Heyer feeds us so much information that I got no sense of how the battle was really unfolding. The details are all historically accurate (I presume) but Heyer fails to bind them into a narrative that really tells the story of Waterloo. Wellington is only around for a few pages at a time. He rallies some men. Then disappears again. What is he thinking? What is his strategy? Instead, I saw Colonel Charles Audley ride around madly on his horse a lot. Everywhere Charles goes, the British keep a jolly good stiff upper lip - "Sure, I have sixteen bullet holes in my chest, but I show those French bastards!" This sentiment seemed universal - the British are all too courageous to be scared of the walls of cannon fire and musket balls that rip them apart. I think the horror of war would have been better conveyed if at least some of the British had screamed in pain, or died cursing. All this honor and nobility was hard to believe, it seemed like the Monty Python parody of the Black Knight, who loses his arms and legs to the sword of King Arthur, but still insists on fighting on undaunted by his injuries.