‘Why don’t they attack our centre with infantry?’ Doggett asked Sharpe, who had rejoined Harper behind the crossroads.
‘Because they’re being led by a cavalryman.’ An Hussar prisoner had revealed that it was Marshal Ney who led the French troops at Quatre Bras. Ney was called ‘the bravest of the brave’, a red-haired cavalryman who would have ridden through the pits of hell without a murmur, but who had yet to launch an infantry attack against the battered defenders at the crossroads.
‘You have to understand something about cavalrymen, Mr Doggett,’ Harper explained. ‘They look very fine, so they do, and they usually take all the credit for any victory, but the only brains they’ve got are the ones they keep in their horses’ heads.’
Doggett blushed. ‘I wanted to be a cavalryman, but my father insisted I joined the Guards.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Harper said cheerfully, ‘the Guards aren’t our brightest lads either. God save Ireland, but just look at those poor boys.’
The poor boys were the Highlanders beyond the crossroads who could only stand and be slaughtered by the French guns. They were in square, which made them a tempting target for the French artillerymen, and they dared not relinquish the formation for fear of the French cavalry that watched them like hawks. The Scotsmen could only stand while the roundshot slammed into the files, and each shot that struck home killed two or three men, sometimes more. Once Harper saw a roundshot strike the flanking face of a square and ten men went down in a single bloody smear. The British artillery at the crossroads was being saved for any French infantry attack, though once in a while a gun would try to hit a French cannon. Such counter-battery fire was almost always wasted, but as the infantry’s suffering dragged on the Duke ordered more of it simply to help the morale of the redcoats.
‘Why don’t we do something?’ Doggett asked plaintively.
‘What’s to do?’ Harper asked. ‘The bloody Belgians won’t fight, so we haven’t got any cavalry. It’s called being an infantryman, Mr Doggett. Your job is to stand there and get slaughtered.’
‘Patrick?’ Sharpe had been staring up the Nivelles road. ‘Do you see what I see?’
Harper twisted in his saddle. ‘Bloody hell, sir, you’re right!’ A further brigade of British infantry was arriving, and among the troops was the Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers. Sharpe and Harper spurred towards their old battalion.
Sharpe stood his horse beside the road and took off his hat as the leading company came abreast. It was his old company, the light, led by Peter d‘Alembord. The men’s faces were pale with dust, through which the rivulets of sweat had driven dark trails. Daniel Hagman raised a cheer as Sharpe tossed them a full canteen of water. D’Alembord, his white dancing breeches stained from the wax with which his saddle had been polished, reined in beside the two Riflemen and looked dubiously towards the smear of smoke that marked the battlefield. ‘How is it?’
‘It’s stiff work, Peter,’ Sharpe admitted.
‘Is Boney here?’ It was the same question that nearly every newly arriving officer had asked, as though the presence of the Emperor would dignify the day’s death and dismemberment.
‘Not so far as we know.’ Sharpe saw that his answer disappointed d’Alembord.
The brigade halted while Sir Colin Halkett, its commander, discovered where his four battalions were wanted. Lieutenant-Colonel Ford and his two Majors, Vine and Micklewhite, walked their horses up the road until they came close to where Sharpe, d’Alembord and Harper chatted. Ford, myopically peering towards the cannon smoke, realized too late that he had come close to Sharpe, whose presence made him feel so uncomfortable and inadequate, but he put a brave face on the chance meeting.
‘It sounds brisk, Sharpe, does it not?’
‘It’s certainly hard work, Ford,’ Sharpe said mildly.
No one seemed to be able to find anything else to say. Ford smiled with a general benignity which he thought fitting to a colonel, while Major Vine scowled at the men of the Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers who had slumped on the roadside, and Major Micklewhite pretended to be enthralled by the enamel picture on the lid of his snuffbox. A sudden explosion was loud enough to penetrate the half-deaf ears of Major Vine who twisted round to see that a British gun limber, crammed with ready ammunition, had been struck by a French shell and was now spewing a thick skein of smoke and flames into the sky.
Colonel Ford had jumped at the sudden violence of the explosion, and now he gazed through his thick spectacles at the rest of the battlefield, which appeared as a threatening blur of trampled corn, blood, smoke, and the lumped bodies of the dead. Cannon-balls were ploughing through the slurry of rye and soil, spewing gouts of earth before bouncing into the bloody lines of Highlanders. ‘Dear God,’ Ford said with rather more feeling than he had intended.
‘Watch out for their skirmishers,’ Sharpe advised drily. ‘They seem to have more of the bastards than usual.’
‘More?’ The tone to Ford’s voice betrayed the Colonel’s fear of taking his battalion into the cauldron beyond the crossroads.
‘You might like to think about deploying an extra company as skirmishers,’ Sharpe, well aware of Ford’s uncertainty, offered the advice as forcefully as he could without sounding patronizing, ‘but warn the lads to keep an eye open for the cavalry. They’re never very far away.’ Sharpe pointed across the highway to where the stream fed a small lake behind Gemioncourt farm. ‘There’s a fold in the ground over there and it’s swarming with the evil buggers.’
‘Quite so, quite so.’ Ford took off his spectacles, cleaned them on the tasselled end of his red sash, then hooked the earpieces back into place. He stared through the newly cleaned glass but could see neither a fold in the ground nor any cavalry. He wondered whether Sharpe was deliberately trying to frighten him, and so, to show that he was quite equal to the prospect of fighting, Ford straightened his shoulders and turned his horse away. Vine and Micklewhite, like obedient hounds, followed their Colonel.
‘He won’t take a blind bit of notice,’ d’Alembord sighed.
‘Then you watch out for the cavalry, Peter. They’re in something of a murderous bloody mood. There’s about three thousand of the bastards: Hussars, Lancers, and the Heavies.’
‘You do cheer me up, Sharpe, you really do.’ D‘Alembord superstitiously touched the breast pocket which bulged with his fiancée’s letters. ‘Have you had your note from that bloody man yet?’
It took Sharpe a second or two to realize that d‘Alembord was talking about Lord John Rossendale. He shook his head. ‘Not yet.’
‘Oh, God. I suppose that means we’ll have to arrange a duel in the morning?’
‘No. I’ll just find the bugger and cut his balls off.’
‘Oh, splendid!’ d‘Alembord said in mock seriousness. ‘That should satisfy everyone’s honour.’
Orders came back to the battalion. The newly arrived brigade was to take up positions in the wedge of field in front of Saxe-Weimar’s wood, from where their musket-fire could rake across the flank of any French attack down the road. Sir Thomas Picton’s staff brought the orders which insisted that the four battalions were to form square in the rye.
Sharpe shook d‘Alembord’s hand. ‘Watch those skirmishers, Peter!’ He waved to Captain Harry Price who had once been his Lieutenant. ‘It’s hot work, Harry!’
‘I’m thinking of resigning, sir.’ Harry Price, too poor to own a horse, was sweating from the exertions of his long day’s march. ‘My father always wanted me to take holy orders, and I’m beginning to think I rejected his views too quickly. Good God, it’s Mr Harper!’
Harper grinned. ‘Good to see you, Mr Price.’
‘I thought the army had discharged you.’
‘It did.’
‘You’re as mad as a bloody bishop! What are you doing here?’ Harry Price was genuinely puzzled. ‘You could get hurt, you damned fool!’
‘I’m staying well out of any trouble, so I am.’
Price shook his hea
d at Harper’s foolishness, then had to hurry away as the battalion was ordered into the wood. The companies filed through the trees and so out into the sunlit rye field where, like the other three battalions in Halkett’s brigade, they formed square.
Sharpe and Harper walked their horses back to the crossroads where the Prince of Orange was fidgeting with the ivory hilt of his sabre. He was frustrated by the day’s setbacks. He had seen his infantry crumple at the first French attack, then watched his cavalry flee at the drop of a lance point, yet he blamed the day’s lack of success on anyone but himself or his countrymen. ‘Look at those men, for instance!’ He pointed towards the four battalions of Halkett’s brigade which had just formed their squares on the flank of the wood. ‘It’s a nonsense to form those men in square! A nonsense!’ The Prince turned irritably, looking for a British staff officer. ‘Sharpe! You explain it to me! Why are those men in square?’
‘Too many cavalry, sir,’ Sharpe explained gently.
‘I see no cavalry!’ The Prince stared across the smoke-shrouded battlefield. ‘Where are the cavalry?’
‘Over there, sir.’ Sharpe pointed across the field. ‘There’s a lake to the left of the farm and they’re hidden there. They’ve probably dismounted so we can’t see them, but they’re there, sure enough.’
‘You’re imagining it.’ Since losing his Belgian cavalry the Prince had been given nothing to do, and he felt slighted. The Duke of Wellington was ignoring him, reducing the Prince to the status of an honoured spectator. Well, damn that! There was no glory to be had in just watching a battle from behind a crossroads! He looked back at the newly deployed brigade that stood in its four battalion squares. ‘What brigade is that?’ he asked his staff.
Rebecque raised an eyebrow at Sharpe, who answered. ‘Fifth Brigade, sir.’
‘Halkett’s, you mean?’ The Prince frowned at Sharpe.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘They’re in my Corps, aren’t they?’ the Prince demanded.
There was a brief silence, then Rebecque nodded. ‘Indeed they are, sir.’
The Prince’s face showed outrage. ‘Then why wasn’t I consulted about their placement?’
No one wanted to answer, at least not with the truth which was that the Duke of Wellington did not trust the Prince’s judgement. Rebecque just shrugged while Sharpe stared at the smoke of the French guns. Harry Webster, beyond Rebecque, looked at his watch, while Simon Doggett slowly moved his horse back till he had left the group of embarrassed staff officers and was next to Harper’s horse. The Prince drew his sabre a few inches then rammed it back into its scabbard. ‘No one gives orders to my brigades without my permission!’
‘When I was in the ranks, Mr Doggett, we had a way of dealing with young gentlemen like His Royal Highness,’ Harper said quietly.
‘You did?’
‘We shot the little buggers.’ Harper smiled happily.
Doggett stared into the battered and friendly face. ‘You did?’
‘Especially buggers like him.’ Harper nodded scornfully towards the Prince. ‘He’s nothing but a silk stocking full of shit.’
Doggett stared in horror at Harper. Doggett’s sense of propriety, as well as his natural respect for royalty, were outraged by the Irishman’s words. ‘You can’t say things like that!’ he blurted out. ‘He’s royalty!’
‘A silk stocking full of shit with a crown, then.’ Harper was quite unmoved by Doggett’s outrage. ‘And if the little bugger doesn’t watch out, Mr Sharpe will feed his guts to the hogs. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s done it.’
‘Murdered someone?’ Doggett blurted out the question.
Harper turned innocent eyes on the Guards Lieutenant. ‘I know for a fact he’s rid the world of some bad officers. We all have! Don’t be shocked, Mr Doggett! It happens all the time!’
‘I can’t believe it!’ Doggett protested, but too loudly, for the sound of his voice made the Prince turn irritably in his saddle.
‘Is something offending you, Mr Doggett?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Then get back here, where you belong.’ The Prince looked back to the four battalions of Halkett’s brigade which were an itch to his wounded self-esteem. Closest to the crossroads, and just forward of the Highlanders across the highway was a battalion of Lincolnshire men, the 69th, who were unknown to Sharpe. They had never fought in Spain, instead they had been a part of the disastrous expedition that had failed to free the Netherlands at the end of the previous war. Beyond them was the 30th, the Three Tens, a Cambridgeshire battalion which, like the 33rd next in line, had also been a part of the Dutch débâcle. Furthest south was the Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers, the only veterans of the Spanish campaign in the brigade.
‘So who ordered them to form square?’ the Prince demanded petulantly.
No one knew, so Harry Webster was sent to discover the answer and came back after ten minutes to say that Sir Thomas Picton had deployed the brigade.
‘But they’re not in Picton’s division!’ The Prince’s pique had turned to a real anger that flushed his sallow face.
‘Indeed not, sir,’ Rebecque said gently, ‘but—’
‘But nothing, Rebecque! But bloody nothing! Those men are in my corps! Mine! I do not give orders to brigades in Sir Thomas Picton’s division, nor do I expect him to interfere with my corps! Sharpe! My compliments to Sir Colin Halkett, and instruct him to deploy his brigade in line. Their task is to give fire, not cower like schoolboys from non-existent cavalry.’ The Prince had taken a sheet of paper from his sabretache and was scribbling the order in pencil.
‘But the cavalry—’ Sharpe began to protest.
‘What cavalry?’ The Prince made a great fuss of pretending to stare across the battlefield. ‘There is no cavalry.’
‘In the dead ground over—’
‘You’re frightened of unseen horsemen on the left? But this brigade is on the right! Here, take this.’ He thrust the written order at Sharpe.
‘No, sir,’ Sharpe said.
The bulbous eyes swivelled to stare in amazement at Sharpe. Rebecque hissed a warning at the Rifleman, while the other staff officers held their breath. The Prince licked his lips. ‘What did you say, Sharpe?’ His voice was filled with horror and revulsion.
‘I’m not taking that order, sir. You’ll kill every man jack of that brigade if you insist on it.’
For a second the Prince literally shook with rage. ‘Are you refusing to obey an order?’
‘I’m refusing to take that order, sir, yes.’
‘Rebecque! Suspend Colonel Sharpe from his duties. Have this order sent immediately.’
‘You can’t—’ Sharpe began, but Rebecque seized Sharpe’s bridle and tugged his horse out of the Prince’s reach. ‘Rebecque, for God’s sake!’ Sharpe protested.
‘He’s entitled!’ Rebecque insisted. ‘Listen, by tomorrow he’ll have forgotten this. Give him an apology tonight and you won’t be suspended. He’s a good-hearted man.’
‘I don’t give a damn for his heart, Rebecque. It’s those men I care about!’
‘Rebecque!’ The Prince turned petulantly in his saddle. ‘Has that order gone!’
‘Immediately, sir.’ Rebecque shrugged at Sharpe, then turned away to find another officer to carry the Prince’s command.
The order was sent. Sir Colin Halkett rode back to the Prince’s command post vehemently to protest the command, but the Prince would not be denied. He insisted that there was no danger of a French cavalry attack and that, by deploying in square, the brigade was sacrificing three-quarters of the firepower that might be needed to rake the flank of a French infantry attack.
‘We mustn’t be cautious!’ the Prince lectured the experienced Sir Colin. ‘Caution won’t win battles! Only daring. You will form line! I insist you form line!’
Sir Colin rode unhappily away while Sharpe, goaded beyond endurance by the Prince’s crowing voice, spurred forward. ‘Sir,’ he said to the Prince.
The Prince
ignored him. Instead he looked at Winckler, one of his Dutch aides, and deliberately spoke in English. ‘I can’t think why the Duke called his men the scum of the earth, Winckler. I think he must have meant his officers, don’t you?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Winckler, a sycophantic man, smiled.
Sharpe ignored the provocation. ‘Permission to rejoin my old battalion, sir.’
The Prince gave the smallest, curtest nod.
Sharpe turned his horse away and spurred it forward. Hooves sounded loud behind him, making him twist in his saddle. ‘I thought you promised Isabella you’d stay out of trouble?’
‘There isn’t any trouble yet,’ Harper said. ‘When there is I’ll get the hell out of it, but till then I’ll keep you company.’
Harper followed Sharpe down the bank onto the Nivelles road where Sharpe exploded in rage. ‘Bastard! What a cretinous dirty-minded little Dutch bastard! I’d like to ram his poxed bloody crown up his royal arse.’ Instead Sharpe snatched the tricorne hat off his head and ripped the black, gold and scarlet cockade of the Netherlands from its crown. He hurled the silken scrap into a patch of nettles. ‘Bastard!’
Harper just laughed.
They scrambled up the bank into the trampled field of rye. To their right the trees were heavy with leaf, though here and there a splintered branch showed where a French cannon-ball or shell had struck high. There was not much litter in this part of the field; merely the corpses of two dead Voltigeurs, a scatter of dead horses, and a discarded and undamaged Cuirassier’s breastplate that Harper dismounted to retrieve. ‘Useful, that,’ he said as he tied the polished piece of armour to the strap of a saddlebag.
Sharpe did not reply. Instead, he watched as Sir Colin Halkett’s brigade staff ordered the four battalions out of square and into line. The regimental bands played behind the brigade. Sharpe saluted the colours of the 69th, the 30th and the 33rd. He felt a particular fondness for the 33rd, the Yorkshire regiment which he had joined as a sullen youth twenty-two years before. He wondered if their recruiters still carried oatcakes pierced on a sword, the curious symbol he’d seen as Sergeant Hakeswill had expounded to the sixteen-year-old Sharpe the benefits of an army life. Hakeswill was long dead, as were almost all the other men Sharpe remembered from the battalion, except for the Lieutenant-Colonel who had led the 33rd when Sharpe had first joined and who was now His Grace the Duke of Wellington.
Sharpe 3-Book Collection 7: Sharpe’s Revenge, Sharpe’s Waterloo, Sharpe’s Devil Page 47
