“Of course not,” d’Alembord said.
“Oddly enough,” Sharpe said, “I rather liked him. I don’t know why. I think I felt sorry for him.”
” “Love your enemies”,” d’Alembord quoted mockingly,” “bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you”? I told you we were getting more pious, even you.”
“But we’ll still slaughter the bloody French tomorrow.” Sharpe smiled and held out his hand. “You’ll be safe, Peter. TOmorrow night we’ll laugh at these fears.”
They shook hands on the promise.
The musket-fire at Hougoumont died away as the French yielded possession of the woodland to the British. A roll of thunder sounded in the west and a spear of lightning glittered brief and stark on the horizon. Then the rain began to pelt down hard again.
The armies had gathered, and now waited for morning.
The lintel of every house in Waterloo’s street bore a chalked inscription, put there by the Quartermaster-General’s department to identify which general and staff officers would be billeted inside. The inn opposite the church bore the chalked words `His Grace the Duke of Wellington’, while three doors away a two storey house was inscribed `The Earl of Oxbridge’. Another substantially built house was marked `His Royal Highness the Prince William of Orange’. Thatched cottages with dungheaps hard under their windows were this night to be the homes for marquesses or earls, yet such men counted themselves fortunate to be sheltered at all, and not to be enduring the numbing cold misery of the rain that thrashed the ridge.
In the Earl of Uxbridge’s house the staff officers crammed themselves about a table to share the Earl’s supper of boiled beef and beans. It was an early supper, for the whole staff was on notice to rise long before dawn. In the centre of the table, propped against the single candelabra, was Lord John Rossendale’s broken sword. One of the staff officers had discovered the snapped blade after Lord John had tried to throw it away and had demanded to know just how the weapon had been broken. The truth was too painful, and so Lord John had invented a rather more flattering account.
“It was after the rocket explosion,” he explained to the assembled staff at supper. “The damned horse bolted on me.”
“You should learn to ride, John.”
Lord John waited for the laughter to subside. “Damn thing ran me into a wood off to one side of the road, and damn me if there weren’t three Lancers lurking there.”
“Green or red?” The Earl of Uxbridge, just returned from a conference with the Duke of Wellington, had taken his place at the head of the supper table.
“The green ones, Harry.” That bit was easy for Lord John to invent, for he had watched the green-coated Lancers running from the attack of the Life Guards. “I shot one with the pistol, but had to throw it down to draw my sword. Damn shame, really, because it was an expensive gun.”
“A Mortimer percussion pistol, with a rifled barrel.” Christopher Manvell confirmed the value of the lost pistol. “A damn shame to lose it, John.”
Lord John shrugged as though to suggest the loss was nothing really. “The second fellow charged me, I got past his point and gave him the sword in the belly, then the third one damn nearly skewered me.” He gave a modest smile. “Thought I was dead, to be honest. I slashed at the fellow, but he was damned fast. He drew a sabre and had a good hack at me, I parried, and that’s when my sword broke. Then, damn me, if the fellow didn’t just turn tail and run!”
The assembled officers stared at the broken sword which lay like a trophy on the supper table.
“The trick of it`, Lord John said, “is to get past the lance point. Once you’re past the spike it’s a bit like killing rabbits. Too easy, really.”
“So long as your sword doesn’t break?” Christopher Manvell asked drily.
“There is that, yes.”
The Earl frowned. “So if the fellow ran away, why didn’t you pick up the pistol, Johnny? You said it was expensive.”
“I could hear more of the scoundrels among the trees. I thought I’d better give them a run.” Lord John gave a small disarming smile. “To tell you the truth, Harry, I was frightened! Whatever, I whipped my damn horse and ran like the devil!”