Harper cheerfully scooped another mug of stewed tea out of the breastplate kettle. The dead, who had been stripped of their uniforms, stank already. It was only an hour after dawn yet the day threatened to be humid and sticky and the grave diggers were sweating as they hacked at the soil. “They’ll have to dig deeper than that,” Harper commented as he handed Price the tin mug.
Price sipped the tea, then grimaced at its sour aftertaste of axle grease. “Do you remember the chaos we made trying to burn those poor buggers at Fuentes de Onoro?”
Sharpe laughed. The ground at Fuentes de Onoro had been too shallow and rocky to make graves, so he had ordered his dead cremated, but even after tearing down a whole wooden barn and lifting the rafters off six small houses to use as fuel, the bodies had refused to burn.
“They were good days,” Price said wistfully. He squinted up at the sky. “It’ll pour with bloody rain soon.” The clouds were low and extraordinarily dark, as though their looming heaviness had trapped the vestiges of night. “A rotten day for a battle,” Price said gloomily.
“Is there going to be a battle?” Harper asked.
“That’s what the Brigade Major told our gallant Colonel.” Price told Sharpe and Harper the dawn news of Prussian victory, and how the French were supposed to be retreating and how the army would be pursuing the French who were expected to make one last stand before yielding the frontier to the Emperor’s enemies.
“How are our lads feeling about yesterday?” Harper asked Price, and Sharpe noticed how, to the Irishman, the battalion was still `our lads’.
“They’re pleased that Mr d’Alembord’s a major, but he’s not exactly overjoyed.”
“Why not?” Sharpe asked.
“He says he’s going to die. He’s got a what do you call it? A premonition. He says it’s because he’s going to be married.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
Price shrugged as if to demonstrate that he was no expert on superstitions. “He says it’s because he’s happy. He reckons that the happiest die first and only the miserable buggers live for ever.”
“You should have been dead long ago,” Harper commented.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” Harry Price grinned. He was a carefree, careless and casual man, much liked by his men, but averse to too much effort. He had served as Sharpe’s Lieutenant at one time, and had been perpetually in debt, frequently drunk, yet ever cheerful. Now he drained the vestiges of his tea. “I’m supposed to be reporting to brigade to discover just when we march off.” He shuddered with sudden distaste. “That was a bloody horrible mug of tea.”
“It had a bit of dead horse in it,” Harper explained helpfully.
“God damn Irish cooking. I suppose I’d better go and do my duty.” Price gave Harper the mug back and ambled on with a cheerful good morning to the burial party.
“And what are we going to do?” Harper asked Sharpe.
“Use the rest of the tea as shaving water, then bugger off.” Sharpe had no wish to stay with the army. The Prince had relieved him of his duties and, if the rumours were true, the French invasion had been thwarted by Blcher’s Prussians. The rest of the war would be a pursuit through the fortress belt of northern France until the Emperor surrendered. Sharpe decided he might as well sit it out in Brussels, then go back to his apple trees in Normandy. “I suppose I never will get to fight the Emperor.” He spoke wistfully, feeling oddly let down. Yesterday’s battle had been an unsatisfactory way to gain victory, but Sharpe was an old enough soldier to take victory whichever way it came. “Is there more tea?”
A troop of King’s German Legion cavalry trotted southwards, presumably going to the picquet line to watch for the beginnings of the enemy’s withdrawal. Some Guardsmen were singing in the wood behind Sharpe, while other redcoats moved slowly across the trampled rye collecting discarded weapons. A few mounted officers rode among the debris of battle, either looking for keepsakes or friends. Among the horsemen, and looking very lost, was Lieutenant Simon Doggett who seemed to be searching the wood’s edge. Sharpe had an impulse to move back into the shelter of the trees, but lazily stayed where he was, then wished he had obeyed the impulse when Doggett, catching sight of his green jacket, spurred past the Ggth’s mass grave. “Good morning, sir.” Doggett offered Sharpe a very formal salute.