Sharpe's Waterloo (22 page)

A small west wind was stirring the thick smoke. The British skirmishers, reinforced by newly arrived battalions of light infantry, were beginning to blunt the fire of the Voltigeurs. The French artillery was still taking its grievous toll of the infantry by the crossroads, but now the Duke could replace the men who fell. If Blücher held off the Emperor, and if Marshal Ney was thrown back from Quatre Bras, then in the morning the Prussian and British armies would combine and Napoleon would have lost.

The Duke opened his watch lid. It was half-past five of a summer's evening. The battlefield was darkening, shadowed by the huge western clouds and shrouded by its pall of smoke, but plenty of daylight remained for the Duke's counter-stroke. ‘Any news of the Guards?' he asked an aide.

It seemed that the Guards were being apprehended by the Prince of Orange who, as company after company of the elite troops arrived, was sending them north through the great wood to reinforce Saxe-Weimar's men. The Duke, muttering that the Prince was a bloody little boy who should be sent back to his nursery, ordered that the Guards were not to be so dispersed in penny packets, but were to be held ready for his orders.

‘Your Grace!' an aide called in warning. ‘Enemy cavalry!'

The Duke turned to stare southwards. Through the smoke he saw a mass of French cavalry spurring up from dead ground and heading slantwise across the field. They were a half-mile away, and well spread out in four long lines. Their loose formation made them a poor target for artillery, but the British gunners loaded with common shell and did their best. The explosions knocked down a few men and horses, but the vast mass of French cavalry trotted safely through the bursting patches of flame and smoke.

The Duke extended his telescope. ‘Where are they going?' He was puzzled. Surely his opponent had learned by now that cavalry could achieve nothing against the stalwart squares which had been reinforced with the newly arrived guns?

‘Perhaps they're testing Halkett's men?' an aide suggested.

‘Then they're committing suicide!' The Duke had his glass trained on the front line of cavalry that was composed of the heavy Cuirassiers in their steel armour. Behind the Cuirassiers were the light horsemen with their lances and sabres. ‘They must be insane!' the Duke opined. ‘Halkett's in square, isn't he?'

Almost in unison the telescopes of the Duke's staff officers swept to the right of the field, racing past the patches of smoke to focus on the four battalions of Halkett's brigade which stood in front of the wood. The brigade was obscured by cannon smoke, but there were enough rifts in the dirty screen to show that something had gone terribly wrong. ‘Oh, Christ.' The voice spoke helplessly from the Duke's entourage. There was a moment's silence, and then again. ‘Oh, Christ.'

 

‘Sir?' Rebecque handed the Prince his telescope and pointed towards Gemioncourt farm. ‘There, sir.'

The Prince trained the heavy glass. Thousands of horsemen had appeared from the dead ground and now, in four long lines, swept either side of the farm. Dust spurted from the road as the horsemen crashed across. The enemy cavalry was trotting, but, even as the Prince watched, he saw them spur into a canter. The Cuirassiers had their heavy straight swords drawn. Long horsehair plumes tossed and waved from the steel brightness of their helmets. A Cuirassier was hit by a British roundshot and the Prince involuntarily jumped as, magnified in his lens, the steel clad horseman seemed to explode in blood and metal. The Lancers and Hussars, cantering behind, divided to pass the butcher's mess left on the ground.

‘They're going for Halkett's brigade, sir,' Rebecque warned.

‘Then tell Halkett to form square!' The Prince's voice was suddenly high-pitched, almost sobbing. ‘They've got to form square, Rebecque!' he shouted, spraying Rebecque with spittle. ‘Tell them to form square!'

‘It's too late, sir. It's too late.' The French were already closer to the infantry brigade than any of the Prince's staff. There was no time to send any orders. There was no time to do anything now, except watch.

‘But they've got to form square!' the Prince screamed like a spoilt child.

Too late.

 

The French cavalry was led by Kellerman, brave Kellerman, hero of Marengo, and veteran of a thousand charges. In most of those charges he had led his men steadily forward, not going from the canter to the gallop till he was just a few yards from the enemy, for only by such discipline could he guarantee that his horsemen would crash in an unbroken line against the enemy.

But this evening he knew that every second's delay would give the redcoats a chance to form square and that once they were in square his horsemen were beaten. A horse would not charge a formed square with its four ranks bristling with muskets spitting fire and bright with bayonets. The horses would swerve round the square, receiving yet more fire from its flanks, and Kellerman had already lost too many men to the British squares this day.

But these redcoats were in line. They could be attacked from their flank, from their front and from behind, and they must not be given time to change formation and thus Kellerman abandoned the discipline of a slow methodical advance and instead shouted at his trumpeters to sound the full charge. Damn the unbroken line hitting home together; instead Kellerman would release his killers to a bloody gallop and loose them to the slaughter.

‘Charge!'

Now it was a race between Cuirassiers, Hussars and Lancers. The Cuirassiers raked their horse's flanks and let their heavy horses run free. The Lancers dropped their points and screamed their war cries. The sound of the charge was like a thousand demented drummers as the hooves beat the earth and churned up a mass of blood and soil and straw that flecked the sky behind the four charging lines, which slowly unravelled as the faster horses raced ahead. A cannon-ball screamed between the horses, ploughed a furrow and disappeared southwards. A Lancer swerved round a dead skirmisher. The Lancer's gloved hand was tight on his weapon's grip which was made from cord lashed about the long ash staff. The lance's blade was a smooth spike of polished steel, nine inches long and sharpened like a needle. A shell erupted harmlessly in front of the leading horsemen; the smoke of its explosion whipping back past the galloping killers. A red-plumed trumpeter played mad wild notes. Ahead, beyond the Cuirassiers, the redcoats seemed frozen in terror. This was a ride to death, to a triumph, to the glory of the best and most lethal cavalry in all the world.

‘Charge!' Kellerman bellowed, the trumpeters echoed his call, and the French torrent surged on.

 

‘Oh, God. Dear God!' Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Ford gazed into the battlefield and saw nightmare. The rye was filled with horsemen and the evening light was glinting off hundreds of swords and breastplates and lance heads. Ford could hear the drumming sound of the earth being beaten by thousands of hooves, and all he would do was stare and wonder what in God's name he was supposed to do about it. A small part of his brain knew he was supposed to make a decision, but he was paralysed.

‘Cavalry!' d‘Alembord shouted unnecessarily. His skirmishers were racing back to the battalion. D'Alembord, like any good skirmish officer, had abandoned his horse to fight with his men on foot, and now he was running like a flushed hare from the threat of hunters. He could scarcely believe the speed with which the enemy horsemen had erupted from the dead ground beyond the highway.

‘We should form square?' Major Micklewhite, his horse next to Ford's, suggested to the Colonel.

‘Are they French?' Ford had nervously plucked off his spectacles and was frenetically polishing their lens on his sash.

For a second Micklewhite could only gape at the Colonel. He wondered why on earth Ford should suppose that British cavalry might be charging the battalion. ‘Yes, sir. They're French.' Major Micklewhite's voice was edged with panic now. ‘Do we form square?'

Sharpe had ridden forward, taking position just behind d'Alembord's men who were hastily ranking themselves on the left of the battalion's line. At the right flank of the line, where the Grenadier Company was nearest to the French, an avalanche of cavalry was storming at the battalion's open flank. More cavalryman were slanting in to the battalion's front. To Sharpe's left, beyond the 33rd, the 30th were already forming square, though the 33rd, like the Prince of Wales's Own Volunteers, seemed frozen in line.

‘We should form square!' Major Vine, the battalion's senior Major, shouted at Ford from the right of the line.

‘Get out of here, Dally!' Sharpe called to d‘Alembord, then raised his voice so all the men of the battalion could hear him. ‘Run! Back to the trees! Run!'

It was too late to form square. There was only one chance of living, and that was to gain the shelter of the wood.

The men, recognizing Sharpe's voice, broke and fled. A few sergeants hesitated. Colonel Ford tried desperately to hook his spectacles into place. ‘Form square!' he called.

‘Square!' Major Vine yelped at the closest companies. ‘Form square!'

‘Run!' That was Harper, once Regimental Sergeant-Major of this battalion, and still the possessor of a pair of lungs that could jar a regiment from eight fields away. ‘Run, you buggers!'

The buggers ran.

‘Move! Move! Move!' Sharpe galloped along the front of the line, slashing with the flat of his sword to hasten the redcoats back towards the tree line. ‘Run! Run!' He was racing straight towards the enemy's charge. ‘Run!'

The men ran. The colour party, encumbered by the heavy squares of silk, were the slowest. One of the Ensigns lost a boot and began limping. Sharpe slammed his horse between the Sergeants whose long axe-bladed spontoons protected the flags and he grabbed a handful of silk with his left hand and speared his sword into the King's colour on his right. ‘Run!' He spurred the horse, dragging the two flags behind him. The first refugees were already in the trees where Harper was shouting at them to take firing positions.

A sergeant screamed behind Sharpe as a Cuirassier stabbed a sword down, but the Sergeant's long spontoon tripped the Frenchman's horse that sprawled down into the path of a Lancer who was forced to rein in behind the thrashing beast. An Hussar galloped in from the left, aiming at the colours, but Major Micklewhite slashed from horseback and the Hussar had to parry. He drove Micklewhite's light sword aside, then thrust with his sabre's point to slice Micklewhite's throat back to bone. The Ensign who had lost his boot was ridden over by a Cuirassier whose heavy horse smashed the boy's spine with its hooves. A lance, thrown like a javelin, ripped the yellow silk of the regimental colour, then hung there to be dragged along the ground. Two more Lancers spurred forward, but their attack came close to the trees where Patrick Harper lurked with his seven-barrelled gun. His one shot emptied both saddles and the very noise of the huge weapon seemed to drive the other Frenchmen away in search of easier pickings.

Sharpe ducked his head, struck back with his heels, and his horse crashed through a patch of ferns and into the trees. He dropped the one colour and shook the other off his sword, then wrenched the horse savagely about in expectation of French horsemen close behind.

But the French had swerved away. They had caught a handful of the slower men and cut them down, and they had killed many of the mounted officers who had stayed behind to shelter the running redcoats, but now the French horsemen feared becoming entangled in the thick wood where the trees would blunt the force of their charge, and so they spurred on for easier prey. Behind them they left Major Micklewhite sprawled dead in a pool of his own blood. Captain Carline was dead, as were Captain Smith and three lieutenants, but the rest of the battalion was safe in the shelter of the wood.

The 33rd, next in line to the Prince of Wales's Own Volunteers, had also run to the wood while beyond them the 30th had formed a rough square that proved solid enough to stand like an island amidst the torrent of French cavalry that split either side of the redcoats. The cavalry ignored the men of the 30th because beyond their crude square the 69th had neither run nor formed squre, but was just standing in line with muskets levelled as the full might of Kellerman's cavalry, cheated of its first three targets, thundered straight for them.

‘Fire!' a major shouted.

The muskets crashed smoke. Ten Cuirassiers went down in a maelstrom of blood, steel and dying horses, but there were more Cuirassiers on either flank and a rage of Lancers and Hussars were storming in behind the armoured vanguard.

The Cuirassiers hit the open flank of the 69th. A man lunged up with a bayonet, then died as the sword split his skull. The heavy horses slammed into the red ranks that broke apart like rotten wood. The infantry were scattering, thus making themselves even more vulnerable to the enemy blades. The French were in front, behind and chewing up the battalion's flanks with slashing swords that dripped red with every grunting heave.

Then the Lancers struck into the shattered battalion and the redcoats screamed as the horsemen rode clean over the breaking line. The Frenchmen were shouting incoherently. A Lancer threw a corpse off his spear point, then stabbed again. Some infantrymen had broken free and were running to the woods, but they were easily ridden down by Lancers and Hussars who galloped up behind, chose their spot, then stabbed or sliced or hacked or lunged. For the French it was no more difficult that hacking or lunging at the practice sacks of chaff with which they had been trained at their depots at home.

A knot of redcoats gathered round their battalion's colours. There were sergeants with their long-shafted axes, officers with swords and men with bayonets. The French clawed and hacked at the defenders. Lancers rode full tilt at them, grunting as they drove their spears home. One lance struck home with such force that the red and white flag beneath its long blade was buried in the victim's body. A dismounted Cuirassier hacked at the colours' defenders till he was shot in the face by an officer's pistol. An Hussar's horse reared up, hooves flailing, then lunged forward into the knot of men. Two officers went down under the slashing hooves. The Hussar cut down with his sabre. A bayonet raked his left thigh, but the Frenchman did not feel the wound. His horse bit a man, the sabre hissed again, then the Hussar dropped the blade so that it hung from his wrist by its leather strap and he grabbed the staff of one of the colours. The other colour had disappeared, but the Hussar had his gloved hand round the remaining staff. Two men drove bayonets at him. A spontoon wounded his horse, but the Hussar held on. A burly British sergeant tugged at the staff. A Lancer crashed his horse into the mêlée, trampling wounded and living alike, and lunged his weapon at the stubborn Sergeant. The lance point drove into the Sergeant's back, but still the Englishman hung on, but then a Cuirassier, riding in from the far side, hacked his sword down through the man's shako and into his skull. The Sergeant fell.