“Just go!” Caillou shouted, but at that moment Nicholls’s horse stumbled a pace forward and Caillou, overwhelmed with rage for the anticipated shame of surrender, pulled the pistol’s trigger.
The white flag toppled slowly. Nicholls stared at Caillou with a look of astonishment on his young face, then he turned in puzzlement to gaze at d’Alembord. D’Alembord reached out a hand, but Nicholls was already falling.
The bullet had broken through one of the gold laces his mother had sewn onto his jacket and then it had pierced his young heart.
Caillou seemed suddenly shocked, as if he had only just realized the enormity of his crime. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. Instead, a second pistol sounded and Caillou, just like Nicholls, toppled dead from his horse.
Colonel Gudin put his pistol back in its holster. “I command here,” he told d’Alembord in English. “To my shame, sir. I command here. You have come to offer terms?”
“I have come to fetch your surrender, sir,” d’Alembord said, and saw from Gudin’s face that he would get it. The battle was over.
SHARPE heard of Nicholls’s death while he was still watching the French take their dead from the northern slope. He swore when he heard the news, and then he stalked back to the village with pure bloody murder in his head.
A ground of unarmed French soldiers stood nervously outside the tavern, and he pushed his angry way through them and then kicked open the door. “What bastard Frenchman dared killed my officer?” he shouted, storming into the room with one hand on the hilt of his heavy cavalry sword.
A tall, grey-haired French officer stood to face him. “The man who killed your officer is dead, monsieur,” the Frenchman said. “I shot him.”
Sharpe stopped and stared. His hand fell from the sword and his mouth dropped open. For a second he seemed unable to speak, but then he found his voice.
“Colonel Gudin?” he asked in amazement.
Gudin smiled. “Oui, Caporal Sharpe.”
“I’m a major now, sir,” Sharpe said, and he stepped forward with his hand outstretched, but Gudin ignored the hand and instead clasped Sharpe in both arms and kissed him on both cheeks. D’Alembord watched, smiling.
“I knew it was you,” Gudin said, his hands still on Sharpe’s shoulders. “I’m proud of you, Sharpe. So very proud.” There were tears in the colonel’s eyes.
“And for your officer who died, I am sorry. There was nothing I could do.”
The door from the kitchens opened and Daniel Hagman poked his head through.
“Need more towels, Captain,” he said to d’Alembord.
“What the hell are you doing, Dan?” Sharpe asked.
“Delivering a baby, sir,” Hagman said, as if that was the most natural thing in the world for a Rifleman to be doing on Christmas Eve. “Isn’t the first baby I’ve done, sir. The Frog doctor was going to cut her open, and that would have killed her, but I’ll see her right. It’s no different from slipping a lamb into the world. Thank you, sir.” He took the proffered rags from d’Alembord and ducked back into the candlelit kitchen.
Sharpe sat. D’Alembord and Gudin had started on the wine, so he poured himself a mug and took a long drink. “So what am I going to do with you?” he asked his old colonel.
Gudin spread his hands. “I could choose to fight you, I suppose, but if I do, I lose. So I fear I am your prisoner again.” The colonel looked at d’Alembord.
“He took me prisoner in India, and he was only a corporal then.”
“That was a long time ago, sir, a long time ago.” Sharpe poured more wine and pushed the wineskin towards the colonel. “And how have you been since, sir?”
“Not well, Sharpe, not well,” Gudin confessed. “You see I am still a colonel, just as I was then. It seemed that after Seringapatam I could do nothing right.”
“I’m sure that’s not true, sir. You were the best officer I ever had.”
Gudin smiled at the compliment. “But I have had no luck, Sharpe, no victories.”
“So tell me about it, sir. It’s the night before Christmas, a good night for a story. So tell me.”