“Sir!” Patrick Harper, who had silently reappeared at the bridge, pointed northwards. “Sir!”

Two horsemen had appeared. They had not come by the road, but instead, perhaps forewarned by the retreating infantry, had made a wide detour through the fields. Now, with white handkerchiefs skewered to their sword-tips as makeshift flags of truce, they galloped their horses towards the bridge.

They were good horses, corn fed and with strong hindquarters. Both took the soft, plunging ground like thoroughbreds and were scarcely blowing as they were curbed beside Sharpe who waved down the cautious rifles of Frederickson’s newly arrived Company.

The Comte de Maquerre, dressed in his Chasseurs Britannique uniform beneath his pale cloak, nodded cautiously at Sharpe. The other rider was a slim, middle-aged man in civilian clothes. He had a face of such startling and pleasant honesty that Sharpe’s weariness and self-disgust seemed to vanish like frost beneath the rising sun. The man was so calm and self-composed that Sharpe instinctively smiled in response to his greeting, which consisted of mild astonishment at the evidence of carnage on the road and a frank expression of admiration for Sharpe’s success.

The man was French, but spoke good English, and his loyalty was proclaimed by the white cockades that he wore, not only on his brown cloak, but also on his bicorne hat. “I am Jules Favier, assistant to the Mayor of Bordeaux.” He spoke as he climbed from the saddle. “And I am at your service, Major.”

The Comte de Maquerre stayed on horseback. His thin face, reddened by the cold, seemed nervous. “Bordeaux has risen, Major.”

Sharpe stared up at the Comte. “Risen?” This was the news Sharpe most feared, the spur into what Elphinstone had described as madness.

“Risen for the King!” Favier said happily. “The Bonapar-tistes have been ejected!” Favier, contentment suffusing his honest, cold-chapped face, smiled. “The rising ended when the garrison came over to our side. The white flag of Bourbon flies, the defences are manned by subjects of his most Christian Majesty, King Louis XVIII, whom God bless.”

“Indeed,” Sharpe said. The news explained why the Comte de Maquerre could wear an enemy’s uniform deep in France, but the news meant much, much more. If it was true that the third city of France had rebelled against Bonaparte and persuaded its garrison troops to forsake their Imperial allegiance, then Sharpe was hearing of the end of this war. Wigram and Bampfylde would be proved right. Sharpe knew he should feel an elation, a great soaring of spirit that all the sacrifices had been worthwhile and that twenty-one years of relentless savagery had been brought to peace by Napoleon’s fall, but he could raise nothing more than a grim smile to meet Favier’s enthusiasm.

“We have come,” de Maquerre said, “for your help.” He spoke lamely, almost as if what he said gave him embarrassment.

Favier took a paper from his saddle-bag. “If you will accept this, monsieur, on behalf of the Provisional and Royalist Government of Bordeaux.” He handed the paper to Sharpe, then gave a small bow.

The paper was entirely in French, and was decorated with an elaborate seal. Sharpe saw that his name had been spelt wrong; without its final ‘e’. “What is it?”

“You have no French?” Favier sounded politely surprised. „Monsieur, it is a commission that appoints you a Major General in the forces of his most Catholic Majesty, King Louis XVIII of France, whom God bless.“

“God bless him,” Sharpe said automatically. “A Major General?”

“Indeed.” De Maquerre spoke from his saddle. It had been Ducos’ idea that a soldier as ambitious as Sharpe could not resist such a lure.

Sharpe was wondering what Wellington would make of the appointment, and imagined that aristocrat’s grim amusement that a one time private should be offered such a rank. “I…” he began, but Favier interrupted him.

“Our citizens have taken Bordeaux, monsieur, but their confidence needs the presence of an ally. Especially an ally as famous and redoubtable as yourself.” Favier softened his flattery with an honest smile. “And once it is known that Allied troops are in the city, then the whole countryside will rise with us.” Favier spoke with an enthusiasm and confidence that was entirely lacking in the Comte.

Sharpe thought of the local Mayor who had already tried to surrender. Doubtless France was filled with men and women eager to disavow their Napoleonic past and declare for the winning side, but Sharpe was equally sure that Napoleon’s fanatical supporters were not so ready for surrender. The nearest allied forces to Bordeaux, besides Sharpe, were a hundred miles away and there was Marshal Soult with a French army screening their advance. “I don’t,” Sharpe said, “have orders from my General that would allow me to help you.” He held the commission out to Favier.

“You have orders,” de Maquerre said coldly, “to give me every assistance.”

Favier seemed upset by de Maquerre’s hostile tone. He smiled at Sharpe. “Your Field Marshal, I think, would admire a soldier who grasped the moment?”

“Maybe.”

“And you have a reputation, monsieur, as a man not afraid of great risks?”

Sharpe said nothing. He had been secretly charged by Elphinstone with scotching Bampfylde’s high hopes. One part of Sharpe, that part which had so often dared impossible things, drew him towards Bordeaux, but the soldier within him could imagine his men besieged in that city and surrounded by a population that, with a brigade of Soult’s veterans pressing close, might well decide that their change of allegiance had been premature. “I cannot, sir.” He held out the commission again. “I’m sorry.”

A look of disappointment, suggesting personal hurt, crossed Favier’s face. “I understand, Major, that your expedition is commanded by Captain Bampfylde, of His Britannic Majesty’s Navy?”

Sharpe paused, thinking that on land Bampfylde held an equal rank to himself, but, merely by boarding the Vengeance, Bampfylde magically arose to become the equivalent of a full colonel, and so, in that knowledge, Sharpe reluctantly nodded. “He does command, yes.”

Favier shrugged. “Would it offend you, Major, if the Comte and I sought to countermand your refusal by seeking Captain Bampfylde’s approval?”

“I can’t stop you,” Sharpe said ungraciously, “but I must tell you that I’m starting the return march within an hour. I expect to be at Arcachon this time tomorrow.”

The Comte de Maquerre, as though eager to be on his way, had turned his horse away from Sharpe. Favier, leaving the forged commission in Sharpe’s hand, collected his horse’s reins and pulled himself into the saddle. “I hope to meet you in the morning, Major, with orders that will reverse your march. God save King Louis!”

“God save him.” Sharpe watched as the two Frenchmen put their horses to the ford. As they threaded the boulders Favier twisted in his saddle to give a parting wave, then put his heels back.

“What did they want?” Frederickson, unashamedly curious, asked Sharpe.

“To make me into a Major General,” Sharpe said. He tore the commission into shreds of paper and tossed them into the River Leyre. “They said Bordeaux’s risen and declared itself for fat Louis.” Sharpe watched the horsemen disappear in the dusk. The two men evidently knew a cross-country route to Arcachon for they disdained the river bank up which Sharpe had marched the night before. “They wanted us to go there.”

“So bloody Bampfylde’s right?” Frederickson uttered the suspicions that Sharpe feared to face.

But Sharpe was wondering why the Comte de Maquerre had left most of the talking to the Mayor’s assistant. Aristocrats did not usually defer to bureaucrats. And why, if there were French troops on this road, even defeated French troops, had Maquerre been so confident as to wear his Chasseurs Britannique uniform?