`Dear Captain Saumier?’
`Ma’am?’ He sounded tired. Eight times La Marquesa had sent him limping down the crowded tiers, either for more wine or more pastries.
`In my coach there is a parasol. Would you be very gallant and fetch it for me?’
`Entirely my pleasure, ma’am.’
`The white parasol, not the black.’
`There’s nothing else I can fetch you at the same time?’ her escort asked hopefully.
`Not that I can think of.’
He edged down the crowded bench, his ugly face reddening because he knew that the other women had observed him running errands like a small boy for La Marquesa.
She stared at the battlefield, seeing only the great cloud of cannon smoke. For some reason she found herself thinking about Sharpe, wondering whether he would have been as malleable as this Captain Saumier. Somehow she doubted it. Richard had always been ready to frown and growl his displeasure. He had been, she thought, a man of immense pride, a pride made fragile because it had come from the gutter.
She had felt regret when she had heard he was dead. She was glad then that she had lied to him, had told him that she loved him. Richard, she thought, had wanted her to say that and he had been eager to believe it. She wondered why soldiers, who knew death and horror better than anyone, were so often soggily romantic. Send them to their deaths happy was what the women of this army said; and why not? She tried to imagine being in bed with Captain Saumier, and the thought made her shudder. She cooled herself with her fan. The sun was tryingly hot.
A cavalry officer reined in at the wall’s foot. There had been a succession of such officers all morning who had come to show off to the ladies and shout up news from the fighting that was still hidden by the great bank of smoke. The cavalry officer swept off his hat. All was well, he said. The British were beaten. Soon Jourdan would order the line forward.
La Marquesa smiled. Victory today would mean Ducos’ defeat. A beat of pure malicious pleasure went through her at the thought of that defeat.
She looked away from the smoke. She looked at the empty northern fields, bright with poppies and’cornflowers, a scene of innocence on this day of guns and smoke. Far off there, at the foot of the northern hills and too far away to play any part in today’s battle, was a small, story-book castle. She pulled her ivory spyglass open and stared at the tiny old fortress.
And instead she saw troops. Troops trampling the crops flat. Troops spilling from the gum’es of the hills, troops swarming southwards towards the right of the French line.
She stared. The troops wore red. She knew what she saw; it was the despised Wellington proving to the French yet again that he could not attack. Beneath her the cavalry officer caught a thrown handkerchief, wheeled his horse, and galloped back to the battle.
`Sir!’
`Sir!’
Marshal Jourdan, who a moment before had been thinking that the battle would be won by two o’clock, and had been thinking regretfully that his pursuit would mean he could not attend the victory dinner that night, stared to his right.
He could not believe what he saw.
The columns were coming towards him, towards the unguarded flank, and the British Colours were bright over their heads. He had already taken his reserves from the right to re-assault the Puebla Heights, now Wellington had unleashed the weight of his real attack. For one brief, horrid second, Jourdan admired Wellington for waiting this long, for letting his men suffer under the guns long enough to convince the French that the frontal attack was the real attack, then the Marshal began shouting.
The right flanks of the French lines were to turn outwards. There would not be time to stop the British crossing the river, so Jourdan knew he must fight them on the near bank with his guns.
King Joseph, who had retired into his carriage to use his silver chamber pot, came hurrying back into the sunshine. `What’s happening?’