“Yes, sir.” Challon’s voice was toneless.

“It means you obey me.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ducos then took a risk. Spread on the table was a newspaper which he ordered Challon to throw to the floor.

The Sergeant was puzzled at the order, but obeyed. Then he went very still. The newspaper had hidden two white cockades; two big cockades of flamboyant white silk.

Challon stared at the symbols of Napoleon’s enemies, and Ducos watched the pigtailed Sergeant. Challon was not a subtle man, and his leathery scarred face betrayed his thoughts as openly as though he spoke them aloud. The first thing the face betrayed to Ducos was that Sergeant Challon knew what was concealed in the four crates. Ducos would have been astonished if Challon had not known. The second thing that the Sergeant betrayed was that he, just like Ducos, desired those contents.

Challon looked up at the small Major. “Might I ask where Colonel Maillot is, sir?”

“Colonel Maillot contracted a sudden fever which my physician thinks will prove fatal.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, sir,” Challon’s voice was very wooden, “as some of the lads liked the Colonel, sir.” For a second, as he looked into those hard eyes, Ducos thought he had wildly miscalculated. Then Challon glanced at the incriminating cockades. “But some of the lads will learn to live with their grief.”

The relief washed through Ducos, though he was far too clever to reveal either that relief or the fear which had preceded it. Challon, Ducos now knew, was his man. “The fever,” Ducos said mildly, “can be very catching.”

“So I’ve heard, sir.”

“And our responsibility will demand at least six men. Don’t you agree?”

“I think more than that will survive the fever, sir,” Challon said as elliptically as Ducos. They were now confederates in treachery, and neither could state it openly, though each perfectly understood the other.