Swompdonkey

WATERLOO (not the ABBA song/not the town in Ontario)

was a truly mindblowing experience. I am sure that most people go there, see a bunch of rolling fields and placid Belgian countryside, a couple of monuments, and a big pyramid with a lion on top, shrug, and move on....

But I saw The Guards poking muskets out of loopholes in the Hougoumont chateau, firing blindly as canister rattled against the stone walls and the Prince Jerome's troops screamed forward with eagles held aloft through the orchard. I saw Sir Thomas Picton crash to the ground with a bullet in his brain as his highlanders tore into a French column. I saw the union brigade, swords held high, stream over the ridge south of Mont Saint Jean and savage the French infantry columns just below the crest. I saw red-haired marshall Ney, the bravest of the brave, leading the flower of the French Cavalry in a mad charge around a dutch-belgian batallion formed into square. I watched men groan and die under the hail of musketry and the flail of grapeshot as the King's German Legion abandoned La Haye Saint to the victorious French and I heard the Imperial guard chanting "VIVE L'EMPEREUR!" as the climax of the battle grew close. Suddenly, Wellington shouts "Now's your time!" and redcoats sprout like dragon's teeth on a ridge turned into a nightmare of carnage and pour volley fire into the Emperor's pampered favourites! LA GARDE RECULE! Then a wave of the hook-nosed Duke's cocked hat and the line flows forward! The Prussians are sweeping in from the West! Blucher has arrived. The guard dies, the guard does not surrender... and so it does, as Buonaparte is borne away in defeat. Many on the field do not stir to follow the battle south. Many will never stir again. I hear mournful pipes play and watch the smoke waft across a field were tens of thousands lay dead or dying....
well, I could have sworn for a minute there anyway....