Sharpe 3-Book Collection 7: Sharpe's Revenge, Sharpe's Waterloo, Sharpe's Devil by Bernard Cornwell Page A

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 marching 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.’
    ‘Of course, of course.’ Nairn added more rum to his tea, then frowned. ‘Frederickson’s Rifles arc the only men in this brigade who eat properly. They never have salt beef! Why do we never catch them looting?’
    ‘Because they’re Riflemen, sir. They’re much too clever.’
    Nairn smiled. ‘At least there’ll be no more salt beef once this battle’s won. We’ll have French rations.’
    The other aides arrived, faces gleaming from their razors. Sharpe had still not shaved, and he had a sudden irrational conviction that he would survive the day if he did not shave, then another equally strong impulse said that he would only live if he did shave, and he felt the reptilian squirm of fear in his belly. He stared up at the long, long ridge that, just like the British bivouacs, was topped by a shifting layer of smoke. The smoke was thick enough to suggest the large numbers of Frenchmen who would be defending the high ground this day. Sharpe thought of Jane and suddenly longed for the Dorset house with its implicit promise of a nursery. He was about to ask whether any mail had arrived when a light flashed from the ridge top and Sharpe knew it was the sun reflecting from a telescope as an enemy officer gazed down at the British lines. The fear stirred in Sharpe. He was tempted to take some of Nairn’s rum, but resisted.
    The waiting abraded the fear. The first Spanish, Portuguese and British brigades had marched long before dawn, their long lines uncoiling from the encampment in a sluggishly macabre motion, but Nairn’s brigade would be one of the last to leave the lines. They could only wait, pretending confidence, as the minutes wore on. Nairn inspected his battalions and tossed gruff encouragement to the soldiers. Some of the Highlanders sang psalms, but their tunes were so dirge-like that Sharpe went out of earshot. He had decided that his survival lay in not shaving.
    It took another half hour before the orders came from Division and Nairn at last could order his men forward. Taplow’s battalion led, and the Highlanders marched at the rear. The brigade followed the other battalions who were already