it could pour a killing fire down on to their enemies. Sharpe drew out his telescope and gazed at the ridge’s summit where he saw fresh scars of newly dug earth which betrayed that the French, far from being ready to surrender, were still fortifying the hill’s top. ‘I hate God-damned bloody trenches,’ he said to Nairn.
‘You’ve faced them before?’
‘In the Pyrenees. It wasn’t pleasant.’
It began to rain as the two men rode back to the British lines. ‘Tomorrow’s Easter Day,’ Nairn said moodily.
‘Yes.’
Nairn took a long swig of rum from his flask, then offered it to Sharpe. ‘Even for a disbeliever like me it’s a bloody inappropriate day to fight a battle, wouldn’t you say?’
Sharpe did not reply for a gun had boomed behind him. He twisted in his saddle and saw the dirty puff of smoke on the crest of the ridge and, just a second later, he saw a spurt of water splash and die in the western marshes. The French were sighting in their twelve-pounders; the killing guns with their seven foot barrels.
The thought of those efficiently served weapons gave Sharpe a quick sudden pain in his belly. He had somehow convinced himself that there would be no fight, that the French would see how hopeless their cause was, yet the enemy gunners were even now ranging their batteries and Sharpe could hear the whining scrape of blades being whetted on stones in the British cavalry lines. At luncheon, which Nairn’s military family ate inside a large tent, Sharpe found himself hoping that peace would be announced that very afternoon, yet when a message arrived it proved to be orders for the brigade to prepare itself for battle the next day.
Nairn solemnly toasted his aides. ‘An Easter death to the French, gentlemen.’
‘Death to the French,’ the aides repeated the old toast, then stood to drink the King’s health.
Sharpe slept badly. It was not work that kept him awake, for the last marching orders had been copied and dispatched well before nightfall. Nor was it the supper of salt beef and sour wine that had made him restless. It was the apprehension of a man before battle; that same apprehension which had kept him awake on the nights before the duel with Bampfylde. The apprehension was fear; pure naked fear, and Sharpe knew that battle by battle the fear was getting worse for him. When he had first joined the army as a private he had been young and cocksure; he had even felt exhilarated before a fight. He had felt himself to be immortal then, and that had made him confident that he could maul and claw and kill any man who opposed him. Now, as an officer, and married, he possessed more knowledge and so had more fear. Tomorrow he could die.
He tried the old tricks to conquer the knowledge; attempting to snatch an augury of life or death from the commonplace. If a sparrow alighted this side of a puddle, he would live. He despised such superstitious obsessions, yet could not help but indulge them, though he had made the attempt too often in the past to believe in any such trivial portents. Indeed, every man in both armies, Sharpe knew, was trying to snatch just such prophecies from their fears, but there were few who would allow themselves to see death written in their stars, yet many must die. The eve of battle was a time for talismans and amulets and charms and prayers, but the dawn would bring the kick of musket-butts, the hiss of sabres and the skull-shattering sound of artillery firing. So Sharpe shivered in the night and hoped his death would be quick, and that he would not scream beneath the surgeon’s knife.
By dawn the rain had stopped and a drying wind blew across the countryside. High clouds scudded away from the sun’s rising as Sharpe walked through the smoking bivouac fires in search of a cavalry armourer who could put an edge on to his sword. It was the sword of a trooper of the Heavy Cavalry; a long-bladed, heavy, and unbalanced weapon. It was far too unwieldy for most men, even for the burly men who rode the big horses and trained with dumb-bells to give strength to their sword arms, but Sharpe liked the sword and was strong enough to make it into a responsive and murderous weapon.
He found an armourer who ran the blade up his treadled wheel and afterwards stropped it on his leather apron. Sharpe gave the man a coin, then shared a tin mug of tea. Afterwards, with the oiled sword-blade safe in its scabbard, he went back to Nairn’s tent outside of which he found the old Scotsman breakfasting on bread, cold salt-beef, and strong tea. Nairn watched with amusement as Sharpe unrolled the ancient and threadbare jacket from his pack. ‘While you were gone,’ Nairn said, ‘I was vouchsafed a new glimpse of our noble Colonel Taplow.’
Sharpe was grateful for the distraction from his fears. ‘Tell me, please?’
‘He’s holding a service of Holy Communion, for officers only, mark you, behind the latrines in ten minutes. You are invited, but I took the liberty of declining on your behalf. And on mine, as it happens.’
Sharpe laughed. He sat opposite Nairn and wondered whether his right hand was shaking as he reached for a slice of twice-baked bread. The butter was rancid, but the salt on the beef smothered the sour taste.
Nairn picked a shred of salt-beef from his teeth. ‘The thought of Taplow at his sacred offices is quite loathsome. Do you think God listens to such a man?’ Nairn poured rum into his tea.
‘I don’t know, sir.’
‘You’re not a believer, Sharpe?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Nor am I, of course, but I was still half tempted to attend Taplow’s magical incantations. Just in case they helped. I’m damned nervous, Sharpe.’
Sharpe felt a sudden strong surge of affection for Nairn. ‘Me too, sir.’
‘You? Truly?’
Sharpe nodded. ‘Truly. It doesn’t get easier.’
‘How many battles have you fought?’
Sharpe was dunking a lump of hard bread into his tea. He left it there as he thought, then shrugged. ‘God knows, sir. Dozens of the damn things. Too many.’
‘Enough to entitle you to be cautious, Richard. You don’t have to be heroic today. Leave that to some wet-behind-the-ears Lieutenant who needs to make his name.’
Sharpe smiled his thanks. ‘I’ll try, sir.’
‘And if I do anything foolish today, you will tell me?’
Sharpe looked up at the Scotsman, surprised by this confession of uncertainty. ‘You won’t need that, sir.’
‘But you’ll tell me?’ Nairn insisted.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Not that I’ll share any of the glory with you, Sharpe, you mustn’t think that, though I might say afterwards that you were moderately useful.’ Nairn laughed, then waved a greeting to two of his other aides who came to the breakfast table. ‘Good morning, gentlemen! I was thinking last night that perhaps Paris doesn’t count.’
‘Paris?’ One of the puzzled aides asked.
Nairn was evidently thinking of the war’s ending. ‘Perhaps the northern allies will take Paris, but Napoleon might just fall back and fall back, and we’ll keep matching on, and someday this summer the whole damned lot of us will meet in the very middle of France. There’ll be Boney himself in the centre, and every French soldier left alive with him, and the rest of Europe surrounding him, and then we’ll have a proper battle. One last real bastard of a killing. It seems unfair to have come this far and never actually fought against Napoleon himself.’ Nairn gazed wistfully across the bivouacs where the smoke of the cooking fires melded into skeins like a November mist. ‘I’ll keep the Highlanders in reserve, Sharpe. That way no one can accuse me of showing them favouritism.’
It was a strange world, Sharpe thought, in which to keep a battalion out of the battle line was construed as an insult. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘I suppose there’s no point in giving Captain Frederickson direct orders?’
‘Not if you want those orders obeyed, sir. But he knows what to do, and his men would appreciate a visit from you.’