Hogan put a hand on his shoulder to stop him moving. “Remember what you have to lose.”
Sharpe nodded again. “Bring me news when you can.”
Sharpe pushed his way into the street, ignoring the Spaniards, and as he walked towards the north he did not see the tall man in the blue coat with the white facings who watched from a doorway opposite Josefina’s lodgings. The man looked at Sharpe sympathetically, then up at the windows, and settled back into the doorway where he tried to make himself comfortable despite the broken arm with its splints and sling that would keep him from the battle tomorrow. He wondered what was happening on the second floor but he would soon know; Agostino would tell him all in exchange for a piece of gold.
Sharpe hurried up the track that led away from the town between the Portina stream and the Spanish lines. The frightened infantry were being forced back into their positions, but even as he hurried through the trees he could hear the occasional musket shot from the town, the shouting, the coinage of Talavera’s night of fear and rape. The moon had disappeared behind a bank of clouds but the lights of the Spanish fires showed the path and he half ran as he headed north towards the Medellin Hill. To his right the sky was glowing a deep red where the thousands of French fires were reflected in the air. He should have been concerned for the morning; he knew it would be the greatest battle he had ever fought, yet his mind was dominated by the need to find Berry and Gibbons. He came to the Pajar, the tiny hill that marked the end of the Spanish lines and the place where the Portina bent to his right and, from running behind the Spanish troops, the stream now flowed in front of the British position. He saw the shapes of the field guns Wellesley had placed on the small hill, and part of his mind registered how the fire of those guns would sweep protectively in front of the Spanish lines and deflect the massive French attack onto the British lines. But tomorrow was another battle.
The track melted away into the grass. He could see the scattered fires of the British but he had no idea which was the South Essex. They were positioned at the Medellin Hill, he knew that, so he ran by the stream, tripping over tussocks of grass, splashing through patches of marsh, keeping the silvered Portina as his guide to the Medellin. He was alone in the darkness. The British fires were far off to his left, the French even further to the right, the two armies still and quiet. Something was wrong. The old instinct prickled him and he stopped, sank to one knee and searched the darkness ahead. In the night the Medellin Hill looked like a long, low ridge pointing at the French army. It was the key to Wellesley’s left flank; if the French assaulted the hill they could turn and crush the British between the Medellin and Talavera. Yet there were no fires on the ridge. He could see a bright smear of flames at the western end, furthest from the enemy, but on the side facing the town, and on the half of the flat summit nearest the enemy there were no lights. He had thought the South Essex to be bivouacking on the gentle slope that faced him but it was black and empty. He listened. There were the sounds of the night, the noises from the town that had faded to a dull murmur, the wind in the grass, insects, the splashing of the stream, and the far-off sounds of a hundred thousand men crouching by fires waiting for morning. Behind him the small Pajar hill was bright with fires, the guns silhouetted against the white wall of the farmhouse on its crest, but in front it was dark and quiet. He stood up and walked softly on, his instincts alive to a danger he could not define, his mind searching for clues in the darkness and from the murmured sounds of the night. Why had he not been challenged? There should be picquets on the line of the Portina, sentries huddled against the chill wind looking towards the enemy, but no-one had stopped him and asked his business. He kept by the stream until the black loom of the Medellin was above him, then turned left and began to climb the slope. By daylight it looked a gentle slope but as he climbed with his pack and rifle the ground felt steep and each step made the muscles at the back of his legs ache. Tomorrow, he thought, this is precisely where the French columns will come. They will march up this slope, heads down, while the guns crack iron shot into their ranks and the muskets wait in silence at the crest.
Halfway up the slope he stopped and turned round. On the far side of the stream was another hill, similar in shape to the Medellin but lower and smaller. On its level top Sharpe could see the fires of the French, the flitting shadows of his enemy, and he turned and hurried on up the hill. His mind was still alerted to danger, to a threat he did not understand, but continually he thought of the girl’s black hair fanned on the pillow, of her hand gripping the sheet, of the blood stains, her terror in the attic when the two men had burst in. He had no idea what he could do. Gibbons and Berry were probably safe in the company of Simmerson and his cronies. Somehow he must flush them out, get them into the darkness, and he pushed himself to go faster.
The slope levelled out onto the plateau. Far off he could see the fires of the British, and he ran slowly towards them, the pack bumping awkwardly, the rifle flapping at his side. He had still not been challenged. He was approaching the army from the direction of the enemy and there were no sentries, no line of picquets in the darkness, as if the army had forgotten about the French just the other side of the Portina. Two hundred yards from the line of fires he stopped and crouched low on the grass. He had found the South Essex. They were on the edge of the hill, and he could see the bright yellow facings of their uniforms glowing in the light of the flames. He searched the fires, saw the green uniforms of his Riflemen, and went on looking as though, from this distance, he might see the figures of his enemies. His anger was turning into frustration. He had walked and run more than a mile to find the Battalion, yet he knew that there was nothing he could do. Gibbons and Berry would be sitting round a fire with the officers, secure from his revenge. Hogan was right. He would throw his career away if he fought them, yet he had made a promise to Josefina, and he did not know how to keep the promise. And tomorrow he must try to keep the earlier promise to Lennox. He tugged the great sword from its scabbard and laid its tip on the grass in front of him. The blade shone dully in the light of the fires; he stared at the length of steel and felt the sting of tears in his eyes as he remembered the girl’s body lying teasingly and naked along its flat blade. That had been only this afternoon. Now he cursed the fate that had led to this night, to the promises he could not keep. He thought of the girl, of the men clawing at her, and he looked up at the fires and felt his helplessness. It was better, he knew, to give it all up, to walk into the light of the fires and concentrate on tomorrow but how was he to face Gibbons or Berry and see the triumph on their faces without swinging the blade at them?
He turned round and stared at the far horizon and the red glow of the French fires that lined the edge of the hill with a faint light. There were rabbits moving on the crest of the hill he had climbed, he could see their small shapes bobbing, and suddenly he froze. Had there been sentries there he had missed? They were not rabbits. He could see the silhouettes of men, he had mistaken their heads for rabbits, but as they climbed over the crest he could see a dozen men, carrying guns, heading towards him. He lay flat on the grass, gripping the sword, and stared at the dim glow of the skyline. He put his ear to the ground and heard what he had feared to hear, the faint thump of marching feet, and he raised his head and kept looking as the dozen men turned into a misshapen mass. He remembered telling Hogan that the French would not attack at night, yet he suspected he was seeing just that; a night attack on the Medellin. The dozen men would be some of the skirmishers, the French Voltigeurs, and the solid mass was a French column climbing the hill in the silence of night. But how to be sure? It could as easily be a British Battalion moving in the dark, finding a new place to camp, but this late at night? He wriggled forward on knees and elbows, keeping his body close to the earth so that whoever was coming in the dark would not see him silhouetted in the fires. The sword rustled on the grass, he seemed to be making a deafening sound, but the men walked on towards him. He stopped when they stopped, and he watched them kneel. He was almost sure they were Voltigeurs, the skirmish line that had been sent ahead to flush out the sentries, and now that they were in sight of their targets they were waiting for the column so that the attack should crash home in unison. Sharpe held his breath. The kneeling men were calling softly to each other and he wanted to hear the language.