“You do cheer me up, Sharpe, you really do.” D’Alembord superstitiously touched the breast pocket which bulged with his fiancee’s letters. “Have you had your note from that bloody man yet?”
It took Sharpe a second or two to realize that d’Alembord was talking about Lord John Rossendale. He shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Oh, God. I suppose that means we’ll have to arrange a duel in the morning?”
“No. I’ll just find the bugger and cut his balls off.”
“Oh, splendid!” d’Alembord said in mock seriousness. “That should satisfy everyone’s honour.”
Orders came back to the battalion. The newly arrived brigade was to take up positions in the wedge of field in front of Saxe-Weimar’s wood, from where their musket-fire could rake across the flank of any French attack down the road. Sir Thomas Picton’s staff brought the orders which insisted that the four battalions were to form square in the rye.
Sharpe shook d’Alembord’s hand. “Watch those skirmishers, Peter!” He waved to Captain Harry Price who had once been his Lieutenant. “It’s hot work, Harry!”
“I’m thinking of resigning, sir.” Harry Price, too poor to own a horse, was sweating from the exertions of his long day’s march. “My father always wanted me to take holy orders, and I’m beginning to think I rejected his views too quickly. Good God, it’s Mr Harper!”
Harper grinned. “Good to see you, Mr Price.”
“I thought the army had discharged you.”
“It did.”
“You’re as mad as a bloody bishop! What are you doing here?” Harry Price was genuinely puzzled. “You could get hurt, you damned fool!”
“I’m staying well out of any trouble, so I am.”
Price shook his head at Harper’s foolishness, then had to hurry away as the battalion was ordered into the wood. The companies filed through the trees and so out into the sunlit rye field where, like the other three battalions in Halkett’s brigade, they formed square.
Sharpe and Harper walked their horses back to the crossroads where the Prince of Orange was fidgeting with the ivory hilt of his sabre. He was frustrated by the day’s setbacks. He had seen his infantry crumple at the first French attack, then watched his cavalry flee at the drop of a lance point, yet he blamed the day’s lack of success on anyone but himself or his countrymen. “Look at those men, for instance!” He pointed towards the four battalions of Halkett’s brigade which had just formed their squares on the flank of the wood. “It’s a nonsense to form those men in square! A nonsense!” The Prince turned irritably, looking for a British staff officer. “Sharpe! You explain it to me! Why are those men in square?”
“Too many cavalry, sir,” Sharpe explained gently.
“I see no cavalry!” The Prince stared across the smoke-shrouded battlefield. “Where are the cavalry?”
“Over there, sir.” Sharpe pointed across the field. “There’s a lake to the left of the farm and they’re hidden there. They’ve probably dismounted so we can’t see them, but they’re there, sure enough.”
“You’re imagining it.” Since losing his Belgian cavalry the Prince had been given nothing to do, and he felt slighted. The Duke of Wellington was ignoring him, reducing the Prince to the status of an honoured spectator. Well, damn that! There was no glory to be had in just watching a battle from behind a crossroads! He looked back at the newly deployed brigade that stood in its four battalion squares. “What brigade is that?” he asked his staff.
Rebecque raised an eyebrow at Sharpe, who answered. “Fifth Brigade, sir.”
“Halkett’s, you mean?” The Prince frowned at Sharpe.
“Yes, sir.”
“They’re in my Corps, aren’t they?” the Prince demanded.
There was a brief silence, then Rebecque nodded. “Indeed they are, sir.”
The Prince’s face showed outrage. “Then why wasn’t I consulted about their placement?”
No one wanted to answer, at least not with the truth which was that the Duke of Wellington did not trust the Prince’s judgement. Rebecque just shrugged while Sharpe stared at the smoke of the French guns. Harry Webster, beyond Rebecque, looked at his watch, while Simon Doggett slowly moved his horse back till he had left the group of embarrassed staff officers and was next to Harper’s horse. The Prince drew his sabre a few inches then rammed it back into its scabbard. “No one gives orders to my brigades without my permission!”