Читать книгу Sharpe’s Fury: The Battle of Barrosa, March 1811 - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 10

‘Now what?’ Brigadier Moon demanded.

‘We’re stuck, sir.’

‘Good God incarnate, man, can’t you do anything right?’

Sharpe said nothing. Instead he and Harper stripped off their cartridge boxes and jumped overboard to find themselves in four feet of water. They heaved on the pontoon, but it was like trying to push the Rock of Gibraltar. It was immovable and they were stranded fifty or sixty feet from the eastern bank on which the French pursued them, and over a hundred and fifty yards from the British-held bank. Sharpe ordered the other soldiers to get in the river and push, but it did no good. The big pontoons had grounded hard on a shingle bank and evidently intended to stay there.

‘If we can cut one of the buggers free, sir,’ Harper suggested. It was a good suggestion. If one of the pontoons could be loosed from the others then they would have a boat light enough to be forced off the shingle, but the big barges were connected by ropes and by stout timber beams that had carried the plank roadway.

‘It’ll take us half a day to do it,’ Sharpe said, ‘and I don’t think the Crapauds will be happy.’

‘What the devil are you doing, Sharpe?’ Moon demanded from the raft.

‘Going ashore, sir,’ Sharpe decided, ‘all of us.’

‘For God’s sake, why?’

‘Because, sir,’ Sharpe said, forcing himself to stay patient, ‘the French will be here in half an hour and if we’re in the river, sir, they’ll either shoot us down like dogs or else take us prisoner.’

‘So your intentions?’

‘Go up that hill, sir, hide there, and wait for the enemy to leave. And when they’ve gone, sir, we’ll cut one of the pontoons free.’ Though how he would do that with no tools he was not sure, but he would have to try.

Moon plainly wanted to suggest another course of action, but none came to his mind so he submitted to being carried ashore by Sergeant Harper. The rest of the men followed, carrying their weapons and cartridge boxes over their heads. Once ashore they made a makeshift stretcher from a pair of muskets threaded through the sleeves of two red coats, then Harris and Slattery carried the brigadier up the steep hill. Sharpe, before leaving the river bank, collected a few short sticks and a scrappy piece of fishing net, all of which had been washed onto the rocks, then he followed the others up to the first crest and saw, looking to his left, that the French had climbed to the top of the bluff. They were nearly half a mile away, which did not stop one of them letting off his musket. The ball must have fallen into the intervening valley and the report, when it came, was muffled.

‘This is far enough,’ Moon announced. The jolting of the crude stretcher was giving him agony and he looked pale.

‘To the top,’ Sharpe said, nodding to where rocks crowned the bare hill.

‘For God’s sake, man,’ Moon began.

‘French are coming, sir,’ Sharpe interrupted the brigadier. ‘If you want, sir, I can leave you for them, sir? They must have a surgeon in the fort.’

Moon looked tempted for a few seconds, but understood that high-ranking prisoners were rarely exchanged. It was possible that a French brigadier might be captured soon and after prolonged negotiations would be exchanged for Moon, but it would take weeks if not months, and all the while his career would be stalled and other men promoted over him. ‘Up the hill if you must,’ he said grudgingly, ‘but what are your plans after that?’

‘Wait for the French to go, sir, detach a pontoon, cross the river, get you home.’

‘And why the devil are you carrying firewood?’

The brigadier discovered why at the top of the hill. Private Geoghegan, one of the men from the 88th, claimed his mother had been a bonesetter and said he had often helped her as a child. ‘What you do, sir,’ he explained, ‘is pull the bone.’

‘Pull it?’ Sharpe asked.

‘Give it a good swift tug, sir, and he’ll like as not squeal like a piglet, and I straightens it then and we bind it up. Would the gentleman be a Protestant, would he, sir?’

‘I should think so.’

‘Then we don’t need the holy water, sir, and we’ll do without the two prayers as well, but he’ll be straight enough when we’re done.’

The brigadier protested. Why not wait till they were across the river, he wanted to know, and blanched when Sharpe said that could be two days. ‘Soonest done, soonest mended, sir,’ Private Geoghegan said, ‘and if we don’t mend it soon, sir, it’ll set crooked as can be. And I’ll have to cut your trousers off, sir, sorry, sir.’

‘You’ll not damned well cut them!’ Moon protested hotly. ‘They’re Willoughby’s best! There isn’t a finer tailor in London.’

‘Then you’ll have to take them off yourself, sir, you will,’ Geoghegan said. He looked as wild as any of the Connaught men, but had a soft, sympathetic voice and a confidence that somewhat allayed the brigadier’s apprehensions, yet even so it took twenty minutes to persuade Moon that he should allow his leg to be straightened. It was the thought that he would have to spend the rest of his life with a crooked limb that really convinced him. He saw himself limping into salons, unable to dance, awkward in the saddle, and his vanity at last overcame his fear. Sharpe, meanwhile, watched the French. Forty men had worked their way over the bluff and now they were walking towards the stranded pontoons.

‘Buggers are going to salvage them,’ Harper said.

‘Take the riflemen halfway down the hill,’ Sharpe said, ‘and stop them.’

Harper left, taking Slattery, Harris, Hagman and Perkins with him. They were the only men from Sharpe’s company stranded on the pontoons, but it was a consolation that they were all good riflemen. There was no better soldier than Sergeant Patrick Harper, the huge Ulsterman who hated the British rule of his homeland, but still fought like a hero. Slattery was from County Wicklow and was quiet, soft-spoken and capable. Harris had been a schoolmaster once and was clever, well read and too fond of gin, which was why he was now a soldier, but he was amusing and loyal. Dan Hagman was the oldest, well over forty, and he had been a poacher in Cheshire before the law caught him and condemned him to the army’s ranks. There was no better marksman in any rifle company. Perkins was the youngest, young enough to be Hagman’s grandson, and he had been a street urchin in London as Sharpe had once been, but he was learning to be a good soldier. He was learning that discipline tied to savagery was unbeatable. They were all good men and Sharpe was glad to have them, and just then the brigadier gave a yelp that he managed to stifle, though he could not contain a long moan. Geoghegan had eased off the brigadier’s boots, which must have hurt like hell, and somehow managed to take down Moon’s trousers, and now he placed two of Sharpe’s sticks alongside the broken calf and wrapped one of the brigadier’s trouser legs about the limb so that it gripped the sticks. He tightened the pressure by winding the trouser leg as though he was wringing water from the material. He tightened it until the brigadier gave a hiss of protest, then Geoghegan grinned at Sharpe. ‘Would you help me, sir? Just take the general’s ankle, will you, sir? And when I tell you, sir, give it a good smart pull.’

‘For God’s sake,’ the brigadier managed to say.

‘As brave a man as ever I saw, sir, so you are,’ Geoghegan said, and he smiled reassuringly at Sharpe. ‘Are you ready, sir?’

‘How hard do I pull?’

‘A good tug, sir, just like pulling a lamb that doesn’t want to be born. Are you ready? Take firm hold, sir, both hands! Now!’

Sharpe pulled, the brigadier gave a high-pitched cry and Geoghegan screwed the material even tighter and Sharpe distinctly heard the bone grate into place. Geoghegan was stroking the brigadier’s leg now. ‘And that’s just good as can be, sir, good as new, sir.’ Moon did not respond and Sharpe realized the brigadier had either fainted or was in such shock that he could not speak.

Geoghegan splinted the leg with the sticks and the net. ‘He can’t walk on it, not for a while, but we’ll make him crutches, we will, and he’ll be dancing like a pony soon enough.’

The rifles sounded and Sharpe turned and ran down the hill to where his greenjackets were kneeling on the turf. They were about a hundred and fifty yards from the river and sixty feet above it, and the French were crouching in the water. They had been trying to haul the big barges off the shingle, but the bullets had ended that effort and now the men were using the pontoon hulls as protection. An officer ran into the shallow water, probably shouting at the men to get to their feet and try again, and Sharpe aimed at the officer, pulled the trigger, and the rifle banged into his shoulder as an errant spark from the flint stung his right eye. When the smoke cleared he saw the panicked officer running back to the bank, holding his scabbarded sword clear of the water in one hand and clutching his hat in the other. Slattery fired a second time and a splinter smacked up from one of the pontoons, then Harper’s next shot threw a man into the river and there was a swirl of blood in which the man thrashed as he drifted away. Harris fired and most of the French waded away from the pontoons to take shelter behind some boulders on the bank.

‘Just keep them there,’ Sharpe said. ‘As soon as they try and shift those barges, kill them.’

He climbed back up the hill. The brigadier was propped against a rock now. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked.

‘Frogs are trying to salvage the barges, sir. We’re stopping them.’

The boom of the French guns in Fort Josephine echoed down the river valley. ‘Why are they firing?’ the brigadier asked irritably.

‘My guess, sir,’ Sharpe said, ‘is that some of our boys are trying to use a pontoon as a boat to look for us. And the Frogs are shooting at them.’

‘Bloody hell,’ Moon said. He closed his eyes and grimaced. ‘You wouldn’t, I suppose, have any brandy?’

‘No, sir, sorry, sir.’ Sharpe would have bet a penny against the crown jewels that at least one of his men had brandy or rum in their canteen, but he would be damned before he took it away from them for the brigadier. ‘I’ve got water, sir,’ he said, offering his canteen.

‘Damn your water.’

Sharpe reckoned he could trust his riflemen to behave sensibly until they managed to recross the river, but the six fugitives from the 88th were another matter. The 88th were the Connaught Rangers and some men reckoned them the most fearsome regiment in the whole army, but they also had a reputation for wild indiscipline. The six rangers were led by a toothless sergeant and Sharpe, knowing that if the sergeant was on his side then the other men would probably cause no trouble, crossed to him. ‘What’s your name, Sergeant?’ Sharpe asked him.

‘Noolan, sir.’

‘I want you to watch over there,’ Sharpe said, pointing north to the crest of the hill above the bluff. ‘I’m expecting a battalion of bloody Frogs to come over that hill, and when they do, sing out.’

‘I’ll sing right enough, sir,’ Noolan promised, ‘sing like a choir, I will.’

‘If they do come,’ Sharpe said, ‘we’ll have to go south. I know the 88th is good, but I don’t think there’s quite enough of you to fight off a whole French battalion.’

Sergeant Noolan looked at his five men, considered Sharpe’s statement, then nodded gravely. ‘Not quite enough of us, sir, you’re right. And what are you thinking of doing, sir, if you don’t mind me asking?’

‘What I’m hoping,’ Sharpe said, ‘is that the Frogs will get tired of us and bugger off, then we can try and float one of those pontoons and get across the river. Tell your men that, Sergeant. I want to get them home, and the best way home is to be patient.’

A sudden rattle of rifle fire drew Sharpe back to Harper’s position. The French were making another attempt to free the pontoons, and this time they had made a rope by linking their musket slings together and three men were bravely fastening the line to one of the samson-posts. One man had been hit and was limping back to the shore. Sharpe began reloading his rifle, but before he had rammed the leather-wrapped ball down the barrel, the remaining Frenchmen sprinted back to their shelter, taking the line with them. Sharpe saw the rope come dripping from the river as men hauled on it. The line straightened and tightened and he guessed that nearly all the French were tugging on it, but he could do nothing about it for they were hidden by the big boulder. The line quivered and Sharpe thought he saw the pontoons shift slightly, or perhaps that was his imagination, and then the rope snapped and Sharpe’s riflemen jeered loudly.

Sharpe looked upriver. When the bridge had broken there had been seven or eight pontoons left on the British side and he was sure someone had thought to use one as a rescue craft, but no such boat appeared and by now he suspected the French cannons had either holed those pontoons or else driven the work parties away from the shore. That suggested rescue was a remote hope, leaving him with the need to salvage one of the six stranded barges.

‘Does this remind you of anything?’ Harper asked him.

‘I was trying not to think about it,’ Sharpe said.

‘What were those other rivers called?’

‘The Douro and the Tagus.’

‘And there were no bloody boats on those either, sir,’ Harper said cheerfully.

‘We found boats in the end,’ Sharpe said. Two years ago his company had been trapped on the wrong side of the Douro, then, a year later, he and Harper had been stranded on the Tagus, but both times they had found their way back to the army, and he would again now, but he wished the damned French would leave. Instead the troops hidden beneath him sent a messenger back to Fort Josephine. The man scrambled up the hill and all the riflemen turned to aim at him, hauling back the flints of their weapons, but the man kept looking back, dodging and ducking, and his fear was palpable and somehow funny so that none of them pulled their triggers.

‘He was too far away,’ Harper said. Hagman might have dropped the man, but in truth all the riflemen had felt sorry for the Frenchman who had shown bravery in risking the rifle fire.

‘He’s gone to fetch help,’ Sharpe said.

Nothing happened then for a long time. Sharpe lay on his back watching a hawk slide in the high sky. Sometimes a Frenchman would peer round the rocks below, see the riflemen were still there and duck back. After an hour or so a man waved at them, then stepped cautiously out from the boulder and mimed unbuttoning his breeches. ‘Bugger wants a pee, sir,’ Harris said.

‘Let him,’ Sharpe said and they raised the rifles so the barrels pointed at the sky and a succession of Frenchmen went to stand by the river and all politely waved their thanks when they were done. Harper waved back. Sharpe went from man to man and found they had nothing but three pieces of biscuit between them. He made one of Sergeant Noolan’s men soften the biscuit with water and divide it equally, but it was a miserable dinner.

‘We can’t go without food, Sharpe,’ Moon complained. The brigadier had watched the division of the biscuits with a glittering eye and Sharpe had been certain he was planning to claim a larger share for himself, so Sharpe had loudly announced that every man got exactly the same portion. Moon was now in a filthier mood than usual. ‘How do you propose feeding us?’ he demanded.

‘We may have to go hungry till morning, sir.’

‘Good God incarnate,’ Moon muttered.

‘Sir!’ Sergeant Noolan called and Sharpe turned to see that two companies of the French had appeared by the bluff. They were in skirmish order to make themselves a more difficult target for the rifles.

‘Pat!’ Sharpe called down the slope. ‘We’re pulling back! Up you come!’

They went south, carrying the brigadier again, struggling over the steep slopes to keep the river in sight. The French pursued for an hour, then seemed content merely to have driven the fugitives away from the stranded pontoons.

‘Now what?’ Moon demanded.

‘We wait here, sir,’ Sharpe said. They were on a hilltop, sheltered by rocks and with a fine view in every direction. The river ran empty to the west while, off to the east, Sharpe could see a road winding through the hills.

‘How long do we wait?’ Moon asked snidely.

‘Till nightfall, sir, then I’ll go and see if the pontoons are still there.’

‘Of course they won’t be,’ Moon said, implying that Sharpe was a fool to believe otherwise, ‘but I suppose you’d better look.’

Sharpe need not have bothered because, in the dusk, he saw the smoke rising above the river and when dark fell there was a glow across the side of the hill. He went north, taking Sergeant Noolan and two men of the 88th, and they saw that the French had failed to free the pontoons, so instead had ensured they were useless. The barges were burning. ‘That is a pity,’ Sharpe said.

‘The brigadier will not be happy, sir,’ Sergeant Noolan said cheerfully.

‘No, he won’t,’ Sharpe agreed.

Noolan spoke to his men in Gaelic, presumably sharing his thoughts of the brigadier’s unhappiness. ‘Don’t they speak English?’ Sharpe asked.

‘Fergal doesn’t,’ Noolan said, nodding at one of the men, ‘and Padraig will if you shout at him, sir, but if you don’t shout he won’t have a word of it.’

‘Tell them I’m glad you’re with us,’ Sharpe said.

‘You are?’ Noolan sounded surprised.

‘We were next to you on the ridge at Bussaco,’ Sharpe said.

Noolan grinned in the dark. ‘That was a fight, eh? They kept coming and we kept killing them.’

‘And now, Sergeant,’ Sharpe went on, ‘it seems that you and I are stuck with each other for a few days.’

‘So it does, sir,’ Noolan agreed.

‘So you need to know my rules.’

‘You have rules, do you, sir?’ Noolan asked cautiously.

‘You don’t steal from civilians unless you’re starving, you don’t get drunk without my permission and you fight like the devil himself was at your back.’

Noolan thought about it. ‘What happens if we break the rules?’ he asked.

‘You don’t, Sergeant,’ Sharpe said bleakly, ‘you just don’t.’

They went back to make the brigadier unhappy.

Sometime in the night the brigadier sent Harris to wake Sharpe who was half awake anyway because he was cold. Sharpe had given his greatcoat to the brigadier who, being coatless, had demanded that one of the men yield him a covering. ‘Is there trouble?’ Sharpe asked Harris.

‘Don’t know, sir. His excellency just wants you, sir.’

‘I’ve been thinking, Sharpe,’ the brigadier announced when Sharpe arrived.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘I don’t like those men speaking Irish. You’ll tell them to use English. You hear me?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Sharpe said, and paused. The brigadier had woken him to tell him that? ‘I’ll tell them, sir, but some of them don’t speak English, sir.’

‘Then they can bloody well learn,’ the brigadier snapped. He was sleepless through pain and now wanted to spread his misery. ‘You can’t trust them, Sharpe. They brew mischief.’

Sharpe paused, wondering how to put sense into Moon’s head, but before he could speak Rifleman Harris intervened. ‘You’ll forgive me, sir?’ Harris said respectfully.

‘Are you talking to me, Rifleman?’ the brigadier asked in astonishment.

‘Begging your pardon, sir, I am. If I might, sir, with respect?’

‘Go on, man.’

‘It’s just, sir, as Mister Sharpe says, sir, that they don’t speak English, being benighted papists, sir, and they were only discussing whether it might be possible to build a boat or a raft, sir, and they do that best in their own language, sir, because they have the words, if you follow me, sir.’

The brigadier, thoroughly buttered up by Harris, thought about it. ‘You speak their wretched language?’ he asked.

‘I do, sir,’ Harris said, ‘and French, sir, and Portuguese and Spanish, sir, and some Latin.’

‘Good God incarnate,’ the brigadier said, after staring at Harris for a few heartbeats, ‘but you are English?’

‘Oh yes, sir. And proud of it.’

‘Quite right. Then I can depend on you to tell me if the teagues brew trouble?’

‘The teagues, sir? Oh, the Irish! Yes, sir, of course, sir, a pleasure, sir,’ Harris said enthusiastically.

Just before dawn there came the sound of explosions from upriver. Sharpe stared north, but could see nothing. At first light he could see thick smoke above the river valley, but he had no way of knowing what had caused that smoke so he sent Noolan and two of his men to discover what had happened. ‘Stay on the hilltops,’ he told the 88th’s sergeant, ‘and keep a lookout for Crapaud patrols.’

‘That was a damn fool decision,’ the brigadier said when the three rangers had gone.

‘It was, sir?’

‘You’ll not see those men again, will you?’

‘I think we will, sir,’ Sharpe said mildly.

‘Damn it, man, I know the teagues. My first commission was with the 18th. I managed to escape to the fusiliers when I became a captain.’ Meaning, Sharpe thought, that the brigadier had purchased out of the Irish 18th to the more congenial fusiliers of his home county.

‘I think you’ll see Sergeant Noolan soon, sir,’ Sharpe said stubbornly, ‘and while we’re waiting I’m going south. I’ll be looking for food, sir.’

Sharpe took Harris and the two of them walked the high ground above the river. ‘How much Gaelic do you speak, Harris?’ Sharpe asked.

‘About three words, sir,’ Harris said, ‘and none of them repeatable in high company.’ Sharpe laughed. ‘So what do we do, sir?’ Harris went on.

‘Cross the bloody river,’ Sharpe said.

‘How, sir?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘And if we can’t?’

‘Keep going south, I suppose,’ Sharpe said. He tried to remember the maps he had seen of southern Spain and had an idea that the Guadiana joined the sea well to the west of Cadiz. There was no point in trying to reach Cadiz by road, for that great port was under French siege, but once at the river’s mouth he could find a ship to carry them north to Lisbon. The only ships off the coast were allied vessels, and he reckoned that the Royal Navy patrolled the shore. It would take time, he knew, but once they reached the sea they would be as good as home. ‘But if we have to walk to the sea,’ he added, ‘I’d rather do it on the far bank.’

‘Because it’s Portugal?’

‘Because it’s Portugal,’ Sharpe said, ‘and they’re friendlier than the Spanish, and because there are more Frogs on this side.’

Sharpe’s hopes of crossing the river rose after a couple of miles when they came to a place where the hill dropped to a wide basin where the Guadiana broadened so that it looked like a lake. A smaller river flowed from the east and in the basin, where the two rivers joined, there was a small town of white houses. Two bell towers broke the tiled roofs. ‘There has to be a ferry there,’ Harris said, ‘or fishing boats.’

‘Unless the Frogs burned everything.’

‘Then we float over on a table,’ Harris said, ‘and at least we’ll find food down there, sir, and his lordship will like that.’

‘You mean Brigadier Moon will like that,’ Sharpe said in mild reproof.

‘And he’ll like that place too, won’t he?’ Harris said, pointing to a large house with stables that stood just to the north of the small town. The house was of two storeys, was painted white and had a dozen windows on each floor, while at its eastern end was an ancient castle tower, now in ruins. Smoke drifted from the house’s chimneys.

Sharpe took out his telescope and examined the house. The windows were shuttered and the only signs of life were some men repairing a terrace wall in one of the many vineyards that covered the nearby slopes and another man bending over a furrow in a kitchen garden that lay beside the Guadiana. He edged the glass sideways and saw what looked like a boathouse on the river bank. Sharpe gave the telescope to Harris. ‘I’d rather go to the town,’ he said.

‘Why’s that, sir?’ Harris asked, staring at the house through Sharpe’s glass.

‘Because that house hasn’t been plundered, has it? Kitchen garden all nice and tidy. What does that suggest?’

‘The owner has shaken hands with the French?’

‘Like as not.’

Harris thought about that. ‘If they’re friends with the Crapauds, sir, then perhaps there’s a boat in that shed by the river?’

‘Perhaps,’ Sharpe said dubiously. A door in the courtyard by the old castle ruin opened and he saw someone emerge into the sunlight. He nudged Harris, pointed, and the rifleman swung the telescope.

‘Just a frow hanging out the washing,’ Harris said.

‘We can get our shirts laundered,’ Sharpe said. ‘Come on, let’s fetch the brigadier.’

They walked back across the high hills to find Moon in a triumphant mood because Sergeant Noolan and his men had failed to return.

‘I told you, Sharpe!’ Moon said. ‘You can’t trust them. That sergeant looked decidedly shifty.’

‘How’s your leg, sir?’

‘Bloody painful. Can’t be helped, eh? So you say there’s a decent-sized town?’

‘Large village anyway, sir. Two churches.’

‘Let’s hope they have a doctor who knows his business. He can look at this damned leg, and the sooner the better. Let’s get on the march, Sharpe. We’re wasting time.’

But just then Sergeant Noolan reappeared to the north and the brigadier had no choice but to wait as the three men from the 88th rejoined. Noolan, his long face more lugubrious than ever, brought grim news. ‘They blew up the fort, sir,’ he told Sharpe.

‘Talk to me, man, talk to me!’ Moon insisted. ‘I command here.’

‘Sorry, your honour,’ Noolan said, snatching off his battered shako. ‘Our lot, sir, blew up the fort, sir, and they’ve gone.’

‘Fort Joseph, you mean?’ Moon asked.

‘Is that what it’s called, sir? The one on the other side of the river, sir, they blew it up proper, they did! Guns tipped over the parapet and nothing left on the hill but smitherings.’

‘Nothing but what?’

Noolan cast a helpless look at Sharpe. ‘Scraps, sir,’ the sergeant tried again. ‘Bits and pieces, sir.’

‘And you say our fellows are gone? How the hell do you know they’ve gone?’

‘Because the Crapauds are over there, sir, so they are. Using a boat. Going back and forth, they are, sir, back and forth, and we watched them.’

‘Good God incarnate,’ Moon said in disgust.

‘You did well, Noolan,’ Sharpe said.

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘And we’re buggered,’ the brigadier said irritably, ‘because our forces have buggered off and left us here.’

‘In that case, sir,’ Sharpe suggested, ‘the sooner we get to the town and find some food the better.’

Harper, because he was the strongest man, carried the front end of the brigadier’s stretcher while the tallest of the Connaught Rangers took the rear. It took three hours to go the short distance and it was late morning by the time they reached the long hill above the big house and the small town. ‘That’s where we’ll go,’ Moon announced the moment he saw the house.

‘I think they might be afrancesados, sir,’ Sharpe said.

‘Talk English, man, talk English.’

‘I think they’re sympathetic to the French, sir.’

‘How can you possibly tell?’

‘Because the house hasn’t been plundered, sir.’

‘You can’t surmise that,’ the brigadier said, though without much conviction. Sharpe’s words had given him pause, but still the house drew him like a magnet. It promised comfort and the company of gentlefolk. ‘There’s only one way to find out, though, isn’t there?’ he proclaimed. ‘And that’s to go there! So let’s be moving.’

‘I think we should go to the town, sir,’ Sharpe persisted.

‘And I think you should keep quiet, Sharpe, and obey my orders.’

So Sharpe kept quiet as they went down the hill, through the upper vineyards and then beneath the pale leaves of an olive grove. They manoeuvred the brigadier’s stretcher over a low stone wall and approached the house through wide gardens of cypress, orange trees and fallow flower beds. There was a large pond, full of brown leaves and stagnant water, and then an avenue of statues. The statues were all of saints writhing in their death agonies. Sebastian clutched at the stub of an arrow piercing his ribs, Agnes stared serenely heavenwards despite the sword in her throat, while next to her Andrew hung upside down on his cross. There were men being burned, women being disembowelled and all of them preserved in white marble streaked with lichen and bird droppings. The ragged soldiers stared wide-eyed and the Catholics among them made the sign of the cross while Sharpe looked for any sign of life in the house. The windows remained shuttered, but smoke still drifted from a chimney, and then the big door that opened onto a balustraded terrace was thrown open and a man, dressed in black, stepped into the sunlight and waited as though he had been expecting them. ‘We had best observe the proprieties,’ Moon said.

‘Sir?’ Sharpe asked.

‘For God’s sake, Sharpe, gentry live here! They don’t want their drawing room filled with common soldiers, do they? You and I can go in, but the men have to find the servants’ quarters.’

‘Do they drop your stretcher outside, sir?’ Sharpe asked innocently, and thought he heard a slight snort from Harper.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Sharpe,’ the brigadier said. ‘They can carry me in first.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Sharpe left the men on the terrace as he accompanied the brigadier into a vast room filled with dark furniture and hung with gloomy pictures, most showing scenes of martyrdom. More saints burned here, or else gazed in rapture as soldiers skewered them, while over the mantel was a life-size painting of the crucifixion. Christ’s pale body was laced with blood while behind him a great thunderstorm unleashed lightning on a cowering city. A crucifix made of a wood so dark it was almost black hung at the other end of the room and beneath it was a private shrine draped in black on which a sabre lay between two unlit candles.

The man who had greeted them was a servant who informed the brigadier that the marquesa would join him very soon, and was there anything that her guests needed? Sharpe did his best to translate, using more Portuguese with the servant than Spanish. ‘Tell him I need breakfast, Sharpe,’ the brigadier commanded, ‘and a doctor.’

Sharpe passed on the requests, then added that his men needed food and water. The servant bowed and said he would take the soldiers to the kitchen. He left Sharpe alone with Moon who was now lying on a couch. ‘Damned uncomfortable furniture,’ the brigadier said. He grimaced from a stab of pain in his leg, then looked up at the paintings. ‘How do they live with this gloom?’

‘I suppose they’re religious, sir.’

‘We’re all bloody religious, man, but that doesn’t mean we hang paintings of torture on our walls! Good God incarnate. Nothing wrong with a few decent landscapes and some family portraits. Did he say there was a marquesa here?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well, let’s hope she’s easier on the eye than her damned paintings, eh?’

‘I think I ought to make sure the men are properly settled, sir,’ Sharpe said.

‘Good idea,’ Moon said, subtly insinuating that Sharpe would be happier in the servants’ quarters. ‘Do take your time, Sharpe. That fellow understood I need a doctor?’

‘He did, sir.’

‘And food?’

‘He knows that too, sir.’

‘Pray God he gets both here before sundown. Oh, and Sharpe, send that bright young fellow, the one who speaks the languages, to translate for me. But tell him to smarten himself up first.’ The brigadier jerked his head, dismissing Sharpe who went back onto the terrace and found his way through an alley, across the stable yard and so to a whitewashed kitchen hung with hams and smelling of wood smoke, cheese and baking bread. A crucifix hung above the huge fireplace where two cooks were busy at a blackened stove. A third woman pounded a mass of dough on a long scrubbed table.

Harper grinned at Sharpe, then gestured at the cheeses, hams and the two fat wine barrels on their stands. ‘You wouldn’t think there was a war going on, sir, would you now?’

‘You’ve forgotten something, Sergeant.’

‘And what would that be, sir?’

‘There’s a battalion of French infantry within half a day’s march.’

‘So there is.’

Sharpe walked to the twin wine barrels and rapped the nearest. ‘You know the rules,’ he told the watching soldiers. ‘If any of you get drunk I’ll make you wish you hadn’t been born.’ They stared at him solemnly. What he should do, he knew, was take the two barrels outside and stave them in, but if they wanted to get drunk they would still find liquor in a house this size. Put a British soldier in a wilderness and he would soon discover a taproom. ‘We might have to get out of here fast,’ he explained, ‘so I don’t want you drunk. When we get to Lisbon, I promise I’ll fill you all so full of rum that you won’t be able to stand for a week. But today, lads? Today you stay sober.’

They nodded and he slung his rifle on his shoulder. ‘I’m going to stand watch until you’ve eaten,’ he told Harper, ‘then you and two others take over from me. You saw that old castle tower?’

‘Couldn’t miss it, sir.’

‘That’s where I’ll be. And Harris? You’re to be an interpreter for the brigadier.’

Harris shuddered. ‘Do I have to, sir?’

‘Yes, you bloody do. And you’re to smarten yourself up first.’

‘Three bags full, sir,’ Harris said.

‘And Harris!’ Sergeant Harper called.

‘Sergeant?’

‘Make sure to tell his lordship if us teagues are causing trouble.’

‘I’ll do that, Sergeant, I promise.’

Sharpe went to the tower which formed the eastern end of the stable yard. He climbed to the parapet that was some forty feet above the ground and from where he had a good view of the road which ran eastwards along the smaller river. It was the road the French would use if they decided to come here. Would they come? They knew a handful of British troops were stranded on the Spanish bank of the river, but would they bother to pursue? Or perhaps they might just send a forage party. It was evident that this large house had been spared the usual French cruelties and that was doubtless because the marquesa was afrancesada, and that meant she must be supplying the French garrisons with provisions. So had the French refrained from plundering the town as well? If so, was there a boat? And if there was then they could cross the river as soon as the brigadier had seen a doctor, if any doctor was available. Though once across the river, what then? The brigadier’s troops had blown Fort Joseph and were withdrawing westwards, going back to the Tagus, and as long as Moon had a broken leg there was no hope of catching them. Sharpe worried for a moment, then decided it was not his problem. Brigadier Moon was the senior officer, so all Sharpe had to do was wait for orders. In the meantime he would have his men make some crutches for the brigadier.

He stared eastwards. The sides of the valley were thick with grape vines and a few men worked there, shoring up one of the stone walls holding the terraces in place. A horseman ambled eastwards and a child drove two goats down the road, but otherwise nothing moved except a hawk that glided across the cloudless sky. It was winter still, but the sun had a surprising warmth. By turning round he could just see a sliver of the river beyond the house and, on the Guadiana’s far side, the Portuguese hills.

Harper relieved him, bringing Hagman and Slattery. ‘Harris is back, sir. Seems the lady speaks English so he isn’t needed. Is anything happening?’

‘Nothing. The lady?’

‘The marquesa, sir. An old biddy.’

‘I think the brigadier was hoping for something young and luscious.’

‘We were all hoping for that, sir. So what do we do if we see a Frenchie?’

‘We get down to the river,’ Sharpe said. He gazed eastwards. ‘If the bastards come,’ he said, ‘this is the road they’ll use, and at least we’ll see them a couple of miles away.’

‘Let’s hope they’re not coming.’

‘And let’s hope no one’s drunk if they do,’ Sharpe said.

Harper threw a puzzled look at Sharpe, then understood. ‘You needn’t worry about the Connaught men, sir. They’ll do what you tell them.’

‘They will?’

‘I had a word with Sergeant Noolan, so I did, and said you weren’t entirely bad unless you were crossed, and then you were a proper devil. And I told him you had an Irish father, which might be true, might it not?’

‘So I’m one of you now, am I?’ Sharpe asked, amused.

‘Oh no, sir, you’re not handsome enough.’

Sharpe went back to the kitchen where he discovered Geoghegan pounding the dough and two more of Noolan’s men stacking firewood beside the stove. ‘They’ll make you eggs and ham,’ Sergeant Noolan told him, ‘and we’ve shown them how to make proper tea.’

Sharpe contented himself with a piece of newly baked bread and a hunk of hard cheese. ‘Have any of your men got razors?’ he asked Noolan.

‘I’m sure Liam has,’ Noolan said, nodding at one of the men stacking firewood. ‘Keeps himself looking smart, he does, for the ladies.’

‘Then I want every man shaved,’ Sharpe said, ‘and no one’s to leave the stable yard. If the bloody Frogs come we don’t want to be searching for lost men. And Harris? Look around the stables. See if you can find some wood to make the brigadier crutches.’

Harris grinned. ‘He’s already got crutches, sir. The lady had some that belonged to her husband.’

‘The marquesa?’

‘She’s a crone, sir, a widow, and hell, has she got a bloody tongue on her!’

‘Has the brigadier been given food?’

‘He has, sir, and there’s a doctor on his way.’

‘He doesn’t need a doctor,’ Sharpe grumbled. ‘Private Geoghegan did a good job on that leg.’

Geoghegan grinned. ‘I did, sir.’

‘I’m going to have a look about,’ Sharpe said, ‘so if the bloody Frogs come you must get the brigadier down to the river.’ He was not sure what they could do beside the river with the French on their heels, but maybe some escape would offer itself.

‘You think they will come, sir?’ Noolan asked.

‘God knows what the bastards will do.’

Sharpe went back outside, then crossed the terrace and went down into the kitchen garden. Two men worked there now, setting out plants in newly turned furrows, and they straightened up and watched him with suspicion as he walked to the boathouse. It was a wooden building on a stone foundation and had a padlocked door. It was an old ball padlock, the size of a cooking apple and Sharpe did not even bother trying to pick it, but just put its shackle against the door then rapped the lock’s base with the brass butt of his rifle. He heard the bolts shear inside, pulled the shackle free and swung the door outwards.

And there was the boat.

The perfect boat. It looked like an admiral’s barge with six rowing benches and a wide stern thwart and a dozen long oars laid neatly up its centre line. It floated between two walkways and there was hardly a drop of water in its bilges, suggesting that the boat was watertight. The gunwales, transom and stem thwart had been painted white once, but the paint was peeling now and there was dust everywhere and cobwebs between the thwarts. A scrabble in the dark beneath the walkways betrayed rats.

He heard the footsteps behind and turned to see one of the gardeners had come to the boathouse. The man was holding a fowling piece that he trained on Sharpe and then spoke in a harsh voice. He jerked his head and twitched the gun, ordering Sharpe away from the boat.

Sharpe shrugged. The fowling piece had a barrel at least five feet long. It looked ancient, but that did not mean it would not work. The man was tall, well built, in his forties, and he held the old gun confidently. He ordered Sharpe out of the boathouse again and Sharpe meekly obeyed. The man was reprimanding him, but so fast that Sharpe could hardly understand one word in ten, but he understood well enough when the man emphasized his words by poking his gun barrel into Sharpe’s waist. Sharpe seized the gun with his left hand and hit the man with his right. Then he kicked him between the legs and took the fowling piece away. ‘You don’t poke guns at British officers,’ Sharpe said, though he doubted the man understood him, or even heard him for that matter, for he was crouching in agony and making a mewing sound. Sharpe blew the last remnants of powder from the gun’s pan so it could not fire, then he banged the muzzle against a stone until the shot and powder came tumbling out. He scuffed the powder into the earth and then, just to make sure the weapon could not fire, he wrenched the doghead away from the lock and threw it into the river. ‘You’re lucky to be alive,’ he told the man. He tossed the fowling piece onto the man’s belly and resisted the urge to kick him again. He had not realized how angry he was. The second gardener backed away, bowing.

Sharpe found the brigadier propped up on the couch with a towel wrapped about his neck. A young manservant was shaving him. ‘There you are, Sharpe,’ Moon greeted him. ‘You’ll be pleased to know I’ve discovered the secret of a good shave.’

‘You have, sir?’

‘Add some lime juice to the shaving water. Very clever, don’t you think?’

Sharpe was not sure what to say to that. ‘We’ve posted sentries, sir. The men are cleaning themselves up and I’ve found a boat.’

‘What use is a boat now?’ Moon asked.

‘Cross the river, sir. We can make a horse swim behind, sir, if we’ve got the cash to buy one, and if you ride, sir, we’ve a chance to catch up with our lads.’ Sharpe doubted there was any chance of catching the six light companies which retreated from Fort Joseph, but he had to give the brigadier hope.

Moon paused as the manservant rinsed his face, then patted it dry with a hot towel. ‘We’re not going anywhere, Sharpe,’ the brigadier said, ‘until a doctor has seen this leg. The marquesa says the fellow in the town is perfectly adequate for broken bones. She’s a damned bitter old hag, but she’s being helpful enough, and I assume her physician is better than some teague soldier, don’t you think?’

‘I think, sir, that the sooner we’re away from here the better.’

‘Not before a proper doctor has seen this leg,’ the brigadier said firmly. ‘The fellow’s been summoned and should be here soon. We can go after that. Have the men ready.’

Sharpe sent Noolan and his men down to the boathouse. ‘Guard the damn boat,’ he told them, then he joined Harper, Hagman and Slattery who kept watch from the tower’s top. Harper told Sharpe that nothing moved on the road leading eastwards. ‘Be ready to go, Pat,’ Sharpe said. ‘I’ve got a boat. We’re just waiting for the brigadier now.’

‘You’ve found a boat? Easy as that?’

‘Easy as that.’

‘So what do we do with it?’

Sharpe thought for a second. ‘I doubt we can catch the others,’ he said, ‘so probably the best thing is to go downriver. Find a British ship on the coast. We’ll be in Lisbon in five days, and back with the battalion in six.’

‘Now that would be nice,’ Harper said fervently.

Sharpe smiled. ‘Joana?’ he asked. Joana was a Portuguese girl whom Harper had rescued in Coimbra and who now shared the sergeant’s quarters.

‘I’m fond of the girl,’ Harper admitted airily. ‘And she’s a good lass. She can cook, mend, works hard.’

‘Is that all she does?’ Sharpe asked.

‘She’s a good girl,’ Harper insisted.

‘You should marry her then,’ Sharpe said.

‘There’s no call for that, sir,’ Harper said, sounding alarmed.

‘I’ll ask Colonel Lawford when we’re back,’ Sharpe said. Officially only six wives were allowed with the men of each company, but the colonel could give permission to add another to the strength.

Harper looked at Sharpe for a long time, trying to work out whether he was being serious or not, but Sharpe’s face gave away nothing. ‘The colonel’s got enough to worry about, sir, so he does,’ Harper said.

‘What’s he got to worry about? We do all the work.’

‘But he’s a colonel, sir, he’s got to worry.’

‘And I worry about you, Pat. I worry that you’re a sinner. It worries me that you’ll be going to hell when you die.’

‘At least I can keep you company there, sir.’

Sharpe laughed at that. ‘That’s true, so maybe I won’t ask the colonel.’

‘You escaped, Sergeant,’ Slattery said, amused.

‘But it all depends on Moon, doesn’t it?’ Sharpe said. ‘If he wants to cross the river and try to catch the others, that’s what we’ll have to do. If he wants to go downriver we go downriver, but one way or another we should get you back to Joana in a week.’ He saw a horseman appear on the northern hill from which he had first glimpsed the house and town, and he took out his telescope, but by the time he had trained it the man had gone. Probably a hunter, he told himself. ‘So be ready to move, Pat. And you’ll have to fetch the brigadier. He’s got crutches now, but if the bloody Frogs show we’ll need to get him down to the river fast so you’ll have to carry him.’

‘There’s a wheelbarrow in the stable yard, sir,’ Hagman said. ‘A dung barrow.’

‘I’ll put it on the terrace,’ Sharpe said.

He found the barrow behind a heap of horse manure and wheeled it to the terrace and parked it beside the door. He had done all he could now. He had a boat, it was guarded, the men were ready, and all now depended on Moon giving the orders.

He sat outside the brigadier’s door and took off his hat so the winter sun could warm his face. He closed his eyes in tiredness and within seconds he was asleep, his head tipped back onto the house wall beside the door. He was dreaming, and he was aware it was a good dream, and then someone hit him hard across the head, and that was no dream. He scrambled sideways, reaching for his rifle, and was hit again. ‘Impudent puppy!’ a voice shrieked, and then she hit him again. She was an old woman, older than Sharpe could imagine, with a brown face like sun-dried mud, all cracks and wrinkles and malevolence and bitterness. She was dressed in black with a black widow’s veil pinned to her white hair. Sharpe stood up, rubbing his head where she had hit him with one of the brigadier’s borrowed crutches. ‘You dare attack one of my servants?’ she shrieked. ‘You insolent cur!’

‘Ma’am,’ Sharpe said for want of anything else to say.

‘You break into my boathouse!’ she said in a grating voice. ‘You assault my servant! If the world were respectable you would be whipped. My husband would have whipped you.’

‘Your husband, ma’am?’

‘He was the Marquis de Cardenas and he had the misfortune to be ambassador to the Court of St James for eleven sad years. We lived in London. A horrid city. A vile city. Why did you attack my gardener?’

‘Because he attacked me, ma’am.’

‘He says not.’

‘If the world were a respectable place, ma’am, then an officer’s word would be preferred to a servant’s.’

‘You impudent puppy! I feed you, I shelter you, and you reward me with barbarism and lies. Now you wish to steal my son’s boat?’

‘Borrow it, ma’am.’

‘You can’t,’ she snapped. ‘It belongs to my son.’

‘He’s here, ma’am?’

‘He is not, nor should you be. What you will do is march away from here once the doctor has seen your brigadier. You may take the crutches, nothing else.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ she mimicked him, ‘so humble.’ A bell sounded deep in the house and she turned away. ‘El médico,’ she muttered.

Private Geoghegan appeared then, running up from the kitchen garden. ‘Sir,’ he panted, ‘there are men there.’

‘Men where?’

‘Boathouse, sir. A dozen of them. All got guns. I think they came from the town, sir. Sergeant Noolan told me to tell you and ask what’s to be done, sir?’

‘They’re guarding the boat?’

‘That’s it, sir, that’s just what they’re doing. They’re stopping us getting to the boathouse, sir. Just that, sir. Jesus, what was that?’

The brigadier had given a sudden yelp, presumably as the doctor explored the makeshift splint. ‘Tell Sergeant Noolan,’ Sharpe said, ‘that he’s to do nothing. Just watch the men and make sure they don’t take the boat away.’

‘Not to take the boat away, sir. And if they try?’

‘You bloody stop them. You fix swords,’ he paused, then corrected himself because only the rifles talked about fixing swords, ‘you fix bayonets and you walk slowly towards them and you point the bayonets at their crotches and they’ll run.’

‘Aye, sir, yes, sir.’ Geoghegan grinned. ‘But really, sir, we’re to do nothing else?’

‘It’s usually best.’

‘Oh, the poor man!’ Geoghegan glanced at the door. ‘And if he’d left it alone it would have been fine. Thank you, sir.’

Sharpe swore silently when Geoghegan was gone. It had all seemed so simple when he had discovered the boat, but he should have known nothing was ever that easy. And if the marquesa had summoned men from the town then there was a chance of bloodshed, and though Sharpe had no doubt that his soldiers would brush the townsmen away he also feared that he would take two or three more casualties. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said aloud, and, because there was nothing else to do, went back to the kitchen and rousted Harris from the table. ‘You’re to stand outside the brigadier’s room,’ he told him, ‘and let me know when the doctor’s finished.’

He went up to the tower where Harper still stood guard. ‘Nothing moving, sir,’ Harper said, ‘except I thought I saw a horseman up there a half-hour ago,’ he pointed to the northern heights, ‘but he’s gone.’

‘I thought I saw the same thing.’

‘He’s not there now, sir.’

‘We’re just waiting for the doctor to finish with the brigadier,’ Sharpe said, ‘then we’ll go.’ He said nothing about the men guarding the boathouse. He would deal with them when the time came. ‘That’s a sour old bitch who lives here,’ he said.

‘The marquesa?’

‘A shrivelled old bitch. She bloody hit me!’

‘There’s some good in the woman then?’ Harper suggested, and when Sharpe glowered, hurried on. ‘It’s funny, though, isn’t it, that the Frogs haven’t ruined this place? I mean there’s food enough here for a battalion! And their foraging parties must have found this place months ago.’

‘She’s made her peace with the bloody Frogs,’ Sharpe said. ‘She probably sells them food and they leave her alone. She’s not on our side, that’s for sure. She hates us.’

‘So has she told the Crapauds we’re here?’

‘That worries me,’ Sharpe said. ‘She might have told them because she’s a wicked old bitch, that’s what she is.’ He gazed down the road. Something felt wrong. Everything was too peaceful. Perhaps, he thought, it was the news that the marquesa was trying to protect the boat that had unsettled him, and the thought of a boat reminded him of what Sergeant Noolan had told the brigadier that morning. The French had crossed the river. Either they had fashioned a usable boat out of one of the undamaged pontoons, or else they had kept a boat in Fort Josephine, but if the French had a boat, any boat, then this road was not their only approach. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said softly.

‘What, sir?’

‘They’re coming downriver.’

‘There’s that fellow again,’ Slattery said, pointing to the northern hill where, silhouetted against the sky, the horseman had reappeared. The man was standing in his stirrups now and waving his arms extravagantly.

‘Let’s go!’ Sharpe said.

The horseman must have been watching them all day, but his job was not just to watch, but to tell Colonel Vandal when the forces on the river were close to the house. Then the rest of the 8th would advance. Trapped, Sharpe thought. Some Frenchmen were coming by boat, others by road, and he was between them and then he was running down the crumbling staircase and shouting for the rest of his men who were lolling outside the kitchen to get down to the river. ‘We’ll fetch the brigadier!’ he told Harper.

The marquesa was in the brigadier’s room, watching as the doctor wrapped a bandage about a new splint that replaced Sharpe’s makeshift contraption. She saw the alarm on Sharpe’s face and gave a cackle. ‘So the French are coming,’ she taunted him, ‘the French are coming.’

‘We’re going, sir,’ Sharpe said, ignoring her.

‘He can’t finish this?’ The brigadier gestured at the half-wrapped bandage.

‘We’re going!’ Sharpe insisted. ‘Sergeant!’

Harper pushed the doctor aside and lifted the brigadier. ‘My sabre!’ the brigadier protested. ‘The crutches!’

‘Out!’ Sharpe ordered.

‘My sabre!’

‘The French are coming!’ the marquesa mocked.

‘You sent for them, you sour old bitch,’ Sharpe said, and he was tempted to hammer her malevolent face, but instead went outside where Harper had unceremoniously dumped Moon in the wheelbarrow.

‘My sabre!’ the brigadier pleaded.

‘Slattery, push the barrow,’ Sharpe said. ‘Pat, get that volley gun ready.’ The seven-barrel gun, more than anything, would frighten the men guarding the boat. ‘Hurry!’ he shouted.

Moon was still complaining about his lost sabre, but Sharpe had no time for the man. He ran ahead with Harper, through the bushes, then he was in the kitchen garden and he could see the knot of townsmen standing guard on the boathouse. ‘Sergeant Noolan!’

‘Sir!’ That was Harris. ‘There, sir.’

Bloody hell. Two pontoons, crammed with French troops, drifting downstream. ‘Shoot at them, Harris! Sergeant Noolan!’

‘Sir?’

‘Forward march.’ Sharpe joined the small rank of Connaught men. They were outnumbered by the townsmen, but the redcoats had bayonets and Harper had joined them with his volley gun. Rifles fired from the upstream bank and French muskets cracked from the pontoons. A bullet struck the boathouse roof and the townsmen flinched. ‘Váyase,’ Sharpe said, hoping his Spanish was understandable, ‘yo le mataré.’

‘What does that mean, sir?’ Sergeant Noolan asked.

‘Go away or we kill them.’

Another French musket ball hit the boathouse and it was that, more perhaps than the threat of the advancing bayonets, that took the last shred of courage from the civilians. They fled, and Sharpe breathed a sigh of relief. Slattery arrived, pushing the brigadier, as Sharpe hauled the door open. ‘Get the brigadier in the boat!’ he told Slattery, then ran to where Harris and three other riflemen were crouching by the bank. The two French boats, both salvaged pontoons being driven by crude paddles, were coming fast and he put the rifle to his shoulder, cocked it and fired. The smoke hid the nearest French boat. He started to reload, then decided there was no time. ‘To the boat!’ he called, and he ran back with the other riflemen and they threw themselves into the precious boat and Noolan had already cut the mooring lines and they shoved the boat out into the stream as they untangled the oars. A volley came from the French boats and one of Noolan’s men gave a grunt and fell sideways. Other musket balls thumped into the gunwales. The brigadier was in the bows. Men were scrambling into thwarts, but Harper already had two of the long oars in their rowlocks and, standing up, was hauling on the shafts. The current caught them and turned them downstream. Another shot came from the nearest French boat and Sharpe waded over the men amidships and snatched up Harper’s volley gun. He fired it at the French pontoon and the huge noise of the gun echoed back from the Portuguese hills as at last they began to outstrip their pursuers.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Sharpe said in pure relief for their narrow escape.

‘I think he’s dying, sir,’ Noolan said.

‘Who?’

‘Conor, poor boy.’ The man who had been shot was coughing up blood that frothed pink at his lips.

‘You left my sabre!’ Moon complained.

‘Sorry about that, sir.’

‘It was one of Bennett’s best!’

‘I said I’m sorry, sir.’

‘And there was dung in that wheelbarrow.’

Sharpe just looked into the brigadier’s eyes, and said nothing. The brigadier gave way first. ‘Did well to get away,’ he said grudgingly.

Sharpe turned to the men on the benches. ‘Geoghegan? Tie up the brigadier’s splint. Well done, lads! Well done. That was a bit too close.’

They were out of musket range now and the two ponderous French pontoons had given up the chase and turned for the bank. But ahead of them, where the smaller river joined the Guadiana, a knot of French horsemen appeared. Sharpe guessed they were the 8th’s officers who had galloped ahead of the battalion. So now those men must watch their prey vanish downriver, but then he saw that some of the horsemen had muskets and he turned towards the stern. ‘Steer away from the bank!’ he told Noolan who had taken the tiller ropes.

Sharpe reloaded the rifle. He could see four of the horsemen had dismounted and were kneeling at the river’s edge, aiming their muskets. The range was close, no more than thirty yards. ‘Rifles!’ he called. He aimed his own. He saw Vandal. The French colonel was one of the officers kneeling by the river. He had a musket at his shoulder and he seemed to be aiming directly at Sharpe. You bastard, Sharpe thought, and he shifted the rifle, pointing it straight at Vandal’s chest. The boat lurched, his aim wandered, he corrected it, and now he would teach the bastard the advantages of a rifle. He started to pull the trigger, keeping the foresight dead on the Frenchman’s chest, and just then he saw the smoke billow from the musket muzzles and there was an instant when his whole head seemed filled with light, a searing white light that turned blood red. There was pain like a lightning strike in his brain and then, like blood congealing on a corpse, the light went black and he could see and feel nothing at all. Nothing.