Waterloo (16 page)

A shout came from the upper floor of the gardener’s house. Macdonell looked up to see Sergeant Dawson’s face at a window. ‘The frogs are in the lane,’ he called out, pointing to the west side of the farm. ‘A company, at least.’

Thank God Wellington had sent orders for the lane to be defended and James had moved a hundred men of the 3rd Guards there. They were light company men, well trained, tough and disciplined. And they were led by Charles Dashwood, a veteran of Maida and Toulouse.

Unless he left by the north gates and entered the lane in the rear of Dashwood’s company, the only way for Macdonell to see what was happening was to look over the top of the small west gate. There were no windows in the west walls of the barn or stables.

The men guarding the gate had found old crates and ammunition boxes on which to stand. Six of them were shoulder to shoulder, firing into the lane while another six reloaded. Macdonell stepped up onto a crate and looked down. Dashwood’s company had been pushed back halfway up the
lane towards the north gate. The lane itself was narrow and defined by the farm walls and a four-foot bank on the other side. It was not difficult to defend but beyond it was open ground, over which the French had extended their line, forcing the light company to do the same. Without reinforcements they would not hold the lane for long.

Macdonell jumped down and ran to the north gates which, so far, had not been threatened. James Hervey, unlike Henry Gooch, was on foot. ‘Mister Hervey,’ shouted Macdonell, ‘Colonel Dashwood’s company will soon be outside the gates. Make ready to let them in and to close the gates immediately after them. Not a Frenchman must enter.’

‘Not one, Colonel,’ replied Hervey. ‘You may count upon it.’

‘Good. Send someone to fetch Captain Wyndham and Mister Gooch and anyone else who can be spared. Now.’ For the first time the north gates were about to come under attack. They too must be held.

A guard on the roof of the shed on the west side of the gates was the first to sound a warning. He filled his lungs and bellowed. ‘Open the gates. Colonel Dashwood’s company approaching. Open the gates.’

It took two men to lift the heavy cross-beam from its housings. They threw it to one side and joined the others pulling the doors open. Macdonell stood at the open gate, urging the retreating Guards inside. They began to withdraw to safety, backs to the farm and trying desperately to keep the pursuing French at bay. Muskets empty, they fought with broken butts and with their fists whilst trying to manouevre backwards through the gates. A Guard slipped in the mud and tripped the man in front of him.
Both died at the point of a French sword. Charles Dashwood, at the front of his men, yelled at them to make haste. He took a blow to the shoulder from a musket, dropped his sword and fell to one knee. A Frenchman raised his own sword to strike at the colonel’s unprotected neck and let out a brutal cry of triumph. Two seconds later he was dead, killed by a shot from the roof of the cowshed. Above the clash and clamour, the shout could be heard clearly. ‘Got the bugger, filthy frog bastard.’ Macdonell looked up in surprise. Patrick Luke, of all people, had saved the life of Colonel Dashwood.

Dashwood had been dragged inside and almost all the Guards were safe when Macdonell climbed onto the cowshed roof to see whether the French were preparing for another attack or had withdrawn to the safety of the lane. A French colonel, mistakenly sensing the moment of victory, came galloping down the lane, sabre raised. He yanked on the reins, turned his mount sharply and aimed a cutting stroke at one of the few Guards still outside the gates, a sergeant named Fraser. The sergeant, a small, wiry fellow, avoided the stroke and seized the Frenchman’s arm. He pulled the colonel off his horse, jumped into the saddle and to a loud cheer rode it triumphantly through the gates. The colonel was left defenceless on the ground and at the mercy of a row of muskets trained on him from the cowshed roof. ‘The man is helpless,’ shouted Macdonell. ‘Let him go.’ The muskets did not fire and the colonel rose, saluted, and walked slowly back to the lane. The remaining Frenchmen followed him.

The last of Dashwood’s Guards were inside the gates, which were hastily pushed shut. The Graham brothers lifted the crossbeam
and replaced it in its housings. The north gates were secure. ‘Come on, Harry,’ called out Macdonell. ‘Time we inspected the garden.’

But they had barely reached the garden gate when there was a splintering sound not unlike that of a tree falling, followed by cries of alarm. They ran back to the gates. The two panels had not quite shut fully, and through a narrow gap between them, an axe was making short work of the cross-beam. The axeman must be a goliath. The beam was solid oak and the gap allowed him to raise his axe only a foot or two. Yet before they could react the beam split and the gates were pushed open. Thirty or forty Frenchmen, led by a bearded sous-lieutenant – a giant several inches taller than either of the Grahams – had turned back and smashed open the gate.

The French charged into the yard. The lieutenant was uttering blood-curdling threats, brandishing a long-handled axe and looking ready to take on an entire battalion by himself. He swiped at a head, missed, reversed the axe and sliced into the head from behind. Faced with the swinging axe, the Guards with empty muskets backed away. A Hanoverian private ran for the farmer’s house and got his hand on the door handle. He was just too late. The axe fell with brutal force and removed his hand at the wrist. The giant ran through the archway and past the chateau towards the south gate. A dozen of his comrades followed him.

Blue jackets were pouring in through the gates and filling the yard. The Guards could not hold back the tide. They fired into the mass of bodies and defended themselves with bayonet and musket, but were being swiftly overpowered.

Macdonell put his head down and charged at the intruders like a bull. They must close the gates immediately. Leave them open and hundreds of cheering Frenchmen would sweep through the farm, the chateau and the garden. And Hougoumont would fall.

Almost simultaneously, Harry Wyndham and the Graham brothers followed, hacking and slashing their way through the melee. A handful of Guards, led by the two ensigns, joined them. The rest formed a line to block the route to the south gate.

‘The gates,’ yelled Macdonell, over the clash of steel and the crack of muskets. ‘Close the gates.’ Ignoring a sharp sting on his left arm he jabbed his sword into the eye of a Frenchman, shouldered another aside and kicked a third in the knee. Beside him, James and Joseph Graham, shoulder to shoulder, were also carving a bloody path. The enemy were all around them yet it was French blood that spurted from heads and stomachs and Frenchmen who fell dying. The three of them reached the left gate and put their weight on it. For all their strength, it was blocked by the crush of bodies outside and barely moved. Straining for purchase in the mud, they tried again. This time it moved a few inches, and, gradually, painfully slowly, gathered momentum.

The right-hand gate was still wide open. Harry and the Guards had not been able to reach it and were fighting with their fists and feet. More blue jackets ran into the yard. One, a corporal, turned back and aimed a slash at James Graham’s back. His brother saw the strike coming and yelled a warning. Just in time, James swivelled, grabbed the corporal’s wrist,
twisted it and kicked him in the groin. The man dropped his sword, fell like a sack of flour and lay gasping in the mud.

Without Graham’s weight behind it, the French had pushed the left gate open a little. A private slipped around it. Graham picked up the corporal’s sword and pierced the private’s windpipe. The man fell back, blood gushing from the wound. Graham dropped the sword and put his shoulder to the gate. Immediately it moved again, creaked and groaned and was closed.

On the other side Harry was still struggling. James Hervey stood beside him, smashing his musket into French faces, but making no progress towards the gate. Henry Gooch and a handful of guards were fighting to reach them. The gate was open and the French were still coming in.

Macdonell made a decision. ‘This one’s yours, gentlemen,’ he gasped, taking his weight off the gate. He stepped over a body and launched himself at a French back. The man fell like a skittle. Macdonell jumped over him and fought his way to Harry.

The muskets on the cowshed roof were firing into the French outside, barely taking aim, just firing and firing again into the mass of bodies. Men fell, blocked the path of those behind and had to be dragged out of the way. The flow of Frenchmen through the gates slowed.

Macdonell reached the gate. He put all his weight on it, slipped in the mud and lost his footing. He was up in a trice with Hervey at his shoulder. Harry landed a punch in a French face and was with them. They leant on the gate. It began to move, slowly at first, then under its own momentum, faster. The French
too were finding it difficult to keep their footing in the mud. The gap was little more than a foot wide when, out of the corner of his eye, Macdonell saw a tiny figure slip through it and run into the yard. He had no time to dwell on it. One more heave and the gates closed. It took two men to lift a timber and drop it in the housings but he could not spare two men. He called for a Guard to take his place, dashed to the cowshed, squatted to get his forearms under a timber, straightened his legs and back, rose unsteadily and staggered back to the gates. With a huge groan, he dropped it in place. The gates were closed.

But the fight was not over. Three Frenchmen had managed to climb onto the wall. Two fired and jumped back to safety. The third took careful aim at Harry Wyndham, doubled over and trying to catch his breath. At the moment the Frenchman fired, a bullet from James Graham’s musket exploded into his mouth. His own shot went wide and he died instantly. Barely able to stand, Harry leant on James Graham’s arm until he could breathe. ‘My thanks, Corporal,’ he gasped. Graham grinned but did not reply.

Ignorant of the struggle at the gates, Major Bull’s howitzers were sending their exploding shells to rain havoc on the French in the valley and Prince Jérôme’s heavy cannon were blasting away at General Byng’s 2nd Brigade on the hillside. Below them, while the guns thundered and their deadly missiles flew overhead, eardrums were battered by the blasts and eyes rendered red and weeping by the smoke. Breathing was difficult, swallowing was agony. Throats burning from the taste of powder were scraped raw. And there were at least thirty Frenchman still inside the walls.

Macdonell wiped sweat from his forehead, picked a musket from the ground and ran for the south gate. If the intruders opened that, the French would pour in from the woods. He was almost too late. In the south yard, the crash of cannon and howitzer had drowned the clamour of the struggle at the north gate. The intruders had taken Sergeant Dawson’s troop by surprise and fired into their backs, killing a dozen instantly. The giant sous-lieutenant had used his axe to carve a path to the gate while his comrades fought with sword and musket to protect his back. Bloody bodies lay outside the chapel and the gardener’s house, from where Guards had rushed out to join the fight.

The lieutenant was within touching distance of the bricks and timber piled up behind the gate. His comrades had surrounded him and were taking the Guards’ musket fire themselves. They were brave men, intent upon their purpose, and they had very nearly achieved it.

The Guards who had followed Macdonell into the south yard had had time to reload their muskets. On his order, they raised them and sent twenty bullets into French faces. They fell, all of them but the giant lieutenant, who had put down his axe to lift a length of timber from the barricade. He turned to face them, threw the timber to one side and defiantly picked up another. Macdonell charged at him, shoulder down, and knocked the timber from his grasp. The giant reached out for his attacker’s throat. Macdonell ducked down to pick up the axe, slashed at his knees and rose to bury it in his chest. Astonishingly, the man did not fall. His huge hands were on the axe handle when a musket fired. A hole appeared over his eye and he collapsed face down into the mud.

Macdonell stood for a moment to regain his breath. Harry put a hand on his arm. ‘Was that wise, James?’ he asked quietly. ‘We could have shot him.’

‘It was necessary, Harry. Some things just are.’ He filled his lungs and shouted over the cannon fire. ‘Clear the dead, wounded to the barn. Check muskets and flints.’

‘And what shall I do with this, Colonel?’ asked a voice behind him.

He turned. Sergeant Dawson was holding a boy of about twelve by the collar of his tunic. He was a drummer boy, the boy who had slipped in while the north gates were closing.

‘
Tu es très brave, mon garçon
,’ said Macdonell.
‘Mais pourquoi?’

The boy pointed to a dead Frenchman. ‘
Mon père
,’ he replied.

Macdonell nodded. ‘
Ton père était brave aussi.
’ And to Dawson, ‘Put him in the barn. Ask the orderlies to keep an eye on him.’

Dawson glanced at Macdonell’s sleeve. ‘Perhaps you should visit the barn yourself, Colonel.’

Macdonell looked down. His left sleeve was ripped and dripping blood. The sting he had felt must have been from a musket ball. He pulled back the sleeve. It was no more than a graze. ‘If you would fetch me a bandage, Sergeant, I will not trouble the surgeon.’

‘Very well, Colonel,’ replied Dawson doubtfully. When it came to surgeons, the colonel apparently did not care to take his own advice. ‘Come on now, boy, let’s get you out of the way.’ The boy, who was unlikely to speak a word of English, took the sergeant’s meaning and went off with him.

‘How are we faring, Harry?’ asked Macdonell. ‘Casualties? Have you counted?’

Harry nodded. ‘I have. Seventeen dead, two officers wounded. Colonel Dashwood’s shoulder is broken. And you, of course.’

‘A scratch. Get Colonel Dashwood to the chateau. He can wait there for the surgeon. And other casualties?’

‘About forty, half serious. The rest can hold a musket and near enough see a target.’

‘Perhaps Prince Jérôme will give us time to lick our wounds and prepare for his next visit. Have we enough water?’