It was enough to drive them all home bawling to cry on their mammies’ shoulders, one witty rifleman bellowed to an appreciative audience. But there was no other fun at all. Only the interminable trudging and mud, and the blinding flashes of lightning and the crashes of thunder that made their backs twitch, so much like the heavy guns did they sound. And at the end of it all they found a nice muddy bed for the night at a crossroads in the middle of nowhere. And no rations. Trust the bloody commissary wagons to have trundled off to Brussels by now, grumbling voices too weary to be mutinous murmured to comrades. Or Ghent. Or Ostend. Or perhaps they were being loaded onto bleeding ships already to feed the bleeding sailors.
And the rain kept sheeting down.
LADY ANDREA AND Mrs. Simpson had been right, Madeline thought when she had the luxury of a moment in which to think. The first terrible feeling of panic and nausea and light-headedness when the wounded began to arrive passed almost before it was felt. The urge to go out into the street to find if she would recognize any of the poor men dragging themselves into the city or being half-dragged along by comrades in little better case than they was stronger than the desire to rush up to her room to bury her face in a pillow and clamp her hands over her ears.
And once out there, though none of them was Dom or any other soldier she knew, there was no going back in again. Someone else had been right too-but she could not remember who had said it; they were all thirsty and begging for water. And while rushing in and out of the house with slopping pails of water and smelling salts and bandages, she quickly forgot everything but the need to quieten pathetic pleading voices, to help someone limp along, to help another sit down in the roadway for a moment, to wave smelling salts beneath the noses of the fainting, to wipe a dusty face with a damp cloth. And always to help the men to a drink.
Her senses were allowed to accustom themselves gradually to the gruesome sights. Those who arrived first were those who could still somehow drag themselves along, the somewhat lesser wounded. It was later in the day before the worse cases began to arrive, those too weak to move themselves. They came by the cartload, right into the city and onto the streets, many of them, though by the afternoon, tents for the wounded had been set up at both the Namur and the Louvain gates.
And then it began to rain. Men who must have welcomed the cooling drops at first were soon soaked through to the skin, muddy, and shivering. And women tended them with sodden skirts and hair that plastered itself to their heads and faces and dripped streams of water down their necks.
Lady Andrea and Madeline began to move inside as many of the men from the street in front of the house as could move of their own volition or with a little help. A few, those with unhurt legs, were put to bed upstairs, with no thought to the mud that quickly transferred itself to the delicate silk sheets. Others stretched themselves out on the carpets downstairs and counted themselves blessed.
Madeline hauled off mud-caked boots, cut uniforms from congealed or still-flowing wounds, bathed and bandaged cuts and gaping holes, soothed fevered brows, held reaching hands, spoke quiet words that she could never afterward recall, once closed eyes that would never close themselves again-with a hand that scarcely trembled. And always, constantly, held weakened hands and heads so that the cup of water might reach thirsting mouths.
She scarcely thought of her twin all day. There was no time to think. And it was not desirable to think. Mrs. Simpson had been right about that too. But she saw him in every face around her, in every lifted arm. She heard him in every muffled moan and plea for water, in every gasp of thanks.
She did not know when night came. She did not even know that the rain still lashed down outside. There was no leisure in which to wonder if her brother was still alive to feel all the discomfort of a night spent outdoors during the final hours of a lengthy thunderstorm.
LORD EDEN WAS very definitely alive. And uncomfortable. And hungry. He had a chance to share a scrawny fowl and a bottle of wine with Colonel Barnard of his regiment in the small cottage the latter had commandeered for the night. But with one last regretful look Lord Eden waved a dismissive hand, said that the bird was not nearly plump enough for his delicate palate, grinned at the other two officers gathered there, and returned to his hungry, sodden men.
“A strange fellow, Eden,” the colonel said before turning his attention to the pathetic feast spread before him.
Lord Eden and Captain Simpson spent a tolerably comfortable night huddled beneath two blankets, a thick layer of clay spread over the top one for warmth and waterproofing, their heads resting on saddlebags. Those poor devils who had never been on a campaign before! Charlie remarked before yawning loudly and falling asleep just as if he were lying on a feather bed. They must be suffering. If one just ignored an empty, protesting belly and the muddy ground, and pretended that one was not wet through to the bone, one could not ask for greater comfort, Lord Eden agreed, sliding into oblivion only moments after his friend.
But the morning was a different matter. Although the rain had stopped, everyone and everything was wet and muddy. And shivering. Guns were unfit to be fired. Stomachs were so empty that they felt and sounded like echoes in a hollow cave. And when might the French be expected to attack? They had bivouacked alarmingly close to the allied lines and would surely want to make an early push for victory.
But the attack did not come all morning. Somehow, despite the prevailing wetness, fires were built and stiff hands warmed and sodden clothes steamed. Guns were carefully cleaned and polished by thawing hands. And finally the commissary wagons appeared from somewhere and the men had breakfast.
But one did not feel quite as one would like to feel before a major battle, Lord Eden thought, walking among his men to see that the proper preparations were being made. But then, one never did. And the consolation was that the enemy would feel no better. And he did not doubt that this would be a major battle, perhaps the biggest of his experience. They certainly could not retreat any farther without losing Brussels.
The morning was a long one. Let them get started, he thought constantly, and heard as constantly on the lips of the men about him. Even though we aren’t as ready as we would like to be, let them get started.
But when the attack did begin, all the activity was directed far to the right of their position at the crossroads. The French were trying to take the villa of Hougoumont, and the British and German defenders were just as determined that they would do no such thing.
“Poor devils!” one rifleman commented.
“Wisht they’d come this way,” another said, staring off to the right with narrowed eyes, though the lie of the land blocked the view of the villa from his sight.
It was half-past one in the afternoon before the heavy French guns, amassed on the slope to the south of the allied lines, all opened fire at once in the most deadly bombardment that even the oldest veteran had ever experienced. Men died and men cursed in impotent rage. There was nothing that could be done to defend oneself against such attack. The bombardment was a sure prelude to an infantry attack, to be followed doubtless by a cavalry attack. Let them come on, then. Enough of this!
The men of the Ninety-fifth were ordered back from the road behind a rise of land, where they could lie down in relative safety from the relentless pounding of the guns. But still men died.
The survivors felt enormous relief and a deep, knee-weakening dread when the guns stopped suddenly and the French drums could be heard heralding the approach of infantry. And their position, which had sheltered them from the cannon, made matters more nerve-racking now, for they were crouched down behind the rise and could not see who-or what-was approaching.