Sharpe's Waterloo (2 page)

On the main highway leading to Charleroi and Brussels the Dragoons were clattering along at a fine pace, almost as if this was an exercise in Provence instead of war. A lieutenant of Dragoons was so dismissive of any danger that he was eagerly telling his Sergeant how the new science of phrenology measured human aptitudes from the shape of a man's skull. The Lieutenant opined that when the science was properly understood all promotion in the army would be based on careful skull measurements. ‘We'll be able to measure courage and decisiveness, common sense and honesty, and all with a pair of calipers and a measuring tape!'

The Sergeant did not respond. He and his officer rode at the head of their squadron, and were thus at the very tip of the advancing French army. In truth the Sergeant was not really listening to the Lieutenant's enthusiastic explanation; instead he was partly anticipating the Belgian girls and partly worrying when this headlong advance would run into the enemy picquets. Surely the British and Prussians had not fled?

The Lieutenant was somewhat piqued by his Sergeant's apparent lack of interest in phrenology, though the Sergeant's low and scowling brow ridge undoubtedly betrayed the scientific reason for his inability to accept new ideas. The Lieutenant nevertheless persisted in trying to enlighten the veteran soldier. ‘They've done studies on the criminal classes in Paris, Sergeant, and have discovered a remarkable correlation between -'

The remarkable correlation remained a mystery, because the hedgerow thirty yards ahead of the two horsemen exploded with musket-fire and the Lieutenant's horse collapsed, shot in the chest. The horse screamed. Blood frothed at its teeth as it lashed frantically with its hooves. The Lieutenant, thrown from the saddle, was kicked in the pelvis by a thrashing hoof. He screamed as loudly as his horse that was now blocking the high road with its flailing death throes. The astonished Dragoons could hear the enemy ramrods rattling in their musket barrels. The Sergeant looked back at the troopers. ‘One of you kill that bloody horse!'

More shots hammered from the hedge. The ambushers were good. They had allowed the French horsemen to come very close before they opened fire. The Dragoons sheathed their long swords and drew their carbines, but their aim from horseback was uncertain and the short-barrelled carbine was a weapon of notorious inaccuracy. The Lieutenant's horse still lashed and kicked on the road. The Sergeant was shouting for his men to advance. A trumpet called behind, ordering another troop to file right into a field of growing wheat. A trooper shot the Lieutenant's horse, leaning from his saddle to put the bullet plumb into the beast's skull. Another horse fell, this one with a leg bone shattered by a musket-ball. A Dragoon was lying in the ditch, his helmet fallen into a nettle patch. Horses crashed past the wounded Lieutenant, their hooves spurting mud and road-flints into the air. The Sergeant's long sword shone silver.

More shots, but this time the gouts of white smoke were scattered more thinly along the hedgerow. ‘They're retreating, sir!' the Sergeant shouted to an officer far behind him, then, not waiting for any orders, spurred his horse forward. ‘Charge!'

The French Dragoons swept past the line of the hedge. They could see no enemy in the long-shadowed landscape, but they knew the ambushers had to be close. The Sergeant, suspecting that the enemy infantry was hiding in the mist-skeined wheat field, turned his horse off the lane, forced it through a ditch and so up into the wheat. He saw movement at the far side of the field, close by a dark-leafed wood. The movement resolved into men running towards the trees. The men wore dark blue uniform coats and had black shakos with silver rims. Prussian infantry. ‘There they are!' The Sergeant pointed at the enemy with his sword. ‘After the bastards!'

Thirty Dragoons followed the Sergeant. They thrust their carbines into the bucket holsters on their saddles and dragged out their long straight-bladed swords. Prussian muskets pricked flame from the wood's edge, but the shooting was at too long a range and only one French horse tumbled into the wheat. The remaining Dragoons swept on. The enemy picquet that had ambushed the French vanguard was hurrying to the shelter of the wood, but some of them had left their retreat too late and the Dragoons caught them. The Sergeant galloped past a man and cut back with a savage slash of his sword.

The Prussian infantryman clapped his hands to his sword-whipped face, trying to cram his eyes back into their sockets. Another man, ridden down by two Dragoons, choked on blood. ‘Charge!' The Sergeant was carrying his sword to the infantry among the trees. He could see Prussian soldiers running away in the undergrowth and he felt the fierce exultation of a cavalryman given a helpless enemy to slaughter, but he did not see the battery of guns concealed in the deep shadows at the edge of the wood, nor the Prussian artillery officer who shouted, ‘Fire!'

One moment the Sergeant was screaming at his men to charge hard home, and the next he and his horse were hit by the metal gale of an exploding canister. Horse and man died instantly. Behind the Sergeant the Dragoons splayed left and right, but three other horses and four more men died. Two of the men were French and two were Prussian infantry who had left their retreat too late.

The Prussian gunner officer saw another troop of Dragoons threatening to outflank his position. He looked back to the road where yet more French cavalry had appeared, and he knew it could not be long before the first French eight-pounder cannon arrived. ‘Limber up!'

The Prussian guns galloped northwards, their retreat guarded by black-uniformed Hussars who wore skull and crossbone badges on their shakos. The French Dragoons did not follow immediately; instead they spurred into the abandoned wood where they found the Prussian camp-fires still burning. A plate of sausages had been spilt onto the ground beside one of the fires. ‘Tastes like German shit.' A trooper disgustedly spat a mouthful of the meat into the fire.

A wounded horse limped in the wheat, trying to catch up with the other cavalry horses. In the trees two Prussian prisoners were being stripped of weapons, food, cash and drink. The other Prussians had disappeared northwards. The French, advancing to the northern edge of the captured wood, watched the enemy's withdrawal. The last of the mist had burned away. The wheels of the retreating Prussian guns had carved lanes of crushed barley through the northern fields.

Ten miles to the south, and still in France, the Emperor's heavy carriage waited at the roadside. Staff officers informed His Majesty that the Dutch frontier had been successfully crossed. They reported very light resistance, which had been brushed aside.

The Emperor grunted acknowledgement of the news then let the leather curtain fall to plunge the carriage's interior into darkness. It was just one hundred and seven days since, sailing from exile in Elba with a mere thousand men, he had landed on an empty beach in southern France. It was just eighty-eight days since he had recaptured his capital of Paris, yet in those few days he had shown the world how an emperor made armies. Two hundred thousand veterans had been recalled to the Eagles, the half-pay officers had been restored to their battalions, and the arsenals of France had been filled. Now that new army marched against the scum of Britain and the hirelings of Prussia. It was a midsummer's dawn, and the Emperor was attacking.

The coachman cracked his whip, the Emperor's carriage lurched forward, and the battle for Europe had begun.

An hour after the French Dragoon Sergeant and his horse had been broken and flensed by the canister another cavalryman rode into the bright midsummer sunshine.

This man was in Brussels, forty miles north of where the Emperor invaded Belgium. He was a tall good-looking officer in the scarlet and blue finery of the British Life Guards. He rode a tall black horse, superbly groomed and evidently expensive. The rider wore a gilded Grecian helmet that was crested with black and red wool and plumed with a white tuft. His bleached buckskin breeches were still damp, for to achieve a thigh-hugging fit they were best donned wet and allowed to shrink. His straight heavy sword hung in a gilded scabbard by his royal blue saddle-cloth that was embroidered with the King's cipher. The officer's black boots were knee-high, his spurs were gilded steel, his sabretache was bright with sequins and with gold embroidery, his short scarlet jacket was girdled with a gold sash, and his tall stiff collar encrusted with bright lace. His saddle was sheathed in lamb's fleece and the horse's curb chains were of pure silver, yet, for all that gaudy finery, it was the British officer's face that caught the attention.

He was a most handsome young man, and this early morning he was made even more attractive by his expression of pure happiness. It was plain to every milkmaid and street sweeper in the rue Royale that this British officer was glad to be alive, delighted to be in Belgium, and that he expected every one in Brussels to share his evident enjoyment of life, health and happiness.

He touched the black enamelled visor of his helmet in answer to the salute of the red-coated sentry who stood outside an expensive front door, then cantered on through Brussels' fashionable streets until he reached a large house on the rue de la Blanchisserie. It was still early, yet the courtyard of the house was busy with tradesmen and carts that delivered chairs, music stands, food and wine. An ostler took the cavalryman's horse while a liveried footman relieved him of his helmet and cumbersome sword. The cavalry officer pushed a hand through his long golden hair as he ran up the house steps.

He did not wait for the servants to open the doors, but just pushed through into the entrance hall, and then into the great ballroom where a score of painters and upholsterers were finishing a long night's work during which they had transformed the ballroom into a silk-hung fantasy. Shiny swathes of gold, scarlet and black fabric had been draped from the ceiling, while between the gaudy bolts a brand-new wallpaper of rose-covered trellis disguised the damp patches of the ballroom's plaster. The room's huge chandeliers had been lowered to floor level where servants laboriously slotted hundreds of white candles into the newly cleaned silver and crystal holders. More workers were twining vines of ivy around pillars newly painted orange, while an elderly woman was strewing the floor with French chalk so that the dancing shoes would not slip on the polished parquet.

The cavalry officer, clearly delighted with the elaborate preparations, strode through the room. ‘Bristow! Bristow!' His tall boots left prints in the newly scattered chalk. ‘Bristow! You rogue! Where are you?'

A black coated, white-haired man, who bore the harassed look of the functionary in charge of the ball's preparations, stepped from the supper room at the peremptory summons. His look of annoyance abruptly changed to a delighted smile when he recognized the young cavalry officer. He bowed deeply. ‘My lord!'

‘Good day to you, Bristow! It's a positive delight to see you.' ‘As it is a delight to see your lordship again. I had not heard your lordship was in Brussels?'

‘I arrived yesterday. Last night.' The cavalryman, who was called Lord John Rossendale, was staring at the sumptuous decorations in the supper room where the long tables were draped in white linen and thickly set with silver and fine china. ‘Couldn't sleep,' he explained his early appearance. ‘How many are you seating tonight?'

‘We have distributed four hundred and forty tickets, my lord.'

‘Four hundred and forty-two.' Lord John Rossendale grinned at Bristow, then, as if he were a magician, produced a letter that he flourished in the elderly servant's face. ‘Two tickets, if you would be so kind.'

Bristow took the letter, unfolded and read it. The letter was from Her Grace's private secretary and gladly agreed that Lord John Rossendale should be given a ticket for the ball. One ticket, the letter said, and Bristow gently pointed to the instruction. ‘It says just one ticket, my lord.'

‘Two, Bristow. Two, two, two. Pretend you cannot read. I insist upon two. It has to be two! Or do you want me to wreak havoc on the supper tables?'

Bristow smiled. ‘I'm sure we can manage two, my lord.' Bristow was butler to the Duke of Richmond whose wife was giving the ball in this large rented house. Competition to attend was keen. Much of London society had moved to Brussels for the summer, there were army officers who would be mortified if they were not invited, and there was the local aristocracy who had to be entertained. The Duchess's answer to the eagerness of so many to attend her ball had been to have tickets of admission printed, yet, even so, Bristow expected there to be at least as many interlopers as ticket holders. It was not two days since the Duchess had issued instructions that no more tickets were to be given away, but it was hardly likely that such a prohibition would apply to Lord John Rossendale whose mother was an intimate friend of the Duchess of Richmond.

‘Her Grace is already having breakfast. Would you care to join her?' Bristow asked Lord John.

Lord John followed the butler into the private rooms where, in a small sunlit salon, the Duchess nibbled toast. ‘I never do sleep before a ball,' she greeted Lord John, then blinked with astonishment at him. ‘What are
you
doing here?'

Lord John kissed the Duchess's hand. She was in a Chinese silk robe and had her hair gathered under a mob-cap. She was a quick-tempered woman of remarkable good looks.

‘I came to collect tickets for your ball, of course,' Lord John said airily. ‘I assume you're giving it to celebrate my arrival in Brussels?'

‘What
are
you doing in Brussels?' The Duchess ignored Lord John's raillery.

‘I've been posted here,' Lord John explained. ‘I arrived last night. I would have been here sooner but one of our carriage horses slung a shoe and it took four hours to find a smith. I couldn't sleep either. It's just too exciting.' He smiled happily, expecting the Duchess to share his joy.