The spark that had ignited the fire of battle at Hougoumont soon did the same in the fields and lanes beyond. Great twelve-pound cannon sent death into the sky to rip heads and limbs from brave men who might see and hear it coming but were expected not to move, not even to flinch. That was a matter of honour for all from the loftiest general to the humblest private. Yet any man who had stood in square and faced an artillery attack knew that it was impossible to stand entirely still in the face of round shot and canister exploding all around, ripping heads from shoulders and limbs from bodies. Macdonell had experienced it himself. He knew what it was like. Terrifying, ear-splitting, blood-soaked hell.
The farm and chateau were enveloped in foul smoke. Everywhere men coughed and spluttered and screwed their eyes shut. Macdonell yelled an order. ‘Eyes on the wood. Watch the wood.’ A shot crashed against the chapel wall, showering the dead with brick dust but leaving the chapel standing. He ran into the gardener’s house and up the stairs to a window. He strained his eyes to peer through the smoke until tears ran down his face. In the wood, muskets fired and men screamed, but he could see nothing. Perhaps the Nassauers and Jägers were holding the French at bay.
They were not. As he watched from the window, green-jacketed men began to emerge from the wood into the clearing outside the gate. They were firing back into the trees as they withdrew, covering each other as best they could. A man went down clutching his knee and was dragged to the wall by a burly sergeant.
Macdonell could not risk removing the barricade and opening the gate to let the retreating men in. He yelled at them to run for the orchard hedge. The Hanoverians and Lüneburgs did so, but some of the Nassauers sloped off into the fields behind the farm. A night in the woods and an attack by French voltigeurs had apparently been enough for them. Macdonell shrugged. There was no point in trying to stop them. A man whose heart was not in the fight would be worse than useless.
Behind the retreating Hanoverians, voltigeurs and tirailleurs poured out of the wood and ran for the gate, firing as they went and shouting the name of their Emperor. It was not what skirmishers were for and little more than foolish bravado. They were met by a storm of musket fire from the roofs and windows and fell in their scores. The few who managed to reach the garden wall were clubbed or hacked down as they tried to climb it. They carried no ladders. Macdonell barely suppressed a grin as James Graham reached over to grab a Frenchman by the neck and heaved him bodily over his shoulder to be dealt with by the Guards behind.
The attackers faced a hopeless task. They could not hope to hit targets protected by walls and hidden behind windows, or to survive the merciless fire rained down upon them. Yet they kept coming, the skirmishers soon being joined by regular infantry and to their right facing the garden, by Dragoons.
Macdonell dashed round the chateau to the north gates. They were secure, guarded by James Hervey’s men on the roofs of the sheds and behind the wall. In the garden, Harry Wyndham’s company was picking off Frenchmen through the loopholes and from the fire steps. Macdonell climbed onto a step for a better view. The private beside him fired and a French shot whistled past his shoulder. The man had found his target in the nick of time. Macdonell clapped him on the shoulder and jumped off the step.
All around the garden, in the farm, at the walls and gates, men died with the crack of muskets and the screech of round shot in their heads. And then a new sound, subtly different from the roar of cannon. Now that the wood was clear of Allied troops, Major Bull’s battery of howitzers had joined the fray. Their shells rose high into the sky, dropping steeply to explode above the trees and rain down a storm of shrapnel on enemy heads. There was no soldier in any army in the world who was not terrified at the mere thought of shrapnel. Iron shot and evil shards of hot metal caused wounds more terrible than any other.
More Frenchmen poured from the wood. But the Guards had had time to reload and picked them off like rabbits. Singly and in groups, the French braved the deadly fire of the Coldstreams, charged across the clearing and threw themselves at the gate and the walls. Dead or dying, they fell there in their dozens and in no time the ground was littered with bodies. Yet they came on and on again. It was hard not to admire the courage of these men but it was futile courage. And the only real damage to the defences or the defenders had been caused by the French artillery. Their infantry were achieving next to nothing. The hundred men of the 3rd Guards Light Company now stationed in and around the lane on the west side of the farm were not even engaged. The French could not reach them.
Macdonell made his way into the garden where yet more French infantry were attacking the wall. Despite their numbers, they were faring little better than their comrades at the south gate. The loopholes afforded almost complete protection to Harry Wyndham’s men shooting through them, and the brave men who did reach the wall were smashed brutally back by the butt of a musket or the thrust of a bayonet. All manner of objects were being put to use — lengths of timber, bricks and stones, even kettles. A kettle jammed into a moustachioed French face appearing above the wall did the job as well as anything.
Harry Wyndham, mounted on his fifteen-hand grey and sword in hand, was in the middle of the garden watching for signs of weakness and shouting for more ammunition or more men where he judged they were needed. From where he was, Harry had a good view of the whole garden and was directing its defence with calm skill while deliberately exposing himself to enemy fire. Wellington himself would have approved.
In the orchard, it was a different story. Major Sattler’s battalion, protected only by the ragged hedge, were suffering. Even reinforced by the Hanoverians who had been driven out of the wood, they would not be able to hold the position for much longer. French Dragoons had already dismounted and broken through the hedge on the east side and were streaming through the gap. The defenders were being driven remorselessly back, yard by yard, towards the garden and the lane leading up to the ridge. If the French occupied the lane, reinforcements would be unable to reach Hougoumont.
The Hanoverians fought ferociously with sword and musket, but they were increasingly outnumbered. Watching from behind the garden wall, Macdonell knew it could only be a matter of minutes before the whole orchard was in French hands.
In fact it was less. Major Sattler, realising the hopelessness of his task, called for a withdrawal to the lane. Leaving the orchard strewn with bodies, his Hanoverians managed to work their way to the lane where they re-formed on the bank and in the hedge alongside it. It was a skillful manouevre which not only saved lives but also kept the lane open.
But the French now had the orchard, from where they would attack the garden wall and pepper the farm and chateau with case-shot. Light case fired at close range from small four-pound guns could do terrible damage, as Macdonell had seen for himself at Salamanca, where he had watched in horror as ranks of advancing guards were ripped to shreds by the iron balls that exploded out of the case and into their bodies and faces.
Without reinforcements, they could not hope to retake the orchard. Macdonell cursed. His defence of Hougoumont looked like being short-lived. He rushed back into the garden and shouted for Harry. ‘The French have the orchard, Harry,’ he yelled. ‘Every man you can spare to the east wall. They must not get into the garden.’ Harry heard him, immediately gathered fifty men and ran to the wall. James picked up a discarded musket, gave the flint a cursory glance, made sure it was loaded and ran to join them. For all the heaped fortifications around it, a crumbling section of the wall on the east side was their most vulnerable point and where the French would probably try to break through.