"It's all right, Charlie, " d'Alembord said. "He won't shoot. It's a flag of truce." He looked back to Caillou. "Monsieur? I insist upon knowing if you command here."

"Just go! " Caillou shouted, but at that moment Nicholls's horse stumbled a pace forward and Caillou, overwhelmed with rage for the anticipated shame of surrender, pulled the pistol's trigger.

The white flag toppled slowly. Nicholls stared at Caillou with a look of astonishment on his young face, then he turned in puzzlement to gaze at d'Alembord. D'Alembord reached out a hand, but Nicholls was already falling.

The bullet had broken through one of the gold laces his mother had sewn onto his jacket and then it had pierced his young heart.

Caillou seemed suddenly shocked, as if he had only just realized the enormity of his crime. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. Instead, a second pistol sounded and Caillou, just like Nicholls, toppled dead from his horse.

Colonel Gudin put his pistol back in its holster. "I command here, " he told d'Alembord in English. "To my shame, sir. I command here. You have come to offer terms?"

"I have come to fetch your surrender, sir, " d'Alembord said, and saw from Gudin's face that he would get it. The battle was over.

SHARPE heard of Nicholls's death while he was still watching the French take their dead from the northern slope. He swore when he heard the news, and then he stalked back to the village with pure bloody murder in his head.

A ground of unarmed French soldiers stood nervously outside the tavern, and he pushed his angry way through them and then kicked open the door. "What bastard Frenchman dared killed my officer?" he shouted, storming into the room with one hand on the hilt of his heavy cavalry sword.