? What of those who had been born half-witted, deformed, or the children of criminal parents who brought them up to follow evil ways?
When he had first mentioned the subject to Georgina, he found that she was as firm a believer in reincarnation as he was. From her gipsy mother she had inherited psychic powers, and on several occasions had, without seeking them, received communications from the spirits of people who had been dead many years. Two of them had told her that, after a long period of rest, they were about to return to earth in new bodies, to pay off debts they had incurred in former incarnations, and learn new lessons for their future advancement.
From their youth onward, he and Georgina had discussed the subject many times. Both of them were convinced that the bond between them had been forged by having known each other intimately in several previous incarnations, that death could part them only for a little while, and they would be drawn together again in other bodies in incarnations yet to come.
While Napoleon continued to abuse the Jacobins and Liberals who had so greatly curbed his powers since his return, Roger gazed, almost in a trance, at one dead soldier after another, speculating on what the future might hold in store for them. Would the Prussian Captain with a bully’s brutal-looking jaw return to serve under a harsh taskmaster; would the boy drummer with the fine, broad forehead become a judge; would the French Colonel with the many decorations again become a soldier and win still greater honours; would the private with the beautiful, long eyelashes perhaps be a woman in his next incarnation?
At last, after wasting half the morning in riding round the battlefield and talking with officers who dared not disagree with him, Napoleon was suddenly recalled to the fact that, although on the previous day he had won a splendid victory, he had not yet finally defeated his enemies.
One of Ney’s A.D.C.s arrived at the gallop. Breathlessly he informed the Emperor that Wellington was again occupying the high ground beyond Quatre Bras, and that Excelmans scouts had reported Prussian cavalry to be occupying Gcmbloux. Napoleon was furious, as he had early that morning sent an order to Ney to press hard on the British. Now he decided to take over from Ney and attack them himself.
He was completely satisfied that the Prussians had been so badly mauled that they would be incapable of causing him any serious trouble for several days to come; but considerable numbers of them had got away, and it was important that they be prevented from joining the British. It seemed a sound assumption that Blücher’s shattered corps would have retreated eastward to fall back on von Bülow’s still intact corps at Liège; so, to prevent their attempting to move toward Wellington, the Emperor ordered Marshal Grouchy with his cavalry, and Vandamme and Gerard’s now battered corps in support, to advance on Gembloux and drive the Prussians still further east. Early that morning Count Lobau’s corps had come up to Fleurus and, with these fresh troops, Napoleon himself set off for Quatre Bras.
It was just as they were about to leave that they learned from the interrogation of a wounded Prussian officer that Blücher had narrowly escaped being killed or captured on the previous day. The gallant old Field Marshal had led one of the last charges in person. His horse had been shot under him, he fell, was rendered incapable of getting to his feet, and his own horsemen had been driven back by the French cuirassiers. He had been saved by his adjutant, Nostitz, who had flung himself down beside him and covered him with a cloak. As senior Prussian officers, unlike the French, wore very plain uniforms, the French took no special notice of them neither when pressing home their charge nor while trotting back afterwards. So Nostitz was able to rescue his badly bruised chief.
At about two o’clock, the Emperor was approaching Quatre Bras. To his fury he found that Ney was still only skirmishing with the British, so he left his carriage, mounted his white horse and urged his cavalry up the road at a gallop. Wellington, up on the heights, evidently sighted this new force coming up from the direction of Ligny, and decided to retire. Ney had also seen it and went to greet Napoleon, who yelled at him, ‘You have ruined France!’, then ordered him to attack with all his forces.
As the two French armies advanced and Napoleon threw in his formidable cavalry, another terrible thunder storm broke. Again the rain came down in torrents, turning the corn into sodden, tangled masses that hampered both the French advance and the British withdrawal. To save themselves from the French horse, the Allies retreated as swiftly as they could, choking the narrow street of Genappe and its bridge.
Beyond it, to save the British rear from slaughter, Lord Uxbridge, who commanded the cavalry, sent in the 7th Hussars against the leading French squadrons, which were the mounted units of the Imperial Guard. In all such cavalry encounters the French had the advantage, because they were equipped with steel corselets, whereas the British were unarmoured and could not use their sabres effectively against the bodies of their opponents. In this case, too, the Hussars, being light cavalry, were at a further disadvantage. The French had the better of it, cut them up, scattered them and renewed the pursuit in the pouring rain. But on the slope Uxbridge had the heavy Household cavalry. He launched them against the French, and this time the British checked and drove back Napoleon’s finest horsemen.
The action saved the Allies’ retreat from becoming a rout, but the French still came on, and fighting continued till twilight fell, horses and men plunging and slithering on ground that had been churned into a sea of mud. But Wellington succeeded in drawing off the greater part of his army in good order along the road to Waterloo, then turned at bay on the high ground in front of the village. Napoleon, arriving on the rise facing it at 6.30 p.m., ordered a strong force to charge the slope, but the British artillery tore great lanes through the weary French, and the Emperor was forced to accept that all chance of destroying his enemy that day had gone.
It was an appalling night. The storm continued for several hours. The troops were soaked to the skin, their knapsacks saturated. Wherever they moved, they squelched and floundered. Both armies bivouacked as best they could where they had halted, the Allies on the slope of Mont St. Jean, the French in the shallow valley, their centre being the village of Planchenoit. The Emperor made his headquarters at Caillou farm, but slept in a tent pitched in a wood about a mile further forward. At one o’clock he awoke, went right up to the front and walked about with General Bertrand among his men, constantly asking groups of them if they had heard any sounds of the enemy beating a further retreat. That they should do so was his one fear, as he felt confident that, having seriously crippled the Prussians, he would defeat Wellington next day and enter Brussels before nightfall.
Meanwhile, Roger and others at headquarters had learned through British and Dutch prisoners further particulars of Ney’s first attack on Quatre Bras. In the early stages of the battle it had looked as though the Allies would be overwhelmed by the far greater numbers of French. But a battalion of Highlanders in square had resisted charge after charge by Lancers, until it was almost annihilated. The Dutch King’s son, the Prince of Orange, had been captured, but his Belgians had rallied and rescued him, although only at the price of being cut to pieces shortly afterwards. It was General Picton’s division of veterans who had fought in the Peninsula, that had saved the day, by holding their ground hour after hour with dogged courage. In the Bossu wood there had been terrible slaughter, and the French were within an ace of capturing it when the British Guards reached the battlefield. They had marched for twelve hours, without a halt long enough to have a meal; yet, in spite of hunger and fatigue, they had driven the French back down the hill. But then Napoleon had arrived on the scene, turned the tide of battle and chased the Allies back past Genappe.
The Allies had sustained one great tragedy in the loss of the Duke of Brunswick. In 1809 he had organised an unsuccessful revolt in his own country against Napoleon’s occupying forces, but led his Bruns-wickers, fighting the whole way, across Germany until they could be taken off by the British Navy. In England they had been formed into the King’s German Legion, and sent to fight under Wellington in the Peninsula, then returned to Germany in 1813, where they had assisted in the defeat of Napoleon at Leipzig. At Quatre Bras, early in the battle, the Duke received a severe wound, but had it bound up and returned to lead his men in further charges. Later he received two slight wounds and another serious one, but still fought on until struck in the chest by a bullet and killed.
At last the dawn of the 18th broke and, now satisfied that the Allies intended to give battle, the Emperor returned to his headquarters. There he found a despatch which had been sent off by Grouchy at 10 p.m. the previous night. The Marshal reported from Gembloux that some Prussian regiments had retired toward Wavre, but the greater part of them, under Blücher, had fallen back in the direction of Liège, and he intended to pursue them; but, if necessary, he would turn west to prevent any Prussians there from joining Wellington.
Grouchy had proved himself an excellent cavalry leader, but had had no experience of handling an army, and his despatch was not entirely clear. But he had twenty-one thousand men under him, so Napoleon felt confident that he would have no difficulty in keeping the Prussians busy. He then gave Soult instructions for a reply. However, that also, as had been the case with several of the Marshal Duke of Dalmatia’s despatches during this campaign, was not altogether clear. For six years in Seville he had ruled as the uncrowned King of southern Spain, amassed a fabulous collection of paintings from castles, churches and palaces, and enjoyed scores of lovely women. Roger well remembered Soult’s beautiful young mistress-in-chief who had worn the uniform of a Captain of Hussars, so that she could accompany him on reconnaissances. That was Soult’s métier, and he was a highly competent General in the field. But, as a Chief of Staff, he was a very poor substitute for Berthier. In this case, the orders he sent to Grouchy were that he must move toward Wavre to keep the Prussians there occupied, but on no account must he lose touch with Blücher’s main body.
The Emperor was in high good humour at breakfast, and remarked, ‘The enemy’s army outnumbers ours by more than a fourth; nevertheless, we have ninety chances out of a hundred in our favour.’
He was wrong about numbers, for he had seventy-four thousand veterans against Wellington’s sixty-seven thousand men, only twenty-four thousand of whom were British, the others being Hanoverians, Nassauers, Brunswickers and Dutch Belgians; so the odds on Napoleon being the victor were even greater than his boast. However, Wellington had one great advantage. At Ligny the French had been able to see the whole of Blücher’s army, right back to Sombref; whereas here, at Waterloo, the bulk of the Allied forces lay concealed behind the ridge of Mont St. Jean, so Napoleon’s artillery could not bring direct fire upon them until they emerged over the crest, nor judge the number of the Duke’s reserves.
It was obvious that the Allies did not intend to give up their advantageous position by opening the attack, so it was for Napoleon to make the first move. Owing to the terrible downpour on the previous night, the ground was still so sodden that any movements by artillery would be greatly hampered by mud. For that reason the Emperor decided to give time for the soil to dry, and did not order his troops to take up their positions until n a.m. His intention was to smash right through the Allied centre by a tremendous frontal attack, and his army was massed on a very narrow front in three lines. The first consisted of Reille’s corps on the left and d’Erlon’s on the right, both flanked by cavalry on the outer wings. The second line consisted of Count Lobau’s corps, and the third of the Imperial Guard, thirteen thousand strong, again flanked by two thousand cavalry on either side.
Wellington had put twelve brigades into his front line, only six of which were British. His position formed an L. In the middle of the long sector stood the farm of La Haye Sainte, at the junction stood the chateau ot Hougoumont, both of which were strongly fortified. On his right the short section of the L ran back to the village of Merbraine, as a precaution against that flank being turned. On his left flank there were two small farms—Papelotte and La Haye—also fortified, and the protection of a large wood named Bois de Paris. It was from this side, too, that he expected the support of some Prussian units, which had been promised him in a despatch he had received that morning from Blücher. The bulk of his army lay concealed behind the crest.
At 11.30, the French artillery opened fire, and Reille led the first attack on Hougoumont. The château had a walled garden and orchard in front of and to the east of it and a small wood on the west. The walls were loop-holed and the place was garrisoned by two battalions, of the British Guards, plus a Dutch unit under the Prince of Orange. Again and again Reille hurled his divisions against it; again and again they were repelled.. At last they succeeded in capturing the coppice and the orchard, and the dead were piled high against the walls; but they could not penetrate the garden, farm buildings or house.
Costly and determined as this attack was, it was only a diversion. The main assault was to be delivered half a mile to the east, where the road from Genappe cut straight through the centre of the battlefield, across. Mont St. Jean towards Waterloo. There, covered by a battery of eighty guns, d’Erlon’s corps was drawn up in four great columns, each consisting of eight battalions.
Senior officers who had fought in Spain were aware of the stout resistance that could be put up by the British double line against attack by columns, and Soult warned the Emperor of it. Napoleon replied with a sneer.:
‘You were beaten by Wellington, so you think he is a great General. But I tell you that Wellington is a bad General, and the English will merely be a breakfast for us.’
Reille, too, declared that against the English frontal attack was rarely successful, and urged the Emperor instead to attempt to outflank them. But he would not listen.
Just as he was about to give the order to attack, a large body of troops was sighted in the far distance, about six miles to the north-east, on the heights of Chapelle St. Lambert. Several of the Emperor’s staff believed them to be Grouchy’s army but, as the Marshal had reported that a number of Prussian units had retreated to Wavre, Napoleon decided that these must be they. However, they were several miles away, and he took the view that by the time they could come up he would already have won his battle; so, at 1.30 p.m., he launched d’Erlon’s thirty-two battalions against the Allied centre.
At the sight of this vast mass of enemy infantry marching steadily up the slope toward them, the Dutch-Belgian brigade panicked and fled; but Picton’s two British brigades stood fast. The French, now handicapped by their own depth, could barely return the fire poured upon the heads and sides of their columns, yet they marched on and, with cheers of triumph, reached the crest of the slope. To save the hard-pressed infantry, Lord. Uxbridge sent in Pon-sonby’s Union Brigade, consisting of the 1st Royal Dragoons, the Scots Greys and the Inniskillings. Their charge stampeded the massed French columns, and they were driven pell-mell back into the valley. The Gordons had been one of the regiments in the line greatly reduced in numbers. Those who remained grabbed at the stirrup-leathers of the Scots Greys as they galloped by, and these two famous regiments, shouting ‘Scotland for ever’, together hurled themselves on the fleeing French.
In this immortal action several thousand French were killed or wounded, and three thousand taken prisoner. But the cheering British were too rash, and carried their charge too far. Napoleon launched his cavalry on both their flanks; a thousand of them were killed and the remainder barely escaped. This action also proved most costly to Wellington, for both Picton and Ponsonby, two of his best Generals, were killed in it.
By this time, the Prussians, as Napoleon had rightly believed, were seen entering the Bois de Paris in considerable numbers, and it was learned from scouts that they were men of von Bülow’s corps which, unknown to Napoleon, had marched direct from Liège to join Wellington. Moreover, a despatch had just come in from Grouchy, sent off at 11 a.m., showing that on receiving Soult’s somewhat contradictory orders, he had given first priority to pursuing what he believed to be the main body of the Prussians east; whereas, in fact, as it had recently been learnt, Blücher and the majority of his troops had retired on Wavre, so were not many miles distant and in an excellent position to support von Bülow.
In the circumstances, Napoleon’s wisest course would have been to break off the battle. But that would have meant throwing away the successes of Ligny and Quatre Bras, by which he had driven a wedge between the Allies. Given another day and he would have to face them fully united; whereas if he could destroy Wellington’s army this afternoon, he would as good as have brought his whole campaign to a victorious conclusion. It was his confidence that he could do so that decided him.
At 3.30 he sent orders to Lobau for his corps, and to two brigades of reserve cavalry, to deploy eastward in order to halt von Bülow’s advance. He then put Ney in command of his front line, and charged him with renewing the attack. Several units of Reille’s corps hurled themselves on Hougoumont, and others of d’Erlon’s on La Haye Sainte. Further ghastly carnage ensued, and up to a thousand dead and dying lay round both buildings, but the French could not take either, neither could they succeed in forcing the Allies back over the crest of the slope.
By 4 p.m., Ney realised that his infantry attack had failed, so he ordered Milhaud’s two divisions of cuirassiers to charge the British line between the chateau and the farm. At the approach of this five-thousand-strong phalanx of horsemen, the fifteen British and Hanoverian battalions formed square to save themselves from annihilation. The French cavalry attacked them furiously, then raced past them and drove the Allied gunners from their guns. Returning, they again attacked the squares, but a deadly musketry fire from them threw the squadrons into disorder. The Duke then called up his cavalry reserve. Its charge drove the French back down the slope. Yet that was only the first of Milhaud’s attacks, several of which Ney led in person. At intervals, each time they were driven back, the French opened fire with their cannon on the British squares, and did terrible execution.
Meanwhile, von Bülow’s troops were approaching through the wood on Napoleon’s right. At about 4.30 their advance guards emerged from it; by five o’clock the Prussian guns opened up and their infantry launched their first attack. Blücher’s troops at Wavre could have been sent in hours earlier; but it later transpired that this long delay was due to Blucher’s Chief of Staff, Gneisenau, who greatly distrusted Wellington and did not believe he really meant to stand and fight. He had arranged for von Bulow’s corps, which had to come all the way from Liège, to go in first, because it was fresh and thirty thousand strong, so would be better able to resist an attack if left in the air by the British than the other corps that had been mauled at Ligny.
Count Lobau’s corps was the weakest in the French army, having only ten thousand men; but he deployed them skilfully at right angles to the main French front, with the farm of Planchenoit as a bastion on his extreme left, and stoutly defended his position against three times his numbers.
During this time the main battle on the crest of the hill continued with unabated fury. After an hour of charges, although the British squares were sadly depleted Milhaud had failed to break a single one of them, and his squadrons were in hopeless disorder. In desperation, Ney called up the reserve of heavy cavalry, that of the Guard and Kellermann’s two divisions—another five thousand horsemen. For another hour the bloody slaughter of men and horses went on without a moment’s interval. The French charged at the squares, were met by volleys that brought down the leading lines and forced those behind to separate. They galloped on between the squares right to the rear of the Allies’ position, re-formed and charged again. To relieve the strain on the dwindling squares, the Duke threw in all his cavalry except the two brigades of Vivian and Vandeleur on his extreme left rear and, at every opportunity, reinforced the squares with his reserves of infantry, until he had none left.
During this ceaseless mêlée of cheering, cursing, screaming men sabering and bayoneting one another on the hill-top, von Bulow’s Prussians had stormed Planchenoit, but somehow Lobau managed to keep his line intact, and drove off the far greater numbers that were hurled at his weak corps. Then, at six o’clock, Napoleon sent four battalions of the Young Guard to his assistance, and they retook the farm.
At about the same hour, Ney at last decided that his cavalry had been so terribly decimated by the British musketry that they were no longer strong enough to succeed in breaking the squares, so he drew them off. But during those two terrible hours the corps of Reille and d’Erlon, although greatly reduced by their assaults earlier in the day, had had time to rest and recover. So, now on foot, Ney again led the French infantry up the slope to the attack.
After all these hours, the French now achieved their first real success. All day the German legion, holding La Haye Sainte in the centre of the line, had beaten back infantry attacks or suffered bombardment by artillery, but they had now run out of ammunition. With the utmost gallantry they continued to fight on with their bayonets and swords, but they were overwhelmed by d’Erlon’s men. The few survivors were driven out, and the Allies had lost their key position.
Reille also came near success when his men attacked Hougoumont. Some of them actually managed to get up on to the roof of the chateau, but they were killed by the British Guards who had held the place all day until it became a shambles of dead and dying.
Roger could not know that it was Charles’s regiment, the Coldstream Guards, who were hanging on so grimly to the chateau, but he thought it certain that Georgina’s son would have been recalled from his long leave, and be somewhere in the battle; so he thought of him many times that day, and prayed fervently that he would not be killed or seriously wounded.
The battle had been very different from that at Ligny. There the Prussian line had formed a convex curve which could be viewed by the Emperor from the mill at Fleurus from end to end as though in an amphitheatre. Throughout the conflict the line had only bent here and there until it finally broke in the centre; so Napoleon had had no need to send orders to his corps and divisional commanders to alter their line of attack. Here, he could not see the whole battle from one position. For most of the day he was at the house of Lacoste, only a few hundred yards short of the inn of La Belle Alliance, which formed the centre of his front; immediately opposite La Haye Sainte; but several times he rode over to an observatory opposite to and at no great distance from Hougoumont. From the first sighting of the Prussians, he had also had to alter the disposition of numerous units.
In consequence his A.D.C.s had been in the saddle for a great part of the time since the battle opened. Several of them had been killed or severely wounded, others had minor wounds or musket balls through their clothing. Roger had been lucky to get off so far with only a gash in his left shoulder and his hat shot away. But he had had a horse shot under him, so was covered from head to foot in mud, as also were nearly all the troops who had been engaged in the fighting.
It was close on 6.30 and Ney still attacking the Allies with the corps of Reille and d’Erlon when, in the parlour of Lacoste’s little house, the Emperor beckoned Roger over, pointed to a map that was spread out on the table and said:
‘The Prussians are pressing us hard on our right flank now and Ziethen’s corps has come up behind von Bulow’s, so we may have to give way in that quarter. Should we do so, I shall forgo further frontal attacks and redeploy my army westward. With luck we could then outflank the British and drive them back on to the Prussians. But success would depend on the strength of the Allies on our left. If they have further reserves concealed behind the hill that side of the village of St. Jean, such a move would be too dangerous. I wish you to ride out right round our left flank, and up to the crossroads at Le Mesnil. From the high ground you will be able to assess my chances of encircling Wellington. Off with you now. Take no unnecessary risks, and rejoin me as speedily as you can.’
Roger saluted, ran from the room and mounted a horse which looked fairly fresh. No mission could have pleased him more, for to Le Mesnil and back entailed an eight-mile ride, and that would keep him out of the battle for the best part of an hour. On either side of the road were massed battalion after battalion of the Imperial Guard, Napoleon’s grand reserve which had not yet fired a shot. As Roger cantered along in front of those to the west of the headquarters, they were sitting about smoking and playing cards. He passed the observatory on their left flank, crossed the main road leading from Nivelles to Mont St. Jean, at the hamlet of Mon Plaisir and, now that he was well out of sight, reduced his pace to an easy trot as he proceeded up a lane leading north. At the next crossroads he turned north-west and reached the village of Braine l’Alleud, passed through it and headed north again to another crossroad near which there stood a windmill on high ground.
As he approached it he saw a solitary figure, in civilian clothes and a low-crowned top-hat, sitting on a bank watching the battle through a large telescope. At the sound of his horse’s hooves, the man lowered his telescope and looked at him. To Roger’s amazement the man was Nathan Rothschild. Reining in his horse, he exclaimed:
‘What in the world are you doing here?’
It was the Rothschild who, meeting him in Vienna, had led to his discovering that Mary was forging drafts on his account at Hoare’s; but Roger had first met him many years earlier in Frankfurt, before he and two brothers had established branches of their banking house in London, Paris and Vienna. The eldest brother, too, who had remained in Frankfurt had, in 1813, enabled Roger to escape across the Rhine from the Prussians who were after him. In the years between, the Rothschilds had created the most powerful financial house in Europe.
Standing up, Nathan politely raised his hat and replied, ‘I am equally surprised to see you, Lord Kildonan. I had no idea that you had become a soldier.’
Roger smiled. ‘You may recall, Sir, that when in ’95 I came to your father’s house to request a loan of a million francs on behalf of the British Treasury, I was on a secret mission. In a sense I am again so employed, hence my uniform. But to come upon you in Belgium greatly surprises me.’
‘I dared not remain in London, dependent on rumours about the result of this campaign. Too much depends on it. I felt that I must come myself, in order to be an eye-witness of the outcome. As you must know, my House has always supported Britain against the tyranny of Bonaparte. We have many millions invested in the British Funds. Their worth depends upon which side emerges victorious from this ghastly conflict raging there below us. If Wellington wins through, Rothschild’s will be saved. If not, we may be near bankrupted overnight.’
‘I understand your anxiety.’ Roger patted his horse’s neck. ‘But what I do not see is how your witnessing the battle can affect whether the Funds rise or fall on ‘Change in London when the news comes through.’
Rothschild gave a faint smile and gestured over his shoulder. ‘My lord, behind the mill there is a sunken road. Waiting for me there is a light carriage drawn by eight horses. From here to Ostend is no more than seventy miles. There I have a racing yacht ready to take me across the Channel. Given a fair wind, I’ll be in London by tomorrow morning. If Bonaparte defeats the Duke, as I much fear he may, since he has not yet thrown his mighty Imperial Guard into the battle, I’ll be the first to reach London with the news. That will enable me to sell a great part of my British Funds before they fall, and thus save my House from ruin.’
‘Sir,’ laughed Roger. ‘Had I still a hat, I’d take it off to you for showing such enterprise. As it is, I can only wish you good luck, and pray that on your reaching London you’ll have good cause to buy more British Funds, instead of selling them.’
With a wave, he cantered on, crossed the sunken road and passed a spinney in which he glimpsed the movement of men in blue Dutch-Belgian uniforms. But the spinney was small, so he knew that it could only be an outpost. Riding on for another mile, he reached the hamlet of Le Mesnil. From the eastern outskirts he could see the houses of Mont St. Jean behind the high ground on which the conflict was raging, and the main road to Brussels up to the point where it entered the forest of Soignes. Not a single unit of the Allies was to be seen. Ambulances and walking wounded moved in a steady stream away from the battlefield; but clearly, on the east side of Mont St. Jean, Wellington had already thrown all the reserves he had into the battle.
Halting there, for the hundredth time since he had left Elba with Napoleon, Roger speculated on what the future might hold for him. He was terribly conscious that he had become a plaything of Fate, and that his future would be settled by the outcome of the battle being fought at that moment. If victory went to Napoleon he would, within a few days, turn on and destroy what remained of the Prussians. With two out of the four Allies defeated and new units being formed in France daily to reinforce his army, he would have no need to fear the Austrians. They and the Russians might well climb down and agree a peace. So, if Roger returned to Paris with Napoleon there would be a very good chance of his being able to carry out his cherished plan of retiring to St. Maxime and having his adored Georgina come there to stay with him.
But in no case could he aid the Emperor to defeat Wellington. So he must ride back and make a false report—that the Duke still had a massive reserve behind his right flank—and thus prevent any possibility of Napoleon attempting to outflank him.
If the Allies did win, then all prospect of St. Maxime with Georgina would be gone. The Anglo-Prussian army, supported by Austria and Prussia, would again invade France and occupy Paris. They would restore the Bourbons, and all the officers who had rallied to Napoleon would be proscribed. Having accompanied him from Elba, Roger would be high on the list. Talleyrand, who was known to be now at Ghent with Louis XVIII, would see to it that no harm came to him and get him safely away; but there would be no place for him in France, and England was barred to him. He could hope for nothing. Exile with only a pittance would be his lot.
With a sigh he turned his mount about, to ride back to the Emperor and tell him that his only choice was to continue his frontal attacks or break off the battle.
Between Le Mesnil and the windmill there lay a shallow valley. As Roger walked his horse down the slope, the battle became hidden from him; then, as he trotted over the far rise, the whole panorama was again spread before him. On a front of three miles along the slope of Mont St. Jean, the terrible conflict was still raging. The boom of cannon and roar of exploding shells made a continuous thunder, through which could be heard the sharper crack of volleys of musketry. A haze of smoke extended over the whole field, but only in places totally obscured the lines and groups of struggling infantry and charging horsemen. From well behind the mount, right down the slope to past La Belle Alliance and for over a mile on each side of it the ground was littered with fallen soldiers in uniforms of red, blue, green and black all mingled together. In some places they lay in heaps, and scattered among the dead and dying men were thousands of still or writhing horses.
Yet, as Roger topped the rise and this awful spectacle of frightful carnage again came into view, his attention was immediately distracted by trouble only fifty yards ahead of him. Below in the sunken road stood Rothschild’s light carriage, but only two of the horses remained harnessed to it. The traces of the other six had been unfastened, and the horses were being led away by Dutch-Belgian soldiers—evidently those he had glimpsed twenty minutes earlier as he passed the copse. Rothschild stood on the bank, waving his arms and cursing with impotent fury, while a mounted officer in a red uniform looked on, laughing.
Roger hesitated only a moment. There were half a dozen Dutch-Belgians, but he could not stand by and see his friend the banker robbed in this way, which could prove his ruin. The red uniform of the mounted officer made it as good as certain that he was British. Spurring his horse into a canter, Roger rode up behind him and shouted:
‘Hi! You can’t do this. You’ve no right to steal that gentleman’s horses.’
The officer swung round and stared at him. Roger went as white as chalk, and his blue eyes suddenly blazed with anger. Fate had brought him face to face with his life-long enemy, the man he hated so intensely that he had sworn to kill—George Gunston.