Читать книгу Sharpe 3-Book Collection 2 - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 10

Sharpe had always been lucky. Maybe not in the greater things of life, certainly not in the nature of his birth to a Cat Lane whore who had died without giving her only son a single caress, nor in the manner of his upbringing in a London orphanage that cared not a jot for the children within its grim walls, but in the smaller things, in those moments when success and failure had been a bullet’s width apart, he had been lucky. It had been good fortune that took him to the tunnel where the Tippoo Sultan was trapped, and even better fortune that had decapitated an orderly at Assaye so that Richard Sharpe was riding behind Sir Arthur Wellesley when that General’s horse was killed by a pike thrust and Sir Arthur was thrown down among the enemy. All luck, outrageous luck sometimes, but even Sharpe doubted his good fortune when he saw the dragoons twisting away from the barricade. Was he dead? Dreaming? Concussed and imagining things? But then he heard the roar of triumph from his men and he knew he was not dreaming. The enemy really had turned away and Sharpe was going to live and his men would not have to march as prisoners to France.

He heard the firing then, the stuttering chatter of muskets and realized that the dragoons had been attacked from their rear. There was powder smoke hanging thick between the houses that edged the road, and more coming from an orchard halfway up the hill on which the great white flat-topped block of a building stood, and then Sharpe was at the barricade and he leaped up onto the first skiff, his foot half sticking in some new tar that had been smeared on its lower hull. The dragoons were facing away from him, shooting up at the windows, but then a green-coated man turned and saw Sharpe and shouted a warning. An officer came from the door of the house beside the river and Sharpe, jumping down from the boat, skewered the man’s shoulder with his big sword, then shoved him hard against the limewashed wall as the dragoon who had shouted the warning fired at him. The ball plucked at Sharpe’s heavy pack, then Sharpe kneed the officer in the groin and turned on the man who had fired at him. That man was going backwards mouthing ‘non, non’, and Sharpe slammed the sword against his head, drawing blood but doing more damage with the blade’s sheer weight so that the dazed dragoon fell and was trampled by riflemen swarming over the low barricade. They were screaming slaughter, deaf to Harper’s shout to give the dragoons a volley.

Maybe three rifles fired, but the rest of the men kept charging to take their sword bayonets to an enemy that could not stand against an attack from front and back. The dragoons had been ambushed by troops coming from a building some fifty yards down the road, troops who had been hidden in the building and in the garden behind, and the French were now being attacked from both sides. The small space between the houses was veiled in powder smoke, loud with screams and the echo of shots, stinking of blood, and Sharpe’s men were fighting with a ferocity that both astonished and appalled the French. They were dragoons, schooled to fight with big swords from horseback, and they were not ready for this bloody brawl on foot with riflemen hardened by years of tavern fights and barrack-room conflicts. The men in rifle-green jackets were murderous in close combat and the surviving dragoons fled back to a grassy space on the river bank where their horses were picketed and Sharpe roared at his men to keep going eastwards. ‘Let them go!’ he shouted. ‘Drop ’em! Drop ’em!’ The last four words were those used in the rat pit, the instruction shouted to a terrier trying to kill a rat that was already dead. ‘Drop ’em! Keep going!’ There was French infantry close behind, there were more cavalrymen in Oporto and Sharpe’s priority now was to get as far away from the city as he possibly could. ‘Sergeant!’

‘I hear you, sir!’ Harper shouted and he waded down the alley and hauled Rifleman Tongue away from a Frenchman. ‘Come on, Isaiah! Move your bloody bones!’

‘I’m killing the bastard, Sergeant, I’m killing the bastard!’

‘The bastard’s already dead! Now move!’ A brace of carbine bullets rattled in the alleyway. A woman screamed incessantly in one of the nearby houses. A fleeing dragoon stumbled over a pile of woven wicker fish traps and sprawled in the house’s backyard where another Frenchman was lying among a pile of drying washing that he had pulled from a line as he died. The white sheets were red with his blood. Gataker aimed at a dragoon officer who had managed to mount his horse, but Harper pulled him away. ‘Keep running! Keep running!’

Then there was a swarm of blue uniforms to Sharpe’s left and he turned, sword raised, and saw they were Portuguese. ‘Friends!’ he shouted for the benefit of his riflemen. ‘Watch out for the Portuguese!’ The Portuguese soldiers were the ones who had saved him from an ignominious surrender, and now, having ambushed the French from behind, they joined Sharpe’s men in their headlong flight to the east.

‘Keep going!’ Harper bawled. Some of the riflemen were panting and they slowed to a walk until a flurry of carbine shots from the surviving dragoons made them hurry again. Most of the shots went high, one banged into the road beside Sharpe and ricocheted up into a poplar, and another struck Tarrant in the hip. The rifleman went down, screaming, and Sharpe grabbed his collar and kept running, dragging Tarrant with him. The road and river curved leftwards and there were trees and bushes on its bank. That woodland was not far away, too close to the city for comfort, but it would provide cover while Sharpe reorganized his men.

‘Get to the trees!’ Sharpe yelled. ‘Get to the trees!’

Tarrant was in pain, shouting protests and leaving a trail of blood on the road. Sharpe pulled him into the trees and let him drop, then stood beside the road and shouted at his men to form a line at the wood’s edge. ‘Count them, Sergeant,’ he called to Harper, ‘count them!’ The Portuguese infantry mingled with the riflemen and began reloading their muskets. Sharpe unslung his rifle and fired at a cavalryman who was wheeling his horse on the river bank, ready to pursue. The horse reared, throwing its rider. Other dragoons had drawn their long straight swords, evidently intent on a vengeful pursuit, but then a French officer shouted at the cavalrymen to stay where they were. He at least understood that a charge into thick trees where infantry was loaded and ready was tantamount to suicide. He would wait for his own infantry to catch up.

Daniel Hagman took out the scissors that had cut Sharpe’s hair and sliced Tarrant’s breeches away from the wounded hip. Blood spilled down as Hagman cut, then the old man grimaced. ‘Reckon he’s lost the joint, sir.’

‘He can’t walk?’

‘He won’t walk never again,’ Hagman said. Tarrant swore viciously. He was one of Sharpe’s troublemakers, a sullen man from Hertfordshire who never lost a chance to become drunk and vicious, but when he was sober he was a good marksman who did not lose his head in battle. ‘You’ll be all right, Ned,’ Hagman told him, ‘you’ll live.’

‘Carry me,’ Tarrant appealed to his friend, Williamson.

‘Leave him!’ Sharpe snapped. ‘Take his rifle, ammunition and sword.’

‘You can’t just leave him here,’ Williamson said, and obstructed Hagman so that he could not unbuckle his friend’s cartridge box.

Sharpe seized Williamson by the shoulder and hauled him away. ‘I said leave him!’ He did not like it, but he could not be slowed down by the weight of a wounded man, and the French would tend for Tarrant better than any of Sharpe’s men could. The rifleman would go to a French army hospital, be treated by French doctors and, if he did not die from gangrene, would probably be exchanged for a wounded French prisoner. Tarrant would go home, a cripple, and most likely end in the parish workhouse. Sharpe pushed through the trees to find Harper. Carbine bullets pattered through the branches, leaving shreds of leaf sifting down the shafts of sunlight behind them. ‘Anyone missing?’ Sharpe asked Harper.

‘No, sir. What happened to Tarrant?’

‘Bullet in the hip,’ Sharpe said, ‘he’ll have to stay here.’

‘Won’t miss him,’ Harper said, though before Sharpe had made the Irishman into a sergeant, Harper had been a crony of the troublemakers among whom Tarrant had been a ringleader. Now Harper was the troublemaker’s scourge. It was strange, Sharpe reflected, what three stripes could do.

Sharpe reloaded his rifle, knelt by a laurel tree, cocked the weapon and stared at the French. Most of the dragoons were mounted, though a handful were on foot and trying their luck with their carbines, but at too long a range. But in a minute or two, Sharpe thought, they would have a hundred infantrymen ready to charge. It was time to go.

‘Senhor.’ A very young Portuguese officer appeared beside the tree and bowed to Sharpe.

‘Later!’ Sharpe didn’t like to be so rude, but there was no time to waste on courtesies. ‘Dan!’ He pushed past the Portuguese officer and shouted at Hagman. ‘Have we got Tarrant’s kit?’

‘Here, sir.’ Hagman had the wounded man’s rifle on his shoulder and his cartridge box dangling from his belt. Sharpe would have hated the French to collect a Baker rifle, they were trouble enough already without being given the best weapon ever issued to a skirmisher.

‘This way!’ Sharpe ordered, going north away from the river.

He deliberately left the road. It followed the river, and the open pastures on the Douro’s bank offered few obstacles to pursuing cavalry, but a smaller track twisted north through the trees and Sharpe took it, using the woodland to cover his escape. As the ground became higher the trees thinned out, becoming groves of squat oaks that were cultivated because their thick bark provided the corks for Oporto’s wine. Sharpe led a gruelling pace, only stopping after half an hour when they came to the edge of the oaks and were staring at a great valley of vineyards. The city was still in sight to the west, the smoke from its many fires drifting over the oaks and vines. The men rested. Sharpe had feared a pursuit, but the French evidently wanted to plunder Oporto’s houses and find the prettiest women and had no mind to pursue a handful of soldiers fleeing into the hills.

The Portuguese soldiers had kept pace with Sharpe’s riflemen and their officer, who had tried to talk to Sharpe before, now approached again. He was very young and very slender and very tall and wearing what looked like a brand-new uniform. His officer’s sword hung from a white shoulder sash edged with silver piping and at his belt was a holstered pistol that looked so clean Sharpe suspected it had never been fired. He was good-looking except for a black moustache that was too thin, and something about his demeanour suggested he was a gentleman, and a decent one at that, for his dark and intelligent eyes were oddly mournful, but perhaps that was no surprise for he had just seen Oporto fall to invaders. He bowed to Sharpe. ‘Senhor?’

‘I don’t speak Portuguese,’ Sharpe said.

‘I am Lieutenant Vicente,’ the officer said in good English. His dark-blue uniform had white piping at its hems and was decorated with silver buttons and red cuffs and a high red collar. He wore a barretina, a shako with a false front that added six inches to his already considerable height. The number 18 was emblazoned on the barretina’s brass front plate. He was out of breath and sweat was glistening on his face, but he was determined to remember his manners. ‘I congratulate you, senhor.’

‘Congratulate me?’ Sharpe did not understand.

‘I watched you, senhor, on the road beneath the seminary. I thought you must surrender, but instead you attacked. It was’ – Vicente paused, frowning as he searched for the right word – ‘it was great bravery,’ he went on and then embarrassed Sharpe by removing the barretina and bowing again, ‘and I brought my men to attack the French because your bravery deserved it.’

‘I wasn’t being brave,’ Sharpe said, ‘just bloody stupid.’

‘You were brave,’ Vicente insisted, ‘and we salute you.’ He looked for a moment as though he planned to step smartly back, draw his sword and whip the blade up into a formal salute, but Sharpe managed to head off the flourish with a question about Vicente’s men. ‘There are thirty-seven of us, senhor,’ the young Portuguese answered gravely, ‘and we are from the eighteenth regiment, the second of Porto.’ He gave Oporto its proper Portuguese name. The regiment, he said, had been defending the makeshift palisades on the city’s northern edge and had retreated towards the bridge where it had dissolved into panic. Vicente had gone eastwards in the company of these thirty-seven men, only ten of whom were from his own company. ‘There were more of us,’ he confessed, ‘many more, but most kept running. One of my sergeants said I was a fool to try and rescue you and I had to shoot him to stop him from spreading, what is the word? Desesperança? Ah, despair, and then I led these volunteers to your assistance.’

For a few seconds Sharpe just stared at the Portuguese Lieutenant. ‘You did what?’ he finally asked.

‘I led these men back to give you aid. I am the only officer of my company left, so who else could make the decision? Captain Rocha was killed by a cannonball up on the redoubt, and the others? I do not know what happened to them.’

‘No,’ Sharpe said, ‘before that. You shot your Sergeant?’

Vicente nodded. ‘I shall stand trial, of course. I shall plead necessity.’ There were tears in his eyes. ‘But the Sergeant said you were all dead men and that we were beaten ones. He was urging the men to shed their uniforms and desert.’

‘You did the right thing,’ Sharpe said, astonished.

Vicente bowed again. ‘You flatter me, senhor.’

‘And stop calling me senhor,’ Sharpe said. ‘I’m a lieutenant like you.’

Vicente took a half step back, unable to hide his surprise. ‘You are a …?’ he began to ask, then understood that the question was rude. Sharpe was older than he was, maybe by ten years, and if Sharpe was still a lieutenant then presumably he was not a good soldier, for a good soldier, by the age of thirty, must have been promoted. ‘But I am sure, senhor,’ Vicente went on, ‘that you are senior to me.’

‘I might not be,’ Sharpe said.

‘I have been a lieutenant for two weeks,’ Vicente said.

It was Sharpe’s turn to look surprised. ‘Two weeks!’

‘I had some training before that, of course,’ Vicente said, ‘and during my studies I read the exploits of the great soldiers.’

‘Your studies?’

‘I am a lawyer, senhor.’

‘A lawyer!’ Sharpe could not hide his instinctive disgust. He came from the gutters of England and anyone born and raised in those gutters knew that most persecution and oppression was inflicted by lawyers. Lawyers were the devil’s servants who ushered men and women to the gallows, they were the vermin who gave orders to the bailiffs, they made their snares from statutes and became wealthy on their victims and when they were rich enough they became politicians so they could devise even more laws to make themselves even wealthier. ‘I hate bloody lawyers,’ Sharpe growled with a genuine intensity for he was remembering Lady Grace and what had happened after she died and how the lawyers had stripped him of every penny he had ever made, and the memory of Grace and her dead baby brought all the old misery back and he thrust it out of mind. ‘I do hate lawyers,’ he said.

Vicente was so dumbfounded by Sharpe’s hostility that he seemed to simply blank it out of his mind. ‘I was a lawyer,’ he said, ‘before I took up my country’s sword. I worked for the Real Companhia Velha, which is responsible for the regulation of the trade of port wine.’

‘If a child of mine wanted to become a lawyer,’ Sharpe said, ‘I’d strangle it with my own hands and then piss on its grave.’

‘So you are married then, senhor?’ Vicente asked politely.

‘No, I’m bloody not married.’

‘I misunderstood,’ Vicente said, then gestured towards his tired troops. ‘So here we are, senhor, and I thought we might join forces.’

‘Maybe,’ Sharpe said grudgingly, ‘but make one thing clear, lawyer. If your commission is two weeks old then I’m the senior man. I’m in charge. No bloody lawyer weaselling around that.’

‘Of course, senhor,’ Vicente said, frowning as though he was offended by Sharpe’s stating of the obvious.

Bloody lawyer, Sharpe thought, of all the bloody ill fortune. He knew he had behaved boorishly, especially as this courtly young lawyer had possessed the courage to kill a sergeant and lead his men to Sharpe’s rescue, and he knew he should apologize for his rudeness, but instead he stared south and west, trying to make sense of the landscape, looking for any pursuit and wondering where in hell he was. He took out his fine telescope which had been a gift from Sir Arthur Wellesley and trained it back the way they had come, staring over the trees, and at last he saw what he expected to see. Dust. A lot of dust being kicked up by hooves, boots or wheels. It could have been fugitives streaming eastwards on the road beside the river, or it could have been the French, Sharpe could not tell.

‘You will be trying to get south of the Douro?’ Vicente asked.

‘Aye, I am. But there’s no bridges on this part of the river, is that right?’

‘Not till you reach Amarante,’ Vicente said, ‘and that is on the River Tamega. It is a … how do you say? A side river? Tributary, thank you, of the Douro, but once across the Tamega there is a bridge over the Douro at Pêso da Régua.’

‘And are the Frogs on the far side of the Tamega?’

Vicente shook his head. ‘We were told General Silveira is there.’

Being told that a Portuguese general was waiting across a river was not the same as knowing it, Sharpe thought. ‘And there’s a ferry over the Douro,’ he asked, ‘not far from here?’

Vicente nodded. ‘At Barca d’Avintas.’

‘How close is it?’

Vicente thought for a heartbeat. ‘Maybe a half-hour’s walk? Less, probably.’

‘That close?’ But if the ferry was close to Oporto then the French could already be there. ‘And how far is Amarante?’

‘We could be there tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow,’ Sharpe echoed, then collapsed the telescope. He stared south. Was that dust thrown up by the French? Were they on their way to Barca d’Avintas? He wanted to use the ferry because it was so much nearer, but also riskier. Would the French be expecting fugitives to use the ferry? Or perhaps the invaders did not even know it existed. There was only one way to find out. ‘How do we get to Barca d’Avintas?’ he asked Vicente, gesturing back down the track that led through the cork oaks. ‘The same way we came?’

‘There is a quicker path,’ Vicente said.

‘Then lead on.’

Some of the men were sleeping, but Harper kicked them awake and they all followed Vicente off the road and down into a gentle valley where vines grew in neatly tended rows. From there they climbed another hill and walked through meadows dotted with the small haystacks left from the previous year. Flowers studded the grass and twined about the witch-hat haystacks, while blossom filled the hedgerows. There was no path, though Vicente led the men confidently enough.

‘You know where you’re going?’ Sharpe asked suspiciously after a while.

‘I know this landscape,’ Vicente assured the rifleman, ‘I know it well.’

‘You grew up here, then?’

Vicente shook his head. ‘I was raised in Coimbra. That’s far to the south, senhor, but I know this landscape because I belong’ – he checked and corrected himself – ‘belonged to a society that walks here.’

‘A society that walks in the countryside?’ Sharpe asked, amused.

Vicente blushed. ‘We are philosophers, senhor, and poets.’

Sharpe was too astonished to respond immediately, but finally managed a question. ‘You were what?’

‘Philosophers and poets, senhor.’

‘Jesus bloody Christ,’ Sharpe said.

‘We believe, senhor,’ Vicente went on, ‘that there is inspiration in the countryside. The country, you see, is natural, while towns are made by man and so harbour all men’s wickedness. If we wish to discover our natural goodness then it must be sought in the country.’ He was having trouble finding the right English words to express what he meant. ‘There is, I think,’ he tried again, ‘a natural goodness in the world and we seek it.’

‘So you come here for inspiration?’

‘We do, yes.’ Vicente nodded eagerly.

Giving inspiration to a lawyer, Sharpe thought sourly, was like feeding fine brandy to a rat. ‘And let me guess,’ he said, barely hiding his derision, ‘that the members of your society of rhyming philosophers are all men. Not a woman among you, eh?’

‘How did you know?’ Vicente asked in amazement.

‘I told you, I guessed.’

Vicente nodded. ‘It is not, of course, that we do not like women. You must not think that we do not want their company, but they are reluctant to join our discussions. They would be most welcome, of course, but …’ His voice tailed away.

‘Women are like that,’ Sharpe said. Women, he had found, preferred the company of rogues to the joys of conversation with sober and earnest young men like Lieutenant Vicente who harboured romantic dreams about the world and whose thin black moustache had patently been grown in an attempt to make himself look older and more sophisticated and only succeeded in making him look younger. ‘Tell me something, Lieutenant,’ he said.

‘Jorge,’ Vicente interrupted him, ‘my name is Jorge. Like your saint.’

‘So tell me something, Jorge. You said you had some training as a soldier. What kind of training was it?’

‘We had lectures in Porto.’

‘Lectures?’

‘On the history of warfare. On Hannibal, Alexander and Caesar.’

‘Book learning?’ Sharpe asked, not hiding his derision.

‘Book learning,’ Vicente said bravely, ‘comes naturally to a lawyer, and a lawyer, moreover, who saved your life, Lieutenant.’

Sharpe grunted, knowing he had deserved that mild reproof. ‘What did happen back there,’ he asked, ‘when you rescued me? I know you shot one of your sergeants, but why didn’t the French hear you do that?’

‘Ah!’ Vicente frowned, thinking. ‘I shall be honest, Lieutenant, and tell you it is not all to my credit. I had shot the Sergeant before I saw you. He was telling the men to strip off their uniforms and run away. Some did and the others would not listen to me so I shot him. It was very sad. And most of the men were in the tavern by the river, close to where the French made their barricade.’ Sharpe had seen no tavern; he had been too busy trying to extricate his men from the dragoons to notice one. ‘It was then I saw you coming. Sergeant Macedo’ – Vicente gestured towards a squat, dark-faced man stumping along behind – ‘wanted to stay hidden in the tavern and I told the men that it was time to fight for Portugal. Most did not seem to listen, so I drew my pistol, senhor, and I went into the road. I thought I would die, but I also thought I must set an example.’

‘But your men followed you?’

‘They did,’ Vicente said warmly, ‘and Sergeant Macedo fought very bravely.’

‘I think,’ Sharpe said, ‘that despite being a bloody lawyer you’re a remarkable bloody soldier.’

‘I am?’ The young Portuguese sounded amazed, but Sharpe knew it must have taken a natural leader to bring men out of a tavern to ambush a party of dragoons.

‘So did all your philosophers and poets join the army?’ Sharpe asked.

Vicente looked embarrassed. ‘Some joined the French, alas.’

‘The French!’

The Lieutenant shrugged. ‘There is a belief, senhor, that the future of mankind is prophesied in French thought. In French ideas. In Portugal, I think, we are old-fashioned and in response many of us are inspired by the French philosophers. They reject the church and the old ways. They dislike the monarchy and despise unearned privilege. Their ideas are very exciting. You have read them?’

‘No,’ Sharpe said.

‘But I love my country more than I love Monsieur Rousseau,’ Vicente said sadly, ‘so I shall be a soldier before I am a poet.’

‘Quite right,’ Sharpe said, ‘best choose something useful to do with your life.’ They crossed a small rise in the ground and Sharpe saw the river ahead and a small village beside it and he checked Vicente with an upraised hand. ‘Is that Barca d’Avintas?’

‘It is,’ Vicente said.

‘God damn it,’ Sharpe said bitterly, because the French were there already.

The river curled gently at the foot of some blue-tinged hills, and between Sharpe and the river were meadows, vineyards, the small village, a stream flowing to the river and the goddamned bloody French. More dragoons. The green-coated cavalrymen had dismounted and now strolled about the village as if they did not have a care in the world and Sharpe, dropping back behind some gorse bushes, waved his men down. ‘Sergeant! Skirmish order along the crest.’ He left Harper to get on with deploying the rifles while he took out his telescope and stared at the enemy.

‘What do I do?’ Vicente asked.

‘Just wait,’ Sharpe said. He focused the glass, marvelling at the clarity of its magnified image. He could see the buckle holes in the girth straps on the dragoons’ horses which were picketed in a small field just to the west of the village. He counted the horses. Forty-six. Maybe forty-eight. It was hard to tell because some of the beasts were bunched together. Call it fifty men. He edged the telescope left and saw smoke rising from beyond the village, maybe from the river bank. A small stone bridge crossed the stream which flowed from the north. He could see no villagers. Had they fled? He looked to the west, back down the road which led to Oporto, and he could see no more Frenchmen, which suggested the dragoons were a patrol sent to harry fugitives. ‘Pat!’

‘Sir?’ Harper came and crouched beside him.

‘We can take these bastards.’

Harper borrowed Sharpe’s telescope and stared south for a good minute. ‘Forty of them? Fifty?’

‘About that. Make sure our boys are loaded.’ Sharpe left the telescope with Harper and scrambled back from the crest to find Vicente. ‘Call your men here. I want to talk to them. You’ll translate.’ Sharpe waited till the thirty-seven Portuguese were assembled. Most looked uncomfortable, doubtless wondering why they were being commanded by a foreigner. ‘My name is Sharpe,’ he told the blue-coated troops, ‘Lieutenant Sharpe, and I’ve been a soldier for sixteen years.’ He waited for Vicente to interpret, then pointed at the youngest-looking Portuguese soldier, a lad who could not have been a day over seventeen and might well have been three years younger. ‘I was carrying a musket before you were born. And I mean carrying a musket. I was a soldier like you. I marched in the ranks.’ Vicente, as he translated, gave Sharpe a surprised look. The rifleman ignored it. ‘I’ve fought in Flanders,’ Sharpe went on, ‘I’ve fought in India, I’ve fought in Spain and I’ve fought in Portugal, and I’ve never lost a fight. Never.’ The Portuguese had just been run out of the great northern redoubt in front of Oporto and that defeat was still sore, yet here was a man telling them he was invincible and some of them looked at the scar on his face and the hardness in his eyes and they believed him. ‘Now you and I are going to fight together,’ Sharpe went on, ‘and that means we’re going to win. We’re going to run these damned Frenchmen out of Portugal!’ Some of them smiled at that. ‘Don’t take any notice of what happened today. That wasn’t your fault. You were led by a bishop! What bloody use is a bishop to anyone? You might as well go into battle with a lawyer.’ Vicente gave Sharpe a swift and reproving glance before translating the last sentence, but he must have done it correctly for the men grinned at Sharpe. ‘We’re going to run the bastards back to France,’ Sharpe continued, ‘and for every Portuguese and Briton they kill we’re going to slaughter a score.’ Some of the Portuguese thumped their musket butts on the ground in approbation. ‘But before we fight,’ Sharpe went on, ‘you’d better know I have three rules and you had all better get used to those rules now. Because if you break these three rules then, God help me, I’ll goddamn break you.’ Vicente sounded nervous as he interpreted the last few words.

Sharpe waited, then held up one finger. ‘You don’t get drunk without my permission.’ A second finger. ‘You don’t thieve from anyone unless you’re starving. And I don’t count taking things off the enemy as thieving.’ That got a smile. He held up the third finger. ‘And you fight as if the devil himself was on your tail. That’s it! You don’t get drunk, you don’t thieve and you fight like demons. You understand?’ They nodded after the translation.

‘And right now,’ Sharpe went on, ‘you’re going to start fighting. You’re going to make three ranks and you’ll fire a volley at some French cavalry.’ He would have preferred two ranks, but only the British fought in two ranks. Every other army used three and so, for the moment, he would too, even though thirty-seven men in three ranks offered a very small frontage. ‘And you won’t pull your trigger until Lieutenant Vicente gives the order. You can trust him! He’s a good soldier, your Lieutenant!’ Vicente blushed and perhaps made some modest changes to his interpretation, but the grins on his men’s faces suggested the lawyer had conveyed the gist of Sharpe’s words. ‘Make sure your muskets are loaded,’ Sharpe said, ‘but not cocked. I don’t want the enemy knowing we’re here because some careless halfwit lets off a cocked musket. Now, enjoy killing the bastards.’ He left them on that bloodthirsty note and walked back to the crest where he knelt beside Harper. ‘Are they doing anything?’ he asked, nodding towards the dragoons.

‘Getting drunk,’ Harper said. ‘Gave them the talk, did you?’

‘Is that what it is?’

‘Don’t get drunk, don’t thieve and fight like the devil. Mister Sharpe’s sermon.’

Sharpe smiled, then took the telescope from the Sergeant and trained it at the village where a score of dragoons, their green coats unbuttoned, were squirting wineskins into their mouths. Others were searching the small houses. A woman with a torn black dress ran from one house, was seized by a cavalryman and dragged back indoors. ‘I thought the villagers were gone,’ Sharpe said.

‘I’ve seen a couple of women,’ Harper said, ‘and doubtless there are plenty more we can’t see.’ He ran a huge hand over the lock of his rifle. ‘So what are we going to do with them?’

‘We’re going to piss up their noses,’ Sharpe said, ‘till they decide to swat us away and then we’re going to kill them.’ He collapsed the glass and told Harper exactly how he planned to defeat the dragoons.

The vineyards gave Sharpe the opportunity. The vines grew in close thick rows that stretched from the stream on their left to some woodland off to the west, and the rows were broken only by a footpath that gave labourers access to the plants which offered dense cover for Sharpe’s men as they crawled closer to Barca d’Avintas. Two careless French sentries watched from the village’s edge, but neither saw anything threatening in the spring countryside and one of them even laid his carbine down so he could pack a small pipe with tobacco. Sharpe put Vicente’s men close to the footpath and sent his riflemen off to the west so that they were closer to the paddock in which the dragoons’ horses were picketed. Then he cocked his own rifle, lay down so that the barrel protruded between two gnarled vine roots and aimed at the nearest sentry.

He fired, and the butt slammed back into his shoulder and the sound was still echoing from the village’s walls when his riflemen began shooting at the horses. Their first volley brought down six or seven of the beasts, wounded as many again and started a panic among the other tethered animals. Two managed to pull their picketing pins out of the turf and jumped the fence in an attempt to escape, but then circled back towards their companions just as the rifles were reloaded and fired again. More horses screamed and fell. A half-dozen of the riflemen were watching the village and began shooting at the first dragoons to run towards the paddock. Vicente’s infantry remained hidden, crouching among the vines. Sharpe saw that the sentry he had shot was crawling up the street, leaving a bloody trail, and, as the smoke from that shot faded, he fired again, this time at an officer running towards the paddock. More dragoons, fearing they were losing their precious horses, ran to unpicket the beasts and the rifle bullets began to kill men as well as horses. An injured mare whinnied pitifully and then the dragoons’ commanding officer realized he could not rescue the horses until he had driven away the men who were slaughtering them and so he shouted at his cavalrymen to advance into the vines and drive the attackers off.

‘Keep shooting the horses!’ Sharpe shouted. It was not a pleasant job. The screams of the wounded beasts tore at men’s souls and the sight of an injured gelding trying to drag itself along by its front legs was heartbreaking, but Sharpe kept his men firing. The dragoons, spared the rifle fire now, ran towards the vineyard in the confident belief that they were dealing with a mere handful of partisans. Dragoons were supposed to be mounted infantry and so they were issued with carbines, short-barrelled muskets, with which they could fight on foot, and some carried the carbines while others preferred to attack with their long straight swords, but all of them instinctively ran towards the track which climbed among the vines. Sharpe had guessed they would follow the track rather than clamber over the entangling vines and that was why he had put Vicente and his men close by the path. The dragoons were bunching together as they entered the vines and Sharpe had an urge to run across to the Portuguese and take command of them, but just then Vicente ordered his men to stand.

The Portuguese soldiers appeared as if by magic in front of the disorganized dragoons. Sharpe watched, approvingly, as Vicente let his men settle, then ordered them to fire. The French had tried to check their desperate charge and swerve aside, but the vines obstructed them and Vicente’s volley hammered into the thickest press of cavalrymen bunched on the narrow track. Harper, off on the right flank, had the riflemen add their own volley so that the dragoons were assailed from both sides. Powder smoke drifted over the vines. ‘Fix swords!’ Sharpe shouted. A dozen dragoons were dead and the ones at the back were already running away. They had been convinced they fought against a few undisciplined peasants and instead they were outnumbered by real soldiers and the centre of their makeshift line had been gutted, half their horses were dead and now the infantry was coming from the smoke with fixed bayonets. The Portuguese stepped over the dead and injured dragoons. One of the Frenchmen, shot in the thigh, rolled over with a pistol in his hand and Vicente knocked it away with his sword and then kicked the gun into the stream. The un-wounded dragoons were running towards the horses and Sharpe ordered his riflemen to drive them off with bullets rather than blades. ‘Just keep them running!’ he shouted. ‘Panic them! Lieutenant!’ He looked for Vicente, ‘Take your men into the village! Cooper! Tongue! Slattery! Make these bastards safe!’ He knew he had to keep the Frenchmen in front moving, but he dared not leave any lightly wounded dragoons in his rear and so he ordered the three riflemen to disarm the cavalrymen injured by Vicente’s volley. The Portuguese were in the village now, banging open doors and converging on a church that stood next to the bridge that crossed the small stream.

Sharpe ran towards the field where the horses were dead, dying or terrified. A few dragoons had tried to untie their mounts, but the rifle fire had chased them off. So now Sharpe was the possessor of a score of horses. ‘Dan!’ he called to Hagman. ‘Put the wounded ones out of their misery. Pendleton! Harris! Cresacre! Over there!’ He pointed the three men towards the wall on the paddock’s western side. The dragoons had fled that way and Sharpe guessed they had taken refuge in some trees that stood thick just a hundred paces away. Three picquets were not enough to cope with even a half-hearted counterattack by the French so Sharpe knew he would have to strengthen those picquets soon, but first he wanted to make sure there were no dragoons skulking in the houses, gardens and orchards of the village.

Barca d’Avintas was a small place, a straggle of houses built about the road that ran down to the river where a short jetty should have accommodated the ferry, but some of the smoke Sharpe had seen earlier was coming from a barge-like vessel with a blunt bow and a dozen rowlocks. Now it was smoking in the water, its upper works burned almost to the waterline and its lower hull holed and sunken. Sharpe stared at the useless boat, looked across the river that was over a hundred yards broad and then swore.

Harper appeared beside him, his rifle slung. ‘Jesus,’ he said, staring at the ferry, ‘that’s not a lot of good to man or beast, is it now?’

‘Any of our boys hurt?’

‘Not a one, sir, not even a scratch. The Portuguese are the same, all alive. They did well, didn’t they?’ He looked at the burning boat again. ‘Sweet Jesus, was that the ferry?’

‘It was Noah’s bloody ark,’ Sharpe snapped. ‘What do you goddamned think it was?’ He was angry because he had hoped to use the ferry to get all his men safe across the Douro, but now it seemed he was stranded. He stalked away, then turned back just in time to see Harper making a face at him. ‘Have you found the taverns?’ he asked, ignoring the grimace.

‘Not yet, sir,’ Harper said.

‘Then find them, put a guard on them, then send a dozen more men to the far side of the paddock.’

‘Yes, sir!’

The French had set more fires among sheds on the river bank and Sharpe now ducked beneath the billowing smoke to kick open half-burned doors. There was a pile of tarred nets smouldering in one shed, but in the next there was a black-painted skiff with a fine spiked bow that curved up like a hook. The shed had been fired, but the flames had not reached the skiff and Sharpe managed to drag it halfway out of the door before Lieutenant Vicente arrived and helped him pull the boat all the way out of the smoke. The other sheds were too well alight, but at least this one boat was saved and Sharpe reckoned it could hold about half a dozen men safely, which meant that it would take the rest of the day to ferry everyone across the wide river. Sharpe was about to ask Vicente to look for oars or paddles when he saw that the young man’s face was white and shaken, almost as if the Lieutenant was on the point of tears. ‘What is it?’ Sharpe asked.

Vicente did not answer, but merely pointed back to the village.

‘The French were having games with the ladies, eh?’ Sharpe asked, setting off for the houses.

‘I would not call it games,’ Vicente said bitterly, ‘and there is also a prisoner.’

‘Only one?’

‘There are two others,’ Vicente said, frowning, ‘but this one is a lieutenant. He had no breeches which is why he was slow to run.’

Sharpe did not ask why the captured dragoon had no breeches. He knew why. ‘What have you done with him?’

‘He must go on trial,’ Vicente said.

Sharpe stopped and stared at the Lieutenant. ‘He must what?’ he asked, astonished. ‘Go on trial?’

‘Of course.’

‘In my country,’ Sharpe said, ‘they hang a man for rape.’

‘Not without a trial,’ Vicente protested and Sharpe guessed that the Portuguese soldiers had wanted to kill the prisoner straight away and that Vicente had stopped them out of some high-minded idea that a trial was necessary.

‘Bloody hell,’ Sharpe said, ‘you’re a soldier now, not a lawyer. You don’t give them a trial. You chop their hearts out.’

Most of Barca d’Avintas’s inhabitants had fled the dragoons, but some had stayed and most of them were now crowded about a house guarded by a half-dozen of Vicente’s men. A dead dragoon, stripped of shirt, coat, boots and breeches, lay face down in front of the church. He must have been leaning against the church wall when he was shot for he had left a smear of blood down the limewashed stones. Now a dog sniffed at his toes. The soldiers and villagers parted to let Sharpe and Vicente into the house where the young dragoon officer, fair-haired, thin and sullen-faced, was being guarded by Sergeant Macedo and another Portuguese soldier. The Lieutenant had managed to pull on his breeches, but had not had time to button them and he was now holding them up by the waist. As soon as he saw Sharpe he began gabbling in French. ‘You speak French?’ Sharpe asked Vicente.

‘Of course,’ Vicente said.

But Vicente, Sharpe reflected, wanted to give this fair-haired Frenchman a trial and Sharpe suspected that if Vicente interrogated the man he would not learn the real truth, merely hear the excuses, so Sharpe went to the house door. ‘Harper!’ He waited till the Sergeant appeared. ‘Get me Tongue or Harris,’ he ordered.

‘I will talk to the man,’ Vicente protested.

‘I need you to talk to someone else,’ Sharpe said and he went to the back room where a girl – she could not have been a day over fourteen – was weeping. Her face was red, eyes swollen and her breath came in fitful jerks interspersed with grizzling moans and cries of despair. She was wrapped in a blanket and had a bruise on her left cheek. An older woman, dressed all in black, was trying to comfort the girl who began to cry even louder the moment she saw Sharpe, making him back out of the room in embarrassment. ‘Find out from her what happened,’ he told Vicente, then turned as Harris came through the door. Harris and Tongue were Sharpe’s two educated men. Tongue had been doomed to the army by drink, while the red-haired, ever cheerful Harris claimed to be a volunteer who wanted adventure. He was getting plenty now, Sharpe reflected. ‘This piece of shit,’ Sharpe told Harris, jerking his head at the fair-haired Frenchman, ‘was caught with his knickers round his ankles and a young girl under him. Find out what his excuse is before we kill the bastard.’

He went back to the street and took a long drink from his canteen. The water was warm and brackish. Harper was waiting by a horse trough in the centre of the street and Sharpe joined him. ‘All well?’

‘There’s two more Frogs in there.’ Harper flicked a thumb towards the church behind him. ‘Live ones, I mean.’ The church door was guarded by four of Vicente’s men.

‘What are they doing in there?’ Sharpe asked. ‘Praying?’

The tall Ulsterman shrugged. ‘Looking for sanctuary, I’d guess.’

‘We can’t take the bastards with us,’ Sharpe said, ‘so why don’t we just shoot them?’

‘Because Mister Vicente says we mustn’t,’ Harper said. ‘He’s very particular about prisoners is Mister Vicente. He’s a lawyer, isn’t he?’

‘He seems halfway decent for a lawyer,’ Sharpe admitted grudgingly.

‘The best lawyers are six feet under the daisies, so they are,’ Harper said, ‘and this one won’t let me go and shoot those two bastards. He says they’re just drunks, which is true. They are. Skewed to the skies, they are.’

‘We can’t cope with prisoners,’ Sharpe said. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, then pulled his shako back on. The visor was coming away from the crown, but there was nothing he could do about that here. ‘Get Tongue,’ he suggested, ‘and see if he can find out what these two were up to. If they’re just drunk on communion wine then march them out west, strip them of anything valuable and boot them back where they came from. But if they raped anyone …’

‘I know what to do, sir,’ Harper said grimly.

‘Then do it,’ Sharpe said. He nodded to Harper, then walked on past the church to where the stream joined the river. The small stone bridge carried the road eastwards through a vineyard, past a walled cemetery and then twisted through pastureland beside the Douro. It was all open land and if more French came and he had to retreat from the village then he dared not use that road and he hoped to God he had time to ferry his men over the Douro and that thought made him go back up the street to look for oars. Or maybe he could find a rope? If the rope were long enough he could rig a line across the river and haul the boat back and forth and that would surely be quicker than rowing.

He was wondering if there were bell ropes in the small church that might stretch that far when Harris came out of the house and said that the prisoner’s name was Lieutenant Olivier and he was in the 18th Dragoons and that the Lieutenant, despite being caught with his breeches round his ankles, had denied raping the girl. ‘He said French officers don’t behave like that,’ Harris said, ‘but Lieutenant Vicente says the girl swears he did.’

‘So did he or didn’t he?’ Sharpe asked irritably.

‘Of course he did, sir. He admitted as much after I thumped him,’ Harris said happily, ‘but he still insists she wanted him to. He says she wanted comforting after a sergeant raped her.’

‘Wanted comforting!’ Sharpe said scathingly. ‘He was just second in line, wasn’t he?’

‘Fifth in line,’ Harris said tonelessly, ‘or so the girl says.’

‘Jesus,’ Sharpe swore. ‘Why don’t I just give the bugger a smacking, then we’ll string him up.’ He walked back to the house where the civilians were screaming at the Frenchman, who gazed at them with a disdain that would have been admirable on a battlefield. Vicente was protecting the dragoon and now appealed to Sharpe for help to escort Lieutenant Olivier to safety. ‘He must stand trial,’ Vicente insisted.

‘He just had a trial,’ Sharpe said, ‘and I found him guilty. So now I’ll thump him and then I’ll hang him.’

Vicente looked nervous, but he did not back down. ‘We cannot lower ourselves to their level of barbarity,’ he claimed.

‘I didn’t rape her,’ Sharpe said, ‘so don’t place me with them.’

‘We fight for a better world,’ Vicente declared.

For a second Sharpe just stared at the young Portuguese officer, scarce believing what he had heard. ‘What happens if we leave him here, eh?’

‘We can’t!’ Vicente said, knowing that the villagers would take a far worse revenge than anything Sharpe was proposing.

‘And I can’t take prisoners!’ Sharpe insisted.

‘We can’t kill him’ – Vicente was blushing with indignation as he confronted Sharpe and he would not back down – ‘and we can’t leave him here. It would be murder.’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ Sharpe said in exasperation. Lieutenant Olivier did not speak English, but he seemed to understand that his fate was in the balance and he watched Sharpe and Vicente like a hawk. ‘And who’s going to be the judge and jury?’ Sharpe demanded, but Vicente got no opportunity to answer for just then a rifle fired from the western edge of the village and then another sounded and then there was a whole rattle of shots.

The French had come back.

Colonel James Christopher liked wearing the hussar uniform. He decided it suited him and he spent a long time admiring himself in the pier glass in the farmhouse’s largest bedroom, turning left and right, and marvelling at the feeling of power conveyed by the uniform. He deduced it came from the long tasselled boots and from the jacket’s high stiff collar that forced a man to stand upright with his head back, and from the fit of the jacket that was so tight that Christopher, who was lean and fit, still had to suck in his belly to fasten the hooks and eyes down its silver-laced front. The uniform made him feel encased in authority, and the elegance of the outfit was enhanced by the fur-edged pelisse that was draped from his left shoulder and by the silver-chained sabre scabbard that chinked as he went downstairs and as he paced up and down the terrace where he waited for his guest. He put a sliver of wood into his mouth, obsessively working it between his teeth as he gazed at the distant smear of smoke which showed where buildings burned in the captured city. A handful of fugitives had stopped at the farm to beg for food and Luis had talked with them and then told Christopher that hundreds if not thousands of people had drowned when the pontoon bridge broke. The refugees claimed that the French had wrecked the bridge with cannon fire and Luis, his hatred of the enemy fuelled by the false rumour, eyed his master with a surly expression until Christopher had finally lost his patience. ‘It is only a uniform, Luis! It is not a sign of a changed allegiance!’

‘A French uniform,’ Luis had complained.

‘You wish Portugal to be free of the French?’ Christopher snapped. ‘Then behave respectfully and forget this uniform.’

Now Christopher paced the terrace, picking at his teeth and constantly watching the road that led across the hill. The clock in the farm’s elegant parlour struck three and no sooner had the last chime faded than a large column of cavalry appeared across the far crest. They were dragoons and they came in force to make sure that no partisans or fugitive Portuguese troops gave trouble to the officer who rode to meet Christopher.

The dragoons, all from the 18th regiment, wheeled away into the fields beneath the farmhouse where a stream offered water for their horses. The cavalrymen’s rose-fronted green coats were white with dust. Some, seeing Christopher in his French hussar’s uniform, offered a hasty salute, but most ignored him and just led their horses towards the stream as the Englishman turned to greet his visitor.

His name was Argenton and he was a captain and the Adjutant of the 18th Dragoons and it was plain from his smile that he knew and liked Colonel Christopher. ‘The uniform becomes you,’ Argenton said.

‘I found it in Oporto,’ Christopher said. ‘It belonged to a poor fellow who was a prisoner and died of the fever and a tailor trimmed it to size for me.’

‘He did well,’ Argenton said admiringly. ‘Now all you need are the cadenettes.’

‘The cadenettes?’

‘The pigtails,’ Argenton explained, touching his temples where the French hussars grew their hair long to mark themselves as elite cavalrymen. ‘Some men go bald and have wigmakers attach false cadenettes to their shakoes or colbacks.’

‘I’m not sure I want to grow pigtails,’ Christopher said, amused, ‘but perhaps I can find some girl with black hair and cut off a pair of tails, eh?’

‘A good idea,’ Argenton said. He watched approvingly as his escort set picquets, then smiled his thanks as a very sullen-looking Luis brought him and Christopher glasses of vinho verde, the golden white wine of the Douro valley. Argenton sipped the wine cautiously and was surprised that it was so good. He was a slight man with a frank, open face and red hair that was damp with sweat and marked where his helmet had been. He smiled easily, a reflection of his trusting nature. Christopher rather despised the Frenchman, but knew he would be useful.

Argenton drained the wine. ‘Did you hear about the drownings in Oporto?’ he asked.

‘My servant says you broke the bridge.’

‘They would say that,’ Argenton said regretfully. ‘The bridge collapsed under the weight of the refugees. It was an accident. A sad accident, but if the people had stayed in their homes and given our men a decent welcome then there wouldn’t have been any panic at the bridge. They’d all be alive now. As it is, we’re being blamed, but it had nothing to do with us. The bridge wasn’t strong enough and who built the bridge? The Portuguese.’

‘A sad accident, as you say,’ Christopher said, ‘but all the same I must congratulate you on your swift capture of Oporto. It was a notable feat of arms.’

‘It would have been still more notable,’ Argenton observed, ‘if the opposition had been better soldiers.’

‘I trust your losses were not extravagant?’

‘A handful,’ Argenton said dismissively, ‘but half of our regiment was sent eastwards and they lost a good few men in an ambush by the river. An ambush’ – he looked accusingly at Christopher – ‘in which some British riflemen took part. I didn’t think there were any British troops in Oporto?’

‘There shouldn’t have been,’ Christopher said, ‘I ordered them south of the river.’

‘Then they disobeyed you,’ Argenton said.

‘Did any of the riflemen die?’ Christopher asked, mildly hoping that Argenton would have news of Sharpe’s death.

‘I wasn’t there. I’m posted to Oporto where I find billets, look for rations and do the errands of war.’

‘Which I am sure you discharge admirably,’ Christopher said smoothly, then led his guest into the farmhouse where Argenton admired the tiles about the dining-room hearth and the simple iron chandelier that hung above the table. The meal itself was commonplace enough: chicken, beans, bread, cheese and a good country red wine, but Captain Argenton was complimentary. ‘We’ve been on short rations,’ he explained, ‘but that should change now. We’ve found plenty of food in Oporto and a warehouse stuffed to the rafters with good British powder and shot.’

‘You were short of those too?’ Christopher asked.

‘We have plenty,’ Argenton said, ‘but the British powder is better than our own. We have no source of saltpetre except what we scrape from cesspit walls.’

Christopher grimaced at the thought. The best saltpetre, an essential element of gunpowder, came from India and he had never considered that there might be a shortage in France. ‘I assume,’ he said, ‘that the powder was a British gift to the Portuguese.’

‘Who have now given it to us,’ Argenton said, ‘much to Marshal Soult’s delight.’

‘Then it is time, perhaps,’ Christopher suggested, ‘that we made the Marshal unhappy.’

‘Indeed,’ Argenton said, ‘indeed,’ and then fell silent because they had reached the purpose of their meeting.

It was a strange purpose, but an exciting one. The two men were plotting mutiny. Or rebellion. Or a coup against Marshal Soult’s army. But however it was described it was a ploy that might end the war.

There was, Argenton now explained, a great deal of dissatisfaction in Marshal Soult’s army. Christopher had heard all this before from his guest, but he did not interrupt as Argenton rehearsed the arguments that would justify his disloyalty. He described how some officers, all devout Catholics, were mortally offended by their army’s behaviour in Spain and Portugal. Churches had been desecrated, nuns raped. ‘Even the holy sacraments have been defiled,’ Argenton said in a horrified tone.

‘I can hardly believe it,’ Christopher said.

Other officers, a few, were simply opposed to Bonaparte. Argenton was a Catholic monarchist, but he was willing to make common cause with those men who still held Jacobin sympathies and believed that Bonaparte had betrayed the revolution. ‘They cannot be trusted, of course,’ Argenton said, ‘not in the long run, but they will join us in resisting Bonaparte’s tyranny.’

‘I pray they do,’ Christopher said. The British government had long known that there was a shadowy league of French officers who opposed Bonaparte. They called themselves the Philadelphes and London had once sent agents in search of their elusive brotherhood, but had finally concluded that their numbers were too few, their ideals too vague and their supporters too ideologically divided for the Philadelphes ever to succeed.

Yet here, in remote northern Portugal, the various opponents of Bonaparte had found a common cause. Christopher had first got wind of that cause when he talked with a French officer who had been taken prisoner on Portugal’s northern border and who had been living in Braga where, having given his parole, his only restriction was to remain within the barracks for his own protection. Christopher had drunk with the unhappy officer and heard a tale of French unrest that sprang from one man’s absurd ambition.

Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult, Duke of Dalmatia, Marshal of France and commander of the army that was now invading Portugal, had seen other men who served the Emperor become princes, even kings, and he reckoned his own dukedom was a poor reward for a career that outshone almost all the Emperor’s other marshals. Soult had been a soldier for twenty-four years, a general for fifteen and a marshal for five. At Austerlitz, the greatest of all the Emperor’s victories so far, Marshal Soult had covered himself with glory, far outfighting Marshal Bernadotte who, nevertheless, was now Prince of Ponte Corvo. Jérôme Bonaparte, the Emperor’s youngest brother, was an idle, extravagant wastrel, yet he was King of Westphalia while Marshal Murat, a hot-headed braggart, was King of Naples. Louis Napoleon, another of the Emperor’s brothers, was King of Holland, and all those men were nonentities while Soult, who knew his own high worth, was a mere duke and it was not enough.

But now the ancient throne of Portugal was empty. The royal family, fearing the French invasion, had fled to Brazil and Soult wanted to occupy the vacant chair. Colonel Christopher, at first, had not believed the tale, but the prisoner had sworn its truth and Christopher had talked with some of the other few prisoners who had been captured in skirmishes on the northern frontier and all claimed to have heard much the same story. It was no secret, they said, that Soult had royal pretensions, but the paroled officers also told Christopher that the Marshal’s ambitions had soured many of his own officers, who disliked the idea that they should fight and suffer so far from home only to put Nicolas Soult on an empty chair. There was talk of mutiny and Christopher had been wondering how he could discover whether that mutinous talk was serious when Captain Argenton approached him.

Argenton, with great daring, had been travelling in northern Portugal, dressed in civilian clothes and claiming to be a wine merchant from Upper Canada. If he had been caught he would have been shot as a spy, for Argenton was not exploring the land ahead of the French armies, but rather trying to discover pliable Portuguese aristocrats who would encourage Soult in his ambitions, for if the Marshal was to declare himself King of Portugal or, more modestly, King of Northern Lusitania, then he first needed to be persuaded that there were men of influence in Portugal who would support that usurpation of the vacant throne. Argenton had been talking with such men and Christopher, to his surprise, discovered there were plenty of aristocrats, churchmen and scholars in northern Portugal who hated their own monarchy and believed that a foreign king from an enlightened France would be of benefit to their country. So letters were being collected that would encourage Soult to declare himself king.

And when that happened, Argenton had promised Christopher, the army would mutiny. The war had to be stopped, Argenton said, or else, like a great fire, it would consume all Europe. It was a madness, he said, a madness of the Emperor who seemed intent on conquering the whole world. ‘He believes he is Alexander the Great,’ the Frenchman said gloomily, ‘and if he doesn’t stop then there will be nothing left of France. Who are we to fight? Everyone? Austria? Prussia? Britain? Spain? Portugal? Russia?’

‘Never Russia,’ Christopher said, ‘even Bonaparte is not that mad.’

‘He is mad,’ Argenton insisted, ‘and we must rid France of him.’ And the start of the process, he believed, would be the mutiny that would surely erupt when Soult declared himself a king.

‘Your army is unhappy,’ Christopher allowed, ‘but will they follow you into mutiny?’

‘I would not lead it,’ Argenton said, ‘but there are men who will. And those men want to take the army back to France and that, I assure you, is what most of the soldiers want. They will follow.’

‘Who are these leaders?’ Christopher asked swiftly.

Argenton hesitated. Any mutiny was a dangerous business and if the identities of the leaders became known then there could be an orgy of firing squads.

Christopher saw his hesitation. ‘If we are to persuade the British authorities that your plans are worth supporting,’ he said, ‘then we must give them names. We must. And you must trust us, my friend.’ Christopher placed a hand over his heart. ‘I swear to you upon my honour that I shall never betray those names. Never!’

Argenton, reassured, listed the men who would lead the revolt against Soult. There was Colonel Lafitte, the commanding officer of his own regiment, and the Colonel’s brother, and they were supported by Colonel Donadieu of the 47th Regiment of the Line. ‘They are respected,’ Argenton said earnestly, ‘and the men will follow them.’ He gave more names that Christopher jotted down in his notebook, but he observed that none of the mutineers was above the rank of colonel.

‘An impressive list,’ Christopher lied, then he smiled. ‘Now give me another name. Tell me who in your army would be your most dangerous opponent.’

‘Our most dangerous opponent?’ Argenton was puzzled by the question.

‘Other than Marshal Soult, of course,’ Christopher went on. ‘I want to know who we should watch. Who, perhaps, we might want to, how can I put it? Render safe?’

‘Ah.’ Argenton understood now and he thought for a short while. ‘Probably Brigadier Vuillard,’ he said.

‘I’ve not heard of him.’

‘A Bonapartiste through and through,’ Argenton said disapprovingly.

‘Spell his name for me, will you?’ Christopher asked, then wrote it down: Brigadier Henri Vuillard. ‘I assume he knows nothing of your scheme?’ he continued.

‘Of course not!’ Argenton said. ‘But it is a scheme, Colonel, that cannot work without British support. General Cradock is sympathetic, is he not?’

‘Cradock is sympathetic,’ Christopher said confidently. He had reported his earlier conversations to the British General who had seen in the proposed mutiny an alternative to fighting the French and so had encouraged Christopher to pursue the matter. ‘But alas,’ Christopher went on, ‘it’s rumoured he will soon be replaced.’

‘And the new man?’ Argenton enquired.

‘Wellesley,’ Christopher said flatly. ‘Sir Arthur Wellesley.’

‘Is he a good general?’

Christopher shrugged. ‘He’s well connected. Younger son of an earl. Eton, of course. He wasn’t thought clever enough for anything except the army, but most people think he did well near Lisbon last year.’

‘Against Laborde and Junot!’ Argenton said scathingly.

‘And he had some successes in India before that,’ Christopher added in warning.

‘Oh, in India!’ Argenton said, smiling. ‘Reputations made in India rarely stand up to a volley in Europe. But will this Wellesley want to fight Soult?’

Christopher thought about that question. ‘I think,’ he said eventually, ‘that he would prefer not to lose. I think,’ he went on, ‘that if he knows the strength of your sentiments, then he will cooperate.’ Christopher was not nearly as certain as he sounded; indeed he had heard that General Wellesley was a cold man who might not look kindly on an escapade that depended for its success on so many assumptions, but Christopher had other fish to fry in this unholy tangle. He doubted whether the mutiny could ever succeed and did not much care what Cradock or Wellesley thought of it, but knew his knowledge of it could be used to great advantage and, for the moment anyway, it was important that Argenton saw Christopher as an ally. ‘Tell me,’ he said to the Frenchman, ‘exactly what you want of us.’

‘Britain’s influence,’ Argenton said. ‘We want Britain to persuade the Portuguese leaders to accept Soult as their king.’

‘I thought you’d found plenty of support already,’ Christopher said.

‘I’ve found support,’ Argenton confirmed, ‘but most won’t declare themselves for fear of the mob’s vengeance. But if Britain encourages them they’ll find their courage. They don’t even have to make their support public, merely write letters to Soult. And then there are the intellectuals’ – Argenton’s sneer as he said the last word would have soured milk – ‘most of whom will back anyone other than their own government, but again they need encouragement before they’ll find the bravery to express support for Marshal Soult.’

‘I’m sure we would be happy to provide encouragement,’ Christopher said. He was not sure at all.

‘And we need an assurance,’ Argenton said firmly, ‘that if we lead a rebellion the British will not take advantage of the situation by attacking us. I shall want your General’s word on that.’

Christopher nodded. ‘And I think he will give it,’ he said, ‘but before he commits himself to any such promise he will want to judge for himself the likelihood of your success and that, my friend, means he will want to hear from you directly.’ Christopher unstoppered a decanter of wine, then paused before pouring. ‘And I think you need to hear his personal assurances. I think you must travel south to see him.’

Argenton looked rather surprised by this suggestion, but he thought about it for a moment and then nodded. ‘You can give me a pass that will see me safe through the British lines?’

‘I will do better, my friend. I shall come with you so long as you provide me with a pass for the French lines.’

‘Then we shall go!’ Argenton said happily. ‘My Colonel will give me permission, once he understands what we are doing. But when? Soon, I think, don’t you? Tomorrow?’

‘The day after tomorrow,’ Christopher said firmly. ‘I have an engagement tomorrow that I cannot avoid, but if you join me in Vila Real de Zedes tomorrow afternoon then we can travel the next day. Will that suit?’

Argenton nodded. ‘You must tell me how to reach Vila Real de Zedes.’

‘I shall give you directions,’ Christopher said, then raised his glass, ‘and I shall drink to the success of our endeavours.’

‘Amen to that,’ Argenton said, and raised his glass to the toast.

And Colonel Christopher smiled, because he was rewriting the rules.