The two officers exchanged a salute, then Arthur wheeled his mount round and galloped back towards his billet on the hill east of Hastings. He could trust Chambers to drill the men to the standard he required of them so that they would perform well whenever the time came to send them off to war.Arthur smiled grimly to himself.With Bonaparte’s present run of successes it was unlikely that his brigade faced the prospect of any action in the immediate future. Especially if Fox held to his purpose of attempting to negotiate a peace with France. The more Arthur thought about it the more frustrated he became with his political masters. Even if the French Emperor was prepared to negotiate, there was every chance that the talks would follow the pattern of the earlier Peace of Amiens, where France added further demands each time the treaty was about to be signed. After the peace took effect, Bonaparte blithely snapped up further territory and made preparations for forcefully expanding French interests as far afield as India and the West Indies. The Corsican tyrant was truly insatiable, Arthur reflected, and he did not care how many bodies were buried on the path to realising his ambitions.

As he entered the town, Arthur slowed his horse to a walk. Fox’s plans for peace, however well intentioned, were doomed to fail.The war would continue. Britain must choose the ground to wage land war against Bonaparte very carefully. Somewhere on the periphery of Europe where the small but highly trained and highly disciplined British army could pick its battles carefully and gradually wear down Bonaparte’s marshals and their armies, and prove to the rest of Europe that the men who marched under the tricolour could be defeated again and again. Once more Arthur’s mind turned to the Iberian Peninsula, where such a scheme would most readily bear fruit. If only a British army, under a competent commander, could be landed in the Iberian Peninsula there was no telling how much it could achieve, and perhaps shift the balance of victory in favour of those nations allied against France.

When he arrived back at the riding school that served as brigade headquarters Arthur dismounted and handed the reins to a groom. Then, stepping into the entrance hall, with its smell of leather and polish, he hung his coat on one of the pegs outside his office and entered. Corporal Blake, his personal clerk, rose from the ledgers on his desk and stood to attention.

‘Good morning, Blake.’

‘Morning, sir.’

‘Better put in a request for ten thousand more rounds of ammunition.’

‘More live firing exercises, sir?’ There was a hint of disapproval in the corporal’s tone and Arthur paused at his desk to stare levelly at the man.

‘Yes. If they have been issued with muskets, then it’s as well that they have the opportunity to learn how to use the bloody things. Wouldn’t you say?’