“But if I don’t get the money, my lord, I’ll come back for you.”
“I understand.”
Sharpe still held the broken sword. He held it hilt first towards Lord John. “Go away, my lord.”
Rossendale took the truncated blade, stared one more time into the dark eyes, then spurred his horse forward. He fled from the trees, the rope still trailing from his saddle, and burst onto the road where the last of the guns were rolling northwards.
Sharpe waited a few moments. He swore silently to himself, for there had been no joy in humiliating the weak. But at least he considered he had made a good bargain. A new roof for the chateau in return for a faithless wife. He patted the pocket where the note was folded, then turned his horse. He was still somewhat shaken for, until he had actually taken the pistol from Lord John, Sharpe had not realized that it was a rainproof percussion weapon. Otherwise he would never have ridden so slowly to its black muzzle.
Harper waited for Sharpe on the high road. He had seen a shaken Lord John Rossendale burst from the trees, now, with a bemused Doggett beside him, the Irishman watched Sharpe urge his horse up to the paved surface. “So what happened?” Harper asked.
“He pissed himself, then bought the bitch.”
Harper laughed. Doggett did not like to ask for any explanation. Behind them a gun fired a shell at the threatening Lancers, making Sharpe glance south at the pursuing French.
“Come on.” Sharpe lifted his face to the cleansing rain, then spurred his horse northwards.
Just twelve miles south of Brussels the highway to Charleroi and France became the wide main street of the village of Waterloo. South of the village the road threaded the forest of Soignes where the villagers grazed their pigs and chopped their firewood.
Two miles south of the village the trees gave way to a wide expanse of farmland which lay about the hamlet and crossroads of Mont-St-Jean. A half-mile further south still and the highway crossed a shallow, flat-topped ridge which lay east and west. At the crest of the ridge a solitary elm tree grew beside the highroad, which then descended into a wide and shallow valley that was filled with fields of rye, barley, oats and hay. The road crossed the valley before rising to another low ridge which lay three-quarters of a mile to the south. The crest of the southern ridge was marked by a white painted tavern called La Belle Alliance.
If an army took up a position on the northern ridge that was marked by the lone elm tree, and if an opposing army was to assemble around the tavern, then the gentle valley between would become a battlefield.
Between the elm tree and the tavern the road ran straight as a ramrod. A traveller riding the road would probably see nothing very remarkable in the valley other than the richness of its crops and the solidity of its farmhouses. It was evidently a good place to be a farmer.
In the centre of the valley, hard by the road itself, was a farm called La Haye Sainte. It was a prosperous place with a courtyard bounded by stone barns and a stout wall. To the east, three-quarters of a mile down the valley, was a huddle of cottages about a farm called Papelotte, while to the west there was another large farm with a walled courtyard and an extensive orchard which lay just north of a patch of rough woodland. That western farm was called the chateau of Hougoumont.
If a man wished to defend the northern ridge against an attack from the south, the chateau of Hougoumont might serve as a bastion on his right flank. La Haye Sainte would stand as a bulwark in the front and centre of his lines, while Papelotte would guard the left-hand edge of his defences.
All three farmsteads stood in the valley in front of the northern ridge, and as the ridge itself was the position where a soldier would make his stand, so the three farms in the valley would serve like breakwaters standing proud of a beach. If an assault was to come across the valley the attackers would be driven away from the stone-walled farms and compressed into the spaces between where they would be fired on from in front and from either side.