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‘I must go to Wellington. Adieu, Miguel. Thank you again for your hospitality. Until we meet again.’
‘On the field of battle, William.’
Their handshake – wonderfully un-British, thought De Lancey – had become for both more than a gesture of farewell. It was a symbol of faith in their mutual survival. Just as it had been before Salamanca, Badajoz, Vitoria.
De Lancey turned and walked quickly to the door, closely followed by the aide, and out into the candlelit hall, where the clatter of the young man’s spurs changed to a brighter note as they rasped on the black and white marble of the chequerboard floor. At the door De Lancey turned again and raised his hand in a final farewell.
‘Till the battle, Miguel. Then we shall know the true mettle of this army. And so shall Bonaparte.’
Smiling, he turned through the door and walked out into the warm evening. Outside, at the foot of the steps, the aide was waiting, holding his horse by the pommel of its saddle. Without a word, De Lancey, who had arrived by carriage, took the reins and hoisted himself up. Sensing that this was hardly a time to protest, the aide let go his mount and, saying nothing likewise, De Lancey urged the handy little chestnut off along the street, quickly breaking into a canter. His speed alarmed several of the promenading couples, sending them back against the shuttered windows.
It was not far to the house that Wellington had taken – an imposing ten-bay mansion, set back from the Rue Royale, to the west of the Parc. De Lancey pulled up the horse, leapt from the saddle, leaving it untethered, and rushed past the redcoated sentries, through heavy oak doors, across the courtyard and into the house.
He found the Duke still seated at the dinner table, on which, although the dishes had been removed, there yet remained eight wine glasses and a half-full decanter of port. Everywhere – across the table, the chairs, the floor – lay papers. Maps, plans, orders of battle, reports. Wellington did not look up, continued to read.
‘General d’Alava was well?’
‘Quite well, sir. He sends his warmest regards.’
‘Oblige me, De Lancey. That piece of paper. There. Yes, that one. A despatch from General von Ziethen. Read it, please.’
‘Sir, I myself have come with a despatch.’
‘Quite so. Quite so.’ Wellington looked up. ‘And I presume I am correct in supposing that it will tell me that Bonaparte has attacked the Prussians … at Charleroi?’
‘Yes sir. But how … ?’
‘Read Ziethen’s despatch. Go on.’
De Lancey picked up the folded piece of parchment, and opened it. It was brief. A pointed cry for aid. The Prussians had indeed been attacked, at Thuin. Which would indicate that the initial French objective was Charleroi.
‘It is as we thought, your Grace. The secondary French plan. Bonaparte intends to push between us and the Prussians. To destroy first their army and then our own. In detail.’
It was just as d’Alava had predicted. Driving a wedge between the two armies, snuffing out first one, then the other.
‘Sir, we must act. What do you intend? We should surely alert the First Division. Call the reserve to arms. What are your orders, sir?’
‘My orders, Sir William, will be made plain by and by. It is not my intention, however, to amuse Bonaparte’s many spies and other fine friends in this city by running around Brussels like some dumb-struck virgin on her wedding night. Besides, I believe it may be a feint.’
In the wall directly behind Wellington a door opened in the panelling and six men entered. Staff officers. A gracious welter of red, blue and gold. Fitzroy Somerset, the Duke’s secretary; Sir Alexander Gordon, his principal aide-de-camp; George Lennox and George Cathcart, more aides; from De Lancey’s own office, Alexander Abercromby of the Guards; and George Scovell. Wellington addressed them, without turning his head from his papers.
‘Ah, gentlemen. To work. There is much to do.’
Half an hour later De Lancey, still riding the aide’s horse, pulled up outside his own house. Inside he found his staff – a dozen young men, junior officers mostly – all crowded around his young wife. They were by turns garrulous, detached, flirtatious, earnest. These were his chosen ones, the men who would carry the war and word of how to wage it to every brigade, every battalion. Will Cameron, young Ed Fitzgerald, Charles Beckwith in his distinctive rifleman’s green, James Shaw, the hero of Cuidad Rodrigo. Seeing him enter, their laughter stopped.
‘All right, gentlemen, as you were. The world is not yet come to an end. Magdalene, my dear, I am sure that you will forgive us if we make our headquarters in the dining room. Charles, ensure if you please that any messengers know to wait in the drawing room. Magdalene, my sweet, we shall need some sustenance. Perhaps cook would prepare us a little supper and a sufficient quantity of green tea. I suspect that we shall be on this business the entire evening.’
He sensed disquiet. Smiled.
‘No, no, gentlemen. Do not be alarmed. Rest assured that you will – all of you – be able to spend some time at the Duchess’s dance. Indeed the Commander-in-Chief himself has commanded it. All will go ahead as planned. William, be a good fellow and go and seek out Mr Jackson. More than likely you will find him walking alone in the park.’
His comment about the contemplative Jackson served to lighten the mood in the room.
‘And Edward, take yourself off and see if you can run to earth one Colonel Meyer, of the 3rd German Legion Hussars. His men are to be our couriers and escorts for the night.’
As the young men left to go about their errands, De Lancey began to feel the burden of his position. He realized that whatever should soon happen on the battlefield, this would most likely be for him a defining moment. It was his reponsibility to ensure that everything worked perfectly, otherwise disaster would ensue. It was he who would guarantee that every one of the troops of the allied army, some 95,000 men, would arrive at precisely the destination for which Wellington intended them, at precisely the correct moment. And that when they arrived they would be provided with the right equipment, and the right ammunition, in sufficient quantity.
Flashing him a nervous, sweet smile, Magdalene left to consult with the cook. De Lancey walked to the dining room, extracted from his soft leather valise the sheaf of order papers which Wellington had given him and laid them on the table before him. Other officers began to arrive now. William Gomm of the Coldstream, together with Hollis Bradford of the First Guards, both fresh from a shopping expedition, laden with bundles of lace; George Dawson of the Dragoons and Johnny Jessop of the 44th. And other, younger men, captains mostly – and now the lieutenants, Peter Barrailler and, at last, Basil Jackson, who had been discovered, as De Lancey had predicted, sitting in the Parc, reading Byron. Sixteen assistant quartermasters general; twelve deputy assistant quartermasters general. His military family.
Within minutes the room had become a scene of frenetic activity as the staff set about their business. Maps appeared from cylindrical carrying cases and were spread on the table to show the better of the roads and the capacity in tonnes of every bridge – and whether it was suited to taking artillery or cavalry. And around the long table the officers took up their stations, became in effect so many clerks, writing out in neat copperplate, in duplicate, every one of the Duke’s orders:
Dörnberg’s cavalry, to march upon Vilvorde;
Uxbridge’s cavalry, save the 2nd Hussars, to collect at Ninove;
The 1st Division to collect at Ath and be ready to move;
The 3rd Division to collect at Braine-le-Comte;
The 4th Division to collect at Grammont;
The 5th Division, the 81st Regiment and the Hanoverians of the 6th Division to be ready to leave Brussels momentarily;
The Duke of Brunswick’s Corps to collect on the road between Brussels and Vilvorde;
The Nassau troops to collect on the Louvrain road;
The Hanoverians of the 5th Division to collect at Hal and to march tomorrow towards Brussels;
The Prince of Orange to collect, at Nivelles, the 2nd and 3rd Divisions under Perponcher-Sidletsky and Baron Chassé;
The artillery to be ready to move off at daylight.
In effect the entire army was being placed in a state of readiness to move. But, as far as De Lancey could see, no unit had actually been ordered on to the offensive. Caution. Wellington was waiting. Would not move directly to help the Prussians. Did not believe that it might not be a feint. But what if d’Alava had been right? Equally, Wellington might be correct.
The French might intend to move against his right. But De Lancey also felt a sense of unease. He decided that the following morning, before the army moved off, he would send Magdalene away – to Antwerp, safe from the threat of what, to both he and the Spaniard, now seemed to be the obvious direction of French attack.
For over two hours the staff scribbled and copied, blotted, folded and sealed; sent the messages into the anteroom to the waiting Hussars and filed their duplicates at the end of the table. And all the time De Lancey pored over the maps; occasionally, noticing an anomaly, changed a route, recalled an order. And all the time Magdalene and the servants brought tea in pots and urns and whatever supper cook had been able to find for the officers – toasts and savouries, mostly. Not much was eaten, for no sooner would there be a slowing-down in the work than De Lancey, remembering something else, would call for a change of route, or issue an entirely new order.
It was past nine o’clock when they finished. And then, with hardly a moment’s pause, every one of the junior officers assembled at the end of the dining table, to be entrusted in turn by De Lancey with one of the duplicate orders. It was a practice which had proven its worth in Spain. How many times had a courier fallen from his horse, or been delayed by some unseen hazard? A second copy of every order was now to be delivered by ‘hand of officer’. And, like the originals, every one was to have its own receipt, from the hand of its recipient.
Check and double check. It was the only way, thought De Lancey. And he hoped to God that he had got it right. Had made no mistakes. That nothing would go wrong. For, whatever the virtue of Wellington’s strategy of caution, were anything to go awry in its execution, and if as a consequence of it the battle were to be lost, he knew that there was only one man in the entire army on whom the blame would fall.
THREE
Gosselies, 8.30 p.m. Ney
The evening, which he had hoped might offer a little relief from the heat of a long day, was proving oppressively warm, its intense humidity hinting at the possibility of a coming storm. Michel Ney, Duc d’Elchingen, Prince of the Moskowa, tall, barrel-chested, strikingly handsome in the gold-embroidered, dark blue coat of a Marshal of France, stood alone in the garden of a shell-damaged cottage on the edge of the town of Gosselies and looked to the north. Through his field telescope he scanned the sun-dappled fields of tall rye and wheat which stretched out towards Brussels and the waiting enemy. Behind him, tethered to an apple tree, grazing placidly, stood the horse he had bought two days ago from his old friend Marshal Mortier on his sick bed in Beaumont. Mortier, the veteran of Friedland, Spain, Russia, Leipzig, struck down now, at this time of greatest need, not by an enemy musketball but by an attack of sciatica. Well, they were none of them young any more.
An officer appeared at his side. A junior aide-de-camp. Chef de Bataillon Arman Rollin. Ney spoke.
‘I see nothing, Rollin. No one. You think?’
‘I can see no movement, sir.’ Ney dropped the spyglass from his eye.
‘No. Why should there be? Of course they’re not here. They’re further north. And to the east. Oh, we’ve found them all right, Rollin. But we have not yet brought them to battle. And that is what we must do, eh?’
But how? And with what? Ney was not yet sure exactly who it was that he commanded. Had not seen many of them. On paper he had a third of the army. In the field, he stood here at the head of a corps, II Corps, General Reille’s. But as to the rest of his command – he was beginning to wonder quite where it was. He thought of historical precedent for his predicament. Scanned his mind for the many military theorists of whom he had made a study – Frederick the Great, Caesar, Gustavus Adolphus, Turenne, Alexander. Could find little to help him. Perhaps Frederick’s invasion of Bohemia – a divided army, two wings. With what result? The battle of Lobositz. But had he kept his army intact Frederick could have marched on Prague and walked straight in. An opportunity lost. Ney prayed that they had not just made the same mistake with Brussels.
The marshal had staked everything on rejoining his Emperor. In truth it had not been hard to desert the Bourbons. His wife had been treated abominably by the ladies of the new Royalist court. His return to the eagles was inevitable. But there had been moments. In particular that embarrassing reconciliation in the Tuileries, with Napoleon making Ney pay for his previous defection and all his grand utterances in favour of the new monarchy. The agony of contrition. Particularly before his fellow generals. But then – silence. The Emperor had not rewarded him for his renewed loyalty until two days ago, when a letter had arrived at his château at Coudreaux, near Châteaudun, summoning him to the army. They had met at last at Avesnes. The Emperor had embraced him, had clapped his personal aide, Colonel Heymes, on the back. They had all joked and smiled. And over a long, relaxed dinner their friendship had resumed.
They had spoken of the old days. Of Friedland, Eylau, Borodino. Not, predictably, of Spain. And then it was that he remembered just how much he loved that man. How long he had loved him. How he would have done anything for him. Still would. They were the same age and for the past twenty years their fates had been intertwined.
A sergeant-major under the last King Louis, by 1794 Ney has risen to major in the Republic, received the first of many wounds and by the age of twenty-six was colonel of his regiment – the 4th Hussars. By 1797 Ney was a general de brigade.
It was Napoleon, though, who had made him. Created him first, in 1801, Inspector-General of all France’s cavalry. In May 1804, on the day after Napoleon had been declared Emperor, he had made Ney a marshal. Four years later he was a duke. His service in Russia, commanding the heroic rearguard on a retreat that had cost the lives of half a million men, had earned him the unique title ‘Prince de la Moskowa’. And Ney knew himself to be a ‘prince among men’. Knew that his presence on a battlefield could inspire men to undreamed-of feats of bravery. That his name alone could win a battle.
It did not surprise Ney that no mention had been made that night at Avesnes, or since, of the fact that before his return to the fold Ney had sworn to Louis XVIII that he would bring Napoleon back to Paris ‘in an iron cage’. That was all in the past now. There was a war to fight. A war to win.
The following morning, with no horse of his own, Ney had followed the General Staff to Beaumont in a peasant cart. And then at Charleroi, only this afternoon, a smiling Napoleon had given him command not of a mere corps but of the entire left wing – more than a third of the army. And in addition, to his amazement, the light cavalry division of the Garde – the finest cavalry in the world. His orders were merely to ‘go and drive the enemy back along the Brussels road’. Jubilant as a child, Ney had taken Mortier’s horse and ridden fast to join Reille’s II Corps at Gosselies. And so here he was, standing with the few staff he had as yet assembled, on the rising ground above the little river Piéton, looking north.
Ney felt energized, more alive in fact than he had in years. Yet he was also more than a little alarmed. He had been given no specific insight into the Emperor’s plans and had had no time to formulate his own, to conduct any reconnaissance, even to meet his own staff. He knew most of them, of course – d’Erlon, Piré and Lefebvre-Desnouettes he had served with in Spain. But Reille was known to him only by hearsay – as the Emperor’s former aide. And within Reille’s corps was a wild card. The Emperor’s brother, Prince Jerome, the now ex-King of Westphalia, had been given a division – the largest in the army. He had a reputation for rashness, and Ney was anticipating problems.
He had left his own personal aide, his old friend and confidant Heymes, at Charleroi, to improvise the rest of the headquarters staff and follow on as he could. He knew that he must win this battle, this war. For if he lost, if the Emperor fell again, then his fate could only be a dawn appointment with a firing squad.
And things were not going according to plan. Despite the vagueness of the Emperor’s orders, one thing which had become clear to Ney from even a cursory look at the map was the strategic importance of a small crossroads astride the roads from Charleroi to Brussels and Namur to Nivelles. This junction, the village of Quatre-Bras, must, he felt, be taken by nightfall. But here at Gosselies he was still some 8 kilometres short of it, confronted by a force of uncertain number and with no way of achieving his primary objective.
‘We must consolidate, Rollin. We must push further. Establish the extent of their forces.’
‘Quite so, sir. But it is getting late and our men are tired and widely dispersed.’
He was right. The sun was sinking. It had been an exhausting day. And not without its flashpoints. Ney’s first action on assuming command had been to send one division of Reille’s corps to the north of the town to repel a Prussian attack. They had inflicted reasonable casualties and captured a dozen regular infantry, who revealed that they were part of Steinmetz’s brigade, Ziethen’s corps.
That had been at 5.30. Three hours ago. Quickly, Ney had divided his men, sending Girard’s 7th Division off in pursuit of the Prussians, who halted to the north east, at Wangenies. Just over an hour ago he had sent off General Lefebvre-Desnouettes and the Garde cavalry to reconnoitre around Frasnes. Now he held in his hand the report from Colbert, flamboyant colonel of the Garde’s Polish lancer squadron.
They had met ‘some resistance’ from within the farm buildings at Frasnes but had found no one beyond there, at Quatre-Bras, and had returned to the main force. Ney had immediately moved off a battalion of infantry to Frasnes and soon ejected the enemy. He was unclear again, though, as to exactly whom they had encountered and in what numbers. He looked at the report. Green uniforms, red facings, black busby. He showed it to Rollin.
‘What do you make of that?’
‘Nassauers, sir. Grenadiers. Wellington’s men.’
‘What do we know of them? What unit? See if you can find out.’
So. He had found Wellington’s advance guard. If that was what it was and nothing more. Even as he waited for more details a courier pulled up with another note, direct this time from the hand of Lefebvre-Desnouettes.
Monseigneur.
Frasnes we found occupied by around 1,500 infantry and eight cannon. Not those from Gosselies. These men are under the Duke of Wellington’s orders. Nassauers. The Prussians from Gosselies have gone on to Fleurus. Tomorrow at dawn I will send out a reconnaissance party to Quatre-Bras, which will occupy that position. I believe that the Nassau troops have now left. The peasants have told us that the Belgian army is in the vicinity of Mons and the headquarters of the Prince of Orange at Braine le-Comte.
It was somewhat garbled. But Ney thought that he understood what was meant. The Prussians had, as expected, retreated not towards Brussels but eastwards, in the direction of Fleurus, where their main army was evidently assembling. And Wellington? Wellington was somewhere to the north.
He was haunted by the man. Had encountered him first in Spain, at Bussaco. And just as Spain had been Wellington’s triumph, so it had been Ney’s undoing. The only smear on an unblemished military career. Massena’s fault. And then, amazingly, Ney had happened upon the Duke while out walking with Aglaé a year ago, in the Bois de Boulogne. Some months later he had made a now embarrassing outburst against Wellington in the Tuileries – bombast, and what amounted to a challenge. The words rang in his ears:
‘Let him meet us when luck is not in his favour. Then the world will see him for what he is.’
Perhaps now, at last, they would discover the truth of that boast.
Tonight, however, it was too late to move. Past nine o’clock. Desnouettes was right. The morning would do. The Nassauers would have run off with news of their encounter and Wellington would surely be hurrying to consolidate around Brussels. What to do? He thought of his mentor, Baron Jomini, France’s master tactical theoretician. Tried to imagine what he would do in such a situation.
Ney decided to pull back the infantry to Frasnes. He had heard firing from the direction of Gilly. That surely must be Napoleon engaging the Prussians? It was more imperative than ever now that his own force should remain secure. Besides, if his staff were to be believed, his men were dropping with fatigue. They had been on the march since three that morning. He considered his position. Napoleon and the right wing were on his flank, engaging the Prussians. His own command was strung out across more than fifteen kilometres, between Marchienne and Frasnes. The heavy cavalry under Exelmans was near Campinaire, and some distance behind them came the rest of the army. Yes. It was time to rest.
‘Dinner, sir?’ It was Heymes, at last, arrived from Charleroi.
‘Of course. Dinner. Where?’
‘A house, not a hundred metres away. In the Rue St Roch. The only place still occupied – with food and a fire. We could walk there.’
‘Fine.’
The little house looked out of place amidst the debris and chaos of war. A fairy-tale house – smoke at the chimney and flowers around the door, which was open. Ney entered and found inside a family, neatly turned-out and drawn up, almost as if for inspection. He felt faintly embarrassed. Smiled. Heymes spoke.
‘His name is Dumont, sir. He’s a clerk in the town. His wife. Their children.’
The couple looked terrified. The children less so. Four boys, thought Ney. A curious coincidence. He looked for a moment. The woman was pretty in a charming, petit-bourgeois way. Not like his own Aglaé. Her husband looked sound, if somewhat round shouldered, with an air of indignant confidence. He was no soldier, though.
The boys were roughly the same ages as his own. Good-looking too. He compared them – Napoleon, twelve, Louis, eleven, Eugene, now seven, and young Henri, just three. He thought of them all at Coudreaux, where even now Aglaé was perhaps helping their cook with the supper. The vision led him into foolish thoughts of their life together and everything with which they had been blessed over the last thirteen years.
They had met through the Empress Josephine, who, much taken with Ney, had begun to matchmake immediately for her young friend, pretty Aglaé Auguié, whose father had been one of Louis XVI’s finance ministers, and whose mother, in that vanished other-world, was lady in waiting to Marie-Antoinette. As a child she had survived the Terror and her mother’s suicide, precipitated by the execution of the Queen. Ney loved her for it. For her bravery. But more than this he loved her for her beauty – physical and spiritual. He touched his breast pocket, felt inside the shape of the miniature of her portrait by Gerard – the companion to his own.
He thought of their Paris house at the height of the Empire. Of his apartments overlooking the Seine. Of rooms crammed with mirrors, Aubusson tapestries and crystal chandeliers. Of the paintings – he had a particular taste for seventeenth-century Flemish art. Of his library, with its volumes of Racine, Rousseau and above all military theorists. Of their lavish candlelit receptions, thronged with painters, musicians, writers – Gros, David, Girodet, Gerard, Spontini, Gretry, Stendhal, Madame de Stäel.
He found that he had been gazing blankly at a crucifix on the wall and turned again towards Dumont’s four boys. Wondered when again he might give his two youngest piggybacks around their farmyard. Thought of their future together. All the pleasures that lay in store. Of taking them fishing; hunting wild boar; helping with the harvest. Then, becoming suddenly and unpleasantly aware of his own mortality, of the possibility of there being no future, he cast the vision from his mind. Smiled. Waved his hand towards the uncertain Belgian children.
‘Please, please. Do not be afraid. Thank you for your hospitality. Please just behave as you would normally. Pretend we are not here. Ignore us.’
Absurd, of course.
Food arrived. Bread, cheese, bacon, wine, brought in by the lady of the house. The srvants had fled. Ney gave her a smile. 0Rollin entered.
‘The Nassauers, sir. We believe them to be part of Wellington’s 2nd Division; Perponcher’s men. The Prince of Saxe-Weimar’s brigade. They might be part of a force as strong as 8,000. But I have to say that we believe it probable that they have now rejoined the main army.’
‘My thoughts exactly. Thank you. Join us?’
Local wine. Thin and lacking substance. What he would give for a good glass of Calvados. Noticing a flute hanging on the wall, he turned to his nervous host.
‘You play?’
‘A little, sir. When I have the time.’
