Friday, December 13, 2019

Kincaid observed that after most battles people asked who had been hit, but after this one they asked who was still alive.

From Waterloo A Near Run Thing by David Howarth. Page 187.
The paralysis of the army in the dark seems strange in retrospect. Wellington, who rode back across the battlefield, and then sat down to his dinner and went to sleep, gave no order and made no suggestion about the wounded until the following evening. Nor did any other senior officer, so far as can be known. The army medical service was overwhelmed, and it was nobody else’s business even to give first aid. Everyone was distressed by the groans and shrieks he could hear, but nobody walked a yard from his bivouac to fetch water or to help to bandage men who needed it. Everyone, of course, was tired, and that was some excuse. And the dark field, where friends and mortal enemies were lying mixed together, was genuinely terrifying. Above all, it was an unfamiliar situation, for which there were no standing orders. Battles seldom ended so suddenly, so conclusively, or so exactly at dusk: more often both armies had moved before nightfall, one in retreat and the other in pursuit, and both had to be ready to fight again the next morning. So active soldiers were accustomed to leaving their wounded companions behind with their dead and quickly forgetting them all. The idea of halting among them was unfamiliar, and nobody liked it. Some British regiments at Waterloo moved off the field before they biv­ouacked, simply in order to spend a quiet night. And the rest of them slept, compact little groups of healthy men among the sea Of suffering, waiting like armies everywhere for somebody to tell them what to do.

As soon as daylight came, everyone was active again. Officers strolled about exchanging stories and asking for their friends: Kincaid observed that after most battles people asked who had been hit, but after this one they asked who was still alive.

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