‘Another three hundred thousand of them buggers are lying along the coast from Calais to Boulogne, just waiting for their chance,’ a Marine sergeant said to his fellow soldier as the two of them came by on their round.

They had not yet seen Laurence. Wellesley and his staff were inside the tower chambers. He had been left outside until called for, despite the night cold and wet, the stones slick with ice, and room enough in the antechamber for him to wait inside: a deliberate slight. The damp penetrated his cloak and his leather coat effortlessly. But he had chosen to stand at the limit of the parapet, out of the lantern-light, so he could see further out. It was a romantic impulse; he could not see anything of real significance at this hour.

‘He'll squeeze over another thousand tonight,’ the sergeant went on. ‘Every dark night, those fucking Fleur-de-Nuits carry them. The Navy shot one down two days ago, though,’ he added, with vindictive satisfaction. ‘Dropped down into the ocean like a stone, and two hundred Frogs on its back, I hear; but more often than not they can't be seen.’

‘I heard as he burned Weedon to the ground,’ the young soldier beside him ventured. ‘I heard he set his dragons on it, sent the whole place up.’

‘Fucking Jacobin buggers,’ the sergeant said gloomily. ‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ he said, seeing Laurence and touching his hat.

He nodded to them, and they fell silent, taking their post. A door opened in the side of the tower and raised voices came drifting out while it sighed gently shut again. Laurence looked over, but it was not Wellesley or one of his aides, it was an old man in nightshirt and bed slippers, muttering to himself as he came into the rain. His hair was grey and thinned out, matted and without a wig, and he walked with the uneasy hitch of rheumatism as he groped his way towards the chapel across the courtyard.

‘Is it the vicar?’ the young Marine whispered.

‘At this hour?’ the sergeant said, doubtfully, and they both looked at Laurence.

Laurence crossed the courtyard to go to his side The old man did not seem steady on the wet icy stones, and he was talking to himself: a stream of low unintelligible speech, which remained incomprehensible even as Laurence drew close enough to make out the words. ‘Horses,’ the old man said, ‘horses and mules, and three weeks' grain, and Copenhagen; the fleet in Copenhagen. Thirty-three pounds.’

He did not seem to notice Laurence's approach at all, until Laurence said, ‘Sir, should you not go back inside?’