Colonel Audley, finding the Duke at last, was sent off immediately with a scrawled message for Uxbridge. "We ought to have more Cavalry between the two high roads. That is to say, 3 Brigades at least… One heavy and one light Brigade might remain on the left."
This note delivered into Uxbridge's hands, Colonel Audley found himself beside Seymour, still seething with rage at the behaviour of the Hanoverians and the Dutch-Belgians. From him he learned that the head of the Prussian column, coming up to the west of Papelotte, had been sighted at about five o'clock, and that Baron Muffling, almost frantic at the delay, had ridden in person to bring up the reinforcements so desperately needed.
The farm of La Haye Sainte had caught fire from the cannonade directed upon it. Two of the French guns had been brought up to the north of it, and were enfilading Kempt's lines on the west of the chaussee. These were speedily silenced by the 95th Rifles, terribly reduced in numbers but still holding their ground in front of Lambert's brigade; but French skirmishers were now all round La Haye Sainte. A message from General Alten reached Baron Ompteda, requesting him, if possible, to deploy a battalion and sent it against these tirailleurs. Ompteda, knowing that they were strongly supported by cavalry, sent back this intelligence to his general, but the Prince of Orange, carried away by the excitement of the moment, and forgetful of the disaster attendant upon his interference at Quatre-Bras, impetuously ordered him to advance at once. Ompteda looked at him for one moment; then he turned and gave the command to deploy the 5th Line battalion of the legion. Placing himself at its head, he led it against the French skirmishers, and drove them back. The cuirassiers in support charged down upon him; he fell, and half his men with him, cut to pieces by the cavalry. Arendtschildt, watching from the high ground to the north, flung his hussars into the fray again. They fell upon the cuirassiers in flank and drove them back, enabling the shattered remnant of the 5th Line battalion to reach the main position. Fresh French cavalry advanced and drove the hussars back, but the riflemen, on the knoll above the sandpit across the road, who had been impatiently awaiting their opportunity, no sooner saw the ground cleared of Ompteda's infantry than they poured in such an accurate fire that the French cavalry was thrown into confusion, and the German hussars drew off in good order.
The cavalry attacks on the right had almost ceased; the Duke sent to withdraw Adam's brigade from its exposed position on to the high ground on Maitland's right; and despatched Colonel Fremantle to the left wing, where the Prussians were beginning to come up, with a request for reinforcements of three thousand infantry to strengthen the line. The Colonel returned with a message from General Bulow and Ziethen that their whole Army was coming up, and they could make no detachment. He was delayed on his way back by finding Prince Bernhard's Nassauers, who had behaved with the greatest gallantry all day, being put to rout by a Prussian battery of eight guns which was busily employed in firing on them in the mistaken belief that they were French troops.
"A pretty way to behave after taking the whole day to come up!" he told Lord Fitzroy wrathfully. "The Prince rallied his fellows a quarter of a mile behind the line, but I had to gallop all the way back to Ziethen to get him to send orders to stop his damned battery!"
"How long before Ziethen can bring his whole force up?" Fitzroy demanded. "Things are looking pretty black."
"God knows! Muffling is doing all he can to hasten them, but there's only some advance cavalry arrived so far. They say they had the greatest difficulty to get here, owing to the state of the roads. Wouldn't have come at all if it hadn't been for old Blucher cheering them on. If it weren't so damned serious it would be comical! No sooner did Ziethen's advance guard get within reach of us than they heard we were being forced to retreat, and promptly turned tail and made off. You can imagine old Müffling's wrath! He went after them like one of Whinyates' rockets, and ordered them up at once. The main part of the Prussian Army is already engaged round Plancenoit, if Ziethen is to be believed. If they really are attacking Boney on his right flank, it would account for Ney not bringing infantry up against us. Ten to one, Boney's had to employ most of it against Billow."
Uxbridge, seeing the Household Cavalry drawn up in a thin, extended line behind Ompteda's and Kielmansegg's brigades, sent Seymour to tell Lord Edward to withdraw his men to a less exposed position. Seymour came back with a grim answer from Lord Edward, still holding his ground: "If I were to move, the Dutch in support of me would move off immediately."
The fire had been extinguished at La Haye Sainte, but the garrison had fired its last cartridge, and was forced, after holding it in the teeth of the French columns all day, to abandon the post. Fighting a hand-to-hand rearguard action against the French breaking in through every entrance, Major Baring got out of the farm, and back to the lines, with forty-two men left of the original four hundred who had occupied the farm.
La Haye Sainte had fallen, and the effects of its loss were at once felt. Quiot, occupying it in force, brought up his guns and opened a crippling fire upon the Allied centre. To the east the smoke hung so thickly that, although not a hundred yards between them, the men of the 95th, reduced to a single line of skirmishers, could only see by the flash of their pieces where the French gunners were situated. Their senior officers had all been carried off the field, and the command of the battalion had fallen upon a captain. Behind the riflemen, Sir John Lambert was standing staunchly in support, in the angle of the chaussee and the hollow road, with three regiments, two living and one lying dead in square. On the west of the chaussee, the shot and the shells from the French batteries were tearing great rents in already depleted ranks. Alten had fallen; and Ompteda was dead. Staff officers from the various brigades galloped up from all sides to beg the Duke for orders. "There are no orders," he said. "My only plan is to stand my ground here to the last man."