Page 3 of Dangerous Illusions (Dangerous #1)
Despite his best efforts to keep his units together, they soon became scattered, though the Allied forces held strong.
When they regrouped sometime later at the base of the ridge, he did not see Penthorpe, but Wellington was waiting for them, astride his magnificent chestnut war-horse, Copenhagen.
Ordinarily reserved in his manner toward his men, the Duke was so pleased that he received them now with a slight lift of his low cocked hat and the words, “Life Guards, I thank you!” Gideon grinned at his nearest officer and saw his own pride reflected in the man’s widened eyes and parted lips.
But the battle was far from over. The British infantry quickly formed squares, turning the ground into a chessboard and entangling the French cavalry, whereupon the British cavalry charged again, driving the French back; but Bonaparte called in his reserves, and his army rallied, threatening Wellington’s center and forcing the Duke to call in his reserves.
By half past seven that evening, with the sun nearing the western horizon, the British main line had become badly weakened.
Gideon caught sight of Penthorpe near an inn called La Belle Alliance, but soon afterward Bonaparte hurled a huge wave against Wellington’s line, nearly breaking through, and by the time the French had been repulsed, Gideon had lost sight of Penthorpe again.
The center was crumbling, the Duke’s men exhausted, and his reserves were used up.
But with bulldog tenacity Wellington had already begun to reorganize his forces.
Bonaparte had the edge, Gideon thought, watching grimly as he signaled his men to regroup. The little upstart’s men still thought they would get to wear the parade uniforms they carried to march into Brussels, but the Duke could yet prove them wrong.
French cannons were fired, the British replied in kind, and the smoke grew so heavy that for a time the enemy troops were lost from sight.
Hearing the cry “Vive l’Empereur!” Gideon knew a new charge had begun, but still he could not see.
Then, as he raised his saber in warning to his men to expect a command, the smoke cleared briefly, revealing line upon line of flashing bayonets appallingly nearer than he had expected.
“Fire!” he cried, and the command echoed down the line till it was lost in a thunderous explosion of cannon fire.
When the smoke cleared again, three hundred of Napoleon’s Old Guard lay dead or dying on the ground.
Moments later Wellington galloped along the entire front line on the magnificent Copenhagen, waving his hat aloft and shouting, “The whole line! Advance!”
The battle was won. The French infantry, cavalry, and artillery had merged pell-mell into a great seething mass of panic.
Some units tried to hold formation and fight, while others were trying to effect an orderly retreat, but the panicked masses were bent upon fleeing the blood-soaked wheat fields as fast as horses or their own legs could carry them.
The sun had set, and in the gray dusk, clouds of low-lying smoke enveloped whole sections of the field as Wellington’s army pushed its way through the wreckage.
Mangled bodies of dead and wounded men and horses lay jumbled together, surrounded by the debris of battle—plumed helmets, shakos, bearskin hats, gaiters, odd shoes, boots, knapsacks, metal breastplates, mess bowls, knives and forks, cannonballs, lances, sabers, torn bits of gold braid and lace, epaulets, flags, bagpipes, bugles, trumpets, and drums—each item telling its own sad story.
Grimly fighting his stomach’s reaction to the gory sight, Gideon forced himself to keep his mind on his duty.
Realizing he was near the inn, he looked anxiously around for Penthorpe but did not see him.
His men waited quietly for orders, and when Wellington raised his hand, Gideon spurred his horse nearer to hear what he would say.
As he did so, he saw an infantryman stoop suddenly to pick up something from the ground, and there was still enough light left for him to see the dull flash of gold.
Swerving his mount toward the man, Gideon snapped, “What’s that you’ve found there, soldier? ”
The man looked up, saw his epaulets, and quickly saluted. “Damned if it ain’t a lady’s picture, sir,” he said. “These Frenchies’ve dropped some o’ the damnedest things.”
“Let’s have it,” Gideon said, his stomach clenching in apprehension.
The soldier handed up the miniature, muddy but perfectly recognizable.
Not bothering to conceal the tide of fear that swept over him, Gideon scanned the nearby ground, his gaze passing swiftly over bodies that could not be Penthorpe’s but lingering wherever a shape seemed at all familiar.
Bodies lay all around him, and the dreadful groaning and screams of pain were such that he knew he would hear them in his dreams for years to come.
Suddenly, in a hollow not far from where the miniature had been found, a lanky mud-covered figure caught his eye.
The man lay facedown in the mud, but his helmet had slipped to one side, revealing a few locks of relatively clean reddish hair.
Flinging himself from the saddle, Gideon rushed to the fallen man, grabbed his shoulders, and pulled.
The thick, oozing mud clung to its captive, reluctant to release him, and although Gideon’s strength prevailed, his effort was futile.
Bile surged into his throat. The man’s face had been blown away.
Just then Wellington cried, “Bonaparte’s taken horse to Quatre Bras! After him, lads!”
Fighting down his nausea, Gideon turned back to the waiting foot soldier and indicated the body.
“He was a friend,” he said. “The picture belonged to him, so I shall keep it, but I must go. You stay here to protect the body from looters and see it gets a proper burial. Here are a few yellow boys for your trouble,” he added, digging for guineas.
Tossing them to the man, he tucked the miniature safely away inside his jacket, flung himself into the saddle, and forced himself to concentrate on his badly depleted brigade and the mission that lay before them.
The battle of Waterloo was over, but pursuit of the French would not be abandoned, for the Duke was determined this time to drive Napoleon all the way back to Paris if necessary, and then to occupy the city. Only the dead on the blood-soaked field would rest tonight, Gideon thought.
Sending up a silent prayer for Penthorpe’s soul, and ruthlessly repressing a vision of tears replacing the laughter in those blue eyes in Cornwall, he looked back one last time and saw, scattered here and there in the mud where they had fallen from torn French knapsacks, a vast number of still colorful red and blue parade uniforms.