Rebecque attempted to tell the Prince how his troops were deployed, but the Prince was too restless merely to listen. “Show me, Rebecque, show me! Let’s go for a gallop. All of us!” He gestured to his whole staff who dutifully fell in behind Rebecque and the Prince as they spurred away from the crossroads,towards the south. The Prince waved happily at a party of soldiers who drew water from the stream, then twisted in his saddle to shout at Sharpe. “I expected to see you at the ball last night, Sharpe!”
“I arrived very late, sir.”
“Did you dance?”
“Regrettably not, sir.”
“Nor me. Duty called.” The Prince galloped past the deserted Gemioncourt farm, through a bivouacked Dutch brigade, and did not rein in till he had passed the forward Dutch picquets and could see clear down the paved highway into the village of Frasnes. There had to be some enemy skirmishers close by, yet the Prince blithely ignored their threat. His staffofficers waited a few yards to the rear as the young man stared towards the enemy encampment. “Sharpe?”
Sharpe walked his horse forward. “Sir?”
“How many of the devils are facing us, would you say?”
Very few enemy troops were actually in sight. A battery of guns stood at the edge of the village, some cavalry horses stood unsaddled in the street beyond, and a battalion of infantry was bivouacked in a field to the right of the guns, but otherwise the enemy was hidden, and so Sharpe stuck with his earlier estimate. “Twenty thousand, sir.”
The Prince nodded. “Just what I’d say. Splendid.” He smiled genially at Sharpe. “And just when are you going to appear in a Dutch uniform?”
Sharpe was taken aback. “Soon, sir.”
“Soon? I’ve been requesting that small courtesy for weeks! I want to see you in proper uniform today, Sharpe, today!” The Prince shook an admonishing finger at the Rifleman then took out his telescope to stare at the battery of French guns. It was hard to see what calibre the cannon were for the air was already hot enough to shimmer and blur the details df the far guns. “It’s going to be a hot day,” the Prince complained. His yellowish skin glistened with sweat. He was in a blue uniform coat that was thickly encrusted with gold loops and edged with black astrakhan fur. At his hip hung a massively heavy sabre with an ivory hilt. The Prince’s vanity had made him dress for a winter’s campaign on what threatened to be the summer’s hottest day yet.
The sultry air pressed heavily on the men who guarded the farms that marked the perimeter of the Dutch position. If that perimeter was broken, there was still the Gemioncourt farm by the ford which could be an anchor to a defensive line, but once Gemioncourt was captured there was nothing between the French and the crossroads. Sharpe prayed that the French would go on waiting, and that the British troops who were marching desperately to reinforce the outnumbered defenders at Quatre Bras reached the crossroads in time.
By eight o’clock the French had still not attacked. At nine o’clock the Dutch troops still waited. Atten the Duke of Wellington reached the crossroads and, content that nothing yet threatened the Dutch troops, galloped eastwards to find the Prussians.
The morning inched onwards. It seemed impossible that the French still hesitated. At intervals an enemy horseman might appear at the edge of the village to gaze through a spyglass at the Dutch positions, but no attacks followed such reconnaissances, no skirmishers wormed their way through the fields, and no cannon crashed shell or roundshot at the fragile Dutch lines.
At midday the French still waited. The heat was now oppressive. The western clouds had thickened and the old wounds in Sharpe’s leg and shoulder began to ache; a sure prophecy of rain. He lunched with the Prince of Orange’s staff in the remains of an orchard behind the farm at the crossroads. Harper, of whose status none of the Dutch was quite certain, shared the princely cold chicken, hard-boiled eggs and red wine. The Prince, momentarily forgetting his orders for Sharpe to change into Dutch uniform, dominated the luncheon conversation as he eagerly expressed his wish that the French would attack before the Duke returned from his meeting with the Prussians, for then the Prince could defeat the enemy with only the help of his faithful Dutch troops. The Prince dreamed of a great Netherlands victory, with himself as its hero. He saw pliant girls offering him the laurels of victory before they fainted before his conquering feet. He could not wait to begin such a triumph, and prayed that the French would offer him the chance of glory before the arrival of any British reinforcements.