“Yes.” Sharpe knew he would never forgive himself if he did not give Hogan some gesture of friendship, however useless, so he stooped and took the sick man’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“Maquereau,” Hogan said quite distinctly.

“Maquereau?”

“Major!”

Sharpe obeyed the surgeon’s voice. “Does maquereau mean anything to you?”

“It’s a fish. The mackerel. It’s also French slang for pimp, Major. I told you, his wits are wandering.” The surgeon closed the door on the sickroom. “And one other piece of advice, Major.”

“Yes?”

“If you want your wife to live, then tell her she must stop visiting Colonel Hogan.”

Sharpe paused by his damp luggage. “Jane visits him?”

“A Mrs Sharpe visits daily/ the doctor said, ”but I have not the intimacy of her first name. Good day to you, Major.“

It was winter in France.

The floor was a polished expanse of boxwood, the walls were cliffs of shining marble, and the ceiling a riot of ornate plasterwork and paint. In the very centre of the floor, beneath the dark, cobweb encrusted chandelier and dwarfed by the huge proportions of the vast room, was a malachite table. Six candles, their light too feeble to reach into the corners of the great room, illuminated maps spread on the green stone table.

A man walked from the table to a fire that burned in an intricately carved hearth. He stared at the flames and, when at last he spoke, the marble walls made his voice seem hollow with despair. “There are no reserves.”

“Calvet’s demi-brigade…”

“Is ordered south without delay.” The man turned from the fire to look at the table where the candle-glow illuminated two pale faces above dark uniforms. “The Emperor will not take it kindly if we…”

“The Emperor,” the smallest man at the table interrupted in a voice of surprising harshness, “rewards success.”