Another passage I cannot resist quoting. It is from the narrative of a soldier in Dr. Fitchett’s Wellington’s Men, and relates to the march on Paris following Waterloo. “At noon arrived in the neighbourhood of Mons, where we overtook the Greys, Inniskillings, Ross’s troop of horse artillery, and several other corps, both of cavalry and infantry.... The Greys and the Inniskillings were mere wrecks—the former, I think, did not muster 200 men.... We crossed after the Greys, and came with them on the main road to Maubeuge at the moment a Highland regiment, which had come through Mons, was passing. The moment the Highlanders saw the Greys an electrifying cheer burst spontaneously from the column, which was answered as heartily; and on reaching the road the two columns became blended for a few minutes—the Highlanders running to shake hands with their brave associates in the late battle....”
The battle of Waterloo was the culmination of many years’ conflict between the English and the French, and the final struggle between Napoleon and Wellington. We have seen how the rivalry with France was fought to a finish in Canada and the West Indies, in India, in the Peninsular, and on the Continent. After Waterloo there was peace for many years. Napoleon, banished to St. Helena, was soon to die, and remain as a deathless memory amongst the old veterans of the armies he had led to victory. Wellington was to win new triumphs, though infinitely less enduring, in political life, and to lose the fickle popularity of an English mob, dying long after in 1852. The Highlanders, who had fought almost unceasingly for many years and in many parts of the world, and whose gallantry at Waterloo brought them new laurels, were mainly engaged upon home service until a new generation heard in the far Crimea the melancholy beating of the drums of war.
CHAPTER XIV
THE HIGHLAND BRIGADE AT THE BATTLE OF ALMA
(September 20, 1854)
“Leave me, comrades—here I drop;
No, Sir, take them on;
All are wanted—none shall stop;
Duty must be done:
Those whose guard you take will find me,
As they pass below.”