“How are you?” Hogan asked.
“I’m fine.” Sharpe grinned.
The Irishman turned to watch the Spanish filling up the positions he had prepared. On the plain beyond, hidden by the trees where the Alberche River emptied itself into the Tagus, came the crackle of musketry. It had gone on all afternoon like a distant forest fire, and Sharpe had seen dozens of British wounded carried through the gate into town. The British had covered the last mile of the Spanish retreat and the wounded men said that the French skirmishers had won the day. Two British Battalions had been mauled badly; there was even a rumour that Welles-ley himself had just escaped capture; the Spanish looked nervous, and Sharpe wondered what kind of troops the French had found to hurl against the allied army. He looked down at Harper. The Sergeant, with a dozen men, was guarding the gate of the town, not against the enemy, but to stop any British or Spanish soldiers who might be tempted to lose themselves in Talavera’s dark alleyways and avoid the fight that was inevitable. The Battalion itself was on the Medellin, and Sharpe waited for the orders that would send his company up the shallow Portina stream to find the patch of grass they would defend in the morning.
“And how’s the girl?” Hogan was sitting on the powdery stone.
“She’s happy. Bored.”
“That’s the way of women. Never content. Will you be needing more money?”
Sharpe looked at the middle-aged Engineer and saw the concern in his eyes. Already Hogan had lent Sharpe more than twenty guineas, a sum that was impossible for him to repay unless he was lucky on the battlefield. “No. I’m all right for the moment.”
Hogan smiled. “You’re lucky.” He shrugged. “God knows, Richard, she’s a beautiful creature. Are you in love?”
Sharpe looked over the parapet where the Spanish had filled Hogan’s makeshift fortresses. “She won’t let me be.”
“Then she’s more sensible than I thought.”
The afternoon passed slowly. Sharpe thought of the girl, bored in her room, and watched the Spanish soldiers chop at the beeches and oaks to build their evening fires. Then, with a suddenness that Sharpe had been waiting for, there were flashes of light far away in the hazy trees and bushes that edged the plain to the east. It was the sun, he knew, reflecting from muskets and breastplates. Sharpe nudged Hogan and pointed. “The French.”
Hogan stood up and stared at them. “My God.” He spoke quietly. “There’s a good few of them.”
The infantry marched onto the far plain like a spreading dark stain on the grass. Sharpe and Hogan watched Battalion after Battalion march into the pale fields, squadron after squadron of cavalry, the small squat shapes of guns scattered in the formations, the largest army Sharpe had ever seen in the field. The galloping figures of staff officers could be seen as they directed the columns to their places ready for the next morning’s advance and battle. Sharpe looked left to the British lines that waited beside the Portina. The smoke from hundreds of camp fires wound into the early evening air; crowds of men clustered by the stream and on the Medellin for a far glimpse of their enemy, but the British force looked woefully small beside the massive tide of men, horses and guns that filled the plain to the east and grew by the minute. Napoleon’s brother was there, King Joseph, and with him two full Marshals of France, Victor and Jourdan. They were leading sixty-five Battalions of infantry, a massive force of the men who had made Europe into Napoleon’s property, and they had come to swat this small British army and send it reeling to the sea. They planned to break it for ever to ensure that Britain never again dared to challenge the Eagles on land.
Hogan whistled softly. “Will they attack this evening?”
“No.” Sharpe scanned the far lines. “They’ll wait for their artillery.”
Hogan pointed into the darkening east. “They’ve got guns. Look, you can see them.”
Sharpe shook his head. “Those are just the small ones they attach to each infantry Battalion. No, the big bastards will be back on the road somewhere. They’ll come in the night.”
And in the morning, he thought, the French will open with one of their favourite cannonades, the massed artillery hurling its iron shot at the enemy lines before the dense, drummed columns follow the Eagles across the stream. French tactics were hardly subtle. Not for them the clever manoeuvrings of turning an enemy’s flank. Instead, again and again, they massed the guns and the men and they hurled a terrifying hammer blow at the enemy line and, again and again, it worked. He shrugged to himself. Who needed to be subtle? The guns and men of France had broken every army sent against them.
There were shouts from behind him and he crossed the battlement and peered down at the gate where Harper and his men were on guard. Lieutenant Gibbons was there with Berry, both mounted, both shouting at Harper. Sharpe leaned over the parapet.
“What’s the problem?”
Gibbons turned round slowly. It dawned on Sharpe that the Lieutenant was slightly drunk and was having some difficulty in staying on his horse. Gibbons saluted Sharpe with his usual irony.
“I didn’t see you there, sir. So sorry.” He bowed. Lieutenant Berry giggled. Gibbons straightened up. “I was just telling your Sergeant here that you can go back to the Battalion now, all right?”
“But you stopped on the way for refreshment?”
Berry giggled loudly. Gibbons looked at him and burst into a laugh himself. He bowed again. “You could say so, sir.”
The two Lieutenants urged their horses under the gateway and started up the road to the British lines to the north. Sharpe watched them go.
“Bastards.”
“Do they give you problems?” Hogan was sitting on the parapet again.
Sharpe shook his head. “No. Just insolence, remarks in the mess, you know.” He wondered about Josefina. Hogan seemed to read his thoughts. “You’re thinking about the girl?”
Sharpe nodded. “Yes. But she should be all right.” He was thinking out loud. “She keeps the door locked. We’re on the top floor and I can’t see how they’d find us.” He turned to Hogan and grinned. “Stop worrying about it. They’ve done nothing so far; they’re cowards. They’ve given up!”
Hogan shook his head. “They would kill you, Richard, with as little regret as putting down a lame horse. Less regret. And as for the girl? They’ll try to hurt her, too.”
Sharpe turned back to the spectacle on the plain. He knew Hogan was right, knew that too much was unsettled, but the game was not in his hands; everything must wait for the battle. The French troops had flooded the end of the plain, they flowed round woods, trees, farms, coming ever forward towards the stream and the Medellin Hill. They darkened the plain, filled it with a tide of men flecked with steel, and still they came; Hussars, Dragoons, Lancers, Chasseurs, Grenadiers and Voltigeurs, the followers of the Eagles, the men who had made an Empire, the old enemy.