The Romance of War

16 June 1815

Battle of Quatre Bras

Chapter

"How, upon bloody Quatre Bras, Brave CAMERON heard the wild hurra Of conquest as he fell;"

Chapter

At day-break, on approaching the village of Waterloo, they met a horse and cart, driven along the road at a rapid trot by a country boor, clad in a leathern cap and blue frock, having his shoes and garters adorned with gigantic rosettes of yellow and red tape. His car contained the bloody remains of the brave Duke of Brunswick, who at four in the evening had been mortally wounded, when heroically charging at the head of his cavalry in front of Les Quatre Bras. The hay-cart of a Flemish clod-pole was now his funeral bier. The bottom was covered with the red stream, forced by the rough motion of the car from the wound, which, being in the breast, was distinctly visible, and a heavy mass of coagulated blood was plastered around the starred bosom and laced lapels of the uniform coat. An escort of Black Brunswickers, sorrowing, sullen, and war-worn, surrounded it with their fixed bayonets. The boor cracked his whip and whistled to his horse, replacing his pipe philosophically, and apparently not caring a straw whether it was the corse of a chivalric prince or a bag of Dutch turf that his conveyance contained.

Chapter

It consisted of four regiments; namely, the third battalion of the 1st Royal Scots, the 42nd or Royal Highlanders, the 2nd battalion of the 44th or East Essex regiment, and the 92nd or Gordon Highlanders, with whom, I trust, the reader is tolerably well acquainted. The fighting at Quatre Bras on the 16th had considerably thinned their ranks, but they yet mustered five hundred bayonets.

Chapter

"About one hundred and fifty bayonets are with Campbell, and we have nearly five hundred wounded here in Brussels. That cursed affair at Quatre Bras mauled us sadly. Before the engagement, we marched out of Brussels exactly one thousand and ten strong, and more than one-half lay on the sod ere sunset. Poor Cameron! the corps will feel his loss. By-the-by, I forgot to mention that Campbell has got the lieutenant-colonelcy. Our romantic friend Macildhui gets the majority, and you are now senior captain. I hope you will win your spurs ere I see you again. I set out for Scotland to-morrow."