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 smali 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, diffidently 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 that 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.