‘I disagree, sir. There is a world of difference between liberation and conquest. Or at least there should be.’

‘Liberation then,’ Kellermann conceded and turned his attention back to the British commander. ‘May we commence with drafting the agreement?’

‘Yes.Yes, I suppose so.You may leave, Burrard, and you too,Wellesley. Wait for us outside.’

‘Perhaps it would be better for us to remain here, sir,’ Arthur suggested. ‘In case any of the finer points require further discussion.’

‘I am quite capable of making my own decisions, thank you,’ Dalrymple said coldly.‘Now be so good as to leave General Kellermann and myself to draft the document.’

Arthur stared back at him for a moment and then nodded slowly. ‘Yes, sir.’

For the next hour Arthur sat in the shade of an awning a short distance from the tent. From there he had a good view over the slope that had been so hotly contested the day before. Today all was quiet, but the traces of the battle were plain to see: gouges in the earth and rock where cannonballs had thudded home, and the bodies of hundreds of men strewn across the stubble and clumps of gorse and myrtle. Most were French, and only a handful of British corpses had not yet been removed by burial parties. The French dead would have to wait until the last of the redcoats were interred. Some of the bodies were naked, their clothes and other belongings taken in the night by camp followers and the local peasants. A faint breeze stirred and carried the sickening stench of decay up to Arthur and he felt his stomach clench in revulsion.

It was not just the thought of the dead that occupied his mind. He was worried about the terms of the armistice. Although it would mean that the Portuguese campaign was over for the present, with no further loss of life, the prospect of allowing Junot’s army to escape galled him. Worse still, he could imagine how people back in London might react to the news that a French army had been carried home in the holds of British warships.That was the kind of detail the newspapers and public opinion were bound to focus on, rather than the fact that the expeditionary force had achieved what it had set out to do, and expelled French forces from Portugal.

‘Sir!’

He turned and saw a staff officer beckoning to him. ‘Sir, the general wishes you to attend him.’

With a sigh Arthur rose to his feet and strode back across the top of the hill to General Dalrymple’s tent. Inside he saw that his superior and Kellermann were sitting side by side on the far end of the table. Dalrymple indicated the seat nearest Arthur.