A second gun fired. Its roundshot similarly bounded harmlessly through the empty fields. The Duke opened his watch lid to see the time.
There was a pause equal to that which had separated the first two shots, then a third French gun fired. Its ball screamed towards the exposed Dutch-Belgian troops beyond the sandpit, but fell short and ploughed into a patch of soft ground that stopped the missile dead.
The three shots were the Emperor’s signal.
To let loose hell.
CHAPTER 14
The Earl of Uxbridge, quite ready for the moment, had arranged for his servant to bring a tray of silver stirrup cups filled with sherry. As the first gun fired the Earl waved the servant forward and watched as the small cups were handed about to his staff.
The Earl waited for the second gun to fire, then, as though these horsemen were about to ride to hounds, he gravely raised his stirrup cup. “Today’s fox, gentlemen. Allow me to give you today’s fox.”
The horsemen drank. Lord John Rossendale had to curb the temptation to gulp the sherry down.
The third gun fired. The fox had broken cover, was running, and the blooding could begin.
Every gun on the French ridge opened fire.
The salvo showed as a volcanic eruption of smoke that blurred the far crest with yellow-grey smoke. In the heart of the smoke were the stabbing flames.
Two heartbeats later the sound slammed across the valley; a thunderclap to tell Europe that the Emperor was at war.
The majority of the guns had been loaded with shell. The cold barrels dropped the missiles fractionally short and most plunged harmlessly into mud that either extinguished the burning fuse or soaked up the force of the explosion. A few, very few, ricocheted on the ridge’s forward slope to land a second time among the battalions sheltering beyond the crest. The explosions punched ragged blots of dark smoke and livid flame into the damp air.
The first men were dying, but not many, for a shell had to explode in the very heart of a company if it was to kill. Some shells were defused by quick-witted men who either pinched out the fire or knocked the smouldering fuse clean from the powder charge with a swift blow of a musket butt. The smoke from the French guns rolled down into the valley, then began to be fed as the guns which had reloaded the quickest fired again. The firing became ragged, but constant; jet after jet of smoke and flame pumped from the French-held ridge. The shots screamed higher as the gun barrels warmed. Some shells skimmed across the ridge top to explode far back at the forest’s edge while the best aimed shots bounced just below the British crest to plunge down among the men hidden behind. The shells made differing sounds, depending on their distance from the ear. Some hummed like childrens’ tops, some whirred like a bird’s wingbeat, while others rumbled like thunder. The sounds were already causing a trickle of Belgian troops to retreat towards the forest; one wounded man was an excuse for ten others to help him to safety.
One shell exploded close to the Earl of Uxbridge’s staff who, still bunched together after their toast to the day’s fox, split asunder like sheep attacked by a wolf. A small silver cup fell into the mud, but otherwise there was no damage other than to the young men’s dignity. They curbed their excited horses and watched as each new shot roiled and twitched the bank of smoke which thickened in front of the Emperor’s gun line.
On the British right, where the French guns were close to Hougoumont, the gunners were firing canister to scour the British skirmishers from the woods which lay south of the chateau. Some of the musket-balls hummed up onto the ridge where they pattered on the wet ground like hail.
A British nine-pounder fired a return shot, and earned a furious reprimand from a mounted staff officer. “Hold your damned fire! Hold your fire!” The Duke was saving his guns the wear and tear of incessant firing that could blow out touchholes and even split barrels. He would need his guns when the enemy infantry or cavalry advanced.