Understanding dawned on the major. ‘Those are your men?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’re showing him what they looked like in Spain, eh?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Splendid.’ The major smiled. ‘You’ll bring it back?’
‘I did before, Major.’
The major laughed, gave the order, and the Eagle was handed to Sharpe who, hoisting it up, and almost wishing that it had its magnificent flag attached to the staff, galloped with it to his men. It would go into battle one last time. He smiled at Jane. ‘There.’ He lowered it so she could touch it. ‘Napoleon handled that as well.’
‘This is the one you captured?’
‘With Patrick.’ He tossed the standard to the Irishman. ‘Harps! Here!’
The officers from Foulness crowded about it, then Harper paraded it down the ragged ranks, letting men touch it, letting them take from it some of the magic of a far off battle. Only Sergeant Lynch showed an ostentatious disinterest in the trophy, turning his back and walking some yards away from Harper’s triumphant progress.
Sharpe watched what happened to his north. The militia had formed a line across the great rectangular arena, and now he heard the bands strike up from the far side of the park, and he knew that the moment was close. Timing now, as in every battle, was everything. ‘Jane? You’ll have to stay here.’
‘You’re nervous.’
He smiled. ‘Yes. But I’ll be back.’
‘And afterwards?’
‘We go to Spain.’ He twisted in the saddle. ‘RSM?’
‘Sir?’
‘Private Weller to his duty, the Eagle to me, and form columns of half Companies!’
‘Sir!’
Now he must forget Jane Gibbons. Now, like any married officer in Spain, he must leave her behind and fight his battle. He took the staff of the trophy and propped it on his right boot so that the glittering Eagle was above his head. ‘Fix swords!’ In his nervousness he gave the old command of the Rifles. He saw the puzzled faces. ‘Fix bayonets!’ If it was to be done, then let it be done in style.
They made a tight formation, eight half Companies paraded one behind the other, with Sharpe at their head. d’Alembord led the first Company, Price the last, so that Sharpe’s loyal officers, the ones most likely to take the wrath of the marshals, were on the outer edges of his formation. He looked once at Jane, then raised his voice again. ‘The South Essex will advance!’
There was a cheer from the crowd which meant that the British forces were marching from the northern assembly area. The guns fired a powder charge for the last time, their smoke drifting realistically over the grass, and the militia, their muskets unloaded, pretended to aim and fire at the gorgeous array of men, brilliantly uniformed, polished, and drilled, who advanced with bayonets and muskets beneath their great, splendid flags.
Sharpe gathered the reins of his horse. ‘By the right! Quick march!’
The half Battalion of the South Essex marched.
There were two thousand soldiers in this place, all of them prinked and gleaming, and into their midst, without orders, Sharpe was marching less than three hundred scruffy, dirty men beneath a standard of the enemy.
No one noticed them, except for the major in charge of the trophies who raised a hand in friendly salute.
They marched. Harper called out the step, his voice loud and confident. One of the militia sergeants turned, looked at them, and wondered why the column of men which, though he did not know it, looked like a French attack formation, approached so menacingly from his rear.
Sharpe was leading them to the centre line of the review ground. The militia were falling back, leaving a few men pretending to be dead on the ground. A militia officer noticed Sharpe.
They were well in view of all the stands now, of all the spectators, but all eyes were on the splendid advance of the British troops, Colours flying, whose bands filled the park with the music of triumph. Only the militia, seeing the column coming to their rear, were glancing nervously behind like troops fearing encirclement on a battlefield.
The marshals suddenly saw them. Sharpe saw two coming, saw the turf flung up behind the galloping hooves, and he called back to Harper to speed the march, to close the half Companies, and this was the challenge, this was the moment he had planned. Now, just as in battle, he had to close his ears to everything that might distract him, ignore everything that was not concerned with his victory. He did this for the men in Pasajes, for the men who lay in graves across Spain, for the girl who watched him.