The cannon fired again, pouring shot at pistol range into the closest column. Sixty Guardsmen marched in each rank. The foremost ranks were almost at the ridge’s crest while the rear ranks had yet to clear the obscuring smoke on the valley’s floor. Far to Sharpe’s right, where the British Guards waited, the larger column filled the whole slope with its dark menace, then Sharpe looked back to the nearer column as he waited for Ford to give the battalion the orders to stand and fire.
‘Vive l’Empereur!’ the Guard shouted, their voices close enough to sound hoarse and overwhelming.
D’Alembord glanced expectantly at Ford, but the Colonel had taken off his spectacles and was furiously rubbing them on the tail of his sash.
‘For God’s sake, sir!’ d’Alembord pleaded.
‘Oh, my God!’ Ford had suddenly realized that he was smearing Major Vine’s brains all over his spectacles. He whimpered and let the eyeglasses fall as though they were white hot. He whimpered again as the precious spectacles dropped into the mud.
‘Sir!’ d’Alembord swayed in the saddle.
‘Oh, no! No!’ Ford had evidently forgotten all about the Guard, but was instead leaning far out of his saddle in an attempt to reach his eyeglasses. ‘Help me, Major! My spectacles! Help me.’
D‘Alembord took a deep breath. ‘Stand up!’ His voice sounded weak, but the battalion had been waiting for the command and scrambled eagerly to their feet to see the enemy on their right front. Peter d’Alembord filled his lungs to shout the next order, but instead, in a gasp of pain, he toppled senseless from the saddle. His right leg was a mess of blood. The remnants of his breeches, his silk stocking, the bandage and his dancing shoe were all soaked in a slippery mess of blood. He fell on top of Colonel Ford’s spectacles, breaking them.
‘No! No!’ Ford protested. ‘My glasses! Major, please! I must insist! You’ll destroy my eyeglasses. Move, I beg you! My spectacles!’ He screamed the last word in sheer despair, betraying his horror at this last tragedy in a day of madness.
The battalion gaped at the Colonel, then looked back to see a French eight-pounder gun slewing violently round behind its team of horses half-way down the slope. The gun’s wheels spewed mud ten feet into the air as the weapon slid to a halt. The gunners spiked the trail round as the horses were led away. Ford looked up from d’Alembord to see the vague shape of the cannon, its muzzle huge and black. The French column was a hundred paces to Ford’s right, its mens’ faces visible to him as pale blurs in the smoke. Worse, the column was beginning to unfold, its rear ranks marching outwards to form a broad line that would challenge and crush the British muskets.
The French cannon fired.
The canister crashed into the battalion’s four ranks. Seven men went down. Two screamed foully until a sergeant told them to stop their damned noise. Ford, racked by the screams, could take no more. His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth and his hands were shaking. He tried to speak, but no sound came. The nearest Frenchmen were just fifty yards away and, even without his spectacles, he could see their moustaches and the bright streaks that were their bayonets. He saw their mouths open to shout their war cry. ‘Vive l’Empereur!’
The battalion to Ford’s right was edging backwards. They, like Ford’s men, were survivors of Halkett’s brigade who had so nearly died with the men of the 69th at Quatre Bras. Now, their nerves shredded and their officers mostly dead, they gave ground. The French were just too huge, too threatening, and too close.
‘Vive l’Empereur!’
Ford’s men smelt their neighbours’ panic. They too shuffled backwards. They looked for orders, but their Colonel could not stop them. His saddle was wet, his bowels were churning and his muscles twitching helplessly. He could see death coming at him in a myopic blur of long blue coats. He wanted to cry, because he did not want to die.
While for the Guard, for the Emperor’s immortal undefeated Guard, victory was so sweet. ‘Vive l’Empereur!’
‘Now, Maitland! Now’s your time!’ The Duke had stationed himself behind the survivors of the British Foot Guards who faced the larger of the two French columns. The Duke, who had learned his trade as a battalion officer, could not resist giving the orders himself. ‘Stand up, Guards!’
To the French Guardsmen it seemed as though the line of redcoats rose out of the mud like the reviving dead. They suddenly stood to make a barrier across the path of the larger French column which, instinctively, checked. One moment the ridge had appeared empty, now, suddenly, an enemy had risen from the ravaged earth.
‘Forward!’ the French officers shouted, while at the back of the Imperial Guard’s column the battalions began to spread outwards to form the musket line which would overpower the handful of men who dared to oppose them.
‘Make ready!’ It had been many years since the Duke had handled a single battalion in battle, but he had lost none of his skills and had judged the moment to perfection. The British muskets were suddenly raised, making it seem to the approaching Frenchmen as if all the waiting redcoats had made a quarter turn to the right. The Duke looked grim, waited a second, then shouted. ‘Fire!’
The British muskets flamed. They could not miss at fifty paces and the leading ranks of the French column were cut down in blood and screams. The dead were numbered in scores, making a barrier of blood and meat to block the following ranks.
More muskets crashed flame and smoke to fill the ridge with the sound of infantry volleys. On either flank of Maitland’s Guards other British battalions were closing on the deploying French. The 52nd, a hard and bloody-minded battalion that had learned its trade in Spain, was wheeling out of line and advancing to take the wounded column in its flank. They raked the French Guards with a lethal and practised volley fire. Fifteen thousand Frenchmen might have crossed the valley, but only the handful of men at the head of each column could use their muskets, and that handful was faced by the rippling volleys of the red-coated battalions. Column had met line again, and the line was swamping the heads of the columns with fire. The rear flanks of the column tried but could not deploy into line; instead they shrank back from the relentless musketry.
The Imperial Guard could not go forward, nor could it form its own musket line, it could only stand stock still while its face and flanks were mauled by the redcoats’ fire. The French officers shouted at the ranks to advance, but the living were obstructed by the dead and under a lashing fire that made each new front rank into a barricade of corpses. The Emperor’s dream had begun to die.
The British Guards facing the column’s head reloaded. ‘Make ready! Fire!’ The Guards of either nation were close enough to see each others’ faces clearly, close enough to see the pitiful agony in a wounded man’s eyes, to see the bitter anger of an officer’s broken pride, to see a man spit tobacco juice or vomit blood, to see resolve turn swiftly to fear. The undefeated, immortal, Imperial Guard was beginning to falter, beginning to edge backwards, though still the drummer boys tried to beat them on with their desperate sticks.
‘Make ready!’ The voice of a British Guards officer rose cool and mocking. ‘Fire!’
The splintering, ripping sound of a battalion volley filled the sky as the musket-balls thudded home through the twitching smoke. The British Guards had stopped the French advance, while the 52nd had closed on the column’s flank and was now turning it bloody with their pitiless and murderous fire. Hours of practice had gone into this column’s death; tedious hours of loading and ramming and priming and firing until the redcoats could perform the motions of firing a musket in their rum-sodden sleep. Now they grimaced with powder-blackened faces as their brass-bound musket butts crashed back into their bruised shoulders. They were the scum of the earth and they were turning the Emperor’s pampered darlings into bloody offal.
‘Now’s your time!’ The Duke’s voice pierced the noise. ‘Fix bayonets!’
The Imperial Guard had been stopped. Now it must learn defeat.
Then Wellington glanced to his left, and saw his own defeat.
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The last of the British light cavalry had been drawn up in line a hundred yards behind Halkett’s brigade. They had been posted there in case of disaster. Some would escort the colours of the defeated army to safety, while the rest would protect the retreat of the surviving British infantry with a last suicidal charge.
They believed that suicidal charge was imminent for they could see the battalions of Halkett’s brigade edging back towards them. Beyond those scared troops, and dark on the crest, a column of French infantry was appearing from the smoky darkness of the valley. Far off to the right the British Guards were standing firm and pouring musket-fire at another enemy column, but here, closer to the centre of the British line, the redcoats were giving ground and the Emperor’s men were pounding relentlessly forward.
‘Stop them!’ a cavalry colonel shouted. He pointed, not at the French, but at the British infantry.
Sabres rasped from scabbards and the horsemen spurred forward to threaten their own infantry.
The redcoats were shuffling backwards. The wounded begged their comrades not to leave them. Some officers and men tried to staunch the spreading panic, but the battalions were leaderless and they knew this battle was lost for their colours had been taken away, and they knew that in a moment the long French bayonets would sear forward. The men of the Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers looked to their rear, searching for orders, and all they saw was their own terrified and half-blind Colonel riding backwards. Beyond the Colonel was the cavalry. The redcoats looked left towards the open space on the ridge where flight was still possible. They were no longer soldiers; they were a mob on the teetering edge of panicked flight, and then, above the noise of the drums and above the sound of the cavalry’s hooves and above the crash of the British Guards’ volleys and above the French cheers for their Emperor, one huge voice stilled the battlefield.
‘South Essex! Halt!’ The voice filled the space between the blood-reeking mud and the smoke. ‘Sergeant Harper!’
‘Sir!’ Harper’s voice answered from the rear of the battalion.
‘You will kill the next man who takes a step backwards, and that includes officers!’
‘Very good, sir!’ Harper’s voice held a convincing edge of anger as an implicit promise that he would indeed murder any man who took another backwards pace.
Sharpe stood in front of the battalion and with his back to the French column. His horse, which d‘Alembord had been riding, was being held by a sergeant in the Grenadier Company. Sharpe suspected the man had been ready to mount and flee from the expected defeat, and now the Sergeant stared with fear and defiance at Sharpe. ‘Bring the horse here!’ Sharpe called to the Sergeant, but not angrily, instead keeping his voice almost matter-of-fact as though there was not a damned great column of victorious French infantry storming across the ridge’s crest not a pistol’s shot behind him. ‘Bring the horse here! Quickly now!’ Sharpe wanted to be on horseback so that every man in the battalion could see him. These soldiers had no colours any more, they had precious few officers any more, so they must be able to see who led them and see that he was not flinching from the drum-driven threat which pounded so close.
‘Form ranks! Hurry now!’ Sharpe dropped his rifle into the saddle holster, then pulled himself awkwardly into the saddle. He was secretly flinching because he expected a volley of French musketry to chop him and the horse brutally down, but he had to show calmness in front of the frightened battalion. They knew him, they trusted him, and Sharpe knew they would fight like the gutter-born bastards they were if they were just given a chance and given leadership. He thanked the Sergeant for bringing the horse, then, as he fiddled his left foot into the stirrup, he turned to stare at the four shaken ranks. ‘Make sure you’re loaded!’ He turned the horse so he could see the enemy. Christ, but they were close! They were marching towards the open space to the right of the Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers, a space left by a panicking battalion that had evidently fled. Sharpe toyed with the idea of marching his own men into that gaping hole, but he knew he was too late. The French had almost pierced the British line, so now they must be attacked on their open right flank.
A mounted French officer was riding on that open flank and he pointed with his sword at Sharpe, doubtless showing his men a target, and the sight of the French officer’s confident expression angered Sharpe who, to show his utter disdain, turned away from the enemy to face his own men. ‘We’re going to advance! Then we’re going to give those poxy bastards some volley fire!’ He looked along the apprehensive ranks; powder stained, bloodied and ashamed, but they were steady now and had their muskets loaded. This might be a shrunken and half defeated battalion, but to Sharpe it was a weapon that he could fight with a lethal precision. He blinked as a musket bullet slapped close past his face, then grinned as he drew his long sword. He wanted the men to see his pleasure, because this was the moment when a soldier had to take a perverse delight in killing. Remorse and pity could come later, for they were the luxuries of victory, but now these scum must kill and the enemy must fear the joy of their killing. Sharpe held the sword high, then dropped its point towards the enemy. ’ ‘Talion will advance! Sergeant Harper! If you please!’
‘ ’Talion!’ the Irishman’s voice was huge and confident, the voice of a man unworriedly doing his job, ‘Talion! Forward! March!
They marched. It was only seconds since they had been retreating and their ranks had been shaking loose into chaos, but now, given leadership, they went towards the conquering Guard. Sharpe stood his horse still to let the battalion divide either side of him, and only then did he walk forward, a horseman advancing in the centre of the marching battalion. He saw that a Brunswick infantry battalion was raking the far flank of the French column, but the fire was not sufficent to stop the Guard, only to deflect it towards the Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers. There were still no troops facing the column’s head, while the rear ranks of the great formation were clumsily spreading outwards to form a musket line that was designed to drown the ridge’s shaken defenders with volley fire. Behind the Guard a swarm of cavalry and lesser infantry was pressing up the lower slope, ready to turn a British defeat into rout and slaughter.
‘Grenadier Company! Halt! ‘Talion will wheel to the right! Right wheel!’ Sharpe was taking a risk that his men would understand and obey the difficult order in the noise and heat and fear. It would have been simpler just to halt the battalion and to fire obliquely at the French column, but such a compromise would have stranded the left half of the battalion a long way from the enemy. Yet if the battalion wheeled in good order they would sweep round like a swinging gate to face the enemy’s unfolding flank. The Grenadier company, on the right of the line, stayed still as the remaining companies hinged on them. ‘At the double!’ Sergeant Huckfield hurried the light company who had the furthest to go.
The wheeling line was ragged, but that did not matter. They were carrying their muskets to face the French, and Sharpe felt the exultation of handling a battalion in battle. He could see apprehension on the face of the mounted French officer who understood exactly what horror was about to be unleashed on his men.
‘Halt!’ Sharpe stopped the swinging battalion fifty paces from the column’s flank. The whole battle was now reduced to a few dirty paces of smoke-fogged air. ‘Present!’ The battalion’s heavy muskets came up. Sharpe waited a heartbeat. He saw the Guards’ mouths open to chant their litany of praise for the Emperor, but before they could make a sound, Sharpe at last gave the order.
‘Fire!’
He heard the old sound, the blessed sound, the splintering crash of a battalion’s muskets spitting bullets, and he saw the deploying wing of the column jerk as the bullets struck home. A few Frenchmen fired back, but they were still marching and their muskets were unbalanced by the fixed bayonets and so their fire went wild. The mounted officer was down, his horse thrashing on the ground as he crawled away. Harper was shouting at the battalion to reload. Simon Doggett, still on horseback, was firing a pistol
over the battalion’s head. Ramrods rattled in musket barrels as the men desperately thrust bullets down onto powder.
Sharpe’s battalion threatened the Imperial Guard’s right, while on their left flank the Brunswickers fired another volley, but directly in front of the column was nothing but a broken mass of redcoats. The British cavalry closed on the frightened men, but, before the sabres could be used on the redcoats, the Duke was suddenly among them, and somehow the redcoats were stopped and turned by his confident voice. Staff officers rode among the fugitives, order was shaken out of their chaos, muskets were levelled, and a ragged volley sheeted flames at the column’s head. The Guard, assailed on three sides, halted and shrank away from the musketry.
Sharpe watched the central ranks of the column pushing against the motionless men ahead. ‘Fire!’ Sharpe gave the French right flank another bellyful of bullets. The column was still trying to advance, and the rearmost ranks were swinging obliquely out to form the musket line, and Sharpe sensed that the whole fate of this battle hung on the next few seconds. If the French could be made to move forward over their own dead then they could flood the ridge with their revenge and the fragile British line would shatter. Yet if this column could be driven backwards then the British line would earn a respite in which night or the Prussians might snatch survival from defeat.
‘Forward! Forward! Forward!’ a French voice shouted huge and desperately in the column’s centre. The drums were still beating their message of victory. ‘Vive l’Empereur!’
‘Forward! Forward for the Emperor!’
‘Fix bayonets!’ Sharpe shouted in response.
The battalion, already reloading, dropped their half-torn cartridges and clawed their bayonets free. They slotted the blades on to blackened muzzles. The French drums sounded desperately close. Sharpe spurred ahead of the battalion. His horse was nervous and slick with sweat, and his long sword was still stained with the blood he had drawn in the yard at Hougoumont. He saw the French column push over the bodies of the men his last volley had killed, and he wondered whether he had enough bayonets to break these confident Frenchmen apart, but there was only one way to discover that answer and Sharpe suddenly felt the old excitement of battle, and the mad joy of it, and he raised his long bloodied blade high and ordered his battalion forward. ‘Charge!’