Rifles - Mark Urban [155]
As for Napoleon, he chose a ridge about five hundred yards in front of Leach’s position to site his main concentration of artillery. This wall of eighty guns would be able to hurl a weight of shot at the British centre and left quite unlike anything they had experienced in the Peninsula. During the morning, ‘we perceived our adversaries bringing into position, on the heights opposite, gun after gun’, Leach wrote, ‘intended particularly to salute our division, the farm of La Haye Sainte and the left of Baron Alten’s division.’ Wellington had ensured that by placing them on the reverse slope of the ridge, much of his infantry would be untouched by that battery, but the 95th and German Legion around Haye Sainte would not have that luxury.
While the French were hauling up caissons full of ammunition and yet more cannon, the 95th distributed cartridges and sent its transport to the rear. Simmons and a party under him went to cut down trees to help build up a barricade on the main road south, near Haye Sainte. This would stop enemy cavalry and horse artillery using this route to rush up to the British position.
At about 1 p.m. the French guns opened the ball, the very first shot from the grand battery taking off a rifleman’s head, and scattering its contents about. The eighty guns thundered away for most of that hour, the riflemen lying down in the sandpit or on the ridge, as the shot ripped through the air just above them.
This firing had little effect on Wellington’s concealed infantry, and as the familiar drumming and ‘Vive l’Empereur’s of an infantry attack replaced the cacophony of the guns, the three forward companies of the 95th extended out and began skirmishing with their covering voltigeurs. The firing checked this screen, but General d’Erlon’s columns kept advancing, marching through their light troops, who were still engaged in their private struggle with the 95th.
Captain Duthilt marched forward in the main part of d’Erlon’s column. He was a grizzled veteran of twenty-two years who had fought in the first revolutionary campaigns. He looked up towards the ridge, and a little to his left at La Haye Sainte. He was worried by the strength of the defences, the cloying mud, the unusual formation in which they were delivering their attack, and by the fact that the usual cheering and egging on of the conscripts had begun too soon in their progress forwards. ‘This rush and enthusiasm were becoming disastrous,’ according to Duthilt, ‘in that the soldier still had a long march to make before meeting the enemy, and was soon tired out by the difficulty of manoeuvring on this heavy churned-up soil, which ripped off gaiter straps and even claimed shoes … there was soon some disorder in the ranks, above all as soon as the head of the column came within range of enemy fire.’ Riflemen, German legionnaires, light companies from Picton’s division and cannon all poured death into the head of d’Erlon’s corps.
The French, falling into confusion, were still moving forward – at this point, confronted with several thousand infantry, Leach had little choice but to fall back up the slope to his supports on the ridge. Stopping every now and then to turn and fire, the riflemen made their way up and were soon behind the hedge.
The engagement had become hot, and raged across the front. Major Cameron was hit in the neck by one shot, being carried to the rear. Picton too fell, his wound being mortal.
It was at this moment, at around 2 p. m., that the riflemen looking down to their right saw French cuirassiers cantering up to a Hanoverian militia battalion, which was making its way to reinforce the defenders of Haye Sainte. Catching them unawares, the French cavalry rode down the whole lot. The armoured horsemen set about the infantry with their long sabres, bringing pathetic cries for mercy from the lacerated Germans. No quarter was given, though,