SCENE IV
THE FIELD OF WATERLOO. THE ENGLISH POSITION
[WELLINGTON, on Copenhagen, is again under the elm-tree behind La
Haye Sainte. Both horse and rider are covered with mud-splashes,
but the weather having grown finer the DUKE has taken off his cloak.
UXBRIDGE, FITZROY SOMERSET, CLINTON, ALTEN, COLVILLE, DE LANCEY,
HERVEY, GORDON, and other of his staff officers and aides are
near him; there being also present GENERALS MÜFFLING, HUGEL, and
ALAVA; also TYLER, PICTON’S aide. The roar of battle continues.]
WELLINGTON
I am grieved at losing Picton; more than grieved.
He was as grim a devil as ever lived,
And roughish-mouthed withal. But never a man
More stout in fight, more stoical in blame!
TYLER
Before he left for this campaign he said,
“When you shall hear of MY death, mark my words,
You’ll hear of a bloody day!” and, on my soul,
’Tis true.
[Enter another aide-de-camp.]
AIDE
Sir William Ponsonby, my lords, has fallen.
His horse got mud-stuck in a new-plowed plot,
Lancers surrounded him and bore him down,
And six then ran him through. The occasion sprung
Mainly from the Brigade’s too reckless rush,
Sheer to the French front line.
WELLINGTON [gravely]
Ah—so it comes!
The Greys were bound to pay—’tis always so—
Full dearly for their dash so far afield.
Valour unballasted but lands its freight
On the enemy’s shore.—What has become of Hill?
AIDE
We have not seen him latterly, your Grace.
WELLINGTON
By God, I hope I haven’t lost him, too?
BRIDGMAN [just come up]
Lord Hill’s bay charger, being shot dead, your Grace,
Rolled over him in falling. He is bruised,
But hopes to be in place again betimes.
WELLINGTON
Praise Fate for thinking better of that frown!
[It is now nearing four o’clock. La Haye Sainte is devastated by
the second attack of NEY. The farm has been enveloped by DONZELOT’S
division, its garrison, the King’s German Legion, having fought
till all ammunition was exhausted. The gates are forced open, and
in the retreat of the late defenders to the main Allied line they
are nearly all cut or shot down.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
O Farm of sad vicissitudes and strange!
Farm of the Holy Hedge, yet fool of change!
Whence lit so sanct a name on thy now violate grange?
WELLINGTON [to Müffling, resolutely]
Despite their fierce advantage here, I swear
By every God that war can call upon
To hold our present place at any cost,
Until your force cooperate with our lines!
To that I stand; although ’tis bruited now
That Bülow’s corps has only reached Ohain.
I’ve sent Freemantle hence to seek them there,
And give them inkling we shall need them soon.
MÜFFLING [looking at his watch]
I had hoped that Blücher would be here ere this.
[The staff turn their glasses on the French position.]
UXBRIDGE
What movement can it be they contemplate?
WELLINGTON
A shock of cavalry on the hottest scale,
It seems to me.... [To aide] Bid him to reinforce
The front line with some second-line brigades;
Some, too, from the reserve.
[The Brunswickers advance to support MAITLAND’S Guards, and the
MITCHELL and ADAM Brigades establish themselves above Hougomont,
which is still in flames.
NEY, in continuation of the plan of throwing his whole force
on the British centre before the advent of the Prussians, now
intensifies his onslaught with the cavalry. Terrific discharges
of artillery initiate it to clear the ground. A heavy round-
shot dashes through the tree over the heads of WELLINGTON and
his generals, and boughs and leaves come flying down on them.]
WELLINGTON
Good practice that! I vow they did not fire
So dexterously in Spain. [He calls up an aide.] Bid Ompteda
Direct the infantry to lie tight down
On the reverse ridge-slope, to screen themselves
While these close shots and shells are teasing us;
When the charge comes they’ll cease.
[The order is carried out. NEY’S cavalry attack now matures.
MILHAUD’S cuirassiers in twenty-four squadrons advance down the
opposite decline, followed and supported by seven squadrons of
chasseurs under DESNOETTES. They disappear for a minute in the
hollow between the armies.]
UXBRIDGE
Ah—now we have got their long-brewed plot explained!
WELLINGTON [nodding]
That this was rigged for some picked time to-day
I had inferred. But that it would be risked
Sheer on our lines, while still they stand unswayed,
In conscious battle-trim, I reckoned not.
It looks a madman’s cruel enterprise!
FITZROY SOMERSET
We have just heard that Ney embarked on it
Without an order, ere its aptness riped.
WELLINGTON
It may be so: he’s rash. And yet I doubt.
I know Napoléon. If the onset fail
It will be Ney’s; if it succeed he’ll claim it!
[A dull reverberation of the tread of innumerable hoofs comes
from behind the hill, and the foremost troops rise into view.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Behold the gorgeous coming of those horse,
Accoutered in kaleidoscopic hues
That would persuade us war has beauty in it!—
Discern the troopers’ mien; each with the air
Of one who is himself a tragedy:
The cuirassiers, steeled, mirroring the day;
Red lancers, green chasseurs: behind the blue
The red; the red before the green:
A lingering-on till late in Christendom,
Of the barbaric trick to terrorize
The foe by aspect!
[WELLINGTON directs his glass to an officer in a rich uniform
with many decorations on his breast, who rides near the front
of the approaching squadrons. The DUKE’S face expresses
admiration.]
WELLINGTON
It’s Marshal Ney himself who heads the charge.
The finest cavalry commander, he,
That wears a foreign plume; ay, probably
The whole world through!
SPIRIT IRONIC
And when that matchless chief
Sentenced shall lie to ignominious death
But technically deserved, no finger he
Who speaks will lift to save him.!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
To his shame.
We must discount war’s generous impulses
I sadly see.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Be mute, and let spin on
This whirlwind of the Will!
[As NEY’S cavalry ascends the English position the swish of the
horses’ breasts through the standing corn can be heard, and the
reverberation of hoofs increases in strength. The English gunners
stand with their portfires ready, which are seen glowing luridly
in the daylight. There is comparative silence.]
A VOICE
Now, captains, are you loaded?
CAPTAINS
Yes, my lord.
VOICE
Point carefully, and wait till their whole height
Shows above the ridge.
[When the squadrons rise in full view, within sixty yards of the
cannon-mouths, the batteries fire, with a concussion that shakes
the hill itself. Their shot punch holes through the front ranks
of the cuirassiers, and horse and riders fall in heaps. But they
are not stopped, hardly checked, galloping up to the mouths of the
guns, passing between the pieces, and plunging among the Allied
infantry behind the ridge, who, with the advance of the horsemen,
have sprung up from their prone position and formed into squares.]
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
Ney guides the fore-front of the carabineers
Through charge and charge, with rapid recklessness.
Horses, cuirasses, sabres, helmets, men,
Impinge confusedly on the pointed prongs
Of the English kneeling there, whose dim red shapes
Behind their slanted steel seem trampled flat
And sworded to the sward. The charge recedes,
And lo, the tough lines rank there as before,
Save that they are shrunken.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Hero of heroes, too,
Ney, [not forgetting those who gird against him].—
Simple and single-souled lieutenant he;
Why should men’s many-valued motions take
So barbarous a groove!
[The cuirassiers and lancers surge round the English and Allied
squares like waves, striking furiously on them and well-nigh
breaking them. They stand in dogged silence amid the French
cheers.]
WELLINGTON [to the nearest square]
Hard pounding this, my men! I truly trust
You’ll pound the longest!
SQUARE
Hip-hip-hip-hurrah!
MÜFFLING [again referring to his watch]
However firmly they may stand, in faith,
Their firmness must have bounds to it, because
There are bounds to human strength!... Your, Grace,
To leftward now, to spirit Zieten on.
WELLINGTON
Good. It is time! I think he well be late,
However, in the field.
[MÜFFLING goes. Enter an aide, breathless.]
AIDE
Your Grace, the Ninety-fifth are patience-spent
With standing under fire so passing long.
They writhe to charge—or anything but stand!
WELLINGTON
Not yet. They shall have at ’em later on.
At present keep them firm.
[Exit aide. The Allied squares stand like little red-brick castles,
independent of each other, and motionless except at the dry hurried
command “Close up!” repeated every now and then as they are slowly
thinned. On the other hand, under their firing and bayonets a
disorder becomes apparent among the charging horse, on whose
cuirasses the bullets snap like stones on window-panes. At this
the Allied cavalry waiting in the rear advance; and by degrees they
deliver the squares from their enemies, who are withdrawn to their
own position to prepare for a still more strenuous assault. The
point of view shifts.]