Chapter 18: Waterloo and after

During the night we had the most tremendous thunderstorm, which completely drenched those of us not in shelter, which was most of the army. The thunder was as loud as a cannonade, and at first we thought the French were making a night attack.
The morning broke overcast but warm, and soon, with cooking pots and kettles boiling, and clothes drying, we regained our humour, which had been sorely tried during the night.

It is a strange thing, although I can recall the slightest detail of the battle of Quatre Bras, that of Waterloo is a jumbled mess of half remembered recollections. Our battalion was in square with the 33rd Foot, and together we stood and took many casualties from French artillery fire.
I remember the constant crash of musket fire, the hoarse shouts of the attacking French infantry—who themselves were charged by our heavy cavalry and scattered—and the swarms of cuirassiers around the square.
At times I would dash out from the front of the square and bayonet a fallen cuirassier through the throat. The heavy breastplate cuirassiers wore made it a struggle for them to rise from a fall but able to turn a pistol ball. I discovered a bayonet blade in the throat the best way to dispatch them as they lay floundering on the ground. I fully admit this was not a very noble action for an officer and a gentleman to commit. However, I did it for the men in the ranks, and not merely to assuage my blood lust, besides which I am of yeoman stock and as such do not possess those finer feelings reserved for ‘gentry’.

The men of the battalion had suffered most grievously at the hands of cuirassiers at Quatre Bras, and this was their chance, through my actions, to taste revenge. Each time I dispatched a fallen cuirassier a great roar of approval would arise from our square, like that of the crowd at a Roman amphitheatre when a gladiator dispatched his adversary. I nearly paid with my life for this bravado, as one cuirassier, probably an officer, fired his pistol at me as I prepared to deliver the coup de grace, and the ball ripped off my epaulette. I was lucky it did not rip off my head.

Eye balls glared, unnaturally white, from faces blackened by the discharge of muskets, as we loaded and fired like automatons. Each time we tore open a cartridge with our teeth some grains of gunpowder would be ingested, driving men half-crazy with thirst as the day wore on. I saw some men lapping at the puddles of water left from the night’s downpour like animals, completely disregarding the pollution, of mud and blood, in their frenzy to slake their thirst. Men hawked, and then spat gobbets of black sputum, even the snot from our noses was stained by the black powder clouds of smoke, rolling around our lines like banks of eye stinging, choking, fog.
And all the time the screams of wounded and dying men and horses filled my ears.
Eventually, orders were given for the brigade to fall back from the forward slope where we had been posted. The French had succeeded in taking the fortified farmhouse to our front, La Haye Saint, and were now able to bring up their artillery closer to our lines. The well-aimed artillery fire was annihilating our ranks, and had we remained much longer in that position I think it probable the men would have bolted.
There are some, erroneous, accounts of the battle which accuse the 69th of panicking, and running from their position, but they are untrue.
All the regiments of Halkett’s brigade withdrew to the reverse slope of the ridge under orders.
Well, I say withdrew, but in truth we ran pell-mell back over the ridge, and to an observer it would seem we had broken and fled. It would appear Marshall Ney thought that the case, for he advised Napoleon to send in the Imperial Guard to finish off the British, and the battle.

Behind the ridge our brigade was partly sheltered from the damaging artillery fire, and we stopped and turned to face the enemy. When the next, and final, infantry attack was mounted Napoleon’s Imperial Guard thought they were advancing upon a beaten enemy. We heard the drumbeat of the pas de charge, and waited for the sight of their nodding bearskins to appear over the ridge.
Our volleys proved we were far from beaten, and it was the French who fell back—withdrew—scampered back—bolted like hares.
And the Prussian light cavalry went after them, like terriers chasing rats in a cellar.

Halkett’s brigade returned to the forward slope, as the French withdrawal turned first to retreat, and then to a full scale rout.
It was dusk by the time the last Frenchman had been driven from the field, but Wellington’s army was in no state to pursue them. It was left to the Prussians, hatred and revenge driving their tired bodies, to hound and harry the French back to Charleroi.
By then the 2nd/69th was a spent force, and as our exhausted men lay sprawled on the ground I could not distinguish between the sleeping and the dead.

It was the Duke of Wellington, not a man known for exhibiting emotion, who said.
“Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.”

It is true — the aftermath of a battle won is a sad and terrible sight even for the victors. The battle field is littered with dead and dying men and horses, shattered and overturned artillery pieces, broken limbers and wagons, and everywhere the screams, cries and the heart rending sounds of men and horses in agony.
We brought in some wounded, from directly in front of our position, but did not venture much farther on to the stricken field that night. I have to admit I had no thought for those wounded, shattered men, left to die in agony, and I slept through the screaming, groaning, gunshots, and all the other sounds that emanated from that scene of carnage.

At sunrise I and some of my men went out on to the battlefield. Most of the dead garnishing the forward slope of the ridge were French, with the British dead lying mainly on the ridge. The dead of some British regiments still lay in the alignment they had been placed to receive cavalry, when they had been hit by shattering artillery fire from La Haye Saint.
To my shame I felt more sorrow for those horses killed and maimed then I did for the men. Several horses had survived the night, and to see the imploring, and reproachful, look in their eyes, as if asking why they had to suffer such appalling treatment, sent daggers of guilt into my heart. Their screams of anguish and pain were now reduced to low whinnies, and I put many a poor beast out of its misery that morning, the only time I had used my pistol during the entire campaign.
It is a peculiarity that after any battle the victors will usually eat better for several days than they had managed for weeks before. There is always an abundance of horseflesh on a battle field, and freshly slaughtered horse is as appetising as beef for those who have been chewing on dried, salted, pork for the previous month. It is well-known the French are masters of living off the land, and are the finest foragers in Europe. Well-nigh every dead Frenchman had some extra rations stuffed into his knapsack; a loaf of bread, a chicken, a flagon of wine.
The body of one voltiguer we came across was minus his head, but provided a veritable feast from the victuals he had upon his person. The smoked ham, a freshly plucked chicken, a string of onions, and a loaf of bread, which could have only been baked the previous morning, showed he had been a forager supreme. Best of all was his canteen full of brandy.