The deploying movements of the French had been completed by half past ten. The music and the trumpet calls ceased, and the columns stood in a silence that seemed the more absolute from its marked contrast to the medley of martial noises that had been resounding on all sides for the past hour. As the village clocks in the distance struck eleven, the Duke took up position with all his staff, near Hougoumont, and looked through his glass at the French lines. A very dark, wiry young officer, with a thin, energetic face in which a pair of deep-set eyes laughed upon the world, came riding up to the Duke, and saluted smartly. The Duke called out: "Hallo, Smith! Where are you from?"

"From General Lambert's brigade, my lord, and they from America!" responded Brigade-Major Harry Smith, with the flash of an impudent grin.

"What have you got?"

"The 4th, the 27th, and the 40th. The 81st remain in Brussels."

"Ah, I know! But the others: are they in good order?"

"Excellent, my lord, and very strong," declared the Major.

"That's all right," said his lordship, "for I shall soon want every man."

"I don't think they will attack today," remarked one of his staff, frowning across the valley.

"Nonsense!" said his lordship, with a snap. "The columns of attack are already forming, and I think I have seen where the weight of the attack will fall. I shall be attacked before an hour. Do you know anything of my position, Smith?"

"Nothing, my lord, beyond what I see - the general line, and the right and left."

"Go back and half Lambert's brigade at the junction of the two great roads from Charleroi and Nivelles. I'll tell you what I want of you fellows."

He rode a little way with Smith, apprising him of his intentions. The Major, who was one of his lordship's promising young favourites, listened, saluted, and rode off at a canter to the rear. He cut across the slope behind Alten's division, leapt a hedge, and came down on to the chaussee almost on top of Colonel Audley, who, having been sent on an errand to Mont St Jean, was riding back to the front.

"God damn your - Harry Smith, by all that's wonderful! I might have known it! When did you arrive? Where's your brigade?"

"At Waterloo. We were held up by the wagons and baggage upset all over the road from Brussels, and when we got to Waterloo we met Scovell, who had been sent by the Duke to see if the rear was clear - which, by God, it was not! He requested us to sweep up the litter before moving on! What's the news with you, old fellow?"

"Oh, famous! How's Juana? You haven't brought her out with you, I suppose?"

"Haven't brought her out with me?" exclaimed the Major. "She was sitting down to dinner with Lambert at some village just the other side of the Forest last night!"

"Good God, you don't mean to tell me she's with the brigade now?"

"No, I've sent her back to Ghent with her groom," replied the Major coolly. "We're in for a hottish day, from the looks of it. I understand my brigade will be wanted to relieve old Picton. Cut up at your little affair at Quatre-Bras, was he?"

"Devilishly. Someone said he himself had been wounded, but he's here today, so I suppose he wasn't. I must be off."

"By Jove, and so must I! We shall meet again - here or in hell! Adios! Bienes de fortuna!"

He cantered off; the Colonel set his horse at the bank on the right of the chaussee, scrambled up, and rode past Lord Edward Somerset's lounging squadrons up the slope to the front line.

By the time he had found the Duke it was just past eleven o'clock. He joined a group of persons gathered about his lordship, and sat with a loose rein, looking along the ridge opposite.

"Heard about Grant?" asked Canning, who was standing next to him.

"No: which Grant?" replied the Colonel absently.

"Oh, not General Grant! Colonel Grant. He did send the information of the French massing on Charleroi on the 15th - the very fullest information, down to the last detail. It's just come to hand!"

"Just come to hand?" repeated Audley. "How the devil did it take three days to reach us?"

"Ask General Dornberg," said Canning. "It was sent to him, at Mons, and he, if you please, coolly sent it back to Grant, saying that it didn't convince him that the French really intended anything serious! Grant then despatched the information direct to the Duke, but of course, by that time, we were on the march. Good story, ain't it?"

"Dornberg ought to be shot! Who the devil is he to question Grant's Intelligence?"

"My very words," remarked Gordon, who had come up to them. He glanced towards the French lines, and said, with a yawn: "Don't seem to be in a hurry to come to grips with us, do they?"

The words had scarcely been uttered when the flash of cannonfire flickered all along the ridge, and the silence that had lain over the field for over an hour was rent by the boom of scores of great guns trained on the Allied position. The scream of a horse, hit by roundshot, sounded from a troop of artillery close at hand; a cannonball buried itself in the soft ground not three paces from where Colonel Audley was standing; and sent up a shower of mud. His horse reared, snorting; he gentled it, shouting to Gordon above the thunder of the guns: "What do you call this?"

"Damned noisy!" retorted Gordon.

The flashes and the puffs of smoke continued all along the ridge; suddenly a deafening crash, reverberating down the Allied line, answered the challenge of the French cannons, and a cheer went up: the English batteries had come into action.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The French, after their usual custom, had opened a cannonade over the whole front. Behind the quick-set hedges the first lines of British infantry remained lying down, while the second lines of cavalry, drawn back on the downward slope to the north, suffered little from shot which for the most part fell short of them. The sodden condition of the ground caused many of the shells to explode harmlessly in deep mud, but there were uncomfortable moments when shells with extra long fuses fell among the troops, hissing and burning for some time before they burnt. Some of the old soldiers lit pipes, and lay smoking and cracking jokes, but every now and then there would be a sob from some man hit by a splinter, or a groan from a boy with a limb shattered by caseshot. In front line, in the intervals between the brigades, the gunners were busy, loading the 9-pounders with round shot with a case over it, the tubes in vents, portfires glaring and spitting behind the wheels.

The Duke was standing by Maitland's brigade on the right, critically observing the effect of the French cannonade. The shots tore up the ground beside him, and hissed over his head, but he merely remarked:

"That's good practice. I think they fire better than in Spain."

The cannonade continued until twenty minutes past eleven without any movement of infantry attack being made by the enemy. The hottest fire was being directed upon Hougoumont, but the wood on the southern side of the chateau to a large extent protected it. At twenty minutes past eleven, Prince Jerome Bonaparte's division of infantry, belonging to Reille's corps, on the French left, began to advance in column towards the wood, with a cloud of skirmishers thrown out in front. These were met by a blaze of musketry fire from the Hanoverian and Nassau troops posted among the trees. The Duke shut his telescope with a snap, and galloped down the line, with his staff streaming behind him, to where Byng's brigade was drawn up on the high ground behind the chateau. An order was rapped out; Colonel Canning wheeled his horse, and made for the spot where Captain Sandham's field battery was stationed. "Captain Sandham! You are wanted immediately in front! Left limber up, and as far as you can!"

The order was swiftly repeated: "Left limber up! At a gallop, march!"

The horses strained at their collars; the mud gave up its hold on the wheels with a sucking sound; the train moved forward, lurching and clanking over the ground, and came up in grand style, guns loaded with powder, priming wires in the vents to prevent the cartridges slipping forward, slow matches lighted. The leading gun, a howitzer, was quickly unlimbered, and its first shell burst over the head of the French column moving upon the wood of Hougoumont. The other guns followed suit one after the other, as they came into position and unlimbered; and in a few minutes an additional and destructive fire was being directed on the column by Captain Cleeve's battery of the legion, in front of Alten's division.

The column shuddered under the fire, and checked. In the wood, the skirmishers were already engaged with the Hanoverian and Nassau defenders. Twelve pieces of horse artillery of Reille's corps were pushed forward, and a heavy counter-cannonade was begun. The column of infantry recovered, and pressed on, leaving its dead and wounded lying on the field. A well-directed fire from Sandham's and Cleeve's batteries again threw it into disorder, but it reformed, and reached the wood, driving the defenders back from tree to tree. The popping of musketry now mingled with the roar of the cannons; and a steady trickle of wounded men began to make their way to the shelter of the British line.

Colonel Audley, who had been sent off to the left wing with instructions to Sir Hussey Vivian not to fire on any troops advancing from the west, did not see the start of the fight in Hougoumont Wood. By the time he returned to the Duke, it had been in progress for half an hour, and the Nassauers, after contesting the ground with a good deal of courage, were giving way. More of Reille's corps had moved to Jerome's support, and the skirmishers of the Guards, pressed back through the Great Orchard, were being driven into an alley of holly and yew trees separating it from the smaller orchard surrounding the garden.