‘Is Miss Box attending the ball?’ asked Macdonell innocently.
‘She says not. Her papa is not senior enough. I shall be damned cross if I find she’s deceived me.’
By half past seven all the carriages had departed. ‘Ah well,’ said James, ‘there’ll be a few thick heads in the morning. Let us hope Napoleon does not have a spy at the ball to send him reports on the state of the generals.’
‘I would not put it beyond the wily little Corsican. Intelligence officers dressed as servants and furnished with something nasty to slip into the peer’s glass. We had better hope not.’
At the chateau, Francis went to his room. For a few minutes Macdonell stood at the steps enjoying the warm evening air and listening to the muffled sounds of soldiers preparing to sleep. Two familiar figures approached from his left. ‘Corporals,’ he greeted them. ‘An evening stroll?’
‘Yes, Colonel,’ replied James Graham. ‘Not quite ready to sleep. We’ve been talking and we agree.’
‘Agree about what?’
‘That we’ll march tomorrow,’ said Joseph. ‘We are sure of it.’
‘Then let us hope the ball is over before we do. Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight, Colonel.’ It was said in unison.
CHAPTER FOUR
16th June
The news arrived by galloper an hour after midnight. The French had crossed the Sambre, taken Charleroi and were advancing rapidly towards the town of Ligny. Having delivered his report to Francis Hepburn as the duty officer, the galloper changed horses and sped on to Brussels. A second galloper had taken the direct road there but a message of such importance was commonly carried by more than one man. The Duchess’s Ball would be ending rather earlier than planned.
His servant had no need to rouse Macdonell who had been awake since retiring soon after eight. Five hours of anxious tossing and turning had done little for his humour. With a flood of relief that the waiting was over, he barely touched the mug of tea on his writing table and was up and out of the chateau within minutes. Francis Hepburn was waiting for him by the steps.
‘Bonjour, James,’ he greeted Macdonell. ‘It seems you were right. Boney has caught us napping. I have ordered the drums to beat to arms but I suppose we had better wait for the dancers to return before marching.’
‘Let us be ready when they do.’
A bugler sounded reveille. The drummers thumped out the call to arms. In moments, the camp was awake and about its business. Torches were lit. Sergeants and corporals shouted orders and half-dressed men scurried about, getting in each other’s way and tripping over tent ropes in their haste to make ready. Red-jacketed guards poured from outbuildings, hoisting up trousers, struggling into overalls and fumbling with buttons.
By the flickering light of the torches Macdonell watched Joseph Graham help a nervous young private do up his jacket buttons. The boy was one of the many who were about to face their first battle. For every veteran of Spain or Italy, there were four or five in General Cooke’s Division who had never fired a shot in anger. Corporals strode up and down the lines urging the slowest to hurry. Sergeant Dawson aimed a kick at Private Vindle’s backside and received a gratifying yelp in reply. Campfires were lit and water boiled. It was over thirty miles to Charleroi. A long enough march, too long without beef and tea in a man’s stomach.
Within the hour, chaos had turned to order and purpose. Every man had eaten, checked his musket and cartridges, packed a clean shirt and linen into his knapsack and strapped his blanket to it. Sir John Byng’s Second Brigade, the light companies at their head, formed columns outside the chateau and were ready to go to war. It needed only the return of the general himself and they would march to meet the French.
For another hour, they stood ready. Just after three, as the first glimmerings of a summer dawn began to lighten the sky, carriages started arriving from Brussels. Byng, Woodford and Wyndham were in the first of them. Their cabriolet came to a halt outside the chateau and they jumped out. ‘I see you have made ready, James,’ said Byng. ‘Good. We will march in ten minutes. I do not care to fight in dancing shoes.’
‘Nor I,’ agreed Woodford, before taking the steps two at a time and disappearing into the chateau.
‘My apologies, James,’ said Harry Wyndham, sounding not in the least apologetic. ‘Perhaps I should have stayed here. And the ball was tedious. Too much talk of Buonaparte and very little waltzing. Not to my taste at all.’
‘No more than you deserve, Harry,’ replied Macdonell with a grin. ‘Be off with you and get ready.’
When the officers reappeared, the trumpets sounded, the drums rolled and the columns moved off, the regimental colours of the Coldstream Guards and the Third Guards held proudly aloft. Light companies at the front, line infantry and artillery in the middle, quartermaster and his long train of carts and fourgons at the rear. From the direction of the stables, a private, his pregnant wife hanging on to his arm, came hurrying to catch the last wagon. He bundled her in and ran to join his company.
To the beat of the drums and cymbals, the deep bass of the serpents and the cheerful trill of the flutes, nearly two thousand men, horses, wagons and camp followers trundled into the town. Boots thumped down on the cobbles, wagon wheels clanked and rattled and nervous horses kicked and snorted their displeasure, their breath hanging briefly in the morning air. Along the way, they collected men and women from their billets, the men taking their places with their companies, the women joining the supply train. On street corners and from upstairs windows, ancient Flemish women in their strange long-sided caps gaped in awe and young ones, some still in their shifts, waved fond farewells from doorways and street corners. The most daring of them darted forward to thrust a cheese or a pie into a grateful hand or for a fleeting embrace. Many wore squares of orange silk or cotton over their hair.
In the town square a score of latecomers, bleary-eyed and bad-tempered, appeared and found their places in the line. Down the Grand Avenue they marched to the steady beat of the drums. The town had woken and the going became slower through the crowds. By the time the light companies reached the edge of the town, the sun had risen in a cloudless sky. The day would be hot. They passed farmers bringing their fruit and vegetables to market and milkmaids returning from the fields. Any man who tried to grab a cabbage or an onion from a barrow or a dog cart risked the wrath of his sergeant. Macdonell, like Wellington himself, had let it be known that he would not tolerate theft from the local people. Everything must be paid for. Dawson and his corporals ensured, as far as they could, that the rule was enforced. Unlike the soldiers, small boys scrambled about grabbing whatever they could before scurrying home with their booty.
It was the best part of an hour before the entire 2nd Brigade was safely out of the town and on the road south. A mile on they joined General Maitland’s 1st Brigade, which had been billeted on the other side of the town. Four thousand men of the 1st Division of Foot Guards were, at last, on their way to war.
CHAPTER FIVE
As the morning grew hotter, they marched on through hamlets, across shallow streams and past farms and cottages. The road was seldom more than baked earth, broken by short stretches of embedded flint and chalk or a thin layer of gravel. Farm workers, traders and innkeepers stopped their work to watch them go by. Most simply stood and stared. A few waved orange flags and shouted enouragement. At the front of the column the 2nd Battalion light companies set the pace. Macdonell, riding at their rear, made sure it was not too fast. Exhausted men would not be much use when it came to fighting.