Chapter 9 - Morning at Waterloo
June 18 began with mist.
For a few minutes the battlefield looked empty.
Then shapes emerged.
Men.
Horses.
Guns.
Flags.
The valley filled as daylight strengthened.
I ate bread without tasting it.
Nobody seemed hungry, yet everyone ate.
The body insists on ordinary things even when the mind objects.
William stood nearby.
His face looked older than it had in Brussels.
Only three days had passed.
“Thomas.”
“Yes?”
“If you write about this…”
He stopped.
“What?”
“Don’t make us all brave.”
I frowned.
“Why?”
“Because I’m terrified.”
“So are most people.”
“Exactly.”
An officer shouted.
William joined his company.
I watched him go.
The French army across the valley seemed impossibly large.
Drums began.
The sound carried.
Deep.
Measured.
Flags moved.
Sunlight briefly broke through cloud and caught metal.
For one beautiful moment, war looked magnificent.
That was one of its ugliest tricks.
Then artillery opened.
The first nearby shot made me duck.
Someone laughed.
“Writer!”
I stood.
The next shot made everyone duck.
Nobody laughed.
French guns began pounding Allied positions.
Earth jumped.
Smoke spread.
Balls tore through crops.
The sound became continuous.
Mercer shouted at me.
“Back!”
I returned to the medical area.
Soon the first wounded arrived.
Then more.
Hougoumont had become the center of fighting on our right.
From where I worked, I saw smoke among trees.
Gunfire crackled in waves.
Flames appeared later.
“They’re burning the place,” someone said.
A wounded Guardsman was brought in.
His face was black with powder.
“What happened?”
“French inside the woods.”
“Farm?”
“Still ours.”
Mercer cut away cloth.
The man gripped my arm.
Hard.
“Still ours,” he repeated.
As though ownership of a farm could keep him alive.
By noon, the battlefield was hidden in patches of smoke.
You could hear much more than you could see.
Cannon.
Muskets.
Drums.
Shouts.
Horses.
Occasional cheers.
Then periods of strange local quiet before another eruption.
I stopped trying to understand the whole battle.
Nobody near the ground could.
We understood pieces.
Hougoumont holding.
French guns firing.
Troops moving.
Men coming back wounded.
Orders going forward.
History later creates a map.
May you like
On the day itself, I lived inside fragments.
And every fragment was loud.
