The Spanish Bride

5

Harry used to wait on Sir John Lambert every morning after breakfast for orders, while in Ghent. There were always plenty of orders, for Sir John, a Guardsman, held parade after parade, and was very fussy over the details of guard-mounting, sentry-duty, and correct garrison-procedure. Harry laughed, but admitted that the brigade was in splendid trim. He was with Sir John one morning when a voice was heard calling for him in stentorian tones in the passage. ‘Lambert! Lambert! Hallo there, where the devil’s the door?’ ‘Who in heaven’s name can that be? Go and see, Harry!’ said Lambert. Harry went, and walked, to his surprise, straight into Admiral Malcolm, who hailed him in a genial bellow, and wanted to know where Lambert had stowed himself. ‘The house is as dark as a sheer hulk!’ he declared, rolling in, and seizing Sir John by the hand. ‘Come, bear a hand, and get me some breakfast, Harry! No regular hours on shore, as in the Royal Oak!’

Where had he sprung from? Oh, he had brought over some troops from America, including the 27th regiment of Lambert’s own brigade, and had been appointed to the command of the coast. He didn’t see why the army should have all the fun; from what he could discover from his friend Wellington a rare time they had been having! Nothing but balls and picnics! But the army was not long to be left in peace to enjoy these festivities. Orders reached Lambert from De Lancey, the Quartermaster-General, on the night of the 15th June, and one hour later, at dawn, the brigade, assembling at the alarm-posts, marched out of Ghent along the road to Brussels.

By the afternoon they had reached Assche, and the noise of continuous firing from the south put the veterans on their toes with eagerness.

‘It is like old times!’ Juana said. She slid off the Brass Mare’s back, her habit powdered with dust, but her eyes like stars. ‘Any orders, mi amigo?’

‘No, General, none! We bivouac,’ responded Harry promptly. ‘Muy bien!’ she said, stripping off her gloves.

Lambert was afraid she must be tired, and said solicitously that he hoped the march had not been too much for her, which made Harry burst out laughing. ‘What, that little way, sir? You don’t know her!’

‘No, indeed!’ said Juana, smiling up into Lambert’s face of kindly concern. ‘I marched with the division from Lecumberri to the top of Santa Cruz, in the Pyrenees! And I did not fall out! Absolutamente no!’

‘Well, you are a wonderful woman,’ said Lambert. ‘Will you give me the pleasure of dining with me now?’

‘Yes, please!” said Juana. ‘I am very hungry, and you have a very good cook!’ No certain news reached the brigade that night, but the noise of the firing, which had been incessant all day, died down with the coming of darkness. It was evident that a sharp engagement had taken place somewhere to the south, but they did not learn where precisely until the following day, when they reached Brussels. They halted in the town, and found everything in a state of the greatest confusion, droves of civilians trying to escape to Antwerp by chaise, on horseback, by canal-barge, even on foot. Rumours were flying about: it was said that there had been a battle fought at Quatre Bras on the 16th; that Napoleon had taken the Duke by surprise, marching to the frontier from Paris with the Imperial Guard, with incredible celerity; that the Prussians had suffered a heavy defeat somewhere near Quatre-Bras, and were in full retreat; that the French would be in Brussels at any moment. A dramatic Belgian described the march of the British troops out of Brussels all through the small hours of the previous day. They had formed up in the market-place, regiment after regiment: Brussels had never before witnessed such a scene. There had been a grand ball given by the Duchess of Richmond: all the Generals had been present, even the Duke himself, and the Prince of Orange, commanding the 1st Corps. When the news had come of the Prussians’ retreat from Charleroi, young officers, in all the splendour of mess-jackets and white gloves, had ridden back to join their various regiments, already on the march through the placid Flemish countryside. The Duke had ridden out of Brussels in the morning, saying, with his loud laugh, that very likely Blücher would have finished the business by that time, and he would be back in Brussels to dinner.

But he had not come back, and the aspect the town had worn all day was, the Belgians assured Harry, triste beyond compare! After teeming for so long with English and Scottish soldiers, and with lovely ladies tripping along the streets in ravishing toilettes to pay morning calls, it was strange indeed, and melancholy, to see the town quite deserted by the usual frivolous crowd. People had gone to the ramparts, and a good many had fled to Antwerp. Then, in the night, a dismal cortege had borne the poor Duke of Brunswick’s body into Brussels: as though one had not been gloomy enough before!

‘Brunswick killed?’ Harry exclaimed. ‘That ought to make the Death-or-Glory boys killing mad!’

Fresh orders arrived from the Quartermaster-General, directing Lambert to move on Quatre-Bras. In the afternoon, they marched out of Brussels by the Namur gate, along the Chaussee leading south through the Forest of Soignies to Charleroi. All the baggage was left in the market-place, and, with it, Juana’s two servants.

The march south was a little disturbing. The chaussée was in a state of such wild confusion that progress, at all times difficult, became sometimes impossible. Flemish carts, baggage-wagons, wounded men, and deserters were all retreating in such scandalous disorder that the Peninsular veterans stared with shocked, incredulous eyes. Here and there a cart would be found in the road with a wheel off, blocking the way; horses who had fallen and broken their knees on the pavé had been shot, and left to stiffen where they lay; once a squadron of some foreign cavalry galloped by, shouting that the French were on their heels. At about half-past two, the day, which had been brilliant, suddenly clouded over. Inky clouds rolled up, and almost before Juana had time to unclasp her boat-cloak from the saddle, the most terrific thunderstorm broke over their heads. Great splinters of lightning shot through the black clouds; the thunder crashed deafeningly, and within a few minutes the rain began to fall in torrents. ‘It is worse than that night before Salamanca!’ Juana screamed to West, above the appalling racket. ‘Poor Vitty is so afraid!’

The storm seemed to heighten the confusion on the road, for some of the baggage-horses moving towards Brussels took fright, and careered about in a state of snorting terror. An orderly came riding along, plastered with mud. He brought yet another dispatch from De Lancey, this time directing Lambert to halt his brigade at the village of Epinay, short of the great forest. Questioned, he said that the army was in retreat from Quatre-Bras upon Waterloo; he did not think there had been any fighting that morning, but the previous day’s losses had been shocking.

This was very bad news, but, a few minutes later, riding ahead to clear the road, Harry encountered a small party of wounded Highlanders, making their painful way to Brussels. They said yes, it had been a hard day’s fighting at Quatre-Bras; the Highland brigade had been fair cut to pieces, and Kempt’s too; but as for defeat, it was no such thing! The French had not gained an inch of ground.

‘Depend upon it, the Duke has been forced to retreat to maintain his communications with the Prussians,’ said Lambert. ‘We’ll push on, if you please.’

There was not much accommodation to be had at Epinay, but Harry put his General and his wife into a tolerable cottage, and left them there while he went off to see the brigade bivouacked for the night. More foreign troops came galloping from the front, spreading a story that the enemy cavalry was actually threatening the Duke’s communication with Brussels; bugles began to blow; the soldiers hastily stowed away the rations they had not had time to eat, and ran to the alarm-posts in front of the village.

Harry rode back to Lambert’s headquarters, and found him sitting quietly down to dinner with Juana and his ADC.

‘Well, Smith, what’s all the commotion?’

‘Some Belgian troops who have just passed through the village, Sir John, say that the enemy’s cavalry are threatening the Duke’s communication lines.’ ‘Oh, do they?’ said Lambert. ‘A pretty set of fellows! Let the troops dismiss: it’s all nonsense! Depend upon it, there is not a French soldier in the rear of his Grace! Sit down to dinner! My butler bought a fine turbot in Brussels, and we are just about to eat it.’ ‘Save some for me, sir. I’ll go and reconnoitre a little.’

‘If that husband of yours doesn’t wear himself out before he’s thirty, he’ll make a very fine General one of these days,” remarked Lambert, as the door shut behind Harry. ‘I never knew such an energetic fellow in my life! Are you sure that habit of yours is quite dry, my dear?’ It was some time before Harry returned. He reported that he had ridden through the forest to the village of Waterloo, just beyond it, and had found a long line of baggage there, retreating in a leisurely fashion that made it certain that the alarm had been false. He was plastered with dirt, and he said that the road was in a deplorable condition, and all the surrounding country deep in mud. As far as he had been able to ascertain from the various conflicting stories he had listened to, the army was retiring to a position in front of the village of Mont St Jean, a little to the south of Waterloo, on the Charleroi chaussee. It seemed to be true enough that the Prussians had suffered a heavy defeat at Ligny, on the previous day, and had fallen back on Wavre, eighteen miles to the rear; but everyone he had spoken to was agreed that the action at Quatre-Bras had ended in the Duke’s favour. ‘Ha!’ said Lambert. ‘That’s not the real thing. We shall see a major engagement tomorrow.’ ‘If the weather’s anything to go by, we shall,’ agreed Harry. ‘We’re in for a true Wellington-night.’