Four Days in June. Iain Gale

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СКАЧАТЬ me, sir, that yesterday, at about midday, a report which I assumed had simply come to me from a commonplace French Royalist agent was in fact from an agent of Colonel Grant himself. In consequence, sir, I sent you an edited version. I see now from his agent’s description of the dispositions of Bonaparte’s troops that they were without doubt heading directly for Charleroi. For the chaussée running between ourselves and the Prussians – the highway into Brussels.’

      Dörnberg stared awkwardly at the floor. Wellington took in a deep breath. Said nothing to Dörnberg but turned to De Lancey.

      ‘Quatre-Bras, De Lancey. You will order the entire army to collect on Quatre-Bras.’

      My God, thought De Lancey. You have been caught out. D’Alava was right. Bonaparte has fooled you and even now is closing with the Prussians while we are too extended to offer any immediate help.

      They left Wellington to sleep, Dö rnberg calmer now. Chastened, reprimanded, conscience salved. They rode back to De Lancey’s house, and for the first time since he had arrived in Brussels the Quartermaster General began to worry.

      Outside the De Lancey house Dörnberg bade goodnight and rode off to alert his officers. The lights were still lit and Magdalene and the staff all quite awake. For, although the dawn was not yet risen, in the past hour all Brussels had come to life. She met him in the doorway.

      ‘Oh, William, you must come and look. It is so exciting. So glorious.’

      Taking him by the hand, like an eager child on Christmas morning, she led him up the great staircase, into the drawing room and out through the open window on to the balcony.

      All across the city drums beat an insistent and cacophanous stand to. Bugles called. Looking into the street he saw soldiers of all ranks, all regiments, spilling out of their billets, some with their erstwhile hosts, a few carrying children high on their shoulders. All was a clatter of soldiers, officers, horses, gun carriages, wagons.

      The sky, catching the first rays of dawn, bathed the marching figures in a strange pale light, giving them an unearthly pallor. The morning was a cool and refreshing contrast to the stifling humidity of the previous day and, his tasks finished for the time being, the army about its business, De Lancey too felt refreshed and allowed himself a moment of relaxation as the couple watched in awe as the spectacle unfolded before them.

      At first it seemed very solemn. Picton’s division, Kempt’s brigade first, the regiments marching past in column of threes. He saw the 32nd, the men looking exhausted rather than jubilant. No drums played, merely the fifes whistling the plaintive tones of an old march, ‘Guilderoy’. A sudden fear welled inside him. Not for himself, but for Magdalene. She would go to Antwerp. Certainly. But he realized now that he was leaving her as he had promised he never would.

      Then the mood changed, and momentarily his fear passed. Another regiment, the 28th, appeared in swaggering style, their band playing ‘The Downfall of Paris’, the old Revolutionary air, the ‘Ça Ira’, the tune that the British had stolen from the French and renamed, the tune which had marked the redcoats’ progress to victory through Spain and into France. And after them came a regiment of Highlanders, swinging down the street, heading for the Charleroi road. By their kilts and the deep green of their facings and their regimental colour, De Lancey recognized them as the 79th, the Camerons.

      ‘There, Magdalene. Look. Your countrymen.’

      ‘Oh, William. How bold they look. How very fierce.’

      As they passed below the little wrought-iron balcony their pipers struck up the regimental march, and she gave a little jump. And then a huge smile. Tears began to run from her eyes. She looked at him. Pulled him down towards her. Held him as tight as her pale, thin arms could manage. Gently, De Lancey placed his own arm about her waist and ran his hand up her back.

      After the Highlanders came the Rifles. Unusually towards the rear of the column. Not for long, he thought. ‘First in, last out’ their motto. Even as he looked, their pace began to quicken. Once on the open road they would open up to double time – light infantry pace. No band for them. Instead they were singing, ‘The girl I left behind me’.

      And with it his fear returned. Magdalene alone. Without him. Perhaps forever.

      ‘Oh, William, I shall never forget this moment.’ She pressed closer to him. Turned again towards the endless column of marching men.

      De Lancey followed her gaze and lost himself in the spectacle. Soon. It would be soon now. He felt the thrill rise within him. Soon they would find Bonaparte. And then a battle. Silently, he watched the men file past and prepared to say goodbye.

DAY TWO

      FIVE

      Braine-le-Comte, 9 a.m. Macdonell

      Slowly, and with carefully measured pace, he rode the big grey horse up the cobbled main street of Braine-le-Comte. Ahead of him the way was blocked by a jubilant crowd – peasants, townspeople and soldiers, in British red and Belgian blue. Some civilians, smiling broadly, made effusive gestures, offered bottles of the local schnapps. A few of the soldiers accepted. Belgians rather than British, he presumed. A group of children had begun to run alongside him, half-skipping, half-marching, singing in French:

      ‘Dansons la carmagnole, Vive le son, vive le son Dansons le carmagnole Vive le son du canon.’

      Macdonell recognized the song of the French Revolutionary Republic. No more dangerous now than a children’s rhyme. He smiled at them, then looked up at the high windows of the thin, red-brick houses which lined the street and out of which people were now leaning, straining to catch a glimpse of this moment in history which, without warning, had overtaken the drab existence of their little town. They were women mostly, of all ages and stations, shouting unintelligible flatteries, waving lace handkerchiefs or lengths of orange silk. More scraps of orange material of all sorts were pinned up all along the street – on the walls, signposts, trees. Orange. National colour of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and as close to an expression of loyalty as these people could find for the strange red-coated soldiers who had come to ‘save’ them from the little man whom some still called ‘the monster’.

      Macdonell looked as if he might manage the job on his own. Blue-eyed and with a shock of wavy, fair hair, Lieutenant-Colonel James Macdonell had been a professional soldier in the army of King George for more than a score of his thirty-seven years. A soldier ever since that day in 1794, when he had left Oxford and the unsatisfying indolence of his studies to join the Highlanders.

      At six foot three inches, half a foot above the average, he sat tall in the saddle, his stature increased all the more by the high, false-fronted black shako, with its gold and crimson cords, shining brass plate of the Garter Star and spotless red and white plume. At his side, in its black leather scabbard, hung a straight-bladed infantry sword – 32 inches of tempered Sheffield steel.

      As he continued along the street, Macdonell’s gaze was caught by the dark eyes of a particularly pretty local girl who had come to smile at him from the balcony of a second-storey window. Out of courtesy and intrigue, he smiled back. Then, lest his men should notice, although they were some distance to the rear, he looked away. And in doing so he began to pay closer attention to the people pressing around him – their clothes the long blue smocks of farm labourers. There were women in long-eared caps and thick petticoats. Hard-featured, heavy-set, peasant stock. They had come into town, he imagined, to see the English СКАЧАТЬ