“I’ve never seen so many guns,” Harper commented. Every few yards there was another battery of nine-pounders while, behind the ridge, the lethal short-barrelled howitzers waited in reserve.

“You can bet your last ha’pence that Napoleon’s got more guns than us,” Sharpe said grimly.

“All the same, it’ll be bloody slaughter if the Crapauds march straight across the valley.”

“Maybe they won’t. The little Dutch boy thinks they might hook round this end of our line.” Sharpe spoke Dourly, though in truth the Prince’s fear was a genuine and intelligent concern, and Sharpe, suddenly fearing that the Emperor might already have marched and that the French might already be threatening to spring a surprise attack on the British right flank, spurred his mare forward.

He reined in on the ridge above the chateau of Hougoumont. From here he could see far to the south-west, but nothing stirred in the grey morning. A handful of cavalry picquets from the King’s German Legion sat untroubled in the fields, proof that the French had not marched. The chateau itself buzzed with noise as the Coldstream Guards, who formed its garrison, finished their preparations. Sharpe could hear the sound of pickaxes making yet more loopholes in the thick walls of the barns and house.

A knot of horsemen was galloping along the ridge’s crest. The horses’ hooves flung up great gobs of mud and water from the soaking ground. The leading horseman was the Prince of Orange who, seeing Sharpe, raised a hand in greeting and swerved towards the two Riflemen. The Prince was elegantly dressed in a gold-frogged coat that was trimmed with black fur. “You were up early, Sharpe!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Nothing moving on the flank?”

“Nothing, sir.”

The Prince suddenly spotted that Sharpe still wore his Rifle green under the cloak. He was clearly tempted to say something, but just as clearly feared an act of downright disobedience that would betray his own lack of princely authority, so instead he scowled and stared towards the vulnerable open flank where the German horsemen sat like statues in the waterlogged meadows. “The Emperor will come round this way. You can depend on it!”

“Indeed, sir,” Sharpe said.

“An attack around our right will cut us off from the North Sea and take the French away from the Prussians, Sharpe, that’s what it’ll do, and that’s why the Emperor will attack here. A child could work that out! It’s a waste of time putting guns on the ridge. They’ll all have to be moved to this flank and it’ll be a shambles when the orders are given. But at least we’ll be ready for the move!”

“Are the Prussians coming, sir?” Sharpe asked.

The Prince frowned as though he found the question aggravating. “They’re coming.” The answer was grudging. “Blücher says two of his corps will be here by midday and a third will be hard on their heels. The message came a few minutes ago.”

“Thank God,” Sharpe said fervently.

The Prince, already irritated by Sharpe’s refusal to wear Dutch uniform, was galled by the Rifleman’s evident relief. “I don’t think we need be too grateful, Colonel Sharpe. I trust we can beat those devils without a few Germans, isn’t that so, Rebecque?”

“Indeed, Your Highness.” Rebecque, his horse just behind that of the Prince, said tactfully.

“We can beat them so long as we hold this flank.” The Prince turned his horse towards the chateau. “So keep watch here, Sharpe! The future of Europe may depend on your vigilance!”

The Prince shouted the last fine words as he spurred down the farm track, which led off the ridge to the chateau. Rebecque waited a few seconds until his master’s entourage was out of earshot, then added a few cautionary words. “The roads are very heavy, so I wouldn’t expect the Prussians till early afternoon.”

“But at least they’re coming.”

“Oh, they’re coming, right enough. They’ve promised it. We wouldn’t be fighting here if they weren’t.” Rebecque smiled to acknowledge his bald contradiction of the Prince’s confidence. “May I wish you joy of the day, Sharpe?”

“And the same to you, sir.”

They shook hands, then Rebecque trotted after his master who had disappeared into Hougoumont’s big courtyard.

Patrick Harper glanced up at the sky to judge the time. “The Germans will be here by early afternoon, eh? Where will they come from?”

“From over there.” Sharpe pointed to the west, far beyond the elm tree and beyond the left flank of Wellington’s line. “And I’ll tell you something else, Patrick. You were right. It’s going to be bloody murder.” Sharpe turned to glower at the empty enemy ridge. “Napoleon’s not going to manoeuvre. He’s going to come straight for us like a battering ram.”

Harper was amused at Sharpe’s sudden grim certainty. “With the future of Europe at stake?”

Sharpe did not know why he was suddenly so certain, unless it was an inability to agree with anything the Prince of Orange believed. He attempted a more acceptable justification for his certainty. “Boney will want to get it done quickly, so why manoeuvre? And he’s never cared how many of his men die, so long as he wins. And he’s got enough men over there to hammer us bloody, so why shouldn’t he just march straight forward and have the damned business done?”

“Thank God for the Prussians then,” Harper said grimly.

“Thank God, indeed.”

Because the Prussians had promised, and were coming.

Marshal Prince Blucher, Commander of the Prussian army, had promised he would march to fight beside Wellington, but Blücher’s Chief of Staff, Gneisenau, did not trust the Englishman. Gneisenau was convinced that Wellington was a knave, a liar and a trickster who, at the first sniff of cannon-fire, would run for the Channel and abandon the Prussians to Napoleon’s vengeance.

Blucher had scorned Gneisenau’s fears and ordered his Chief of Staff to organize the march to Waterloo. Gneisenau would not directly disobey any order, but he was a clever enough man to make sure that his method of obedience was tantamount to disobedience.

He therefore commanded that General Friedrich Wilhelm von Billow’s Fourth Corps should lead the advance on Waterloo. Of all the Prussian corps the Fourth was the furthest away from the British. Making the Fourth march first would inflict a long delay on the fulfilment of Blucher’s promise, but Gneisenau, fearing that von Billow might show a soldier’s haste in marching to the expected sound of the guns, further ordered the thirty thousand men of the Fourth Corps to march by a particular road that not only led through the narrow streets of Wavre, but also crossed a peculiarly narrow and inconvenient bridge. The Fourth Corps was also commanded to march through the cantonments of Lieutenant-General Pirch’s Third Corps, which was instructed to leave its guns and heavy supply wagons parked on the road. Once von Billow’s thirty thousand men had edged past those obstructions, Pirch was permitted to begin his own march in von Billow’s footsteps. Lieutenant-General Zieten’s Second Corps, which was only twelve miles from Waterloo and the closest of all the Prussian Corps to the British, was firmly ordered to stay in its cantonments until the Fourth and Third had passed it by, and then the Second was to take a circuitous northerly route that would still further delay its arrival on the battlefield.

It needed a masterful piece of staff work to create such chaos, but Gneisenau was a master and, proving that fortune will often favour the competent, an extra delay was imposed when a burning house blocked a street in Wavre so that von Billow’s men were stalled almost before their march had begun. The soldiers just grounded their muskets and waited.

Somewhere to the south a French Corps was blundering about in search of the Prussian army, but Gneisenau was not worried by that threat. All that mattered was that the precious Prussian army should not be sucked into the huge defeat that the Emperor was about to inflict on the British, and Gneisenau, confident that his skill had averted such a disaster, ordered his breakfast.