CHAPTER VI.
FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON.
At about four o'clock P.M. the situation of the English army wasserious. The Prince of Orange commanded the centre, Hill the right,and Picton the left. The Prince of Orange, wild and intrepid, shoutedto the Dutch Belgians: "Nassau! Brunswick! never yield an inch." Hill,fearfully weakened, had just fallen back on Wellington, while Pictonwas dead. At the very moment when the English took from the French theflag of the 105th line regiment, the French killed General Picton witha bullet through his head. The battle had two bases for Wellington,Hougomont and La Haye Sainte. Hougomont still held out, though on fire,while La Haye Sainte was lost. Of the German battalion that defendedit, forty-two men only survived; all the officers but five were killedor taken prisoners. Three thousand combatants had been massacred inthat focus; a sergeant of the English Guards, the first boxer ofEngland, and reputed invulnerable by his comrades, had been killedthere by a little French drummer. Baring was dislodged, and Alten wassabred; several flags had been lost, one belonging to Alten's divisionand one to the Luxembourg battalion, which was borne by a Prince of theDeux-ponts family. The Scotch Grays no longer existed; Ponsonby's heavydragoons were cut to pieces,--this brave cavalry had given way beforethe lancers of Bro and the cuirassiers of Travers. Of twelve hundredsabres only six hundred remained; of three lieutenant-colonels, twowere kissing the ground, Hamilton wounded, and Mather killed. Ponsonbyhad fallen, pierced by seven lance wounds; Gordon was dead, March wasdead, and two divisions, the fifth and sixth, were destroyed. Hougomontattacked, La Haye Sainte taken; there was only one knot left, thecentre, which still held out, Wellington reinforced it; he called inHill from Merbe-Braine and Chassé from Braine l'Alleud.
The centre of the English army, which was slightly concave, very denseand compact, was strongly situated; it occupied the plateau of MontSt. Jean, having the village behind it, and before it the slope, whichat that time was rather steep. It was supported by that strong stonehouse, which at that period was a domainial property of Nivelles,standing at the cross-road, and an edifice dating from the 16thcentury, so robust that the cannon-balls rebounded without doing it anyinjury. All round the plateau the English had cut through the hedges atcertain spots, formed embrasures in the hawthorns, thrust guns betweenbranches and loop-holed the shrubs,--their artillery was ambuscadedunder the brambles. This Punic task, incontestably authorized by therules of war which permit snares, had been so well effected thatHaxo, who had been sent by the Emperor at eight o'clock to reconnoitrethe enemy's batteries, returned to tell Napoleon that there was noobstacle, with exception of the barricades blocking the Nivelles andGenappe roads. It was the season when the wheat is still standing, andalong the edge of the plateau a battalion of Kempt's brigade, the 95th,was lying in the tall corn. Thus assured and supported, the centre ofthe Anglo-Dutch army was in a good position.
The peril of this position was the forest of Soignies, at that timecontiguous to the battle-field and intersected by the ponds ofGroenendæl and Boitsford. An army could not have fallen back intoit without being dissolved, regiments would have been broken up atonce, and the artillery lost in the marshes. The retreat, accordingto the opinion of several professional men, contradicted, it is true,by others, would have been a flight. Wellington added to this centrea brigade of Chassé's removed from the right wing, one of Wicke'sfrom the left wing, and Clinton's division. He gave his English--Halkett's regiments, Mitchell's brigade, and Maitland's guards--asepaulments and counterforts, the Brunswick infantry, the Nassaucontingent, Kielmansegge's Hanoverians, and Ompteda's Germans. Hehad thus twenty-six battalions under his hand; as Charras says, "theright wing deployed behind the centre." An enormous battery was maskedby earth-bags, at the very spot where what is called "the Museum ofWaterloo" now stands, and Wellington also had in a little hollowSomerset's Dragoon Guards, counting one thousand four hundred sabres.They were the other moiety of the so justly celebrated English cavalry;though Ponsonby was destroyed, Somerset remained. The battery which,had it been completed, would have been almost a redoubt, was arrangedbehind a very low wall, hastily lined with sand-bags and a wide slopeof earth. This work was not finished, as there was not time to palisadeit.
Wellington, restless but impassive, was mounted, and remained for thewhole day in the same attitude, a little in front of the old mill ofMont St. Jean, which still exists, and under an elm-tree, which anEnglishman, an enthusiastic Vandal, afterwards bought for two hundredfrancs, cut down, and carried away. Wellington was coldly heroic; therewas a shower of cannon-balls, and his aide-de-camp Gordon was killedby his side. Lord Hill, pointing to a bursting shell, said to him, "MyLord, what are your instructions, and what orders do you leave us, ifyou are killed?" "Do as I am doing," Wellington answered. To Clintonhe said laconically, "Hold out here to the last man." The day wasevidently turning badly, and Wellington cried to his old comrades ofVittoria, Talavera, and Salamanca, "Boys, can you think of giving way?Remember old England."
About four o'clock the English line fell back all at once; nothing wasvisible on the crest of the plateau but artillery and sharp-shooters,the rest had disappeared. The regiments, expelled by the French shelland cannon-balls, fell back into the hollow, which at the present dayis intersected by the lane that runs to the farm of Mont St. Jean. Aretrograde movement began, the English front withdrew. Wellington wasrecoiling. "It is the beginning of the retreat," Napoleon cried.