The French horses snorted, tossed their heads and trampled the rye. The Lancers held their eight-foot-long weapons vertically so that the red and white flags made a brave show against the sky. Sharpe hated lances. He had been captured at lance point in India and still bore the scar on his chest. Some men preferred fighting lances to sabres, claiming that once the lance point was evaded, the Lancer was dead meat, but Sharpe had never felt easy facing the razor-sharp and narrow-bladed spears.
Then, with a deliberate slow menace, and apparently without any order being given, the whole front rank of the French cavalry swung their lance points down into the charge.
The sight of the blades dropping was enough for the Belgian horsemen. They wrenched their horses about, rammed back their spurs, and fled. The staff officers tried to rally the nearest horsemen, but it was hopeless.
Sharpe pulled Doggett’s bridle round. “Get out of here! Ride!”
The Prince had already fled. Rebecque was staring at the enemy through eyes made swollen and watery by hay fever. A French bugle sounded loud and mocking, starting the Lancers on their pursuit.
“Come on, Sharpe!” Rebecque shouted.
Sharpe had already turned his horse. He saw the Prince ahead of him, head down and galloping. He spurred his own horse, hearing the crash of the galloping enemy horses behind. The enemy’s trumpet calls filled the sky with threat.
It was a race. The quickest of the French horses swiftly overtook the slower Belgians. Lances were drawn back and thrust forward into unprotected backs. Men screamed, arched their spines, and fell. Hooves drummed up great chunks of soil. A Dutchman cut blindly at a Lancer and, to his own surprise, knocked the man backwards from his saddle. A. bleeding horse limped. A Brunswicker tumbled from his saddle, scrambled to his feet, and was immediately cut down by an Hussar’s sabre. The Hussars were catching up with the slower Dutch-Belgian horsemen now and their sabres slashed into necks and laid open ribs. Blood slicked the rye straw. Hundreds of broken Dutch-Belgian horsemen streamed northwards towards the crossroads and the enemy rode among.them, screaming to keep the panic bubbling, killing and slashing when they could.
The Duke of Wellington rode forward to stop the rout, but the Dutch-Belgian cavalry ignored him, parting about his staff in a flood of sweating horses and frightened men. The French were racing up behind and on the flanks.
“Get back, sir!” a staff officer shouted at the Duke who still swore and shouted at the panicked Belgians. All the Duke could see was a chaos of dust, burning rye, blood and frightened horsemen, until, clear in the panicked swirl, he suddenly saw the bright gleam of
French helmets and lance blades. The Duke turned his horse and spurred hard. There was no escape on the road, for that was crowded with fugitives, so instead he galloped straight towards the solid ranks of the gand. There were Frenchmen to his left and right, trying to cut ahead of the Duke. Two Lancers were behind, rowelling their horses’ flanks bloody in an attempt to reach him. Copenhagen, the Duke’s horse named for one of his early victories, stretched out his neck. The Highlanders were in four standing ranks that bristled with bayonets. No horse would charge home into such a thickly packed formation, but the Duke was shouting at the Scotsmen, “Down! Down! Down!”
Four files of men dropped to the ground. Copenhagen gathered himself, jumped, and the Duke sailed safely over the sixteen crouching men.
“Fire!” a Highlander officer shouted, and a volley of musketry slashed into the French pursuers. The two Lancers died instantly, their horses flailing bloodily along the ground almost to the feet of the front rank. “Reload!” The officer who shouted the fire orders had been one of the men dancing above the crossed swords in the Duchess’s ballroom the night before. “Fire!” An Hussar’s face disappeared in blood as his wounded horse reared. Man and beast fell screaming into the path of a galloping Lancer. The Lancer’s horse tumbled, legs breaking, while its rider sprawled unhurt. The lance, driven deep into the soil, quivered. “Reload!” the Scots officer shouted.
A mixture of French and Dutch-Belgian cavalry galloped at the infantry line. The Belgians, desperate for safety, spurred through the gaps between the battalions and the French horsemen rode with them. The redcoats suddenly realized that there were enemy horsemen in their rear.
The Black Watch was ordered to form square. The wings of the battalion curved backwards and inwards, but the enemy Lancers were already behind the line and spurring into the space between the wings. They saw the Scottish colours and rammed their lances forward at the men who protected the great silk banners. Two Scottish officers faced them on horseback. One Lancer went down under a claymore’s strike, his skull split down to his coat collar. Colonel Macara was shouting at his flanks to close and, by sheer brute strength, the two ends of the line forced themselves inwards to make a crude square. A dozen enemy Lancers were trapped inside the formation. One lunged at the Colonel, but Macara knocked the lance aside then rammed his claymore forward. “Platoon, fire!” he shouted while his sword was still killing the Lancer. Other Lancers were being dragged from their saddles by vengeful Scottish soldiers who stabbed down with bayonets. Outside the square the horsemen veered away from the platoon volleys, while inside the square the trapped Lancers were butchered. The colours were safe, and the pipes had never stopped playing.
The neighbouring battalion, the East Essex, stayed in their line. They, like the Scots, had been in four ranks, but their Colonel simply turned his rear rank about and opened fire front and rear, killing Dutch-Belgians and French horsemen indiscriminately. One band of determined French cavalry spurred hard from the rear in a furious attempt to capture the battalion’s colours. The spears chopped down two British sergeants, a sabre slashed a redcoat aside, then a Lancer rammed his long blade into the eye of the Ensign carrying the regimental flag. Ensign Christie fell, but he held tight to the big yellow silk banner as he collapsed. Two Hussars attacked the fallen Christie, leaning down from their saddles to hack at the sixteen-year-old with their sabres.
Redcoats scrambled forward, climbing over their own dead and wounded. A Lancer tried to pick up the colour with his weapon’s point, but Christie hung on grimly. The two Hussars grunted as they chopped at him with their sabres. A musket shot killed one Frenchman, the other parried a bayonet thrust, then stabbed down at Christie a last time.
Another musket hammered and the Hussar was plucked out of his saddle like a puppet jerked on strings. A knot of red-coated officers and men surged over the prone Christie, driving the last enemy away. A Lancer had speared a corner of the flag and now jerked his lance up to tear a fragment of the yellow silk away, but even that trophy was denied the French. Three muskets flamed and the Lancer toppled backwards from his horse.
“Close up! Close up!” the Sergeants shouted. A crashing volley cleared a space in front of the battalion. The air was thick with the foul powder smoke, rank with the stench of blood, and loud with the noise of screaming horses and men. A loose horse galloped wildly across the face of the line, streaming blood. A Lancer staggered away on foot and was dropped by a musket bullet. The French horsemen were turning and riding away, trying to escape the musket volleys.
Ensign Christie was alive, still with the colour gripped to his body that had been slashed with more than twenty sabre and lance wounds. His men made a litter of muskets and blankets and carried him back to the surgeons who had set up for business in the barn by the crossroads. The colour, its bright yellow silk slashed by steel and stained with Christie’s blood, was raised again. The French cavalry, like an ebbing tide of blood, reformed a quarter mile away. The crossroads had held.