Whose Business Is to Die (38 page)

Williams shifted the axe to his left hand and drew his sword, winding the knot around his wrist so that he would not lose it. He pressed on, barging past a score of fleeing men. A Pole was among them, hacking down again and again with his sabre, and Williams could hear the man grunting with the effort, but his victims were oddly silent, mouths open and faces locked in a mask of terror.

He came through that group, and then slipped again on the grass, rolling as he fell, and so just avoiding the hissing lance-point that would have taken him in the back. The horse’s hoofs, looking very large, trod inches from his face and he hunched up like a baby as he lay. The spear jabbed down, cutting through the damp wool of his jacket, and he felt a stinging pain as it grazed the skin. Then the horseman rode on, looking for new victims.

Two sergeants had managed to gather three others around them, and so Williams pushed up and went towards them. The Poles had already seen the group and half a dozen lancers spurred at them. One of the Buffs raised his musket, and pulled the trigger, but the flint sparked on damp powder and it did not go off. Another tried to jab at the oncoming horsemen with his bayonet, but at full reach he could not match the long lance and before he could prick the horse’s nose its rider had taken him in the throat. It was over in moments, just a succession of skilful thrusts, and all five men were down. The Poles rode their horses round in a circle stabbing again and again until the movement and the moaning stopped.

The Colours were close now, and so Williams went to them, drawn by the great flags even though he knew that the enemy would desire these more than anything else.

‘
Vive l’empereur!’
He heard the shout as a fresh wave of lancers charged over the ground where the Buffs had stood. Hussars in brown jackets and overalls and with black shakos came behind them.

There was already a pile of bodies of men in red coats with
buff facings around the flags. A little ensign, his face that of a pink-cheeked child, was wrestling with the Regimental Colour, its nine-foot-ten-inch pole almost twice his size. ‘Rally, men, rally!’ the lad shouted in the same high-pitched voice Williams had heard before. He had it in both hands and was swinging it, the big standard with the union flag in the top corner and a buff field with a dragon in the centre flapping heavily, not really under his control. A tall sergeant stood beside him, his leg bandaged, shako gone and a cut to his cheek, but still gamely jabbing with his half-pike to keep the horsemen at bay. A quick thrust and one of the horses wheeled back, blood seeping from a wound to its neck.

A Polish officer switched his sabre to his left hand, holding the reins as well as the weapon, and drew a stubby pistol. His men baited the sergeant, nicking him from behind before he could turn to face them with his own long spear.

‘Save the Colours!’ Williams yelled. ‘Save the dragons!’ He did not know where the words came from, but knew that all that really mattered was the tone. Men responded to the sound more than the meaning, or they did not respond at all.

A lance turned, and through sheer luck Williams was on his left so the man had to turn his spear over the neck of his horse. The Welshman hooked his axe head over it, catching in the pennant, and spun so that the beautifully balanced sword in his right hand drove up and pierced the man’s neck. The lancer gurgled as blood gushed from his neck and mouth. Up so close Williams was surprised at how small the lancers’ horses were. Then the man slid from the saddle, falling on him, and Williams was on the ground again, trying to push the dying man off.

A shot rang out, loud over the other noise, and between the legs of the horse he saw the big Regimental Colour fall, covering the body of the ensign.

‘Bastard!’ The sergeant bounded forward, thrusting his pike at the officer, whose horse reared, turning. Williams felt an appalling weight as the riderless horse panicked and bounded away, treading heavily on its former master, who still lay on top of the Welshman.

Lances thrust, taking the sergeant in the back, both arms and then the neck. Somehow the man was still standing, flailing round with the pike so that the blade seemed to scar the air and the Poles drew back from his rage, all apart from the officer, who dropped his pistol and took his sabre back in his right hand even as his mount reared. The hoofs struck the sergeant in the face, knocking him back, and a few moments later the sword-point took him in the eye, driving deep into his brain.

A corporal and a private from the Buffs appeared from nowhere, running up and standing to block the pathway to where another ensign, an older, thicker-set man, held the King’s Colour. A lieutenant joined them, his face handsome even under the grime of battle. He raised a pistol and the two soldiers levelled their muskets. Flints snapped down and to Williams’ amazement both the muskets fired, and the officer’s horse was rearing again, and then fell, landing across the legs of the lancer lying on top of him. The officer rolled easily free and yelled at his men to cut the English down.

Williams’ face and chest were covered with the warm blood of the lancer, who had stopped writhing, but was pinned on top of him by the wounded animal. He tried to push him off and could not, so could only watch the last act of the tragedy. The lancers closed on the little group of redcoats, joined by half a dozen hussars in braided brown jackets and oilskin-covered shakos. The Polish officer strode up on foot to join them, and some French infantry appeared from out of the smoke.

The corporal took a lance in the chest, and then was hacked down by sabres. One of the infantrymen shot the ensign in the body, but before the Colour fell the lieutenant flung his useless pistol at one of the lancers and grabbed the staff with his left hand. The private gave an appalling scream of agony as a lance drove into his stomach, just before another took him in the chest.

A hussar sergeant stood in the stirrups, hacking down with all his might to shear through the lieutenant’s arm as it gripped the shaft of the Colour. The redcoated officer did no more than gasp, as a gout of blood sprayed from the severed stump. He flung
his sword away and grabbed the King’s Colour, shaking it as he tried to bring it upright and making his hand and attached piece of arm fall off.

‘Give it up!’ One of the hussars spoke English and all of the horsemen were yelling at the man.

‘Only with my life!’ Williams heard the words and made a renewed effort to push the corpse off him. When that failed he tried to squeeze out from underneath, but he could not move at all.

The hussar sergeant cut down again, just as the lieutenant turned his head, and so instead of carving through shako and skull, the well-sharpened blade sliced through his nose, which hung down on a great flap of peeled-off skin. The officer shouted, but the words were no more than noises. Blood flowed from jabs to his body and limbs, and yet the redcoat swung the heavy Colour one-handed, a horrible, unearthly sound coming from him. The French gave back a little.

A lancer came cantering up, eager to join the fight, and although his comrades yelled at him he drove his horse on, pushing them aside, lance-point lowered. The lieutenant saw him coming, let the Colour fall back against his shoulder and grabbed hold of the silk flag, starting to tear it free. Then he was lifted off his feet, hurled yards back as the spearhead sank deep into his groin. Most of the flag tore off, gripped tight in his hand, and as the body rolled it covered the crumpled and bloodstained silk.

One of the hussars caught the staff, only a quarter of the banner still attached and raised it high in triumph.

‘
Vive l’empereur!
’ More hussars arrived, some of them in sky blue, and they took up the shout.

‘
Vive l’empereur!
’

Williams heard the sound of French victory and then a great drumming of hoofs. Whether or not horses liked treading on flesh, there were so many dead and wounded lying strewn across the grass that they had little choice. He gasped as a great weight pressed down on him. Something hard struck the side of his head and once again there was only darkness.

30

‘Dear God.’ Truscott whispered the blasphemy, but he could not lower the telescope and watched as a brigade died.

‘Poor devils,’ was all that Pringle could think to say. They were a good three-quarters of a mile away and even with the magnification they could not see the detail. It was simply that there had been several straggling lines of men in scarlet pouring fire into the smoke and the vague masses of French beyond them. They might have been going forward, and certainly were not going back.

Then the cavalry had swept along the ridge, glimpsed now and then through the rain, and as the weather cleared the red lines were gone, simply gone, and the only trace was little scarlet dots in the distant green.

‘Who are they?’ Ensign Samuel Truscott asked in horrified awe.

‘Better ask who they were,’ Pringle said, ‘for there will be precious few of the poor fellows left.’

Truscott lowered his glass at last and stared at his friend. He had rarely heard Pringle speak with such brutality.

‘Are they dead?’ Samuel asked, his voice quavering.

‘What do you damned well think!’ Truscott was surprised to realise that he had said the words. ‘Sorry, Sam,’ he added. ‘It’s never nice to see the French doing well, but do not worry, we will have them by the hip by the end of the day.’

‘Shall we advance soon?’ There was not quite the usual enthusiasm in the lad’s question. He might have been pale, although even
his brother found it hard to know with his skin covered by so many livid spots.

‘When they need us. Now you had better go back to your company. Good luck, brother.’ He passed the glass to Pringle and then offered the boy his hand. He had never done that before, not even when the lad arrived. Samuel smiled, then did his best to look earnest. Some of his high spirits were returning.

‘Good luck, sir,’ he said, and walked back towards the spot where the collected Light Companies sat and waited.

Truscott wondered whether he would ever see the boy again.

‘Those poor, poor devils,’ Billy repeated, scanning the distant slope.

Around them the men of the 106th waited. Some kept looking at the distant battle, while others pretended to pay no heed. They rested, ate and waited. Men cleaned their muskets, adjusted their belts, and there was a steady scrape as they sharpened bayonets.

‘I wonder if a few are starting to think that life might be safer in a trench,’ Truscott said.

Gillet raised the flag high in the air. His wild beard shook as he waved his head and roared in delight. The British Colour was big, mostly a greenish shade of yellow and a good chunk of it torn away, but Dalmas could still read the numerals LXVI in gold on the red-wreathed shield in the centre.

It had been a short, vicious fight, the redcoats holding out with savage desperation until they were all cut down. Dalmas had killed one and left two wounded on the ground, and he had let the lieutenant take the flag even though he could have reached it first. A Pole took the other Colour, with its big union flag.

‘Go back!’ he told the lieutenant.

Gillet shook his head, said something incomprehensible and handed the awkward flag to one of his men to take back to the general.

‘Don’t forget that it’s mine,’ he barked at the man, and then straightened his bearskin cap.

‘Come on, then,’ Dalmas said.

‘Au trot, marche!
’ Gillet bawled, and they set off. There were a good thirty dragoons still with them, in no sort of formation beyond a swarm, with Dalmas and the lieutenant at their head. That was always the way in a charge. Everything happened so fast that men simply vanished, most to turn up later, and all you could hope was that they were doing something useful. It might have been five minutes since the charge began, perhaps less, even if enough had already happened to fill many hours.

There were fugitives ahead of them, horsemen riding in the crowd and cutting or thrusting at will. Others chivvied prisoners to the rear, most of them wounded, often several times. Dalmas saw the leading lancers and hussars getting among an artillery battery caught in the act of deploying.

‘That way.’ He pointed his long straight sword, blood on it drying and dulling the polished steel blade.

‘Au
galop, marche!’
Gillet ordered, and they sped forward again.

Hordes of fleeing redcoats poured through the battery first. Their muskets were gone, often their packs, and any other equipment the men had managed to fling off in the hope of running just a little faster. The fugitives streamed between the six guns as the KGL were just unhitching each piece and rolling them into place in the gun line.

The first French horsemen were only just behind. A lancer speared a redcoat in the back, whirled his lance free and then impaled a gunner pushing at the wheel of one of the six-pounders. Another Pole shot one of the drivers with his carbine, and then rode on to club another from the saddle.

Artillery officers and NCOs shouted at the men, warning them, for until now few had realised the danger. The gunners did not panic, but there was no chance of loading or firing their cannon. Many grabbed anything they could find as crude weapons, for their muskets were stored in one of the brigade’s wagons far in the rear. A bombardier with a huge chest swung a trail spike as if it were a toothpick, knocking two horses down, and bludgeoning one hussar unconscious until a lancer stabbed him through the mouth.

More and more French reached the battery, Dalmas and the dragoons arriving just as a fresh squadron from the 10th Hussars swept in. He saw gunners trying to hitch the nearest cannon back on to the limber to get it away and headed for them.

Gillet cut down a limping redcoat officer as they passed, and then one of the few soldiers still carrying a musket turned round and raised the weapon. Dalmas saw his terrified face, watched as the muzzle still with heavy bayonet attached wavered in the air, and then there was flame and smoke. The ball punched through Gillet’s beard and the lieutenant slumped in the saddle as his horse rode on. Dalmas leaned over, and thrust his sword into the redcoat’s throat at almost exactly the spot where his shot had hit the dragoon officer.