He galloped from the rear of the square, followed by the two staff officers who had managed to keep up with his progress. Some of the French horsemen spurred after the Duke, but gave up the chase when it was clear that his horse was a far better animal.
“Ware right! Present!” That was d’Alembord, warning of the approach of another mass of enemy cavalry who were making a final and hopeless attempt to justify the slaughtered men and horses who lay in bloody heaps about the stubborn squares.
The muskets flamed again, the ramrods clattered in hot barrels, and the volleys flickered red in the smoke. Somewhere a dying Hussar cried his woman’s name aloud. A horse limped towards home, dragging a rear leg dripping with blood. The horse’s saddlecloth was decorated with an Imperial `N’ embroidered in blue and golden threads. Beside the horse, and howling with pain though apparently unwounded, a dog loped southwards to seek its master among the retreating French cavalry. A Cuirassier, his face bitter with failure, slammed his sword down onto a British cannon’s barrel. The steel rang like a hammer’s blow on an anvil, but achieved nothing. The Cuirassier wrenched his horse around and spurred southwards. ,
The French cavalry had been beaten and, like a last exhausted wave that had failed to breach a sea wall, the horsemen ebbed back into the valley. They went slowly, bloodied and muddied, a golden horde turned into a defeated mob.
And the Emperor’s guns, this day’s best killers for the French, began to kill again.
CHAPTER 18
Prussian cavalry scouts reached Plancenoit, a village that lay just a cannon-shot behind the French right flank. Far to the east of Plancenoit, yet clearly visible to the French staff officers, were columns of Prussian infantry.
The presence of Blcher’s men spelt the failure of the Emperor’s strategy; the two armies had not been prised apart, yet their new conjunction was tenuous and the Prussians were not yet advancing in overwhelming force, but only in a fragile line of march. It would take hours for them to assemble an attack, and in those hours the Emperor knew he could break the British before turning on the Prussians.
The destruction of the British needed to be absolute and certain. An attack by a corps of infantry had failed, and Marshal Ney had broken the cavalry in futile onslaughts on the British squares, so now the Emperor stirred himself to bring order to the chaotic assaults. The greatest part of his infantry was still uncommitted, and among them was the elite of his army. The Emperor’s own Imperial Guard was waiting.
No man but a veteran who had displayed uncommon valour in the Empire’s battles could join the Guard. Guardsmen were paid more than other troops, and uniformed in more splendour. In return, more was expected of them, yet the Guard had always given it. The Guard had never been defeated. Other French troops might grumble at the Guard’s privileges, but when the bearskins and long coats marched, victory was certain. The Guards wore side-whiskers and moustaches, ear-rings and powdered pigtails as marks of their prowess. To be a Grenadier of the Guard a man had to be six feet tall, an elite of an elite.
The Guard were the Emperor’s `immortals’, passionate in their loyalty to him, and fearsome in battle for him. When Bonaparte had been defeated and sent to Elba the Guard had been ordered to disband, but rather than surrender their colours they had burned the silk flags, crumbled the ash into wine, and drunk the mixture. Some of the immortals had gone into exile with their Emperor, but now they had returned and been reunited with their old comrades and been given new colours to fly beneath new Eagles. The Guard was the elite, the undefeated, the immortals of the Empire, and the Guard would deliver the final lethal blow that would obliterate the British.
But not yet. It was only six o’clock, there were more than three hours of daylight left, and the Prussians were far from ready to fight, so there was time for the Emperor to wear the British down yet further. He ordered the Guard to prepare itself for battle, but not to advance beyond La Belle Alliance. Then, contemplating the smoking ruin that had been a valley of farmland, he stared fixedly at La Haye Sainte. That farm was the bone sticking in the French craw. The Riflemen behind its walls were raking the flank of every French attack, and protecting the batteries at the centre of the British line. The farm must be taken so the British line would be stretched ever more thinly, and then the Guard would ram home the victory.