Cries of: 'Nous sommes trahis!' mingled with the dismayed shouts of 'La Garde recule!' Donzelot's division was carried away in the rush of Grenadiers and Chasseurs; the retreat had become a rout. Ney, on foot, one epaulette torn off, his hat gone, a broken sword in his hand, was fighting like a madman, crying: 'Come and see how a Marshal of France dies!' and, to D'Erlon, borne towards him in the press: 'If we get out of this alive, D'Erlon, we shall both be hanged!'
Far in advance of the charging Allied line, Colborne, having crossed the ground between Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte, had reached the chaussee, and passed it, left-shouldering his regiment forward to ascend the slope towards La Belle Alliance.
To the right, Vivian had advanced his brigade, placing himself at the head of the 18th Hussars. 'Eighteenth! You will, I know, follow me!' he said, and was answered by one of his sergeant-majors: 'Ay, General! to hell, if you'll lead us!'
Taking up his position on the flank of the leading half-squadron, holding his reins in his injured right hand, which, though it seemed reposed in a sling, was just capable of grasping them, he led the whole brigade forward at the trot. As the hussars cleared the front on Maitland's right, the Guards and Vandeleur's light dragoons cheered them on, and they charged down on to the plain, sweeping the French up in their advance past the eastern hedge of Hougoumont towards the chaussee at La Belle Alliance.
Through the dense smoke laying over the ground the Duke galloped down the line. When the Riflemen saw him, they sent up a cheer, but he called out: 'No cheering, my lads, but forward and complete your victory!' and rode on, through the smother, out into the sea of dead, to where Adam's brigade was halted on the ridge of La Belle Alliance, a little way from where some French battalions had managed to re-form.
The Duke, learning from Adam that the brigade had been halted for the purpose of closing the files in, scrutinised the French battalions closely for a moment, and then said decidedly: 'They won't stand: better attack them!'
Baron Muffling, looking along the line from his position on the left flank, saw the General Advance through the lifting smoke. Kielmansegg's, Ompteda's and Pack's shattered brigades remained where they stood all day, but everywhere else the regiments charged forward, leaving behind them an unbroken red line of their own dead, marking the position where, for over eight hours of cannonading, of cavalry charges, and of massed infantry attacks, the British and German troops had held their ground.
From Papelotte to Hougoumont the hillocky plain in front was covered with dead and wounded. Near the riddled walls of La Haye Sainte the cuirassiers lay in mounds of men and horses. The corn which had waved shoulder-high in the morning was everywhere trodden down into clay. On the rising ground of La Belle Alliance the Old Guard was making its last stand, fighting off the fugitives, who, trying to find shelter in its squares, threatened to overwhelm them. These three squares, with one formed by Reille, south of Hougoumont, were the only French troops still standing firm in the middle of the rout. With the cessation of artillery fire by the hollow road the smoke was clearing away, but over the ruins of Hougoumont it still rose in a slow, black column. Those of the batteries which had been able to follow the advance were firing into the mass of French on the southern ridge; musketry crackled as the Old Guard, with Napoleon and his staff in the middle of their squares, retreated step by step, fighting a heroic rearguard action against Adam's brigade and Hew Halkett's Hanoverians. Where Vivian, with Vandeleur in support, was sweeping the ground east and south of Hougoumont, fierce cavalry skirmishing was in progress, and the Middle Guard was trying to re-form its squares to hold the hussars at bay.
Muffling, detaching a battery from Ziethen's Corps, led it at a gallop to the centre of the Allied position. He met the Duke by La Haye Sainte. His lordship called triumphantly to him from a distance: 'Well! You see Macdonnell has held Hougoumont!'
Muffling, who found himself unable to think of what the Guards at Hougoumont must have endured without a lump coming into his throat, knew the Duke well enough to realise that his brief sentence was his lordship's way of expressing his admiration, and nodded.
The sun was sinking fast; in the gathering dusk musket-balls were hissing in every direction. Uxbridge, who had come scatheless through the day, was hit in the knee by a shot passing over Copenhagen's withers, and sang out: 'By God! I've got it at last!'
'Have you, by God?' said his lordship, too intent on the operations of his troops to pay much heed.
Colin Campbell, preparing to support Uxbridge off the field, seized the Duke's bridle, saying roughly: 'This is no place for you! I wish you will move!'
'I will when I have seen these fellows off,' replied his lordship.
To the south-east of La Belle Alliance, the Prussians, driving the Young Guard out of Plancenoit, were advancing on the chaussee, to converge there with Allied troops. Billow's infantry were singing the Lutheran hymn, Now thank we all our God, but as the columns came abreast of the British Guards, halted by the road, the hymn ceased abruptly. The band struck up God Save the King, and as the Prussians marched past they saluted.
It was past nine o'clock when, in the darkness, south of La Belle Alliance, the Duke met Prince Blucher. The Prince, beside himself with exultation, carried beyond coherent speech by his admiration for the gallantry of the British troops and for the generalship of his friend and ally, could find only one thing to say as he embraced the Duke ruthlessly on both cheeks: 'I stink of garlic!'
When his first transports of joy were a little abated, he offered to take on the pursuit of the French through the night. The Duke's battered forces, dog-tired, terribly diminished in numbers, were ordered to bivouac where they stood, on the ground occupied all day by the French; and the Duke, accompanied by a mere skeleton of the brilliant cortege which had gone with him into the field that morning, rode back in clouded moonlight to his Headquarters.
Baron Muffling, drawing abreast of him, said: 'The Field Marshal will call this battle Belle-Alliance, sir.'
His lordship returned no answer. The Baron, casting a shrewd glance at his bony profile, with its frosty eye and pursed mouth, realised that he had no intention of calling the battle by that name. It was his lordship's custom to name his victories after the village or town where he had slept the night before them. The Marshal Prince might call the battle what he liked, but his lordship would head his despatch to Earl Bathurst: 'Waterloo'.
Chapter Twenty-Five
For those in Brussels the day had been one of increasing anxiety. Contrary to expectation, no firing was heard, the wind blowing steadily from the north-west. The Duke's despatch to Sir Charles Stuart, written from Waterloo in the small hours, reached him at seven o'clock, and shortly afterwards Baron van de Capellan, the Secretary of State, issued a reassuring proclamation. After that no news of any kind was received in the town for many hours.
Colonel Jones, left in Brussels during the Duke's absence as Military commander, was besieged all the morning by applications for passports. Every track-boat bound for Antwerp was as full as it could hold of refugees; money could not buy a pair of horses in all Brussels. Scores of people drove off at an early hour, with baggage piled high on the roofs of their carriages; the town seemed strangely quiet and deserted; and the church bells ringing for morning service sounded to sensitive ears like a knell.
Both Judith and Barbara had slept the night through, in utter exhaustion, but neither in the morning looked as though she were refreshed by this deep slumber. Except for discussing in a desultory manner the extraordinary revelation Lucy Devenish had made on the previous evening, they did not talk much. Once Judith said: 'If you knew the comfort it is to me to have you with me!' but Barbara merely smiled rather mockingly, and shook her head.
In the privacy of their own bedroom, Judith had remarked impulsively to Worth: 'I am out of all conceit with myself! I have been deceived alike in Lucy and in Barbara!'
'You might certainly be forgiven for having been deceived in Lucy,' Worth replied. 'I imagine no one could have suspected such a melodramatic story to lie behind that demure appearance.'
'No, indeed! I was never more shocked in my life. Bab says George will make her a very bad husband, and if it were not unchristian I should be much inclined to say that she will have nothing but her just deserts. But Bab! I could not have believed that she had such strength of character, such real goodness of heart! Have not you been surprised?'
