“Boldness wins.” The Prince confided the advice as though it was a secret that had been hidden from generations of military men. “Boldness wins, Sharpe. Boldness, boldness, boldness!”

All Sharpe wanted to do was get dry, eat, lie down, and sleep, but he dutifully nodded instead. “Indeed, sir.”

“Frederick the Great once said that the greatest crime in war is not to make the wrong decision, but to make no decision.” Again the Prince gestured at Sharpe with the brandy glass. “You should remember that axiom, Sharpe!”

Sharpe did not even know what an axiom was, but he nodded respectfully. “I will, sir.”

“There are times when any officer may perceive a superior’s decision as being mistaken,” the Prince was clearly alluding to his behaviour at Quatre Bras, but so delicately that Sharpe, in his weariness, hardly noticed, “but such an officer should be grateful that his superior has had the boldness to make any decision at all. Isn’t that so?” The Prince glared at Sharpe, who just nodded.

Rebecque hastened to offer the Prince the required verbal agreement. “It’s very true, sir, very true.”

The Prince, piqued that Sharpe had not responded, stood very close in front of the Rifleman. “I also think that the least I can expect from my staff is loyalty. Isn’t that so? Loyalty?” The word came in a gust of brandy-stinking breath.

“Indeed, sir,” Sharpe said.

Rebecque cleared his throat. “Colonel Sharpe has already expressed to me his deepest regrets for causing Your Highness any unhappiness. He has also assured me of his loyalty towards Your Highness. Isn’t that so, Sharpe?” The question was almost hissed at the Rifleman.

“Indeed, sir.” Sharpe had fallen back into his old Sergeant’s ways, merely saying what an officer wanted to hear. It was always easy to keep bumptious officers happy with a succession of yes, no and indeed.

The Prince, perhaps sensing that he had gained as much victory as he was going to get this night, smiled. “I’m grateful we agree, Sharpe.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Prince went back to his chair and slowly sat down as though the cares of Europe were pressing on his spindly shoulders. “I want you to station yourself on the right flank tomorrow, Sharpe. You’re going to be my eyes. The moment you see any French outflanking movement, you’re to inform me.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Very good. Very good.” The Prince smiled to show that all was forgiven, then looked at Rebecque. “You have a spare Dutch uniform, Rebecque?”

“Of course, Your Highness.”

“Provide it to Colonel Sharpe, if you will. And you’ll wear it tomorrow, Sharpe, do you hear me?”

“Very clearly, sir.”

“Till the morning, then.” The Prince nodded a good-night to both men. “And Rebecque? Send my seamstress in, will you?”

Rebecque dutifully ushered Paulette into the Prince’s room, then took Sharpe down the small landing to his own bedroom where he offered Sharpe a choice of uniforms from a tin travelling trunk.

“Keep them,” Sharpe said.

“My dear Sharpe — „

“I’ve fought the damned French for ten years in this jacket, Rebecque.” Sharpe’s interruption was bitter. “I wasn’t bloody studying how to fight out of bloody books at bloody Eton, I was killing the bastards. I began killing Frenchmen when that little bastard was still wetting his breeches.” In his frustration and anger Sharpe slammed his fist against the wall, breaking the plaster and laths to leave a ragged hole. “Why the hell does he still want me on his staff anyway? Hasn’t he got enough people to cut up his food?”

Rebecque gave a long-suffering sigh. “You have a reputation, Sharpe, and the Prince needs it. He knows he made a mistake. The whole army knows. Do you think Halkett hasn’t complained bitterly to the Duke? So the Prince needs men to see that you are on his side, that you support him, even that you respect him! That’s why he wants you in his uniform. After all, you’re not on attachment from a British regiment, like Harry or Simon, but you’re his personal choice! Now, please, just take a coat and wear it tomorrow.”

“I’m fighting in Rifle green, Rebecque, or I’m not fighting at all. And what the hell am I doing out on the right flank?”

“You’re staying out of his way, Sharpe. You’re there so you can’t make any trouble. Or would you rather spend the battle tied to His Highness’s coat-tails?”

Sharpe smiled. “No, sir.”

“At least we agree on something. Not that the Prince can do too much damage tomorrow. Wellington’s broken up the corps, so his Highness doesn’t have a real command, though I imagine he’ll find something to do. He usually does.” Rebecque sounded wistful, but then he smiled. “Have you eaten?”

“No, sir.”

“You look all in.” Rebecque, evidently realizing that the Englishman would not yield on the battle of the uniform, closed the travelling trunk. “Come on, I’ll find you some food.”

The clock in the hallway struck eleven. Sharpe, knowing that he must be at the ridge before dawn, left orders that he was to be called at half-past two, then carried Rebecque’s gift of bread and cold lamb out to the stables where Harper had sequestered a patch of comparatively dry straw for a bed.

“So how was His Highness?” the Irishman asked.

“As full of shit as an egg’s got meat.”

Harper laughed. “And tomorrow?”

“God knows, Patrick. I suppose tomorrow we meet the Emperor.”

“There’s a thought for you.”

“But you’re to stay out of trouble, Patrick.”

“I will!” Harper said indignantly, as though Sharpe’s nagging reminded him of his wife’s.

“You didn’t stay clear yesterday.”

“Yesterday! None of the bastards got near me yesterday! But I’ll stay out of harm’s way tomorrow, never you mind.”

They fell silent. Sharpe pulled the damp cloak over his wet uniform and listened to the rain smash down on the yard’s cobbles. He thought of Peter d’Alembord’s awful fears and remembered his own terror at Toulouse and he wondered why this battle was not affecting him in the same way. That very thought raised its own fears; that such a lack of dread was in itself a harbinger of disaster, yet, in the darkness and listening to the horses move heavily behind his bed, Sharpe could not feel any horror of the next day. He was curious about fighting the Emperor, and he was as apprehensive as any man, yet he was not suffering the gut-loosening terror that racked d’Alembord.

He listened to the rain, wondering how the next day would end.

Tomorrow night, he thought, he would either be in full retreat to the coast, or else a prisoner, or perhaps even marching southwards to pursue a defeated enemy. He remembered the victory at Vitoria that had broken the French in Spain, and how he and Harper had ridden after the battle into the field of gold and jewels. That had been an answer to the soldier’s prayer; God send a rich enemy and no surgeon’s knife.

Lucille would be worrying for news. Sharpe closed his eyes, trying to sleep, but sleep would not come. His shoulder and leg ached foully. Harper was already sleeping, snoring loud by the door. Under the stableyard’s archway the sentry stamped his feet. The smoke of his clay pipe came fragrant to the stable, helping to fend off the stench of the wet dungheap piled at the back of the yard. Upstairs, in the Prince’s room, a candle was blown out, plunging the house into darkness. Lightning flickered silent over the rooftops where the rain crashed and bounced and poured from the tiles.

On the twin ridges, three miles to the south, two armies tried to sleep in the downpour. They wrapped themselves in greatcoats for a little warmth, but the comfort was illusory for the rain had long soaked into their last stitches of clothing. Most of the fires had died and what small fuel might have fed them was being hoarded to heat the water for the morning’s drink of tea.

Few men really slept, though many pretended. Some sat in the small hedges, clutching their misery close through the hours of darkness. The picquets on the forward slopes of the ridges shivered, while on the reverse slopes, where the crops had already been trampled into quagmire, men lay in furrows that had become torrents of water. A few men, abjuring sleep, sat on their packs and talked softly- Some British horses, their pickets loosened from the wet ground, broke free and, scared by the ice-blue streaks of far lightning, galloped madly through the bivouacs. Men cursed and ran from the threat of the panicked hooves, then the horses crashed out into the wide valley which was dark and empty under the thrashing rainstorm.