Sharpe heard the Irishman's despair of victory and was tempted to offer agreement, except that a small part of Sharpe refused to give up hope even though he knew victory would need a miracle now. The British army was reduced to a ragged line of shrunken, bleeding battalions who crouched in the mud near to the ridge's crest that was crowned with smoke and riven by the explosions of mud thrown up by the continuing cannonade. Behind the battalions the rear of the ridge was empty but for the dead and the dying and the broken guns. At the edge of the forest the ammunition wagons burned to ash. There were no reserves left.

The two Riflemen trudged through the smoke towards the Prince of Wales's Own Volunteers while the French cannon, all but for the two that had been emplaced in La Haye Sainte's garden, fired on. The valley was shrouded by the cloud of smoke which flickered with the unearthly light of the guns.

By La Belle Alliance a tentative drum tap sounded. There was a pause as the drummer rammed the leather rings down the white ropes to tighten his drumskin, then the sticks sounded a jaunty and confident flurry. There was another pause, a shouted order, and a whole corps of drummers began to beat the pas de charge.

To tell the French that the Imperial Guard was about to fight.

The Emperor left La Belle Alliance, deigning to ride his white horse down the high road almost as far as La Haye Sainte. He stopped a few yards short of the captured farmhouse and watched his beloved Guard march past. To Napoleon's immortals would go the last honour of this day. The undefeated Guard would cross the pit of h.e.l.l and break the final remnants of a beaten army.

The Guard marched with bayonets fixed. The flash of French cannon-fire reflected off the thicket of steel blades and from the glossy black sheen of their bearskin hats. The Guard wore the bearskins undecorated for battle, but each man had a waxed canvas sheath, eighteen inches long, strapped to his sabre-briquet, and in the sheaths were the plumes which they would fix to the bearskins for their victory parade in Brussels.

Seven battalions of the Guard marched past the Emperor. With them went the light and powerful horse-drawn eight-pounder cannon that would give the Guard close support when they reached the ridge.

The Guard's drummers drove the column on. Above them, bright in the valley's gloom, the spread wings and hooked claws of the Eagles glistened. The Guard carried their colours attached to the Eagles and the stiff silk flags made bright spots of colour against the black bearskins. The Guard were equipped with the finest muskets from the French armouries, their cartridges were packed with the best powder of the Paris mills, and their bayonets and short sabres were sharpened like razors. These were the unbeaten heroes of France marching to victory.

Yet the Guard had never fought Wellington's infantry.

They cheered as they pa.s.sed their Emperor. He nodded pleased recognition at men deep in the marching ranks, and raised a hand in benediction to them all. Not an hour before this moment two battalions of the Guard had driven a whole Corps of Prussians out of Plancenoit, now seven full battalions would march against an enemy abraded to breaking point. The last of the Empire's cavalry rode on the Guard's flanks and, as the huge column headed deep into the smoke and heat on the valley's floor, the skirmishers flocked towards it and formed ranks to follow the Guard. Fifteen thousand infantry would make this last triumphant attack.

And it would be a triumph, for the Guard had never failed. But the Guard had never fought the redcoats either.

The Guard left the highway and slanted to their left after they had pa.s.sed the Emperor. They would cross the fields and climb the slope midway on the British right, following the path made by the cavalry. The drums beat them on. They were led by Marshal Ney, bravest of the brave, who had already had four horses shot from beneath him this day, but who now, on his fifth horse, drew his sword and took his place at the column's head.

The Guard marched across the field of dead, beneath the gun smoke, to seek the scarred and blackened ridge where the sc.u.m of Britain waited. The battle had come to its moment of truth, and the Emperor, his Guard gone to war, turned slowly back to wait for victory.

The Duke galloped along the right of his line. He could see French cavalry at the foot of the slope, but he dared not form his infantry into square for he had seen the approaching Guard and knew he must meet it in line. "Form into four ranks!" he shouted at the remains of Halkett's brigade. "Then lie down again! Four ranks! Lie down!"

The French cannon-fire was fitful now. The redcoats lay down, not to escape the sporadic cannonade, but so they would stay hidden till the very last moment of the Guard's attack. Only the British officers could see over the ridge's crest to where the French infantry was a dark shadow slashed by the slanting brightness of their bayonets. The column crept across the valley floor, seemingly propelled by the ma.s.sive array of drums that beat the pas de charge and only paused to let the Guard give the great shout of the Empire at war: ,Vive I'Empereur!"

Colonel Joseph Ford gazed with despair at the great a.s.sault. Next to him, and still mounted on Sharpe's horse, Peter d'Alem-bord gripped the saddle's pommel. The right side of his saddle-cloth was soaked with blood that had seeped from his bandaged wound. The leg throbbed hugely. He felt weak, so that the shadow of the advancing Guard under the smoke's shadow seemed to swim before his eyes. He wanted to call out for help for he knew he was losing strength and he suspected the surgeon had cut a blood vessel, but he would not give in; not now, not at this desperate moment when the enemy infantry was at last making its final a.s.sault.

"Sir! Colonel Ford, sir!" A staff officer from brigade, mounted on a limping horse, came to the rear of the battalion. "Colonel Ford, sir?"

Ford turned dully to face the officer, but said nothing.

"What is it?" d'Alembord managed to ask.

"Colours to the rear," the staff officer said.

For a few seconds d'Alembord forgot his wound and his nausea and his weakness. He forgot his fears because he had never heard of such an order, not once in all his years of fighting. "Colours to the rear?" he finally managed to ask in a shocked voice.

"General's orders, sir. We're not to give the c.r.a.pauds the satisfaction of capturing them. I'm sorry, sir, I really am, but it's orders." He gestured to the rear area where the colours of other battalions were already being carried away. "Colour parties are to a.s.semble behind our light cavalry, sir. Quickly, please, sir."

D'Alembord looked to where two sergeants held the battalion's silk colours that had been riddled with musket-fire, blackened by smoke, and stained with blood. Seven men had died-this day while holding the colours, but now the bright flags were to be rolled up, slid into their leather tubes, and hidden. D'Alembord thought there was something shameful in the gesture, but he supposed it was preferable to letting the French capture the colours of a whole army, and so he gestured the Sergeants to the rear. "You heard the order. Take them away."

D'Alembord's voice was resigned. Till this moment he had-harboured a shred of optimism, but the order to take the colours to safety proved that the battle was lost. The French had won, and so the colours would begin the British retreat. The Emperor might have his victory, but he would not be given the satisfaction of piling the captured colours amidst the jubilant crowds of Paris. The great squares of heavy fringed silk were carried away, going back to where the last British cavalry waited to gallop them to safety. D'Alembord watched the flags disappear into the smoke and felt bereft.

Sharpe also saw the flags being carried to the rear. He had come back to the Prince of Wales's Own Volunteers, but, not wanting to interfere with either Ford or d'Alembord's command, he deliberately posted himself fifty paces from the battalion's left flank. He loaded his rifle.

Harper, his rifle already reloaded, watched the Imperial Guard and crossed himself.

Lieutenant Doggett saw the two Riflemen return and rode his horse to join them. Sharpe looked up at him and shrugged. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant."

"You're sorry, sir?"

"The Prince wouldn't listen to reason."

"Oh." Doggett, seeing the ruin of his career, could say nothing more.

"I hit the b.u.g.g.e.r in the shoulder, you see," Sharpe explained, "instead of in the belly. It was just plain bad marksmanship. I'm sorry."

Doggett stared at Sharpe. "You." He could not finish.

"But I wouldn't worry," Sharpe said, "the b.u.g.g.e.r's got enough to worry about without p.i.s.sing all over your commission. And if you fight with us now, Lieutenant, I'll make sure your Colonel gets a glowing report. And I don't want to sound c.o.c.ksure, but maybe my recommendation is worth more than the Prince's?"

Doggett smiled. "Yes, sir."

It seemed c.o.c.ksure to even surmise survival. Doggett turned to look into the smoke-shot valley that was filled with the overwhelming enemy attack. An errant shaft of sunlight glinted brilliant gold from an Eagle. Beneath the gold the long dark coats and the tall black bearskins made the attackers seem like sinister giants. Cavalry, pennons and lances high, followed the huge column, while further back a shifting ma.s.s of shadows betrayed the advance of the rest of the French infantry. The drums were clearly audible beneath the louder percussion of the remaining French guns. "What happens now?" Doggett could not help asking.

"Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in front are called the Imperial Guard," Sharpe said, "and their column will attack our line, and our line ought to beat the h.e.l.l out of their column, but after that?" Sharpe could not answer his own question, for this battle had already gone far outside his own experience. The British line should beat the French column, for it always had and it was an article of an infantryman's faith that it always would, but Sharpe sensed that this column was different, that even if it initially recoiled from the volley fire it would somehow survive and bring on all the other enemy behind in one last cataclysmic attack. An empire and an emperor's pride rode on this drum-driven attack.

"You don't worry about what happens, Mr Doggett." Harper's voice was sombre as he rammed the last half-inch bullet into his seven-barrelled gun. "Once you hear the Old Trousers you just kill as many of the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds as you can. Because if you don't, then sure as eggs the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds will kill you."

Sharpe looked at Harper as the Irishman primed the big gun and tested the seating of its flint. "You shouldn't be here." he said.

"A bit b.l.o.o.d.y late to tell me that," Harper smiled.

"You promised Isabella," Sharpe said, but not forcefully. The truth was that he did not want Harper to leave. Bravery was not something that was inspired by king or country or even by battalion. Bravery was what a man owed his friends. It was keeping pride and faith in front of those friends. For Sharpe and Harper it was even habit; they had fought side by side for too long for either man to turn aside at the end.

And this moment seemed like the end. Sharpe had never seen a British army so worn down to fragility, nor an attack like the monstrous drum-driven column that now took shape in the gloom below. He tried to smile, as though to show Doggett that there was no real need to be frightened, but his lips had been cracked by the powder-dried air and all he achieved was a b.l.o.o.d.y grimace.

Harper stared at the column and c.o.c.ked his gun. "G.o.d save Ireland."

The surviving gunners of the British line rammed canister on top of roundshot, stabbed the spikes to break the powder bags, and rammed quills into blackened vents. The guns, and the redcoats, were ready.

And the Guard cheered.

CHAPTER 20.

"Cheer, you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!" Marshal Ney raised his sword to catch the dying light.

The Guard cheered. They were the Emperor's best.

Ney's sword dropped to point towards the left and the great column split smoothly into two parts. The larger of the two newly formed columns would attack close to Hougoumont while the smaller would a.s.sault the ridge straight in front. The cavalry would follow the twin a.s.saults, ready to pursue the broken enemy, while the great ma.s.s of other infantry would march at the rear of the attack to hold the ground the Guard captured.

The leading Guard battalions looked up, seeing nothing but a few mounted officers and a handful of guns at the top of the ridge.

They had begun their climb to victory. The slope was not steep. A man could run the slope without catching breath. Some men stumbled because the soil had been churned by the cavalry, but the ground was not so broken that the long ranks could not keep their order. Those ranks advanced slowly, even ponderously, as if to suggest that their victory was inevitable. And so, for them, it was. They were the immortals; the unbeaten. They were the Guard.