The Bronze Eagle (36 page)

[Pg 282]
The letter, crumpled and damp, remained in Crystal's hand all the while
that she sat by the open window, and the sound of moving horses and men
in the distance conjured up before her eyes mental visions of all that
to-morrow might mean. The letter was damp with her tears now, they had
fallen incessantly on the paper while she re-read it a second time and
then re-read it again.

A quixotic man! Maurice said airily. How little he understood! How well
she—Crystal—knew what had been the motive of that quixotic action. She
had learned so much to-night in the mazes of a waltz. Now, when she
closed her eyes, she could still feel the dreamy motion with that strong
arm round her, and she could hear the sweet, languid lilt of the music,
and all the delicious elvish whisperings that reached her ear through
the monotonous cadence of the dance. Of what her heart had felt then,
she need now no longer be ashamed: all that should shame her now were
her thoughts in the past, the belief that the hand which had held hers
on that evening—long ago—in Brestalou could possibly have been the
hand of a traitor: that the low-toned voice that spoke to her so
earnestly of friendship then could ever be raised for the utterance of a
lie.

Of such thoughts indeed she could be ashamed, and of her cruelty that
other night in Paris, when she had made him suffer so abominably through
her injustice and her contempt.

"The next few hours, perhaps, will atone for everything," Maurice had
added. Ah, well! perhaps! But they could not erase the past; they could
not control the more distant future. Maurice would come back—Crystal
prayed earnestly that he should—but Clyffurde was gone out of her life
for ever. God alone knew how this renewed war would end! How could she
hope ever to meet a friend who had gone away determined never to see her
again?

A last dance together! Well! they had had it! and that
[Pg 283]
was the end. The
end of a sweet romance that had had no beginning. He had gone now, as
Maurice had gone, as all the men had gone who had listened to their
country's call, and she, Crystal, could not convey to him even by a
message, by a word, that she understood all that he had done for her,
all that his actions had meant of devotion, of self-effacement, of pure
and tender Love.

A last dance together, and that had been the end. Even thoughts of him
would be forbidden her after this: for her thoughts were no longer free
of him, her heart was no longer free; her promise belonged to Maurice,
but her heart, her thoughts were no longer hers to give.

It was all too late! too late! the next few hours might atone for the
past but they could not call it back.

Weary and heart-sick Crystal crawled into bed when the grey light of
dawn peeped cold and shy into her room. She could not sleep, but she lay
quite still while one by one those distant sounds died away in the misty
morning. In this semi-dreamlike state it seemed to her as if she must be
able to distinguish the sound of
his
horse's hoofs from among a
thousand others: it seemed as if something in herself must tell her
quite plainly where he was, what he did, when he got to horse, which way
he went. And presently she closed her eyes against the grey, monotonous
light, and during one brief moment she felt deliciously conscious of a
sweet, protecting presence somewhere near her, of soft whisperings of
fondness and of friendship: the sound of a dream-voice reached her ear
and once again as in the sweet-scented alcove she felt herself
murmuring: "Who calls?" and once more she heard the tender wailing as of
a stricken soul in pain: "A poor heart-broken wretch who could not keep
away from your side."

And memory-echoes lingered round her, bringing back every sound of his
mellow voice, every look in his eyes, the touch of his hand—oh! that
exquisite touch!—and his
[Pg 284]
last words before he asked her to dance:
"With every drop of my blood, with every nerve, every sinew, every
thought I love you."

And her heart with a long-drawn-out moan of unconquerable sorrow sent
out into the still morning air its agonised call in reply:

"Come back, my love, come back! I cannot live without you! You have
taught me what Love is—pure, selfless and protecting—you cannot go
from me now—you cannot. In the name of that Love which your tender
voice has brought into being, come back to me. Do not leave me
desolate!"

[Pg 285]

Rain, rain! all the morning! God's little tool—innocent-looking little
tool enough—for the remodelling of the destinies of this world.

God chose to soak the earth on that day—and the formidable artillery
that had swept the plateau of Austerlitz, the vales of Marengo, the
cemetery of Eylau, was rendered useless for the time being because up in
the inscrutable kingdom of the sky a cloud had chosen to burst—or had
burst by the will of God—and water soaked the soft, spongy soil of
Belgium and the wheels of artillery wagons sank axle-deep in the mud.

If only the ground had been dry! if only the great gambler—the genius,
the hero, call him what you will, but the gambler for all that—if only
he had staked his crown, his honour and that of Imperial France on some
other stake than his artillery! If only . . . ! But who shall tell?

Is it indeed a cloud-burst that changed the whole destinies of Europe?
Ye materialists, ye philosophers! answer that.

Is it to the rain that fell in such torrents until close on midday of
that stupendous 18th of June, that must be ascribed this wonderful and
all-embracing change that came over the destinies of myriads of people,
of entire nations, kingdoms and empires? Rather is it not because God
just on that day of all days chose to show this world of pigmies—great
men, valiant heroes, controlling genius and all-
[Pg 286]
powerful
conquerors—the entire extent of His might—so far and no further—and
in order to show it, He selected that simple, seemingly futile means
. . . just a heavy shower of rain.

At half-past eleven the cannon began to roar on the plains of Mont Saint
Jean,
[2]
but not before. Before that it had rained: rained heavily, and
the ground was soaked through, and the all-powerful artillery of the
most powerful military genius of all times was momentarily powerless.

Had it not rained so persistently and so long that same compelling
artillery would have begun its devastating work earlier in the day—at
six mayhap, or mayhap at dawn, another five, six, seven hours to add to
the length of that awful day: another five, six, seven hours wherein to
tax the tenacity, the heroic persistence of the British troops: another
five, six, seven hours of dogged resistance on the one side, of
impetuous charges on the other, before the arrival of Blücher and his
Prussians and the turning of the scales of blind Justice against the
daring gambler who had staked his all.

But it was only at half-past eleven that the cannon began to roar, and
the undulating plain carried the echo like a thunder-roll from heaving
billow to heaving billow till it broke against the silent majesty of the
forest of Soigne.

Here with the forest as a background is the highest point of Mont
Saint Jean: and here beneath an overhanging elm—all day on
horseback—anxious, frigid and heroic, is Wellington—with a rain of
bullets all round him, watching, ceaselessly watching that horizon far
away, wrapped now in fog, anon in smoke and soon in gathering darkness:
watching for the promised Prussian army that was to ease the terrible
burden of that desperate stand which the British troops were bearing and
had borne all day with such unflinching courage and dogged tenacity.

[Pg 287]
It is in vain that his aides-de-camp beg him to move away from that
perilous position.

"My lord," cries Lord Hill at last in desperation, "if you are killed,
what are we to do?"

"The same as I do now," replies Wellington unmoved, "hold this place to
the last man."

Then with a sudden outburst of vehemence, that seems to pierce almost
involuntarily the rigid armour of British phlegm and British
self-control, he calls to his old comrades of Salamanca and Vittoria:

"Boys, which of us now can think of retreating? What would England think
of us, if we do?"

Heroic, unflinching and cool the British army has held its ground
against the overwhelming power of Napoleon's magnificent cavalry. Raw
recruits some of them, against the veterans of Jena and of Wagram! But
they have been ordered to hold the place to the last man, and in close
and serried squares they have held their ground ever since half-past
eleven this morning, while one after another the flower of Napoleon's
world-famed cavalry had been hurled against them.

Cuirassiers, chasseurs, lancers, up they come to the charge, like
whirlwinds up the declivities of the plateau. Like a whirlwind they rush
upon those stolid, immovable, impenetrable squares, attacking from every
side, making violent, obstinate, desperate onsets upon the stubborn
angles, the straight, unshakable walls of red coats; slashing at the
bayonets with their swords, at crimson breasts with their lances, firing
their pistols right between those glowing eyes, right into those firm
jaws and set teeth.

The sound of bullets on breastplates and helmets and epaulettes is like
a shower of hailstones upon a sheet of metal.

Twice, thrice, nay more—a dozen times—they return to the charge, and
the plateau gleams with brandished steel
[Pg 288]
like a thousand flashes of
simultaneous fork-lightning on the vast canopy of a stormy sky.

From midday till after four, a kind of mysterious haze covers this field
of noble deeds. Fog after the rain wraps the gently-billowing Flemish
ground in a white semi-transparent veil—covers with impartial coolness
all the mighty actions, the heroic charges and still more heroic stands,
all the silent uncomplaining sufferings, the glorious deaths, all the
courage and all the endurance.

Through the grey mists we see a medley of moving colours—blue and grey
and scarlet and black—of shakos and sabretaches, of English and French
and Hanoverian and Scotch, of epaulettes and bare knees; we hear the
sound of carbine and artillery fire, the clank of swords and bayonets,
the call of bugle and trumpet and the wail of the melancholy pibroch:
tunics and gold tassels and kilts—a medley of sounds and of visions!

We see the attack on Hougoumont—the appearance of Bülow on the heights
of Saint Lambert—the charge of the Inniskillings and the Scots
Greys—the death of valiant Ponsonby. We see Marshal Ney Prince of
Moskowa—the bravest soldier in France—we see him everywhere where the
mêlée is thickest, everywhere where danger is most nigh. His magnificent
uniform torn to shreds, his gold lace tarnished, his hair and whiskers
singed, his face blackened by powder, indomitable, unconquered, superb,
we hear him cry: "Where are those British bullets? Is there not one left
for me?"

He knows—none better!—that the plains of Mont Saint Jean are the great
gambling tables on which the supreme gambler—Napoleon, once Emperor of
the French and master of half the world—had staked his all. "If we come
out of this alive and conquered," he cries to Heymès, his aide-de-camp,
"there will only be the hangman's rope left for us all."

[Pg 289]
And we see the gambler himself—Napoleon, Emperor still and still
certain of victory—on horseback all day, riding from end to end of his
lines; he is gayer than he has ever been before. At Marengo he was
despondent, at Austerlitz he was troubled: but at Waterloo he has no
doubts. The star of his destiny has risen more brilliant than ever
before.

"The day of France's glory has only just dawned," he calls, and his mind
is full of projects—the triumphant march back into Paris—the Germans
driven back to the Rhine—the English to the sea.

His only anxiety—and it is a slight one still—is that Grouchy with his
fresh troops is so late in arriving.

Still, the Prussians are late too, and the British cannot hold the place
for ever.

At three o'clock the fog lifts—the veil that has wrapped so many
sounds, such awful and wonderful visions, in a kind of mystery, is
lifted now, and it reveals . . . what? Hougoumont invested—Brave Baring
there with a handful of men—English, German, Brunswickians—making a
last stand with ten rounds of ammunition left to them per man, and the
French engineers already battering in the gates of the enclosing wall
that surrounds the château and chapel of Goumont: the farm of La Haye
Sainte taken—Ney there with his regiment of cuirassiers and five
battalions of the Old Guard: and the English lines on the heights of
Mont Saint Jean apparently giving way.

We see too a vast hecatomb: glory and might must claim their many
thousand victims: the dead and dying lie scattered like pawns upon an
abandoned chessboard, the humble pawns in this huge and final gamble for
supremacy and power, for national existence and for liberty. Hougoumont,
La Haye Sainte, Papelotte are sown with illustrious dead
[Pg 290]
—but on the
plateau of Mont Saint Jean the British still hold their ground.

Wellington is still there on the heights, with the majestic trees of
Soigne behind him, the stately canopy of the elm above his head—more
frigid than before, more heroic, but also more desperately anxious.

"Blücher or nightfall," he sighs as a fresh cavalry charge is hurled
against those indomitable British squares. The thirteenth assault, and
still they stand or kneel on one knee, those gallant British boys;
bayonet in hand or carbine, they fire, fall out and re-form again:
shaken, hustled, encroached on they may be, but still they stand and
fire with coolness and precision . . . the ranks are not broken yet.