CHAPTER TWO
15th June
Macdonell was woken by his servant with a mug of sweet tea and the regimental order book. He rubbed sleep from his eyes and checked his pocket watch, a gold hunter made in Paris by M. Lepine, and of which he was uncommonly proud. It was five o’clock. He had slept little. He had still not adjusted to a bed which was six inches too short for him — at three inches over six feet, most beds were too short for him — and just before he retired a galloper had arrived to report that Napoleon’s Armée du Nord was on the march and seemed to be heading for Charleroi on the River Sambre. If the French attacked the town and crossed the river they would have committed an act of war and would be on their way to Brussels, a city that Wellington had vowed to defend. Major General Sir George Cooke, commander of the 1st Infantry Division stationed at Enghien, had immediately sent a despatch to the Duke, summarising the news and requesting orders. As a reply would take several hours to arrive, James had retired in the vain hope of sleep.
He swallowed a few mouthfuls of tea and took the order book from the servant. ‘Any news?’ he inquired hopefully.
‘None that I know of, sir.’
‘Shouldn’t be long.’ In a neat hand he entered the first order for the day. The light companies would parade at eight o’clock in marching order. Sixty rounds to be issued to each man and all horses to be thoroughly exercised and fed. He signed the order Lt Col J Macdonell, Coldstream Guards, and handed it back.
‘Sick to report to the infirmary as usual, Private,’ he said. ‘We shall not want any stragglers. And ask Captain Wyndham to have every musket cleaned and tested. Every one, especially the flints. The last batch was useless.’ Faulty flints supplied by unscrupulous dealers were a constant source of complaint.
‘Yes, Colonel. There is one other matter, sir.’
‘What is that?’
‘Vindle and Luke, sir. Fighting. Sergeant Dawson instructed me to tell you.’
‘For the love of God, not again. Drunk?’ The very pair who had been at the prize fight.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Tell Sergeant Dawson that I will see them before parade.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The private saluted smartly and left. James hurriedly drank the remains of his tea, splashed water over his face, ran a comb through his mop of sandy hair and struggled into his new uniform, already brushed by the servant. It was as fine a uniform as any in the army. A red jacket with a high blue collar and blue cuffs, white breeches, cross-belt from right shoulder to left hip and calf-length black boots. The jacket was laced with gold braid. He checked his appearance in a mirror. He was ready. And if the French were on the Sambre, he would need to be.
On the first day of March, Napoleon Buonaparte had landed with about a thousand men at Golfe Juan on the southern French coast. Ironically, the Duke of Wellington had been in Vienna, discussing with the other European powers how best to ensure peace and stability for all after twenty years of conflict. Boney, not for the first time, had caught them napping and by the sound of it he might be about to do so again.
Macdonell had been with the regiment in Brussels when the news arrived. At first, some of his fellow officers did not take it seriously. They thought that Boney would get no further than Lyon. They did not believe that the veterans who had left their wives and families to fight for him and had seen so many of their comrades die in Spain and Russia would dust off their uniforms, sharpen their swords and make ready to follow him again.
Others did not accept the threat Napoleon posed because they did not want to. They were enjoying themselves too much in the glittering hotels and salons of Brussels to want to go to war, and so persuaded themselves that the little Corsican would simply go away.
James knew they were wrong. The highlander’s instinct that had served him well on battlefield and Scottish hillside alike told him that it would not be many weeks before they were at war again. He had fought in Italy and with Wellington in the Peninsula. He had seen French Lancers destroy an infantry line in a matter of minutes, he had watched helpless as French artillery had turned an infantry square into a mess of blood and bodies, and on dark nights he could still hear the remorseless drumming that signalled the advance of the French Imperial Guard.
Napoleon would not have left his exile on Elba without being confident that these tough veterans of his Russian and Spanish campaigns would follow him once more. Macdonell had even bet a guinea on it with Francis Hepburn. The guinea was paid the day they heard that Marshal Ney, commander of the Imperial Guard, and so-called ‘bravest of the brave’, had declared his support for the Emperor. If Napoleon’s beloved ‘immortals’, complete with their pigtails and earrings, were with him, not a man in France would entertain the remotest possibility of defeat.
Within two days of Ney’s declaration, King Louis XVIII had fled with his family to Bruges, and their emperor, to the joy of the people, had entered Paris. The Allies declared war on France and Wellington made haste to Brussels. Macdonell had heard the Duke say that he wished a more distant island had been found for Napoleon. St Lucia in the Caribbean, perhaps, where yellow fever or malaria might have done for him, or even the lonely island of St Helena, stuck out by itself in the middle of the Atlantic. And the Duke had been proved right. For Napoleon, Elba in the Mediterranean had been no more than a stepping stone back to France.
The Château Enghien stood at the north-eastern edge of the town beside a heart-shaped lake fringed with willow and oak. Once a magnificent building with a grand park, it had long ago fallen into disrepair. Nevertheless it had provided the officers of the 2nd Brigade with more than adequate accommodation. The walls might be peeling and much of the furniture broken, but it was dry and comfortable enough. James had tried, and failed, to imagine it as it must have been in its glory days — the scene, surely, of lavish banquets, grand balls and glittering musical gatherings. Just the things Napoleon was known to hate.
He strode out of the chateau, down a broad flight of stone steps and set off around the lake. A good walk before joining General Sir John Byng for breakfast and to be briefed on the night’s news would help clear his head. It was Sir John’s habit to take breakfast with his senior officers. Unlike Major General Peregrine Maitland who commanded the 1st Brigade, Byng liked to extol the merits of a good breakfast. The fastidious Maitland dismissed it as an unwelcome new habit and insisted that a man should do at least two hours work before breaking his fast.
Macdonell worked better on a full stomach. He had more energy and thought more clearly. And if they were to march, a clear head would be needed. Mobilising troops who had been in quarters for as long as they had would not be easy.
Among the rows of tents the first stirrings were apparent. Grizzled heads appeared, sniffed the air like hunting dogs, relieved themselves and retreated back inside. Fires were being lit and water boiled for tea. Most would breakfast on their ration of boiled beef and biscuit. A few might have scrounged an egg or some bread. In front of a tent at the head of a line, two large figures and an unusually small one were busy preparing their food.
‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ Macdonell greeted them. All three immediately snapped to attention. Macdonell grinned. He could not help grinning when he saw the Graham brothers together. They were so alike that they could have been twins, although today James bore the marks of the fight. One eye was swollen and both cheeks bruised. Six and a half feet tall, broad-shouldered, ruddy-faced, hewn from the hardest Irish granite, and inseparable. Macdonell often thought that if the army had just ten thousand like the corporals Graham, Napoleon would be wise to turn tail and run.