Part 34
Sweep first the Frenchmen's leftward lines along, And eye the peaceful panes of Hougomont-- That seemed to hold prescriptive right of peace In fee from Time till Time itself should cease!-- Jarred now by Reille's fierce foot-divisions three, Flanked on their left by Pire's cavalry.-- The fourfold corps of d'Erlon, spread at length, Compose the right, east of the famed chaussee-- The shelterless Charleroi-and-Brussels way,-- And Jacquinot's alert light-steeded strength Still further right, their sharpened swords display. Thus stands the first line.
SEMICHORUS II
Next behind its back Comes Count Lobau, left of the Brussels track; Then Domon's horse, the horse of Subervie; Kellermann's cuirassed troopers twinkle-tipt, And, backing d'Erlon, Milhaud's horse, equipt Likewise in burnished steelwork sunshine-dipt: So ranks the second line refulgently.
SEMICHORUS I
The third and last embattlement reveals D'Erlon's, Lobau's, and Reille's foot-cannoniers, And horse-drawn ordnance too, on massy wheels, To strike with cavalry where space appears.
SEMICHORUS II
The English front, to left, as flanking force, Has Vandeleur's hussars, and Vivian's horse; Next them pace Picton's rows along the crest; The Hanoverian foot-folk; Wincke; Best; Bylandt's brigade, set forward fencelessly, Pack's northern clansmen, Kempt's tough infantry, With gaiter, epaulet, spat, and {philibeg}; While Halkett, Ompteda, and Kielmansegge Prolong the musters, near whose forward edge Baring invests the Farm of Holy Hedge.
SEMICHORUS I
Maitland and Byng in Cooke's division range, And round dun Hougomont's old lichened sides A dense array of watching Guardsmen hides Amid the peaceful produce of the grange, Whose new-kerned apples, hairy gooseberries green, And mint, and thyme, the ranks intrude between.-- Last, westward of the road that finds Nivelles, Duplat draws up, and Adam parallel.
SEMICHORUS II
The second British line--embattled horse-- Holds the reverse slopes, screened, in ordered course; Dornberg's, and Arentsschildt's, and Colquhoun-Grant's, And left of them, behind where Alten plants His regiments, come the “Household” Cavalry; And nigh, in Picton's rear, the trumpets call The “Union” brigade of Ponsonby. Behind these the reserves. In front of all, Or interspaced, with slow-matched gunners manned, Upthroated rows of threatful ordnance stand.
[The clock of Nivelles convent church strikes eleven in the distance. Shortly after, coils of starch-blue smoke burst into being along the French lines, and the English batteries respond promptly, in an ominous roar that can be heard at Antwerp.
A column from the French left, six thousand strong, advances on the plantation in front of the chateau of Hougomont. They are played upon by the English ordnance; but they enter the wood, and dislodge some battalions there. The French approach the buildings, but are stopped by a loop-holed wall with a mass of English guards behind it. A deadly fire bursts from these through the loops and over the summit.
NAPOLEON orders a battery of howitzers to play upon the building. Flames soon burst from it; but the foot-guards still hold the courtyard.]
## SCENE II
THE SAME. THE FRENCH POSITION
[On a hillock near the farm of Rossomme a small table from the farmhouse has been placed; maps are spread thereon, and a chair is beside it. NAPOLEON, SOULT, and other marshals are standing round, their horses waiting at the base of the slope.
NAPOLEON looks through his glass at Hougomont. His elevated face makes itself distinct in the morning light as a gloomy resentful countenance, blue-black where shaven, and stained with snuff, with powderings of the same on the breast of his uniform. His stumpy figure, being just now thrown back, accentuates his stoutness.]
NAPOLEON
Let Reille be warned that these his surly sets On Hougomont chateau, can scarce defray Their mounting bill of blood. They do not touch The core of my intent--to pierce and roll The centre upon the right of those opposed. Thereon will turn the outcome of the day, In which our odds are ninety to their ten!
SOULT
Yes--prove there time and promptitude enough To call back Grouchy here. Of his approach I see no sign.
NAPOLEON [roughly]
Hours past he was bid come. --But naught imports it! We are enough without him. You have been beaten by this Wellington, And so you think him great. But let me teach you Wellington is no foe to reckon with. His army, too, is poor. This clash to-day Is more serious for our seasoned files Than breakfasting.
SOULT
Such is my earnest hope.
NAPOLEON
Observe that Wellington still labours on, Stoutening his right behind Gomont chateau, But leaves his left and centre as before-- Weaker, if anything. He plays our game!
[WELLINGTON can, in fact, be seen detaching from his main line several companies of Guards to check the aims of the French on Hougomont.]
Let me re-word my tactics. Ney leads off By seizing Mont Saint-Jean. Then d'Erlon stirs, And heaves up his division from the left. The second corps will move abreast of him The sappers nearing to entrench themselves Within the aforesaid farm.
[Enter an aide-de-camp.]
AIDE
From Marshal Ney, Sire, I bring hasty word that all is poised To strike the vital stroke, and only waits Your Majesty's command,
NAPOLEON
Which he shall have When I have scanned the hills for Grouchy's helms.
[NAPOLEON turns his glass to an upland four or five miles off on the right, known as St. Lambert's Chapel Hill. Gazing more and more intently, he takes rapid pinches of snuff in excitement. NEY'S columns meanwhile standing for the word to advance, eighty guns being ranged in front of La Belle Alliance in support of them.]
I see a darkly crawling, slug-like shape Embodying far out there,--troops seemingly-- Grouchy's van-guard. What think you?
SOULT [also examining closely]
Verily troops; And, maybe, Grouchy's. But the air is hazed.
NAPOLEON
If troops at all, they are Grouchy's. Why misgive, And force on ills you fear!
ANOTHER MARSHAL
It seems a wood. Trees don bold outlines in their new-leafed pride.
ANOTHER MARSHAL
It is the creeping shadow from a cloud.
ANOTHER MARSHAL
It is a mass of stationary foot; I can descry piled arms.
[NAPOLEON sends off the order for NEY'S attack--the grand assault on the English midst, including the farm of La Haye Sainte. It opens with a half-hour's thunderous discharge of artillery, which ceases at length to let d'Erlon's infantry pass.
Four huge columns of these, shouting defiantly, push forwards in face of the reciprocal fire from the cannon of the English. Their effrontery carries them so near the Anglo-Allied lines that the latter waver. But PICTON brings up PACK'S brigade, before which the French in turn recede, though they make an attempt in La Haye Sainte, whence BARING'S Germans pour a resolute fire.
WELLINGTON, who is seen afar as one of a group standing by a great elm, orders OMPTEDA to send assistance to BARING, as may be gathered from the darting of aides to and fro between the points, like house-flies dancing their quadrilles.
East of the great highway the right columns of D'ERLON'S corps have climbed the slopes. BYLANDT'S sorely exposed Dutch are broken, and in their flight disorder the ranks of the English Twenty-eighth, the Carabineers of the Ninety-fifth being also dislodged from the sand-pit they occupied.]
NAPOLEON
All prospers marvellously! Gomont is hemmed; La Haye Sainte too; their centre jeopardized; Travers and d'Erlon dominate the crest, And further strength of foot is following close. Their troops are raw; the flower of England's force That fought in Spain, America now holds.--
[SIR TOMAS PICTON, seeing what is happening orders KEMPT'S brigade forward. It volleys murderously DONZELOT'S columns of D'ERLON'S corps, and repulses them. As they recede PICTON is beheld shouting an order to charge.]
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
I catch a voice that cautions Picton now Against his rashness. “What the hell care I,-- Is my curst carcase worth a moment's mind?-- Come on!” he answers. Onwardly he goes!
[His tall, stern, saturnine figure with its bronzed complexion is on nearer approach discerned heading the charge. As he advances to the slope between the cross-roads and the sand-pit, riding very conspicuously, he falls dead, a bullet in his forehead. His aide, assisted by a soldier, drags the body beneath a tree and hastens on. KEMPT takes his command.
Next MARCOGNET is repulsed by PACK'S brigade. D'ERLON'S infantry and TRAVERS'S cuirassiers are charged by the Union Brigade of Scotch[23] Greys, Royal Dragoons, and Inniskillens, and cut down everywhere, the brigade following them so furiously the LORD UXBRIDGE tries in vain to recall it. On its coming near the French it is overwhelmed by MILHAUD'S cuirassiers, scarcely a fifth of the brigade returning.
An aide enters to NAPOLEON from GENERAL DOMON.]
AIDE
The General, on a far reconnaissance, Says, sire, there is no room for longer doubt That those debouching on St. Lambert's Hill Are Prussian files.
NAPOLEON
Then where is General Grouchy?
[Enter COLONEL MARBOT with a prisoner.]
Aha--a Prussian, too! How comes he here?
MARBOT
Sire, my hussars have captured him near Lasnes-- A subaltern of the Silesian Horse. A note from Bulow to Lord Wellington, Announcing that a Prussian corps is close, Was found on him. He speaks our language, sire.
NAPOLEON [to prisoner]
What force looms yonder on St. Lambert's Hill?
PRISONER
General Count Bulow's van, your Majesty.
[A thoughtful scowl crosses NAPOLEONS'S sallow face.]
NAPOLEON
Where, then, did your main army lie last night?
PRISONER
At Wavre.
NAPOLEON
But clashed it with no Frenchmen there?
PRISONER
With none. We deemed they had marched on Plancenoit.
NAPOLEON [shortly]
Take him away. [The prisoner is removed.] Has Grouchy's whereabouts Been sought, to apprize him of this Prussian trend?
SOULT
Certainly, sire. I sent a messenger.
NAPOLEON [bitterly]
A messenger! Had my poor Berthier been here Six would have insufficed! Now then: seek Ney; Bid him to sling the valour of his braves Fiercely on England ere Count Bulow come; And advertize the succours on the hill As Grouchy's. [Aside] This is my one battle-chance; The Allies have many such! [To SOULT] If Bulow nears, He cannot join in time to share the fight. And if he could, 'tis but a corps the more.... This morning we had ninety chances ours, We have threescore still. If Grouchy but retrieve His fault of absence, conquest comes with eve!
[The scene shifts.]
## SCENE III
SAINT LAMBERT'S CHAPEL HILL
[A hill half-way between Wavre and the fields of Waterloo, five miles to the north-east of the scene preceding. The hill is wooded, with some open land around. To the left of the scene, towards Waterloo, is a valley.]
DUMB SHOW
Marching columns in Prussian uniforms, coming from the direction of Wavre, debouch upon the hill from the road through the wood.
They are the advance-guard and two brigades of Bulow's corps, that have been joined there by BLÜCHER. The latter has just risen from the bed to which he has been confined since the battle of Ligny, two days back. He still looks pale and shaken by the severe fall and trampling he endured near the end of the action.
On the summit the troops halt, and a discussion between BLÜCHER and his staff ensues.
The cannonade in the direction of Waterloo is growing more and more violent. BLÜCHER, after looking this way and that, decides to fall upon the French right at Plancenoit as soon as he can get there, which will not be yet.
Between this point and that the ground descends steeply to the valley on the spectator's left, where there is a mud-bottomed stream, the Lasne; the slope ascends no less abruptly on the other side towards Plancenoit. It is across this defile alone that the Prussian army can proceed thither- a route of unusual difficulty for artillery; where, moreover, the enemy is suspected of having placed a strong outpost during the night to intercept such an approach.
A figure goes forward--that of MAJOR FALKENHAUSEN, who is sent to reconnoitre, and they wait a tedious time, the firing at Waterloo growing more tremendous. FALKENHAUSEN comes back with the welcome news that no outpost is there.
There now remains only the difficulty of the defile itself; and the attempt is made. BLÜCHER is descried riding hither and thither as the guns drag heavily down the slope into the muddy bottom of the valley. Here the wheels get stuck, and the men already tired by marching since five in the morning, seem inclined to leave the guns where they are. But the thunder from Waterloo still goes on, BLÜCHER exhorts his men by words and eager gestures, and they do at length get the guns across, though with much loss of time.
The advance-guard now reaches some thick trees called the Wood of Paris. It is followed by the LOSTHIN and HILLER divisions of foot, and in due course by the remainder of the two brigades. Here they halt, and await the arrival of the main body of BULOW'S corps, and the third corps under THIELEMANN.
The scene shifts.
## SCENE IV
THE FIELD OF WATERLOO. THE ENGLISH POSITION
[WELLINGTON, on Copenhagen, is again under the elm-tree behind La Haye Sainte. Both horse and rider are covered with mud-splashes, but the weather having grown finer the DUKE has taken off his cloak.
UXBRIDGE, FITZROY SOMERSET, CLINTON, ALTEN, COLVILLE, DE LANCEY, HERVEY, GORDON, and other of his staff officers and aides are near him; there being also present GENERALS MUFFLING, HUGEL, and ALAVA; also TYLER, PICTON'S aide. The roar of battle continues.]
WELLINGTON
I am grieved at losing Picton; more than grieved. He was as grim a devil as ever lived, And roughish-mouthed withal. But never a man More stout in fight, more stoical in blame!
TYLER
Before he left for this campaign he said, “When you shall hear of MY death, mark my words, You'll hear of a bloody day!” and, on my soul, 'Tis true.
[Enter another aide-de-camp.]
AIDE
Sir William Ponsonby, my lords, has fallen. His horse got mud-stuck in a new-plowed plot, Lancers surrounded him and bore him down, And six then ran him through. The occasion sprung Mainly from the Brigade's too reckless rush, Sheer to the French front line.
WELLINGTON [gravely]
Ah--so it comes! The Greys were bound to pay--'tis always so-- Full dearly for their dash so far afield. Valour unballasted but lands its freight On the enemy's shore.--What has become of Hill?
AIDE
We have not seen him latterly, your Grace.
WELLINGTON
By God, I hope I haven't lost him, too?
BRIDGMAN [just come up]
Lord Hill's bay charger, being shot dead, your Grace, Rolled over him in falling. He is bruised, But hopes to be in place again betimes.
WELLINGTON
Praise Fate for thinking better of that frown!
[It is now nearing four o'clock. La Haye Sainte is devastated by the second attack of NEY. The farm has been enveloped by DONZELOT'S division, its garrison, the King's German Legion, having fought till all ammunition was exhausted. The gates are forced open, and in the retreat of the late defenders to the main Allied line they are nearly all cut or shot down.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
O Farm of sad vicissitudes and strange! Farm of the Holy Hedge, yet fool of change! Whence lit so sanct a name on thy now violate grange?
WELLINGTON [to Muffling, resolutely]
Despite their fierce advantage here, I swear By every God that war can call upon To hold our present place at any cost, Until your force cooperate with our lines! To that I stand; although 'tis bruited now That Bulow's corps has only reached Ohain. I've sent Freemantle hence to seek them there, And give them inkling we shall need them soon.
MUFFLING [looking at his watch]
I had hoped that Blücher would be here ere this.
[The staff turn their glasses on the French position.]
UXBRIDGE
What movement can it be they contemplate?
WELLINGTON
A shock of cavalry on the hottest scale, It seems to me.... [To aide] Bid him to reinforce The front line with some second-line brigades; Some, too, from the reserve.
[The Brunswickers advance to support MAITLAND'S Guards, and the MITCHELL and ADAM Brigades establish themselves above Hougomont, which is still in flames.
NEY, in continuation of the plan of throwing his whole force on the British centre before the advent of the Prussians, now intensifies his onslaught with the cavalry. Terrific discharges of artillery initiate it to clear the ground. A heavy round- shot dashes through the tree over the heads of WELLINGTON and his generals, and boughs and leaves come flying down on them.]
WELLINGTON
Good practice that! I vow they did not fire So dexterously in Spain. [He calls up an aide.] Bid Ompteda Direct the infantry to lie tight down On the reverse ridge-slope, to screen themselves While these close shots and shells are teasing us; When the charge comes they'll cease.
[The order is carried out. NEY'S cavalry attack now matures. MILHAUD'S cuirassiers in twenty-four squadrons advance down the opposite decline, followed and supported by seven squadrons of chasseurs under DESNOETTES. They disappear for a minute in the hollow between the armies.]
UXBRIDGE
Ah--now we have got their long-brewed plot explained!
WELLINGTON [nodding]
That this was rigged for some picked time to-day I had inferred. But that it would be risked Sheer on our lines, while still they stand unswayed, In conscious battle-trim, I reckoned not. It looks a madman's cruel enterprise!
FITZROY SOMERSET
We have just heard that Ney embarked on it Without an order, ere its aptness riped.
WELLINGTON
It may be so: he's rash. And yet I doubt. I know Napoleon. If the onset fail It will be Ney's; if it succeed he'll claim it!
[A dull reverberation of the tread of innumerable hoofs comes from behind the hill, and the foremost troops rise into view.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Behold the gorgeous coming of those horse, Accoutered in kaleidoscopic hues That would persuade us war has beauty in it!-- Discern the troopers' mien; each with the air Of one who is himself a tragedy: The cuirassiers, steeled, mirroring the day; Red lancers, green chasseurs: behind the blue The red; the red before the green: A lingering-on till late in Christendom, Of the barbaric trick to terrorize The foe by aspect!
[WELLINGTON directs his glass to an officer in a rich uniform with many decorations on his breast, who rides near the front of the approaching squadrons. The DUKE'S face expresses admiration.]
WELLINGTON
It's Marshal Ney himself who heads the charge. The finest cavalry commander, he, That wears a foreign plume; ay, probably The whole world through!
SPIRIT IRONIC
And when that matchless chief Sentenced shall lie to ignominious death But technically deserved, no finger he Who speaks will lift to save him.!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
To his shame. We must discount war's generous impulses I sadly see.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Be mute, and let spin on This whirlwind of the Will!
[As NEY'S cavalry ascends the English position the swish of the horses' breasts through the standing corn can be heard, and the reverberation of hoofs increases in strength. The English gunners stand with their portfires ready, which are seen glowing luridly in the daylight. There is comparative silence.]
A VOICE
Now, captains, are you loaded?
CAPTAINS
Yes, my lord.
VOICE
Point carefully, and wait till their whole height Shows above the ridge.
[When the squadrons rise in full view, within sixty yards of the cannon-mouths, the batteries fire, with a concussion that shakes the hill itself. Their shot punch holes through the front ranks of the cuirassiers, and horse and riders fall in heaps. But they are not stopped, hardly checked, galloping up to the mouths of the guns, passing between the pieces, and plunging among the Allied infantry behind the ridge, who, with the advance of the horsemen, have sprung up from their prone position and formed into squares.]
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
Ney guides the fore-front of the carabineers Through charge and charge, with rapid recklessness. Horses, cuirasses, sabres, helmets, men, Impinge confusedly on the pointed prongs Of the English kneeling there, whose dim red shapes Behind their slanted steel seem trampled flat And sworded to the sward. The charge recedes, And lo, the tough lines rank there as before, Save that they are shrunken.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Hero of heroes, too, Ney, [not forgetting those who gird against him].-- Simple and single-souled lieutenant he; Why should men's many-valued motions take So barbarous a groove!
[The cuirassiers and lancers surge round the English and Allied squares like waves, striking furiously on them and well-nigh breaking them. They stand in dogged silence amid the French cheers.]
WELLINGTON [to the nearest square]
Hard pounding this, my men! I truly trust You'll pound the longest!
SQUARE
Hip-hip-hip-hurrah!
MUFFLING [again referring to his watch]
However firmly they may stand, in faith, Their firmness must have bounds to it, because There are bounds to human strength!... Your, Grace, To leftward now, to spirit Zieten on.
WELLINGTON
Good. It is time! I think he well be late, However, in the field.
[MUFFLING goes. Enter an aide, breathless.]
AIDE
Your Grace, the Ninety-fifth are patience-spent With standing under fire so passing long. They writhe to charge--or anything but stand!
WELLINGTON
Not yet. They shall have at 'em later on. At present keep them firm.
[Exit aide. The Allied squares stand like little red-brick castles, independent of each other, and motionless except at the dry hurried command “Close up!” repeated every now and then as they are slowly thinned. On the other hand, under their firing and bayonets a disorder becomes apparent among the charging horse, on whose cuirasses the bullets snap like stones on window-panes. At this the Allied cavalry waiting in the rear advance; and by degrees they deliver the squares from their enemies, who are withdrawn to their own position to prepare for a still more strenuous assault. The point of view shifts.]
## SCENE V
THE SAME. THE WOMEN'S CAMP NEAR MONT SAINT-JEAN
[On the sheltered side of a clump of trees at the back of the English position camp-fires are smouldering. Soldiers' wives, mistresses, and children from a few months to five or six years of age, sit on the ground round the fires or on armfuls of straw from the adjoining farm. Wounded soldiers lie near the women. The wind occasionally brings the smoke and smell of battle into the encampment, the noise being continuous. Two waggons stand near; also a surgeon's horse in charge of a batman, laden with bone-saws, knives, probes, tweezers, and other surgical instruments. Behind lies a woman who has just given birth to a child, which a second woman is holding.
Many of the other women are shredding lint, the elder children assisting. Some are dressing the slighter wounds of the soldiers who have come in here instead of going further. Along the road near is a continual procession of bearers of wounded men to the rear. The occupants of the camp take hardly any notice of the thundering of the cannon. A camp-follower is playing a fiddle near. Another woman enters.]
WOMAN
There's no sign of my husband any longer. His battalion is half-a- mile from where it was. He looked back as they wheeled off towards the fighting-line, as much as to say, “Nancy, if I don't see 'ee again, this is good-bye, my dear.” Yes, poor man!... Not but what 'a had a temper at times!
SECOND WOMAN
I'm out of all that. My husband--as I used to call him for form's sake--is quiet enough. He was wownded at Quarter-Brass the day before yesterday, and died the same night. But I didn't know it till I got here, and then says I, “Widder or no widder, I mean to see this out.”
[A sergeant staggers in with blood dropping from his face.]
SERGEANT