‘Nothing. How far to Genappe, Harry?’
‘About two miles, I think. An hour at this pace. Keep them moving but slow and steady. No point in coming up against the traffic in front.’
It was still pouring down when they reached the outskirts of Genappe. There the Hussars rode a short way back down the road. Macdonell ordered the light companies to take up defensive positions guarding the entrances to the village. If the French arrived he could only hope that their muskets would fire.
In the village, he found the inevitable chaos. The narrow streets were crammed with men and wagons and angry officers barked orders as their horses shied at the crush of bodies around them. It would take time to clear a route. Like it or not, the light companies would have to stay where they were, keeping watch and keeping out of trouble.
Gradually the rain eased. Harry ordered muskets fired and flints checked. There was no shortage of water to wash down a dry biscuit or a scrap of meat; those who had some took a mouthful or two of gin or rum, and he gave permission for jackets to be removed and shaken out. His own trousers had shrunk so much that he feared he would have to cut them off. Sergeant Dawson went from group to group, examining muskets and counting cartridges. Macdonell saw him and remembered. ‘Sergeant Dawson,’ he called out. ‘Have you had your arm treated?’
The sergeant jumped. ‘Quite forgot, Colonel,’ he said sheepishly, ‘I’ll do it at the next opportunity.’
Macdonell felt a spark of anger. ‘I ordered you to see a surgeon, Sergeant. You disobeyed. Why?’
Before Dawson could reply, there was a cry of alarm from the rear. Macdonell looked round. A squadron of French Light Dragoons had appeared on the road and stood facing the line of Hussars. They kept their distance and showed no inclination to attack, but they were there, still and watchful. The eight miles to Mont St Jean would be harder, much harder, than the four they had covered. The Dragoons wheeled and cantered off back down the road. Their presence had somehow been more disquieting than a full-blooded charge. In a matter of minutes, Marshal Ney would know exactly where the rear of the Allied army was.
The Hussars watched them go. All but one held their position across the road. A single man cantered back and into the village. The cavalry would need reinforcements.
The sergeant’s arm temporarily forgotten, Macdonell returned to the village. The main road through it was still blocked. He did not waste time finding out why but hurried back to find Harry. ‘Harry, we cannot get through yet and I dare not go around for fear of exposing British backsides to French sabres. Find the best defensive positions you can and tell them to hold their fire until I give the word. We do not want to waste ammunition or shoot a Hussar. We will hope the cavalry holds them and withdraw through the village when we can.’
As if they had heard him, a larger troop of Hussars — perhaps a hundred of them — came trotting up to join their comrades. They formed an extended double line across the road and the fields.
It did not take long for the first Dragoons to appear and when they did the captain of the Hussars ordered an immediate charge. Black plumes waving in the breeze, swords unsheathed and held upright, they galloped straight at the Dragoons, giving them little time to organise themselves.
The engagement was brief and bloody. A hundred or so Hussars surrounded fifty French Dragoons and slaughtered them like cattle. Swords skewered bodies and men screamed. Macdonell stood beside Gooch and Hervey and watched. He had almost forgotten what a cavalry engagement was like. ‘Wish you were in a cavalry regiment, gentlemen?’ he asked, without taking his eyes from the fight. Both shook their heads.
Just one Dragoon managed to escape the circle. Alone, he galloped towards the village, brandishing his sword and shouting his loyalty to France. He was a brave man, but doomed. Macdonell took Dawson’s musket, waited until the Dragoon was thirty yards away, and shot him through the eye. The man fell to one side, his foot trapped in a stirrup, and was dragged away over a field by his mount. Macdonell handed back the musket. ‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ he said quietly. ‘A brave man. I would not have wished for anyone else to have killed him.’
The Dragoons could only have been a scouting party and none of them had escaped back to their lines. The Hussars had bought them time. But probably not much of it. The French would soon wonder where their scouts had got to, fear the worst, and send more forward. And if they brought up artillery, there would be carnage. Streets blocked or not, it was time to move.
Halfway through Genappe, they found the cause of the delay. At a sharp bend in the main street two wagons had tipped over, spilling ammunition and supplies onto the cobbles and injuring the horses. The wagons had blocked the road. They had to be unlimbered, righted and new horses found before the column could move on. Amid the confusion, that had taken the best part of an hour. Cursing himself for not having gone forward to take charge of the mess, Macdonell led the companies through and to the road beyond the village. There they re-formed on the right. Behind them, the Hussars formed a screen across the entire width of the retreating army.
The rain which had come and gone for more than a night and a day now settled in for the afternoon. Dripping and miserable, they trudged on, never far from the rear of the column and hoping that they were safe behind the Hussars. An hour passed, then another. Macdonell reckoned they had marched four miles and had four more to Mont St Jean. There were no more villages on the road, just squelching earth and puddles of mud. The rain battered the rye and filled the streams. It went through trousers and overalls like paper, it doubled the weight of a man’s pack and it flowed like a waterfall off his shako.
Harry rode up to Macdonell with an oilskin over his shoulders. ‘At least no one will go thirsty,’ he said. ‘And there has been no sign of the frogs. Perhaps they are sheltering from it.’
‘I doubt it, Harry,’ replied James. ‘Ney will be promising the first man to kill one of us the Emperor’s undying gratitude. They will be galloping up the road, sabres at the ready and dreaming of a life of ease and wealth at the Emperor’s expense. I am only surprised that none of them has arrived yet.’
‘I hate this, James. Retreating like this. The French at our backs and goodness knows what ahead. For all we know, Buonaparte has swept down like the wolf on the fold and torn Picton’s and Alten’s to shreds.’
‘Showing off, Harry? I would not have taken you for a lover of Lord Byron.’
‘Harrow, James. They taught us all manner of odd things. Poetry, Latin, geometry …’ A shout penetrated the rain. They turned towards it. French Lancers. The Hussars had seen them and formed in line. But there was no point in taking chances. If the Lancers broke through, they would be on the infantry in seconds.
‘Form square,’ shouted Macdonell. ‘Prepare to meet cavalry.’ The weary men dragged themselves into squares around their officers, fumbled at their bayonets with slippery hands and prayed that the Hussars would save them from having to keep the Lancers at bay. In this weather, anything could happen. If a horse slipped and crashed into a square, it might break it open. And the exhausted men kneeling and crouching shoulder to shoulder and knee to knee knew it.
In the hands of an expert a lance was a brutal thing, needle-pointed and terrifying, its edges as sharp as a razor. A good lance was perfectly balanced and strong enough to withstand the impact of flesh or bone. There was no lancer more skilled than a French lancer and these Lancers had come to avenge their dead comrades in the Dragoons. They hurled themselves at the Brunswickers, heedless of the treacherous ground beneath their horses’ hooves, heads down and lances poised to kill.