The storm seemed to heighten the confusion on the road, for some of the baggage-horses moving towards Brussels took fright, and careered about in a state of snorting terror. An orderly came riding along, plastered with mud. He brought yet another dispatch from De Lancey, this time directing Lambert to halt his brigade at the village of Epinay, short of the great forest. Questioned, he said that the army was in retreat from Quatre-Bras upon Waterloo; he did not think there had been any fighting that morning, but the previous day’s losses had been shocking.
This was very bad news, but, a few minutes later, riding ahead to clear the road, Harry encountered a small party of wounded Highlanders, making their painful way to Brussels. They said yes, it had been a hard day’s fighting at Quatre-Bras; the Highland brigade had been fair cut to pieces, and Kempt’s too; but as for defeat, it was no such thing! The French had not gained an inch of ground.
‘Depend upon it, the Duke has been forced to retreat to maintain his communications with the Prussians,’ said Lambert. ‘We’ll push on, if you please.’
There was not much accommodation to be had at Epinay, but Harry put his General and his wife into a tolerable cottage, and left them there while he went off to see the brigade bivouacked for the night. More foreign troops came galloping from the front, spreading a story that the enemy cavalry was actually threatening the Duke’s communication with Brussels; bugles began to blow; the soldiers hastily stowed away the rations they had not had time to eat, and ran to the alarm-posts in front of the village.
Harry rode back to Lambert’s headquarters, and found him sitting quietly down to dinner with Juana and his ADC.
‘Well, Smith, what’s all the commotion?’
‘Some Belgian troops who have just passed through the village, Sir John, say that the enemy’s cavalry are threatening the Duke’s communication lines.’ ‘Oh, do they?’ said Lambert. ‘A pretty set of fellows! Let the troops dismiss: it’s all nonsense! Depend upon it, there is not a French soldier in the rear of his Grace! Sit down to dinner! My butler bought a fine turbot in Brussels, and we are just about to eat it.’ ‘Save some for me, sir. I’ll go and reconnoitre a little.’
‘If that husband of yours doesn’t wear himself out before he’s thirty, he’ll make a very fine General one of these days,” remarked Lambert, as the door shut behind Harry. ‘I never knew such an energetic fellow in my life! Are you sure that habit of yours is quite dry, my dear?’ It was some time before Harry returned. He reported that he had ridden through the forest to the village of Waterloo, just beyond it, and had found a long line of baggage there, retreating in a leisurely fashion that made it certain that the alarm had been false. He was plastered with dirt, and he said that the road was in a deplorable condition, and all the surrounding country deep in mud. As far as he had been able to ascertain from the various conflicting stories he had listened to, the army was retiring to a position in front of the village of Mont St Jean, a little to the south of Waterloo, on the Charleroi chaussee. It seemed to be true enough that the Prussians had suffered a heavy defeat at Ligny, on the previous day, and had fallen back on Wavre, eighteen miles to the rear; but everyone he had spoken to was agreed that the action at Quatre-Bras had ended in the Duke’s favour. ‘Ha!’ said Lambert. ‘That’s not the real thing. We shall see a major engagement tomorrow.’ ‘If the weather’s anything to go by, we shall,’ agreed Harry. ‘We’re in for a true Wellington-night.’
6
The rain continued all night, and a ceaseless rumble of baggage-wagons passing through the village towards Brussels made sleep almost impossible. In the small hours, orders came for the brigade to move up to Mont St Jean. The troops assembled at the alarm-posts at dawn, and were about to move on when Sir George Scovell, AOJMG at headquarters, came up, saying that he had been sent by the Duke to see that the rear was clear. ‘Clear, my God!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s choked all the way to the front, and here’s his lordship expecting to be attacked immediately! Your brigade must clear the road before you move on, Smith.’
‘The devil it must! Well, I can tell you this, Scovell, our fellows are so on fire to get up to the front they’ll clear the road quicker than any magician could! But how is it going?’ ‘Oh, we licked Ney, and Boney licked Blücher, and the result is that the Duke has drawn the army up where he always meant to. If the Prussians come up, there’ll be an end to Boney; if they don’t, may the Lord help us! Picton’s holding the left wing, but he’s devilish weak. His losses at Quatre-Bras were shocking, you know. I fancy you’ll be ordered up to support him, if Blücher can’t get there in time.’
Harry went off to report the order to clear the road to Lambert. He found Juana just finishing a very early breakfast, and said abruptly: ‘I’m sending you back to Brussels with West.’ Her face fell ludicrously. ‘Oh, Enrique, no!’
‘Yes, don’t argue! I’ve just seen Scovell, and it’s as plain as a pikestaff that we’re in for a stiff fight. You must stay with the baggage: God knows what the end is going to be!’ “The Duke has never lost a battle, Enrique!’
‘No, and by Jupiter he won’t today! But you’ll stay with the baggage, for all that. It’s an order, querida.’
She swallowed a lump in her throat. ‘Muy bien. But I think you do not know the agony of waiting in the rear, out of reach, not knowing what may have become of you!’ ‘Yes, my darling, I do know, but I dare not let you stay here. If we were forced to fall back suddenly, you might even be taken prisoner. Come! you are too good a soldier to question your orders!”
She nodded. ‘It is true. I will go.’ ‘Kiss me then-un beso de despedida!’
She clung to him, passionately embracing him. ‘Enrique, mi querido, mi esposo!’ ‘Till we meet again!’ he said, holding her tightly.
‘Enrique, if-
if we do not meet again, I want to tell you how happy I have been, how very happy!’ ‘And I, my soul! But what is this nonsense? Viva Enrique!’
‘I am afraid, more afraid than ever before! This time it is Napoleon himself! Oh, if I could only go with you, stay beside you, share it all with you!’
‘Very much in the way you’d be, hija, I assure you! One last kiss!’ ‘Don’t say that!’ she cried sharply. ‘It is a bad omen!’ But he only laughed, and told her not to be a goose.
West soon had the Brass Mare saddled; he put Juana into the saddle, and handed Vitty up to her; and in a few minutes they had started on their ride back to Brussels. It took them some time to reach the town, and when they got there they found Juana’s own groom standing guard over her baggage in the market-place, while Matty sat upon her bundle, from time to time wiping her eyes with the corner of her shawl. She had been bewailing her lot to Jenkins, and regretting that she had ever been fool enough to leave dear, safe Whittlesey, but she quite cheered up when she saw Juana, and began to think that now, surely, she would be able to go into a house, instead of sitting in the open. But just as Juana rode into Brussels, an order came for the whole baggage-train to evacuate the town, and move on the road towards Antwerp. Since Harry had ordered her to remain with the baggage-train, she felt obliged to accompany it, but it was with a very heavy heart that she left Brussels. The movement of the train of carts and sumpters was necessarily slow; it was a long time before it had all passed out of the northern gate, and when the canal, some miles beyond Brussels, was at last crossed, it was going on for four o’clock in the afternoon. No firing was heard in the rear, a circumstance which made Juana feel lighter-hearted, until she overheard one of the mule-drivers remarking that the wind was in the wrong quarter to carry any sound from the front to Brussels.