Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1085 page)

placed a strong outpost during the night to intercept such an

approach.

A figure goes forward—that of MAJOR FALKENHAUSEN, who is sent to

reconnoitre, and they wait a tedious time, the firing at Waterloo

growing more tremendous.  FALKENHAUSEN comes back with the welcome

news that no outpost is there.

There now remains only the difficulty of the defile itself; and the

attempt is made.  BLUCHER is descried riding hither and thither as

the guns drag heavily down the slope into the muddy bottom of the

valley.  Here the wheels get stuck, and the men already tired by

marching since five in the morning, seem inclined to leave the guns

where they are.  But the thunder from Waterloo still goes on, BLUCHER

exhorts his men by words and eager gestures, and they do at length

get the guns across, though with much loss of time.

The advance-guard now reaches some thick trees called the Wood of

Paris.  It is followed by the LOSTHIN and HILLER divisions of foot,

and in due course by the remainder of the two brigades.  Here they

halt, and await the arrival of the main body of BULOW'S corps, and

the third corps under THIELEMANN.

The scene shifts.

SCENE IV

THE FIELD OF WATERLOO.  THE ENGLISH POSITION

[WELLINGTON, on Copenhagen, is again under the elm-tree behind La

Haye Sainte.  Both horse and rider are covered with mud-splashes,

but the weather having grown finer the DUKE has taken off his cloak.

UXBRIDGE, FITZROY SOMERSET, CLINTON, ALTEN, COLVILLE, DE LANCEY,

HERVEY, GORDON, and other of his staff officers and aides are

near him; there being also present GENERALS MUFFLING, HUGEL, and

ALAVA; also TYLER, PICTON'S aide.  The roar of battle continues.]

WELLINGTON

I am grieved at losing Picton; more than grieved.

He was as grim a devil as ever lived,

And roughish-mouthed withal.  But never a man

More stout in fight, more stoical in blame!

TYLER

Before he left for this campaign he said,

"When you shall hear of MY death, mark my words,

You'll hear of a bloody day!" and, on my soul,

'Tis true.

[Enter another aide-de-camp.]

AIDE

Sir William Ponsonby, my lords, has fallen.

His horse got mud-stuck in a new-plowed plot,

Lancers surrounded him and bore him down,

And six then ran him through.  The occasion sprung

Mainly from the Brigade's too reckless rush,

Sheer to the French front line.

WELLINGTON
[gravely]

     Ah—so it comes!

The Greys were bound to pay—'tis always so—

Full dearly for their dash so far afield.

Valour unballasted but lands its freight

On the enemy's shore.—What has become of Hill?

AIDE

We have not seen him latterly, your Grace.

WELLINGTON

By God, I hope I haven't lost him, too?

BRIDGMAN
[just come up]

Lord Hill's bay charger, being shot dead, your Grace,

Rolled over him in falling.  He is bruised,

But hopes to be in place again betimes.

WELLINGTON

Praise Fate for thinking better of that frown!

[It is now nearing four o'clock.  La Haye Sainte is devastated by

the second attack of NEY.  The farm has been enveloped by DONZELOT'S

division, its garrison, the King's German Legion, having fought

till all ammunition was exhausted.  The gates are forced open, and

in the retreat of the late defenders to the main Allied line they

are nearly all cut or shot down.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

O Farm of sad vicissitudes and strange!

Farm of the Holy Hedge, yet fool of change!

Whence lit so sanct a name on thy now violate grange?

WELLINGTON
[to Muffling, resolutely]

Despite their fierce advantage here, I swear

By every God that war can call upon

To hold our present place at any cost,

Until your force cooperate with our lines!

To that I stand; although 'tis bruited now

That Bulow's corps has only reached Ohain.

I've sent Freemantle hence to seek them there,

And give them inkling we shall need them soon.

MUFFLING
[looking at his watch]

I had hoped that Blucher would be here ere this.

[The staff turn their glasses on the French position.]

UXBRIDGE

What movement can it be they contemplate?

WELLINGTON

A shock of cavalry on the hottest scale,

It seems to me....
[To aide]
Bid him to reinforce

The front line with some second-line brigades;

Some, too, from the reserve.

[The Brunswickers advance to support MAITLAND'S Guards, and the

MITCHELL and ADAM Brigades establish themselves above Hougomont,

which is still in flames.

NEY, in continuation of the plan of throwing his whole force

on the British centre before the advent of the Prussians, now

intensifies his onslaught with the cavalry.  Terrific discharges

of artillery initiate it to clear the ground.  A heavy round-

shot dashes through the tree over the heads of WELLINGTON and

his generals, and boughs and leaves come flying down on them.]

WELLINGTON

Good practice that!  I vow they did not fire

So dexterously in Spain. 
[He calls up an aide.]
  Bid Ompteda

Direct the infantry to lie tight down

On the reverse ridge-slope, to screen themselves

While these close shots and shells are teasing us;

When the charge comes they'll cease.

[The order is carried out.  NEY'S cavalry attack now matures.

MILHAUD'S cuirassiers in twenty-four squadrons advance down the

opposite decline, followed and supported by seven squadrons of

chasseurs under DESNOETTES.  They disappear for a minute in the

hollow between the armies.]

UXBRIDGE

Ah—now we have got their long-brewed plot explained!

WELLINGTON
[nodding]

That this was rigged for some picked time to-day

I had inferred.  But that it would be risked

Sheer on our lines, while still they stand unswayed,

In conscious battle-trim, I reckoned not.

It looks a madman's cruel enterprise!

FITZROY SOMERSET

We have just heard that Ney embarked on it

Without an order, ere its aptness riped.

WELLINGTON

It may be so: he's rash.  And yet I doubt.

I know Napoleon.  If the onset fail

It will be Ney's; if it succeed he'll claim it!

[A dull reverberation of the tread of innumerable hoofs comes

from behind the hill, and the foremost troops rise into view.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Behold the gorgeous coming of those horse,

Accoutered in kaleidoscopic hues

That would persuade us war has beauty in it!—

Discern the troopers' mien; each with the air

Of one who is himself a tragedy:

The cuirassiers, steeled, mirroring the day;

Red lancers, green chasseurs: behind the blue

The red; the red before the green:

A lingering-on till late in Christendom,

Of the barbaric trick to terrorize

The foe by aspect!

[WELLINGTON directs his glass to an officer in a rich uniform

with many decorations on his breast, who rides near the front

of the approaching squadrons.  The DUKE'S face expresses

admiration.]

WELLINGTON

It's Marshal Ney himself who heads the charge.

The finest cavalry commander, he,

That wears a foreign plume; ay, probably

The whole world through!

SPIRIT IRONIC

          And when that matchless chief

Sentenced shall lie to ignominious death

But technically deserved, no finger he

Who speaks will lift to save him.!

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

          To his shame.

We must discount war's generous impulses

I sadly see.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

          Be mute, and let spin on

This whirlwind of the Will!

[As NEY'S cavalry ascends the English position the swish of the

horses' breasts through the standing corn can be heard, and the

reverberation of hoofs increases in strength.  The English gunners

stand with their portfires ready, which are seen glowing luridly

in the daylight.  There is comparative silence.]

A VOICE

Now, captains, are you loaded?

CAPTAINS

Yes, my lord.

VOICE

Point carefully, and wait till their whole height

Shows above the ridge.

[When the squadrons rise in full view, within sixty yards of the

cannon-mouths, the batteries fire, with a concussion that shakes

the hill itself.  Their shot punch holes through the front ranks

of the cuirassiers, and horse and riders fall in heaps.  But they

are not stopped, hardly checked, galloping up to the mouths of the

guns, passing between the pieces, and plunging among the Allied

infantry behind the ridge, who, with the advance of the horsemen,

have sprung up from their prone position and formed into squares.]

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

Ney guides the fore-front of the carabineers

Through charge and charge, with rapid recklessness.

Horses, cuirasses, sabres, helmets, men,

Impinge confusedly on the pointed prongs

Of the English kneeling there, whose dim red shapes

Behind their slanted steel seem trampled flat

And sworded to the sward.  The charge recedes,

And lo, the tough lines rank there as before,

Save that they are shrunken.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

          Hero of heroes, too,

Ney,
[not forgetting those who gird against him]
.—

Simple and single-souled lieutenant he;

Why should men's many-valued motions take

So barbarous a groove!

[The cuirassiers and lancers surge round the English and Allied

squares like waves, striking furiously on them and well-nigh

breaking them.  They stand in dogged silence amid the French

cheers.]

WELLINGTON
[to the nearest square]

Hard pounding this, my men!  I truly trust

You'll pound the longest!

SQUARE

Hip-hip-hip-hurrah!

MUFFLING
[again referring to his watch]

However firmly they may stand, in faith,

Their firmness must have bounds to it, because

There are bounds to human strength!... Your, Grace,

To leftward now, to spirit Zieten on.

WELLINGTON

Good.  It is time!  I think he well be late,

However, in the field.

[MUFFLING goes.  Enter an aide, breathless.]

AIDE

Your Grace, the Ninety-fifth are patience-spent

With standing under fire so passing long.

They writhe to charge—or anything but stand!

WELLINGTON

Not yet.  They shall have at 'em later on.

At present keep them firm.

[Exit aide.  The Allied squares stand like little red-brick castles,

independent of each other, and motionless except at the dry hurried

command "Close up!" repeated every now and then as they are slowly

thinned. On the other hand, under their firing and bayonets a

disorder becomes apparent among the charging horse, on whose

cuirasses the bullets snap like stones on window-panes.  At this

the Allied cavalry waiting in the rear advance; and by degrees they

deliver the squares from their enemies, who are withdrawn to their

own position to prepare for a still more strenuous assault.  The

point of view shifts.]

SCENE V

THE SAME.  THE WOMEN'S CAMP NEAR MONT SAINT-JEAN

[On the sheltered side of a clump of trees at the back of the

English position camp-fires are smouldering.  Soldiers' wives,

mistresses, and children from a few months to five or six years

of age, sit on the ground round the fires or on armfuls of straw

from the adjoining farm.  Wounded soldiers lie near the women.

The wind occasionally brings the smoke and smell of battle into

the encampment, the noise being continuous.  Two waggons stand

near; also a surgeon's horse in charge of a batman, laden with

bone-saws, knives, probes, tweezers, and other surgical instruments.

Behind lies a woman who has just given birth to a child, which a

second woman is holding.

Many of the other women are shredding lint, the elder children

assisting.  Some are dressing the slighter wounds of the soldiers