Waterloo by Andrew Swanston Read Free Book Online

hacked at arms and faces. He had hoped never to witness such slaughter again.
    The division should wait, of course, until the town was clear before entering it. The road was not wide enough to allow two columns to pass and the side streets were blocked. But if the Hanoverians were also coming, it would be some time before the division could proceed. And if the French cavalry were on the rampage, it was time they did not have.
    Macdonell recovered his horse and made his way back to where Harry Wyndham was waiting for him. ‘The town is blocked, Harry,’ he reported, ‘but we cannot wait. Take twenty men and see what you can do to clear a way for us. Don’t mind too much about the locals – they seem to have turned against us, fickle buggers. Bundle them all into side streets if you have to. Ought to try a bit of fighting themselves. Take Hervey and Gooch and the Grahams with you.’
    Harry, as ever, grinned. ‘Eighteen men and two Grahams makes thirty. Should be plenty, sir.’
    ‘Good. Off you go. We’ll wait here. Send word when it’s clear to march on. Oh, and Harry, they’ve had a bad time of it, but we must get past.’
    ‘Right, sir.’
    While they waited, Macdonell ordered his men to lie down. Eat when you can, rest when you can. In the heat and dust of Spain it had been Wellington’s mantra. It was an hour before a light company private trotted back from the town with amessage from Captain Wyndham that it was safe to proceed. Macdonell thanked the man and sent him straight back to report that they were coming.
    In the town it was as if the entire population had been swept off the main street and crammed into the alleys and lanes running off it. Light infantrymen stood shoulder-to-shoulder across each junction, their muskets held across their chests, their backs to the main street, blithely ignoring the howls of fury and protest. An enormously fat man brandishing a leg of pork tried to push his way past a guard. He was sent crashing backwards into a cart by a sharp blow with the butt of a Brown Bess. The infantryman stepped nimbly forward, grabbed the leg of pork and stuffed it into his haversack before anyone else had moved.
    The two ensigns were busy keeping an angry group of women armed with cooking pans from launching an attack from the town hall. James and Joseph Graham were marching up and down the street, lending their weight where it was needed. They nodded a greeting to Macdonell. ‘Just like herding the cows for milking,’ called out James.
    ‘Only cows do not throw cabbages,’ added Joseph, bending down to pick one up. He lobbed it to his brother. ‘Keep that for the pot, shall we?’
    Macdonell found Harry at the far end of the town. Somehow the captain had managed to halt the retreating column outside it, clear the street, and pen the locals in the side streets. ‘How did you do it, Harry?’ asked Macdonell.
    ‘Bit of luck, Colonel,’ replied Wyndham. ‘Bumped in to an old friend in the Cambridgeshires, asked him to speak tohis colonel. He did and the colonel was happy to oblige, even though he has lost an eye. Said he was not going to get it back in Brussels, so he might just as well wait for us to pass. He is halted outside the town until we go through.’
    ‘Are they badly cut up?’
    ‘Pretty bad,’ he said. ‘Netherlanders and Hanoverians took the worst of it. South of a crossroads called Les Quatre Bras. Outnumbered and short of cavalry. Charlie is escorting the wounded. Hopes reinforcements will reach the crossroads before they are all wiped out.’
    ‘Right, let us get through as fast as we can. We’ll halt beyond the town and wait for orders to march on.’
    With the street clear, both brigades marched quickly through the town, ignoring missiles and abuse, until they emerged into the countryside on the southern edge, where the Cambridgeshires were waiting. Macdonell found Colonel Hamilton, his face swathed in bandages, lying in a wagon, apparently asleep. ‘He has lost