Death Dancers: The Gordons, Waterloo Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Trellis paper with roses hung on the walls
At the Duchess of Richmond's celebrated ball
Etiquette, in an age of set conventions,
Was strictly observed. Stiff waxworks ladies
Sitting round the room, would soon change
Bridal white, for a funeral pall

And then the Gordons danced
No cotillion, no hornpipe or quadrille
No jig or waltz, the soldiers danced a reel
In heavy regimentals, each in step that night
With reigned in fire, then leapt around their swords
One shilling per day (before stoppage)
Was each man's pay. Until the fatal words
Were whispered. ‘Leave. We march to fight'

The leaders in the bitter fray to come,
A rum lot. Blücher, the Prussian, on occasion mad,
Raved that he was pregnant by a stallion
Napoleon, with the haircut of a spaniel
Nicknamed ‘Puss in Boots' inspired terror
Wellington, hawk nosed, eagle eyed
Called his foot soldiers ‘scum'.

And then, the armies camped, in little Belgium
A sultry, fly-flecked June, by summer crops
Of clover, wheat and rye, drenched by a thunderstorm
The fields lay sodden in the misty dawn

The Gordons, raked and mauled at Quartre-Bras
Had scores to settled, deeper wounds than flesh
And then the order came,
'Ninetysecond, now is your time"…pause….'Charge! "
'Scotland for ever! " the Greys came galloping past
The Highlanders, leaping up to their cavalry stirrups
Plunged into the cannon blast

How history turns on the single throw of a dice!
And always the common soldier pays the price.

Boney summoned his bullet-proof carriage. Now, he fled
Weighed down with a 100 pieces of solid gold
With bottles of rum and Malaga,
With 2 million francs of diamonds
A cake of Windsor soap
In exile he was poisoned, his papers said.

The Iron Duke died sitting in his chair, aged 83
The victim of a stroke. Laden with titles and honours

The nameless dead who fell at Waterloo
Gone, like a puff of smoke