something I wished to do, but I had little choice. I showed him the drawings I made of the incident. Tranville threatened my family; the only way I could silence him was by threatening to expose Edwin. You are safe,” he assured them. “I did not show enough to identify you, not even your uniforms.”
“Did you show the woman’s face? Or her son’s?” Gabe asked, his chest tightening.
Vernon shook his head.
Relieved, Gabe rubbed his face. “Damned Tranville. I hope some Frenchman puts a ball through his head.”
“Watch your tongue, Gabe,” Landon cautioned, gesturing to their sleeping roommate.
Vernon rose. “I had better deliver my message.”
Gabe shook his hand.
Before he walked out he turned to Gabe. “What of the woman, Captain? Do you think she found a safe place for herself and her son?”
“She did,” Gabe answered. “In fact, she lives in Brussels. I saw her there.”
Landon sat up straight. “You did not tell me that.”
Gabe shrugged. There was no more he wanted to say.
“And the boy?” Vernon asked.
Gabe looked from one to the other. “In the army.” Let them think he had joined a Belgian regiment.
After Vernon left, Landon turned to Gabe. “How did you come to know the woman was in Brussels?”
“I encountered her by chance.” Which was almost the truth, if you didn’t add that he deliberately pursued her all the way to her shop.
“I thought she was French,” Landon said.
“She came to Belgium to live with a relative, she said.” He did not wish to talk about her. “I do not know a great deal more.”
Except everything she’d shared as they lay in each other’s arms after making love. Except how her smile seemed to make colours brighter. How the warmth of her skin made him feel as if he’d come home at last.
Landon dropped the subject and soon left to find Picton. For the rest of the night Gabe tried to ignore the water dripping from the ceiling and the wind whistling through the cracks in the walls. Mostly he tried not to think of Emmaline, how comforting it felt to sleep next to her, how wrenching it felt to lose her.
He needed sleep before facing cannonade, charging cavalry and thousands of soldiers marching towards them to the sound of the Pas de Charge.
The next day the rain dwindled to a light drizzle, but did not cease until mid-morning when the sun was finally visible again. Everyone prepared for what they knew would be the main battle.
Gabe conferred with his lieutenants and saw to the readiness of his company, ensuring they had dry powder and plenty of ammunition. His uniform was damp from the incessant rain, but those of his men were soaked through. As the sun heated the air, clouds of vapor rose from their coats and from the ground, lending an eerie cast to the scene.
The two armies faced each other across a gently sloping valley at a right angle to the Brussels road. One farm, La Haye Sainte, fortified by the King’s German Legion, was on one side of the valley. Hougoumont, another farm, occupied by the Coldstream Guards, was on the other. Gabe’s Royal Scots, along with other regiments of British, Dutch, German and Belgian troops, were strung the length between the farms with the forest of Soignes to their backs. Wellington ordered these troops to remain on the back slope of the ridge, so for most of them the battle was heard and not seen. Gabe witnessed a bit more from horseback. He watched the first attack on Hougoumont a little before noon, the first action of the day. Two hours later it was the Royal Scots’ turn. The formidable French column advanced into the valley. The ground trembled under their feet. Their drums pounded in the Allies’ ears as they marched up the hill.
The Royal Scots and the other regiments were ready. Hidden behind the crest, Gabe held his men back until Picton gave the order. All at once the British rose up in front of the French column and fired. Front ranks, standing shoulder to shoulder, fired on order, then dropped down to reload. Those behind them moved forwards and fired. Front ranks advanced again. Volley after non-stop volley poured into the French columns. Countless Frenchmen fell, only to be trampled on by the hoards of their comrades marching behind them.
Gabe rode along the line of his men, urging them to stand and keep firing, but, as devastating as their muskets were, there were simply too many enemy soldiers coming at them. In seconds they would be overpowered.
All was not lost. The British cavalry came in the nick of time, charging down the hill, routing the French infantry. Gabe cheered the French infantry’s frantic retreat. He watched the cavalry cut a swathe through the fleeing men, slaughtering them as if scything grain.
The sight brought relief, but no pleasure, and soon turned to horror. The British cavalry were cut off by French cuirassiers. The tables were turned, and now it was the British on the run and the French cavalry on the slaughter.
Was Emmaline’s Claude among them? Gabe wondered. Was he quenching his thirst for vengeance, or had he already fallen? Claude was too young and new to battle to hone the instinct for survival that became second nature to veteran soldiers, an instinct that had served Gabe well.
By four o’clock, fighting continued around Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte and Gabe prepared for another attack of infantry. Again the men were pulled back to the far side of the ridge. Gabe rode to the crest of the hill to see for himself what they would face next. Again the ground trembled, but this time with the pounding of horses’ hooves. Like a huge, unstoppable wave thousands of French cavalry, line after line of them, charged directly towards them.
Wellington gave the order to form square, a battlefield formation where men stood three deep, a line presenting bayonets, a line to fire, a line to reload. Cavalry horses would not charge into the bayonets and the muskets could fire at will. The interior of the square sheltered the wounded, the artillerymen and the officers, whose job it was to make sure the men stood fast, kept shooting and closed any gap.
“Fire at the horses,” Gabe shouted to his men. Without his horse, a cavalryman was helpless.
Gabe wound up in the same square as Landon, who, thank God, was unscathed. Gabe might have got his wish about General Tranville. He’d been seen falling from his horse during that first infantry charge and no one had seen him since. His son Edwin, coward that he was, had disappeared at the beginning of the battle. Gabe presumed he was hiding somewhere that cannon fire and musket balls could not reach.
“Fire at the horses,” Gabe yelled again. “Stand fast.”
Gabe’s square held and, as far as he could tell, the other British squares held as well, even though the French charged again and again. Between charges Landon rode off to render assistance to Hougoumont, which was now on fire. Gabe stayed with his company, their numbers dwindling with each attack, the square becoming smaller and smaller.
The ground around them was littered with dead and dying horses and men, their screams melding with the boom of cannon and crack of musket fire. The air filled with smoke and it was difficult to see much further than ten to twelve feet.
Between cavalry attacks, Gabe worried that the French would train their artillery on the squares, or that more columns of infantry would join the
