A rumbling series of crashes announced the arrival of a battery of British nine-pounders that unlimbered on the road. “Fires out!” a gunner officer snapped at the men crouched about the small campfires. He was worried because he was about to stack powder bags beside his guns.

“Bloody gunners,” a rifleman complained.

A captain of the 43rd, red-eyed and pale, begged a mug of tea from a group of riflemen. The 43rd was a Welsh regiment that had trained with the greenjackets at Shorncliffe barracks and the two battalions were friendly. “I shall give you boys some advice,” the Captain said.

“Sir?”

“Avoid akvavit. Avoid it. The devil brews it and the Danes drink it, God knows how. It looks like water.”

The riflemen grinned and the Captain flinched as a kilted piper from the 92nd began taming his instrument to produce a series of moans, yelps and squeals. “Oh God,” the Captain moaned, “not that, please God, not that.”

Sharpe heard the pipes and his mind flashed back to India, to a dusty field swirling with men, horses and painted guns where the Highlanders had ripped an enemy to ruin. “I don’t know if that noise frightens the Danes,” a voice behind him said, “but it terrifies me.”

Sharpe turned to see that Sir Arthur Wellesley was examining the enemy through his telescope. The General was on horseback and had not been talking to Sharpe, but addressing two of his aides. Wellesley swept the glass left and right, then collapsed the tubes and found himself looking down at a Rifle officer. A look of mingled surprise and embarrassment showed on his face. “Mister Sharpe,” he said flatly, unable to avoid acknowledging Sharpe’s presence.

“Sir.”

“Still with us, I see?”

Sharpe said nothing. He had not seen the General in three years, not since India, and he did not detect the General’s embarrassment, for he was too acutely aware of his disapproval. Grace had been a cousin of Wellesley’s. True, she had been a very distant cousin, but her family’s enmity had spread wide and Sharpe was certain Sir Arthur must share it.

“Enjoying the Rifles, are you, Sharpe?” Wellesley asked. He was looking up the road as he spoke.

“Yes, sir.”

“Thought you would,” Wellesley said, “thought you would. And we shall see how useful your new weapons are today, eh?” The General, like most officers in the British army, had never seen the rifles in action. “Where the devil is Linsingen? Not even a damned message!” He looked at the Danes through his glass. “Would you say they’re readying to move?” He had asked his aides the question and one of them said he thought he could see a baggage cart behind the enemy guns. “Then damn it,” Wellesley said, “we’ll manage without Linsingen. To your regiments, gentlemen.” He was talking to the red-coated infantry officers who had gathered near the guns. “Good day, Sharpe!” He turned his horse and spurred away.

“Know him well, do you?” Captain Dunnett was jealous that the General had spoken to Sharpe and could not resist asking the question.

“Yes,” Sharpe said curtly.

Damn you, Dunnett thought, while Sharpe was thinking he did not really know the General at all. He had spoken to him often enough, he had saved his life once and he had received the telescope as a reward for that favor, but he did not know him. There was something too cold and frightening about Sir Arthur, but Sharpe was still glad he was in charge today. He was good, simple as that, just plain good.

“Stay on the right,” Dunnett ordered him, “with Sergeant Filmer.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dunnett wanted to ask why Sharpe was carrying a rifle, but managed to resist the question. The man probably still thought he was in the ranks. Sharpe, as an officer, should not have carried a longarm, but he liked the Baker rifle and so he had collected one from the regimental surgeon who had a small armory of weapons that belonged to his patients. The rifle was much less cumbersome than a musket, was far more accurate and had a squat, brutal efficiency that appealed to Sharpe.

Sergeant Kilmer nodded a greeting to Sharpe. “Glad you’re back, sir.”

“Captain Dunnett sent me to look after you.”

Filmer grinned. “Going to make us tea, sir, are you? Tuck us up in bed?”

“Just going for a walk with you, Lofty. Straight up the hill.”

Filmer glanced at the distant enemy. “Any good, are they?”

“God knows. The militia aren’t, but those look like regulars to me.”

“Find out soon enough,” Filmer said. He was a very short man and was thus known throughout the regiment as Lofty. He was also very competent. He scraped out the bowl of a clay pipe, then opened his pouch and offered Sharpe a scrap of honeycomb. “Fresh, sir. Found some hives in that last village.”

Sharpe sucked the honey. “They’ll hang you if they catch you, Lofty.”

“Hung a couple of fellows yesterday, didn’t they? Silly bastards got caught.” He spat wax onto the grass. “Is it right there’s a town over the skyline, sir?”

“Called Koge,” Sharpe said, thinking that he must have been very near this place when he had escaped from Lavisser.

“Bloody daft names they’ve got here, sir.” Filmer held his rifle’s trigger and worked the cock back and forth. “I put some oil on her,” he explained, “‘cos I reckon she got a bit damp at sea.” He glanced at his men. “Don’t be bloody sleeping, you dozy bastards, there’ll be work for you in a minute.”

The artillerymen had loaded their guns and now stood ready to fire while the 92nd, over by the beach, was forming in line. The 43rd, immediately behind Sharpe, was doing the same. Two regiments of redcoats and one of greenjackets. It was a small force, much smaller than the enemy, but Sharpe knew what these regular soldiers could do and felt pity for the Danes. He gazed at their white cross on its red field. We should not be doing this, he thought. We should be fighting the French, not the Danes. He thought of Astrid and then felt guilty because of Grace. “We’ll see if it all works now, sir,” Filmer said cheerfully.

“We will,” Sharpe agreed. They would see if the months of hard training at Shorncliffe had been worthwhile. The army had always employed skirmishers, men who ran ahead of the rigid formations to harry and weaken the waiting enemy, but now the army was employing riflemen to make those skirmishers more deadly. There were plenty who said the experiment was a waste of time and money, for rifles were much harder to reload than the smoothbore muskets and so a green jacket could only fire one shot to a musket’s three or even four. The sceptics claimed that the riflemen would be slaughtered while they recharged their expensive weapons, but those weapons could kill at four times the distance of a musket. It was accuracy against quantity.

Both armies waited. Two redcoat regiments were in line, the guns were laid, and the Danes were showing no sign of retreat. Captain Dunnett walked to the right of his line. “You know what to do, Lofty.”

“Skin ‘em alive, sir,” Filmer said.

“Keep your head!” Dunnett called to the men. “Aim properly!” He was about to add some more encouragements, but just then a shrill whistle sounded in short urgent blasts. “Forward!” Dunnett shouted.

The greenjackets were spread right across the British front so that both battalions would have the benefit of their rifles. They walked forward and Filrner’s men kicked down a low fence that divided a meadow from a field dotted with shocked wheat. The light companies of the 43rd and 92nd advanced with the riflemen, a scatter of red coats among the green. The skirmishers stayed well clear of the road for that was where the British guns would fire.

Sharpe climbed the shallow slope and saw the Danish skirmishers double forward from their positions. These were regular soldiers, not militia, and their white crossbelts showed against pale-blue coats. The Danes spread along the hillside, waiting for the British skirmishers to come within range.