第53章 How the Brigadier Bore Himself at Waterloo(9)
They swayed back and forward; they no longer advanced; they were held.Great Heaven! was it possible that they were breaking? One black dot ran down the hill, then two, then four, then ten, then a great, scattered, struggling mass, halting, breaking, halting, and at last shredding out and rushing madly downward."The Guard is beaten! The Guard is beaten!" From all around me I heard the cry.Along the whole line the infantry turned their faces and the gunners flinched from their guns.
"The Old Guard is beaten! The Guard retreats!" An officer with a livid face passed me yelling out these words of woe."Save yourselves! Save yourselves! You are betrayed!" cried another."Save yourselves! Save yourselves!" Men were rushing madly to the rear, blundering and jumping like frightened sheep.Cries and screams rose from all around me.And at that moment, as I looked at the British position, I saw what I can never forget.A single horseman stood out black and clear upon the ridge against the last red angry glow of the setting sun.So dark, so motionless, against that grim light, he might have been the very spirit of Battle brooding over that terrible valley.As I gazed, he raised his hat high in the air, and at the signal, with a low, deep roar like a breaking wave, the whole British army flooded over their ridge and came rolling down into the valley.
Long steel-fringed lines of red and blue, sweeping waves of cavalry, horse batteries rattling and bounding--down they came on to our crumbling ranks.It was over.A yell of agony, the agony of brave men who see no hope, rose from one flank to the other, and in an instant the whole of that noble army was swept in a wild, terror- stricken crowd fromthe field.Even now, dear friends, I cannot, as you see, speak of that dreadful moment with a dry eye or with a steady voice.
At first I was carried away in that wild rush, whirled off like a straw in a flooded gutter.But, suddenly, what should I see amongst the mixed regiments in front of me but a group of stern horsemen, in silver and grey, with a broken and tattered standard held aloft in the heart of them! Not all the might of England and of Prussia could break the Hussars of Conflans.But when I joined them it made my heart bleed to see them.The major, seven captains, and five hundred men were left upon the field.Young Captain Sabbatier was in command, and when I asked him where were the five missing squadrons he pointed back and answered: "You will find them round one of those British squares." Men and horses were at their last gasp, caked with sweat and dirt, their black tongues hanging out from their lips; but it made me thrill with pride to see how that shattered remnant still rode knee to knee, with every man, from the boy trumpeter to the farrier-sergeant, in his own proper place.
Would that I could have brought them on with me as an escort for the Emperor! In the heart of the Hussars of Conflans he would be safe indeed.But the horses were too spent to trot.I left them behind me with orders to rally upon the farm-house of St.Aunay, where we had camped two nights before.For my own part, I forced my horse through the throng in search of the Emperor.
There were things which I saw then, as I pressed through that dreadful crowd, which can never be banished from my mind.In evil dreams there comes back to me the memory of that flowing stream of livid, staring, screaming faces upon which I looked down.It was a nightmare.In victory one does not understand the horror of war.It is only in the cold chill of defeat that it is brought home to you.I remember an old Grenadier of the Guard lying at the side of the road with his broken leg doubled at a right angle."Comrades, comrades, keep off my leg!" he cried, but they tripped and stumbled over him all the same.In front of me rode a Lancer officer without his coat.His arm had just been taken off in the ambulance.The bandages had fallen.It was horrible.Two gunners tried to drive through with their gun.A Chasseur raised hismusket and shot one of them through the head.I saw a major of Cuirassiers draw his two holster pistols and shoot first his horse and then himself.Beside the road a man in a blue coat was raging and raving like a madman.His face was black with powder, his clothes were torn, one epaulette was gone, the other hung dangling over his breast.Only when I came close to him did I recognise that it was Marshal Ney.He howled at the flying troops and his voice was hardly human.Then he raised the stump of his sword-- it was broken three inches from the hilt."Come and see how a Marshal of France can die!" he cried.Gladly would I have gone with him, but my duty lay elsewhere.
He did not, as you know, find the death he sought, but he met it a few weeks later in cold blood at the hands of his enemies.
There is an old proverb that in attack the French are more than men, in defeat they are less than women.I knew that it was true that day.But even in that rout I saw things which I can tell with pride.Through the fields which skirt the road moved Cambronne's three reserve battalions of the Guard, the cream of our army.