The first volley smashed into the gardener’s house. The second into the wall. There was no point in returning fire — there was nothing to aim at. The French Gunners crouched behind their guns and in the trees. Better to save ammunition for the attack that would come the moment the wall or the gate were breached. Macdonell watched and waited.
The surgeon was directing the transfer of the wounded to the garden. Those who had lost legs or suffered serious leg wounds were carried on stretchers fashioned from jackets slung between two muskets. The stretcher-bearers scuttled back and forth between the chateau and the garden gate, closing their ears to the sobs and screams of the wounded and eager to get the job done. Mrs Osborne and Mrs Rogers were in the garden, doing what little they could.
James Graham appeared at Macdonell’s side. ‘Are you not meant to be at the north gate, Corporal Graham?’ he asked.
‘With your permission, sir, I would like to be here,’ replied Graham. The big Irishman was a fearful sight — the dye from his jacket had run down his trousers, turning them pink, and he was covered from collar to boot in streaks of blood, mud and grime. His hands and face were black.
‘You have my permission, Corporal.’
Jérôme’s light cannon were still battering the walls and the gaps in them were widening. Through them they caught glimpses of the French near the woods. It would not be long now. A round shot flew over their heads and crashed into the chateau. Another destroyed the garden gate. The gardener’s house where Macdonell had posted more men to shoot down into the clearing was battered and crumbling. He looked about. There was little left to defend. But his strange company of black Brunswickers and filthy, hollow-eyed Guards were ready.
Sergeant Dawson, at the gate, gave the signal. Macdonell bellowed the order to charge and ran. Every man in the yard followed him and did what he had been told to do. He screeched and howled and screamed. At the wall they jumped over bricks and bodies and met the French head on. They fired their muskets into French faces, reversed their weapons and smashed the butts into mouths and eyes and noses. Macdonell had hoped to take the French by surprise, and he had.
Slashing and skewering, he bludgeoned a path towards a mounted French captain armed with a long cavalry sabre and desperately shouting orders. Around him, Guard and Brunswicker killed and wounded and maimed, pressing home their advantage while they could.
Macdonell reached the captain, ducked under his slash, grabbed a stirrup and tipped him off his mount. The captain lay on the ground, his sabre raised in defence. A musket fired over Macdonell’s shoulder and the captain’s eye turned to mush. ‘Easy pickings,’ snarled a voice behind him. It was Luke. Macdonell could not reply. The point of a French sword appeared under the private’s ribs, twisted brutally and withdrew. Eyes wide with shock, he fell forward, blood gushing from his back. His killer turned and disappeared into the melee.
The clearing had become a battlefield. Muskets fired, swords slashed and men died. A head taller than anyone else, James Graham towered over the crush. He hammered his musket butt down onto French shakos, crushing them into skulls and splintering cheekbones and jaws. A group of Frenchmen surrounded him. Holding his musket by the barrel and swinging it like a scythe, he scattered them.
Captain Hellman’s Brunswickers had worked their way around both sides of the clearing and trapped the French like fish in a net. They were merciless. Blue jacket after blue jacket fell and died. The Brunswickers shrugged off their own losses and clawed their way into the body of the enemy.
The French fought bravely. Despite the furious charge that had taken them unawares, they did not lose their discipline, nor did they turn and run. Rallied by their lieutenants, they began to fight back. Coldstreams fell, Brunswickers fell. The surprise had gone and the fight was in the balance. More French came out of the trees, firing as they ran and shouting for their emperor. They tipped the scales. The Guards found themselves being pushed back towards the farm.
At what remained of the wall around the gate, Macdonell called for a stand. ‘Hold the wall,’ he bellowed. ‘Keep them out. Coldstreams with me. Brunswickers inside and on the wall.’ Captain Hellman led his Brunswickers through the gate and the wall. They climbed onto the fire steps and took up the muskets stacked there.
Outside the wall, a line of Coldstreams blocked the gate and the gaps in the wall. Some of them fell to French muskets, but the French could not break their line. They stabbed and sliced, punched and kicked, and gouged French eyes and mouths with their hands. Macdonell, in the centre of the line, drove the hilt of his sword into a lieutenant’s face and saw his nose disintegrate in a fountain of blood.
In the clearing the French were packed tight, elbowing each other aside in their haste to reach the farm. From behind the wall the Brunswickers poured fire into them, yet they came on, stepping over comrades’ bodies, ignoring the wounded, screaming for France and for Buonaparte. This time, at last, they would surely take Hougoumont.
Above the crack of muskets and the clash of steel and the cries of triumph and pain and death, Macdonell did not hear the howitzer fire. Major Bull had seen his chance and taken the risk. And he knew his business. The shell flew high over the wall, seemed to hover for a second above the clearing and crashed down into the very middle of the French troops. Its lethal charge of iron shot and scalding metal cut a swathe of death through them. Dozens fell, maimed or dead, shrieking in agony, uncomprehending. Without warning, death had rained on them from the sky.
More shells fell, more French died. The Coldstreams backed up against the wall, hoping that the Gunners’ aim would not falter, while the Brunswickers added their bullets to the mayhem. For the attackers, it was too much. The howitzers had their range and would go on blasting their shells until every one of them was dead. A French trumpet sounded the retreat.
The Guards slipped back into the yard. The Brunswickers jeered and hooted at French backs. Macdonell left them in the hands of Dawson and Gooch and went quickly to the garden. The gate and part of the farm wall had been destroyed by round shot and the garden was no longer recognisable. Not a blade of grass or a plant to be seen. Instead, corpses, mud, bricks, timbers and discarded muskets lay singly and in heaps. Along the wall lay the wounded, among them the huge figure of Joseph Graham. They were tended by the two women, Mrs Osborne and Mrs Rogers. Macdonell wondered fleetingly if their husbands were still alive.
Brunswickers and Guards stood and sat in clusters, attending to their muskets and sipping water from canteens. Harry Wyndham and Charles Woodford were at the far wall, from where there was a clear view of the orchard.
‘What news?’ called out Macdonell.
‘Hard fighting, James,’ replied Harry, wiping his mouth with a sleeve. ‘They came at us in droves. Thank God for the Brunswickers.’
‘As long as the wall is standing,’ added Charles, ‘we can hold the position. For now, we have enough men. What of the farm?’
‘Still burning, as you can see. The gate is broken and the south wall wrecked. Bloody work keeping them out. Bull’s howitzers rescued us. The frogs will try something else next time. And Francis? Has he held the orchard?’
‘Colonel Home now commands the orchard.’
‘Is Francis wounded?’
‘I do not know. They have twice had to face cavalry. It’s a wonder they still hold the ground.’
‘Ammunition?’
‘Getting low.’ From the field beyond the garden a round shot smashed against the wall. It was followed by musket fire. ‘Here they come again, James. Bonne chance.’ Macdonell raced back to the farm.