‘Maybe an officer with more experience, Your Grace?’
‘Ha!’ The Duke snorted. ‘Sharpe’s no gentleman, but he has more experience of battle than all my other Colonels put together. No, for this job we don’t need a gentleman, we need a ruthless bastard. And just pray he wins, Burrell, just pray he wins.’
Sharpe sent Harper south again, taking orders that the Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers must be ready to march at dawn. ‘And I mean ready, Pat. As soon as I get there tomorrow we march.’
‘They’ll be ready.’
‘And we don’t wait for the rest of the army,’ Sharpe said, ‘we go at dawn and we go on our own.’
‘Us against France?’
‘The wounded have to stay behind. The bandsmen stay with them. And if anyone argues with you, tell them it’s the Duke’s orders.’
Pat Harper had no true authority, other than his size and his reputation. He had left the army after the victories in southern France and gone home to his beloved Dublin, but the Emperor’s return from Elba had brought Harper to Sharpe’s side. At least the officers in the Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers recognised his worth. He had been the battalion’s Regimental Sergeant Major, and though he was now officially a civilian, he wore his uniform jacket and everyone in the battalion knew he spoke for Sharpe.
Who found his way to the cheap hotel where he had taken rooms for Lucille. He half expected she might be with the friend she had made in Brussels, the Dowager Countess of Mauberges, an elderly Frenchwoman who was a fierce supporter of Napoleon, but who had nevertheless taken Lucille under her generous wing. ‘Madame is here.’ Jeanette, the maid, opened the door and offered Sharpe a curtsey.
‘How are you, Jeanette?’
‘We are all well, monsieur.’
‘The baby?’
‘He eats, he sleeps, he demands food.’
‘You look tired,’ Sharpe said, using French.
‘You too, monsieur.’
Sharpe smiled. ‘The English have a saying, Jeanette; no rest for the wicked.’
‘The English would certainly know about that, monsieur.’
He laughed and went into the bedroom that opened off the small hallway. Lucille, sitting up in bed, looked pleased, but put a finger to her lips. ‘Patrick is sleeping!’
Patrick was their son, and, like Sharpe, born out of wedlock. Sharpe bent over the crude cot, made from a fruit basket, and touched a gentle finger to the baby’s cheek, then sat on the bed and kissed Lucille. ‘This is a surprise!’ she said.
‘The Duke wanted to see me.’
‘And the battle,’ she gripped him fiercely, ‘was it bad?’
‘Worst I’ve been through. You don’t want to know.’
‘And the Emperor is gone?’
‘He’s gone,’ Sharpe said. He kissed her again, marvelling as ever at her delicate beauty and his own good fortune in finding her. ‘Boney’s running south as fast as his legs can carry him.’
‘So we can go home.’
‘Paris first, then home. And no more soldiering.’
‘What did the Duke want?’ She sounded wary.
‘Marching orders, love. We leave tomorrow.’
‘You go to Paris?’ He nodded. ‘Then we come too,’ she said. ‘The Countess wants to get home!’
‘You can’t come with us,’ Sharpe said. ‘We’re marching at the front of the army. But there’ll be a crowd of carriages in the army’s baggage train. You’ll be safe there.’
‘And tonight?’
‘You’re not safe tonight,’ Sharpe said, ‘I’m coming to bed.’
‘Tell me there’ll be no more fighting,’ Lucille said some time later.
‘There’ll be no more fighting,’ Sharpe said.
‘Truly?’
‘Not much more fighting,’ Sharpe said, hoping he was right. ‘We beat the bastard. Now we just have to sweep up the pieces.’
Including whatever pieces waited at Ham, a citadel that Sharpe had to capture. And he had no idea how.
CHAPTER 2
Major Vincent was waiting outside the hotel next morning. He was a tall, rangy man mounted on a powerful black stallion. ‘He’s called Satan!’ Vincent told Sharpe happily. ‘Bred in County Meath. He flies over hedgerows and can outgallop any French nag.’
‘Let’s hope he doesn’t have to.’ Sharpe hauled himself into his saddle, then offered Vincent a half loaf of bread that had been hollowed out and stuffed with bacon. ‘Breakfast, if you want it.’
‘What a good fellow you are. Bread and bacon?’
‘With butter,’ Sharpe said, ‘and that’s the last of our bacon. From now on it’s salt pork. Shall we go?’
‘The sooner the better.’ Vincent was wearing the dark blue double-breasted coat of the Royal Artillery, though Sharpe suspected the Major had been nowhere near a cannon in the last few years. ‘The Duke tells me you’re a rogue,’ Vincent said cheerfully as they started their southwards journey.
‘Aye, probably.’
‘Tell me about yourself.’
‘Not much to tell.’
‘Oh come, Sharpe, don’t be modest. You took an Eagle at Talavera, yes?’
‘Me and a Sergeant, yes.’
‘And doubtless you’ll claim it was just good luck?’
‘No, it was bloody hard fighting. But I was angry. A bastard called Henry Simmerson had lost our King’s Colour a few weeks earlier, so I wanted to square accounts.’
‘Yes, I’ve met Sir Henry. He’s useless.’
‘Worse than useless. He was malevolent.’
‘He works for the excise now. A taxman!’
‘Then God help England.’
‘You’re the one who’ll help England, Sharpe, by capturing the citadel at Ham.’
‘Which you’ve seen, sir.’
‘I have indeed, not three weeks ago!’
Sharpe looked across at the lean officer. ‘You were deep in France? I heard that exploring officers weren’t allowed across the frontier?’
‘Nor were we, because officially we weren’t at war with France, only with the Emperor, so were ordered not to provoke him, but some orders are made to be disobeyed. The Duke tells me you’re very good at that too.’ He sounded amused.
‘And if you’d been captured?’
‘Death, I suppose, but that would never happen with this horse beneath me. Some of their Lancers gave me a run, but Satan saw them off, didn’t you, boy?’ He patted his stallion’s neck. The Major looked as if he might be a year or two older than Sharpe, who thought he was thirty-eight. Like many children raised in the poorhouses, he had never been entirely sure of his age, nor did he know his birthday, but the estimate was close enough and he had long decided that his birthday would be August first because it was an easy date to remember. Major Vincent, Sharpe thought, would have no such problems. His horse was obviously expensive and his uniform was elegantly cut, and he affected a cavalryman’s pelisse edged with fur. Sharpe half smiled. ‘When did you last fire a cannon, Major?’