“Double shot! Double shot!” A gunner officer galloped his horse behind the battery. “Double shot!” The officer, galloping clear of the smoke, had seen the closest column’s inexorable progress up the slope and knew it was time to raise the stakes.
This time, instead of loading with roundshot alone, the gunners rammed a canister of musket-balls on top of the roundshot. Now each blast would spread a halo of deadly bullets about the heavy missile.
“Fire!”
The canister shredded, punched apart by the roundshot, and a great gap was ripped bloody in the nearest French column. The Emperor’s men were leaving a trail of blood and bodies now, but the attack was still massive and heavy. The French galloper guns were firing from the valley’s floor, seeking the British nine-pounders behind their screen of smoke. French cavalry had advanced onto the flanks of the outermost columns, protecting them from the threat of British horsemen. This was how war should be fought; the three arms supporting each other and victory just a drumbeat away across a ridge top which, to the advancing French, seemed almost empty. They saw the cannons and their smoke, and they saw the flitting silhouettes of the retreating skirmishers, and they saw a handful of mounted officers waiting beyond the crest, but they saw no enemy lines because the redcoats still lay flat, still hidden, still waiting. Some Frenchmen, those who had never fought Wellington, dared to hope that the ridge was only defended by guns, but the veterans of Spain knew better. The Goddamn Duke always hid his men behind a hillcrest if he could. In a moment, those veterans knew, the Goddamns would show themselves. That was what the French called the British soldiers, the Goddamns. It was not an affectionate nickname, but nor was it demeaning like the British name for the French; the Crapauds were the `toads’, but the Goddamns were men who would curse God and there was something chilling in that thought.
The French drums paused. ,Vive I’Empereur!”
“Fire!” Another double-shotted volley smashed down the slope, and this time a British gunner officer heard the distinctive hailstone rattle as the canister balls struck the infantry’s muskets. “We’re hitting them now, boys!” A wet fleece hissed as it plunged into the hot barrel.
On the ridge the British infantry officers watched and waited. The drums were loud, while at the back of the French columns men were singing. The British battalion bands were also playing behind the ridge, making it a cacophonous battle of music that the French were winning as more and more men joined in to sing the Marseillaise, ,Allans, enfants delapatrie, lejour degloire est arrive!” The burnished Eagles were bright over the great marching masses that seemed to soak up the murderous gun-fire. A roundshot would butcher through the files, but the ranks closed up and marched on. The French officers, their swords drawn, urged their men on. They only needed to endure a few more seconds of hell, a few more blasts of the guns, then they would carry their bayonets over the ridge to vengeance.
But first, because Wellington’s lines always beat the French columns, the surprise had to be unveiled.
“Deploy!” The French officers shouted the command. The columns were now less than a hundred paces from the crest of the British ridge. The Voltigeurs had fallen back to join the columns’ ranks and the British skirmishers had gone to join the line, so from this moment on it would be main force against main force. “Deploy!”
The rearmost ranks of the columns began to spread outwards. This was the surprise, that the column would suddenly become a line, but a line thicker and heavier than the British. Every French musket would be able to fire, and there would be far more French muskets. The defenders’ line would not overlap the column, but would be overwhelmed by it. The French would fire their killing volley, then they would charge home. The day of glory had arrived.
The easternmost French column advanced on Papelotte, driving Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar’s men back to the sturdiest of the farm buildings. The westernmost column, advancing athwart the paved highway, swept either side ofT.a Haye Sainte, driving the Riflemen back from their sandpit.