The cavalry charge had put almost all Count D'Erlon's Corps d'Arm&e to rout, but it had been carried too far. Ahead, solid columns of infantry were advancing from the French rear; and behind, from either flank, lancers and cuirassiers were riding to cut off the retreat.
A voice cried: "Royals, form on me!" The Greys and the Inniskillings on the ridge, their horses blown, themselves badly mauled, looked round in vain for their officers, and tried to reform to meet the onset of the French cavalry. The Colonel who had led them in the charge towards the battery had been seen riding among the guns like a maniac, with both hands lopped off at the wrists, and his reins held between his teeth; but he had fallen, and a dozen others with him. A sergeant called out: "Come on, lads! That's the road home!" and the gallant little band rode straight for the oncoming cavalry that separated it from its own lines.
A pitiful remnant broke through. On the Allied left wing, Vandeleur flung forward his light dragoons to cover the retreat. They cheered the heavies as they passed them, caught the lancers in flank, and drove them back in disorder. The survivors of the Union Brigade reached the shelter of their own lines, having pierced three columns, captured two Eagles, wrecked fifteen guns, put twenty-five more temporarily out of action, and taken nearly three thousand prisoners.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The great infantry attack on the Allied left centre had failed. The Household Brigade had repulsed Quiot from La Haye Sainte; Bourgeois and Donzelot had been forced to retreat with heavy loss; and Marcognet's division was shattered. The remaining column, led by Durutte, had had more success, but was forced to retire in the general retreat. Durutte had advanced against Papelotte, and had driven Prince Bernhard's Nassauers out of the village. These re-formed, and in their turn drove out the French. Vandeleur's brigade of light cavalry charged the column, and it drew off, but in good order.
On the Allied side the losses were enormous. Kempt and Pack could no longer hope to hold the line, and Lambert's brigade was ordered up from Mont St Jean to reinforce them. The Union Brigade had been cut to pieces; the Household troops were reduced to a few squadrons. Of the generals, Picton had been killed outright in the first charge; Sir William Ponsonby, leading the Union Brigade on a hack horse, was lying dead on the field with his aide-de-camp beside him; and Pack and Kempt, on whom the command of the 5th Division had devolved, were wounded. Lord Edward Somerset, unhorsed, his hat gone, the lap of his coat torn off, got to his own lines miraculously unscathed.
Lord Uxbridge, who, when the Life Guards and the Dragoon Guards ignored the Rally, had ridden back to bring up the Blues in support, only to find that they had galloped into first line before ever they had passed La Haye Sainte, listened in contemptuous silence to the congratulations of the Duke's suite upon the brilliant success of his charge. He turned away, remarking to Seymour, with a disdainful curve to the mouth: "That Troupe doree seems to think the battle is over. But had I, when I sounded the Rally, found only four well-formed squadrons coming on at an easy trot, we should have captured a score of guns and avoided these shocking losses. Well! I deviated from my own principle: the carriere once begun the leader is no better than any other man. I should have placed myself at the head of the second line."
During D'Erlon's attack, the cannonading had been kept up on the other parts of the line, while, round Hougoumont, the struggle still raged with unabated fury, more and more men of Reille's Corps being employed in the attempt to capture the chateau. The stubborn resistance of the Guards inside the chateau and garden, and of Saltoun's light companies, holding the orchard and the alley to the north in the teeth of all opposition, awoke a corresponding determination in the French generals. No attempt was made to mask the post; Jerome, Foy, and Bachelu were all sent against it; and a howitzer troop was summoned up to drop shells upon the buildings. At a quarter to three, the roof of the chateau was blazing, and the Duke, observing it, scrawled one of his brief messages in his pocket-book: "I see that the fire has communicated from the Haystack to the roof of the Chateau. You must, however, still keep your men in those parts to which the fire does not reach. Take care that no men are lost by the falling in of the roof or floors. After they will have fallen in, occupy the ruined walls inside the gardens; particularly if it should be possible for the Enemy to pass through the Embers in the inside of the house."
He tore out the leaves, and folded them, and handed them to Colonel Audley, with a curt instruction.
The Colonel made his way to the right, behind Alten's division. The going was hard, the ground being heavy from the recent storm, and the smoke from the shells bursting all round making it difficult to see the way. He caught a glimpse of some squadrons of Dutch carabiniers, drawn up considerably to the rear, with their left against the chaussee, out of range of the cannonshots; passed by General Kruse's Nassauers, held in reserve; and arrived at length on the plateau overlooking Hougoumont. Skirting a regiment of dragoons of the legion, who announced themselves to belong to General Dornberg's brigade, the Colonel took a deep breath, gave his horse a pat on the neck saying: "Now for it, my lad!" and plunged forward into the region of shot and shell bursts. As he rode past Maitland's Guards, lying down in line four-deep above the bend of the hollow road to the south, a cannonball screamed past his head, and made him duck involuntarily. An officer commanding a troop of horse artillery, a little to the west of the 1st Guards, saw him, and laughed, shouting: "Whither away, Audley?"