THE END OF THE STORM

 Start reading now....

Of all the things that seem strange in that battle, now that I look back

upon it, there is nothing that was queerer than the way in which it

acted on my comrades; for some took it as though it had been their daily

meat without question or change, and others pattered out prayers from

the first gunfire to the last, and others again cursed and swore in a

way that was creepy to listen to.  There was one, my own left-hand man,

Mike Threadingham, who kept telling about his maiden aunt, Sarah, and

how she had left the money which had been promised to him to a home for

the children of drowned sailors.  Again and again he told me this story,

and yet when the battle was over he took his oath that he had never

opened his lips all day.  As to me, I cannot say whether I spoke or not,

but I know that my mind and my memory were clearer than I can ever

remember them, and I was thinking all the time about the old folk at

home, and about Cousin Edie with her saucy, dancing eyes, and de Lissac

with his cat's whiskers, and all the doings at West Inch, which had

ended by bringing us here on the plains of Belgium as a cockshot for two

hundred and fifty cannons.

During all this time the roaring of those guns had been something

dreadful to listen to, but now they suddenly died away, though it was

like the lull in a thunderstorm when one feels that a worse crash is

coming hard at the fringe of it.  There was still a mighty noise on the

distant wing, where the Prussians were pushing their way onwards, but

that was two miles away.  The other batteries, both French and English,

were silent, and the smoke cleared so that the armies could see a little

of each other.  It was a dreary sight along our ridge, for there seemed

to be just a few scattered knots of red and the lines of green where the

German Legion stood, while the masses of the French appeared to be as

thick as ever, though of course we knew that they must have lost many

thousands in these attacks.  We heard a great cheering and shouting from

among them, and then suddenly all their batteries opened together with a

roar which made the din of the earlier part seem nothing in comparison.

It might well be twice as loud, for every battery was twice as near,

being moved right up to point blank range, with huge masses of horse

between and behind them to guard them from attack.

When that devil's roar burst upon our ears there was not a man, down to

the drummer boys, who did not understand what it meant.  It was

Napoleon's last great effort to crush us.  There were but two more hours

of light, and if we could hold our own for those all would be well.

Starved and weary and spent, we prayed that we might have strength to

load and stab and fire while one of us stood upon his feet.

His cannon could do us no great hurt now, for we were on our faces, and

in an instant we could turn into a huddle of bayonets if his horse came

down again.  But behind the thunder of the guns there rose a sharper,

shriller noise, whirring and rattling, the wildest, jauntiest, most

stirring kind of sound.

"It's the _pas-de-charge!_" cried an officer.  "They mean business this

time!"

And as he spoke we saw a strange thing.  A Frenchman, dressed as an

officer of hussars, came galloping towards us on a little bay horse.

He was screeching "_Vive le roi!  Vive le roi!_" at the pitch of his

lungs, which was as much as to say that he was a deserter, since we were

for the king and they for the emperor.  As he passed us he roared out in

English, "The Guard is coming!  The Guard is coming!" and so vanished

away to the rear like a leaf blown before a storm.  At the same instant

up there rode an aide-de-camp, with the reddest face that ever I saw

upon mortal man.

"You must stop 'em, or we are done!" he cried to General Adams, so that

all our company could hear him.

"How is it going?" asked the general.

"Two weak squadrons left out of six regiments of heavies," said he, and

began to laugh like a man whose nerves are overstrung.

"Perhaps you would care to join in our advance?  Pray consider yourself

quite one of us," said the general, bowing and smiling as if he were

asking him to a dish of tea.

"I shall have much pleasure," said the other, taking off his hat; and a

moment afterwards our three regiments closed up, and the brigade

advanced in four lines over the hollow where we had lain in square, and

out beyond to the point whence we had seen the French army.

There was little of it to be seen now, only the red belching of the guns

flashing quickly out of the cloudbank, and the black figures--stooping,

straining, mopping, sponging--working like devils, and at devilish work.

But through the cloud that rattle and whirr rose ever louder and louder,

with a deep-mouthed shouting and the stamping of thousands of feet.

Then there came a broad black blurr through the haze, which darkened and

hardened until we could see that it was a hundred men abreast, marching

swiftly towards us, with high fur hats upon their heads and a gleam of

brasswork over their brows. And behind that hundred came another

hundred, and behind that another, and on and on, coiling and writhing

out of the cannon-smoke like a monstrous snake, until there seemed to be

no end to the mighty column. In front ran a spray of skirmishers, and

behind them the drummers, and up they all came together at a kind of

tripping step, with the officers clustering thickly at the sides and

waving their swords and cheering. There were a dozen mounted men too at

their front, all shouting together, and one with his hat held aloft upon

his swordpoint.  I say again, that no men upon this earth could have

fought more manfully than the French did upon that day.

It was wonderful to see them; for as they came onwards they got ahead of

their own guns, so that they had no longer any help from them, while

they got in front of the two batteries which had been on either side of

us all day.  Every gun had their range to a foot, and we saw long red

lines scored right down the dark column as it advanced.  So near were

they, and so closely did they march, that every shot ploughed through

ten files of them, and yet they closed up and came on with a swing and

dash that was fine to see.  Their head was turned straight for

ourselves, while the 95th overlapped them on one side and the 52nd on

the other.

I shall always think that if we had waited so the Guard would have

broken us; for how could a four-deep line stand against such a column?

But at that moment Colburne, the colonel of the 52nd, swung his right

flank round so as to bring it on the side of the column, which brought

the Frenchmen to a halt.  Their front line was forty paces from us at

the moment, and we had a good look at them.  It was funny to me to

remember that I had always thought of Frenchmen as small men; for there

was not one of that first company who could not have picked me up as if

I had been a child, and their great hats made them look taller yet.

They were hard, wizened, wiry fellows too, with fierce puckered eyes and

bristling moustaches, old soldiers who had fought and fought, week in,

week out, for many a year.  And then, as I stood with my finger upon the

trigger waiting for the word to fire, my eye fell full upon the mounted

officer with his hat upon his sword, and I saw that it was de Lissac.

I saw it, and Jim did too.  I heard a shout, and saw him rush forward

madly at the French column; and, as quick as thought, the whole brigade

took their cue from him, officers and all, and flung themselves upon the

Guard in front, while our comrades charged them on the flanks.  We had

been waiting for the order, and they all thought now that it had been

given;  but you may take my word for it, that Jim Horscroft was the real

leader of the brigade when we charged the Old Guard.

God knows what happened during that mad five minutes.  I remember

putting my musket against a blue coat and pulling the trigger, and that

the man could not fall because he was so wedged in the crowd; but I saw

a horrid blotch upon the cloth, and a thin curl of smoke from it as if

it had taken fire.  Then I found myself thrown up against two big

Frenchmen, and so squeezed together, the three of us, that we could not

raise a weapon.  One of them, a fellow with a very large nose, got his

hand up to my throat, and I felt that I was a chicken in his grasp.

"_Rendez-vous, coqin; rendez-vous!_" said he, and then suddenly doubled

up with a scream, for someone had stabbed him in the bowels with a

bayonet.  There was very little firing after the first sputter; but

there was the crash of butt against barrel, the short cries of stricken

men, and the roaring of the officers.  And then, suddenly, they began to

give ground--slowly, sullenly, step by step, but still to give ground.

Ah! it was worth all that we had gone through, the thrill of that

moment, when we felt that they were going to break.  There was one

Frenchman before me, a sharp-faced, dark-eyed man, who was loading and

firing as quietly as if he were at practice, dwelling upon his aim, and

looking round first to try and pick off an officer.  I remember that it

struck me that to kill so cool a man as that would be a good service,

and I rushed at him and drove my bayonet into him.  He turned as I

struck him and fired full into my face, and the bullet left a weal

across my cheek which will mark me to my dying day.  I tripped over him

as he fell, and two others tumbling over me I was half smothered in the

heap.  When at last I struggled out, and cleared my eyes, which were

half full of powder, I saw that the column had fairly broken, and was

shredding into groups of men, who were either running for their lives or

were fighting back to back in a vain attempt to check the brigade, which

was still sweeping onwards.  My face felt as if a red-hot iron had been

laid across it; but I had the use of my limbs, so jumping over the

litter of dead and mangled men, I scampered after my regiment, and fell

in upon the right flank.

Old Major Elliott was there, limping along, for his horse had been shot,

but none the worse in himself.  He saw me come up, and nodded, but it

was too busy a time for words.  The brigade was still advancing, but the

general rode in front of me with his chin upon his shoulder, looking

back at the British position.

"There is no general advance," said he; "but I'm not going back."

"The Duke of Wellington has won a great victory," cried the

aide-de-camp, in a solemn voice; and then, his feelings getting the

better of him, he added, "if the damned fool would only push on!"--which

set us all laughing in the flank company.

But now anyone could see that the French army was breaking up.

The columns and squadrons which had stood so squarely all day were now

all ragged at the edges; and where there had been thick fringes of

skirmishers in front, there were now a spray of stragglers in the rear.

The Guard thinned out in front of us as we pushed on, and we found

twelve guns looking us in the face, but we were over them in a moment;

and I saw our youngest subaltern, next to him who had been killed by the

lancer, scribbling great 71's with a lump of chalk upon them, like the

schoolboy that he was.  It was at that moment that we heard a roar of

cheering behind us, and saw the whole British army flood over the crest

of the ridge, and come pouring down upon the remains of their enemies.

The guns, too, came bounding and rattling forward, and our light

cavalry--as much as was left of it--kept pace with our brigade upon the

right.  There was no battle after that.  The advance went on without a

check, until our army stood lined upon the very ground which the French

had held in the morning.  Their guns were ours, their foot were a rabble

spread over the face of the country, and their gallant cavalry alone was

able to preserve some sort of order and to draw off unbroken from the

field.  Then at last, just as the night began to gather, our weary and

starving men were able to let the Prussians take the job over, and to

pile their arms upon the ground that they had won.  That was as much as

I saw or can tell you about the Battle of Waterloo, except that I ate a

two-pound rye loaf for my supper that night, with as much salt meat as

they would let me have, and a good pitcher of red wine, until I had to

bore a new hole at the end of my belt, and then it fitted me as tight as

a hoop to a barrel.  After that I lay down in the straw where the rest

of the company were sprawling, and in less than a minute I was in a dead

sleep.