Sharpe's Waterloo (8 page)

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?'

‘Colonel Winckler, I think, but he's probably sleeping. Most of us are. The Prince has gone to Brussels, and he wants you there as well.' Rebecque yawned. ‘You're required to dance.'

Sharpe stared upwards. For a few seconds he was too shocked to speak and Rebecque assumed that the silence merely expressed Sharpe's horror at being ordered to a ball, but then the Rifleman exploded with his news. ‘Haven't you heard? My God, Rebecque, the bloody French are north of Charleroi! I sent Dornberg a message hours ago!'

The words hung in the hot still air of the stairwell. It was Rebecque's turn to stare silently. ‘Sweet God,' he said after a few seconds, then began buttoning his blue coat. ‘Officers!' His shout echoed through the house. ‘Officers!' He ran at the stairs, taking them three at a time. ‘Show me.' He pushed past Sharpe into the map room where he threw back the heavy wooden shutters to flood the tables with sunlight.

‘There.' Sharpe placed a filthy finger on the map just north of Charleroi. ‘A mixed force; infantry, cavalry and guns. I was there this morning, and I went back this afternoon. The road was crowded both times. I couldn't see much this afternoon, but there must have been at least one whole corps on that road. A prisoner told me he thought Napoleon was with them, but he wasn't certain.'

Rebecque looked up into Sharpe's tired and dust-stained face and wondered just how Sharpe had taken a prisoner, but he knew this was no time for foolish questions. He turned to the other staff officers who were crowding into the room. ‘Winckler! Fetch the Prince back, and hurry! Harry! Go to Dornberg, find out what in God's name is happening in Mons. Sharpe, you get some food. Then rest.'

‘I can go to Mons.'

‘Rest! But food first! You look exhausted, man.'

Sharpe obeyed. He liked Rebecque, a Dutchman who, like his Prince, had been educated at Eton and Oxford. The Baron had been the Prince's tutor at Oxford and was living proof to Sharpe that most education was a waste of effort, for none of Rebecque's modest good sense had rubbed off on the Prince.

Sharpe went through to the deserted kitchens and found some bread, cheese and ale. As he was cutting the bread the Prince's girl, Paulette, came sleepily into the room. She was dressed in a grey shift that was loosely belted round her waist. ‘All this noise!' she said irritably. ‘What's happening?'

‘The Emperor's crossed the frontier.' Sharpe spoke in French.

‘Good!' Paulette said fiercely.

Sharpe laughed as he cut the mould off a piece of cheese.

‘Don't you want butter on your bread?' the girl asked.

‘I couldn't find any.'

‘It's in the scullery. I'll fetch it.' Paulette gave Sharpe a happy smile. She did not know the Rifleman well, yet she thought he was by far the best-looking man on the Prince's staff. Many of the other officers considered themselves good-looking, but this Englishman had an interestingly scarred face and a reluctant but infectious smile. She brought a muslin-covered bowl of butter from the scullery and good-naturedly pushed Sharpe to one side. ‘You want an apple with your cheese?'

‘Please.'

Paulette made a plate of food for herself, then poured some ale out of Sharpe's stone bottle into one of the Prince's Sèvres teacups. She sipped the ale, then grinned. ‘The Prince tells me your woman is French?'

Sharpe was somewhat taken aback by the girl's directness, but he nodded. ‘From Normandy.'

‘How? Why? What? Tell me. I want to know!' She smiled in recognition of her own cheekiness. ‘I like to know everything about everyone.'

‘We met at the end of the war,' Sharpe said as though that explained everything.

‘And you fell in love?' she asked eagerly.

‘I suppose so, yes.' He sounded sheepish.

‘That's nothing to be ashamed of! I was in love once. He was a
dragon,
but he went off to fight in Russia, poor boy. That was the last I saw of him. He said he would marry me, but I suppose he was eaten by wolves or killed by cossacks.' She sighed in sad memory of her lost Dragoon. ‘Will you marry your French lady?'

‘I can't. I'm already married to a lady who lives in England.'

Paulette shrugged that difficulty aside. ‘So divorce her!'

‘It's impossible. In England a divorce costs more money than you can dream of. I'd have to go to Parliament and bribe them to pass a law specially for my divorce.'

‘The English are stupid. I suppose that's why the Prince likes them so much. He feels at home there.' She laughed. She had thick brown hair, slanting eyes, and a cat-like face. ‘Were you living in France with your woman?'

‘Yes.'

‘Why did you leave?'

‘Because the Emperor would have put me in prison if I'd have stayed, and because I needed my half-pay.'

‘Your half-pay?'

Sharpe was both amused and irritated by her questioning, but it was harmless, so he indulged her. ‘I received a pension from the English army. If I'd have stayed in France there would have been no pension.'

Hooves sounded loud in the yard as Colonel Winckler took off after the Prince. Sharpe, glad that he was not having to ride anywhere, began tugging at his tight boots. Paulette pushed his hands away, put his right foot on her lap; tugged off the boot, then did the same for his other foot. ‘My God, you smell!' She laughingly pushed his feet away. ‘And Madame left France with you?' Paulette's questioning had the guileless innocence of a child.

‘Madame and our baby, yes.'

Paulette frowned at Sharpe. ‘Because of you?'

He paused, seeking a modest answer, but could think of nothing but the truth. ‘Indeed.'

Paulette cradled her cup of ale and stared through the open door into the stableyard where chickens pecked at oats and Sharpe's dog twitched in exhausted sleep. ‘Your French lady must love you.'

‘I think she does, yes.'

‘And you?'

Sharpe smiled. ‘I love her, yes.'

‘And she's here? In Belgium?'

‘In Brussels.'

‘With the baby? What sort of baby? How old?'

‘A boy. Three months, nearly four. He's in Brussels too.'

Paulette sighed. ‘I think it's lovely. I would like to follow a man to another country.'

Sharpe shook his head. ‘It's very hard on Lucille. She hates that I have to fight against her countrymen.'

‘Then why do you do it?' Paulette asked in an outraged voice.

‘Because of my half-pay again. If I'd have refused to rejoin the army they'd have stopped my pension, and that's the only income we have. So when the Prince summoned me, I had to come.'

‘But you didn't want to come?' Paulette asked shrewdly.

‘Not really.' Which was true, though that morning, as he had spied on the French, Sharpe had recognized in himself the undeniable pleasure of doing his job well. For a few days, he supposed, he must forget Lucille's unhappiness and be a soldier again.

‘So you only fight for the money.' Paulette said it wearily, as though it explained everything. ‘How much does the Prince pay you for being a colonel?'

‘One pound, three shillings and tenpence a day.' That was his reward for a brevet lieutenant-colonelcy in a cavalry regiment and it was more money than Sharpe had ever earned in his life. Half of the salary disappeared in mess fees and for the headquarter's servants, but Sharpe still felt rich, and it was a far better reward than the two shillings and ninepence a day that he had been receiving as a half-pay lieutenant. He had left the army as a major, but the clerks in the Horse Guards had determined that his majority was only brevet rank, not regimental, and so he had been forced to accept a lieutenant's pension. The war was proving a windfall to Sharpe, as it was to so many other half-pay officers in both armies.

‘Do you like the Prince?' Paulette asked him.

That was a sensitive question. ‘Do you?' Sharpe countered.

‘He's a drunk.' Paulette did not bother with tact, but just let her scorn flow. ‘And when he's not drunk he squeezes his spots. Plip plop, plip plop! Ugh! I have to do his back for him.' She looked to see whether her words had offended Sharpe, and was evidently reassured. ‘You know he was going to marry an English princess?'

‘I know.'

‘She couldn't stand him. So now he says he will marry a Russian princess! Ha! That's all he's good for, a Russian. They rub butter on their skins, did you know that? All over, to keep warm. They must smell.' She sipped her ale, then frowned as her mind skittered back over the conversation. ‘Your wife in England. She does not mind that you have another lady?'

‘She has another man.'

The evident convenience of the arrangement pleased Paulette. ‘So everything is all right?'

‘No.' He smiled. ‘They stole my money. One day I shall go back and take it from them.'

She stared at him with large serious eyes. ‘Will you kill the man?'

‘Yes.' He said it very simply, which made it all the more believable.

‘I wish a man would kill for me,' Paulette sighed, then stared in alarm because Sharpe had suddenly raised a hand in warning. ‘What is it?'

‘Sh!' He stood and went in his stockinged feet to the open stableyard door. Far off, like a crackling of burning thorns, he thought he heard musketry. He could not be certain, for the sound was fading and tenuous in the small warm breeze. ‘Do you hear anything?' he asked the girl.

‘No.'

‘There it is! Listen!' He heard the noise again, this time it sounded like a piece of canvas ripping. Somewhere, and not so very far off, there was a musket fight. Sharpe looked up at the weathercock on the stable roof and saw the wind had backed southerly. He ran to the kitchen door which opened into the main part of the house. ‘Rebecque!'

‘I hear it!' The Baron was already standing at the open front door. ‘How far off?'

‘God knows.' Sharpe stood beside Rebecque. The small wind kicked up dust devils in the street. ‘Five miles?' Sharpe hazarded. ‘Six?'

The noise faded to nothing, then any chance of hearing it again was drowned in the clatter of hooves. Sharpe looked down the high street, half expecting to see French Dragoons galloping into the small village, but it was only the Prince of Orange who had abandoned his carriage and taken a horse from one of his escort. That escort streamed behind him down the street, together with the aide who had fetched the Prince back.

‘What news, Rebecque?' The Prince dropped from the saddle and ran into the house.

‘Only what we sent you.' Rebecque followed the Prince into the map room.

‘Charleroi, eh?' The Prince chewed at a fingernail as he stared at the map. ‘We've heard nothing from Dornberg?'

‘No, sir. But if you listen carefully, you can hear fighting to the south.'

‘Mons?' The Prince sounded alarmed.

‘No one knows, sir.'

‘Then find out!' the Prince snapped. ‘I want a report from Dornberg. You can send it after me.'

‘After you?' Rebecque frowned. ‘But where are you going, sir?'

‘Brussels, of course! Someone has to make sure Wellington has heard this news.' He looked at Sharpe. ‘I particularly wanted you in attendance tonight.'

Sharpe suppressed an urge to kick His Royal Highness in the royal arse. ‘Indeed, sir,' he said instead.

‘And I insist you wear Dutch uniform. Why aren't you in Dutch uniform now?'

‘I shall change, sir.' Sharpe, despite the Prince's frequent insistence, had yet to buy himself a Dutch uniform.

Rebecque, sensing that the Prince still intended to dance despite the news of a French invasion, cleared his throat. ‘Surely there'll be no ball in Brussels tonight, sir?'

‘It hasn't been cancelled yet,' the Prince said petulantly, then turned back with specific instructions for Sharpe. ‘I want you in evening dress uniform. That means gold lace, two epaulettes with gold bullion on each and blue cushions. And a dress sword, Sharpe, instead of that butcher's blade.' The Prince smiled, as if to soften his sartorial orders, then gestured at one of his Dutch aides. ‘Come on, Winckler, there's nothing more to do here.' He strode from the room, leaving Rebecque thin-lipped and silent.