Waterloo (19 page)

The man who invented carcass shot was certainly spawned by the devil. A plain canvas sack, strengthened by iron hoops and filled with a hellish mixture of turpentine, tallow, saltpetre and pitch, it burst on impact, creating fires which were nigh on impossible to extinguish. As James Macdonell knew all too well.

More carcass landed in the yards and on the roofs of the farm buildings. The guards stumbled from one shell to another, slipping in the mud and on the bloody cobbles in their haste to put out the fires. They tried urinating on them, stamping on them and throwing blankets over them. Nothing worked. The terrible things would burn until they expired and they did not expire easily. It was only a matter of time before the flame from one of them caught dry timber and Hougoumont was on fire.

It did not take long. A stack of hay had been piled against the wall of the cowshed and covered by a canvas sheet. Until then Macdonell had given it no thought. But when he saw the
stack engulfed in flames, he cursed himself for not having done so. The canvas had kept the hay dry and it burnt fast. The flames caught the shed and spread inside, where they were fuelled by straw and timber. Three Nassauers on the roof jumped off, landing awkwardly in the yard but avoiding the flames.

Men ran to help but there was little to be done. Even if there had been water in the draw well it would not have been much use. The fire was too strong. Within minutes the farmer’s house, where James and Alexander Saltoun had shared beef and claret, was alight. Blazing timbers fell into the yard and around the garden gate, shooting sparks into the sky and setting fire to the barricades. Burning men ripped off their jackets and rolled in the mud. In the stables and the cowshed, the horses caught the smell of fire and screamed in terror. Several charged into the yards and ran around in blind panic. One forced his way through the gate and into the garden where he was caught by a brave Nassauer. The rest, hopelessly confused, ran back into the stables.

Macdonald yelled at Sergeant Dawson to ignore the fire and keep his men at the south wall, where the French were launching another attack. At the north gate he found Hervey making a futile attempt to put out the fire which was now scorching the tiles on the cowshed roof. ‘Leave it, Mister Hervey,’ he bellowed. ‘Concentrate on the gate. Do not allow the gate to burn.’

Once it had taken hold, the fire spread with astonishing speed. The smoke was everywhere – thick, black, suffocating. Eyes streamed, lungs filled with soot and men fell choking. Sparks caught hair and flesh and melted them. A box of cartridges exploded, killing four men nearby. The flames
crossed the yard and threatened the chateau. The French were attacking from north, south and east and Hougoumont was burning. The French had seen the smoke and flames, known that the fire was out of control and changed back to round shot. The shots thundered over the walls, killing, wounding and hammering into stone and brick. The tower took a shot about halfway up. Many more like it and the tower would fall.

Macdonell ran through the chateau door, jumped over the wounded men lying in the hallway and dashed up the stairs. Private Lester and three other guards were at the top windows, firing at the enemy emerging from the wood. ‘Hold this position, Lester,’ shouted Macdonell. ‘Do not leave the house on any account.’ Without waiting for an acknowledgement he ran back down the stairs and into the yard. Even if they lost the orchard, the garden and the farm buildings, they must hold the chateau. From there, they would be able to continue harrying the French and perhaps prevent them sweeping up the slope towards Byng’s artillery.

The garden, although safe from the fire, was again being attacked on every side. In the clamour and confusion Macdonell could not make out much of what was happening but through the smoke he saw that in places the walls had collapsed, leaving gaps through which faceless blue jackets were trying to fight their way, while equally faceless red ones stood and knelt in the gaps, firing volley after volley into them and hurling back those who managed to reach the wall. The bloody bodies of Frenchmen and Englishmen and Germans lay heaped together without distinction in the dirt, not only at the wall but also
among the parterres and on the paths. So some Frenchmen had got inside and had died there.

Harry had abandoned his horse and was at the wall where it met the gardener’s house near the south gate – the place Macdonell had chosen for himself earlier in the day – slashing and cutting with his sword at any face that appeared over the wall. As the wall there was over seven feet high, the French must have been climbing on each other’s shoulders to get to the top of it. Macdonell had not yet seen a ladder being used. There was no time to check the orchard. He turned to go back to the farm. As he did so, an eight-pound shot landed behind him, spewing up earth and stones from a parterre. The soft ground took most of the shot’s momentum and it bounced only once before embedding itself. A garden that had once bloomed with flowers was now littered with ugly iron balls.

In the few minutes Macdonell had been in the garden, the fire had spread. Flames were playing around the stables, the sheds and the chateau itself. Again he bellowed at the Guards at the south gate not to leave their positions. That was what the French were counting on. The fire would have to take its course. Sergeant Dawson was standing on a step, firing down into the clearing. A private was handing him up musket after musket. Over the gate and along the wall, the men worked in pairs – firing, reloading, firing again. The crack of muskets had become a continuous barrage of noise and smoke. Macdonell climbed onto a crate. The clearing had become a graveyard, filled with French bodies from the treeline to the gate. Yet still they came on. Hundreds of them, shrieking for their emperor, for France, for victory. Prince Jérôme had set light to Hougoumont and
now he was pounding it with round shot and throwing troops at the gates. And he would go on doing so until he took it. He could not disappoint his brother.

Henry Gooch was on his knees, struggling to get up. Macdonell reached down and pulled him to his feet, wincing when the wound in his arm protested. The ensign’s face was a bloody mask, his mouth absurdly swollen, his eyes almost closed and one cheek sliced to the bone. He could scarcely breathe. ‘To the barn with you, Mister Gooch,’ ordered Macdonell in a rasping voice. Gooch shook his head. ‘Do as I say, sir, or you will be disobeying an order.’ Gooch tried to speak, but his mouth was too dry. Instead, he gestured with an arm to the dead and wounded lying in the yard. ‘I know, Mister Gooch, we need every man we have but you are in no state to fight. Go now. Tell the surgeon I want you back sharpish.’

Macdonell’s head was throbbing and his throat on fire from the smoke and powder. He craved water but there was none. His canteen was dry, the well was dry. Their casualties were mounting with every French attack. Harry Wyndham in the garden was under ferocious pressure. Alexander Saltoun can only have been hanging on to the orchard by his fingertips. And Hougoumont was burning.

From beyond the chateau an arrow of flame shot skywards. He ran back to the north yard. The barn was alight. The fire had leapt from the cowshed across the yard to the barn. As he watched, the roof collapsed and burning timbers fell inside. Many of the wounded inside could not walk and would be trapped in the inferno. Their terrified screams could be heard over the crackling of timber and straw.

The barn door had disappeared and the entrance was a wall of flame. The fire had taken so quickly that very few had got out. Sellers and his assistants emerged, coughing and retching and each carrying a wounded man. They set them down in the yard and went back into the barn. A tiny, filthy figure followed them out. At least the drummer boy had escaped. A voice at Macdonell’s side spoke. ‘Permission to fall out, Colonel, if you please.’ It was James Graham.

‘Why, Corporal? You are needed at the gate.’ It was a surprising request from a soldier as dutiful as Graham.

‘My brother is in the barn, Colonel. He took a bullet in the leg.’

Macdonell remembered seeing him inside. He clapped Graham on the shoulder. ‘Then be quick, for his sake and ours.’ Graham ran straight through the flames at the entrance and disappeared into the blazing barn.

The surgeon staggered out again. He was carrying no one and his jacket was on fire. Macdonell leapt at him, pushed him to the ground and rolled him in the mud. The fire died and the surgeon rose unsteadily to his feet. ‘Your assistants?’ asked Macdonell. Sellers shook his head. The barn was collapsing and James and Joseph Graham were in there and so was Henry Gooch.

The stench of burning flesh was overpowering. Macdonell ripped off his jacket, held it over his face and crashed through the flames into the barn. Even without a roof it was full of smoke. He could see almost nothing. He blundered blindly forward. God willing, there was someone still alive whom he might be able to carry to safety. A huge figure loomed out
of the smoke and stumbled past him. The figure seemed to be carrying a body over his shoulder. Macdonell groped his way forward. A spark caught his hair, making it crackle. He managed to smother it with his jacket and pressed on. A blazing timber fell from the roof. He tripped over it and landed on the stone floor. The heat of the stone scorched his hands, forcing him back to his feet. He fell again. This time his hands met not stone but flesh. A body, and one that was alive. It grunted and moved. Macdonell hoisted it onto his shoulder and made for the entrance. At least he hoped he was making for the entrance. In the heat and smoke he had lost his sense of direction. He took a dozen unsteady steps, saw a glimmer of daylight, threw himself and his burden through the entrance and fell into the yard.

His eyes opened when earth was thrown over him. A stab of pain shot through them and he quickly closed them again. He lay in the yard trying to breathe. Someone pulled off his boots. Someone else tipped a few drops of water down his throat. Gradually his mind cleared and he could open his eyes. The crash of musket fire and the screams of wounded men and burning horses filled his head. The north gate was again under threat. He pushed himself to his knees and looked about. The barn was a smouldering heap of wood and flesh and bone.

Henry Gooch was sitting with his back to the draw well, bare-chested and bootless. Joseph Graham sat beside him, his leg twisted and bloody. Both were the colour of tar. ‘Corporal Graham, so your brother found you?’ growled Macdonell.

‘He did, Colonel. I am a lucky man, though the surgeon thinks my leg beyond saving.’

‘And you, Mister Gooch, how did you get out?’

Gooch could only whisper. ‘I believe you carried me, Colonel.’

‘Then I am glad of it. Help Corporal Graham to the chateau. Take the boy. There are wounded there.’

‘Should you not be there yourself, Colonel?’ asked Graham.

‘Later, Corporal.’ Another tower of flame shot into the sky. The roof of the chateau was alight. ‘On second thoughts, stay here. It’s as safe a place as any.’

The barn, the stables and cowshed and now the chateau. All burnt or burning. If the fire reached the gardener’s house or the shed beside it, the south gate would burn too. There was no water with which to fight the fire and nowhere to hide from the round shot still thundering over the wood and into the farm. Macdonell looked at his pocket watch. It was just after three o’clock. They had held Hougoumont for four hours. If General Blücher and his Prussians did not arrive very soon, the next hour would be their last.

On the hill behind them, General Byng and Major Bull were doing their best to keep the French artillery quiet. Cannon blasted ten-pound shot over the wood while the howitzers sent a stream of their deadly shells into it. For the attackers, just as for the defenders, there was little respite. Yet the French guns were far from silenced. The Gunners in the valley were loading canister as well as round shot, battering the chateau and the farm and raining death and mutilation onto the Guards in the yards and in the garden.

Macdonell made a decision. He would hold the chateau and defend the gates for as long as possible. Only when he had to, he would withdraw all his troops into the garden from where they would fire on the French entering the farm. Alexander Saltoun would hold the orchard behind them. He would move the wounded from the chateau to the garden immediately. They would be safer there and the surgeon would just have to do
what he could for them. He had lost his bandsmen but the women, hopefully, were unharmed.

Almost without a break, the French infantry attacked the south gate and the walls. Wave after wave charged forward, screaming for their emperor, ignoring the losses they were taking, and forcing the Guards to expose themselves to French fire. The best soldiers could fire three or four shots a minute. The Guards were firing at least that.

But the pressure was beginning to tell. Shaking hands spilt powder. Barrels overheated. Flints failed to spark. Muskets misfired. Lungs craving air filled with smoke. Mouths craving water struggled to bite off the end of yet another cartridge. Stomachs heaved and threw out what little contents they had. Sharpshooters in the woods and the clearing picked off heads that appeared over the wall. Men screamed and died. By force of numbers alone, the French would eventually break down the gate or destroy the wall. The Guards could not resist for ever.

It was the same in the garden. Harry Wyndham’s troops, supported by Charles Woodford’s two companies, were on the fire steps, at the loopholes, and even sitting astride the walls, in their efforts to keep the French at a distance. Macdonell could not see either of them through the smoke. One blackened uniform was much like another.

He made his way carefully into the middle of the garden, stepping over bodies and closing his ears to the cries of the wounded. The French canister had done its terrible work, cleaving open heads and tearing flesh from bodies. The dead lay everywhere. Without Woodford’s help, Harry’s company would already have been wiped out. And the canister kept coming and
coming, hurling its fearful contents into faces and limbs.

Charles Woodford was at the orchard end of the garden, firing over the wall into the field. ‘By God, James,’ he croaked, wiping powder from his mouth, ‘this is terrible work. There’s no end to them. The more we kill, the more they come. And we’re losing too many men to the canister. I see the fire is still raging. How much longer can we hold on?’ A shell exploded nearby. Instinctively, they ducked their heads as iron balls and shards of red-hot metal flew past them. Hidden by the smoke, a man cried out for his mother.

Macdonell had to shout. ‘The chateau is on fire. I will have the wounded brought into the garden. We will hold the house and the farm as long as we can and then join you here. Saltoun will hold the orchard.’

‘Saltoun’s gone. Francis Hepburn has taken over the orchard with the 3rd Guards. They cleared the lane to get there.’

Macdonell shook his head in surprise. He had no idea that Saltoun had been replaced. In the confusion, he had seen nothing and no word had reached him. Women, Saltoun, what else did the officer in charge of the defence of Hougoumont not know? Yet it was hardly surprising. The 1st Guards in the orchard had had the very worst of the fighting and must have been exhausted. ‘Then we shall be in Francis’s hands and if we hold the lane there is a chance of reinforcements.’

‘A chance. Your plan is sound, James. You have my support.’

‘Thank you. Please tell Harry, wherever he is.’

‘I will.’

At the north gates, the foul stench of burning flesh still hung heavy in the air. The roof and walls of the barn were no
more, exposing its gruesome contents for all to see. Among the ashes and embers, the fire had left blackened, scorched, twisted reminders of the terror and agony it had brought.

James Hervey had lost the advantage of the cowshed roof, now a heap of smouldering timbers, but the gates were still intact. Macdonell stood on a half-barrel and looked over the wall. His arm throbbed and the palms of his hands were raw. He ignored them. French bodies covered the clearing. He stepped down and told Hervey his plan. ‘You will remain here until I send orders to withdraw into the garden,’ he said. ‘Bring with you all the muskets and ammunition you can carry. French or British, either will do. Make two trips if you have to, but be quick. The order will come only at the last minute.’

Hervey nodded. ‘I understand, Colonel.’

A shout came from a man at the wall. ‘Single rider coming down the lane, sir. Uniform of a major.’

‘Let him in,’ shouted back Macdonell. A single rider was unlikely to be a French trick.

The gates were briefly opened and the major ushered in. He did not dismount. ‘Major Andrew Hamilton,’ he introduced himself. ‘I have an order for Colonel Macdonell from His Grace.’

‘I am Macdonell. What is the order?’ The major handed him a rolled sheet of goatskin. The order was in the Duke’s hand and written in pencil. Macdonell read it twice. ‘Thank you, Major. Please assure His Grace that I shall do exactly as he orders.’ Hamilton saluted and turned his mount to leave. ‘Before you go, Major,’ called out Macdonell, ‘what news can you give us?’

‘The artillery bombardment continues, as you can hear. French cavalry threaten our squares. The farm at La Haye Sainte is barely held. His Grace believes the battle will be decided here at Hougoumont.’

‘And the Prussians?’

‘An hour away at least. Good luck, Colonel.’

‘Well, well,’ said Macdonell, when the major had gone. ‘His Grace orders us to hold the chateau, being careful to avoid falling timbers, and to retire to the garden when we have to. A happy coincidence, don’t you agree, Hervey?’

Hervey grinned. ‘I do, sir. No room for doubt or dispute.’

‘Quite. But remember. Only when I give the order and then at the run.’

The flames had reached the chapel and were playing around the door. The roof of the chateau was on fire and the top of the tower had disappeared. Henry Gooch, still unable to speak, had returned to the south gate. Macdonell gave him his orders and returned to the chateau. From there he would get the best view and would know when the moment to withdraw to the garden had come.

The hallway where the wounded had lain – those lucky enough not to have been in the barn – was, for the moment, intact. He remembered the women. He found them in the dining room, tending to rows of wounded men lying on the floor. One was dressing the stump of an arm, the other bandaging a head. ‘I am surprised to find you here, ladies,’ he shouted over the cannon and muskets, ‘although you are not unwelcome. The barn has gone and the roof of this house is on fire. I have ordered the wounded taken to the garden and
treated there. You must go there yourselves. The surgeon’s assistants are dead.’

‘As you wish, Colonel,’ replied the younger woman. ‘Osborne – my husband – is in the orchard.’

‘And mine,’ added the other. ‘Tom Rogers, private.’

‘Go at once. The house is not safe. These men will be carried there.’ The women nodded.

He climbed the stairs, also intact but unsteady under his weight, and reached the upper floor. Private Lester and his three comrades were still there, firing from the windows into the wood and the far end of the clearing. Above their heads, the roof timbers were spitting and crackling in the flames. With hardly a break, the four men had been there for over four hours, relatively safe from enemy muskets but at the mercy of cannon and now from fire.

Macdonell repeated his orders to Lester. ‘We will hold the house to the last minute before withdrawing to the garden. I have ordered the wounded taken there. Is that clear, Private?’

Joseph Lester straightened up from ramming a ball into the barrel of a musket, his back to a window. In the fury of the battle outside, Macdonell did not hear the shot. It could only have been a lucky one, aimed in the general direction of the chateau. Lester fell forward, blood spurting from his shoulder.

Macdonell sighed. ‘I cannot spare another man. You must manage as you are.’ He was gone before any of them could reply.

To reach the orchard he ran back through the garden and clambered over the wall. As Charles Woodford had said, Saltoun had returned to the ridge and left the orchard and the lane
in the hands of Francis Hepburn and his 3rd Guards. Beyond the hedge, so ragged it was more like a broken row of scrubby bushes, and the ditch, now a common grave, Lancers milled about in the field, preparing for their next attack. The orchard had changed hands three or four times that day and there was no saying that it would not do so again.

Francis was supervising the cleaning of muskets and distribution of ammunition. He saw James making his way between what was left of the fruit trees and waved a hand. ‘You come at a good time, James,’ he shouted. ‘A lull in the fighting, brief no doubt, and we’re in need of every man we can get.’

Macdonell came up to him. ‘As are we all. I was not aware that you had replaced Saltoun.’

‘The message probably went astray. Saltoun’s men were out on their feet and could do no more. The peer sent us down to take over. We’ve seen off one attack and we’re expecting another.’ He pointed at the Lancers in the field. ‘Look at the devils getting ready.’

‘I see them. Francis, I came to tell you our orders. We are to hold the chateau for as long as we can and then withdraw into the garden to join Charles Woodford and Harry Wyndham. You will be at our back.’

‘I do hope so. At least that will mean we are still alive.’

There was a huge explosion from the farm. A box of ammunition must have gone up. ‘We cannot fight the fire and the French at the same time, Francis,’ said James, ‘whatever the peer expects of us.’

‘I know you, James. You will find a way.’ He paused. ‘Do you know, I rather think that this might be the first battle ever
in which there are no survivors at all. The carnage on the ridge is beyond words.’

‘The carnage everywhere must be beyond words. We have hundreds dead. I fear Lester is among them, your champion. I saw him fall.’ Macdonell looked over Hepburn’s shoulder. ‘It seems your Lancers are leaving.’

Francis turned to look. ‘So they are. Ah, there’s the reason.’ Down the slope from the ridge, marching steadily in line, was a battalion of green-jacketed infantry. They were followed by a second battalion. Nearly two thousand men in all. ‘King’s German Legion. Excellent troops. Now your rear will be secure, James.’

‘Good. But much of the farm has been destroyed and the chateau is on fire. I will leave the Germans to you.’

They were fighting not one battle to defend Hougoumont, but four – in the orchard, the garden, the farm and the chateau. Hold Hougoumont, the Duke had said, and the battle will be won. From the ridge he would have seen enough to know what was happening there. He knew the chateau was on fire and the farm and garden under bombardment. He probably knew or could guess that they had no food or water. He knew they were exhausted. He would have a good idea of their depleted numbers. He had sent two battalions of German veterans to reinforce the orchard. And he had sent down clear orders. Hougoumont must be held.

The latest attack on the south gate, like the others, had failed. The French had withdrawn to lick their wounds before trying again. In the distance cannon roared and muskets fired, but around the farm there was a strange quiet. Not silence – in
battle there was never silence – but the sounds of voices and movement rather than guns.

Sergeant Dawson was sitting in the mud, his back to the wall, trying to open a cartridge of powder with his teeth. It was something he had done hundreds, thousands of times. But he could not do it. His mouth was too dry. Macdonell took the cartridge from him and bit off the end. Although he had fired less than half the number of rounds that the sergeant and his men had, his mouth too was like tinder. Dawson nodded his thanks.

There was no water. Those who could, emptied their bladders down the barrels of their muskets to cool them. Those who could not, threw their gun down and went in search for a replacement. Bleeding lips were dosed with drops of gin. Sweat and dust were rubbed from streaming eyes. Hands and fingers rubbed raw were wrapped in scraps of cloth. Macdonell inspected his own hands. They were red and sore from the barn floor. He forced a drop of saliva into his mouth and spat on them. That would have to do.

Henry Gooch, now barely recognisable, was on his feet, moving painfully from man to man, patting shoulders and shaking hands. ‘Seriously wounded to the garden, Mister Gooch,’ ordered Macdonell. ‘Everyone else to make ready for the next attack. It won’t be long coming.’ Gooch raised a hand in acknowledgement.

The roof of the chateau was still blazing but had not yet fallen in, nor had the fire spread below the top floor. The chapel and the gardener’s house were alight. The tower had gone.

At the north gates, James Hervey was bustling about,
inspecting wounds and checking muskets. James Graham was on a step at the wall. From the slump of his shoulders, even he looked exhausted. His brother was propped against the draw well. His eyes were closed but his thigh had been strapped and he was losing no more blood.

Macdonell called up to Graham. ‘Take your brother to the garden, Corporal Graham. The surgeon will do what he can there. Be quick now.’ Graham stepped clumsily down and stumbled to the well. ‘Mister Hervey, I rather think we are in for another dose of angry Frenchmen and this one even nastier than the last. Are you prepared?’

From a face streaked with powder and dirt, Macdonell saw a tiny glint of teeth. A man who could smile or even try to smile after fighting for nearly six hours deserved to survive. ‘We are, Colonel, as best we can. Primed and loaded.’ The words rasped in his throat.