From the yard outside the barn came the sounds of desperate fighting — musket fire and voices raised in alarm. Macdonell dashed out. To his horror, the north gate was open again and James Hervey’s troops were outside, their muskets pointing up the lane. As he ran to the gate, a cheer went up and a wagon pulled by two horses and driven by a single, hatless man, thundered down the lane and in through the gates. The Guards followed it in and secured the cross-beam.
Both horses had been wounded by fire from the voltigeurs hidden in the hedgerows but the driver, miraculously, was unhurt. He jumped down and called for help in unloading his wagon. When he saw Macdonell, he saluted smartly. ‘Private Brewer, Colonel, Royal Waggon Train.’
‘Do you bring us ammunition, Private Brewer?’ asked Macdonell.
‘I do, sir.’
‘Good man. Now you are here, you’d best stay here. Mister Hervey will find you a musket.’
‘Very good, sir.’
A brave man, Private Brewer, and a fortunate one to have survived his dash down the lane. ‘Distribute the ammunition at once, Mister Hervey. Captain Wyndham in the orchard would appreciate it and so would Mister Gooch.’ Macdonell barked the order. There was no time to spare.
Almost immediately, the howitzer in the wood fired and a shell flew over the wall. It did not explode above their heads but landed in the yard and shattered. Its contents, burning clumps of pitch, gunpowder and turpentine, spilt into the yard, where they spluttered and died in the mud.
Macdonell swore. Mrs Osborne and Mrs Rogers would have to wait. The French had turned to carcass shot.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The man who invented carcass shot was certainly spawned by the devil. A plain canvas sack, strengthened by iron hoops and filled with a hellish mixture of turpentine, tallow, saltpetre and pitch, it burst on impact, creating fires which were nigh on impossible to extinguish. As James Macdonell knew all too well.
More carcass landed in the yards and on the roofs of the farm buildings. The guards stumbled from one shell to another, slipping in the mud and on the bloody cobbles in their haste to put out the fires. They tried urinating on them, stamping on them and throwing blankets over them. Nothing worked. The terrible things would burn until they expired and they did not expire easily. It was only a matter of time before the flame from one of them caught dry timber and Hougoumont was on fire.
It did not take long. A stack of hay had been piled against the wall of the cowshed and covered by a canvas sheet. Until then Macdonell had given it no thought. But when he saw the stack engulfed in flames, he cursed himself for not having done so. The canvas had kept the hay dry and it burnt fast. The flames caught the shed and spread inside, where they were fuelled by straw and timber. Three Nassauers on the roof jumped off, landing awkwardly in the yard but avoiding the flames.
Men ran to help but there was little to be done. Even if there had been water in the draw well it would not have been much use. The fire was too strong. Within minutes the farmer’s house, where James and Alexander Saltoun had shared beef and claret, was alight. Blazing timbers fell into the yard and around the garden gate, shooting sparks into the sky and setting fire to the barricades. Burning men ripped off their jackets and rolled in the mud. In the stables and the cowshed, the horses caught the smell of fire and screamed in terror. Several charged into the yards and ran around in blind panic. One forced his way through the gate and into the garden where he was caught by a brave Nassauer. The rest, hopelessly confused, ran back into the stables.
Macdonald yelled at Sergeant Dawson to ignore the fire and keep his men at the south wall, where the French were launching another attack. At the north gate he found Hervey making a futile attempt to put out the fire which was now scorching the tiles on the cowshed roof. ‘Leave it, Mister Hervey,’ he bellowed. ‘Concentrate on the gate. Do not allow the gate to burn.’
Once it had taken hold, the fire spread with astonishing speed. The smoke was everywhere — thick, black, suffocating. Eyes streamed, lungs filled with soot and men fell choking. Sparks caught hair and flesh and melted them. A box of cartridges exploded, killing four men nearby. The flames crossed the yard and threatened the chateau. The French were attacking from north, south and east and Hougoumont was burning. The French had seen the smoke and flames, known that the fire was out of control and changed back to round shot. The shots thundered over the walls, killing, wounding and hammering into stone and brick. The tower took a shot about halfway up. Many more like it and the tower would fall.
Macdonell ran through the chateau door, jumped over the wounded men lying in the hallway and dashed up the stairs. Private Lester and three other guards were at the top windows, firing at the enemy emerging from the wood. ‘Hold this position, Lester,’ shouted Macdonell. ‘Do not leave the house on any account.’ Without waiting for an acknowledgement he ran back down the stairs and into the yard. Even if they lost the orchard, the garden and the farm buildings, they must hold the chateau. From there, they would be able to continue harrying the French and perhaps prevent them sweeping up the slope towards Byng’s artillery.
The garden, although safe from the fire, was again being attacked on every side. In the clamour and confusion Macdonell could not make out much of what was happening but through the smoke he saw that in places the walls had collapsed, leaving gaps through which faceless blue jackets were trying to fight their way, while equally faceless red ones stood and knelt in the gaps, firing volley after volley into them and hurling back those who managed to reach the wall. The bloody bodies of Frenchmen and Englishmen and Germans lay heaped together without distinction in the dirt, not only at the wall but also among the parterres and on the paths. So some Frenchmen had got inside and had died there.
Harry had abandoned his horse and was at the wall where it met the gardener’s house near the south gate — the place Macdonell had chosen for himself earlier in the day — slashing and cutting with his sword at any face that appeared over the wall. As the wall there was over seven feet high, the French must have been climbing on each other’s shoulders to get to the top of it. Macdonell had not yet seen a ladder being used. There was no time to check the orchard. He turned to go back to the farm. As he did so, an eight-pound shot landed behind him, spewing up earth and stones from a parterre. The soft ground took most of the shot’s momentum and it bounced only once before embedding itself. A garden that had once bloomed with flowers was now littered with ugly iron balls.
In the few minutes Macdonell had been in the garden, the fire had spread. Flames were playing around the stables, the sheds and the chateau itself. Again he bellowed at the Guards at the south gate not to leave their positions. That was what the French were counting on. The fire would have to take its course. Sergeant Dawson was standing on a step, firing down into the clearing. A private was handing him up musket after musket. Over the gate and along the wall, the men worked in pairs — firing, reloading, firing again. The crack of muskets had become a continuous barrage of noise and smoke. Macdonell climbed onto a crate. The clearing had become a graveyard, filled with French bodies from the treeline to the gate. Yet still they came on. Hundreds of them, shrieking for their emperor, for France, for victory. Prince Jérôme had set light to Hougoumont and now he was pounding it with round shot and throwing troops at the gates. And he would go on doing so until he took it. He could not disappoint his brother.