One of the 28th: A Tale of Waterloo by G. A. Henty (famous ebook reader .TXT) 📗

Prince Jerome, who commanded on Napoleon's left, sent strong columns of support to his skirmishers acting against the right of the wood of Hougoumont, while Foy's division moved to attack it in front. In spite of a terrific fire of artillery poured upon them these brave troops moved on, supported by the concentrated fire of their powerful artillery against the British position. The light companies of the guards, after an obstinate resistance, were forced back through the wood. The French pushed on through the trees until they reached the hedge, which seemed to them to be the only defense of the buildings. But thirty yards in the rear was the orchard wall, flanked on the right by the low brick terraces of the garden. The whole of these had been carefully loopholed, and so terrible a storm of fire opened upon the French that they recoiled and sought shelter among the trees and ditches in the rear.

Jerome, seeing that his skirmishers had won the wood, and knowing nothing of the formidable defenses that arrested their advance, poured fresh masses of men down to their assistance. Although they suffered terribly from the British artillery fire, they gathered in the wood in such numbers that they gradually drove back the defenders into the buildings and yard, and completely surrounded the chateau. The defenders had not even time properly to barricade the gate. This was burst open and dense masses rushed in. The guards met them with the bayonet, and after fierce fighting drove thorn out and closed the gate again, and with their musketry fire compelled them to fall back from the buildings. Some of the French, however, advanced higher up the slope, and opened fire upon one of the batteries with such effect that it had to withdraw. Four fresh companies of the guards advanced against them, cleared them away, and reinforced the defenders of the chateau.

A desperate fight raged round the buildings, and one of the enemy's shells falling upon the chateau set it on fire. But the defense still continued, until Lord Saltoun, repulsing a desperate attack, and reinforced by two companies which came down the hill to his assistance, drove the enemy back and recaptured the orchard. This desperate conflict had lasted for three hours.

While it was going on Ney led twenty thousand men against the center and left of the British position, advancing as usual in heavy column. Just as they were setting out at one o'clock Napoleon discovered the Prussians advancing.

He sent off a despatch to Grouchy ordering him to move straight upon the field of battle; but that general did not receive it until seven in the evening, when the fight was nearly over. It was just two when the columns poured down the hill, their attack heralded by a terrific fire upon the British line opposed to them. The slaughter among Picton's division was great; but although the Dutch and Hanoverians were shaken by the iron hail, they stood their ground. When the columns reached the dip of the valley and began to ascend the slopes toward the British division they threw out clouds of skirmishers and between these and the light troops of the allies firing at once began, and increased in volume as the French neared the advanced posts of La Haye Sainte, Papelotte, and La Haye.

The division of Durette drove out the Nassau troops from Papelotte; but reinforcements arrived from the British line, and the French in turn were expelled. The other three French columns advanced steadily, with thirty light guns in the intervals between them. Donzelat's brigade attacked La Haye Sainte, and, in spite of a gallant resistance by the Germans, made its way into the orchard and surrounded the inclosures. Another brigade, pushing along on the other side of the Charleroi road, were met by the fire of two companies of the rifle brigade who occupied a sandpit there, and by their heavy and accurate fire checked the French advance. The other two divisions moved straight against that part of the crest held by Picton's division.

The men of the Dutch-Belgian brigade, as soon as fire was opened upon them, lost all order and took to their heels, amid the yells and execrations of the brigades of Kempt and Pack behind them, and it was with difficulty that the British soldiers were kept from firing into the fugitives. The Dutch artillery behind them tried to arrest the mob; but nothing could stop them—they fairly ran over guns, men, and horses, rushed down the valley and through the village of Mount St. Jean, and were not seen again in the field during the rest of the day. Picton's division was now left alone to bear the brunt of the French attack. The battle at Quatre Bras had terribly thinned its ranks, and the two brigades together did not muster more than three thousand men. Picton formed the whole in line, and prepared to resist the charge of thirteen thousand infantry, beside heavy masses of cavalry, who were pressing forward, having in spite of a stout resistance driven in the riflemen from the sandpit and the road above it. As the columns neared the British line the fire from the French batteries suddenly ceased, their own troops now serving as a screen to the British. The heads of the columns halted and began to deploy into line; Picton seized the moment, and shouted "A volley, and then charge!"

The French were but thirty yards away. A tremendous volley was poured into them, and then the British with a shout rushed forward, scrambled through a double hedgerow that separated them from the French, and fell upon them with the bayonet. The charge was irresistible. Taken in the act of deploying, the very numbers of the French told against them, and they were borne down the slope in confusion. Picton, struck by a musket ball in the head, fell dead, and Kempt assumed the command, and his brigade followed up the attack and continued to drive the enemy down the hill. In the meantime the French cavalry were approaching. The cuirassiers had passed La Haye Sainte, and almost cut to pieces a Hanoverian battalion which was advancing to reinforce the defenders.

At this moment Lord Edward Somerset led the house-hold brigade of cavalry against the cuirassiers, and the élite of the cavalry of the two nations met with a tremendous shock; but the weight and impetus of the heavy British horsemen, aided by the fact that they were descending the hill, while their opponents had hardly recovered their formation after cutting up the Hanoverians, proved irresistible, and the cuirassiers were driven down the hill. A desperate hand-to-hand conflict took place; and it was here that Shaw, who had been a prize-fighter before he enlisted in the Second Life Guards, killed no less than seven Frenchmen with his own hand, receiving, however, so many wounds, that on the return of the regiment from its charge he could no longer sit his horse, and crawling behind a house died there from loss of blood.

While the Second Life Guards and First Dragoon Guards pursued the cuirassiers down the slope, the Royals, Scots Greys, and Inniskillens rode to the assistance of Pack's brigade, which had been assailed by four strong brigades of the enemy. Pack rode along at the front of his line calling upon his men to stand steady. The enemy crossed a hedge within forty yards of the Ninety-second, and delivered their fire. The Highlanders waited till they approached within half the distance, and then pouring in a volley, charged with leveled bayonets. The French stood firm, and the Ninety-second, numbering less than two hundred and fifty men, burst in among them; a mere handful among their foes. But just at this moment Ponsonby's heavy cavalry came up, and passing through the intervals of the companies and battalions, fell upon the French infantry. In vain the enemy endeavored to keep their formation; their front was burst in, their center penetrated, and their rear dispersed, and in five minutes the great column was a mass of fugitives. Great numbers were killed, and two thousand prisoners taken.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE ROUT.

While Pack's brigade secured the prisoners taken by the cavalry and sent them to the rear, the cavalry themselves continued their charge. In vain Ponsonby ordered the trumpeters to sound the halt. Carried away by the excitement of their success—an excitement in which the horses shared—the three regiments galloped on. The Royals on the right fell upon two French regiments advancing in column, broke them, and cut them up terribly. The Inniskillens also fell on two French line regiments, shattered them with their charge, and took great numbers of prisoners, whole companies running up the hill and surrendering to the infantry in order to escape from the terrible horsemen.

The cavalry were now terribly scattered; the three regiments of Ponsonby's brigade were far down in the valley, as were the Second Life Guards and First Dragoon Guards. The First Life Guards and the Blues were still engaged with the cuirassiers opposed to them; for these, although driven back, were fighting doggedly. The Greys, who should have been in reserve, galloped ahead and joined Ponsonby's squadrons, and the two brigades of heavy cavalry were far away from all support. When they reached the bottom of the hill a tremendous fire was poured from a compact corps of infantry and some pieces of cannon on the right into the Royals, Inniskillens, and Second Life Guards, and a fresh column of cuirassiers advanced against them. They wheeled about and fell back in great confusion and with heavy loss, their horses being completely blown with their long gallop across the heavy ground.

These regiments had fared, however, better than the Greys, Royals, and Inniskillens on the left, for they, having encountered no infantry fire, had charged up the hill until level with the French guns, when, turning sharp to the left, they swept along the line cutting up the artillerymen, until suddenly they were charged by a brigade of lancers, while a large body of infantry threatened their line of retreat. Fortunately at this moment the light cavalry came up to their assistance.

Riding right through the infantry column the light cavalry fell upon the French lancers and rolled them over with the fury of their charge, and then charged another regiment of lancers and checked their advance. Light and heavy horse were now mixed up together, and a fresh body of French cavalry coming up, drove them down the hill with great loss—they being saved, indeed, from total destruction by the Eleventh Hussars, who, coming up last, had kept their formation. Covered by these the remnants of the cavalry regained their own crest on the hill, and reformed under cover of the infantry. General Ponsonby was killed, and his brother, the colonel of the Twelfth, severely wounded and left on the field.

While this desperate fight had been raging on the center and left, fresh columns had advanced from Jerome's and Foy's divisions against Hougoumont, and had again, after obstinate fighting, captured the orchard and surrounded the chateau, but were once more repulsed by a fresh battalion of guards who moved down the slope to the assistance of their hardly-pressed comrades. Then for a while the fighting slackened, but the artillery duel raged as fiercely as ever. The gunners on both sides had now got the exact range, and the carnage was terrible. The French shells again set Hougoumont on fire, and all the badly wounded who had been carried inside perished in the flames.

At the end of an hour fresh columns of attack moved against the chateau, while at the same moment forty squadrons of cavalry advanced across the valley toward the English position.

The English batteries played upon them with round shot, and, as they came near, with grape and canister; but the horsemen rode on, and at a steady trot arrived within forty