spirits. All save one.’ He gestured to Mitchell.
‘Yes, sir. I’ll keep my eye on him.’
‘Jolly good. You’d better see my sergeant.’ He turned. ‘Sarnt Bennett!’
Bennett arrived. Lamb spoke quietly to him. ‘Six odds and sods to join us, Sarnt Bennett. They’re either hopelessly lost or they’re deserters. But I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. They don’t look like bad sorts and they seem keen to go on, in any case. But keep your eye on them.’
Bennett smiled: ‘Very good sir. I’ll treat them just as if they were my own.’
With their newly acquired ‘odds and sods’ in tow, they pushed on across the fields, on roads that at times seemed no more than dust tracks. Another small town appeared, La Hulpe, but it too was deserted. They were climbing steadily now along a natural ridge and by Lamb’s compass were moving west by south west. He felt the pain in his heel with each step but said nothing. Smart, though, could see him wince. The pain in his back where he had been hit by the tree was also proving a hindrance to marching, and he hoped it did not presage anything serious. He knew too that he must keep up the pace for the men if they were to make any ground before nightfall. He was taking them west and then had thought it best to head north towards Brussels.
He saw a signpost pointing to the left off the road and for a reason he couldn’t fathom the names it bore struck him as curiously familiar: Lasne, Plancenoit.
Then as he looked, he was transported back to officer training classes in Tonbridge, to a young man seated at a desk studying long-distant British victories. Plancenoit. That was it. Wasn’t that the name of the village on the left flank of another British army? The village through which the Prussians had advanced to save the day and grant them victory over another tyrant. His men were marching onto the field of Waterloo. Smiling, he signalled to Bennett to come up. The man was nonplussed as to his grin.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Sarnt Bennett, do you have any idea where we are? Where exactly we’re going, I mean?’
‘On the road to Tournai, sir?’
‘Yes, of course we are, but here. Right here. Do you realise where we are right now?’
‘Can’t say as I do, sir.’
‘Waterloo, man. We’re on the battlefield of Waterloo.’
The sergeant smiled. ‘Are we, sir? Well, I’ll be . . . Shall I tell the men, sir? It might buck them up.’
‘Yes, go ahead, Sarnt. Why don’t you tell them? Anything to keep their spirits up, and we’ll need to stop soon enough anyway.’
They were in Plancenoit now and walking past the little church with its walled graveyard before turning right down a hedge-lined avenue. After a few minutes, and after a steady climb uphill beneath a canopy of branches, they emerged onto a plain. Away to the west the sun was sinking on the horizon, sending a glow across fields high with green corn and barley. To their left the landscape opened out before them and he could see the centre of what had been Wellington’s line. The men, although they had been informed by Sergeant Bennett as to where they were, seemed largely oblivious to the significance of the place and carried on marching along the crest of the ridge.
Valentine, however, approached Lamb wearing his usual, irritating grin. ‘Quite a coincidence, sir, isn’t it? Us being here.’
‘Yes, Corporal. I can’t say that I’d been expecting it.’
‘To tell the truth, sir, I think we are a little off course.’
‘You do?’
‘A little too far south, sir. In fact I suspect that we’re actually in the French sector.’
Lamb cursed. Might he have allowed the romantic idea of being in this place to divert him from their purpose? Worse than that, he seemed to have been caught out by Valentine.
They were nearing a crossroads now. It occurred to Lamb that it must surely be Wellington’s crossroads – his command post, at the centre of the ridge where the British infantry had stood against Napoleon. Up ahead he could see a lorry, and around it a group of soldiers.
Lamb counted six of them and whispered, ‘All right, Corporal, get ready.’
As the shadowy figures ahead noticed them, Lamb’s men froze and readied their weapons. He drew his revolver and waved the platoon forward as they began to edge away into a loose battle formation. He was trying to look more closely now at the men by the lorry in the half light, to make out the shape of their helmets, the easiest giveaway to their nationality. And then he saw to his relief that they were the distinctive bowl-shaped helmets of the French ‘poilus’. ‘All right, men, they’re French. Seems you must be right, Valentine.’
He moved to the front of the column and walked on. The French soldiers looked round and, seeing the shallow helmet of the British Tommy, did not bother even to pick up their guns, which lay piled against the side of the vehicle. One of them walked towards Lamb, and as they got closer to one another he opened a cigarette case. ‘Cigarette?’
Lamb noticed that he wore the insignia of an officer. A lieutenant of infantry. He reached out and took one of the precious cigarettes. Filterless, Turkish. ‘Thank you, Lieutenant.’
The man spoke in good English. ‘Etienne de Noyon, 116th Infantry. We did not expect to see you English down here. You are lost?’
‘Yes, I suspect that we are. Sorry, Peter Lamb, North Kents. We’ve become detached from our unit. I don’t suppose they’ve come this way?’
The Frenchman shrugged. ‘I don’t think so. But then we’ve been here ourselves for barely two hours and we’ve seen a few Tommies.’ He laughed and lit their cigarettes. ‘What d’you think? We’re supposed to be a road block, but how can we do that with one truck and six men?’
Lamb raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s bad news. In that case we are lost.’ The sun was sinking faster now. ‘Is there somewhere near here we can bunk down for the night? A barn?’
‘There’s the farmhouse, of course. It’s all shut up, though.’
He laughed and took a long drag of the cigarette before speaking. ‘It’s the farm that you British held out against us for so long back then. You know where we are?’
Lamb nodded. ‘Yes, of course. Funny, isn’t it?’
The Frenchman laughed. ‘Yes. Even funnier for me because then the Boche were on your side.’
Lamb smiled at him. ‘I don’t think we’d get much sleep there anyway. Too many ghosts. Anywhere else?’
‘There is another house up there past the crossroads. Opposite the big farm. To the north. But I think another British officer is staying there already. Curious that two of you should come here on the same day. Perhaps you know him. He came with a driver in a car.’
Lamb looked puzzled. What on earth was a staff officer doing so far south? And without an escort? ‘Thank you. We’ll take that road and try our luck. At least it’s in the right direction.’
The French man clicked his heels and bobbed his head. Lamb returned the compliment. ‘Bonne chance. Wish us luck with our road block.’
They turned right at the crossroads and continued for a short way between steep banks to either side. Then, as the road evened out, they saw on the right the walls of a farm and, opposite, a small group of houses, two cottages and what looked like a barn. In one of the houses a light was burning at the window against the blackout. It was as good as any a place to stop, and they were with friends.
Lamb turned to Bennett before walking on alone towards the door. ‘All right, Sarnt. We’ll bivouac here.’
‘You heard the officer. Off the road. Unsling yer packs. We’re making camp.’
‘What’s up, Sergeant?’ It was