"None left," Sharpe said.
"That's why I was dreaming of it," she said.
Harper had woken and started rowing now, but it seemed to Sharpe they were making no progress at all. The fog had thickened and the boat seemed suspended in a pearly whiteness into which the water faded. He tugged harder at the oars and finally saw the vague shape of a twisted tree on the eastern bank and he kept his eyes on the tree, kept rowing as strongly as he could, and slowly became convinced that the tree was staying in the same place however hard he pulled.
"Tide," Vicente said.
"Tide?"
"It comes up the river," Vicente said, "and it's carrying us backwards. Or trying to. But it will turn."
Sharpe thought about going to the eastern bank and mooring the boat, but then decided that the Ferreira brothers, who could not be so very far behind, might slip past in the fog, so he and Harper pulled at the oars until their hands were blistered with the effort of fighting the flooding tide. The fog grew brighter, the tide at last slackened and a gull flew overhead. They were still miles from the sea, but there was a smell of salt and the water was brackish. The day was growing warmer, and that seemed to thicken the fog which drifted in patches like gun smoke above the swirling gray water. They had to go nearer the western bank to avoid the bedraggled remains of a fish trap made of nets, withies and poles that jutted far out from the eastern shore. There was no movement on the western bank so that they seemed to be alone on a pale river beneath a pearly sky, but then, from ahead, came the unmistakable bang of a cannon. Birds shot up from the trees on the bank and flew in circles as the sound echoed from some unseen hills, rumbled up the river's valley and faded.
"I can't see anything," Vicente reported from the bow.
Sharpe and Harper had rested on their oars and both twisted to see ahead, but there was only the fog over the river. Another cannon sounded and Sharpe thought he saw a patch of the mist thicken, then he rowed two more strokes and there, appearing like a ghost ship in the vapor, was a gunboat firing at the western shore. There were dragoons there, half seen in the mist, scattering from the gunfire. Another cannon blasted from the boat that was anchored in midstream, and a barrel-load of grapeshot threw down two horses and Sharpe saw a sudden spray of blood, almost instantly gone, discolor the fog, and then the gunboat's forward cannon fired and a round shot skipped across the water a score of yards ahead of the skiff. It had been a warning shot, and a man was standing in the gunboat's forepeak, shouting at them to come alongside.
"They're English," Vicente said. He stood in the skiff's bow and waved both arms while Sharpe and Harper pulled towards the gunboat that had one high mast, a low waist, and six gunports visible on its port side which faced upstream. A white ensign hung at the stern while a union flag drooped at the topmast.
"Here!" the man shouted. "Bring that bloody boat here!"
The two aft cannon fired at the retreating dragoons who were now galloping into the fog, leaving dead horses behind. Three seamen with muskets were waiting for the skiff, pointing their guns down into the boat.
"Any of you speak English?" another man called.
"My name's Captain Sharpe!"
"Who?"
"Captain Sharpe, South Essex regiment. And point those bloody muskets somewhere else!"
"You're English?" The astonishment might have come from Sharpe's appearance for he was not wearing his jacket and his beard had grown to a thick stubble.
"No, I'm bloody Chinese," Sharpe snapped. The skiff bumped against the tarred side of the gunboat and Sharpe looked up at a very young naval lieutenant. "Who are you?"
"Lieutenant Davies, commanding here."
"I'm Captain Sharpe, that's Captain Vicente of the Portuguese army, and the big fellow is Sergeant Harper and I'll introduce the ladies later. What we need, Lieutenant, if you'd be so kind, is some proper tea."
They scrambled aboard by using the chain plates which secured the ratlines for the big mast and Sharpe saluted Davies who, though he only looked about nineteen years old and was a lieutenant, nevertheless outranked Sharpe because, as an officer commanding one of His Majesty's vessels, he had the equivalent rank of major in the army. The seamen gave a small cheer as Joana and Sarah climbed over the side in their rain-shrunken breeches. "Quiet on deck!" Davies snarled and the seamen went instantly silent. "Secure the guns," Davies ordered. "Make fast that boat! Lively, lively!" He gestured that Sharpe and his companions should go to the boat's stern. "Welcome to the Squirrel," he said, "and I think we can supply tea. Might I ask why you're here?"
"We've come from Coimbra," Sharpe said, "and you, Lieutenant?"
"We're here to amuse the Frogs," Davies said. He was a very tall, very thin young man in a shabby uniform. "We come upstream on the tide, kill any Frogs foolish enough to appear on shore, and drift back down again."
"Where are we?" Sharpe asked.
"Three miles north of Alhandra. That's where your lines reach the river." He paused by a companionway. "There's a cabin below," he said, "and the ladies are welcome to it, but I must say it's damned poky. Damp as well."
Sharpe introduced Sarah and Joana who both elected to stay on the stern deck, which was cumbered by a vast tiller. The Squirrel had no wheel, and its quarterdeck was merely the after part of the maindeck which was crowded with seamen. Davies explained that his vessel was a twelve-gun cutter and that, though it could easily be managed by six or seven men, it needed a crew of forty to man its guns, "and even then we're short-handed," he complained, "and can only fire one side of guns. Still, one side is usually enough. Tea, yes?"
"And the loan of a razor?" Sharpe asked.
"And something to eat," Harper said under his breath, staring innocently up at the huge mainsail that was brailed onto a massive boom which jutted out over the diminutive white ensign.
"Tea, shave, breakfast," Davies said. "Stop gawking, Mister Braithwaite!" This was to a midshipman who was staring at Joana and Sarah and evidently trying to decide whether he preferred his women dark- or fair-haired. "Stop gawking and tell Powell we need breakfast for five guests."
"Five guests, sir, aye aye, sir."
"And might I beg you to keep an eye out for another boat?" Sharpe asked Davies. "I have a suspicion that five fellows are following us, and I want them stopped."
"That's my job," Davies said. "Stop anything that tries to float down river. Miss Fry? Might I bring you a chair? You and your companion?"
A breakfast was served on deck. There were thick white china plates heaped with bacon, bread and greasy eggs, and afterwards Sharpe blunted Davies's razor by scraping at the stubble on his chin. Davies's servant had brushed his green jacket, cleaned and polished his boots, and burnished his sword's metal scabbard. He leaned on the gunwale, feeling a sudden relief that the journey was over. In a matter of hours, he thought, he could be back with the battalion, and that spoiled his good mood, for he supposed he would be doomed to Lawford's continuing displeasure. The fog had thinned into a mist, and the tide was dropping, swirling past the Squirrel, which was anchored at bow and stern so that her small broadside pointed up river. Sharpe could see a chain of islands off the western bank, low-lying streaks of grassy sand that sheltered a smaller inshore channel, while down river, beyond a wide bend and just visible above the skeins of mist, Sharpe could see the masts of other ships. It was a whole squadron of gunboats, Davies said, posted to guard the flank of the defensive lines. Somewhere in the distance a cannon fired, its sound flat in the warming air.