He signed the despatch with his name and rank, then handed it to Blasendorf who promised it would be delivered as swiftly as his horses could cross country.
‘And ask General Dornberg to tell the Prince’s Chief of Staff that I’m watching the Charleroi road,’ Sharpe added.
Blasendorf nodded an acknowledgement as he turned his horse away, then, realizing what Sharpe had said, he looked anxiously back. ‘You’re going back to the road, sir?’
‘I’m going back.’
Sharpe, his message in safe hands, was free to return and watch the French. In truth he did not want to go, for he was tired and saddle-sore, but this day the allies needed accurate news of the enemy so that their response could be certain, fast and lethal. Besides, the appearance of the French had spurred Sharpe’s old excitement. He had thought that living in Normandy would make him ambivalent towards his old enemy, but he had spent too many years fighting the Crapauds suddenly to relinquish the need to see them beaten.
So out of habit as much as out of duty, he turned his captured horse and rode again towards the enemy. While to the north Brussels slept.
Major General Sir William Dornberg received the pencil-written despatch in the town hall at Mons which he had made into his headquarters, and where he had transformed the ancient council chamber into his map room. The panelled room, hung with dusty coats of arms, suited his self-esteem, for Dornberg was a very proud man who was convinced that Europe did not properly appreciate his military genius. He had once fought for the French, but they had not promoted him beyond the rank of colonel, so he had deserted to the British who had rewarded his defection with a knighthood and a generalship, but even so, he still felt slighted. He had been given command of a cavalry brigade, a mere twelve hundred sabres, while men he thought less talented than himself commanded whole divisions. Indeed, the Prince of Orange, a callow boy, commanded a corps!
‘Who was this man?’ he asked Captain Blasendorf.
‘An Englishman, sir. A lieutenant-colonel.’
‘On a French horse, you say?’
‘He says he captured the horse, sir.’
Dornberg frowned at the message, so ill-written in clumsy pencilled capitals that it could have been scrawled by a child. ‘What unit was this Englishman, Sharpe? Is that his name? Sharpe?’
‘If he’s the Sharpe I think he is, sir, then he’s quite a celebrated soldier. I remember in Spain -’
‘Spain! Spain! All I hear about is Spain!’ Dornberg slapped the table with the palm of his hand, then glared with protruding eyes at the unfortunate Blasendorf. ‘To listen to some officers in this army one would think that no other war had ever been fought but in Spain! I asked you, Captain, what unit this Sharpe belonged to.’
‘Hard to say, sir.’ The KGL Captain frowned as he tried to remember Sharpe’s uniform. ‘Green jacket, nondescript hat, and Chasseur overalls. He said he was on the Prince of Orange’s staff. In fact he asked that you tell the Prince’s headquarters that he’s gone back towards Charleroi.’
Dornberg ignored the last sentences, seizing on something far more important. ‘Chasseur overalls? You mean French overalls?’
Blasendorf paused, then nodded. ‘Looked like it, sir.’
‘You’re an idiot! An idiot! What are you?’
Blasendorf paused, then, in the face of Dornberg’s overwhelming scorn, sheepishly admitted he was an idiot.
‘He was French, you idiot!’ Dornberg shouted. ‘They seek to mislead us. Have you learned nothing of war? They want us to think they will advance through Charleroi, while all the time they will come towards us here! They will come to Mons! To Mons! To Mons!’ He slammed a clenched fist onto the map with every reiteration of the name, then dismissively waved Sharpe’s despatch in Captain Blasendorf’s face. ‘You might as well have wiped your arse with this. You’re an idiot! God save me from idiots! Now go back to where you were ordered. Go! Go! Go!’
General Dornberg tore up the despatch. The Emperor had touched the net spread to contain him, but the British half of the trap was unaware of its catch, and so the French marched on.
South-west of Brussels, in the village of Braine-le-Comte, His Royal Highness the Prince William, Prince of Orange, heir to the throne of the Netherlands, and Duke, Earl, Lord, Stadtholder, Margrave and Count of more towns and provinces than even he could remember, leaned forward in his chair, fixed his gaze at the mirror which stood on the dressing-table and, with exquisite care, squeezed a blackhead on his chin. It popped most satisfyingly. He squeezed another, this time provoking a small spurt of blood. ‘Damn. Damn, damn, damn.’ The bloody ones always left a livid mark on his sallow skin, and Slender Billy particularly wanted to look his best at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball.
‘Eau de citron,’ the girl on his bed said lazily.
‘You’re mumbling, Charlotte.’
‘Eau de citron. It dries the skin and shrivels away the spots.’ She spoke in French. ‘You should use it.’
‘Shit,’ the Prince said as another blackhead burst bloodily. ‘Shit and damn and bugger!’
He had been educated at Eton College so had an excellent command of English. After Eton he had gone to Oxford, then served on Wellington’s staff in Spain. The appointment had been purely political, for Wellington had not wanted him, and the exiled Prince had consequently been kept well away from any fighting, though the experience had nevertheless convinced the young man that he had a fine talent for soldiering. His education had also left him with a love for all things English. Indeed, apart from his Chief of Staff and a handful of aides, all his closest friends were English. He wished the girl on the bed were English, but instead she was Belgian and he hated the Belgians; to the Prince they were a common, ox-like race of peasants. ‘I hate you, Charlotte.’ He spoke to the girl in English. Her name was Paulette, but the Prince called all such girls Charlotte, after the English Princess who had first agreed to marry him, then inexplicably broken off the engagement.
‘What are you saying?’ Paulette spoke no English.
‘You stink like a sow,’ the Prince continued in English, ‘you’ve got thighs like a grenadier, your tits are greasy, and in short you are a typical Belgian and I hate you.’ He smiled fondly at the girl as he spoke, and Paulette, who in truth was very pretty, blew him a kiss before lying back on the pillows. She was a whore fetched from Brussels and paid ten English guineas a day to bed the Prince, and in her opinion she earned every ounce of the precious gold. Paulette thought the Prince disgustingly ugly: he was obnoxiously thin, with a bulbous round head on a ridiculously long neck. His skin was sallow and pitted, his eyes bulged, and his mouth was a slobbering frog-like slit. He was drunk as often as he was sober and in either condition held an inflated opinion of his abilities, both in bed and on the battlefield. He was now twenty-three years old and commander of the First Corps of the Duke of Wellington’s army. Those who liked the Prince called him Slender Billy, while his detractors called him the Young Frog. His father, King William, was known as the Old Frog.
No one of any sense had wanted the Young Frog to be given a command in the Duke’s army, but the Old Frog would not hear of the Netherlands joining the coalition unless his son held high command, and thus the politicians in London had forced the Duke of Wellington to concede. The Old Frog had further insisted that his son command British troops, on which point the Duke had also been forced to yield, though only on condition that reliable British officers were appointed to serve on the Young Frog’s staff.
The Duke provided a list of suitable, sober and solid men, but the Young Frog had simply scrawled out their names and replaced them with friends he had made at Eton and, when some of those friends declined the honour, he found other congenial officers who knew how to leaven war’s rigours with riotous enjoyment. The Prince also demanded a few officers who were experienced in battle and who would exemplify his own ideas of how wars should be fought. ‘Find me the most audacious of men!’ he ordered his Chief of Staff who, a few weeks later, diffide
ntly informed the Prince that the notorious Major Sharpe was on the half-pay list and evidently unemployed. The Young Frog had immediately demanded Sharpe and sweetened the demand with a promotion. He flattered himself that he would discover a twin soul in the famous Rifleman.
Yet somehow, and despite the Prince’s easy nature, no such friendship had developed. The Prince found something subtly annoying about Sharpe’s sardonic face, and he even suspected that the Englishman was deliberately trying to annoy him. He must have asked Sharpe a score of times to dress in Dutch uniform, yet still the Rifleman appeared in his ancient, tattered green coat. That was when Sharpe bothered to show himself at the Prince’s headquarters at all; he evidently preferred to spend his days riding the French frontier which was a job that properly belonged to the pompous General Dornberg, which thought reminded the Prince hat Dornberg’s noon report should have arrived. That report had a special importance this day for, if any trouble threatened, the Prince knew he could not afford to go dancing in Brussels. He summoned his Chief of Staff.
The Baron Jean de Constant Rebecque informed His Highness that Dornberg’s report had indeed arrived and contained nothing alarming. No French troops troubled the road to Mons; it seemed that the Belgian countryside slept under its summer heat.
The relieved Prince grunted an acknowledgement, then leaned forward to gaze critically in the mirror. He twisted his head left and right before looking anxiously at Rebecque. ‘Am I losing too much hair?’
Rebecque pretended to make a careful inspection, then shook his head reassuringly. ‘I can’t see that you’re losing any, sir.’
‘I thought I’d wear British uniform tonight.’
‘A very apt choice, sir.’ Rebecque spoke in English because the Prince preferred that language.
The Prince glanced at a clock. It would take his coach at least two hours to reach Brussels, and he needed a good hour to change into the scarlet and gold finery of a British major-general. He would allow himself another three hours to enjoy a private supper before going to the Duchess’s ball where, he knew, the food would be cold and inedible. ‘Has Sharpe returned yet?’ he asked Rebecque.
‘No, sir.’
The Prince frowned. ‘Damn. If he gets back, tell him I expect his attendance at the ball.’
Rebecque could not hide his astonishment. ‘Sharpe? At the Duchess’s ball?’ Sharpe had been promised that his duties to the Prince were not social, but only to provide advice during battle.
The Prince did not care what promises had been made to the Englishman; forcing Sharpe to dance would demonstrate to the Rifleman that the Prince commanded this headquarters. ‘He told me that he hates dancing! I shall nevertheless oblige him to dance for his own good. Everyone should enjoy dancing. I do!’ The Prince laughingly trod some capering steps about the bedroom. ‘We shall make Colonel Sharpe enjoy dancing! Are you sure you don’t want to dance tonight, Rebecque?’
‘I shall be Your Highness’s eyes and ears here.’
‘Quite right.’ The Prince, reminded that he had military responsibilities, suddenly looked grave, but he had an irrepressibly high-spirited nature and could not help laughing again. ‘I imagine Sharpe dances like a Belgian heifer! Thump, thump, thump, and all the time with that gloomy expression on his face. We shall cheer him up, Rebecque.’
‘I’m sure he’ll be grateful for it, sir.’
‘And tell him he’s to wear Dutch uniform tonight!’
‘Indeed I will, sir.’
The Prince left for Brussels an hour and a half later, his carriage escorted by an honour guard of Dutch Carabiniers who had learned their trade in the French Emperor’s service. Paulette, relieved at the Prince’s departure, lay cosily in his bed while Rebecque took a book to his own quarters. The clerks laboriously copied out the orders listing which battalions the Prince would visit in the coming week, and what manoeuvres each battalion should demonstrate for the Prince’s approval.
Clouds heaped higher in the west, but the sun still shone on the village. A cat curled up by the boot-scraper at the front door of the Prince’s headquarters where the sentry, a British redcoat, stooped to fondle the animal’s warm fur. Wheat and rye and barley and oats ripened in the sun. It was a perfect summer’s day, shimmering with heat and silence and all the beauty of peace.
The first news of French activity reached the Duke of Wellington while he ate his early dinner of roast mutton. The message, which had originated in Charleroi just thirty-two miles away, had first been sent to Marshal Blücher at Namur, then copied and sent on to Brussels, a total journey of seventy miles. The message merely reported that the French had attacked at dawn and that the Prussian outposts had been driven in south of Charleroi.
‘How many French? It doesn’t say. And where are the French now? And is the Emperor with them?’ the Duke demanded of his staff.
No one could tell. The mutton was abandoned on the table while the Duke’s staff gathered about a map pinned to the dining-room wall. The French might have advanced into the country south of Charleroi, but the Duke, as ever, brooded over the left-hand side of the map which showed the great sweep of flat country between Mons and Tournai. That was where he feared a French advance that would cut the British off from the North Sea. If the French took Ghent then the Duke’s army would be denied its supply roads from the North Sea, as well as its route home.
Wellington, had he been in the Emperor’s boots, would have chosen that strategy. First he would have pushed a strong diversionary force at Charleroi, then, when the allies moved to defend Brussels from the south, he would have launched the real attack to the west. It was by just such dazzling manoeuvres that the Emperor had held off the Russian, Prussian and Austrian armies in the spring of 1814. Napoleon, in the weeks before his abdication, had never fought more brilliantly, and no one, least of all Wellington, expected anything but the same cleverness now.
‘We’ve heard nothing from Dornberg?’ the Duke snapped.
‘Nothing.’
The Duke looked back at the Prussian message. It did not tell him how many French had crossed the frontier, nor whether Blücher was concentrating his army; all it told him was that a French force had pushed back the Prussian outposts.
He went back to the dinner-table. His own British and Dutch forces were scattered across five hundred square miles of countryside. They had to be thus dispersed, not only to guard every possible French invasion route, but also so that the mass of men and horses did not strip any one locality of food and grazing. Now, however, he knew the army must begin to shrink towards its battle order. ‘We’ll concentrate,’ the Duke said. Every division of the army had a prearranged town or village where it would gather and wait for further orders. ‘And send a good man to Dornberg to find out what’s happening in front of him.’
The Duke frowned again at Blücher’s message, wondering whether he had over-reacted to its small news. Surely, if the French incursion was serious, the Prussians would have sent a more urgent messenger? No matter. If it turned out to be a false alarm then the army’s concentration could be reversed next day.
Nine miles to the south, in the little village of Waterloo, the hugely fat Prussian Major had stopped his plodding horse at a small inn opposite the church. The wine he had taken for lunch, together with the oppressive afternoon heat, had quite tired him out. He asked for a little restorative brandy, then saw a baker’s tray of delicious cakes being carried into the inn’s side-door. ‘And some of those pastries, I think. The ones with the almond paste, if you’d be so kind.’
He slid out of the saddle and gratefully sat on a bench that was shaded by a small chestnut tree. The despatch which would have told Wellington of the loss of Charleroi and the further French advance lay in the Major’s saddlebag.
The Major leaned against the chestnut’s trunk. Nothing much stirred in the village. The paved road ran between wide grass verges where two tethered cows and four goats grazed. A few chickens scratched by the church steps where a dog twitched in its sleep. A
small child played tipcat in the archway of the inn’s stableyard. The fat Major, pleased with such a scene of rural innocence, smiled happily, then, as he waited for his snack, dozed.
Sharpe’s horses limped into the Prince of Orange’s headquarters just ten minutes after the Prince had left for Brussels. Aggressive French patrols had prevented Sharpe getting close to the road a second time, but he had ridden near enough to see the dust clouds drifting away from the boots, hooves and wheels of an army on the march. Now, flinching at the soreness in his thighs, he eased himself out of the saddle. He shouted for an ostler, tied Nosey to a metal ring on the stableyard wall and gave the dog a bowl of water before, carrying his map and weapons, he limped into the silent house. Dust floated in the beams of light that flooded through the fanlight over the front door. He looked into the map room, but no one was there.
‘Duty Officer!’ Sharpe shouted angrily, then, when no one answered, he hammered his rifle butt against the wooden panelling in the hallway. ‘Duty officer!’
A bedroom door opened upstairs and a face appeared over the banister. ‘I hope there’s a good reason for this noise! Oh, it’s you!’
Sharpe peered into the gloom and saw the affable face of the Baron Jean de Constant Rebecque. ‘Who’s on duty?’
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