Бернард Корнуэлл - Sharpe's Waterloo

It seemed a rather broad question, and one for which Lord John could not think of a specific answer. “Rather a lot of unpleasantly, I imagine,” he said instead.

“Richard told me that in battle a lot of unpopular officers are killed by their own men.” Jane twisted herself to and fro in front of the mirror to make sure the dress hung properly. The dress was high waisted and low-breasted; a fashionably filmy screen through which her brightly coloured nipples showed as enticing shadows. Other women would doubtless be wearing such dresses, but none, Jane thought, would dare to wear one without any petticoat as she herself intended. Satisfied, she sat as her maid began to untwist the lead strips from her hair and tease the ringlets into perfection. “He told me that you can’t tell what happens in a battle because there’s too much smoke and noise. A battle, in short, is an ideal place to commit a murder.”

“Are you suggesting I should kill him?” Lord John was genuinely shocked at the dishonour of the suggestion.

Jane had indeed been hinting at the opportunity for her husband’s murder, but she could not admit as much, “I’m suggesting,” she lied smoothly, “that he may not wish to risk his career by fighting a duel, but instead might try to kill you during a battle.” She dipped her finger in scented black paste that she applied to her eyelashes. “He’s a man of excessive pride and extraordinary brutality.”

“Are you trying to frighten me?” Lord John attempted to pass the conversation off lightly..

“I am trying to make you resolute. A man threatens your life and our happiness, so I am suggesting that you take steps to protect us.” It was as close as Jane dared go to a direct suggestion of murder, though she could not resist one more enticement. “You’re probably in more danger from a British rifle bullet than you are from any French weapon.”

“The French“, Lord John said uneasily, ”may take care of him anyway.“

“They’ve had plenty of chances before,” Jane said tartly, “and achieved nothing.”

Then, ready at last, she stood. Her hair, ringletted, bejewelled and feathered, crowned an ethereal and sensuous beauty that dazzled Lord John. He bowed, kissed her hand, and led her down to the courtyard where their carriage waited. It was time to dance.

His Serene Highness Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar took one look at Rebecque’s orders, grunted his acceptance, and tossed the paper to his Brigade Major. “Tell the Prince we’ll be at the crossroads in one hour,” he told Sharpe.

Sharpe did not reveal that the Prince of Orange knew nothing of the orders. Instead he thanked His Serene Highness, bowed his way out of the inn which was Prince Bernhard’s headquarters, and remounted his horse. Lieutenant Simon Doggett, who had been charged with keeping Nosey from killing the chickens that pecked in the inn yard, followed Sharpe out to the road. “Well, sir?” he asked Sharpe, but in a nervous voice which suggested that he expected his temerity in asking to be met with a savage reproof.

“He’ll be at the crossroads in one hour with four thousand men. Let’s hope the bastards can fight.” Saxe-Weimar’s men were mostly German troops in Dutch service who had fought for Napoleon in the previous wars, and not even Saxe-Weimar himself was certain whether they would now fight against their old comrades.

Doggett rode eastwards beside Sharpe. Like so many of the Englishmen who served the Prince of Orange, Doggett was an old Etonian. He was now a lieutenant in the First Foot Guards, but had been seconded to the Prince’s staff because his father was an old friend of the Baron Rebecque. Doggett was fair-haired, fair-skinned and, to Sharpe’s eyes, absurdly young. He was in fact eighteen, had never seen a battle, and was very nervous of the notorious Lieutenant-Colonel Sharpe who was thirty-eight years old and had lost count of all his battles.

Sharpe now anticipated another battle; one for a crossroads that linked two armies, “if the French already hold Quatre Bras, you’ll have to go back and warn Saxe-Weimar,” Sharpe told him. “Then go to Rebecque and tell him the bad news.”

“Yes, sir.” Doggett paused, then found the courage to ask a question. “And what will you be doing, sir? If the French have captured the crossroads, I mean?”

“I’ll be riding to Brussels to tell the Duke to run like hell.”

Doggett glanced to see whether the Rifleman was smiling in jest, and decided he was not. The two men-fell silent as they cantered their horses between low hedgerows that were bright with the early spears of foxgloves. Beyond the hedges the cornfields were thick with poppies and edged with cornflowers. Swallows whipped low across the fields, while rooks flew clumsily towards their high nests. Sharpe twisted in his saddle to see that the western sky was still clouded, though there were great gaps between the heaping clouds through which the sun poured an incandescent flood of light. It was evening, but there were still four hours of daylight left. In a week’s time it would be the longest day of the year when, in these latitudes, a gunner could accurately sight a twelve-pounder at half-past nine of an evening.

They passed a great dark wood that grew southwards from the road and, quite suddenly, the pale strip of the paved high road stretched stark across the landscape ahead. Sharpe instinctively reined in his horse as he stared at the small cluster of buildings that marked the crossroads called Quatre Bras.

Nothing moved at the crossroads, or nothing that threatened a soldier’s life. There were no troops at the crossroads and the highway was empty, just a pale dusty strip between its vivid green verges. Sharpe tapped his heels to start his horse moving again.

Wisps of smoke revealed that the cottagers were cooking their evening meals at the hearths of the small hamlet which lay to the north of the crossroads. There was one large stone farmhouse, outside which a small dark-haired girl was playing with some kittens by an empty farm-cart. Three geese waddled across the road. Two old women, bonneted and shawled, sat tatting lace outside a thatched cottage. A pig rooted in an orchard, and milk cows lowed from the farmyard. One of the shawled women must have seen Sharpe and Doggett approaching for she suddenly called the small girl who ran nervously towards the thatched cottage. Beyond the tiny hamlet the smaller unpaved road climbed a shallow hill before disappearing eastwards in a stand of dark trees.

“You understand the importance of this road?” Sharpe pointed at the smaller road on which he and Doggett travelled.

“No, sir,” Doggett replied honestly.

“It’s the road that joins us and the Prussians. If the French cut it, we’re on our own, so if we lose these crossroads, the Crapauds have won the damned campaign.” Sharpe spurred down to the crossroads, touched his hat to the old ladies who were staring with alarm at the two horsemen, then he turned to gaze down the long southwards road that led to Charleroi. The highway stretched pale and deserted in the evening sun, yet this was the very same road on which Sharpe had seen a French corps marching that morning. That sighting had been only twelve miles south of this crossroads, yet now there was no sign of any Frenchmen. Had they stopped? Had they retreated? Sharpe felt a sudden fear that he had raised a false alarm and the force he had seen had been nothing but a feint. Or maybe the French had marched past this crossroads and were already nearing Brussels? No. He dismissed that fear instantly, because there was no sign of an army’s passing. The tall rye in the fields either side of the road was untrampled, and the road’s crude paving of cobbles on impacted chalk and flint had no deep ruts like those made by the passage of heavy guns. So where the hell were the French?