IAIN GALE
four days in june
A battle lost, a battle won, June 1815
To the memory of George Gale and Giles Gordon
CONTENTS
| Prologue A hundred days |
| Day One Thursday 15 June 1815 |
| Day Two Friday 16 June 1815 |
| Day Three Saturday 17 June 1815 |
| Day Four Sunday 18 June 1815 |
| Postscript |
| Biographical Notes |
| Author’s Note |
A hundred days
They had thought him broken. Believed that they had vanquished forever the tyrant who had laid Europe waste for two decades. But he had proved them wrong. Had, in an unguarded moment of that first spring of peace, slipped the bonds of his captivity and returned to France. Had raised again the eagles and the empire and readied himself for battle.
So now the redcoats waited and watched and guessed how he would come to them. The generals, the captains and the men. Men who had thought their soldiering days were past. Who, depending on their rank, had seen their futures now lived out in riding to hounds or gambling in St James’s or spending hard-earned booty in the taverns and whorehouses of Liverpool and London. Men from the shires and men from the hard north. Highlanders and farmers’ boys and thieves and petty felons. Soldiers all.
Men who had fought this irksome man through eight long years in Spain. And with them now the new blood. Callow privates and pale young subalterns, drawn by the promise of an unexpected last chance to find glory and fortune in Boney’s wars. Others came to swell their ranks: Germans, Dutch and Belgians, and on their flank a huge army of Prussians, all of them equally determined to finish now a job they had thought long done.
Together they waited and they watched. And the summer grew strange and unsettling, the days drifting between hot sunshine and heavy rain. In the fields the rye and wheat, still green in ear, stood shoulder high. And the redcoats and all their allies grew restless and longed for him to come.
ONE
Charleroi, 3.30 a.m. Ziethen
The man was terrified. Ziethen was not surprised. The only penalty for desertion was death, and he had gambled his all on making a desperate rush through both his own lines and the enemy pickets. By some miracle he had not been shot. To risk death; to betray your country. It was a strange courage. A courage born of cowardice. He did not look like a coward, this Frenchman. And he did not look like a hero. Or for that matter much like a soldier. On his head was the familiar black shako, with its brass plate bearing the raised number 13. The 13th Regiment of Line Infantry. Ziethen tried to place it. Which corps? Which brigade? Who was facing him down there across the river? No matter. They would get that from him later. He remembered the 13th, though. As heroes – of Austerlitz, Eylau, Wagram, Borodino. He had even crossed swords with them himself – at Auerstadt. But this man was not the Frenchman of 1806. The French who had marched into Berlin a month later, to Prussia’s everlasting shame. This, thought Ziethen, was a different sort of Frenchman – shambolic.
He was unshaven. Three days, Ziethen guessed. His uniform was principally a filthy long brown overcoat, albeit with the familiar dark blue jacket beneath. His frayed yellow collar and tattered red and yellow epaulettes testified to his élite status as a voltigeur – a sharpshooter. Élite?, thought Ziethen. He had thrown away his musket. He was still laden down, though – with four days’ bread ration and extra cartridges – necessitated presumably by a lack of adequate transport. If this was all that Napoleon could throw at them they had nothing to fear. Secretly, though, the general knew that he was fooling himself. This sad man was not typical. That was why he was here – in the sombre, provincial dining parlour of Ziethen’s requisitioned headquarters on the outskirts of this godforsaken Belgian town. This fool. This brave coward. This deserter. He would not fight. But he was the exception. There were other men out there, beyond the river, and they, Ziethen knew, were different. They were hardened, they wanted to fight. And they were filled with hate. Hate for the Prussians. Hate for men like him.
There was food on the table, and a bottle of local wine. He had been about to eat when they had dragged the wretch into the room. Conscious now of the Frenchman’eyes, focused on the thin chicken leg in his hand, Ziethen threw the bone into the fire and, somewhat obviously, he realized, wiped his greasy fingers on the scarlet turnback of his own dark blue coat.
The Frenchman took off his shako, revealing lank, greasy hair. He spoke. But the accent was too provincial; the words too garbled. Ziethen’s Chief of Staff, the laconic, educated von Reiche, managed a rough, staccato translation:
‘He says, sir, that he is from the 13th Regiment of the Line. From Count d’Erlon’s corps. That they have been camped for some days near Beaumont, to the south west of us. His whole regiment was there – three battalions. Around 1,200 men, he thinks. But some have left – like him. Some of his friends. And some have died. They came there from Lille. He says that to reach our lines he had to walk ten kilometres. It’s another ten to here. He came through what he thinks was another French corps. A lot of men. Perhaps 20,000. All arms. He saw infan try, many cannon, lancers, chasseurs. One of his friends was shot, two others captured by the gendarmes. He says it was very frightening. He does not want to fight. He says that he would like to help, sir.’
The Frenchman smiled, feebly. Since yesterday Ziethen had expected something to happen. But up till now just where it would come had been unclear. This man was all that he had hoped for. But could he be trusted? He desperately wanted to believe so. Outside there was a heavy mist. His pickets could see nothing. Even the keen-eyed Hussars of his own old regiment, the 4th, had returned with no information. Anything would be of help. He tried to interpret the news, to ignore the Frenchman’s terrified, plaintive gaze.
‘Get him a drink.’
‘General?’
‘A drink. Get the man a drink. Wine. Water. Get him a cup of water. And a chair.’
A guard produced a battered tin cup; water was poured. Ziethen picked up the wine and poured a little into the water. A grenadier brought one of the few chairs which had not been taken by the owners of the house or broken up by his men for firewood. The Frenchman sat down, took a long drink and forced a smile. He was sweating. From outside the window a sudden burst of laughter and the sound of a smashing bottle made the man turn his head. Below in the courtyard Ziethen’s junior officers were enjoying themselves. Trying to forget the dawn; the battle they knew must come.
‘Ask him what Napoleon is doing now. Where is he crossing the river? Is he concentrating his men in one place. Is he