“Nosey! Down! Leave him!”

The second Dragoon was dead, his throat sliced by an Hussar’s sabre. His killer, a toothless Prussian sergeant, grinned at Sharpe, then cleaned his curved blade by running it through a handful of his horse’s mane. The Sergeant wore a silver skull and crossbones on his black shako, a sight that made Sharpe’s prisoner even more nervous. The other Frenchmen were retreating up the slope, unwilling to give battle to the greater number of black-uniformed Hussars. The Hussar officer was ahead of his men, taunting the French officer to a duel, but the Frenchman was too canny to risk his life for such vain heroics.

Sharpe reached over and took the reins of the Dragoon’s horse. “Get down,” he spoke to the man in French.

“The dog, monsieurl‘

“Get down! Hurry!”

The prisoner dismounted, then stumbled out of the wood. When he took off his dented helmet he proved to have bristly fair hair above a snub-nosed face. He reminded Sharpe of Jules, the miller’s son from Seleglise, who used to help Sharpe with Lucille’s flock of sheep and who had been so excited when Napoleon returned to France. The captured Dragoon shivered as the German cavalry surrounded him.

The Prussian Captain spoke angrily to Sharpe in German. Sharpe shook his head. “You speak English?”

„Nein. Franqais, peut-etre?“

They spoke in French. The Hussar Captain’s anger had been prompted by the French refusal to fight him. “No one is allowed to fight today! We were ordered out of Charleroi. Why do we even come to the Netherlands? Why don’t we just give Napoleon the keys to Berlin and have done with it? Who are you, monsieur?”

“My name is Sharpe.”

“A Britisher, eh? My name’s Ziegler. Do you know what the hell is happening?”

Ziegler and his men had been driven westwards by a whole regiment of Red Lancers. Like the Dragoons on the pasture, Ziegler had retreated rather than face unequal odds. He and his men had been resting in the farm when they saw Sharpe’s ignominious flight. “At least we killed one of the bastards.”

Sharpe told Ziegler what he knew, which merely confirmed what the Prussian Captain had already discovered for himself. A French force was advancing northwards from Charleroi, probably aiming at the gap between the British and Prussian armies. Ziegler was now cut off on the wrong side of the Brussels road, but that predicament did not worry him. “We’ll just ride north till there are no more damned French, then go east.” He turned baleful eyes on the captured Dragoon. “Do you want the prisoner?” he asked Sharpe.

„I’ll take his horse.“

The terrified young Frenchman tried to answer Sharpe’s questions, but either he knew very little or else he was cleverly hiding what he did know. He said he believed the Emperor was with the troops on the Brussels road, but he had not personally seen him. He knew nothing of any advance further to the west near Mons.

Ziegler did not want to be slowed down by the prisoner, so he ordered the Frenchman to strip offhis boots and coat, then ordered his Sergeant to cut the man’s overall straps. “Go! Be grateful I didn’t kill you!” The Frenchman, in bare feet and clutching his overalls, hurried southwards.

Ziegler gave Sharpe a length of cold sausage, a hard-boiled egg, and a piece of black bread. “Good luck, Englishman!”

Sharpe thanked him. He had mounted the Dragoon’s horse and was leading the tired mare by her reins. He assumed that by now the allied Generals must be aware of the French advance, but it was still his duty to report what he had seen and so he kicked back his heels, waved farewell to the Prussians, and rode on.

Clouds were showing in the west. The vapour, rising over the North Sea, drifted slowly eastwards to heap white and grey thunderheads above the coast. The farmers feared heavy rain that would crush their ripening crops.

No such worries crossed the mind of the Prussian Major who had been sent to Brussels with news of the French advance and details of the Prussian response. The despatch told how the Prussian garrison at Charleroi was falling back, not on Brussels, but north-east to where the main Prussian army was assembling. The Major’s news was vital if the British and Dutch troops were to join the Prussians.

The Major faced a journey of thirty-two miles. It was a sunny and very hot day, and he was tired and monstrously fat. The exertions of the first five miles when he had thought the Dragoons might burst from behind every hedgerow or farmhouse had exhausted both the Major and his horse, so once he felt safe he sensibly slowed to a contemplative and restoring walk. After an hour he came to a small roadside inn that stood on the crest of a shallow hill and, twisting in his saddle, he saw that the inn gave him a good view of the road right to the horizon so that he would see any French pursuit long before it represented any danger. Nothing moved on the road now except for a man driving eight cows from one pasture to another.

The Major eased himself out of the saddle, slid heavily to the ground, and tied his horse to the inn’s signpost. He spoke passably-good French and enjoyed discussing food with the pretty young serving girl who came out to the table by the roadside, which the Major had adopted as his vantage point. He decided on roast chicken and vegetables, with apple pie and cheese to follow. He requested a bottle of red wine, but not of the common kind.

The sun shone on the long road to the south. Haymakers scythed steadily in a meadow a half-mile away, while much further off, far beyond the blur of fields and woods, dust whitened the sky. That was the artificial cloud kicked up by an army, but no troops threatened the Major’s peaceful rest and so he saw no reason to make undue haste, especially as the roast chicken proved to be excellent. The chicken’s skin was crisped nicely and its yellow flesh was succulent. When the girl brought the Major his pie, she asked him if Napoleon was coming.

“Don’t you worry, my dear! Don’t you worry.”

Far to the Major’s north, in Brussels, a detachment of Highland soldiers had been ordered to the Duke of Richmond’s house, where they were shown into the dazzling ballroom hung with the Belgian colours. Before supper was served the Highlanders would offer the guests a display of their dancing.

The Highlander Lieutenant asked that one of the unlit chandeliers be raised from floor level so he could make certain there would be adequate room for his dancers’ crossed swords. The Duchess, intent that every particular of her ball should be arranged to perfection, insisted on a demonstration. “You are bringing pipers tonight?” the Duchess demanded.

“Indeed, Your Grace.”

Which only gave the Duchess a new detail to worry over: how would the orchestra leader know when to stop his men playing so that the pipers could begin?

Her husband averred that doubtless the orchestra and the pipers would arrange things to their own satisfaction, and further opined that the Duchess should leave the ball’s arrangements to those who were paid to worry about the details, but the Duchess was insistent on voicing her concerns this afternoon. She earnestly asked her husband whether she should request the Prince of Orange not to bring Lieutenant-Colonel Sharpe?

“Who’s Sharpe?” the Duke asked from behind his copy of The Times.

“He’s the husband of Johnny Rossendale’s girl. She’s coming, I’m afraid. I tried to stop him bringing her, but he’s clearly besotted.”

“And this Sharpe is her husband?”

“I just told you that, Charles. He’s also an aide to Slender Billy.”

The Duke grunted. “Sharpe’s clearly a fool if he lets an idiot like Johnny Rossendale cuckold him.”

“That’s precisely why I think I should talk to the Prince. I’m told this Sharpe is an extremely uncouth man and is more than likely to fillet Johnny.”