“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 Crapauds today. I’ve scores to settle with the bloody 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 assured 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 buggers to run away early? No point in feeding the scum 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 God 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 bloody slaughter if the Crapauds 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.