They spent their last night of travel in a half empty barn. Havercamp had them up early, and they marched in the dawn into a landscape like none Sharpe had seen before in England.

It was a country of intricate rivers, streams, marshes, a country loud with the cry of gulls telling Sharpe they were close to the sea. There was a smell of salt in the air. The grass was coarse. Once, far off to his left, he saw the wind whipping a grey sea white towards a great expanse of mud, then the view disappeared as Sergeant Havercamp turned them inland once more.

They marched through flat farmlands where the few trees had been bent westwards by the wind from the sea. They crossed the fords of sluggish rivers that ran in wide, muddy beds to meet the salt tide. The houses, low and squat, had weatherboards painted a malevolent black, while the churches were visible far over the flat land.

'Where are we? Harper asked. He and Sharpe still led the small procession as Havercamp turned them eastwards again, into the wind with its smell of salt and its lonely sounds of seabirds.

'Somewhere in Essex. Sharpe shrugged. No milestones marked the road they now walked, and no fingerboards pointed to a village or town. The only landmark now was a great house, brick built, with spreading, elegant wings on either side of its three-storeyed main block. On the house's roof was an intricate weather-vane. The house was two miles away, a lonely place, and Sharpe wondered, as they marched along the deserted road towards the great, isolated building, whether the house was their destination.

'Fall out! Fast now! Fall out! Sergeant Havercamp was suddenly bawling from the back of the line. 'Into the ditch! Come on! Hurry, hurry, hurry, you bastards! Into the ditch! Fall out!

Corporal Clissot pushed Sharpe, who stumbled into Harper so that both of them fell into the ditch that was stinking with green slime. They sat up to their waists in the foul water, and watched as a carriage and four came towards them. Giles Marriott, who had shown in the last two days a distressing urge to stand up for what he saw as his rights, protested at having to stand in the ditch, but Havercamp unceremoniously kicked him into the foul sludge, then jumped the obstacle, turned smartly in a turnip field, and stood to attention with his right hand saluting the carriage.

Two coachmen sat on the carriage's box, and three passengers sat within its cushioned interior. The leather hoods had been folded back, and one of the passengers, a girl, held a parasol against the sun.

'Christ! Harper said.

'Quiet! Sharpe put a hand on the Irishman's arm.

Sir Henry Simmerson, riding in the open carriage, raised a fat hand towards Sergeant Havercamp, while his small, angry eyes flicked over the muddy, gawping recruits in the ditch. Sharpe saw the jug ears, the porcine face, then he stared down at the green scum on the water so that Sir Henry would not notice him.

'That's. . Harper began.

'I know who the hell it is! Sharpe hissed.

And next to Sir Henry Simmerson, opposite a stern, grey-haired woman, and beneath a parasol of white lace, was a girl whom Sharpe had last seen in a parish church four years before. Jane Gibbons, Simmerson's niece, and the sister of the man who had tried to kill Sharpe at Talavera.

'On your feet! Hurry! Come on!

The dust from the carriage wheels was gritty in the air as Sharpe and Harper climbed from the ditch and dripped water onto the dry road. 'Form up! In twos!

Sharpe stared at the receding carriage. He could see the passengers sitting stiffly apart and he tried to tell himself that Jane Gibbons was hating to be beside her uncle.

'By the front! Quick march!

Sharpe had held the Eagle in Carlton House before the admiring gaze of the courtiers, and now another remembrance of that far-off day had come back. Sir Henry Simmerson had been the first Lieutenant Colonel of the South Essex, an angry, arrogant fool who had believed the battle lost and had taken the Battalion from the battle line in panic. He had been relieved of his command, and the South Essex, who had been shamed by his leadership, recovered their honour that day by capturing the French standard.

And afterwards, when Sharpe and Harper had been alone in the battle-smoke, amidst the litter of death and victory, Lieutenant Christian Gibbons, Sir Henry's nephew, had tried to take the Eagle from them.

Gibbons had died, stabbed by Harper with a French bayonet, yet the inscription on his marble memorial, undoubtedly composed by Sir Henry, claimed that he had died taking the Eagle. And on Sharpe's last visit to England, in a small parish church which must, he knew now, be close to this flat, marshy place, he had met Jane Gibbons.

In all the years since, on battlefields and in foul, smoky, flea-ridden billets, in the palaces of Spain where he had met La Marquesa, in his own marriage bed, he had not forgotten her. Sharpe's wife, before she died, had laughed because he carried a locket with Jane Gibbons' picture inside, a locket Sharpe had taken from her dead brother. The locket was lost now, yet he had not forgotten her.

Perhaps because she was the image of the England that soldiers remembered when they fought in a harsh, hot country. She had golden hair, soft cheeks, and eyes the same colour as the bright blue gowns that draped the Virgins of all Spanish churches. Sharpe had lied to her, telling her that her brother had died a hero's death, and he had been nervous before her grateful smile. She had seemed to him, in that cool, dark church, where she had come to place a pot of gilliflowers beneath her brother's memorial, to be a creature of another world; gentle, with a vein of quick life, too beautiful and precious for his harsh hands or battle-scarred face.

She must, he thought as they followed the carriage's tracks, be married by now. Even in an England where, as Captain d'Alembord often said, there were not enough well-washed men for wellborn girls, Surely such a beautiful, smiling creature would not be left unwed. And seeing her again, this suddenly, on this desolate track in the marshes at the edge of England, he felt the old attraction, the old, hopeless attraction for a girl so lovely. He felt, too, the old temptation to believe that no girl, come from so foul and treacherous a family, could be worthy of love.

'Pick your bloody feet up! Move! Sergeant Havercamp slashed with his cane at his recruits. 'Put your shoulders back, Marriott! You're in the bloody army, not in a bloody dance! March!

The carriage turned off the road ahead and Sharpe saw it go towards the large, elegant, brick house, with its white painted window frames and its weathervane which, as the small band of recruits got closer, Sharpe saw to be in the shape of a French Eagle. That bird, he thought, was coming back to haunt him. That one act on a battlefield, that first capture of a vaunted enemy standard, had made the South Essex's reputation, had saved Sharpe's career, and now, he feared, it was a symbol of the men who had tried to kill him in London, and who would certainly try again if they discovered his identity.

'If that bugger sees us. . Harper did not finish the sentence.

'I know. And how fitting it would be, Sharpe thought, if Sir Henry was among his enemies.

'Shut your faces! March! Sergeant Havercamp cracked his cane on Sharpe's back. 'Pick your bloody feet up! You know how!

They did not go to Sir Henry's house, for the eagle on the weathervane had convinced Sharpe that the big place was indeed Sir Henry's, but instead turned southwards onto an even smaller track. They filed along a bank beside a drainage ditch, waded a deep ford that was sticky with mud, and, when Sir Henry's house was far on the horizon, turned left again onto a larger road rutted by cart tracks.

A bridge was ahead of them, a wooden bridge guarded by soldiers. 'Break step! That means walk, you bastards, or else you'll break the bloody bridge!