Part 3 - Act 6 - Scene 8. The Road To Waterloo

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_ PART THIRD. ACT SIXTH. SCENE VIII.

[The view is now from Quatre-Bras backward along the road by which the English arrived. Diminishing in a straight line from the foreground to the centre of the distance it passes over Mont Saint-Jean and through Waterloo to Brussels.

It is now tinged by a moving mass of English and Allied infantry, in retreat to a new position at Mont Saint-Jean. The sun shines brilliantly upon the foreground as yet, but towards Waterloo and the Forest of Soignes on the north horizon it is overcast with black clouds which are steadily advancing up the sky.

To mask the retreat the English outposts retain their position on the battlefield in the face of NEY'S troops, and keep up a desultory firing: the cavalry for the same reason remain, being drawn up in lines beside the intersecting Namur road.

Enter WELLINGTON, UXBRIDGE (who is in charge of the cavalry), MUFFLING, VIVIAN, and others. They look through their field- glasses towards Frasnes, NEY'S position since his retreat yesternight, and also towards NAPOLEON'S at Ligny.]

WELLINGTON

The noonday sun, striking so strongly there,
Makes mirrors of their arms. That they advance
Their glowing radiance shows. Those gleams by Marbais
Suggest fixed bayonets.

UXBRIDGE

Vivian's glass reveals
That they are cuirassiers. Ney's troops, too, near
At last, methinks, along this other road.

WELLINGTON

One thing is sure: that here the whole French force
Schemes to unite and sharply follow us.
It formulates our fence. The cavalry
Must linger here no longer; but recede
To Mont Saint-Jean, as rearguard of the foot.
From the intelligence that Gordon brings
'Tis pretty clear old Blucher had to take
A damned good drubbing yesterday at Ligny,
And has been bent hard back! So that, for us,
Bound to the plighted plan, there is no choice
But do like. . . . No doubt they'll say at home
That we've been well thrashed too. It can't be helped,
They must! . . . (He looks round at the sky.) A heavy rainfall
threatens us,
To make it all the worse!

[The speaker and his staff ride off along the Brussels road in the rear of the infantry, and UXBRIDGE begins the retreat of the cavalry. CAPTAIN MERCER enters with a light battery.]

MERCER (excitedly)

Look back, my lord;
Is it not Bonaparte himself we see
Upon the road I have come by?

UXBRIDGE (looking through glass)

Yes, by God;
His face as clear-cut as the edge of a cloud
The sun behind shows up! His suite and all!
Fire--fire! And aim you well.

[The battery makes ready and fires.]

No! It won't do.
He brings on mounted ordnance of his Guard,
So we're in danger here. Then limber up,
And off as soon as may be.

[The English artillery and cavalry retreat at full speed, just as the weather bursts, with flashes of lightning and drops of rain. They all clatter off along the Brussels road, UXBRIDGE and his aides galloping beside the column; till no British are left at Quatre-Bras except the slain.

The focus of the scene follows the retreating English army, the highway and its and margins panoramically gliding past the vision of the spectator. The phantoms chant monotonously while the retreat goes on.]

CHORUS OF RUMOURS (aerial music)

Day's nether hours advance; storm supervenes
In heaviness unparalleled, that screens
With water-woven gauzes, vapour-bred,
The creeping clumps of half-obliterate red--
Severely harassed past each round and ridge
By the inimical lance. They gain the bridge
And village of Genappe, in equal fence
With weather and the enemy's violence.
--Cannon upon the foul and flooded road,
Cavalry in the cornfields mire-bestrowed,
With frothy horses floundering to their knees,
Make wayfaring a moil of miseries!
Till Britishry and Bonapartists lose
Their clashing colours for the tawny hues
That twilight sets on all its stealing tinct imbues.

[The rising ground of Mont Saint-Jean, in front of Waterloo, is gained by the English vanguard and main masses of foot, and by degrees they are joined by the cavalry and artillery. The French are but little later in taking up their position amid the cornfields around La Belle Alliance.

Fires begin to shine up from the English bivouacs. Camp kettles are slung, and the men pile arms and stand round the blaze to dry themselves. The French opposite lie down like dead men in the dripping green wheat and rye, without supper and without fire.

By and by the English army also lies down, the men huddling together on the ploughed mud in their wet blankets, while some sleep sitting round the dying fires.]

CHORUS OF THE YEARS (aerial music)

The eyelids of eve fall together at last,
And the forms so foreign to field and tree
Lie down as though native, and slumber fast!

CHORUS OF THE PITIES

Sore are the thrills of misgiving we see
In the artless champaign at this harlequinade,
Distracting a vigil where calm should be!

The green seems opprest, and the Plain afraid
Of a Something to come, whereof these are the proofs,--
Neither earthquake, nor storm, nor eclipses's shade!

CHORUS OF THE YEARS

Yea, the coneys are scared by the thud of hoofs,
And their white scuts flash at their vanishing heels,
And swallows abandon the hamlet-roofs.

The mole's tunnelled chambers are crushed by wheels,
The lark's eggs scattered, their owners fled;
And the hedgehog's household the sapper unseals.

The snail draws in at the terrible tread,
But in vain; he is crushed by the felloe-rim
The worm asks what can be overhead,

And wriggles deep from a scene so grim,
And guesses him safe; for he does not know
What a foul red flood will be soaking him!

Beaten about by the heel and toe
Are butterflies, sick of the day's long rheum,
To die of a worse than the weather-foe.

Trodden and bruised to a miry tomb
Are ears that have greened but will never be gold,
And flowers in the bud that will never bloom.

CHORUS OF THE PITIES

So the season's intent, ere its fruit unfold,
Is frustrate, and mangled, and made succumb,
Like a youth of promise struck stark and cold! . . .

And what of these who to-night have come?

CHORUS OF THE YEARS

The young sleep sound; but the weather awakes
In the veterans, pains from the past that numb;

Old stabs of Ind, old Peninsular aches,
Old Friedland chills, haunt their moist mud bed,
Cramps from Austerlitz; till their slumber breaks.

CHORUS OF SINISTER SPIRITS

And each soul shivers as sinks his head
On the loam he's to lease with the other dead
From to-morrow's mist-fall till Time be sped!

[The fires of the English go out, and silence prevails, save for the soft hiss of the rain that falls impartially on both the sleeping armies.] _

Read next: Part 3: Act 7: Scene 1. The Field Of Waterloo

Read previous: Part 3: Act 6: Scene 7. Brussels. The Place Royale

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