ONE
The autumn sun set over the woodland surrounding waterloo, casting dark shadows across the one bloodstained battlefield. It had been almost two years since the battle of waterloo and the fall of Napolean, and the locals had been working hard to get their lives back to normal. The girl wondered if their lives would ever get back to normal. She remembered the time of the battle, had just been a girl then. She sighed and leant back against the trunk of the old oak tree, her deft blue eyes scanning the scarred battlefield. Sometimes she thought she could still hear the guns, still hear the screams of the men. But it was all in her head, memories coming back to haunt her. Since that battle she had lived alone, her father had been killed by the French and her mother had died some years beforehead. And now, she had to fend for herself. She didn't mind, she enjoyed the freedom, though there were others from her village who believed a lady of her age should be married.
Yet she had her own desires, her own dreams of who she wished to marry. She would not tie herself to some farmer boy, she wanted a real man, a soldier. She smiled to herself. Not just any soldier, but that soldier. She had only met him briefly after her father had been killed but she remembered him as if she had seen him only yesterday. He had been sweet and kind, had looked after her for a while. She remembered how his deep green eyes had seemed to ensnare her, remembered his sandy hair, worn unkempt and long. He had looked so manly, so perfect, in his green jacket. And then there was his voice. That deep, northern voice that reminded her so much of home. She smiled to herself, remembered his smile. Richard Sharpe. Major Richard Sharpe.
With a sigh, she stood up and brushed the dirt from the skirt of her dress. With one last look across the battlefield, she pulled her long dark hair back off her face and tied it with a ribbon. It was in that moment that she vowed she would find him, wherever he might be.