flat, still hidden, still waiting. Some Frenchmen, those who had never fought Wellington, dared to hope that the ridge was only defended by guns, but the veterans of Spain knew better. The Goddamn Duke always hid his men behind a hillcrest if he could. In a moment, those veterans knew, the Goddamns would show themselves. That was what the French called the British soldiers, the Goddamns. It was not an affectionate nickname, but nor was it demeaning like the British name for the French; the Crapauds were the ‘toads’, but the Goddamns were men who would curse God and there was something chilling in that thought.
The French drums paused. „Vive I’Empereur!“
“Fire!” Another double-shotted volley smashed down the slope, and this time a British gunner officer heard the distinctive hailstone rattle as the canister balls struck the infantry’s muskets. “We’re hitting them now, boys!” A wet fleece hissed as it plunged into the hot barrel.
On the ridge the British infantry officers watched and waited. The drums were loud, while at the back of the French columns men were singing. The British battalion bands were also playing behind the ridge, making it a cacophonous battle of music that the French were winning as more and more men joined in to sing the Marseillaise, „Allans, enfants delapatrie, lejour degloire est arrive!“ The burnished Eagles were bright over the great marching masses that seemed to soak up the murderous gun-fire. A roundshot would butcher through the files, but the ranks closed up and marched on. The French officers, their swords drawn, urged their men on. They only needed to endure a few more seconds of hell, a few more blasts of the guns, then they would carry their bayonets over the ridge to vengeance.
But first, because Wellington’s lines always beat the French columns, the surprise had to be unveiled.
“Deploy!” The French officers shouted the command. The columns were now less than a hundred paces from the crest of the British ridge. The Voltigeurs had fallen back to join the columns’ ranks and the British skirmishers had gone to join the line, so from this moment on it would be main force against main force. “Deploy!”
The rearmost ranks of the columns began to spread outwards. This was the surprise, that the column would suddenly become a line, but a line thicker and heavier than the British. Every French musket would be able to fire, and there would be far more French muskets. The defenders’ line would not overlap the column, but would be overwhelmed by it. The French would fire their killing volley, then they would charge home. The day of glory had arrived.
The easternmost French column advanced on Papelotte, driving Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar’s men back to the sturdiest of the farm buildings. The westernmost column, advancing athwart the paved highway, swept either side ofT.a Haye Sainte, driving the Riflemen back from their sandpit.
The Riflemen of the King’s German Legion who garrisoned the farm itself were safe enough, for La Haye Sainte’s walls were of thick stone, well loopholed, and the column had no intention of assaulting such a makeshift fortress. Yet now the farm proved its deadly worth as the garrison flayed the passing column with rifle-fire. The French ranks were blown ragged; assailed by volleys from the flank and double-shotted cannon from their front. In desperation the French ordered the farm attacked. A swarm of infantry broke down the hedges of the kitchen garden and orchard, forcing the defenders back towards the elm tree on the ridge behind. Not that their retreat mattered, for most of the German garrison was safe behind the stone walls of the farm buildings from where they kept up the stinging volleys that had already stalled and broken the attack of the westernmost column.
Wellington’s breakwaters were working. Two of the French columns had been stopped, yet the central two columns were still crashing majestically and seemingly unstoppably up the wide bare slope between Papelotte and La Haye Sainte. The Duke, knowing that those central columns were the real danger, rode to where their attack would strike home.
The Prince of Orange took the Duke’s place beside the elm tree and stared in horror at the turmoil that raged about La Haye Sainte. The Prince did not see that the farm had effectively broken one, whole column of French infantry; instead he only saw a white-walled building lapped by smoke and ringed by enemies. Worse, he saw a stream of King’s German Legion Riflemen running in headlong retreat from the farm. Wellington was nowhere in sight, which meant that fate and history had placed the Prince at this vantage point. He gnawed his fingernails as he stared, then knew he must not hesitate. La Haye Sainte could not fall! And if it had already fallen, then it must be retaken! He turned to see a Hanoverian battalion of his corps not far behind the ridge. The Hanoverian infantry wore British-style redcoats and were known to alt the army as the Red Germans. “Tell the Red Germans to advance!” the Prince snapped at Rebecque.
“Sir?” Rebecque had been flinching from the sight of the double-shotted cannons’ execution of the closest Frenchmen, and had no idea what the Prince meant by his order.
“The Red Germans, Rebecque! They are to advance on the farm and recapture it. Tell them to form line and to advance. Now!”
“But, sir, the farm has not fallen and — „
“Do it! Now!” the Prince screamed, at his Chief of Staff.
Rebecque silently wrote the order, handed it to the Prince for signature, then sent an aide to the Red Germans. The Hanoverians deployed into line, then, to the tap of a drum, marched forward with fixed bayonets. They came over the ridge top and, with their colours hoisted high behind their centre companies, swept down onto the French who still milled ineffectually about La Haye Sainte’s loopholed walls.
“That’s how it’s done!” the Prince exulted. “Give them steel! Give them steel!”
“Are you sure the French cavalry are gone, sir?” Rebecque asked very quietly.
“You must be bold! Boldness is all! Oh, well done!” The Prince applauded because the Hanoverians had cleared the kitchen garden and were now working their way down the farm’s open flank to the west. They were still in line and were firing steady volleys that drove the French infantry backwards.
The French infantry retreated, but their cavalry advanced. That cavalry had been held deep in the valley’s floor, safe from the double-shotted British cannon, but now the left flank guard saw a line of enemy redcoats deployed in the rye. French swords rasped out of scabbards. It seemed that God was smiling on the cavalrymen this day.
The trumpets sounded.
Les grosfrms, the Cuirassiers, led the charge while the pigtailed Dragoons rode behind the heavy horsemen. The British gunners were aiming at the remnants of the column’s flank and, besides, were too obscured by smoke to see the cavalry’s threat. The Hanoverians, firing fast volleys, were blinding themselves with smoke, but then the men of the right-hand companies heard the thudding of the hooves and stared in panic through the powder smoke to see the first glints of steel armour and raised swords.
“Cavalry!”
“Form square!”
It was much too late. The heavy horsemen fell on the open end of the Hanoverian line. The big Klingenthal swords, made of the best steel in Europe, hacked down, driven by the ton weight of man and horse. Grim faces, framed by the steel helmets, were flecked by the infantrymens’ blood as the horsemen carved a path into the battalion. The Red Germans broke, fleeing in panic from the thunder of the hooves and the lightning blades. The colour party took refuge in the farm’s garden, but most of the Hanoverians were caught in the open field and paid the price. Horsemen rode round the field, chasing the last refugees and cutting them down with merciless efficiency.
The Prince of Orange stared aghast from the elm tree. He saw a sword rise in the air, dripping blood from a death, then hack down to make another butcher’s sound. “Stop them, Rebecque!” he said pathetically. “Stop them!”
“Pray how, Your Highness?”
In the end the British gunners stopped the grisly business. The charge had brought the horsemen into the killing ground of the cannon and the double-shotted guns scoured the cavalry away from the field, but not before they had broken the Red Germans who lay with dreadful slashes, bleeding and twisting in the rye as they died. The Prince of Orange had struck again.
While to the east, where no farm protected the ridge, the two central columns of the French attack deployed into line, and drove on up to victory.
The Dutch-Belgian infantry at the re-entrant of the ridge took one close look at the nearest column and fled.
The British jeered the running men, but the Belgians did not care. Their sympathies were with the Emperor
