Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe’s Waterloo - The Waterloo Campaign, 15–18 June, 1815

Sharpe stared down at the map. From the Prince’s headquarters a road ran eastwards through Nivelles to meet the Charleroi highway at an unnamed crossroads. If that crossroads was lost, then Napoleon would have successfully swung the two doors apart. The British and Dutch had been worrying about Mons, but now Sharpe took a scrap of charcoal and scrawled a thick ring round the crossroads. ‘That’s the lock on your doors, Rebecque. Who are our closest troops?’

‘Saxe-Weimar’s brigade.’ Rebecque had already seen the importance of the crossroads. He strode to the door and shouted for clerks.

‘I’ll go there,’ Sharpe offered.

Rebecque nodded acceptance of the offer. ‘But for God’s sake send me prompt news, Sharpe. I don’t want to be left in the dark.’

‘If the French have taken that damned crossroads, we’ll all be in the dark. Permanently. I’m borrowing one of the Prince’s horses. Mine’s blown.’

‘Take two. And take Lieutenant Doggett with you. He can carry your messages.’

‘Does that crossroads have a name?’ That was an important question, for any messages Sharpe sent had to be accurate.

Rebecque searched the table to find one of the larger scale maps that the Royal Engineers had drawn and distributed to all the army headquarters. ‘It’s called Quatre Bras.’

‘Four arms?’

‘That’s what it says here, Quatre Bras. Four Arms. Just what you need for opening double doors, eh?’

Sharpe did not respond to the small jest. Instead he shouted for Lieutenant Doggett, then went to the kitchen where he sat and tugged on his boots. He yelled through the open stableyard door for three horses to be saddled, two for himself and one for Lieutenant Doggett. ‘And untie my dog!’

The orders for Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, sealed with Rebecque’s copy of the Prince of Orange’s personal seal, came ten minutes later. Rebecque brought the orders himself and handed them up to Sharpe who was already mounted. ‘Remember you’re supposed to be dancing tonight,’ Rebecque smiled at Sharpe.

Paulette had come into the stableyard and was leaning against a sun-warmed wall. She smiled at Sharpe as he twisted the Prince’s horse towards the archway. ‘Go carefully, Englishman,’ she called.

The courtyard was filling with horses as staff officers, all alerted by the distant musketry, arrived from the various brigade headquarters to seek information and orders. Sharpe blew the Prince’s whore a kiss, then rode to find a crossroads.

The bedroom of the hotel on Brussels’ rue Royale stank of vinegar which Jane Sharpe’s maid had sprinkled onto a red-hot shovel to fumigate the room. A small metal bowl of sulphur powders still burned in the hearth to eradicate whatever pestilential airs the vaporizing vinegar might have missed. It was, Jane had complained, a foul little suite of rooms, but at least she would make sure they held no risk of contagion. The previous occupant had been a Swiss merchant who had been evicted to make way for the English milord and his lady, and Jane had a suspicion that the Swiss, like all foreigners, harboured strange and filthy diseases. The noxious stench of the scorched vinegar and burning sulphur was making Jane feel ill, but in truth she had not felt really well ever since the sea crossing from England.

Lord John Rossendale, elegantly handsome in white breeches and silk stockings, black dancing shoes, and a gold-frogged cut-away coat with a tall blue collar and twin epaulettes of gold chain, stood at the bedroom’s window and stared moodily at the Brussels rooftops.

‘I don’t know whether he’ll be there or not. I just don’t know.’ It was the twentieth time he had confessed such ignorance, but for the twentieth time it did not satisfy Jane Sharpe who sat naked to the waist at the room’s small dressing-table.

‘Why can’t we find out?’ she snapped.

‘What do you expect me to do?’ Lord John ascribed Jane’s short temper to her upset stomach. The North Sea crossing seemed to have disagreed with her, and the journey in the coach to Brussels had not improved her nausea. ‘Do you expect me to send a messenger to Braine-le-Comte?’

‘Why not, if he can provide us with the answer.’

‘Braine-le-Comte is not a person, but the village where the Prince has his headquarters.’

‘I cannot think,’ Jane paused to dab her cheeks with the eau de citron which was supposed to blanche the skin of her face and breasts to a fashionable death-mask whiteness, ‘I cannot think,’ she resumed, ‘why the Prince of Orange, whoever in hell he is, should want to appoint Richard as a staff officer! Richard doesn’t have the manners to be a staff officer. It’s like that Roman Emperor who made his horse into a consul. It’s madness!’ She was being unfair. Jane knew just what a good soldier her husband was, but a woman who has deserted her man and stolen his fortune soon learns to denigrate his memory as a justification for her actions. ‘Don’t you agree that it’s madness?’ She turned a furious damp face on Rossendale who could only shrug mute agreement. Lord John thought Jane looked very beautiful but also rather frightening. Her hair was splendidly awry because of the lead curling strips which, when removed, would leave her with a glorious gold-bright halo, but which now gave her angry face the fierce and tangled aspect of a Greek Fury.

Jane turned back to the mirror. She could spend hours at a dressing-table, gravely staring at her reflection just as an artist might gaze on his work in search of a final gloss that might turn a merely pretty picture into a masterpiece. ‘Would you say there’s colour in my cheeks?’ she asked Lord John.

‘Yes.’ He smiled with relief that she had changed the subject away from Richard Sharpe. ‘In fact you’re looking positively healthy.’

‘Damn.’ She glowered at her reflection. ‘It must be the hot weather.’ She turned as her maid appeared from the anteroom with two dresses, one gold and one white, which were held up for Jane’s inspection. Jane pointed to the pale gold dress then returned her attention to the mirror. She dipped a finger into a pot of rouge and, with exquisite care, reddened her nipples. Then, obsessively, she went back to blanching her face. The table was crowded with flasks and vials; there was bergamot and musk, eau de chipre, eau de luce , and a bottle of Sans Pareil perfume that had cost Lord John a small fortune. He did not resent such gifts for he found Jane’s beauty ever more startling and ever more beguiling. Society might disapprove of the adulterous relationship flaunted so openly, but Lord John believed that Jane’s beauty excused everything. He could not bear to think of losing her, or of not wholly possessing her. He was in love.

Jane grimaced at herself in the mirror. ‘So what happens if Richard is at the ball tonight?’

Lord John sighed inwardly as he turned back to the window. ‘He’ll challenge me, of course, then it will be grass before tomorrow’s breakfast.’ He spoke lightly, but in truth he dreaded having to face Sharpe in a dawn duel. To Lord John, Sharpe was nothing but a killer who had been trained and hardened to death on innumerable battlefields, while Lord John had only ever brought about the death of foxes. ‘We needn’t go tonight,’ he said hopelessly.

‘And have all society say that we are cowards?’ Jane, because she was a mistress, rarely had an opportunity to attend the more elegant events of society, and she was not going to miss this chance of being seen at a duchess’s ball. Not even Jane’s tender digestion would keep her from tonight’s dancing, and nor did she have any real fear of meeting her husband, for Jane well knew Sharpe’s reluctance to dance or to dress up in a frippery uniform, but the possibility of his presence was an alarming thought that she could not resist exploring.