Rifles - Mark Urban [154]
On the morning of the 17th, the day began with a satisfying brew of tea and a few pounds of good bacon, but it was destined to be marred by one of those bizarre mishaps of war. Sergeant Fairfoot was standing chatting with his old friend Lieutenant Simmons when the latter decided on a little horseplay. Finding a cuirassier’s breastplate and gloves, he began to parade up and down, eliciting hoots and laughter from the men. One French sharpshooter posted nearby, regarding this as a fighting rather than laughing matter, took a shot at Simmons. The ball hit, not its intended target, but Fairfoot’s right arm. Doubled over with pain, Fairfoot shouted out, ‘Oh Mr Simmons, the game is up with me, for this campaign anyhow.’ His resignation turned to anger as Simmons bound the wound. Before heading back to the surgeons with his arm in a sling, Fairfoot loaded his rifle, rested it on Simmons’s shoulder, and fired it with his left hand towards his assailant.
The 95th spent the remainder of the 17th covering the rear of Wellington’s army as it fell back towards Brussels, taking up its fighting position on the Mont Saint Jean ridge. News had reached the British of the mauling received by Field Marshal Blucher the day before at Ligny. Leach commented, ‘The man of candour will not deny, be he ever so determined a fire eater, that the news of this disastrous defeat of our allies was calculated to throw a damp on the prospects of the campaign.’
That night they were all dampened more literally, by a torrential downpour of the kind that the veterans had come to regard as a good omen during their years in Iberia. Barnard was able to find quarters in a small farm building and, perhaps remembering the lieutenant’s kindness after his wounding at the Nivelle, invited Simmons to stay with him. Simmons thanked him but replied, ‘Sir, if I were to stay here, the Company would have contempt for me, I must go and rough it with them.’
At dawn on the 18th the French Army was revealed to them in the murky light. Fires were started and men stretched stiff, wet limbs. They were soon hard at work, checking their weapons were dry and ready to fire, drinking tea and preparing themselves for the trial that would be Waterloo.
TWENTY-SIX
Waterloo
June 1815 and Afterwards
From early morning on 18 June, the 95th’s camp kettles were boiling away outside Barnard’s billet. The house was just behind a crossroads on the Mont Saint Jean ridge. As it was one of the pivotal points of the battlefield, the riflemen found themselves serving up hot, sweet tea to every variety of commander from Wellington downwards, as they came to study the ground.
The paved road from Brussels to Genappe extended away downhill to their front. About two hundred yards from the top of the ridge, on the right of the road, was the walled farm of La Haye Sainte. This had been turned into a strongpoint and was occupied by light troops of the German Legion. On the left of the road, halfway between the ridge top and that farm, was an area which had been excavated for gravel, known as the sandpit. It was here that Captain Leach was initially posted with two companies, ready to go forward and skirmish. Just to his rear was another company, which could join them. The 1st/95th’s formed reserve, its other three companies, would be posted on the road running from east to west on top of the ridge, behind some hedges. Barnard and his second-in-command, Major Alexander Cameron, would be here too.
Wellington and Napoleon had of course brought vast armies to this field and the 95th’s position represented but a stitch or two on the tapestry of deployments. Several artillery batteries were placed on the ridge just in front of Barnard and the 95th’s reserve. Picton’s infantry battalions were mostly behind them, in an area invisible to the French. Off to the Rifles’ right was an infantry division