Christopher Manvell, who had seemed somewhat less impressed by Lord John’s ordeal than the other officers about the table, at least confirmed the story’s ending. “He came back to the road white as a sheet.”
“You did well, Johnny, damned well.” The Earl of Uxbridge spoke gruffly. “You killed a brace of the buggers, eh? Damn good.” There was a spatter of applause, then Christopher Manvell asked the Earl what news he had gleaned from his conference with the Duke of Wellington.
The truth was that the Earl had gleaned nothing at all. He was second in command to the Duke and had thought that appointment entitled him to know just what the Duke planned for the next day, but his enquiry had met with a very dusty answer indeed. The Duke had said his plans depended entirely on Napoleon, and as Napbleon had not yet confided in the Duke, the Duke could not yet confide in the Earl, and so good-night.
“I think we’ll just let the bugger attack us, then see him off, eh?” the Earl said lazily, as though the events of the next day were really not very significant at all.
“But the Prussians are coming?” Manvell insisted.
“I think we can do the business without a few damned Germans, don’t you?” The Earl pushed a box of cigars into the table’s centre. “But one thing’s certain, gentlemen. No doubt our cavalry will make England proud!”
“Bravo!” A drunken staff officer pounded the table.
After supper Christopher Manvell found Lord John standing in the open front porch from where he was staring into the wet dusk. “I wish I’d been there to help you against those Lancers,” Manvell said.
For a few seconds it seemed that Lord John would not reply at all, then he just shrugged the subject away. “Harry seems very sanguine about our chances tomorrow.”
Manvell blew a stream of cigar smoke into the drizzle. “It’s strange, Johnny. I saw you come out of the wood, then not a moment later I saw Colonel Sharpe in the same place. You were lucky not to meet him.”
Again Lord John was silent for a few seconds, then spoke in a rush of quiet bitterness. “Of course I met him. And of course there were no bloody Lancers. What was I supposed to do? Admit to Harry and everyone else that I was humiliated by a Rifleman?”
“I’m sorry.” Manvell was embarrassed by the tortured admission he had provoked from his friend.
“I gave him his damned note. Not that it will do me any good. Jane won’t give me the money unless I marry her, but Sharpe doesn’t know that.” Lord John laughed suddenly. “He gave me a length of rope and told me it was a peasant divorce. He says I’m free to marry her.”
Manvell smiled, but said nothing. The gutters either side of the paved high road were gurgling and flooding. Across the street a sentry ran cursing through the puddles to open a gate for a mounted officer. An orderly hung a lantern outside the stable entrance of the house where the Prince of Orange was billeted.
“It’s a matter of honour.” Lord John was staring into the darkening street.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Tomorrow”, Lord John said, “has become a rather desperate matter of honour.” He was very slightly drunk, and his voice held a hint of hysteria. “I never realized before today how very simple battle is. There’s no compromise, is there? It’s victory or defeat, and nothing in between, while real life is so damned complicated. Perhaps that’s why the best soldiers are such very simple souls.” He turned in the porch to stare at his friend. “You see, if I want to keep the woman then I have to kill a man, and I don’t have the nerve to face him. And he’s done nothing to deserve death! It is his money! But if I do the honest thing to the man, then I lose the woman, and I don’t think I can live with that loss – ,
“I’m sure you can – , Christopher Manvell interrupted and, in his turn, was cut off.
“No!” Lord John did not even wish to discuss Jane. He frowned in puzzlement at his friend. “Do you think lost honour can be retrieved on a battlefield?”