"Yes."

"Nice to know you're here, sir. Cup of tea?"

"The usual smouch?"

"It never changes, sir." Smouch was a cheap tea which was rumoured to be made from ash leaves steeped in sheep's dung. It tasted even worse than its alleged recipe sounded, but any hot liquid was welcome on this damp cold morning. The Sergeant handed Sharpe and Harper a tin mug each, then stared through the dawn gloom at the enemy-held ridge. "I suppose Monsewer will start the ball early?"

Sharpe nodded. "I would if I was in his boots. He needs to beat us before the Prussians come."

"So they are coming, sir?" The Sergeant's tone betrayed that even these prime troops realized how precarious was the British predicament.

"They're coming." Sharpe had still not heard any official news of the Prussians, but Rebecque had been confident the night before that Blcher would march at dawn.

The Sergeant suddenly whipped round, proving he had eyes in the back of his head. "Not here, George Cullen, you filthy little b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Go and do it in the b.l.o.o.d.y field! We don't want to be tripping over your dung all day! Move!"

A group of the Greenjackets' officers had gathered about an empty artillery canister that they had filled with hot water for their morning shave. One of the men, a tall, cadaverous and grey-haired major, looked oddly familiar to Sharpe, but he could neither place the man's face nor his name.

"That's Major Dunnett," the Sergeant told Sharpe. "He was only posted to this battalion last year, sir. Poor gentleman had the misfortune to be a prisoner for most of the last war."

"I remember now." Sharpe spurred the mare towards the group of officers and Dunnett, looking up, caught his eye and stared with apparent amazement. Then Dunnett shook the soap off his razor blade and walked to meet Sharpe. They had last met during the disastrous retreat to Corunna when Dunnett had been in charge of a half-battalion of Greenjackets and Lieutenant Sharpe had been his quartermaster. Dunnett had hated Sharpe with an unreasonable and ineradicable hatred. The last glimpse Sharpe had caught of his erstwhile commanding officer had been as French Dragoons captured Dunnett while Sharpe had scrambled to desperate safety with a group of Riflemen. Now, denied promotion by his five years in prison, Dunnett was still a Major while Sharpe, his old quartermaster, outranked him.

"h.e.l.lo, Dunnett." Sharpe curbed his horse.

"Lieutenant Sharpe, as I live and breathe." Dunnett patted his face dry. "I heard that you'd survived and prospered, though I doubt you're still a lieutenant? Or even a quartermaster?"

"A Dutch Lieutenant-Colonel, which I don't think counts for very much. It's good to see you again."

"It's good of you to say so." Dunnett, evidently embarra.s.sed by Sharpe's compliment, looked away and caught sight of Harper who was still talking with the Sergeant. "Is that Rifleman Harper?" Dunnett asked incredulously.

"Ex-Rifleman Harper. He cheated his way out of the army, and now can't resist coming back to see it fight a battle."

"I thought he'd have died long ago. He was always a rogue." Dunnett was painfully thin, with deep lines carved either side of his grey moustache. He looked back to Sharpe. "So were you, but I was wrong in my opinion of you."

It was a handsome retraction. Sharpe tried to throw it off by saying how terrible the retreat to Corunna had been; an ordeal that had abraded mens' tempers and manners till they were snarling at each other like rabid dogs. "It was a bad time," he concluded.

"And today doesn't promise to be much better. Is it true that Boney's whole army is over there?"

"Most of it, anyway." Sharpe a.s.sumed that Napoleon had sent some men to keep the Prussians busy, but the thickness of the camp-fires across the valley was evidence that most of the French army was now a.s.sembled in front of Wellington's men.

"d.a.m.n the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds however many they might be." Dunnett b.u.t.toned his shirt and pulled on his green coat. "I won't be taken a prisoner again."

"Was it bad?"

"No, it was even civilized. We had the freedom of Verdun, but if you didn't have money, that was a dubious privilege. I think I'd rather die than see that d.a.m.ned town again." Dunnett turned and stared towards the empty slope of the French ridge where the only movement was the ripple of the wind moving the standing patches of damp rye. He stared for a few seconds, then turned back to Sharpe. "It's oddly good to see you again. There aren't many of that particular battalion still living. You heard they were at New Orleans?"

"Yes."

"Butchered," Dunnett said bitterly. "Why do they make fools into generals?"

Sharpe smiled. "I think you'll find the Duke's no fool."

"So everyone tells me, and let's hope it's true. I want the chance of killing some c.r.a.pauds today. I've scores to settle with the b.l.o.o.d.y French." Dunnett laughed as if to dilute the hatred he had betrayed, then offered his hand. "Allow me to wish you well of this day, Sharpe."

Sharpe reached down and took his old enemy's hand. "And you, Dunnett." He thought how odd it was that men made peace before they went to war, and it seemed odder still as Dunnett, with apparent pride, introduced Sharpe to the other officers. These Riflemen were cruelly exposed, so far forward of the ridge, but so long as the Germans held the farm buildings then the Greenjackets were a.s.sured of their supporting fire. "Better here than over there." A captain pointed towards the left flank where the British ridge was pierced and flattened by a shallow re-entrant and where a battalion of Dutch-Belgian troops was in full view of the enemy. The rest of Wellington's infantry were concealed behind the ridge or sheltered behind thick farm walls, but the one Dutch-Belgian battalion was horribly exposed. Doubtless some troops had to be stationed to block the dangerous re-entrant, but, after Quatre Bras, it seemed futile to expect the Belgians to stand and fight.

"Perhaps the Duke wants the b.u.g.g.e.rs to run away early? No point in feeding the sc.u.m if they won't fight." Five years of imprisonment had done nothing to dull Dunnett's tongue.

Sharpe made his farewells, then he and Harper rode back towards the ridge. "Strange to meet Dunnett again," Sharpe said, then he twisted to look at the empty French ridge as he thought of the men he knew in that far army. One or two of those men he counted as friends, yet today he would have to fight them.

Once at the crest of the ridge Sharpe and Harper turned west towards the British right flank which the Prince of Orange had judged to be vulnerable. Some battalions were already formed up behind the ridge's crest. The Prince of Wales's Own Volunteers were paraded in a hollow square that faced inwards towards a chaplain who was trying to make himself heard above the sound of the wind and the buzz of other battalions' voices. Sharpe saw d'Alembord's head bowed, apparently in prayer, though more probably in reverie. Just beyond the Prince of Wales's Own Volunteers an infantry battalion of the King's German Legion was singing a psalm. The Hanoverian voices were strong and full of emotion so that Sharpe had the sudden guilty impression that he eavesdropped upon a very private moment. "It's Sunday, so it is," Harper said with a note of surprise, then made the sign of the cross on his uniform jacket.

On the ridge's crest a cheerful and rubicund gunner officer was riding from gun battery to gun battery. "You will not indulge in counter-battery fire. You will save your powder for the infantry and the cavalry! You will not fire at the enemy guns, but at their infantry and cavalry alone! Good morning, Freddy!" He raised his hat to a friend who evidently commanded one of the batteries. "Thank G.o.d it's stopped raining, eh? Give my compliments to your lovely wife when you write home. You will not indulge in counter-battery fire, but you will save your powder.' His voice faded behind as Sharpe and Harper rode further west.

"I've never seen so many guns," Harper commented. Every few yards there was another battery of nine-pounders while, behind the ridge, the lethal short-barrelled howitzers waited in reserve.

"You can bet your last ha'pence that Napoleon's got more guns than us," Sharpe said grimly.

"All the same, it'll be b.l.o.o.d.y slaughter if the c.r.a.pauds march straight across the valley."

"Maybe they won't. The little Dutch boy thinks they might hook round this end of our line." Sharpe spoke Dourly, though in truth the Prince's fear was a genuine and intelligent concern, and Sharpe, suddenly fearing that the Emperor might already have marched and that the French might already be threatening to spring a surprise attack on the British right flank, spurred his mare forward.

He reined in on the ridge above the chateau of Hougoumont. From here he could see far to the south-west, but nothing stirred in the grey morning. A handful of cavalry picquets from the King's German Legion sat untroubled in the fields, proof that the French had not marched. The chateau itself buzzed with noise as the Coldstream Guards, who formed its garrison, finished their preparations. Sharpe could hear the sound of pickaxes making yet more loopholes in the thick walls of the barns and house.

A knot of hors.e.m.e.n was galloping along the ridge's crest. The horses' hooves flung up great gobs of mud and water from the soaking ground. The leading horseman was the Prince of Orange who, seeing Sharpe, raised a hand in greeting and swerved towards the two Riflemen. The Prince was elegantly dressed in a gold-frogged coat that was trimmed with black fur. "You were up early, Sharpe!"

"Yes, sir."

"Nothing moving on the flank?"

"Nothing, sir."

The Prince suddenly spotted that Sharpe still wore his Rifle green under the cloak. He was clearly tempted to say something, but just as clearly feared an act of downright disobedience that would betray his own lack of princely authority, so instead he scowled and stared towards the vulnerable open flank where the German hors.e.m.e.n sat like statues in the waterlogged meadows. "The Emperor will come round this way. You can depend on it!"

"Indeed, sir," Sharpe said.

"An attack around our right will cut us off from the North Sea and take the French away from the Prussians, Sharpe, that's what it'll do, and that's why the Emperor will attack here. A child could work that out! It's a waste of time putting guns on the ridge. They'll all have to be moved to this flank and it'll be a shambles when the orders are given. But at least we'll be ready for the move!"

"Are the Prussians coming, sir?" Sharpe asked.

The Prince frowned as though he found the question aggravating. "They're coming." The answer was grudging. "Blcher says two of his corps will be here by midday and a third will be hard on their heels. The message came a few minutes ago."

"Thank G.o.d," Sharpe said fervently.

The Prince, already irritated by Sharpe's refusal to wear Dutch uniform, was galled by the Rifleman's evident relief. "I don't think we need be too grateful, Colonel Sharpe. I trust we can beat those devils without a few Germans, isn't that so, Rebecque?"

"Indeed, Your Highness." Rebecque, his horse just behind that of the Prince, said tactfully.

"We can beat them so long as we hold this flank." The Prince turned his horse towards the chateau. "So keep watch here, Sharpe! The future of Europe may depend on your vigilance!"