Sharpe vomited.
Afterwards, gasping for breath from the stomach-griping heaves, she went to the window, rested her forehead on the cool glass, and stared at the great ridge of cloud that blackened the western sky. Beneath her, in the hotel yard, a groom whistled as he carried two pails of water from the pump. A flock of pigeons circled, then fluttered down to the stable roof. Jane was aware of none of it, not even of the harsh percussive grumble of gun- fire. She closed her eyes, took a deep, tentative breath, then groaned.
She was pregnant.
She had suspected as much before she and Lord John had left England, but now she was certain. Her breasts were sore and her stomach sour. She ticked the months down on her fingers, reckoning that she would have a January child; a winter’s bastard. She swore softly.
She stepped away from the window and crossed to the dressing-table where last night’s candles still stood in their puddles of cold wax. She still felt sick. Her skin was prickly with sweat. She hated the thought of being pregnant, of being lumpish and awkward and gross. She rang for her maid, then sat heavily to stare into the looking-glass.
„Has Harris returned?“ Jane asked the maid.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Tell him I shall want him to take a message to his lordship.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Jane waved the maid out of the room, then drew a heavy sheet of creamy writing paper towards her. She dipped a quill in ink, sat for a moment in thought, then began to write. The guns fired on.
More troops were arriving at Quatre Bras; troops who had marched till their blistered feet were agony, but who now had to plunge straight into the humid, smoke’thickened air where, unit by unit, the Duke was building the force that would counter-attack the French and drive them back to Frasnes. More and more British guns crashed and jangled off the road and onto the crushed rye stalks. Fires were burning in the crops behind the French skirmishers as British howitzer shells exploded. The battle was not won yet, but the Duke was beginning to feel like a man who had escaped defeat. He knew his Guards Division was close, and there was even a rumour that the British cavalry might reach the crossroads before dark.
A small west wind was stirring the thick smoke. The British skirmishers, reinforced by newly arrived battalions of light infantry, were beginning to blunt the fire of the Voltigeurs. The French artillery was still taking its grievous toll of the infantry by the crossroads, but now the Duke could replace the men who fell. If Blucher held off the Emperor, and if Marshal Ney was thrown back from Quatre Bras, then in the morning the Prussian and British armies would combine and Napoleon would have lost.
The Duke opened his watch lid. It was half-past five of a summer’s evening. The battlefield was darkening, shadowed by the huge western clouds and shrouded by its pall of smoke, but plenty of daylight remained for the Duke’s counter-stroke. “Any news of the Guards?” he asked an aide.
It seemed that the Guards were being apprehended by the Prince of Orange who, as company after company of the elite troops arrived, was sending them north through the great wood to reinforce Saxe-Weimar’s men. The Duke, muttering that the Prince was a bloody little boy who should be sent back to his nursery, ordered that the Guards were not to be so dispersed in penny packets, but were to be held ready for his orders.
“Your Grace!” an aide called in warning. “Enemy cavalry!”
The Duke turned to stare southwards. Through the smoke he saw a mass of French cavalry spurring up from dead ground and heading slantwise across the field. They were a half-mile away, and well spread out in four long lines. Their loose formation made them a poor target for artillery, but the British gunners loaded with common shell and did their best. The explosions knocked down a few men and horses, but the vast mass of French cavalry trotted safely through the bursting patches of flame and smoke.
The Duke extended his telescope. “Where are they going?” He was puzzled. Surely his opponent had learned by now that cavalry could achieve nothing against the stalwart squares which had been reinforced with the newly arrived guns?
“Perhaps they’re testing Halkett’s men?” an aide suggested.
“Then they’re committing suicide!” The Duke had his glass trained on the front line of cavalry that was composed of the heavy Cuirassiers in their steel armour. Behind the Cuirassiers were the light horsemen with their lances and sabres. “They must be insane!” the Duke opined. “Halkett’s in square, isn’t he?”
Almost in unison the telescopes of the Duke’s staff officers swept to the right of the field, racing past the patches of smoke to focus on the four battalions of Halkett’s brigade which stood in front of the wood. The brigade was obscured by cannon smoke, but there were enough rifts in the dirty screen to show that something had gone terribly wrong. “Oh, Christ.” The voice spoke helplessly from the Duke’s entourage. There was a moment’s silence, and then again. “Oh, Christ.” “
“Sir?” Rebecque handed the Prince his telescope and pointed towards Gemioncourt farm. “There, sir.”
The Prince trained the heavy glass. Thousands of horsemen had appeared from the dead ground and now, in four long lines, swept either side of the farm. Dust spurted from the road as the horsemen crashed across. The enemy cavalry was trotting, but, even as the Prince watched, he saw them spur into a canter. The Cuirassiers had their heavy straight swords drawn. Long horsehair plumes tossed and waved from the steel brightness of their helmets. A Cuirassier was hit by a British roundshot and the Prince involuntarily jumped as, magnified in his lens, the steel clad horseman seemed to explode in blood and metal. The Lancers and Hussars, cantering behind, divided to pass the butcher’s mess left on the ground.
“They’re going for Halkett’s brigade, sir,” Rebecque warned.
“Then tell Halkett to form square!” The Prince’s voice was suddenly high-pitched, almost sobbing. “They’ve got to form square, Rebecque!” he shouted, spraying Rebecque with spittle. “Tell them to form square!”
“It’s too late, sir. It’s too late.” The French were already closer to the infantry brigade than any of the Prince’s staff. There was no time to send any orders. There was no time to do anything now, except watch.
“But they’ve got to form square!” the Prince screamed like a spoilt child.
Too late.
The French cavalry was led by Kellerman, brave Kellerman, hero of Marengo, and veteran of a thousand charges. In most of those charges he had led his men steadily forward, not going from the canter to the gallop till he was just a few yards from the enemy, for only by such discipline could he guarantee that his horsemen would crash in an unbroken line against the enemy.
But this evening he knew that every second’s delay would give the redcoats a chance to form square and that once they were in square his horsemen were beaten. A horse would not charge a formed square with its four ranks bristling with muskets spitting fire and bright with bayonets. The horses would swerve round the square, receiving yet more fire from its flanks, and Kellerman had already lost too many men to the British squares this day.
But these redcoats were in line. They could be attacked from their flank, from their front and from behind, and they must not be given time to change formation and thus Kellerman abandoned the discipline of a slow methodical advance and instead shouted at his trumpeters to sound the full charge. Damn the unbroken line hitting home together; instead Kellerman would release his killers to a bloody gallop and loose them to the slaughter.
“Charge!”
Now it was a race between Cuirassiers, Hussars and Lancers. The Cuirassiers raked their horse’s flanks and let their heavy horses run free. The Lancers dropped their points and screamed their war cries. The sound of the charge was like a thousand demented drummers as the hooves beat the earth and churned up a mass of blood and soil and straw that flecked the sky behind the four charging lines, which slowly unravelled as the faster horses raced ahead. A cannon-ball screamed between the horses, ploughed a furrow and disappeared southwards. A Lancer swerved round a dead skirmisher. The Lancer’s gloved hand was tight on his weapon’s grip which was made from cord lashed about the long ash staff. The lance’s blade was a smooth spike of polished steel, nine inches long and sharpened like a needle. A shell erupted harmlessly in front of the leading horsemen; the smoke of its explosion whipping back past the galloping killers. A red-plumed trumpeter played mad wild notes. Ahead, beyond the Cuirassiers, the redcoats seemed frozen in terror. This was a ride to death, to a triumph, to the glory of the best and most lethal cavalry in all the world.
“Charge!” Kellerman bellowed, the trumpeters echoed his call, and the French torrent surged on.
