IAIN GALE

four days in june

A battle lost, a battle won, June 1815

To the memory of George Gale and Giles Gordon

CONTENTS

Prologue A hundred days

Day One Thursday 15 June 1815

Day Two Friday 16 June 1815

Day Three Saturday 17 June 1815

Day Four Sunday 18 June 1815

Postscript

Biographical Notes

Author’s Note

PROLOGUE
A hundred days

They had thought him broken. Believed that they had vanquished forever the tyrant who had laid Europe waste for two decades. But he had proved them wrong. Had, in an unguarded moment of that first spring of peace, slipped the bonds of his captivity and returned to France. Had raised again the eagles and the empire and readied himself for battle.

So now the redcoats waited and watched and guessed how he would come to them. The generals, the captains and the men. Men who had thought their soldiering days were past. Who, depending on their rank, had seen their futures now lived out in riding to hounds or gambling in St James’s or spending hard-earned booty in the taverns and whorehouses of Liverpool and London. Men from the shires and men from the hard north. Highlanders and farmers’ boys and thieves and petty felons. Soldiers all.

Men who had fought this irksome man through eight long years in Spain. And with them now the new blood. Callow privates and pale young subalterns, drawn by the promise of an unexpected last chance to find glory and fortune in Boney’s wars. Others came to swell their ranks: Germans, Dutch and Belgians, and on their flank a huge army of Prussians, all of them equally determined to finish now a job they had thought long done.

Together they waited and they watched. And the summer grew strange and unsettling, the days drifting between hot sunshine and heavy rain. In the fields the rye and wheat, still green in ear, stood shoulder high. And the redcoats and all their allies grew restless and longed for him to come.

DAY ONE

ONE

Charleroi, 3.30 a.m. Ziethen

The man was terrified. Ziethen was not surprised. The only penalty for desertion was death, and he had gambled his all on making a desperate rush through both his own lines and the enemy pickets. By some miracle he had not been shot. To risk death; to betray your country. It was a strange courage. A courage born of cowardice. He did not look like a coward, this Frenchman. And he did not look like a hero. Or for that matter much like a soldier. On his head was the familiar black shako, with its brass plate bearing the raised number 13. The 13th Regiment of Line Infantry. Ziethen tried to place it. Which corps? Which brigade? Who was facing him down there across the river? No matter. They would get that from him later. He remembered the 13th, though. As heroes – of Austerlitz, Eylau, Wagram, Borodino. He had even crossed swords with them himself – at Auerstadt. But this man was not the Frenchman of 1806. The French who had marched into Berlin a month later, to Prussia’s everlasting shame. This, thought Ziethen, was a different sort of Frenchman – shambolic.

He was unshaven. Three days, Ziethen guessed. His uniform was principally a filthy long brown overcoat, albeit with the familiar dark blue jacket beneath. His frayed yellow collar and tattered red and yellow epaulettes testified to his élite status as a voltigeur – a sharpshooter. Élite?, thought Ziethen. He had thrown away his musket. He was still laden down, though – with four days’ bread ration and extra cartridges – necessitated presumably by a lack of adequate transport. If this was all that Napoleon could throw at them they had nothing to fear. Secretly, though, the general knew that he was fooling himself. This sad man was not typical. That was why he was here – in the sombre, provincial dining parlour of Ziethen’s requisitioned headquarters on the outskirts of this godforsaken Belgian town. This fool. This brave coward. This deserter. He would not fight. But he was the exception. There were other men out there, beyond the river, and they, Ziethen knew, were different. They were hardened, they wanted to fight. And they were filled with hate. Hate for the Prussians. Hate for men like him.

There was food on the table, and a bottle of local wine. He had been about to eat when they had dragged the wretch into the room. Conscious now of the Frenchman’eyes, focused on the thin chicken leg in his hand, Ziethen threw the bone into the fire and, somewhat obviously, he realized, wiped his greasy fingers on the scarlet turnback of his own dark blue coat.

The Frenchman took off his shako, revealing lank, greasy hair. He spoke. But the accent was too provincial; the words too garbled. Ziethen’s Chief of Staff, the laconic, educated von Reiche, managed a rough, staccato translation:

‘He says, sir, that he is from the 13th Regiment of the Line. From Count d’Erlon’s corps. That they have been camped for some days near Beaumont, to the south west of us. His whole regiment was there – three battalions. Around 1,200 men, he thinks. But some have left – like him. Some of his friends. And some have died. They came there from Lille. He says that to reach our lines he had to walk ten kilometres. It’s another ten to here. He came through what he thinks was another French corps. A lot of men. Perhaps 20,000. All arms. He saw infan try, many cannon, lancers, chasseurs. One of his friends was shot, two others captured by the gendarmes. He says it was very frightening. He does not want to fight. He says that he would like to help, sir.’

The Frenchman smiled, feebly. Since yesterday Ziethen had expected something to happen. But up till now just where it would come had been unclear. This man was all that he had hoped for. But could he be trusted? He desperately wanted to believe so. Outside there was a heavy mist. His pickets could see nothing. Even the keen-eyed Hussars of his own old regiment, the 4th, had returned with no information. Anything would be of help. He tried to interpret the news, to ignore the Frenchman’s terrified, plaintive gaze.

‘Get him a drink.’

‘General?’

‘A drink. Get the man a drink. Wine. Water. Get him a cup of water. And a chair.’

A guard produced a battered tin cup; water was poured. Ziethen picked up the wine and poured a little into the water. A grenadier brought one of the few chairs which had not been taken by the owners of the house or broken up by his men for firewood. The Frenchman sat down, took a long drink and forced a smile. He was sweating. From outside the window a sudden burst of laughter and the sound of a smashing bottle made the man turn his head. Below in the courtyard Ziethen’s junior officers were enjoying themselves. Trying to forget the dawn; the battle they knew must come.

‘Ask him what Napoleon is doing now. Where is he crossing the river? Is he concentrating his men in one place. Is he coming here? To Charleroi? Ask him.’

The Frenchman looked worried again. He answered the questions quickly. Too quickly? Ziethen tried to gauge his reaction, his honesty.

‘He says that there are rumours. That Napoleon has sent to Paris for Ney. That the Belgians in Wellington’s army will desert and side with the French. That Wellington will abandon Brussels and make for the coast.’

Ziethen had heard the rumours too. There were always rumours before a battle. He was more concerned with the reliability of the information which might win them the coming battle. So he humoured the man; allayed his fears; gave him confidence, and more wine and, little by little, learned through the garbled reports that the Emperor had issued the order to march towards the Sambre. Then his tone changed. A final test.

‘Why did you desert?’

The Frenchman swallowed hard and began. He had no love for the Emperor. For France, yes. But Napoleon? He spat at the floor. He had lost three brothers in the past ten years’ fighting. He was a farmer, from Normandy. Not a soldier. He had two sons. He wanted peace. His eyes filled with water.

Ziethen smiled. It was good. This was no rehearsed deception. And it made sense. The Emperor was about to attack – at Thuin. He intended to concentrate one wing of his army. An entire wing, aimed here. Towards Charleroi. It would hit Steinmetz’s brigade head on. Napoleon planned to split the allies before they could join forces. Then he would destroy them in detail. Little by little, with his classic strategy of the central position. It was brilliant. Obvious. Dangerously simple. All he had feared. Ziethen needed to move quickly. Blü cher would act, would march to the battle. Of Wellington he was not so sure. Wellington, the hero of Spain, with his ragbag army of British, Dutch, Belgians and Hanoverians. How would they behave when faced with the might of the Empire? Would they stand? Oh, Wellington wouldn’t cut and run. But would he come to their aid? There was no time to find out. If Napoleon was to be stopped the Prussians at least would be ready for him.

‘Reiche. Send a despatch to Field-Marshal Blü cher. Tell him that Napoleon is about to attack me at Thuin. Make sure that the message gets through to Lord Wellington. Oh, and this time don’t forget to copy it to General von Gneisenau. We wouldn’t want to upset the delicate etiquette of the high command, would we?’

He and Gneisenau had never got on. Ziethen hated the jumped-up Saxon, with his clever army reforms and the deft political manoeuvring that had raised him to Army Chief of Staff. And he knew that Gneisenau loathed him. That he had attempted to block his appointment as corps commander. But Papa Blü cher’s word was final. Now he would repay the old man for his confidence. As Reiche hurried from the room, Ziethen turned to the captain of the guard.

‘Now take this fellow outside and give him something to eat. Then tie him up, and if he tries to run, shoot him.’

As the Frenchman left, Ziethen wondered, as he often wondered, how Napoleon had ever achieved the marvels of the past fifteen years. The French did not make war like Prussians. They had no code of discipline. Too often he had seen soldiers whose dress had almost rivalled that of his recent guest. They were badly drilled and often poorly led. But these were the men who had conquered Europe, who had not so long ago controlled an empire which had stretched from the coast of Spain to the Russian steppes. It had been Napoleon’s vanity that had undone them. Just as his ego had been the making of France, so it had been her downfall. But the fact was they had done it. And despite all that he knew and all that he had seen, Ziethen still wondered how.

Some men spoke of ten years of war, some of fifteen. But Ziethen had been fighting this war, fighting the French, for a quarter of a century. He had been there as a young hussar officer at the storming of Frankfurt. There at Valmy in 1794, when Napoleon had been merely Buonaparte, the precocious young Corsican Colonel of Volunteers. He had seen a ragged French revolutionary army throw back the mighty Prussians and had known at that moment that his life would be spent in defeating them. At Jena-Auerstadt in 1806 he had earned command of his regiment. Then had come promotion to the staff. The memories came fast. The faces. The dead friends. Names. Voices. Their peculiar laughs. Their eccentricities. They came as they came often to him in the dark, silent hours. Their names. Their faces. Most of all their voices.

The sounds of the camp were suddenly split by distant gunfire. A low rumble. Ziethen listened more closely. Cannon. Six-pounders. Regimental artillery. The guns which in the French army alone accompanied every corps, making it into a self-contained army. That would be Thuin. The French bombardment before the attack. Naturally he would obey Blü cher’s plan to the letter. Would pull his men back here – to Charleroi – a slow retiral to protect the bulk of the Prussian army which would gather at Sombreffe. His outposts at Ham and Thuin would have to be sacrificed to delay the enemy advance. No unit was to support them, no one to go to their aid. They were expendable. Treskow’s cavalry would have to cover them. The Prussians would be overrun. His own old regiment would suffer. But there was no alternative. Ziethen knew that if he fell back too slowly he would be surrounded, too quickly and he would allow a swift French advance to engulf not only him but the entire wing. And then Fleurus would be perfect for a limited defence, perhaps even for Blü cher’s battle. He had reconnoitred it only this past week. Knew the land, the gully, the woods to the rear.

It was of course painfully familiar terrain. The place of another battle. Almost twenty-one years ago to the day, when another French army had broken the 50,000 allied troops of Austria, Britain and Hanover, before taking Brussels. Many soldiers would have taken it as a bad omen. Ziethen touched the black Iron Cross which hung at his neck. Had he been a superstitious man, which thank God he was not, he would have regarded it as a talisman. Which, of course, he did not. Still, he touched it, felt its reassuring coldness. Remembered what it stood for. The blood. The screams of the wounded. The dying. The noise. The smoke. It was as clear in his mind as if it had been yesterday. Haynau. Two years ago. The great plain of Leipzig. He had been awarded the Iron Cross – 1st Class. Gneisenau, naturally, had been made a count. But now was not a time to open old sores. Now was a time to act. A time to fight. A time to hate.

TWO

Brussels, 5.00 p.m. De Lancey

She was exquisitely beautiful. A somewhat girlish face, full-lipped and with huge saucer eyes, and serene beyond her years. There had been other women, of course. Such women as Spain could boast. But Magdalene – Magdalene was everything that he wanted, all these long years.

She was a Scot. Her father, Sir James Hall, farmed at Dunglass, near Berwick, on the coast. Nine thousand acres with at its heart Sir James’s great new house in the eccentrically fashionable Gothic taste. It had first struck De Lancey as being more oppressively gloomy than one of Mrs Radcliffe’s novels. But if Magdalene loved it, then so must he.

It had not been at Dunglass that they had met, but in Edinburgh. At a winter ball, on a chill December evening, in the city’s Assembly Rooms. There, beneath the light of 500 candles, spinning across the floor through the cream of Edinburgh’s society, he had seen her. A face so new, yet so familiar. The shock. Had caught it reflected in her own eyes. Had stopped. Had apologized to his angry partner. Had carried on the dance – clumsy, unthinking. Thunderstruck. Like a blow on the back, a fall in the hunt.

They had talked. And danced, he seemed to remember. And, after the dance, De Lancey had walked through the dark, pre-dawn streets, back up the hill to the Castle, his head filled with visions of Magdalene.

A month after they had met he had received his knighthood. Invited to Dunglass by way of celebration, he had walked with her into the gardens. That little Eden. And it had been there, in that earthly paradise, beneath the oak tree under which her mother had loved to sit during those years while Sir James had been abroad, that he had proposed to Magdalene. And she had accepted.

‘We will always be together, William.’

‘More than that, my darling. I shall never leave you. Never.’

The wedding had been a small affair. A bright, crisp Scottish April morning, only two months ago now. Their church, the tiny kirk of Greyfriars in the heart of old Edinburgh, had been bedecked with branches of blossom and sheaves of daffodils. And, although its architecture was less ornate than he might have liked, the preacher, a Mr Inglis, a regular firebrand, had married them with the utmost eloquence. It was, he felt, true to the spirit of the age. A marriage of intellect and beauty. He recalled her sisters – their pretty, sprigged muslin gowns, their giggling at the advances of his brother officers.

Afterwards they had travelled to Dunglass, as husband and wife. And then ten days of perfect bliss. How he loved her. And in the gardens again, where the spring was everywhere, she had turned to him, her beautiful eyes filled with the need for assurance.

‘We shall never be apart.’ Almost a question now.

‘Never. My dear, darling Magdalene. I shall never leave you.’

Their time had been brief, though, and continually subject to interruption by one of her family. He had not minded, such was his happiness. And her father had opened his mind to so many new things.

Sir James had introduced him to an entirely different way of looking at the world. Had taken him to the cliffs on which Dunglass stood, towering above the waves. Had shown him the rocks. Had told him their secrets. Of the formation of the earth. Of sandstone and schistus. Of the immeasurable force which had torn asunder the then so solid fabric of the globe. And there, in that instant, high above the waves, he had felt himself transported back to a time when the rocks on which he stood were yet at the bottom of the sea. A topsy-turvy time before time. Before revolution and war had blighted the perfection of the earth. His mind had seemed to grow giddy, looking so far down the cliff – so far back into the very abyss of time. He had felt himself on the brink of some great realization. And then Sir James was talking to him. ‘It is, as Hutton says, that we can find no vestige of a beginning to the world –no prospect of an end.’ No end. World without end. He had felt suddenly light-headed. Had seen how his own reason was taking him further into something perhaps than his imagination might care to follow. Had felt an intimation of something like … eternity.

Before he lost himself entirely in that vortex, Magdalene was there. Come, she said, to ‘rescue’ him from her father. And later, when he had told her of his fascination with what Sir James had said, she had taken him to show him the ‘museum of stones’ – stones which she herself had gathered on the nearby beach below the cliff. And then they had climbed down and she had kissed him on that narrow strip of pebbles – there below the cliff. Had made him close his eyes as she stooped to pick something up and then pressed into his hand one particular stone. Quite small, pale golden-yellow, marbled white. Then she had whispered into his ear, her voice barely audible – soft, against the rolling of the waves.

‘Forever.’

He felt the stone again now, its cool roundness, tucked away as it always was, in the pocket of his waistcoat. Ran it between his finger and thumb. Stones. Stones of an incredible age. Stones that seemed to echo the sense of permanence of his new family. Stone on stone, through the generations, he thought. The Halls had their own vault, made from local sandstone, in the parish church – their church. Stones which somehow echoed his own need for a sense of permanence. His need for Magdalene. Like the stones, she was immovable. Utterly dependable in a world in which too often he had seen friendships vanish into atoms before him in the flash and thunder of gunfire. Magdalene, like the stones, was eternity.

And so it was that, together, as husband and wife, they had travelled to London. Wellington had asked for De Lancey particularly as his Quartermaster General – de facto Chief of Staff. It was not quite the post that he had wanted – a colonel on the Staff. But it was an honour, and he was happy to go. To be in at this final reckoning with Boney. And though it was only an acting post while they waited the arrival of Sir George Murray from military operations in Canada, here at last seemed to be the path to promotion for which he had looked so long.

At the end of May he had arrived in Brussels. It was only a week now since Magdalene had joined him – for what had proven to be the most wonderful seven days of his life.

He was only required to attend the Duke – ‘the Peer’, as De Lancey and his brother officers liked, with respect, to call him – for one hour a day, and from their grand lodgings in the house of the Count de Lannoy, on the Impasse du Parc by the Parc Royale, they had taken daily promenades about the town.

De Lancey had delighted in showing his young bride the wonders of the continent – almost as much as he enjoyed showing her off to the many beaux and beauties of British society who had crossed the Channel in expectation of the coming battle. But the couple had avoided all the dances and formal dinners, preferring to spend their time together, alone.

Even this evening they had spurned an invitation to a ball being held by no less than the Richmonds. The Peer, he believed, proposed to attend. Such appearances were vital for morale, and he was well aware that Wellington relished the attention of the ladies. But for his own part De Lancey had contrived the clever excuse of a small private dinner with his old friend Miguel d’Alava, from which he knew he would be able to steal away early to rejoin his wife. Now, having dismissed his valet, Jervis, for the evening – the servants too would have their dance – he was beginning to regret his generosity. He fumbled with his coat.

‘Damn these medals.’ He had never been good with intricate things. ‘My darling. Do help me, please. These confounded decorations. How does one put them on?’

She took his Knight’s Cross – along with the other shining gold and silver circles and crosses – the material proof of his bravery, and with her tiny hands began to pin them on to his coat. As she did so she gazed up at him. Those eyes.

‘Tell me again, William, about Talavera. And Bussaco. About how our boys came up over the ridge and chased the Frenchies down the hill. And of Badajoz. Oh, how I love that tale. All those poor, brave boys of yours in their hopeless attacks on the ramparts. And then the glorious victory. And the Peer in tears. And all the tragedy. Do tell me, William. Oh, what it must be to be a soldier!’

‘It is not quite the grand thing that you imagine, Magdalene. Mostly it is spent in marching. And waiting. And when the battle does come it is the most terrible thing you have ever seen. But it is glorious. Perhaps the most glorious thing a man can know … apart from love.’

‘Oh, William. Do you suppose that I might see a battle? Might come with you? Some wives do. Mrs Fortescue told me that the wife of Quartermaster Ross of the 14th has been with her husband on many of his campaigns, these full ten years, and that she fully intends to be with him in the coming battle.’

‘Magdalene. Dear, darling Magdalene. You are not the wife of a quartermaster. I am the Quartermaster General. A colonel.’

‘But I should so love to see you go into action, William.’

‘I have told you before, my darling. I do not “go into action”. My action is all about taking and giving commands. I shall be with the Peer throughout the battle. By his side. Issuing his orders. That will be my “action”.’

‘But I do so want to see your brave boys finish Bonaparte at last. It will be the last battle. Everyone says so.’

‘I daresay that in that one thing at least “everyone” for once is right, my darling. One last battle.’

She hugged him, smiling. ‘Is he really as awful a monster as they say, William? Have you seen him? Papa says that at Brienne he was really a very quiet little schoolboy. Very kind-natured. Clever. Good at snowball fights, he says.’

‘Your father, darling Magdalene, with respect, did not know the Bonaparte that we play with. The man is a tyrant. We presumed that we had rid the world of him. And now he has returned. He was not satisfied with an honourable peace. He still desires to have the world. To possess our world. Your world. He would reduce free-born Britons to slaves and put the world in chains to his own despotism. He proclaims his cause as freedom, but it is no freedom that I know: the freedom for which we fight. If you had seen, Magdalene, the things that I have seen. Terrible things. In Spain. Things done in his name. You would not talk of schoolboys and snowballs. He is a tyrant, Magdalene. A curse. An evil. And now we must silence him. Forever.’

‘I … shall not ask again, William.’ She let him go.

‘And I am sorry. I did not mean to become so passionate.’

‘You know, William,’ clinging once again to his tall, strong frame; stroking his back with her hand, pressing her leg against his own; touching the forelock of his thick, dark hair; running a finger down the length of his side-whisker, ‘it is never in my purpose to cool your passion.’ She looked him straight in the eyes. Smiled at her handsome soldier.

‘Magdalene. You quite disarm me.’

‘Oh no, William,’ letting go again, turning away, then back to look at him. Shamming coyness. ‘It is quite the contrary. You know, when we were first introduced I was quite intimidated by you. You had taken Edinburgh by storm. The talk of the town. So dashing. My … rambling soldier.’ She giggled.

‘Magdalene. Please. I am a soldier. I am an officer. I do command men.’

She smiled again. Through half-lowered lids. Played with the pale green silk bow of her low décolletage. ‘Well, then. Am I not also yours to command? Command me.’

Of course he had been late for dinner. Had arrived flushed, unsettled. The crumpled necktie told its story. D’Alava had not minded. He had known De Lancey for some years now. They had served together against the French in the fight for his homeland. Had ridden together with their friend Wellington. He knew too that he had only recently been married. And at a time when this day might be your last on earth, there were surely more important matters than social punctuality. Besides, he enjoyed the Englishman’s company. And De Lancey, in turn, relished the lack of formality of d’Alava’s house. Had become used to its like in Spain. Was his own man. Hated the pomp of the court and the garrison officers’ mess. Preferred the relaxed atmosphere of campaign life, where one night might bring an inn for a billet, another an open field. And this was as close as he could find to it. This, and the unexpected joy and daily novelty of his life with Magdalene.

‘But William, tell me.’ The genial, balding Spaniard flashed his dark, almost black eyes at his old friend, grinned and took another sip of the heavy red wine which he had brought here in no little quantity, from his own estates in Navarre, when appointed Spain’s Ambassador in Brussels. ‘You of all men have the Duke’s confidence … even above me. How does he intend to deal with Bonaparte?’

‘You know, Miguel, as I do, that my Lord Wellington is never quick to explain what he intends on the battlefield. Why, in the campaign of Salamanca, you will well recall, he did not vouchsafe any plan of execution, even to Sir George Murray. He is expert, Miguel, at keeping us all in the dark with regard to his intentions. He will sit at table with the General Staff and fill their heads full of humbug as to their dispositions. And then, not twelve hours later, will instruct me to issue an order which will march the brigades in quite the opposite direction. What we do know is that when Bonaparte moves on to the offensive – as move he will – we, the British and our Dutch and Belgian allies, are his most likely target. We are merely waiting for him to play his hand. You know that when the Peer met with Prince Blü cher last month it was agreed that the two armies should support each other and that the crucial axis of communication was to be the road from the Prussian army – at Sombreffe – to ourselves, around Nivelles.’

‘Yes. Of course, William. I am well aware of all this. But what will he do, d’you suppose? The “monster”, as all your pretty ladies here in Brussels like to call him. Wellington is obsessed, is he not, with the idea that Bonaparte intends to turn his right flank – to cut his communications and his escape route to the sea, at Antwerp? But what, William, if he is wrong? I think that your line is too extended. Let us say that he is wrong. That Blücher is the first to be attacked. Think of it. How will you ever move fast enough to help the Prussians? I do not think it can be done. And so…’ He made a forward gesture with his hands, as if pushing between two objects. ‘ … You are split in two by the French. And then …’ He clicked his fingers. ‘ … One …’ And again. ‘ … Two. I think that what we have here, my dear friend, is a simple conflict of interest. And I am wondering whether your good friends the Prussians – Prince Blücher and Count von Gneisenau – will share my opinion?’

‘Wellington will honour his word, Miguel. You know that. He will march to Blücher’s aid.’

‘But with what, William? With what? This army of twenty nations? If anyone is aware of the fine fighting quality of the British it is I. You and I, we remember Badajoz, Salamanca, Vitoria. But this army? Wellington himself has called it “infamous”. For every British soldier you have I hear that there are two Germans, Dutch or Belgians. Half of your army is German. Fine men of course, the King’s German Legion. They fought well in Spain. But William, what of the other Hanoverians? The militia? Peasants, farmers. And one third of your men are Netherlanders – most of whom, you will not deny, wearing the same uniforms with different hats and under different colours, were only a year ago fighting loyally for Bonaparte!’ He slammed his fist hard down on the table.

De Lancey leaned forward in his chair. ‘I cannot deny what you say, Miguel. But let me apprise you of some other facts of which you may be unaware. At this moment we have 95,000 men in the field; the Prussians no less than 130,000. We have more cannon than in any previous campaign and no want of ammunition. Do you know that the Peer has been in command of his “infamous” army a good two months and that during that time he has been careful to reorganize? Do you know that in every division, save the Guards, the Duke has taken care to mix the British battalions with veteran redcoats of the German Legion? Do you know that even in the Guards’ division he has specifically commanded that the three younger battalions should be stiffened with one of old sweats from the Peninsula? Do you know that in every brigade which contains inexperienced British troops, fresh from the shires, he has placed proven battalions of German regulars? And do you know that he intends to keep any doubtful elements of Belgians and Dutch well in the rear? No, Miguel. This army is not quite the flummery you might suppose it to be.’ De Lancey sat back. Smiled. Sipped his wine.

‘William. Dear friend. Do not agitate yourself. Be sure that I have great faith in Wellington. But what I am concerned with is how he will use his force.’

‘That all depends upon Bonaparte. And we shall soon enough know that man’s intentions. You may know that for over a month now our friend Colonel Grant has been busy behind French lines gathering intelligence, just as he did so well in Spain. We know that Bonaparte has assembled a sizeable army – around 200,000 men. And that perhaps 125,000 of them are directly before us on the border. What we do not yet know is quite where they will attack. It might be at Mons. Or at Tournai. Or at Charleroi. Once we do know that, then will be our time to act.’

‘But Wellington, you know well, William, prefers to defend. That is his skill. And here is the problem, my friend. Prince Blücher – Marshal “Vorwärts” – likes to attack. It is all very fine for Wellington to draw his supplies from the coast. But Blücher must pay to supply his army. Can you imagine what it is costing him now, just to sit on his arse?’

De Lancey, for once, was silent. Knew of old that this was mere teasing. That both men believed that their mutual friend, their commander, the hero of Spain, the toast of Europe, would be victorious. They were simply playing the same games that they had before every battle in Spain. Nevertheless the conversation had stirred some genuine worries, and it disturbed De Lancey to realize that he was concerned. He stared thoughtfully at his plate, took another sip of wine and, having considered his words, smiled before opening his mouth to reply.

As he prepared to do so, the double doors of the dining room opened and d’Alava’s butler came quickly to the table and cupped his mouth to his master’s ear. D’Alava spoke. ‘It seems that you have a messenger, De Lancey.’ He grinned. ‘He has come … from your wife.’

Spotless and gleaming, a young pink-cheeked British aide-de-camp was shown in, sword clattering, spurs ringing on the polished wooden floor. He handed De Lancey a note. D’Alava laughed and thumped the table with his fist.

‘So, my dear William. You see? You are away for only one hour and already your lovely wife has need of you. Ah, my friend. What it is to be young and in love.’

De Lancey unfolded the piece of parchment. Read it quickly. Rose to his feet. Turned to the aide: ‘Wait.’ Then to d’Alava. ‘You are sadly mistaken, sen˜ or. I assure you, this is no message from my wife, but an urgent dispatch for the Duke of Wellington. I am afraid, my dear Miguel, that here is an end to our delightful dinner.’

‘Can you tell me?’

‘It is from Berkeley, our man at the Prince of Orange’s headquarters, at Braine-le-Comte. It seems that at noon today the Prince’s office received information from General Dö rnberg that Bonaparte had crossed the frontier. But the Prince was not there to receive it. He was here, in Brussels, making a report of “light gunfire” to be heard in the direction of Thuin. And, as a consequence, no one thought to take any action on Dörnberg’s message – for over two hours. That is, until Berkeley happened upon it. Miguel, we have lost two hours. Bonaparte is at Charleroi.’

‘God help us.’

‘I must go to Wellington. Adieu, Miguel. Thank you again for your hospitality. Until we meet again.’

‘On the field of battle, William.’

Their handshake – wonderfully un-British, thought De Lancey – had become for both more than a gesture of farewell. It was a symbol of faith in their mutual survival. Just as it had been before Salamanca, Badajoz, Vitoria.

De Lancey turned and walked quickly to the door, closely followed by the aide, and out into the candlelit hall, where the clatter of the young man’s spurs changed to a brighter note as they rasped on the black and white marble of the chequerboard floor. At the door De Lancey turned again and raised his hand in a final farewell.

‘Till the battle, Miguel. Then we shall know the true mettle of this army. And so shall Bonaparte.’

Smiling, he turned through the door and walked out into the warm evening. Outside, at the foot of the steps, the aide was waiting, holding his horse by the pommel of its saddle. Without a word, De Lancey, who had arrived by carriage, took the reins and hoisted himself up. Sensing that this was hardly a time to protest, the aide let go his mount and, saying nothing likewise, De Lancey urged the handy little chestnut off along the street, quickly breaking into a canter. His speed alarmed several of the promenading couples, sending them back against the shuttered windows.

It was not far to the house that Wellington had taken – an imposing ten-bay mansion, set back from the Rue Royale, to the west of the Parc. De Lancey pulled up the horse, leapt from the saddle, leaving it untethered, and rushed past the redcoated sentries, through heavy oak doors, across the courtyard and into the house.

He found the Duke still seated at the dinner table, on which, although the dishes had been removed, there yet remained eight wine glasses and a half-full decanter of port. Everywhere – across the table, the chairs, the floor – lay papers. Maps, plans, orders of battle, reports. Wellington did not look up, continued to read.

‘General d’Alava was well?’

‘Quite well, sir. He sends his warmest regards.’

‘Oblige me, De Lancey. That piece of paper. There. Yes, that one. A despatch from General von Ziethen. Read it, please.’

‘Sir, I myself have come with a despatch.’

‘Quite so. Quite so.’ Wellington looked up. ‘And I presume I am correct in supposing that it will tell me that Bonaparte has attacked the Prussians … at Charleroi?’

‘Yes sir. But how … ?’

‘Read Ziethen’s despatch. Go on.’

De Lancey picked up the folded piece of parchment, and opened it. It was brief. A pointed cry for aid. The Prussians had indeed been attacked, at Thuin. Which would indicate that the initial French objective was Charleroi.

‘It is as we thought, your Grace. The secondary French plan. Bonaparte intends to push between us and the Prussians. To destroy first their army and then our own. In detail.’

It was just as d’Alava had predicted. Driving a wedge between the two armies, snuffing out first one, then the other.

‘Sir, we must act. What do you intend? We should surely alert the First Division. Call the reserve to arms. What are your orders, sir?’

‘My orders, Sir William, will be made plain by and by. It is not my intention, however, to amuse Bonaparte’s many spies and other fine friends in this city by running around Brussels like some dumb-struck virgin on her wedding night. Besides, I believe it may be a feint.’

In the wall directly behind Wellington a door opened in the panelling and six men entered. Staff officers. A gracious welter of red, blue and gold. Fitzroy Somerset, the Duke’s secretary; Sir Alexander Gordon, his principal aide-de-camp; George Lennox and George Cathcart, more aides; from De Lancey’s own office, Alexander Abercromby of the Guards; and George Scovell. Wellington addressed them, without turning his head from his papers.

‘Ah, gentlemen. To work. There is much to do.’

Half an hour later De Lancey, still riding the aide’s horse, pulled up outside his own house. Inside he found his staff – a dozen young men, junior officers mostly – all crowded around his young wife. They were by turns garrulous, detached, flirtatious, earnest. These were his chosen ones, the men who would carry the war and word of how to wage it to every brigade, every battalion. Will Cameron, young Ed Fitzgerald, Charles Beckwith in his distinctive rifleman’s green, James Shaw, the hero of Cuidad Rodrigo. Seeing him enter, their laughter stopped.

‘All right, gentlemen, as you were. The world is not yet come to an end. Magdalene, my dear, I am sure that you will forgive us if we make our headquarters in the dining room. Charles, ensure if you please that any messengers know to wait in the drawing room. Magdalene, my sweet, we shall need some sustenance. Perhaps cook would prepare us a little supper and a sufficient quantity of green tea. I suspect that we shall be on this business the entire evening.’

He sensed disquiet. Smiled.

‘No, no, gentlemen. Do not be alarmed. Rest assured that you will – all of you – be able to spend some time at the Duchess’s dance. Indeed the Commander-in-Chief himself has commanded it. All will go ahead as planned. William, be a good fellow and go and seek out Mr Jackson. More than likely you will find him walking alone in the park.’

His comment about the contemplative Jackson served to lighten the mood in the room.

‘And Edward, take yourself off and see if you can run to earth one Colonel Meyer, of the 3rd German Legion Hussars. His men are to be our couriers and escorts for the night.’

As the young men left to go about their errands, De Lancey began to feel the burden of his position. He realized that whatever should soon happen on the battlefield, this would most likely be for him a defining moment. It was his reponsibility to ensure that everything worked perfectly, otherwise disaster would ensue. It was he who would guarantee that every one of the troops of the allied army, some 95,000 men, would arrive at precisely the destination for which Wellington intended them, at precisely the correct moment. And that when they arrived they would be provided with the right equipment, and the right ammunition, in sufficient quantity.

Flashing him a nervous, sweet smile, Magdalene left to consult with the cook. De Lancey walked to the dining room, extracted from his soft leather valise the sheaf of order papers which Wellington had given him and laid them on the table before him. Other officers began to arrive now. William Gomm of the Coldstream, together with Hollis Bradford of the First Guards, both fresh from a shopping expedition, laden with bundles of lace; George Dawson of the Dragoons and Johnny Jessop of the 44th. And other, younger men, captains mostly – and now the lieutenants, Peter Barrailler and, at last, Basil Jackson, who had been discovered, as De Lancey had predicted, sitting in the Parc, reading Byron. Sixteen assistant quartermasters general; twelve deputy assistant quartermasters general. His military family.

Within minutes the room had become a scene of frenetic activity as the staff set about their business. Maps appeared from cylindrical carrying cases and were spread on the table to show the better of the roads and the capacity in tonnes of every bridge – and whether it was suited to taking artillery or cavalry. And around the long table the officers took up their stations, became in effect so many clerks, writing out in neat copperplate, in duplicate, every one of the Duke’s orders:

Dörnberg’s cavalry, to march upon Vilvorde;

Uxbridge’s cavalry, save the 2nd Hussars, to collect at Ninove;

The 1st Division to collect at Ath and be ready to move;

The 3rd Division to collect at Braine-le-Comte;

The 4th Division to collect at Grammont;

The 5th Division, the 81st Regiment and the Hanoverians of the 6th Division to be ready to leave Brussels momentarily;

The Duke of Brunswick’s Corps to collect on the road between Brussels and Vilvorde;

The Nassau troops to collect on the Louvrain road;

The Hanoverians of the 5th Division to collect at Hal and to march tomorrow towards Brussels;

The Prince of Orange to collect, at Nivelles, the 2nd and 3rd Divisions under Perponcher-Sidletsky and Baron Chassé;

The artillery to be ready to move off at daylight.

In effect the entire army was being placed in a state of readiness to move. But, as far as De Lancey could see, no unit had actually been ordered on to the offensive. Caution. Wellington was waiting. Would not move directly to help the Prussians. Did not believe that it might not be a feint. But what if d’Alava had been right? Equally, Wellington might be correct.

The French might intend to move against his right. But De Lancey also felt a sense of unease. He decided that the following morning, before the army moved off, he would send Magdalene away – to Antwerp, safe from the threat of what, to both he and the Spaniard, now seemed to be the obvious direction of French attack.

For over two hours the staff scribbled and copied, blotted, folded and sealed; sent the messages into the anteroom to the waiting Hussars and filed their duplicates at the end of the table. And all the time De Lancey pored over the maps; occasionally, noticing an anomaly, changed a route, recalled an order. And all the time Magdalene and the servants brought tea in pots and urns and whatever supper cook had been able to find for the officers – toasts and savouries, mostly. Not much was eaten, for no sooner would there be a slowing-down in the work than De Lancey, remembering something else, would call for a change of route, or issue an entirely new order.

It was past nine o’clock when they finished. And then, with hardly a moment’s pause, every one of the junior officers assembled at the end of the dining table, to be entrusted in turn by De Lancey with one of the duplicate orders. It was a practice which had proven its worth in Spain. How many times had a courier fallen from his horse, or been delayed by some unseen hazard? A second copy of every order was now to be delivered by ‘hand of officer’. And, like the originals, every one was to have its own receipt, from the hand of its recipient.

Check and double check. It was the only way, thought De Lancey. And he hoped to God that he had got it right. Had made no mistakes. That nothing would go wrong. For, whatever the virtue of Wellington’s strategy of caution, were anything to go awry in its execution, and if as a consequence of it the battle were to be lost, he knew that there was only one man in the entire army on whom the blame would fall.

THREE

Gosselies, 8.30 p.m. Ney

The evening, which he had hoped might offer a little relief from the heat of a long day, was proving oppressively warm, its intense humidity hinting at the possibility of a coming storm. Michel Ney, Duc d’Elchingen, Prince of the Moskowa, tall, barrel-chested, strikingly handsome in the gold-embroidered, dark blue coat of a Marshal of France, stood alone in the garden of a shell-damaged cottage on the edge of the town of Gosselies and looked to the north. Through his field telescope he scanned the sun-dappled fields of tall rye and wheat which stretched out towards Brussels and the waiting enemy. Behind him, tethered to an apple tree, grazing placidly, stood the horse he had bought two days ago from his old friend Marshal Mortier on his sick bed in Beaumont. Mortier, the veteran of Friedland, Spain, Russia, Leipzig, struck down now, at this time of greatest need, not by an enemy musketball but by an attack of sciatica. Well, they were none of them young any more.

An officer appeared at his side. A junior aide-de-camp. Chef de Bataillon Arman Rollin. Ney spoke.

‘I see nothing, Rollin. No one. You think?’

‘I can see no movement, sir.’ Ney dropped the spyglass from his eye.

‘No. Why should there be? Of course they’re not here. They’re further north. And to the east. Oh, we’ve found them all right, Rollin. But we have not yet brought them to battle. And that is what we must do, eh?’

But how? And with what? Ney was not yet sure exactly who it was that he commanded. Had not seen many of them. On paper he had a third of the army. In the field, he stood here at the head of a corps, II Corps, General Reille’s. But as to the rest of his command – he was beginning to wonder quite where it was. He thought of historical precedent for his predicament. Scanned his mind for the many military theorists of whom he had made a study – Frederick the Great, Caesar, Gustavus Adolphus, Turenne, Alexander. Could find little to help him. Perhaps Frederick’s invasion of Bohemia – a divided army, two wings. With what result? The battle of Lobositz. But had he kept his army intact Frederick could have marched on Prague and walked straight in. An opportunity lost. Ney prayed that they had not just made the same mistake with Brussels.

The marshal had staked everything on rejoining his Emperor. In truth it had not been hard to desert the Bourbons. His wife had been treated abominably by the ladies of the new Royalist court. His return to the eagles was inevitable. But there had been moments. In particular that embarrassing reconciliation in the Tuileries, with Napoleon making Ney pay for his previous defection and all his grand utterances in favour of the new monarchy. The agony of contrition. Particularly before his fellow generals. But then – silence. The Emperor had not rewarded him for his renewed loyalty until two days ago, when a letter had arrived at his château at Coudreaux, near Châteaudun, summoning him to the army. They had met at last at Avesnes. The Emperor had embraced him, had clapped his personal aide, Colonel Heymes, on the back. They had all joked and smiled. And over a long, relaxed dinner their friendship had resumed.

They had spoken of the old days. Of Friedland, Eylau, Borodino. Not, predictably, of Spain. And then it was that he remembered just how much he loved that man. How long he had loved him. How he would have done anything for him. Still would. They were the same age and for the past twenty years their fates had been intertwined.

A sergeant-major under the last King Louis, by 1794 Ney has risen to major in the Republic, received the first of many wounds and by the age of twenty-six was colonel of his regiment – the 4th Hussars. By 1797 Ney was a general de brigade.

It was Napoleon, though, who had made him. Created him first, in 1801, Inspector-General of all France’s cavalry. In May 1804, on the day after Napoleon had been declared Emperor, he had made Ney a marshal. Four years later he was a duke. His service in Russia, commanding the heroic rearguard on a retreat that had cost the lives of half a million men, had earned him the unique title ‘Prince de la Moskowa’. And Ney knew himself to be a ‘prince among men’. Knew that his presence on a battlefield could inspire men to undreamed-of feats of bravery. That his name alone could win a battle.

It did not surprise Ney that no mention had been made that night at Avesnes, or since, of the fact that before his return to the fold Ney had sworn to Louis XVIII that he would bring Napoleon back to Paris ‘in an iron cage’. That was all in the past now. There was a war to fight. A war to win.

The following morning, with no horse of his own, Ney had followed the General Staff to Beaumont in a peasant cart. And then at Charleroi, only this afternoon, a smiling Napoleon had given him command not of a mere corps but of the entire left wing – more than a third of the army. And in addition, to his amazement, the light cavalry division of the Garde – the finest cavalry in the world. His orders were merely to ‘go and drive the enemy back along the Brussels road’. Jubilant as a child, Ney had taken Mortier’s horse and ridden fast to join Reille’s II Corps at Gosselies. And so here he was, standing with the few staff he had as yet assembled, on the rising ground above the little river Piéton, looking north.

Ney felt energized, more alive in fact than he had in years. Yet he was also more than a little alarmed. He had been given no specific insight into the Emperor’s plans and had had no time to formulate his own, to conduct any reconnaissance, even to meet his own staff. He knew most of them, of course – d’Erlon, Piré and Lefebvre-Desnouettes he had served with in Spain. But Reille was known to him only by hearsay – as the Emperor’s former aide. And within Reille’s corps was a wild card. The Emperor’s brother, Prince Jerome, the now ex-King of Westphalia, had been given a division – the largest in the army. He had a reputation for rashness, and Ney was anticipating problems.

He had left his own personal aide, his old friend and confidant Heymes, at Charleroi, to improvise the rest of the headquarters staff and follow on as he could. He knew that he must win this battle, this war. For if he lost, if the Emperor fell again, then his fate could only be a dawn appointment with a firing squad.

And things were not going according to plan. Despite the vagueness of the Emperor’s orders, one thing which had become clear to Ney from even a cursory look at the map was the strategic importance of a small crossroads astride the roads from Charleroi to Brussels and Namur to Nivelles. This junction, the village of Quatre-Bras, must, he felt, be taken by nightfall. But here at Gosselies he was still some 8 kilometres short of it, confronted by a force of uncertain number and with no way of achieving his primary objective.

‘We must consolidate, Rollin. We must push further. Establish the extent of their forces.’

‘Quite so, sir. But it is getting late and our men are tired and widely dispersed.’

He was right. The sun was sinking. It had been an exhausting day. And not without its flashpoints. Ney’s first action on assuming command had been to send one division of Reille’s corps to the north of the town to repel a Prussian attack. They had inflicted reasonable casualties and captured a dozen regular infantry, who revealed that they were part of Steinmetz’s brigade, Ziethen’s corps.

That had been at 5.30. Three hours ago. Quickly, Ney had divided his men, sending Girard’s 7th Division off in pursuit of the Prussians, who halted to the north east, at Wangenies. Just over an hour ago he had sent off General Lefebvre-Desnouettes and the Garde cavalry to reconnoitre around Frasnes. Now he held in his hand the report from Colbert, flamboyant colonel of the Garde’s Polish lancer squadron.

They had met ‘some resistance’ from within the farm buildings at Frasnes but had found no one beyond there, at Quatre-Bras, and had returned to the main force. Ney had immediately moved off a battalion of infantry to Frasnes and soon ejected the enemy. He was unclear again, though, as to exactly whom they had encountered and in what numbers. He looked at the report. Green uniforms, red facings, black busby. He showed it to Rollin.

‘What do you make of that?’

‘Nassauers, sir. Grenadiers. Wellington’s men.’

‘What do we know of them? What unit? See if you can find out.’

So. He had found Wellington’s advance guard. If that was what it was and nothing more. Even as he waited for more details a courier pulled up with another note, direct this time from the hand of Lefebvre-Desnouettes.

Monseigneur.

Frasnes we found occupied by around 1,500 infantry and eight cannon. Not those from Gosselies. These men are under the Duke of Wellington’s orders. Nassauers. The Prussians from Gosselies have gone on to Fleurus. Tomorrow at dawn I will send out a reconnaissance party to Quatre-Bras, which will occupy that position. I believe that the Nassau troops have now left. The peasants have told us that the Belgian army is in the vicinity of Mons and the headquarters of the Prince of Orange at Braine le-Comte.

It was somewhat garbled. But Ney thought that he understood what was meant. The Prussians had, as expected, retreated not towards Brussels but eastwards, in the direction of Fleurus, where their main army was evidently assembling. And Wellington? Wellington was somewhere to the north.

He was haunted by the man. Had encountered him first in Spain, at Bussaco. And just as Spain had been Wellington’s triumph, so it had been Ney’s undoing. The only smear on an unblemished military career. Massena’s fault. And then, amazingly, Ney had happened upon the Duke while out walking with Aglaé a year ago, in the Bois de Boulogne. Some months later he had made a now embarrassing outburst against Wellington in the Tuileries – bombast, and what amounted to a challenge. The words rang in his ears:

‘Let him meet us when luck is not in his favour. Then the world will see him for what he is.’

Perhaps now, at last, they would discover the truth of that boast.

Tonight, however, it was too late to move. Past nine o’clock. Desnouettes was right. The morning would do. The Nassauers would have run off with news of their encounter and Wellington would surely be hurrying to consolidate around Brussels. What to do? He thought of his mentor, Baron Jomini, France’s master tactical theoretician. Tried to imagine what he would do in such a situation.

Ney decided to pull back the infantry to Frasnes. He had heard firing from the direction of Gilly. That surely must be Napoleon engaging the Prussians? It was more imperative than ever now that his own force should remain secure. Besides, if his staff were to be believed, his men were dropping with fatigue. They had been on the march since three that morning. He considered his position. Napoleon and the right wing were on his flank, engaging the Prussians. His own command was strung out across more than fifteen kilometres, between Marchienne and Frasnes. The heavy cavalry under Exelmans was near Campinaire, and some distance behind them came the rest of the army. Yes. It was time to rest.

‘Dinner, sir?’ It was Heymes, at last, arrived from Charleroi.

‘Of course. Dinner. Where?’

‘A house, not a hundred metres away. In the Rue St Roch. The only place still occupied – with food and a fire. We could walk there.’

‘Fine.’

The little house looked out of place amidst the debris and chaos of war. A fairy-tale house – smoke at the chimney and flowers around the door, which was open. Ney entered and found inside a family, neatly turned-out and drawn up, almost as if for inspection. He felt faintly embarrassed. Smiled. Heymes spoke.

‘His name is Dumont, sir. He’s a clerk in the town. His wife. Their children.’

The couple looked terrified. The children less so. Four boys, thought Ney. A curious coincidence. He looked for a moment. The woman was pretty in a charming, petit-bourgeois way. Not like his own Aglaé. Her husband looked sound, if somewhat round shouldered, with an air of indignant confidence. He was no soldier, though.

The boys were roughly the same ages as his own. Good-looking too. He compared them – Napoleon, twelve, Louis, eleven, Eugene, now seven, and young Henri, just three. He thought of them all at Coudreaux, where even now Aglaé was perhaps helping their cook with the supper. The vision led him into foolish thoughts of their life together and everything with which they had been blessed over the last thirteen years.

They had met through the Empress Josephine, who, much taken with Ney, had begun to matchmake immediately for her young friend, pretty Aglaé Auguié, whose father had been one of Louis XVI’s finance ministers, and whose mother, in that vanished other-world, was lady in waiting to Marie-Antoinette. As a child she had survived the Terror and her mother’s suicide, precipitated by the execution of the Queen. Ney loved her for it. For her bravery. But more than this he loved her for her beauty – physical and spiritual. He touched his breast pocket, felt inside the shape of the miniature of her portrait by Gerard – the companion to his own.

He thought of their Paris house at the height of the Empire. Of his apartments overlooking the Seine. Of rooms crammed with mirrors, Aubusson tapestries and crystal chandeliers. Of the paintings – he had a particular taste for seventeenth-century Flemish art. Of his library, with its volumes of Racine, Rousseau and above all military theorists. Of their lavish candlelit receptions, thronged with painters, musicians, writers – Gros, David, Girodet, Gerard, Spontini, Gretry, Stendhal, Madame de Stäel.

He found that he had been gazing blankly at a crucifix on the wall and turned again towards Dumont’s four boys. Wondered when again he might give his two youngest piggybacks around their farmyard. Thought of their future together. All the pleasures that lay in store. Of taking them fishing; hunting wild boar; helping with the harvest. Then, becoming suddenly and unpleasantly aware of his own mortality, of the possibility of there being no future, he cast the vision from his mind. Smiled. Waved his hand towards the uncertain Belgian children.

‘Please, please. Do not be afraid. Thank you for your hospitality. Please just behave as you would normally. Pretend we are not here. Ignore us.’

Absurd, of course.

Food arrived. Bread, cheese, bacon, wine, brought in by the lady of the house. The srvants had fled. Ney gave her a smile. 0Rollin entered.

‘The Nassauers, sir. We believe them to be part of Wellington’s 2nd Division; Perponcher’s men. The Prince of Saxe-Weimar’s brigade. They might be part of a force as strong as 8,000. But I have to say that we believe it probable that they have now rejoined the main army.’

‘My thoughts exactly. Thank you. Join us?’

Local wine. Thin and lacking substance. What he would give for a good glass of Calvados. Noticing a flute hanging on the wall, he turned to his nervous host.

‘You play?’

‘A little, sir. When I have the time.’

‘I too. When I have the time.’

He laughed and thought again of home. Of Aglaé at the piano and of himself struggling with the flute. He thought of her sweet voice. Her taste for Italian arias. Don Giovanni. That divine duet – ‘La ciderem lamano’. He began to hum the melody.

Dumont’s house, he thought, was the epitome of petit-bourgeois – safe, dependable. And now, as Ney relaxed into a reverie, it took him back further to another, similar household, many years before. To a cosy parlour in the Saar where a father, a barrel-cooper by trade, would speak in German and French of the virtues of France, the glory of battle. How he had been proud to fight for King Louis against the Prussians. An image came to him of a small boy, ruddy-faced and with bright blue eyes, who, having listened spellbound to tales of war, had pursued his dreams of glory into the Song of Roland, the tales of Charlemagne, his knights, another empire. An image of a hot-headed boy of eighteen who had gone against his father’s wishes and joined the army. The army of France in whose ranks his German accent had quickly disappeared and in whose service, in the uniform of a hussar, a quarter of a century ago, he had first ridden to glory. So long ago.

Mozart’s aria was going around and around in his head. So too was an unpleasant thought which had come to him as he ate. Why should the Nassauers have rejoined the main force? What if they were still there at the crossroads? What if the cavalry reports were muddled? It happened. Might they not mean that the enemy had left not Quatre-Bras – which he saw now was the key to the road, and the flank – but merely Frasnes? Looking out of the open window Ney saw that, although night had fallen, the street was still well illuminated by the cold light of a full moon. He stood up.

‘Heymes, my horse. We will ride to Quatre-Bras. I cannot rest until I see for myself our precise position.’

‘Sir, it’s dark. Surely?’

‘The moon will suffice. Monsieur Dumont, thank you for your hospitality. I believe that a bed has been arranged for me here? You are very kind. Madame.’ Giving a quick bow he left the house.

Outside, with Heymes and the two aides, Ney mounted his waiting horse. With a small escort, found grudgingly by a half-troop of the First Chasseurs, they rode in silence the few kilometres to the crossroads. At Frasnes Ney caught the familiar stench of a recent battle – putrefaction and powder-smoke. Trotting along the street they passed occasional groups of Garde cavalry – chasseurs and lancers – some snatching what sleep they could, others eating, drinking, talking. The marshal and his party went unremarked.

It was ten o’clock when they reached the French advance lines, to be greeted by a single sentry and a somewhat startled Lieutenant of Lancers. Quickly the little group dismounted and walked towards the front. Through the darkness, across the fields, Ney could see the fires of the enemy pickets. He counted them. Swore quietly. No. The Nassauers had not left. Were still here. Encamped in fact, it seemed, in some force. To his left Ney could see the bulk of a large wood and in the centre and on the right the dim shapes of three sizeable complexes of farm buildings. The crossroads itself lay straight ahead. It looked, as he had supposed it might, ominously like a highly defensible position. He began to run through the dispositions of his troops.

‘Rollin, where is Bachelu’s division?’

‘Two kilometres to the east, at Mellet, sir.’

‘And Prince Jerome?’

‘Ransart, sir.’

‘And Piré’s cavalry?’

Another aide: ‘At Heppignies, sir.’

‘Count d’Erlon’s corps?’

‘His headquarters have been established at Jumet, sir.’ Rollin again. ‘But half of his divisions are strung out along the route, one at Marchienne, another at Thuin. Jacquinot’s cavalry we believe to be somewhere near Binche.’

Ney sighed. ‘And Reille?’

No one was entirely sure where the rest of Reille’s corps was. Ney swore again. Audibly now. He realized that he could not after all afford to rest. He would himself ride at once to Charleroi. Must attempt to glean more precise directions from the Emperor. Must be allowed to know more detail of his plans. His mind was addled, confused. The ride there and back would clear his head. Without a word, he walked back to his horse and remounted.

‘You have the time, Heymes?’

‘10.30, sir.’

It would be close to midnight before he reached Charleroi. It was going to be a long night.

FOUR

Brussels, 1.30 a.m. De Lancey

De Lancey sat at the unfamiliar bureau of his borrowed office in the house near the Parc and rubbed at his face and eyes. It had been a frantic evening. Unpleasantly warm for the time of year. At around nine o’clock a message had arrived from Blücher telling Wellington that he was now en route to Sombreffe and preparing to face Bonaparte there. Another came an hour later, from General Dörnberg, commander of the Hanoverian cavalry and senior intelligence officer at Mons. Still nothing though from Grant. Dörnberg reported that there were no enemy directly before him. In his opinion the entire French army was now focused on Charleroi. But surely, thought De Lancey, this was old news? The French might by now be long past Charleroi. In effect they were, all of them, chasing shadows.

Wellington, however, had at last seemed sure that he knew what Napoleon intended. Shortly after ten he had sent for De Lancey and given his ‘after orders’ – a common practice. De Lancey had found the Peer in blue velvet carpet slippers, a silk dressing-gown over his shirt, preparing for the ball already in progress in the Rue de la Blanchisserie. The Richmonds had taken a house in the Rue des Cindres and in this small street to the rear the Duchess had found the perfect venue for their dance – the workshops of a coach-builder. That afternoon the old carriage works had been cleaned by a fatigue party of defaulters and decked out with all the frivolity of an English village fête. Reports of the spectacle had been coming to De Lancey for the past two hours as his officers, beginning to return from their various dispatch rides, had managed brief sorties to the gilded assembly. No sooner had they gone though than he had been compelled to summon them back to deliver these fresh orders personally.

The ‘after orders’ were clear enough: The 3rd Division would continue from Braine-le-Comte to Nivelles. The 1st Division, the Guards, was to move at once from Enghien to Braine-le-Comte. The 2nd and 4th Divisions were to move to Enghien, as was the cavalry.

De Lancey detected a general sense of urgency, but realized that the Peer remained convinced that the real French threat was to his right wing. He was pondering the probability of this when, quite unannounced, out of breath and without knocking, Will Cameron burst into the room.

‘What the deuce? Will?’

‘Sir. More intelligence. I come directly from the ball. From Lord Wellington himself. The French have taken Charleroi, sir. Even now are marching on Brussels. Their pickets have been at Quatre-Bras. The message was timed at 10.30, sir. It comes direct from General Rebecque. The Peer has left the dancing, sir. We are to order a general state of readiness.’

‘What news from Grant?’

‘None, sir. Only this from Rebecque. And direct from the front. The ball is finished, sir. Officers are to return to their units. We are to prepare to advance.’

‘Calm yourself, Will. If the Peer has not yet received news from Colonel Grant, he will not order a general advance.’

‘No, sir. Yes. I mean. Quite.’

‘We will merely proceed with the after orders that he has already issued – a concentration upon Nivelles. Unless he gave you to understand otherwise?’

‘No, sir. That is indeed his intention.’

‘Well then, I suggest that you find yourself somewhere to catch a few hours’ sleep. You will certainly be needing them in the coming days. Take one of our rooms. Goodnight, Will.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

After Cameron had left, De Lancey looked again at the map – the old, inaccurate 1790s survey of the area by Ferraris and Capitaine – spread out on the table in the centre of the room. It was still just possible. A feint. He understood Wellington’s caution. What if he was right and Napoleon had called his bluff? Intended to divert the Anglo-Allied army to the east and then turn its flank? He walked towards the door, intending to find Magdalene and possibly a few hours’ rest. As he went to turn the handle, however, the door flew open and he came face to face with General Dö rnberg, behind him an aide. Both of them hatless, dripping in sweat, reeking of horses and brandy. The general was in a state of some distress.

‘My God, De Lancey. I have come from Mons. Oh God, De Lancey. What have I done? How could I have been so foolish? We must go at once to Wellington.’

In the entrance hall of the house on Rue Royale most of the evening’s candles had already been extinguished. In the half-light they were greeted by Wellington’s secretary, Fitzroy Somerset, still fully dressed. De Lancey spoke quietly.

‘Somerset, we must see his Grace. Immediately. We have grave news.’

Without a word, Somerset hurried them along the dark corridor and up a long flight of steps to the Duke’s bedroom. Entering before them, a few seconds later he showed them both in. Wellington was sitting straight up in bed. He fixed De Lancey with a hard stare.

‘Well then, gentlemen, what is it?’

Dö rnberg spoke. ‘Your Grace, I am afraid that I have been terribly amiss. I am aware that throughout the day you have sent me constant reminders that, should I hear from Colonel Grant or his agents, I should waste no time in at once letting you know. I am afraid, sir, that I have not done so and have only now realized my grave error.’

Wellington said nothing. Dö rnberg continued: ‘It is now clear to me, sir, that yesterday, at about midday, a report which I assumed had simply come to me from a commonplace French Royalist agent was in fact from an agent of Colonel Grant himself. In consequence, sir, I sent you an edited version. I see now from his agent’s description of the dispositions of Bonaparte’s troops that they were without doubt heading directly for Charleroi. For the chaussée running between ourselves and the Prussians – the highway into Brussels.’

Dörnberg stared awkwardly at the floor. Wellington took in a deep breath. Said nothing to Dörnberg but turned to De Lancey.

‘Quatre-Bras, De Lancey. You will order the entire army to collect on Quatre-Bras.’

My God, thought De Lancey. You have been caught out. D’Alava was right. Bonaparte has fooled you and even now is closing with the Prussians while we are too extended to offer any immediate help.

They left Wellington to sleep, Dö rnberg calmer now. Chastened, reprimanded, conscience salved. They rode back to De Lancey’s house, and for the first time since he had arrived in Brussels the Quartermaster General began to worry.

Outside the De Lancey house Dörnberg bade goodnight and rode off to alert his officers. The lights were still lit and Magdalene and the staff all quite awake. For, although the dawn was not yet risen, in the past hour all Brussels had come to life. She met him in the doorway.

‘Oh, William, you must come and look. It is so exciting. So glorious.’

Taking him by the hand, like an eager child on Christmas morning, she led him up the great staircase, into the drawing room and out through the open window on to the balcony.

All across the city drums beat an insistent and cacophanous stand to. Bugles called. Looking into the street he saw soldiers of all ranks, all regiments, spilling out of their billets, some with their erstwhile hosts, a few carrying children high on their shoulders. All was a clatter of soldiers, officers, horses, gun carriages, wagons.

The sky, catching the first rays of dawn, bathed the marching figures in a strange pale light, giving them an unearthly pallor. The morning was a cool and refreshing contrast to the stifling humidity of the previous day and, his tasks finished for the time being, the army about its business, De Lancey too felt refreshed and allowed himself a moment of relaxation as the couple watched in awe as the spectacle unfolded before them.

At first it seemed very solemn. Picton’s division, Kempt’s brigade first, the regiments marching past in column of threes. He saw the 32nd, the men looking exhausted rather than jubilant. No drums played, merely the fifes whistling the plaintive tones of an old march, ‘Guilderoy’. A sudden fear welled inside him. Not for himself, but for Magdalene. She would go to Antwerp. Certainly. But he realized now that he was leaving her as he had promised he never would.

Then the mood changed, and momentarily his fear passed. Another regiment, the 28th, appeared in swaggering style, their band playing ‘The Downfall of Paris’, the old Revolutionary air, the ‘Ça Ira’, the tune that the British had stolen from the French and renamed, the tune which had marked the redcoats’ progress to victory through Spain and into France. And after them came a regiment of Highlanders, swinging down the street, heading for the Charleroi road. By their kilts and the deep green of their facings and their regimental colour, De Lancey recognized them as the 79th, the Camerons.

‘There, Magdalene. Look. Your countrymen.’

‘Oh, William. How bold they look. How very fierce.’

As they passed below the little wrought-iron balcony their pipers struck up the regimental march, and she gave a little jump. And then a huge smile. Tears began to run from her eyes. She looked at him. Pulled him down towards her. Held him as tight as her pale, thin arms could manage. Gently, De Lancey placed his own arm about her waist and ran his hand up her back.

After the Highlanders came the Rifles. Unusually towards the rear of the column. Not for long, he thought. ‘First in, last out’ their motto. Even as he looked, their pace began to quicken. Once on the open road they would open up to double time – light infantry pace. No band for them. Instead they were singing, ‘The girl I left behind me’.

And with it his fear returned. Magdalene alone. Without him. Perhaps forever.

‘Oh, William, I shall never forget this moment.’ She pressed closer to him. Turned again towards the endless column of marching men.

De Lancey followed her gaze and lost himself in the spectacle. Soon. It would be soon now. He felt the thrill rise within him. Soon they would find Bonaparte. And then a battle. Silently, he watched the men file past and prepared to say goodbye.

DAY TWO

FIVE

Braine-le-Comte, 9 a.m. Macdonell

Slowly, and with carefully measured pace, he rode the big grey horse up the cobbled main street of Braine-le-Comte. Ahead of him the way was blocked by a jubilant crowd – peasants, townspeople and soldiers, in British red and Belgian blue. Some civilians, smiling broadly, made effusive gestures, offered bottles of the local schnapps. A few of the soldiers accepted. Belgians rather than British, he presumed. A group of children had begun to run alongside him, half-skipping, half-marching, singing in French:

‘Dansons la carmagnole, Vive le son, vive le son Dansons le carmagnole Vive le son du canon.’

Macdonell recognized the song of the French Revolutionary Republic. No more dangerous now than a children’s rhyme. He smiled at them, then looked up at the high windows of the thin, red-brick houses which lined the street and out of which people were now leaning, straining to catch a glimpse of this moment in history which, without warning, had overtaken the drab existence of their little town. They were women mostly, of all ages and stations, shouting unintelligible flatteries, waving lace handkerchiefs or lengths of orange silk. More scraps of orange material of all sorts were pinned up all along the street – on the walls, signposts, trees. Orange. National colour of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and as close to an expression of loyalty as these people could find for the strange red-coated soldiers who had come to ‘save’ them from the little man whom some still called ‘the monster’.

Macdonell looked as if he might manage the job on his own. Blue-eyed and with a shock of wavy, fair hair, Lieutenant-Colonel James Macdonell had been a professional soldier in the army of King George for more than a score of his thirty-seven years. A soldier ever since that day in 1794, when he had left Oxford and the unsatisfying indolence of his studies to join the Highlanders.

At six foot three inches, half a foot above the average, he sat tall in the saddle, his stature increased all the more by the high, false-fronted black shako, with its gold and crimson cords, shining brass plate of the Garter Star and spotless red and white plume. At his side, in its black leather scabbard, hung a straight-bladed infantry sword – 32 inches of tempered Sheffield steel.

As he continued along the street, Macdonell’s gaze was caught by the dark eyes of a particularly pretty local girl who had come to smile at him from the balcony of a second-storey window. Out of courtesy and intrigue, he smiled back. Then, lest his men should notice, although they were some distance to the rear, he looked away. And in doing so he began to pay closer attention to the people pressing around him – their clothes the long blue smocks of farm labourers. There were women in long-eared caps and thick petticoats. Hard-featured, heavy-set, peasant stock. They had come into town, he imagined, to see the English march through. To welcome him and his men as liberators. Not since Spain had Macdonell received such a hero’s welcome. And this time he had not yet even helped win a battle. Had not yet killed a single Frenchman. They had come too, he quickly realized, with an eye to a little business. For apart from the schnapps he could now see that they had come with cheeses, sides of ham, sausages, live chickens, bread, dark-looking beer. Dangerous place for an army, he thought. He saw too that, beyond the crowd, the main street of this, the key town on the advance of the Anglo-Allied army, through which many units, he presumed, were to pass that morning, had become quite impassable, blocked with wagons – civil and military – in a tangle of transport and manpower which could only be left to the provosts and Scovell’s staff cavalry.

Macdonell turned his horse and trotted her quickly back down the street, towards the waiting head of the column, left in the charge of young Gooch. He liked the boy. One of the battalion’s more promising ensigns. He’d joined the colours three years ago, just a year after Macdonell himself had transferred into the regiment.

‘Mr Gooch. We’ll stop on the east side of the town, away from the main street. Move the men off, if you please. Down that street. Over there. Oh, and send a runner to Colonel Woodford. Tell him that the route through the town is blocked to all troops and suggest he call up the provosts.’

‘Very good, sir. Sar’nt Miller, have your men right face and double into the fields. Oh, and find me the colour sar’nt.’

‘Sir.’

Miller, five foot eight of solid muscle and solid good sense, twice Gooch’s age, turned to the ranks. Raised his voice. Changed its tone. ‘Number one section. By the right. Right turn.’ A crash of boots coming down in unison – grinding leather and hobnails on the cobbles. ‘Forward march.’

With a swinging, rhythmic action, led by Miller’s men, the two light companies of the 2nd and 3rd Regiments of His Majesty’s Foot Guards moved off the main road leading into the town of Braine-le-Comte and down the side-street which led up towards the rising ground of the surrounding fields. Macdonell and the other mounted officers went with them. Reaching the open country he gently urged his horse over a low hedge before dismounting and handing the reins to his soldier-servant, Tom Smith, who, as ever, had materialized silently at his side.

Lush country this, he thought. Very different to Spain. Villages and farms in all directions. Fields rich with crops – wheat, rye, hops. Here and there the top of a steeple, just visible over the gently undulating ground. The roads, though, were not so good. Worse in fact than the Peninsula, were that possible. Uneven surfaces and in bad repair. And now made no better by the rain which had featured on and off throughout the early morning. There was too a sense of neglect about the countryside. Of resignation to forever being in a state of disruption. A sense of a land which, over the centuries, had become accustomed to being no more than a corridor for so many armies. Not just those which had fought here these last twenty years, but the armies of Marlborough’s time and, even before then, those of the old kings of the Middle Ages. This was history-book country. Nursery names – Crécy, Oudenarde. The land was inured to the passage of men. Men on their way to die. It was a land scarred by death and, Macdonell reckoned, would long remain so.

He shivered.

‘Colour Sar’nt Biddle.’

He or Miller never seemed very far away.

‘Sir?’

‘Make sure that the men get something to eat. And that they’re fit to march.’

The men could really suffer on these roads, he thought. Of course their shoes were nothing like the sandals and rags to which some, even officers, had been reduced in Spain. And, since Brunel’s business had taken over the footwear provision, gone too were those ridiculous shoes with the clay insoles, bought in their thousands in a contract which, all knew, had been designed merely to line the pockets of those charming commissary officers at the Horse Guards. Shoes which would disintegrate with the first few drops of rain or on crossing a single stream.

Even so they had come eight, perhaps ten miles already this morning. Smith had woken him at Enghien, long before dawn, with the movement order on Braine-le-Comte. By 4 a.m. they had been en route. Macdonell counted himself fortunate. Some of the officers had managed no sleep whatsoever, having come directly from the grand ball held the previous evening in Brussels by the Duke and Duchess of Richmond. Although invited, Macdonell had chosen not to attend. Oh, he loved to dance. But his way was real dancing. Highland dancing. The dancing in which he delighted back home at Invergarry. Anyway, this was no time to be dancing. And to prove it, George Bowles had come rattling back from Brussels at 2 a.m. to join the route.

Dear George. Six years his junior. A Wiltshire squire’s son and ever the dashing, dandy captain of Number Seven Company. Macdonell caught sight of him now, riding off the road, still clad in his elaborate full dress uniform. And he knew that George was not the only officer on the march that morning dressed in muddy dancing pumps and white hose. But it had not been with the expected tales of amorous exploits that George had returned to camp. As luck would have it he had far more piquant news. He had discovered what they were to do. How they were to be engaged in the coming campaign. And before they had set off that morning he had promised Macdonell a full explanation of what had now brought them to this sodden field after five hours on the road.

As the men unslung their hard, wooden-framed back-packs, removed their battered shakos and prepared to brew their tea, Bowles approached Macdonell, dismounted, leading his horse. He was looking, evidently, for his servant and his baggage which had been strapped, as Macdonell’s was, to a single mule – the transport allowance of every field officer of the Guards. Bowles saw the big Scotsman and, having hallooed him across the field, came shambling over – a difficult feat in his improbable court dress – through the mud and trampled crops.

‘James. James. Have you seen Hughes? Where’s the man gone? I must have my valise. Look at me. This ridiculous costume. And it’s utterly ruined. Another visit to my tailor.’

For once he did not exaggerate. His white silk stockings hung in a sodden, crumpled mess, leaving a gap of bare leg below once-white breeches. On his feet he wore a pair of what had been dancing pumps, one missing a gold buckle.

‘Well, George. You know as well as I do that what pleases the ladies in the ballroom will not suit you for dancing along the road towards the French. And no, I have not seen your man. But now do tell me, as you promised last night. Continue your account, and I myself promise that I in turn will lend you a pair of my own grey overalls.’

‘In your debt, James. Once again. In your debt.’

They were old friends. Had served together through Spain. This was not the first time that one had come to the other’s rescue.

‘And yes, you are quite right, James. I was with the Peer last night. We were at supper at the Duchess’s ball when the Prince of Orange, our dear “slender Billy”, entered the room and spoke a few words in his ear. Wellington told him to go to bed. To bed, James. I heard him myself. In full view of the General Staff. “Go to bed,” he said. And d’you know what the sprat did? He went to bed. Straightway.

‘Well, we sat on. For a half hour. And then Wellington turns to Richmond and declares that he thinks that he himself will go to his own bed. Well, James. I knew what was up and I was having none of it. And sure enough. For no sooner had our old commander made his goodnights and left the ballroom than, as if by some prearranged sign, there was a general exodus of all the senior staff – Daddy Hill, Picton, Kempt, Ponsonby, Uxbridge. Some officers too had already begun to make their own farewells – or I dare say their arrangements for the night, so to speak. But James, I stayed, for I was determined to know more. And sure enough, ten minutes later my good friend Richmond appears from within the house, across the yard from the dancing room, and beckons to me. The Peer, it seems, had asked him for his best map of the area. “Well, George,” says he, “he laid it on a table and, standing before us all, declared as cool as you like: ‘Gentlemen. Napoleon has humbugged me, by God. He has gained twenty-four hours’ march on me.”’

‘James, Bonaparte has attacked at Charleroi and driven back the Prussians. The battle is on. I tell you, we will not rest here, but must march on – to Nivelles. And then further still. To a crossroads – Les Quatre-Bras. That is where Wellington first intends to hold the French. We have a march ahead of us and a battle at the end of it.’

He paused. But only briefly.

‘More than this, though, James. And here is the real route of our destiny. Richmond showed me the map itself and the place on it where the Peer had placed his mark. Had dug it in hard with his thumbnail. It is a long ridge, James. A ridge. Barossa over again. He had seen it, ridden the very ground, he told Richmond, not a year ago. He had marked it out and had the engineers draw up a map of it and kept it in his mind. A ridge. It is to the north of the crossroads. Runs in a line below a road between two villages. That, my friend, is where Wellington intends us to defeat Bonaparte. Between those two villages – Genappe and Waterloo. I cannot find the latter one on the map, but I am sure that is the name Richmond gave.

‘And now, James, if you please. The overalls.’

As Bowles was speaking, Macdonell had been turning over the earth at his feet with the end of a stick. Had drawn, in effect, his own small map of the country described. He stared at it and wondered. Will this indeed be our destiny? My destiny? Will it end there? Will I end? Will we prevail? He looked up. Threw down the stick. Rubbed the earth plan away into the ground with his boot.

‘Ah yes. The overalls. Quite. Well, all in good time, George.’

Bowles frowned. Could see what was coming.

‘You see, George, you shall have your overalls – just as soon as Smith has found my own valise. You shall have them then. As promised.’

Bowles smiled. ‘James, you quite outdo me. I swear we shall yet turn you from a heathen Highland savage into a Guards officer. I wonder whether you’ve not been taking lessons from Mackinnon.’

Macdonell too was smiling, thinking. If you but knew, dear boy. I was taking lessons in guile from my father’s ghillie when you were still in the womb.

Bowles continued: ‘Very well, James. I await your signal.’

He bowed – quite aware of the absurdity of his dress – in an exaggerated ballroom gesture, before leading his horse further into the temporary camp. Macdonell, catching the smile passing over Biddle’s face, straightened his own. Watched as his friend stumbled across the field. Could still hear his voice as, walking away, he passed the small, huddled groups of men: ‘Hughes. Hughes. Dammit. Where is my damned valise? Confound the man. Hughes.’

Macdonell covered his smile with a hand. ‘Colour Sar’nt. Be ready to stand the men to. I expect an order within the half-hour.’

So this was it. Merely the start of a gruelling march. And then not one, but two battles at the end.

‘Tea, sir?’ It was Miller, with the offer of a steaming brew in a dented tin mug.

‘Thank you, no. But thank you, Miller.’

Gooch appeared again. Eager. Shining. Agitated.

‘Colonel. Is it true, sir? Have the French really attacked?’

‘My dear Henry. If they have, they have not attacked us. They have not attacked here. Why don’t you go and find yourself some breakfast? You’re going to need it. I believe that Sar’nt Miller here knows the whereabouts of some good eggs and coffee.’

The sergeant nodded: ‘Sir.’

‘And don’t worry, Henry. You’ll find the French soon enough.’

Or they you, he thought. Better look out for that one. Over-keen. Might find himself on the wrong end of a bayonet. Macdonell sat down on a tree-stump by the low hedge at the roadside, looked at his men. His family. His life. A good life. A warrior’s life. What other life could there be for the son of a Highland chief? His was a family of warriors. Hadn’t his grandfather, Angus Macdonell of Invergarry, been slain by the English at Falkirk in 1746, fighting for the same Jacobite cause to which his brother Alasdair now drank bucolic and secret, sentimental toasts? Wasn’t his brother Lewis a captain in the 43rd? Hadn’t another brother, poor Somerled, named after the Lord of the Isles, perished from fever in the West Indies, an officer in His Majesty’s Navy? Why, even his late brother-in-law Jack Dowling had been a soldier. A Peninsular man like himself. Jack had died in Spain.

Two minutes’ rest, Macdonell decided. He pulled down the brim of his shako and closed his eyes. Of course he had not always been with the Guards, although his countrymen accounted for a good portion of their officers, as they did throughout the army. No. His first commission had been with the Highlanders. He still felt a keen attachment to his own regiment – the 78th – and to all those who went into battle wearing the kilt.

He recalled his days as a new lad of that great regiment. The thrill of donning for the first time the plaid; the feather bonnet. But for all their fine appearance they had seen little action and his real apprenticeship had been in the cavalry. For nine years he had served in the 17th Light Dragoons. Had learnt the skills of swordplay. No great need to learn. He had always been a fine fencer. Had won the praise of his tutor at Oxford for his prowess in the salle. The cavalry had taken him from Ostend to the West Indies. But the Highlanders had always held his attention, and when in 1804 the 78th had formed its second battalion he had transferred back as a major. Had had his portrait painted in Edinburgh to commemorate the event. How his brother, with his love of the pomp and swagger of Highland chieftainship, had loved him for it; and had envied him.

What years those had been. What soldiers to command. Ross-shire men mostly, and hardly an English speaker among them. He recalled the training ground at Hythe. The English drill sergeants, powerless to command the ‘Highland savages’ and his own gentle commands in his native Gaelic which had moulded the company into the fighting unit he had taken into battle. They would have followed him anywhere. To Hell itself. Had followed him within two years to Sicily. Into the French lines at Maida in that glorious charge which had brought him the Gold Medal, the army’s highest honour. He had addressed them afterwards, in Gaelic:

‘Tha mi a’creidsinn, a chairdean, gu bheil subh sgith.’

For the medal was not his, but theirs. And the following year they had gone with Macdonell to India. Discovering with him the mysteries of that beautiful and hellish continent. Returning home with them, he had marched into Edinburgh as their lieutenant-colonel.

There had been tears, a lament for the pipes composed in his honour – ‘Colonel Macdonell’s Farewell to the 78th’ – when, four years ago now, he had transferred from the old regiment into the Guards. It had been inevitable. The brilliance of his military masters never ceased to amaze him. What officer, he often wondered, had put him and his Highlanders – the heroes of Maida, fighting men to the last – on garrison duty in the island of Jersey? Macdonell was a leader, a warrior. Not some clerk. His men had no alternative save to languish in their new role. But, for all his regimental loyalty, Macdonell had been damned if he would suffer the same fate. The exchange of a captaincy in the Coldstream with a callow youth who preferred the comforts of home to the rigours of campaign had cost him the not inconsiderable sum of £3,500. And, thanks to the Guards’ curious system of ‘double-ranking’, his new role still held the equivalent status of lieutenant-colonel in the eyes of the line regiments.

And so he had gone to Spain. Many of the officers and men he saw around him now, chattering, dozing in their weary little groups in this sodden Belgian field, Henry Wyndham, his second-in-command, George Bowles, Miller, the Graham brothers, Josh Dobinson, Motherly, Kite, Fuller, were those whom he had led for two years in the Peninsula. Led through a maelstrom of regimental battle honours – Salamanca, Vitoria, Nivelle, the Nive. They were good men. Not Highlanders, mind. But good, sound fighting men. English, mostly. A few Irish, like the Grahams – though not as many as filled the ranks of the line regiments. They were men like Dan Perkins, the son of a Yorkshire sutler, with a grip like iron and tenacity to match. Men like 27-year-old John Biddle from Worcestershire, his colour sergeant and trusted friend who, with nine years’ service behind him in the battalion, had taught Macdonell the ways of the regiment in the very direct manner that his brother officers never could. There were others, too. New men, brought in from the militia to make up numbers. But, thanks to the attentive ministrations of Battalion Sergeant-Major Baker, they had quickly been assimilated into the regimental family. Macdonell cared for them all with a paternal affection – strict yet compassionate. And they in return were prepared to do anything he ordered. He was their ‘chief’ now. They his ‘clan’. Their loyalty was unto death.

He opened his eyes. Looked at the men again. Thought to himself what a very different sight they presented this morning to the public image of a Horse Guards’ review. Their clothes were largely those with which they had been issued two years back, and their service was beginning to tell. They had not been home since the end of the Spanish war and their famous scarlet coats, once vivid, had faded to a dull brick-red, too often patched and made good. The long-awaited new uniforms had still not arrived, and when they at last met the French it would be like this. Macdonell himself had been fortunate enough to have ordered a new service coat from his tailor in St James’s. It had arrived only last week. Scarlet with blue facings, edged in gold lace and with two heavy gold bullion epaulettes. He had also managed to get a neat new shako direct from Oliphant’s. In effect, he thought, with his grey overalls still missing, forced into white kerseymere breeches and tassled hessian boots, he might look rather too smart. Too tempting a target, perhaps, for a French sharpshooter.

At least he knew that, if they could not parallel his own sartorial pose, his men would do everything else they could to make him proud. Would, if they had half a chance, whitewash their cross-belts to a parade-ground brilliance; polish their brass; hone their leather. More than this, though, they would make him proud of them as soldiers, doing what they were trained to do: kill Frenchmen. He knew that in the heat of battle, when lesser men were panicking, losing their minds if not their lives, his lads would still be standing firm. Two ranks of muskets, spitting smoke, flame and a three-quarter-inch round lead ball. And then, when they had stopped the enemy in his tracks, as they had so many times before, they would follow up with the bayonet. And as for him, thought Macdonell, well, if that Frog sniper hit his mark, then that would be his fate. He was in the business of death and knew that one day it would come looking for him. His duty was to lead from the front. If necessary to fall at the front – as he had seen so many of his brother officers fall, all too often and too closely, in Spain, Sicily and India. Merely duty.

He stood up slowly, straightened his shako and turned to Biddle, who was hovering, alert, close by. ‘What’s our strength, Colour Sar’nt?’

‘This morning, sir, one hundred and ninety-three men, sir, all told. Including that is yourself, sir, and the two colonels, Captain Moore, Captain Evelyn, Captain Elrington and the ensigns, sir – Mister Gooch and Mister Standen.’

In normal circumstances Macdonell’s command – No. 1 Company – consisted only of his own junior officers, Tom Sowerby and John Montagu, ten NCOs and some 100 guardsmen. Ten such companies formed the battalion – Second Battalion, 2nd Coldstream Guards, under Colonel Alexander Woodford. For the last year, however, while the battalion had been stationed here in the Low Countries, Macdonell had been its temporary commanding officer. It was perhaps on account of this responsibility, he supposed, together with his impressive service record, that he now found himself, for the duration of the campaign at least, moved to command of the battalion’s Light Company. And more than this, to the command too of the Light Company of the 3rd Scots Guards, who drew their recruits primarily from his native country. In all, nearly 200 men.

Good to be leading Scots again in what he believed would be the final conflict of these long and bloody wars. Of course they were not, most of them, Highlanders like him. Many originated from Edinburgh and Glasgow. A few were borderers. There were some, though, whom he knew to understand the old tongue. MacGregor, for instance – that big sergeant-major of the 3rd Guards, with the huge grin and hands like spades. Macdonell closed his eyes, and, leaning back against the hedge, attempted to catch a few moments’ rest. Good to lead Scots again. Back where he had started. Full circle.

SIX

Quatre-Bras, 11 a.m. De Lancey

He took a sip of coffee and winced. The brew, which he had accepted gratefully from George Scovell and of whose origins he had thought it best not to enquire, was stronger than that to which he was accustomed and uncommonly bitter. Still, it was fulfilling its purpose. Twice in the last hour he had felt his eyes begin to close. The strain of the previous evening and a profound lack of sleep were starting to tell. It had been 7 a.m. before he had despatched Magdalene, her groom and maid, to Antwerp. He was content at least with her safety, having already made provision for her to be cared for there by Captain Mitchell of the 25th, the Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General to the city. He took another sip of the thick brown liquid and rolled it around in his mouth. He knew of old, from so many mornings in the Peninsula, similarly heavy-lidded under a Spanish sun, that if only he could keep awake until midday he would be able to function till nightfall.

De Lancey had left Brussels at 8 that morning, reaching the Quatre-Bras farm close on 10 o’clock. He and Wellington had ridden hard down the main road from Brussels, their advance party composed only of Somerset, Müffling and a half-troop escort of Life Guards. The remainder of the Duke’s staff – some forty officers, including their friend d’Alava, had followed close behind. They had been greeted by a suitably aggressive picket of green-coated Nassauers, Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, his superior General Perponcher and the Prince of Orange, all still jubilant at having held off what purported to be a sizeable French force. Of that force, however, there was as yet little immediate evidence. In fact Saxe-Weimar and Perponcher had gone against Wellington’s express directive to collect on Nivelles. Securing the authority of the Prince of Orange’s Chief of Staff, the enigmatic and talented General Constant-Rebecque, and in the knowledge that they might be hopelessly outnumbered, they had decided to stand at the crossroads. Naturally the Peer had not thought it politic to mention the fact this morning. For it was just possible, thought De Lancey with wry amusement, that Rebecque’s direct disobedience of an order from the greatest military mind on Earth might have saved the entire campaign.

De Lancey sat astride his horse at the centre of the highest point of what would be, when the army finally arrived, the Allied line. Following Wellington’s example he was clad in a dark blue civilian top-coat, rather than the regulation red tunic. What need had either man for show? Wellington might wear red and gold for parades at the Horse Guards, but in battle he preferred the plain clothes which told his men that here was a man of sober mind and quiet sensibility. The sort of man whom they knew they could trust to win a battle.

Like Wellington too, and the entire General Staff, De Lancey wore a simple black bicorn hat, fore and aft. He had also, since the last years of the Peninsular campaign, taken to imitating Wellington’s habit of strapping a change of clothes to the back of his saddle, and, in place of a pistol holster, a pen and paper, with the addition of a bulging map case and a deep morocco leather document wallet. He reached into it now, pulled out a small field telescope and brought it to his eye.

This was good ground. He was aware that there was not a pronounced reverse slope – the Peer’s preferred defensive ground – behind which to shelter an army from the enemy’s gaze and cannon fire. But it was a good position all the same, its virtues evident on this still, fine morning. Via the small circular lens he traversed the field, moving slowly from the left, along the line of a wood and a lake, through the small village of Quatre-Bras itself, with its few whitewashed houses around the key road junction, to the mass of a larger wood, marked on his map as the Bois de Bossu.

To the left the ground was open, laid mostly to cereal crops, which now stood impressively high. So high, he thought, that within one such a field it might be possible to hide an entire battalion. In the distance, though, on rising ground stood a farm – Pireaumont. In the centre ground lay another, Gemioncourt, with its high walls an ideal strongpoint. It was imperative that they should seize both before the French. In the far distance, beyond the Bossu wood, De Lancey could make out a third and fourth defensive structure, the two farms of Pierrepont. These too should be occupied by the Belgians before it was too late. A voice from his side made him take the glass from his eye.

‘No Crapauds yet, De Lancey?’

It was Alexander Gordon, one of the Duke’s aides and a close friend of both men, along with Fitzroy Somerset, the latter’s hooked nose and angular features giving him the absurd appearance of a diminutive Wellington.

‘None, I’m afraid. That wood may be good cover, but it makes it damnably hard to see who we’re fighting.’

‘Well, I am beginning to wonder,’ said Gordon with a knowing smirk, ‘exactly where the Prince’s “French corps” might be.’

‘I did hear a little popping musketry,’ interjected Somerset.

‘Ours or theirs?’ asked Gordon.

‘I … I couldn’t really say.’

De Lancey smiled. ‘Muskets or not, I can feel them there. Our reports suggest an entire corps. Perhaps more. Reille or d’Erlon. Probably under Ney. Cavalry too. We’ve had sightings of lancers.’

Gordon shuddered. ‘Well, we’d better make damned sure that our own cavalry are here before they do attack.’

Somerset spoke again. ‘I believe that the Prince has told his Grace that one of his Dutch cavalry brigades is on its way from Nivelles, even now.’

Gordon, unimpressed, sighed and looked despairingly to De Lancey. ‘Where is Uxbridge and the English cavalry? Do we know?’

‘On his way to Nivelles from Braine-le-Comte. Or so I’ve told the Peer. I had supposed that he might arrive here early in the afternoon. But I’m beginning to wonder whether perhaps I haven’t been a little hasty.’

Before leaving Brussels Wellington had asked De Lancey to draw up a detailed list of the exact dispositions of the army. This, after some deliberation, he had done, basing it on the orders he had sent out the previous evening. In his haste, though, and amid all the chaos of packing and getting dear Magdalene safely off to Antwerp, he was uncertain as to whether he had been thinking of the Duke’s first or second set of orders. It gave the impression of the army having advanced somewhat further east than in fact it had. He was far from happy with the document.

But he felt that he and the Peer had such a degree of understanding and such was the exigency of the hour that it would suffice. He had presented it to Wellington at 7.30, just as they were setting off, explaining its meaning as they moved out of the city. It was not, he had emphasized, quite as precise as he would have wished, but it did, he believed, convey the situation well enough. The Duke had been satisfied. But still De Lancey couldn’t help but feel that he might have committed a grave error. His troubled reverie was disturbed by voices. Somerset and Gordon had reined their horses round to greet the approaching figure of Wellington and some twenty of his staff. Spotting De Lancey, the Duke rode closer.

‘A good position, De Lancey. Is it not?’

‘Indeed it is, your Grace. Not ideal, perhaps, but I believe that we can make it do.’

‘My only concern is the speed with which the rest of the army will reach us. I have not been in such a very unpromising situation in the matter of reinforcements since, when would you say?’ He paused. ‘Well, I will tell you. Fuentes de Onoro. Portugal. Four years ago. You recall, William? We were a divided force then. Outnumbered and over-extended. But we beat them, gentlemen. And so here we are again. And we can do so again. Can we not, gentlemen? What have we exactly? Somerset?’

‘Our current strength comprises Prince Bernhard’s 2nd Brigade of Dutch and Belgians, your Grace. That is the 2nd Nassau infantry of some 2,800 men and the regiment of Orange-Nassau, numbering perhaps 1,500. They have been here since yesterday and early this morning were reinforced by the remaining units from Baron Perponcher’s division. That is Bylandt’s brigade of Dutch and Belgians, your Grace. Principally militia. In total I believe that we can currently field some 7,500 men. With eight cannon.’

‘And when might we expect to see the first of our own lads? What of Picton? De Lancey. Your report.’

‘As I said, your Grace, I believe that the reserve will be in Genappe by noon. They will be the first to reach the field. Perhaps by two o’clock, your Grace. The cavalry should not be far behind.’

‘Well, we shall see. In any event I must send a despatch across to Blücher. He must have my assurance. We cannot afford to have his generals persuade him to turn. Without him, gentlemen, we are lost. We must persuade Prince Blücher that we shall soon be in a position to come to his aid. And to judge from your note of this morning, De Lancey, I see no reason to suppose otherwise.’

De Lancey opened his mouth to suggest that the memorandum had not been entirely accurate, that perhaps the British and Allies might not be as close to them as the Peer imagined, but quickly decided that it would be better to say nothing. If the Prussians felt reassured, if they stood and fought, with or without Wellington, then they all had a chance. He nodded.

‘Quite so, your Grace.’

Wellington called for an aide and began to dictate: ‘To Field-Marshal Blücher, at Sombreffe:

‘My Dear Prince,

My army is situated as follows: Of the corps of the Prince of Orange, one division is here around Frasnes and Quatre-Bras. The remainder at Nivelles. My reserve is on the march from Waterloo to Genappe, where it will arrive at noon. The English cavalry will at the same hour be at Nivelles. Lord Hill’s corps is at Braine-le-Comte.

I cannot see any great force of the enemy in front of us and await news from your Highness and the arrival of troops before I decide on my operations for the day.

‘Conclude, “Your very obedient servant”. The usual form.’

He turned back to De Lancey. Smiled. ‘I think that will do it.’ Then to Somerset. ‘That farm, Somerset. The central position. Make sure that we hold it. Tell the Prince of Orange it is vital to the battle. Send down … a battalion of Nassauers. And Somerset, make sure that he covers the two farms further forward, to the left and right. And now to business. What new intelligence have we of the French? Scovell, come and tell me what you know while I tour the lines. Gentlemen, will you join us?’

Reining his horse down the slope behind the Duke’s party, towards the thin line of blue-clad Belgian infantry, De Lancey felt more keenly something which he had sensed immediately on first arriving at the crossroads. Now, he thought, I am at the centre of the world, the vortex into which events are being drawn. More than ever before, I am standing on the edge of the precipice. Nervously, he touched the reassuring coolness of the small, round stone in his pocket. All over Belgium, he thought, thousands of men are marching directly towards this curiously insignificant place, with its farms and its woods and its strangely shaped lake. Are marching towards the coming battle. Marching towards their fate. Towards death. Marching directly towards me.

SEVEN

Braine-le-Comte, 12 noon Macdonell

Macdonell was awakened by a respectful cough. He had been dreaming. Running through a stream of cool water in the shadow of friendly purple mountains, dappled with Highland sunshine. Opening his eyes he found instead only the florid face of Sergeant Miller.

‘Begging your pardon, sir.’

‘Sar’nt?’

‘Galloper, sir. From General Cooke, sir.’

Macdonell stood up, brushed his jacket, straightened his shako. Saw before him a boy of perhaps seventeen, in the ornate uniform of the Life Guards – Grecian helmet, high collar. The courier began to speak, stammering the orders out with a slight lisp.

‘The general’s compliments, Colonel, and would you move your men to the right and around the town and back on to the road. We proceed in the direction of Nivelles.’ And then, slightly embarrassed to be giving his superior officer an order: ‘With the greatest of haste, sir, if you please. You are the vanguard of the entire division.’

Macdonell nodded.

The aide coloured, nodded uncertainly in return, pulled round his horse and galloped away.

‘Sar’nt.’

‘Sir.’

Miller moved quickly. Some of the men had overheard the orders and, even before the sergeant had barked his commands, were already beginning to pack up. Swearing; fastening buttons and packs; scratching; stamping tired feet; shaking limbs. If the job was to be done they might as well get on with it. Quickly they transformed from a resting rabble into a smartly formed-up unit of recognizable platoons and companies.

It was midday. The sun was high in the sky. For three hours they had sat here. Such delays were nothing new to Macdonell. But surely, if George Bowles were to be believed, haste was of the essence. Someone – from his broad Devon accent and tuneful baritone, Macdonell guessed it to be Tarling, the company bard – began to sing:

‘Her golden hair in ringlets fell, her eyes like diamonds shining,

Her slender waist with marriage chaste, would leave a swan reclining.

Ye Gods above now hear my prayer, to me beauteous fair to bind me

and send me safely back again to the girl I left behind me.’

Biddle roared: ‘That man there. Who gave you permission to speak?’

‘I was singing, Colour Sergeant.’

‘I don’t care if you were playing the bloody piano, Tarling. No one ordered you to sing. Get fell in. I’ll tell you when you can sing.’

Still dusting themselves off, straightening their kit, the Guards gradually regained the Nivelles road and fell into step. It was drier now and, as they marched, clouds of yellow dust began to rise from beneath their feet. There was no more singing, just the tramp of leather and the repeated clank of wooden canteen against bayonet. The marching soon regained its regular motion. Seventy paces to the minute. Regular and steady, thought Macdonell. None better. He noticed now that there were fewer civilians on the road. Houses too were more obviously deserted. Signs that they were nearing the battle. Sometimes, from one of the few cottages still occupied, small children would venture out, sent to offer bread or fresh eggs to the sergeants. Macdonell, usually strict in such matters, turned a blind eye. It was freely given and he knew that Biddle and the other sergeants would ensure that all the men who deserved to would have a share.

It was early afternoon when at last they reached Nivelles. They came smartly to a halt. Macdonell could hear the guns now. How far away, he wondered. Five, ten miles? Ours or theirs? Corporal James Graham approached him, brushing dust from his tunic.

‘Sure, sir, that’ll be all for the day now from the good general. Do you not think?’

‘It is not my place, or yours, Corporal, to think about orders. But d’you hear that?’ He indicated the direction of the gunfire. ‘No. I am very much afraid that we have not seen the end of the road today. Look to your fellows if you would. Put them at ease.’

He was wise to rest them. It was a full ten minutes before he saw the young aide riding up. Redder in the face than ever, but more assured now.

‘Colonel Macdonell, sir. You are to advance into the town. If you please. Colonel Woodford’s orders, sir. And would you be so kind as to ascertain as to whether the town is held by the French, sir.’

Macdonell loosened his sword belt. Prepared to draw. ‘Have them untie ten rounds, Colour Sar’nt.’

Biddle turned to the company. ‘Ten rounds and look to your flints.’

Nervous hands fumbled with the strung-together cartridges, making ready for combat.

Macdonell began to act with automatic ease. This was his natural state. ‘Officers, to your companies. Bayonets if you please, Mr Gooch.’

He heard the familiar clank and scrape of barrels as 200 17-inch triangular blades were slotted into place. Macdonell drew his sword. Rested it flat against his right shoulder.

‘Follow me.’

They advanced 200 yards. A too familiar eternity. Waiting for the flash of the first enemy musket from behind a wall or through a window. The flash. The scream. But none came. And then they were in the town. There was no firing. No French. Merely a mess of abandoned possessions and confused local civilians, none of whom seemed sure of what to do. In the gutter to his right, sitting up against a wall, Macdonell saw his first Allied casualty of the campaign, a captain of Belgian militia. His grey trousers were covered in blood. He had been shot through the calf and the tourniquet improvised from his orange sash seemed to have staunched the bleeding, which had already stained it a deeper red. As Macdonell looked at him he smiled and spoke softly. ‘Hurry on. It does not go well for us.’

Macdonell said nothing. Hoping that the men had not heard the Belgian’s halting English and ignoring the alternately ecstatic and bewildered civilians, he led the two light companies along the street and within a few minutes had arrived at the end of the town. He gave the order to return bayonets to scabbards and sent a runner back to battalion headquarters to report that no contact had been made with the enemy. To his surprise, the man returned almost immediately with the order to stand down. As the light companies moved off the road and once again began to unshoulder packs and prepare their rations, Macdonell heard again, quite clearly, the sound of gunfire. Surely this was no time to make camp?

He was on the point of riding to the adjutant to enquire of the decision when past him, at full pelt, coming from the direction of Quatre-Bras, rode two men on foam-flecked horses. One he recognized as George Scovell, of Wellington’s staff, the other as an officer of Scovell’s cavalry staff corps – Wellington’s messengers. A few minutes later they rode back and, to his surprise, straight up to him. Scovell addressed him:

‘Colonel, you are to proceed immediately in the direction of Les Quatre-Bras. Lord Wellington’s forces are engaged in battle and you must join them with all speed. On arriving on the field you will see that the French have the object of gaining a large wood to your right. This is the Bois de Bossu. Should they do so they will hold this road and with it our flank and the key to Brussels. You must at all costs prevent this being done. The light companies will be the first to arrive. Yourself and those of the First Guards. You must hold the wood until relieved by the remainder of the division. Is that clear?’

‘Quite clear, sir. You may depend upon it.’

Without another word Scovell and his companion turned and were gone.

Macdonell gave the order to march and once again, and with an audible collective groan, the campfires were extinguished, the half-cooked rations abandoned.

Back on the road, leaving the town behind them, the division continued to advance in the direction of Quatre-Bras. It was mid-afternoon now and the shadows were growing longer. With every step the guns grew more clearly audible, bringing a new urgency. And with it, Macdonell knew that among the new recruits, at least, there would come an unwanted sense of unease. He turned to Gooch, who was riding immediately behind him.

‘Mr Gooch, send word to Colonel Woodford. Beg to suggest to him that it may quicken our pace were he to have the music strike up.’

And so, to the strains of the march from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, only recently adopted as the new regimental quick march, the Coldstreamers again began to move. Now though, as Macdonell had anticipated, they had a fresh spring in their step. The open road ran on before them. Turning on a sudden whim he looked to his rear.

Beyond his own two companies, beyond Dan Mackinnon’s tall grenadiers, came the entire division, a great, dust-shrouded, red, black and grey snake, stretching away into the distance, punctuated at regular intervals by stiffly saddled officers rising high above the ranks. Just visible near the front, behind No. 4 Company, waving in the breeze, he saw his battalion colours. Those three sacred, six-foot squares of crimson silk: the colonel’s colour with the Garter Star; the lieutenant-colonel’s, with the Union flag; and the major’s, with its blazing stream of woven gold. The honour, the spirit, the soul of the regiment. They had carried them to Egypt, to Talavera and Barrosa – through the battles whose names they now bore – and then on to Salamanca and Vitoria. Soon they would carry them to Quatre-Bras and deep into the darkness of Bossu wood. Then they would find the French.

EIGHT

Ligny, 3 p.m. Ziethen

Even here, on the rising ground, high above the village of Ligny the atmosphere was oppressively humid. It was not so much the weather, although the sky looked set for a storm, but the intense heat and smoke and the cloying smell of gunpowder produced by the battle which had raged for almost an hour now on the plain below. It had started, as they always started, thought Ziethen, with three shots fired by a single French battery, timed at regular intervals, and sounding, as von Reiche had once remarked to him, like the opening notes of an opera. He knew what would come next, and soon the valley had filled with the music of the French regimental bands. He recognized one old favourite: ‘La victoire en chantant’. Within a few minutes, however, the instruments had been drowned by the crack of musketry and the thunder of cannon fire.

The opening moves had come shortly after 2 o’clock. Ziethen, along with Gneisenau and Blü cher, had watched with interest from their hilltop vantage point on the heights above Brye as French cavalry, Dragoons by the look of their crested yellow metal helmets, had galloped towards their left flank. It was evidently a feint, though, or a holding action, for no sooner had the Prussians begun to plan a response than two French infantry columns had emerged from the wood behind the village of Fleurus opposite them, where Napoleon had established his own command centre, and begun their steady march down the hill.

The Prussians waited, behind the limited cover of their defensive position. On Blü cher’s orders, Ziethen had drawn up his I Corps, the front line of the Prussian army, in a long ‘S’ shape, ranged 10 kilometres in a string of hamlets which ran along the course of a stream, the Ligne. It was a good defensive feature; its pleasant banks – lined with willows, alders and brambles – were naturally marshy and would be impassable to infantry under fire. The French would be channelled on to the four bridges across the Ligne. Forced into bottlenecks, which, if the Prussians used their time carefully, raking them with cannon and musket fire, would soon become crammed with enemy dead and dying.

On the right, in the houses of Wagnelée, La Haye and St Amand, Ziethen had placed Steinmetz’s dependable Brandenburgers and Westphalians and Jagow’s crack 29th Infantry. In the centre, around Ligny itself, the largest of the villages with two farms, a church and a walled cemetery, and in Potriaux and Tongrinnelle, stood Henckel’s 19th Regiment and the remainder of Jagow’s men. Here also was Krafft’s brigade, detached from II Corps. The left flank and the farming settlements of Boignée, Balatre and Bothey were held by Carl von Thielemann’s III Corps. The reserve cavalry, Uhlan and Landwher lancers mostly, Blü cher had positioned in a hollow behind Ligny. Pirch’s brigade stood just behind the commanders, on the heights of Brye.

The second line of II Corps had arrived at midday and fallen into its pre-ordained supporting position on the forward slope of the high ground along the Nivelles road, centred on Sombreffe. In all Blücher’s men numbered around 84,000. Yet, as Ziethen was well aware, they were barely enough for such an extended front. This was nevertheless the plan which had been prepared and agreed upon by the General Staff a month ago. And as such it must be adhered to. Their precise positions, though, thought Ziethen, were not as had been prescribed – on a north – south axis. Napoleon’s direction of attack had forced them to wheel ninety degrees, with their forward positions now taking the form of a vulnerable salient. It was far from ideal.

As much had been evident two hours ago to Wellington, who had ridden into the camp with a small escort of his staff, and gone largely unrecognized by the majority of the Prussian soldiers. The Duke had been greeted by Colonel Hardinge, an amiable officer of the English Guards, attached to Blü cher’s staff, whom Zeithen had come to know and admire over the past few days. Taken by Hardinge to Blücher, Wellington had climbed with him, and Gneisenau, Ziethen and von Reiche, to the top of the windmill that stood high above the village, affording a wide view of the plateau below. The Prussian commander was unsettled. Ziethen knew that he had a recurring problem with his back. He had been on horseback since dawn and would doubtless be in a bad mood. He was clearly beginning to feel his seventy years. And Ziethen had also noticed an alarming stiffness in his commander’s legs as they had climbed to the top of the mill earlier that morning.

Back at their makeshift observatory, they had stood in silence as, revealing nothing, Wellington surveyed the positions. Ziethen had met the hero of Vitoria only once before, last year, in Vienna. He admired his composure. With such coolness he might almost have been a Prussian officer rather than an Englishman. It was this, perhaps, along with the value of his word and his effect on the morale of troops on a battlefield, which he knew Blücher most valued. Gneisenau of course was another matter. Had it been up to him, the Prussians would not now be acting in concord with the English, but would have waited for the promised Austrian army to arrive. But that, they all knew, would have been too late. And so, reluctantly, the Chief of Staff had bowed to the wishes of the Field Marshal. This morning he stood at a little distance from the rest of the party, absorbed, apparently in his own observations.

At one point von Reiche had become excited, spotting on an opposite slope a group of French officers, with among their glittering finery a little man in a drab grey coat. He’d turned to Gneisenau: ‘Bonaparte, your Highness. It’s Bonaparte.’

The Chief of Staff had put a field-glass to his eye. Even Blücher had looked. The Duke alone had continued his inspection in silence, before at length turning to Blü cher. Why, he asked, had he not made use of the reverse slope? Surely the Prussian reserves would take a pounding from the French guns? Ziethen had relished the Field Marshal’s reply: ‘My men like to see their enemy.’

At length, as they were about to descend from the tower, Gneisenau, ever distrustful, had asked the Duke if he would send at least a division as quickly as possible along the Namur road, towards the Prussian lines. Again Wellington had remained silent. And then, pretending to ignore the request, had spent some time with Hardinge, poring over Blü cher’s maps. Nevertheless, before riding off, he had finally offered his assurances that he would come to their aid – providing of course that he was not attacked himself. A conditional promise. Better than none, thought Ziethen. Although within the hour he had cause to doubt his conclusion.

The first great attack had come in three huge, extended columns, each with a cloud of skirmishers in front, which had smashed their way, without waiting for a covering cannonade, through the four-foot high corn towards St Amand and Jagow’s 29th Infantry. The Prussian artillery had done dreadful work among the French, scything into their ranks. And still they came on. Once at the village Jagow’s 2,000 men had poured volley after close-range volley into the front ranks. Yet still they came. It had taken no more than fifteen minutes for the French to drive the beleaguered 29th out of St Amand. This success seemed to be the signal for a wider attack, as the other villages came under a withering fire from, he estimated, at least 100 French cannon. In La Haye, Steinmetz had attempted a counter-attack and moved his brigade reserves against St Amand to bolster the decimated but unbroken 29th.

Where, though, was Wellington? Perhaps, he thought, Gneisenau’s fears were not groundless. About one thing, however, the Duke had been right. The French artillery had been raking the reserve lines for almost an hour. Firing high over the heads of the front line, their ricocheting cannonballs had taken a terrible toll of II Corps. Surely the English would hear that? Surely they must march to the guns? Quietly, Ziethen cursed Gneisenau for his damnable ability to be right.

A roundshot, whistling a little too close over his head, en route for the reserve, brought Ziethen back to the present. Peering ahead, into the valley, he could see, across the entire front, dense columns of French pressing home their attack. Reports were coming in from all sides.

A messenger rode up. One of Jagow’s aides, sent from the bloodbath at Ligny.

‘Herr General, Major-General Jagow begs to inform you that he is facing renewed attacks. He estimates over 10,000 French infantry. He requests reinforcements, sir, but asks me to inform you that he will hold till the last man. He is even now exhorting his men to die for the Fatherland.’

‘Tell him I can promise nothing. I have no more troops in reserve and the whole of II Corps is under heavy fire and unable to manoeuvre. No. Wait. Tell the general. Tell him that something … someone … some men will be with him soon. Tell him to hold on.’

Another rider. This time from Steinmetz. He recognized him. Captain Werner. His face black with gunpowder. A sword cut across his chin.

‘Herr General. Major-General Steinmetz begs to inform you that he has taken more than 2,000 casualties and has been forced out of the village, sir. St Amand is lost. He requests further orders, sir. Shall we counter-attack?’

Ziethen thought for a moment.

‘No, Werner. Tell the general to regroup. To form up before the village. To consolidate whatever remains of his brigade. Tell him that I’m coming. That I’m bringing reserves. Tell him to wait for my arrival. Understand?’

With St Amand gone, their right flank and with it their link with Wellington would be seriously threatened. This had not been part of the master plan. Incredibly, although they must outnumber Napoleon by 10,000 men, they were losing the battle. Ziethen was haunted by memories of Jena. Disgrace. Humiliation. But this was a different army. It was also different, though, from that which had crushed Bonaparte at Leipzig. It was hard to believe how quickly last year the General Staff in their wisdom had disbanded that army. Hard too to credit the short time it had taken to assemble the one now suffering so badly. Young and green, it had been well drilled and disciplined to react like the modern army it must be. But it was still an army constituted for the most part from conscripts and militia. He only hoped that what it lacked in experience it could make up in determination. So far, at least, it seemed to be holding.

Riding around the base of the windmill, Ziethen searched for Blü cher, but found only Gneisenau. Surly. Frowning. A cannonball had cut his horse from under him. He rounded on Ziethen.

‘Well, my dear count. What of this? You will no doubt recall that I advised you that we should not stand here. That we should retire on Liège. Tell me, General von Ziethen, where do you suppose, at this moment, is the Duke of Wellington?’

Ziethen did not rise to the bait, but remained set on the matter in hand.

‘Sir, I must find Marshal Blü cher. We must reinforce the right flank. Both St Amand and La Haye have fallen. We must retake the villages. If we do not we are lost. Our flank will be turned.’

‘Prince Blü cher is down in the valley.’ He gestured towards Ligny. ‘He is doing what he does best. Inspiring men to fight for their country. I am in command.’

‘Then, your Highness, you must decide. Have I your permission to send in a brigade of II Corps?’

‘Count von Ziethen, you are aware that I do not believe that Wellington will come to our aid. But you and I must agree that there is no point in our sacrificing the army. We cannot afford to risk being taken in the flank. Yes, the villages must be retaken. Do what you have to.’

Ziethen called an aide. ‘Send this to II Corps.

‘To Herr General von Tippelskirch, 5th Infantry Brigade. By order of Count von Gneisenau, you will advance to the outskirts of the village of St Amand where you will reinforce General von Steinmetz. You will take the village and hold the position at all costs. Cavalry will be in support.’

As Werner rode off to deliver the order, Ziethen looked again across the valley. Clouds of dense white smoke enveloped the battlefield, along the length of the stream. As ever more wounded emerged dazed and bloody from its depths, so further reinforcements were pressed forward out of sight, to plug the new gaps in the line.

Howitzer shells were falling in the villages, in Ligny in particular, setting houses on fire. In the few brief lulls in the firing, Ziethen could hear the frenzied screams of the wounded trapped inside. He imagined them – boys mostly, dying so horribly in their first, their only battle.

Another rider delivered a hand-written note from General Henckel. There was hand-to-hand fighting in the streets of Ligny. Every lane, even the gardens, was choked with the dead. And all the time it seemed that, inch by inch, the French were gaining ground. In the fields behind him, the greater part of II Corps stood in its positions on the forward slope, pinned down by the French artillery. Unable to reinforce the line.

For an instant the smoke grew less dense and, noticing a gap, Ziethen rode 100 yards forward down the slope and put a telescope to his eye. Bizarrely, he was able see quite clearly. Down in Ligny a brigade of French infantry was moving in to the attack. He saw them break into a charge, some of them peeling away down a hollow track across which Jagow’s men had dropped felled trees, farm machinery, furniture, pews from the church. Faced by this tangle, the French came to a halt. For a moment. Then the press from behind, the sheer weight of numbers, began to push the front ranks forward, crushing them against the makeshift barricades, moving them by force of human bodies. Trampling over their own men, they reached the church. Without warning, as Ziethen continued to stare, from behind the walls of the churchyard, from the cover of tombstones and from windows, Jagow’s infantry opened up. Perhaps twenty score of French fell at once. He took the telescope away. Wiped the dusty lens, looked again. Saw yet another French column rush into the town and towards the church. This time they were met with bayonets.

Ziethen gazed in unconcealed horror at the ferocity of the fighting. Men were firing into each other at close range. Blowing off pieces of their adversaries. Leaving smouldering black powder marks around the wounds. He saw French and Prussians alike fall by the score. Saw, quite clearly, a young Prussian grenadier use the butt of his musket to beat out the brains of a voltigeur before he too was cut down by the slashing sword of a French officer. Who in turn was shot point-blank through the mouth. A sergeant of chasseurs was beating the bloody head of an already dead Jäger rifleman against the wall of the burning church. Never, in twenty years of soldiering, could Ziethen remember witnessing such basic, primeval violence.

For a moment the French appeared to falter. And then another officer, a full colonel, rode up and rallied them and, although he could hear nothing above the din of battle, Ziethen could see the blue-coated infantry shouting, mouthing oaths to the glory of their Emperor, before they disappeared into the madness of the mêlée.

Drained, he dropped the glass from his eye. Stared in silence. If they continued to fight like this, surely the French would win against any odds. Gneisenau must commit the entire reserve. Bring them down now, never mind the cannon fire. Ziethen raised his telescope again. Swung it round to the left of Ligny and across the stream. A glint of brass caught his eye. Cannon barrel.

He called to von Reiche. ‘Do you see that?’

There was no question about it. Artillery. He counted more than ten batteries. Heavy guns manned by men in peaked bearskins, being moved up towards Ligny. Bonaparte intended to reduce the village to rubble. And after that he would be free to swing those twelve-pounders around and enfilade either wing of the Prussian army.

All they could hope for now, it seemed, was to hold out until nightfall brought an end to the fighting. Then perhaps the survivors might join with the English tomorrow.

In the sky the storm clouds were gathering, steadily growing heavier. Where in God’s name, he wondered, was Wellington? And then, remembering his promise to Jagow, Ziethen set off, back up the hill, in search of the reinforcements.

NINE

Quatre-Bras, 3.45 p.m. Ney

He sat on Mortier’s old horse, in the centre of the line, by the wood behind the little whitewashed farm, and stared at the pall of white smoke rising from the crossroads. Ney knew that he must work to calm himself. Wasn’t Aglaé always telling him so? He must control his temper. But, he reasoned, General Bachelu had been asking for it. Of course it was true that the high crops might conceal more of the enemy. There were always hidden dangers in battle. So why, he had asked him, had Bachelu ever become a soldier? Was he afraid? Ney had to admit it was a bit severe. More than that, it was unfair. Unjust. Ney bit his lip. Knew that the only reason he had treated the general so badly had been his own frustration. His orders from the Emperor had only arrived late in the morning, delivered in person by Charles de Flahaut. It was good to see the handsome young general. A reminder of happier times. Flahaut was the lover of Hortense de Beauharnais, the Emperor’s stepdaughter, and had been Aglaé’s favourite singing partner in so many concerts at their Paris home. Ney had always been a little jealous.

It was a short message. Ney was to engage the English at once. Take the crossroads. But it had not taken him long to realize that, if he were to safeguard his flank, Bossu wood must also be secured. A frontal assault on the wood? Reille advised caution. Instead, Ney had decided to attack the Allied left. To make for the Namur/Nivelles road and to take it at the hamlet of Paradis. That done, he calculated, the Dutch would be forced to abandon the big wood to save their own flank. There would not be, as the Emperor had demanded, some daring coup de main. The only way to beat Wellington at this game, Ney knew, was to muster his men and simply press the Allies into the ground by weight of numbers. A mass attack in the old style. Of course the French would take casualties. But d’Erlon’s corps would be here soon to exploit the gap, and after that the way to Brussels would lie open. It was a brilliant plan. Worthy of the Emperor.

It had, however, taken the remainder of the morning to manoeuvre into position. Twenty thousand men had moved from column of route to column of division and finally into column of attack. Twenty-four battalions, each of them with a frontage of sixty men and nine ranks deep. At length, it was not until 2 o’clock, far later than Ney had originally intended, that he had sent them in.

Bachelu needn’t have worried. His division had simply walked through the handful of Dutch skirmishers. A thirty-gun cannonade had knocked out one Dutch battery in spectacular fashion, blowing up an ammunition caisson and sending men, parts of men and horses and shards of wood flying thirty feet into the air. True, Foy’s division over on the left had been harried by the remaining Dutch guns, but another barrage soon silenced them. Then Foy’s men had pushed into the edge of the wood, forcing back the Nassauers. Within an hour Ney had advanced 1,000 yards. On cue, Jerome’s division had arrived.

Looking through a field-glass at the crossroads, Ney had also noted the arrival among the Dutch of fresh, green-coated troops. More Nassauers. Running, curiously, into position. It was of no consequence. What was important was to take the crossroads before Wellington was able to deploy his English.

The central farm, Gemioncourt, was held in force. Ney moved quickly. Sent in four of Foy’s regiments to the assault, supported by Piré’s lancers. As they moved relentlessly forward, a rider approached the marshal from the direction of Paradis. A dust-covered captain of infantry.

‘Captain Letort, sire, of the 3rd Line. From Colonel Baron Vautrin. I have urgent news. The English, sire. They’re on the road. At Paradis and at the crossroads.’

‘Impossible, Captain. I can see no redcoats. Where are they?’ Ney peered through his telescope.

‘Not redcoats, sire. Riflemen. And believe me, they’re there. In the Bois de Cherris.’

Of course. Those running, green-coated infantry who had reinforced the Dutch skirmishers. Not Nassauers at all, but English riflemen. Raising his glass again, Ney tried to make them out, but the smoke was now too dense. He swung the telescope round to his left and instantly knew the report to be right. There in the middle distance, behind the thin hedge which flanked the road, was a line of red. Redcoats, their black shakos ranged in four ranks, under fluttering regimental colours – one dark blue, the other the cross of the British Union flag. Beyond them he saw others. Men in skirts. Highlanders.

Now Ney began to sense the danger. Now at last he had to acknowledge that this was no Dutch provincial general facing him out there across this shallow valley. This was Wellington, the master of concealment. For all Bachelu’s fears, the cover of the crops did not concern him so much as what lay beyond. Who knew what troops the English commander had now behind the crossroads? This could be Bussaco again and, if he were to be honest, Ney knew that somewhere out of sight, probably on the slight reverse slope to his rear, Wellington was massing a considerable body of infantry.

He turned to Reille, sitting silently on his horse, a few paces behind him. ‘The English, Reille. Wellington. You remember Bussaco? No, no. Of course. You weren’t there.’

‘Sire.’

The general was quiet. But Ney remembered Bussaco. Foy too. Would never forget it. Five years ago. The early morning mist lifting over a wooded hillside. His own VI Corps advancing in two massive columns, into what he had assured them was a retreating enemy. Advancing under light cannon fire to the crest of the hill. And then the shock. The two English battalions that had appeared from nowhere, delivering volley after unforgiving volley into their ranks. Sending the survivors hurtling down the slope in panic. Coming after them with the bayonet. There had been riflemen there too. Short swords screwed to the barrels of their guns. By 8 a.m. it had all been over. After Bussaco nothing had been the same. Wellington.

‘You see, Reille.’ Ney was suddenly animated. ‘At this moment Wellington will be manoeuvring his men out of sight. Behind that slope. Well, we are wise to his game, Reille. And we still outnumber him.’

Even as he spoke a great cheer went up from the centre of the line. Foy’s men had taken Gemioncourt.

As they emerged into the open ground on the other side, however, Ney saw a mass of cavalry move across the field towards the right. Sky-blue hussar uniforms and what looked strangely like green-clad French chasseurs. Dutch cavalry. They spurred headlong into Foy’s emerging infantry, managing to ride many down before they were able to form rallying squares. Within minutes, though, he could discern on the left the distinctive helmets of their own lancers. They took the Dutch in the flank, causing havoc. Men pulled back on their horses, tried to run. Turned, only to meet more lancers behind them. The Dutch Hussars and light dragoons wheeled about in disorder. Tried to find a way out. And then they were all streaming back up the road, the lancers hard after them. He saw more Dutchmen fall. Taken not by lance but by musketry. Mistaken by the redcoats, he realized with grim amusement, as they had been at first by him, for French. Rollin rode up.

‘Sire. Prince Jerome has advanced into Bossu wood, on a line with the farm, sire, as you ordered.’

‘Good, Rollin. That’s fine. Fine. Any news of d’Erlon?’

‘None, sire. But we know that he has left Jumet.’

Ney grunted. Where was I Corps? Jumet? D’Erlon was not even at Gosselies. Still, despite the presence of the English, things were going well. Jerome it seemed had taken almost half of the wood without firing a shot. Was ready to attack. Ney rode towards the left of the line, trailing in his wake his string of officers. As he approached Bossu wood, scattered shots began to ring out from the Allied skirmish line. He ignored them. Until one caught his horse square in the neck. It crumpled beneath him, trapping a booted leg.

‘Rollin, Heymes. Get me out. Help me.’

The two aides dismounted and rushed to Ney. Pulled him from beneath the dying animal. A fresh horse was brought up, the second he had purchased from the stricken Mortier.

Winded, bruised, Ney paused briefly before mounting, then continued towards the wood. He must take Bossu wood. Take the wood and he would be able to turn Wellington’s flank.

‘What troops oppose us in the wood, Heymes? Do we know?’

‘As far as we can tell, sire, just the Belgians. We have seen only blue coats, sire. No red.’

What was Wellington playing at? He had positioned his veteran English units on his left flank, and left only the half-trained, skittish Dutch militia to defend this key position. Foolish. He had made a fundamental mistake. And Ney would make sure that it was fatal.

Reaching the flank of Jerome’s column he rode between the trees, his new horse nervously picking its way through the undergrowth. Reckless in the face of enemy skirmishers and much to the concern of the staff, he removed his hat and waved it in the air so that the men could see his face. His voice rang clear through the wood.

‘The Emperor will reward any man who will advance.’

It was the old slogan. The words of Austerlitz and Wagram. Ney repeated them over and over again, circling his hat in the air as he rode the length of Jerome’s extended front line of cheering, blue-coated light infantry. He turned and rode back to rejoin his staff. Reining in towards Jerome, Ney caught a glint of something on his right, deep in the wood. Looking again, he saw a body of men crouching in the scrub, perhaps 200 yards away. Enemy skirmishers. But instead of blue coats they wore black. Brunswickers. Germans. What an assembly was this army. Brunswickers. A little better though, he presumed, than the Belgians. It would be harder to clear the wood. And, as Jerome sent his division crashing into the trees, Ney realized that he had now committed his entire force. There was no reserve. Where was d’Erlon? He swore.

‘Sire?’

‘Nothing, Rollin. Nothing. I see that the Duke’s German friends have come to help the Belgians. Where is d’Erlon?’

‘We believe him to be just south of here, sire. Perhaps near Frasnes.’

He was about to ask more precisely where, when an orderly rode up with a despatch from Napoleon. It was timed at 2 p.m. Written by Soult.

Attack whatever force is before you. After driving it back you will turn in our direction to bring about the envelopment of those enemy troops which I have already mentioned to you.

‘Those enemy troops’. The Prussians, he presumed. So the Emperor had decided to crush Blü cher first before turning on Wellington. Here then was a very different plan from that which he had first understood. Nevertheless it was the Emperor’s. It would work. The only way to honour it now though, Ney saw, was to take the crossroads. And to do it quickly. He continued to traverse the field from west to east. His right flank was looking increasingly vulnerable.

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