Vincent reckoned they must be at least twenty miles ahead of the rest of the army, which would be slowed by the heavy guns and baggage wagons. That afternoon they passed Condé, a fortress town, and blue-uniformed men watched them from the walls, but made no effort to oppose them. ‘Valenciennes next,’ Vincent said, ‘a much bigger garrison.’
The rain had stopped and a weak sun lit the flat countryside, and Sharpe kept the column moving. ‘We’ll stop close to Valenciennes,’ he told Vincent. ‘You think there’ll be trouble there?’
‘Garrison troops gone soft,’ Vincent said scornfully. ‘They’ll leave us alone if they’ve a scrap of sense.’
‘How many in the garrison?’
‘Lord knows,’ Vincent said airily, ‘maybe a thousand?’
They skirted Valenciennes, again watched by troops on the town’s ramparts. Sharpe wanted to stop, but not so close to an enemy fortress and so they marched on, following field tracks to the west of the town.
Then the enemy opened fire. Two cannons shot from a bulwark, their balls searing across the damp fields to throw up sprays of earth and water some fifty paces to the right of the column. ‘Cold barrels,’ Sharpe said.
‘Cold?’ Vincent asked.
‘Cannons fire further with hot barrels,’ Sharpe said, ‘so the next shots will be closer.’
The next shots screamed overhead, missing the Light Company’s shakos by less than a yard. Sharpe hurried the pace.
‘Sir?’ Private Bee said nervously.
‘What is it, Bee?’
‘Horsemen, sir, behind us.’ Bee, with the added height of being on Sharpe’s horse, could see further. Sharpe turned and saw three blue-uniformed horsemen following them. The cannons hammered again, their sound bellowing across the damp fields, but the artillerymen on the wall had overcompensated and their shots again fell short and were stopped by the soggy ground. The horsemen stayed well back. Sharpe thought of leaving Riflemen behind to ambush the followers, but decided it was best not to provoke an enemy that could outnumber them.
He finally stopped some five miles south of Valenciennes in a wood that gave them timber for shelters and fires. The three horsemen left at dusk, spurring back to the town. ‘I don’t like it,’ Sharpe said, peeling a hard-boiled egg.
‘What?’ Vincent asked.
‘Maybe I should have shot those three. Some ambitious bastard back in the town might be reckoning we’re easy meat.’
‘They’ll have heard of Boney’s defeat,’ the Major said, ‘and won’t want trouble.’
‘And they’ll have counted us as we went past,’ Sharpe insisted, ‘and they’ll know we’re on our own. Harry!’
Price ran to Sharpe’s side. ‘Sir?’
‘Picquets, Harry, strong ones, watching the road back to town.’
At nightfall Sharpe walked the picquet line that was strung between the road and the River Scheldt that ran to the west. The small rain had stopped and the sky was ragged with clearing clouds. ‘You really think they’ll come, sir?’ Price asked him.
‘I’ve no idea, Harry, but we’re a tempting target. One badly understrength battalion all on its own? I’d attack us.’
‘They must know the war’s lost!’
‘Must they? Major Vincent assures me Davout has over a hundred thousand men around Paris, and Marshal Grouchy escaped Waterloo with a whole army corps.’
‘And we’re all alone in France,’ Price said dourly.
‘Don’t worry, Harry, you’ve got me.’ Sharpe clapped him on the shoulder. ‘And if they do come, Harry, you’ll command the skirmishers.’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘The lads know what to do,’ Sharpe reassured Price, who was new to the Light Company, ‘your job is to pull them back before the enemy skirmishers overwhelm them. Best job in the army, Harry, commanding a Light Company! You’ll love it!’
Sharpe went back to his bivouac where Harper was making tea.
‘How’s Mister Price?’
‘Nervous, but he’ll do. He’s a natural Light Company officer.’
‘Irresponsible?’
‘Daring and quick-thinking.’
Harper broke a double-baked biscuit in two and handed one piece to Sharpe. ‘You think they’ll attack us?’
‘For the glory of France, it’s possible. But get some sleep.’
‘They won’t come, Sharpe,’ Vincent broke in. ‘Their job is to defend the town, not sally out for a fight.’
‘We’re too tempting a target,’ Sharpe said, ‘and all it needs is one ambitious bastard who wants an easy victory. They’ll come.’
‘Five guineas says you’re wrong. The garrison will be tucked up in their beds by now.’
‘Five guineas,’ Sharpe agreed, drank his tea, and went to bed himself.
The sound of musketry woke Sharpe, though it took him a few seconds to realise where he was. Then he swore, rolled out of the cloak that served as a blanket, and reached for his rifle. The moon was nearly full, and high in the eastern sky, its light filtering through the thick trees where the battalion was camped. He kicked a sleeping lump. ‘Wake up! We’ve got visitors.’
‘God save Ireland,’ Harper groaned.
Another spatter of musketry sounded from the north of the trees and just then one of the picquets came running back. ‘Mister Sharpe! Mister Sharpe!’
‘Calm down, lad, we’re awake.’
The picquet was Rifleman McGurk. ‘Mister Sharpe! There are hundreds of them! Coming up by the river!’
‘Then we’ll just have to send them home,’ Sharpe said. Harper was fully awake now. ‘Pat, stir the damn lot. I want the battalion at the northern edge of the trees, but in cover. Grenadier Company on the right.’
Sharpe plucked McGurk’s elbow. ‘Show me,’ he said, and followed the Rifleman through the trees, which grew dense at the top of a low hill. He stopped at the northern edge where the land fell very gently away towards the town of Valenciennes. To his left, the west, was the River Scheldt beside which a rutted farm track came towards the woods where the Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers had bivouacked, and on that track was what looked like a large battalion of enemy troops. The moon, glowing between two heaps of cloud, was bright enough to show that the advancing men were carrying muskets. ‘About a thousand of them,’ Sharpe grunted, having done a swift count of the approaching ranks. ‘Where’s Captain Price?’ Sharpe asked McGurk.
‘Out there, sir,’ McGurk pointed towards a hedgerow some two hundred yards north.
‘Go find him,’ Sharpe said, ‘and tell him to suck the buggers in to us.’
Sharpe, who had led a Light Company, trusted Price to know what he meant. Price’s picquets were firing at the approaching troops from the cover of the hedgerow. The leading French were a hundred paces beyond them, advancing in a long dark column. ‘No Voltigeurs.’ Pat Harper appeared beside Sharpe.
‘None that I can see, Pat.’
‘So what will they do?’
‘Die,’ Sharpe said nastily. ‘As the men arrive, make them lie down at the wood’s edge, and send Captain Jefferson to me.’
Harper vanished in the shadowed trees where men were hurrying. Vincent found Sharpe. ‘What’s happening, Colonel?’
‘You owe me five guineas.’