"We can't fight from the ramparts—" Sharpe began.
"Don't tell me where we can fight! God damn you!" Kiely shouted, startling Juanita. "You're a jumped-up corporal, Sharpe, not a bloody general. If the French come, damn it, I'll fight them how I like and beat them how I like and I won't need your help!"
The outburst embarrassed the assembled officers. Father Sarsfield frowned as though he was looking for some emollient words, but it was Oliveira who finally broke the awkward silence. "If they come, Captain Sharpe," he said gravely, "I shall seek the refuge you advise. And thank you for your advice." Oliveira nodded his dismissal.
"Good night, sir," Sharpe said, then walked away.
"Ten guineas to the price on your head says Loup won't come, Sharpe!" Kiely called after the rifleman. "What is it? Lost your damn nerve? Don't want to take a wager like a gentleman?" Kiely and Juanita laughed. Sharpe tried to ignore them.
Tom Garrard had followed Sharpe. "I'm sorry, Dick," Garrard said and then, after a pause, "Did you really shoot two Crapauds?"
"Aye."
"Good for you. But I wouldn't tell too many people about it."
"I know, I know," Sharpe said, then shook his head. "Bloody Kiely."
"His woman's a rare one though," Garrard said. "Reminds me of that girl you took up with at Gawilghur. You remember her?"
"This one's a bitch, that's the difference," Sharpe said. God, he thought, but his temper was being abraded to a raw bloody edge. "I'm sorry, Tom," he said, "it's like fighting with wet powder, trying to shake sense into this bloody place."
"Join the Portuguese, Dick," Garrard said. "Good as gold they are and no bloody over-born buggers like Kiely making life hard." He offered Sharpe a cigar. The two men bent their heads over Garrard's tinderbox and, when the charred linen caught the spark to flare bright, Sharpe saw a picture chased into the inner side of the lid.
"Hold it there, Tom," he said, stopping his friend from closing the lid. He stared at the picture for a few seconds. I'd forgotten those boxes," Sharpe said. The tinderboxes were made of a cheap metal that had to be protected from rust by gun oil, but Garrard had somehow kept this box safe for twelve years. There had once been scores like it, all made by a tinsmith in captured Seringapatam and all with explicit pictures etched crudely into the lids. Garrard's box showed a British soldier on top of a long-legged girl whose back was arched in apparent ecstasy. "Bugger might have taken his hat off first," Sharpe said.
Garrard laughed and snapped the box shut to preserve the linen. "Still got yours?"
Sharpe shook his head. "It was stolen off me years ago, Tom. I reckon it was that bastard Hakeswill that had it. Remember him? He was a thieving sod."
"Jesus God," Garrard said, "I'd half forgotten the bastard." He drew on the cigar, then shook his head in wonder. "Who'd ever believe it, Dick? You and me captains? And I can remember when you were broken down from corporal for farting on church parade."
"They were good days, Tom," Sharpe said.
"Only because they're a long way back. Nothing like distant memory for putting green leaves on a bare life, Dick."
Sharpe held the smoke in his mouth, then breathed out. "Let's hope it's a long life, Tom. Let's hope Loup isn't halfway here already. It would be a damned pity for you all to come up here for an exercise only to be slaughtered by Loup's brigade."
"We're not really here for an exercise," Garrard said. There was a long awkward silence. "Can you keep a secret?" Garrard asked eventually. The two men had reached a dark open space, out of earshot of any of the bivouacked caзadores. "We didn't come here by accident, Richard," Garrard admitted. "We were sent."
Sharpe heard footfalls on the nearest rampart where a Portuguese officer made his rounds. A challenge rang out and was answered. It was comforting to hear such military efficiency. "By Wellington?" Sharpe asked.
Garrard shrugged. "I suppose so. His Lordship doesn't talk to me, but not much happens in this army without Nosey's say-so."
"So why did he send you?"
"Because he doesn't trust your Spanish Irishmen, that's why. There have been some odd stories going round the army these last few days. Stories of English troops burning Irish priests and raping Irish women, and—"
"I've heard the tales," Sharpe interrupted, "and they're not true. Hell, I even sent a captain down to the camps today and he found out for himself." Captain Donaju, returning from the army's cantonments with Father Sarsfield, had possessed enough grace to apologize to Sharpe. Wherever Donaju and Sarsfield had visited and whoever they had asked, even men fresh out of Ireland, they could find no confirmation of the stories printed in the American newspaper. "No one can believe the stories!" Sharpe now protested to Garrard.
"But true or not," Garrard said, "the stories worry someone high up, and they think the stories are coming from your men. So we've been sent to keep an eye on you."
"Guard us, you mean?" Sharpe asked bitterly.
"Keep an eye on you," Garrard said again. "No one's really sure what we're supposed to do except stay here until their Lordships make up their mind what to do. Oliveira thinks your lads will probably be sent to Cadiz. Not you, Dick," Garrard hastened to add reassuringly, "you're not one of the Irish, are you? We'll just make sure these Irish lads can't make mischief and then your lads can go back to some proper soldiering."
"I like these Irish lads," Sharpe said flatly, "and they're not making mischief. I can warrant that."
"I'm not the one you have to convince, Dick."
It was Hogan or Wellington, Sharpe supposed. And how clever of Hogan or Wellington to send a Portuguese battalion to do the dirty work so that General Valverde could not say that a British regiment had persecuted the Royal Irish Company of the King of Spain's household guard. Sharpe blew out cigar smoke. "So those sentries on the wall, Tom," he said, "they're not looking outwards for Loup, are they, but looking in at us?"
"They're looking both ways, Dick."
"Well, make sure they're looking outwards. Because if Loup comes, Tom, there'll be hell to pay."
"They'll do their duty," Garrard said doggedly.
And they did. The diligent Portuguese picquets watched from the walls as the night chill spread down into the eastern valley where a ghostly mist worked its way upstream. They watched the long slopes, always alert to the smallest motion in the vaporous dark while in the fort some children of the Real Companпa Irlandesa cried in their sleep, a horse whinnied and a dog barked briefly. Two hours after midnight the sentries changed and the new men settled into their posts and gazed down the hillsides.
At three in the morning the owl flew back to its roost in the ruined chapel, its great white wings beating above the smouldering remnants of the Portuguese fires. Sharpe had been walking the sentries' beat and staring into the long shadowed night for the first sign of danger. Kiely and his whore were in bed, as was Runciman, but Sharpe stayed awake. He had taken what precautions he could, moving vast quantities of the Real Companпa Irlandesa's spare ammunition into Colonel Runciman's day parlour and issuing the rest to the men. He had talked a long while with Donaju, rehearsing what they should do if an attack did come and then, when he believed he had done all he could, he had walked with Tom Garrard. Now, following the owl, Sharpe went to his bed. It was less than three hours till dawn and Loup, he decided, would not come now. He lay down and fell fast asleep.