'No serious attack, you say?' asked Edrington.
'No sign of one when I left, sir.'
'Indeed?' Edrington stared across the river. 'And here it's the same story. No attempt to cross the ford in force. Why should they show their hand and then not attack?'
'I thought they were burning powder unnecessarily, sir,' said Hornblower.
'They're not fools,' snapped Edrington, with another penetrating look across the river. 'At any rate, there's no harm in assuming they are not.'
He turned his horse and cantered back to the main body and gave an order to a captain, who scrambled to his feet to receive it. The captain bellowed an order, and his company stood up and fell into line, rigid and motionless. Two further orders turned them to the right and marched them off in file, every man in step, every musket sloped at the same angle. Edrington watched them go.
'No harm in having a flank guard,' he said.
The sound of a cannon across the water recalled them to the river; on the other side of the marsh a column of troops could be seen marching rapidly along the bank.
'That's the same column coming back, sir,' said the company commander. 'That or another just like it.'
'Marching about and firing random shots,' said Edrington. 'Mr Hornblower, have the émigré troops any flank guard out towards Quiberon?'