The Dynasts: An Epic-Drama of the War with Napoleon Part 175

I will, by G.o.d.

I'll bear straight on to Gosselies, if needs!

GNEISENAU

Your Excellencies, if I may be a judge, Such movement will not tend to unity; It leans too largely on a peradventure Most speculative in its contingencies!

[A silence; till the officers of the staff remark to each other that concentration is best in any circ.u.mstances. A general discussion ensues.]

BLUCHER [concludingly]

We will expect you, Duke, to our support.

WELLINGTON

I must agree that, in the sum, it's best.

So be it then. If not attacked myself I'll come to you.--Now I return with speed To Quatre-Bras.

BLUCHER

And I descend from here To give close eye and thought to things below; No more can well be studied where we stand.

[Exeunt from roof WELLINGTON, BLUCHER and the rest. They reappear below, and WELLINGTON and his suite gallop furiously away in the direction of Quatre-Bras. An interval.]

DUMB SHOW [below]

Three reports of a cannon give the signal for the French attack.

NAPOLEON'S army advances down the slopes of green corn opposite, bands and voices joining in songs of victory. The French come in three grand columns; VANDAMME'S on the left [the spectator's right] against Saint-Amand, the most forward angle of the Prussian position. GERARD'S in the centre bear down upon Ligny. GROUCHY'S on the French right is further back. Far to the rear can be discerned NAPOLEON, the Imperial Guard, and MILHAUD'S cuira.s.siers halted in reserve.

This formidable advance is preceded by swarms of tirailleurs, who tread down the high wheat, exposing their own men in the rear.

Amid cannonading from both sides they draw nearer to the Prussians, though lanes are cut through them by the latter's guns. They drive the Prussians out of Ligny; who, however, rally in the houses, churchyard, and village green.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

I see unnatural an Monster, loosely jointed, With an Apocalyptic Being's shape, And limbs and eyes a hundred thousand strong, And fifty thousand heads; which coils itself About the buildings there.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Thou dost indeed.

It is the Monster Devastation. Watch.

Round the church they fight without quarter, shooting face to face, stabbing with unfixed bayonets, and braining with the b.u.t.ts of muskets. The village catches fire, and soon becomes a furnace.

The crash of splitting timbers as doors are broken through, the curses of the fighters, rise into the air, with shouts of "En avant!" from the further side of the stream, and "Vorwarts!" from the nearer.

The battle extends to the west by Le Hameau and Saint-Amand la Haye; and Ligny becomes invisible under a shroud of smoke.

VOICES [at the base of the mill]

This sun will go down bloodily for us!

The English, sharply sighed for by Prince Blucher, Cannot appear. Wellington words across That hosts have set on him at Quatre-Bras, And leave him not one bayonet to spare!

The truth of this intelligence is apparent. A low dull sound heard lately from the direction of Quatre-Bras has increased to a roaring cannonade. The scene abruptly closes.

SCENE VI

THE FIELD AT QUATRE-BRAS

[The same day. The view is southward, and the straight gaunt highway from Brussels [behind the spectator] to Charleroi over the hills in front, bisects the picture from foreground to distance. Near at hand, where it is elevated and open, there crosses it obliquely, at a point called Les Quatre-Bras, another road which comes from Nivelle, five miles to the gazer's right rear, and goes to Namur, twenty miles ahead to the left. At a distance of five or six miles in this latter direction it pa.s.ses near the previous scene, Ligny, whence the booming of guns can be continuously heard.

Between the cross-roads in the centre of the scene and the far horizon the ground dips into a hollow, on the other side of which the same straight road to Charleroi is seen climbing the crest, and over it till out of sight. From a hill on the right hand of the mid-distance a large wood, the wood of Bossu, reaches up nearly to the crossways, which give their name to the buildings thereat, consisting of a few farm-houses and an inn.

About three-quarters of a mile off, nearly hidden by the horizon towards Charleroi, there is also a farmstead, Gemioncourt; another, Piraumont, stands on an eminence a mile to the left of it, and somewhat in front of the Namur road.]

DUMB SHOW

As this scene uncovers the battle is beheld to be raging at its height, and to have reached a keenly tragic phase. WELLINGTON has returned from Ligny, and the main British and Hanoverian position, held by the men who marched out of Brussels in the morning, under officers who danced the previous night at the d.u.c.h.ess's, is along the Namur road to the left of the perspective, and round the cross- road itself. That of the French, under Ney, is on the crests further back, from which they are descending in imposing numbers. Some advanced columns are a.s.sailing the English left, while through the smoke-hazes of the middle of the field two lines of skirmishers are seen firing at each other--the southernmost dark blue, the northernmost dull red. Time lapses till it is past four o'clock.

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

The cannonade of the French ordnance-lines Has now redoubled. Columns new and dense Of foot, supported by fleet cavalry, Straightly impinge upon the Brunswick bands That border the plantation of Bossu.

Above some regiments of the a.s.saulting French A flag like midnight swims upon the air, To say no quarter may be looked for there!

The Brunswick soldiery, much notched and torn by the French grape- shot, now lie in heaps. The DUKE OF BRUNSWICK himself, desperate to keep them steady, lights his pipe, and rides slowly up and down in front of his lines previous to the charge which follows.

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

The French have heaved them on the Brunswickers, And borne them back. Now comes the Duke's told time.

He gallops at the head of his hussars-- Those men of solemn and appalling guise, Full-clothed in black, with nodding hearsy plumes, A shining silver skull and cross of bones Set upon each, to byspeak his slain sire....

Concordantly, the expected bullet starts And finds the living son.

BRUNSWICK reels to the ground. His troops, disheartened, lose their courage and give way.