Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1087 page)

In Heaven's name!  I've  no reinforcements here,

As he should know.

AIDE
[hesitating]

What's to be done, your Grace?

WELLINGTON

Done?  Those he has left him, be they many or few,

Fight till they fall, like others in the field!

[Exit aide.  The Quartermaster-General DE LANCEY, riding by

WELLINGTON, is struck by a lobbing shot that hurls him over

the head of his horse.  WELLINGTON and others go to him.]

DE LANCEY
[faintly]

I may as well be left to die in peace!

WELLINGTON

He may recover.  Take him to the rear,

And call the best attention up to him.

[DE LANCEY is carried off.  The next moment a shell bursts close

to WELLINGTON.]

HILL
[approaching]

I strongly feel you stand too much exposed!

WELLINGTON

I know, I know.  It matters not one damn!

I may as well be shot as not perceive

What ills are raging here.

HILL

     Conceding such,

And as you may be ended momently,

A truth there is no blinking, what commands

Have you to leave me, should fate shape it so?

WELLINGTON

These simply: to hold out unto the last,

As long as one man stands on one lame leg

With one ball in his pouch!—then end as I.

[He rides on slowly with the others.  NEY'S charges, though

fruitless so far, are still fierce.  His troops are now reduced

to one-half.  Regiments of the BACHELU division, and the JAMIN

brigade, are at last moved up to his assistance.  They are partly

swept down by the Allied batteries, and partly notched away by

the infantry, the smoke being now so thick that the position of

the battalions is revealed only by the flashing of the priming-

pans and muzzles, and by the furious oaths heard behind the cloud.

WELLINGTON comes back.  Enter another aide-de-camp.]

AIDE

We bow to the necessity of saying

That our brigade is lessened to one-third,

Your Grace.  And those who are left alive of it

Are so unmuscled by fatigue and thirst

That some relief, however temporary,

Becomes sore need.

WELLINGTON

     Inform your general

That his proposal asks the impossible!

That he, I, every Englishman afield,

Must fall upon the spot we occupy,

Our wounds in front.

AIDE

     It is enough, your Grace.

I answer for't that he, those under him,

And I withal, will bear us as you say.

[Exit aide.  The din of battle goes on.  WELLINGTON is grave but

calm.  Like those around him, he is splashed to the top of his hat

with partly dried mire, mingled with red spots; his face is grimed

in the same way, little courses showing themselves where the sweat

has trickled down from his brow and temples.]

CLINTON
[to Hill]

A rest would do our chieftain no less good,

In faith, than that unfortunate brigade!

He is tried damnably; and much more strained

Than I have ever seen him.

HILL

     Endless risks

He's running likewise.  What the hell would happen

If he were shot, is more than I can say!

WELLINGTON
[calling to some near]

At Talavera, Salamanca, boys,

And at Vitoria, we saw smoke together;

And though the day seems wearing doubtfully,

Beaten we must not be!  What would they say

Of us at home, if so?

A CRY
[from the French]

     Their centre breaks!

Vive l'Empereur!

[It comes from the FOY and BACHELU divisions, which are rushing

forward.  HALKETT'S and DUPLAT'S brigades intercept.  DUPLAT

falls, shot dead; but the venturesome French regiments, pierced

with converging fires, and cleft with shells, have to retreat.]

HILL
[joining Wellington]

     The French artillery-fire

To the right still renders regiments restive there

That have to stand.  The long exposure galls them.

WELLINGTON

They must be stayed as our poor means afford.

I have to bend attention steadfastly

Upon the centre here.  The game just now

Goes all against us; and if staunchness fail

But for one moment with these thinning foot,

Defeat succeeds!

[The battle continues to sway hither and thither with concussions,

wounds, smoke, the fumes of gunpowder, and the steam from the hot

viscera of grape-torn horses and men.  One side of a Hanoverian

square is blown away; the three remaining sides form themselves

into a triangle.  So many of his aides are cut down that it is

difficult for WELLINGTON to get reports of what is happening

afar.  It begins to be discovered at the front that a regiment of

hussars, and others without ammunition, have deserted, and that

some officers in the rear, honestly concluding the battle to be

lost, are riding quietly off to Brussels.  Those who are left

unwounded of WELLINGTON'S staff show gloomy misgivings at such

signs, despite their own firmness.]

SPIRIT SINISTER

          One needs must be a ghost

To move here in the midst 'twixt host and host!

Their balls scream brisk and breezy tunes through me

As I were an organ-stop.  It's merry so;

What damage mortal flesh must undergo!

[A Prussian officer enters to MUFFLING, who has again rejoined

the DUKE'S suite.  MUFFLING hastens forward to WELLINGTON.]

MUFFLING

Blucher has just begun to operate;

But owing to Gneisenau's stolid stagnancy

The body of our army looms not yet!

As Zieten's corps still plod behind Smohain

Their coming must be late.  Blucher's attack

Strikes the remote right rear of the enemy,

Somewhere by Plancenoit.

WELLINGTON

     A timely blow;

But would that Zieten sped!  Well, better late

Than never.  We'll still stand.

[The point of observation shifts.]

SCENE VIII

THE SAME.  LATER

[NEY'S long attacks on the centre with cavalry having failed,

those left of the squadrons and their infantry-supports fall

back pell-mell in broken groups across the depression between

the armies.

Meanwhile BULOW, having engaged LOBAU'S Sixth Corps, carries

Plancenoit.

The artillery-fire between the French and the English continues.

An officer of the Third Foot-guards comes up to WELLINGTON and

those of his suite that survive.]

OFFICER

Our Colonel Canning—coming I know not whence—

WELLINGTON

I lately sent him with important words

To the remoter lines.

OFFICER

     As he returned

A grape-shot struck him in the breast; he fell,

At once a dead man.  General Halkett, too,

Has had his cheek shot through, but still keeps going.

WELLINGTON

And how proceeds De Lancey?

OFFICER

     I am told

That he forbids the surgeons waste their time

On him, who well can wait till worse are eased.

WELLINGTON

A noble fellow.

[NAPOLEON can now be seen, across the valley, pushing forward a

new scheme of some sort, urged to it obviously by the visible

nearing of further Prussian corps.  The EMPEROR is as critically

situated as WELLINGTON, and his army is now formed in a right

angle ["en potence"]
, the main front to the English, the lesser

to as many of the Prussians as have yet arrived.  His gestures

show him to be giving instructions of desperate import to a

general whom he has called up.]

SPIRIT IRONIC

He bids La Bedoyere to speed away

Along the whole sweep of the surging line,

And there announce to the breath-shotten bands

Who toil for a chimaera trustfully,

With seventy pounds of luggage on their loins,

That the dim Prussian masses seen afar

Are Grouchy's three-and-thirty thousand, come

To clinch a victory.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

     But Ney demurs!

SPIRIT IRONIC

Ney holds indignantly that such a feint

Is not war-worthy.  Says Napoleon then,

Snuffing anew, with sour sardonic scowl,

That he is choiceless.

SPIRIT SINISTER

          Excellent Emperor!

He tops all human greatness; in that he

To lesser grounds of greatness adds the prime,

Of being without a conscience.

[LA BEDOYERE and orderlies start on their mission.  The false

intelligence is seen to spread, by the excited motion of the

columns, and the soldiers can be heard shouting as their spirits

revive.

WELLINGTON is beginning to discern the features of the coming

onset, when COLONEL FRASER rides up.]

FRASER

We have just learnt from a deserting captain,

One of the carabineers who charged of late,

That an assault which dwarfs all instances—

The whole Imperial Guard in welded weight—

Is shortly to be made.

WELLINGTON

     For your smart speed

My thanks.  My observation is confirmed.

We'll hasten now along the battle-line
[to Staff]
,

As swiftest means for giving orders out

Whereby to combat this.

[The speaker, accompanied by HILL, UXBRIDGE, and others—all now

looking as worn and besmirched as the men in the ranks—proceed

along the lines, and dispose the brigades to meet the threatened

shock.  The infantry are brought out of the shelter they have

recently sought, the cavalry stationed in the rear, and the

batteries of artillery hitherto kept in reserve are moved to the

front.

The last Act of the battle begins.

There is a preliminary attack by DONZELOT'S columns, combined

with swarms of sharpshooters, to the disadvantage of the English

and their Allies.  WELLINGTON has scanned it closely.  FITZROY

SOMERSET, his military secretary, comes up.]

WELLINGTON

What casualty has thrown its shade among

The regiments of Nassau, to shake them so?

SOMERSET

The Prince of Orange has been badly struck—

A bullet through his shoulder—so they tell;

And Kielmansegge has shown some signs of stress.

Kincaird's tried line wanes leaner and more lean—

Whittled to a weak skein of skirmishers;

The Twenty-seventh lie dead.

WELLINGTON

Ah yes—I know!

[While they watch developments a cannon-shot passes and knocks

SOMERSET'S right arm to a mash.  He is assisted to the rear.

NEY and FRIANT now lead forward the last and most desperate

assault of the day, in charges of the Old and Middle Guard,

the attack by DONZELOT and ALLIX further east still continuing as

a support.  It is about a quarter-past eight, and the midsummer

evening is fine after the wet night and morning, the sun approaching

its setting in a sky of gorgeous colours.

The picked and toughened Guard, many of whom stood in the ranks

at Austerlitz and Wagram, have been drawn up in three or four

echelons, the foremost of which now advances up the slopes to

the Allies' position.  The others follow at intervals, the

drummers beating the "pas de charge."]

CHORUS OF RUMOURS
[aerial music]

Twice thirty throats of couchant cannonry—

Ranked in a hollow curve, to close their blaze

Upon the advancing files—wait silently

     Like to black bulls at gaze.

The Guard approaches nearer and more near:

To touch-hole moves each match of smoky sheen:

The ordnance roars: the van-ranks disappear

     As if wiped off the scene.

The aged Friant falls as it resounds;

Ney's charger drops—his fifth on this sore day—

Its rider from the quivering body bounds

     And forward foots his way.

The cloven columns tread the English height,

Seize guns, repulse battalions rank by rank,

While horse and foot artillery heavily bite

     Into their front and flank.

It nulls the power of a flesh-built frame

To live within that zone of missiles.  Back

The Old Guard, staggering, climbs to whence it came.

     The fallen define its track.

[The second echelon of the Imperial Guard has come up to the