It had taken Sharpe three days to catch up with the advancing army, and another half-day to find Nairn, whose brigade was on the left flank of the advance. Sharpe had eventually discovered the Scotsman on a hilltop above a ford which the British had captured that morning and through which a whole Division now marched. The French were only visible as a few retreating squadrons of cavalry far to the cast, though a battery of enemy artillery occasionally fired from a copse of trees about a mile beyond the river.

“You brought Frederickson?” Nairn now asked.

“His men are at the foot of the hill.”

“Creased his bum!” Nairn laughed again. “Can I assume from your marital odour that Jane is not with you?”

“She sailed for home two days ago, sir.”

“Best place for a woman. I never really did approve of officers carrying wives around like so much baggage. No offence, of course, Jane’s a lovely girl, but she’s still baggage to an army. Hello! Christ!” These last words were a greeting for a French cannonball that had thumped across the river and bounced uphill to force Nairn into a frantic evasion that almost spilled him from his saddle. The Scotsman calmed his horse, then gestured over the river. “You can see what’s happening, Sharpe. The bloody French try to stop us at every river, and we just outflank the buggers and keep moving.” At the foot of the slope Nairn’s brigade patiently waited their turn to cross the ford. The brigade was composed of one Highland battalion and two English county battalions.

“What exactly do you want me to do?” Sharpe asked Nairn.

“Damned if I know. Enjoy yourself. I am!” And indeed the Scotsman, who had endured years of dreary staff work for Wellington, revelled in his new command. Nairn’s only regret was that so far there had been no battle in which he could demonstrate how foolish Wellington had been in not giving him a brigade much earlier. “God damn it, Richard, there’s not much of the war left. I want one crack at the garlic-reekers.”