“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 Crapauds 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 assemble 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 bugger 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 bugger’s got enough to worry about without pissing 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 cocksure, but maybe my recommendation is worth more than the Prince’s?”
Doggett smiled. “Yes, sir.”
It seemed cocksure 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 mass 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 bastards in front are called the Imperial Guard,” Sharpe said, “and their column will attack our line, and our line ought to beat the hell 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.