“I don’t bloody believe it, sir. Tell me it’s not true.” Sergeant Patrick Harper shook his head as he stood with Sharpe and watched the South Essex Light Company fire two volleys to the orders of a Lieutenant. “Send this Battalion to Ireland, sir. We’d be a free country in two weeks! They couldn’t fight off a church choir!”

Sharpe gloomily agreed. It was not that the men did not know how to load and fire their muskets; it was simply that they did it with a painful slowness and a dedication to the drill book that was rigorously imposed by the Sergeants. There were officially twenty drill movements for the loading and firing of a musket; five of them alone applied to how the steel ramrod should be used to thrust ball and charge down the barrel, and the Battalion’s insistence on doing it by the book meant that Sharpe had timed their two demonstration shots at more than thirty seconds each. He had three hours, at the most, to speed them up to twenty seconds a shot and he could understand Harper’s reaction to the task. The Sergeant was openly scornful.

“God help us if we ever have to skirmish alongside this lot! The French will eat them for breakfast!” He was right. The company was not even trained well enough to stand in the battle-line, let alone skirmish with the Light troops out in front of the enemy. Sharpe hushed Harper as a mounted Captain trotted across to them. It was Lennox, Captain of the Light Company, and he grinned down on Sharpe.