or in any of the hamlets nearby, which did not house a general and his staff, or senior officers who had been fortunate enough to secure a bed or a mattress under cover. The tiny inn owned by Veuve Bedonghien, opposite the church, was occupied by the Duke, and here the Colonel dismounted. A figure loomed up to meet him. 'Is it yourself, sir?' his groom enquired anxiously, holding up a lantern. 'Eh, if that's not his lordship's Rufus!'
The Colonel gave up the bridle. 'Yes. Rub him down well, Cherry!' The faint crackle of musketry fire in the distance came to his ears. 'What's all this popping?'
Cherry gave a grunt. 'Proper spiteful they've been all evening. Pickets, they tell me. 'Well,' I said, 'we didn't do such in Spain, that's all I know'.'
The Colonel turned away and entered the inn. An orderly informed him that the Duke was still up, and he went into a room in the front of the house to make his report.
The Duke was seated at a table, with De Lancey at his elbow, looking over a map of the country. Lord Fitzroy occupied a chair on one side of the fire, and was placidly writing on his knee. He looked up as the Colonel came in, and smiled.
'Hallo, Audley!' said his lordship. 'What's the news in Brussels?'
'There's been a good deal of panic, sir. The news of our retreat sent hundreds off to Antwerp,' replied the Colonel, handing over the letters he had brought.
'Ah, I daresay! Road bad?'
'Yes, sir, and needs clearing. In places it's choked with baggage and overturned carts. I spoke to one of our own drivers, and it seems the Belgian cavalry upset everything in their way when they galloped to Brussels.'
'I'll have it cleared first thing,' De Lancey said. 'It's the fault of these rascally Flemish drivers! There's no depending on them.'
Sir Colin Campbell came into the room, and upon seeing Audley remarked that there was some cold pie to be had; the Duke nodded dismissal, and the Colonel went off to a room upstairs which was occupied by Gordon and Colonel Canning. A fire had been lit in the grate, and several wet garments were drying in front of it. Occasionally it belched forth a puff of acrid woodsmoke, which mingled with the blue smoke of the two officers' cigars, and made the atmosphere in the small apartment extremely thick. Gordon was lying on a mattress in his shirt-sleeves, with his hands linked behind his head; and Canning was sprawling in an ancient armchair by the fire, critically inspecting a crumpled coat which was hung over a chair back to dry.
'Welcome to our humble quarters!' said Canning. 'Don't be afraid! You'll soon get used to the smoke.'
'What a reek!' said Audley. 'Why the devil don't you open the window?'
'A careful reconnaissance,' Gordon informed him, 'has revealed the fact that the window is not made to open. What are you concealing under your cloak?'
The Colonel grinned, and produced his bottles of champagne, which he set down on the table.
'Canning, tell the orderly downstairs to get hold of some glasses!' said Gordon, sitting up. 'Hi, Charles, don't put that wet cloak of yours anywhere near my coat!'
Canning hitched the coat off the chair back, and tossed it to its owner. 'It's dry. We have a very nice billet here, Charles. Try this chair! I daren't sit in it any longer for fear of being too sore to sit in the saddle tomorrow.'
Colonel Audley spread his cloak over the chair back, sat down on the edge of the truckle bed against the wall, and began to pull off his muddied boots. 'I'm going to sleep,' he replied. 'In fact, I rather think that I'm asleep already. Where's Slender Billy?'
'At Abeiche. Horses at L'Espinettes.'
The Colonel wiped his hands on a large handkerchief, took off his coat, and stretched himself full length on the patchwork quilt. 'What do they stuff their mattresses with here?' he enquired. 'Turnips?'
'We rather suspect mangel -worzels,' replied Canning. 'Did you hear the pickets enjoying themselves when you came in?'
'Damned fools!' said Audley. 'What's the sense of it?'
'There ain't any, but if the feeling in our lines and the French lines tonight is anything to go by we're in for a nasty affair tomorrow.'
'Well, I don't approve of it,' said Gordon, raising himself on his elbow to throw the stub of his cigar into the fire. 'We used to manage things much better in Spain. Do you remember those fellows of ours who used to leave a bowl out with a piece of money in it every night for the French vedettes to take in exchange for cognac? Now, that's what I call a proper, friendly way of conducting a war.'
'There wasn't anything very friendly about our fellows the night the French took the money without filling the bowl,' Audley remarked. 'Have the French ll come up?'
'Can't say,' replied Canning. 'There's been a good deal of artillery arriving on their side, judging from the rumbling I heard when I was on the field half an hour ago. Queer thing: our fellows have lit campfires, as usual, but there isn't one to be seen in the French lines.'
'Poor devils!' said Audley, and shut his eyes.
Downstairs, the Duke was also stretched on his bed, having dropped asleep with that faculty he possessed of snatching rest anywhere and at any time. At three o'clock Lord Fitzroy woke him with the intelligence that Baron Muffling had come over from his quarters with a despatch from Marshal Blucher at Wavre.
The Duke sat up, and swung his legs to the ground. 'What's the time? Three o'clock? Time to get up. How's the weather?'
'Clearing a little, sir.'
'Good!' His lordship pulled on his hessians, shrugged himself into his coat, and strode into the adjoining room, where Muffling awaited him. 'Hallo, Baron! Fitzroy tells me the weather's beginning to clear.'
'It is very bad still, however, and the ground in many places a morass.'
'My people call this sort of thing 'Wellington weather',' observed his lordship. 'It always rains before my battles. What's the news from the Marshal? Hope he's no worse?'
The Marshal Prince had been last heard of as prostrate from the results of having been twice ridden over by cavalry when his horse was shot under him at Ligny. It would not have been surprising had an old gentleman of over seventy years of age succumbed to this rough usage, but Marshal Forwards was made of stern stuff. He was dosing himself with a concoction of his own, in which garlic figured largely, and had every intention of leading his army in person again. He had ordered General Billow to march at daybreak, through Wavre, on Chapelle St Lambert, with the Second Army Corps in support; and wrote asking for information, and promising support.
After a short conference with the Duke, Muffling went back to his own quarters to send off the intelligence that was wanted, and to represent to General Gneisenau in the plainest language the propriety of moving to the support of the Allied Army without any loss of time.
The Duke, apparently quite refreshed by his short nap, sat down to write letters. 'Pray keep the English quiet if you can,' he wrote to Sir Charles Stuart. 'Let them all be prepared to move, but neither be in a hurry nor a fright, as all will yet turn out well.'
But his lordship had not forgotten the bugbear of his right wing. Only a few hours earlier, he had sent orders to General Colville, at Braine-le-Comte, to retire upon Hal, and had instructed Prince Frederick to defend the position between Hal and Enghien for as long as possible. It was his opinion that Bonaparte's best strategy would be to outflank him, and seize Brussels by a coup de main. 'II se pent que l'ennemi nous tourne par Hal,' he wrote to the Duc de Berri. 'Si cela arrive, je prie votre Altesse Royale de marcher sur Anvers et de vows cantonner dans le voisinage.'
His lordship found time to send a note to his Brussels flirt, too. His indefatigable pen warned that her family ought to make preparations to leave Brussels, but added: 'I will give you the earliest intimation of any danger that may come to my knowledge. At present I know of none.'
His letters all written and despatched, his final dispositions checked, the Duke sent for his shaving water; and Thornhill, his phlegmatic cook, began to prepare breakfast. His lordship was notoriously indifferent to the food he ate (he had, in fact, once consumed a bad egg at breakfast before one of his battles in Spain, merely remarking in a preoccupied tone, when he had finished it: 'By the by, Fitzroy, is that egg of yours fresh? for mine was quite rotten'), but Thornhill had his pride to consider, and might be trusted to concoct a palatable meal out of the most unpromising materials.
Just before the Duke left his Headquarters, a lieutenant of hussars rode into Waterloo at a gallop, and flung himself out of the saddle at the door of the little inn. His gay dress was generously splattered with mud, but Colonel
