Part 13 (2/2)

An occasional gun, beyond the plain, far to our left, marked the approach of the Prussians; but their progress was too slow to afford a hope of their arriving in time to take any share in the battle.

On our right, the roar of cannon and musketry had been incessant from the time of its commencement; but the higher ground, near us, prevented our seeing anything of what was going on.

Between three and four o'clock, the storm gathered again in our front.

Our three companies on the knoll were soon involved in a furious fire. The Germans, occupying La Haye Sainte, expended all their ammunition, and fled from the post. The French took possession of it; and, as it flanked our knoll, we were obliged to abandon it also, and fall back again behind the hedge.

The loss of La Haye Sainte was of the most serious consequence, as it afforded the enemy an establishment within our position. They immediately brought up two guns on our side of it, and began serving out some grape to us; but they were so very near, that we destroyed their artillerymen before they could give us a second round.

The silencing of these guns was succeeded by a very extraordinary scene, on the same spot. A strong regiment of Hanoverians advanced in line, to charge the enemy out of La Haye Sainte; but they were themselves charged by a brigade of cuira.s.siers, and, excepting one officer, on a little black horse, who went off to the rear, like a shot out of a shovel, I do believe that every man of them was put to death in about five seconds. A brigade of British light dragoons advanced to their relief, and a few, on each side, began exchanging thrusts; but it seemed likely to be a drawn battle between them, without much harm being done, when our men brought it to a crisis sooner than either side antic.i.p.ated, for they previously had their rifles eagerly pointed at the cuira.s.siers, with a view of saving the peris.h.i.+ng Hanoverians; but the fear of killing their friends withheld them, until the others were utterly overwhelmed, when they instantly opened a terrific fire on the whole concern, sending both sides to flight; so that, on the small s.p.a.ce of ground, within a hundred yards of us, where five thousand men had been fighting the instant before, there was not now a living soul to be seen.

It made me mad to see the cuira.s.siers, in their retreat, stooping and stabbing at our wounded men, as they lay on the ground. How I wished that I had been blessed with Omnipotent power for a moment, that I might have blighted them!

The same field continued to be a wild one the whole of the afternoon.

It was a sort of duelling-post between the two armies, every half-hour showing a meeting of some kind upon it; but they never exceeded a short scramble, for men's lives were held very cheap there.

For the two or three succeeding hours there was no variety with us, but one continued blaze of musketry. The smoke hung so thick about, that, although not more than eighty yards asunder, we could only distinguish each other by the flashes of the pieces.

A good many of our guns had been disabled, and a great many more rendered unserviceable in consequence of the unprecedented close fighting; for, in several places, where they had been posted but a very few yards in front of the line, it was impossible to work them.

I shall never forget the scene which the field of battle presented about seven in the evening. I felt weary and worn out, less from fatigue than anxiety. Our division, which had stood upwards of five thousand men at the commencement of the battle, had gradually dwindled down into a solitary line of skirmishers. The twenty-seventh regiment were lying literally dead, in square, a few yards behind us. My horse had received another shot through the leg, and one through the flap of the saddle, which lodged in his body, sending him a step beyond the pension-list. The smoke still hung so thick about us that we could see nothing. I walked a little way to each flank, to endeavour to get a glimpse of what was going on; but nothing met my eye except the mangled remains of men and horses, and I was obliged to return to my post as wise as I went.

I had never yet heard of a battle in which every body was killed; but this seemed likely to be an exception, as all were going by turns. We got excessively impatient under the tame similitude of the latter part of the process, and burned with desire to have a last thrust at our respective _vis-a-vis_; for, however desperate our affairs were, we had still the satisfaction of seeing that theirs were worse. Sir John Lambert continued to stand as our support, at the head of three good old regiments, one dead (the twenty-seventh) and two living ones; and we took the liberty of soliciting him to aid our views; but the Duke's orders on that head were so very particular that the gallant general had no choice.

Presently a cheer, which we knew to be British, commenced far to the right, and made every one p.r.i.c.k up his ears;--it was Lord Wellington's long wished-for orders to advance; it gradually approached, growing louder as it grew near;--we took it up by instinct, charged through the hedge down upon the old knoll, sending our adversaries flying at the point of the bayonet. Lord Wellington galloped up to us at the instant, and our men began to cheer him; but he called out, ”no cheering, my lads, but forward, and complete your victory!”

This movement had carried us clear of the smoke; and, to people who had been for so many hours enveloped in darkness, in the midst of destruction, and naturally anxious about the result of the day, the scene which now met the eye conveyed a feeling of more exquisite gratification than can be conceived. It was a fine summer's evening, just before sunset. The French were flying in one confused ma.s.s.

British lines were seen in close pursuit, and in admirable order, as far as the eye could reach to the right, while the plain to the left was filled with Prussians. The enemy made one last attempt at a stand on the rising ground to our right of La Belle Alliance; but a charge from General Adams's brigade again threw them into a state of confusion, which was now inextricable, and their ruin was complete.

Artillery, baggage, and every thing belonging to them, fell into our hands. After pursuing them until dark, we halted about two miles beyond the field of battle, leaving the Prussians to follow up the victory.

This was the last, the greatest, and the most uncomfortable heap of glory that I ever had a hand in, and may the deuce take me if I think that every body waited there to see the end of it, otherwise it never could have been so troublesome to those who did. We were, take us all in all, a very bad army. Our foreign auxiliaries, who const.i.tuted more than half of our numerical strength, with some exceptions, were little better than a raw militia--a body without a soul, or like an inflated pillow, that gives to the touch, and resumes its shape again when the pressure ceases--not to mention the many who went clear out of the field, and were only seen while plundering our baggage in their retreat.

Our heavy cavalry made some brilliant charges in the early part of the day; but they never knew when to stop, their ardour in following their advantages carrying them headlong on, until many of them ”burnt their fingers,” and got dispersed or destroyed.

Of that gallant corps, the royal artillery, it is enough to say, that they maintained their former reputation--the first in the world--and it was a serious loss to us, in the latter part of the day, to be deprived of this more powerful co-operation, from the causes already mentioned.

The British infantry and the King's German legion continued the inflexible supporters of their country's honour throughout, and their unshaken constancy under the most desperate circ.u.mstances showed that, though they might be destroyed, they were not to be beaten.

If Lord Wellington had been at the head of his old Peninsula army, I am confident that he would have swept his opponents off the face of the earth immediately after their first attack; but with such a heterogeneous mixture under his command, he was obliged to submit to a longer day.

It will ever be a matter of dispute what the result of that day would have been without the arrival of the Prussians: but it is clear to me that Lord Wellington would not have fought at Waterloo unless Blucher had promised to aid him with 30,000 men, as he required that number to put him on a numerical footing with his adversary. It is certain that the promised aid did not come in time to take any share whatever in the battle. It is equally certain that the enemy had, long before, been beaten into a ma.s.s of ruin, in condition for nothing but running, and wanting but an apology to do it; and I will ever maintain that Lord Wellington's last advance would have made it the same victory had a Prussian never been seen there.

The field of battle, next morning, presented a frightful scene of carnage; it seemed as if the world had tumbled to pieces, and three-fourths of every thing destroyed in the wreck. The ground running parallel to the front of where we had stood was so thickly strewed with fallen men and horses, that it was difficult to step clear of their bodies; many of the former still alive, and imploring a.s.sistance, which it was not in our power to bestow.

The usual salutation on meeting an acquaintance of another regiment after an action was to ask who had been hit? but on this occasion it was ”Who's alive?” Meeting one, next morning, a very little fellow, I asked what had happened to them yesterday? ”I'll be hanged,” says he, ”if I know any thing at all about the matter, for I was all day trodden in the mud and galloped over by every scoundrel who had a horse; and, in short, that I only owe my existence to my insignificance.”

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