A long and heaving swell was running from the west to break against the rocks beneath. To the north of the bluff was the French port of St Jean de Luz that was crammed with merchant shipping and fishing boats, while in the harbour’s outer roads a small Royal Navy flotilla lay at anchor. The flotilla consisted of three sloops, two frigates, and a great chequer-sided battleship, the Vengeance.

It was a shivering dawn, yet spring was coming and with the spring would come a resurgence of battle. The Emperor Napoleon had refused the peace terms offered by his enemies, so now the French armies would have to fight to defend their homeland. Their enemies were now all Europe. Wellington’s army of Britons, Spaniards and Portuguese had captured the south-western corner of France and would soon strike yet further into the heartland, while, far to the north, the Prussians, Austrians and Russians skirmished across Napoleon’s northern frontiers.

None of which seemed immediately important to Major Richard Sharpe as he began to pace the frosted grass on the bluffs flat summit. A cold wind was gusting from the ocean and William Frederickson took shelter from it in the lee of some bent and stunted pines. Sharpe, pacing up and down, was oblivious of the wind, obsessed instead with the thought of his own death. The most important thing, he decided, was that Jane was well taken care of. She already had the piece of paper which gave her authority over Sharpe’s money; which money was the profit of the plunder he had taken from the French baggage after the battle at Vitoria. Many soldiers had become rich that day, but few as rich as Major Richard Sharpe or Sergeant Patrick Harper.

Sharpe paced close to Frederickson. “Time?”

Frederickson fumbled with gloved hands to open his watch’s lid. “Twenty minutes past six.”

Sharpe grunted and turned away. The dawn had made the grey clouds palely luminous, while the sea was so dark that it seemed to be made of a liquid and sluggish slate.