When God made the world he made the big plain just for the cavalry. It was firm, or would be when the sun had dried off the night’s rain, and it was mostly level. The sabres could fall like scythes in the corn. The Arapiles, Greater and Lesser, God made for the gunners. From their summits, conveniently made flat so that the artillery could have a stable platform, the guns could dominate the plain. God had made nothing for the infantry, except a soil easily dug into graves, but the infantry were used to that.
All that Sharpe saw in a few seconds, because it was his trade to see ground and understand its use for killing men, and he knew, too, that if he had deceived La Marquesa then this would be the killing ground. Some men had already died here. In the wide valley between the British ridge and the French escarpment, Riflemen were fighting a desultory battle with French skirmishers. The Rifles had pushed the enemy back to the very crest of the escarpment, killing a handful, but no one was taking that battle very seriously. The second outbreak of fighting was serious. Portuguese troops had been sent to take the Greater Arapile, out in the plain, and the French infantry raced them to its summit, then poured musket fire down the precipitous slope and so the Portuguese had failed. The French had taken one of the two gun platforms that dominated the killing ground and already Sharpe could see French cannon on its summit. Two British guns sat silent on the Lesser Arapile. Their crews let their uniforms dry off from the night’s rain and they wondered what the day would bring. Probably, they thought, another desperate, scrambling march to get away from the French. They wanted to fight, but too many days of this campaign had ended in despondent retreat.
He rode close to the small farmhouse that was built at the southern end of the ridge crest. It was busy with staffofficers and Sharpe stopped the horse and slid uncomfortably to the ground. A voice made him turn round. “Richard! Richard!”
Hogan walked towards him with his arms outstretched, almost as if he wanted to embrace Sharpe. The Major stopped, shook his head. “I never thought to see you again.” He took Sharpe’s hand and pumped it up and down. “Back from the dead! You look better. How is the wound?”
“The doctors say a month, sir.”
Hogan beamed in delight. “I thought you were dead! And when we took you from that cellar.” He shook his head. „How do you feel?“
“Half strong.” Sharpe was embarrased by Hogan’s pleasure. “And you, sir?”
“I’m well. It is good to see you, it is.” He looked at the horse and his eyes widened in surprise. “You’ve come into money?”
“It’s a gift, sir.”
Hogan, who loved horses, peeled back the stallion’s lips to look at its teeth. He felt its legs, its stomach, and his voice was filled with admiration. “He’s a beauty. A gift?”
“From La Marquesa de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba.”
“Oh.” Hogan reddened. “Ah.” He patted the stallion’s neck, glanced at Sharpe. “I’m sorry about that, Richard.”
“Why? I suppose I made a fool of myself.”
“I wish I could with her.” Hogan grinned. “Did you tell her?”
“Yes.”
“And she believed you?”
“Yes.”
Hogan smiled. “Good, good.” He could not resist his pleasure. He danced a few ludicrous jig steps on the grass and beamed at Sharpe. “Oh good! We must tell the Peer. Have you had breakfast?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then have more! I’ll have my servant stable your horse.” He stopped and looked at Sharpe. “Was it hard?”
“Yes.”
Hogan shrugged. “I’m sorry. But if it works, Richard…‘
“I know.”
If it worked there would be a battle. The great drying plain south of the village, around the hills, would become a killing ground, spawned in a dark night of thunder, betrayal, and love. Sharpe went for more breakfast.
CHAPTER 20
The sun rose higher, its heat stronger, and it dried the killing ground and baked the rocks till they could not be touched. It hazed the horizon and made the air shimmer above the flat rock summits of the two Arapile hills. The gunners spat on the barrels of their cannon and watched the spittle hiss and boil away, and that was before the guns fired. Insects were busy in the grass and wheat, butterflies flickered above the poppies and cornflowers, and the last ragged clouds of the rainstorm died and disappeared. The land crouched beneath the heat and it was seemingly empty. From the ridge or the escarpment, from any of the hills, a man could not see more than one hundredth of the hundred thousand men who had gathered at the Arapiles that day. Wednesday, July 22nd, 1812.
Auguste Marmont was thirty-six years old. He was Duke of Ragusa, which meant little to him compared with being the youngest Marshal of France, and he was impatient. The Englishman, Wellington, had beaten every French General who had opposed him, but he had not beaten Marmont, nor would he. Auguste Marmont, son of an ironmaster, had outmanoeuvred the Englishman, outmarched him, and all that had to be done now was to outrun him to Portugal. Yet now, as the morning came towards its end, he was uncertain.
He rode his horse to the rear of the Greater Arapile, dismounted, and climbed the steep slope on foot. He used the wheel of a cannon for his telescope rest and he stared long and hard at the Lesser Arapile, at the village, and at the farm buildings at the southern end of the ridge. Other officers were using their glasses and one of them, a staff officer, pointed at the farm on the ridge. “There, sir.”
Marmont squinted as the sun flashed off the brass of his telescope, trained it, and there, clear in the lens’ circle, was a man in a long blue coat, grey trousers, and a plain dark hat. Marmont grunted. Wellington was on the ridge. “So what’s he doing?”
“Lunch, sir?” The staffofficers laughed.
Marmont frowned at the hint. “Going or staying?”
No one answered. Marmont panned the telescope to his left and saw two British guns on the Lesser Arapile and then more guns, perhaps four, on the hill behind the village. That was not many guns and he did not fear them. He straightened up from his glass and stared westward. “How’s the ground?”
‘Dry, sir.“
The plain stretched invitingly to the west. It was empty; a great golden road that might take him ahead of Wellington. Marmont itched to be moving, to be outmarching the British so he could block the road and win the victory that would tell France, Europe, the world, that Auguste Marmont had destroyed Britain’s army. He could taste that victory already. He would choose the battlefield, he would force the red-jacketed infantry to attack up some impossible slope that he would have lined with his beloved artillery, and he could already see the roundshot and canister flailing at the hopeless British lines. Yet now, on the Greater Arapile, he could feel doubt in his mind. He could see redcoats in the village, guns on the hills, but were they just a rearguard, or something more? “Is he going or staying?”