He could hear Kelly's breathing, someone else clearing his throat, and he flapped with his free hand for silence. A tall lancer, suntanned and with a black moustache, was climbing higher than the others. As he clawed his way up, carbine slung, Sharpe saw a tarnished gold band on the man's sleeve. A Sergeant. He was a big man, almost as big as Harper, and his face was scarred from battlefields on the other side of Europe. Go down, Sharpe urged silently, go down, but the man kept coming on his lone, perverse climb. Sharpe moved his head slowly, saw the faces staring at him, and found Harper. He beckoned slowly, put a finger to his lips, pointed at the foot of the inner slope of the gully.
The Polish Sergeant stopped, looked up, wiped his face, and turned to look at his comrades. An officer shouted at him, waved his sabre to make the Sergeant join the line, which had gone ahead, but the Sergeant shook his head, shouted back, and gestured at the skyline, which was just a few, steep feet away. Sharpe cursed him, knew that if the Light Company were discovered they would be harried eastwards, away from the gold, from victory, and this one veteran was putting it all at risk. He was climbing just below Sharpe, who craned forward as far as he dared to see the yellow, square top of the headgear come closer and closer. He could hear the man grunting, the sound of his fingernails scraping on rock, the scrabble of his boots searching for a foothold, and then, as if in a nightmare, a large brown hand with bitten nails appeared right by Sharpe's face and he summoned all his strength for a desperate act. He waited — it could only have been for a half-second, but it seemed forever — until the man's face appeared. The eyes widened in surprise and Sharpe put out his right hand and gripped the Sergeant by the windpipe, his fingers closing like a man-trap on the throat. He thrust his left hand forward, found the belt, and, half turning on to his back, he pulled the lancer up and over the rim, holding the huge man in the air with a strength he hardly knew he possessed, and he threw him, arms and carbine flailing, to the tender mercy of Sergeant Harper. The Irishman kicked the lancer as he landed, had his seven-barrelled gun reversed and brought it down, sickeningly, on the man's head. Sharpe whirled back to face the slope. The line was still advancing! No one had seen, no one had noticed, but it was still not over. The lancer was tough, and Harper's blows, that would have killed a fair-sized bullock, seemed to have done nothing more than knock off the yellow and blue hat.
The enemy Sergeant had Harper round the waist, was squeezing, and the Irishman was trying to twist the other man's head clean off his shoulders. The Pole's teeth were gritted; he should have shouted, but he must have been dazed, and all he could think of was trying to stand up, to face his opponent, and use his own massive fists to beat at Harper. The men in the gully were frozen, appalled by the enemy who had suddenly landed in their midst, and it was Teresa who reacted. She picked up a musket, turned it, took four steps and swung its brass-tipped butt into the man's forehead. He slumped, tried to rise, but she swung again and Sharpe saw the fierce joy on her face as the weapon felled the Sergeant, his face bloodied, and suddenly it was quiet again in the gully.
Harper shook his head. 'God save Ireland.
The girl gave Harper the kind of pitying look that Sharpe thought she had reserved only for him, and then, without so much as a glance at Sharpe, she scrambled up the slope to lie beside him and peer at the enemy. They had at last missed the Sergeant. Men from the top of the line stopped and bunched uncertainly, called down to their officer, waiting as he cupped his hands and shouted up the slope. The voice echoed and faded. He called again, stopped the rest of the line, and Sharpe knew that in a few moments they would be discovered. Damn the Sergeant! He looked round, wondering if there were cover to be had on the far slope beyond the gully, knowing it was hopeless, and then he saw the girl was moving, crossing the gully and climbing out the far side. His face must have betrayed his alarm, for Kearsey, sitting by Ramon, shook his head. 'She'll manage. The whisper just reached Sharpe.
The search-line had sat down, glad of the rest, but the officer still called to the missing Sergeant. He was climbing the hill in short, erratic bursts, uncertain what to do and annoyed by those of his men who shouted with him. He had no choice, though; he would have to come and look for his Sergeant, and Sharpe, the sweat pouring off his face, could not imagine what one girl could do that would deflect the lancers from the search.
A scream startled him, piercing, and was cut off and repeated. He slid down the rocks a few inches and turned his face up the ridge where the sound had come from. Harper looked at him, puzzled. It had to be the girl. Sharpe peered over the edge again and saw the lancers pointing up the slope. Teresa screamed again, a terrifying sound, and Sharpe's men looked at each other, then up at Sharpe, as if to ask him what they could do to rescue her. Sharpe watched the lancers, saw their uncertainty, and then he heard them shout and point up the slope. He looked to see what had excited them, and his men, watching him, were reassured by a smile that seemed to Harper to be the biggest he had ever seen on Sharpe's face. None of them down in the gully could see what was happening, but Sharpe, up on the rim, picked up the telescope and gave up caring if anyone saw the flash of light or not.
Not that anyone would be watching, not while a naked girl ran wildly along the ridge, stopping to turn and hurl stones at an imagined pursuer on the slope hidden from the lancers. Drink or women, Sharpe thought, the bait for soldiers, and Teresa was leading the lancers in a mad rush ever further from the gully. He had her in the glass, shamelessly, and he could hear the excited shouts of the lancers who would be lost to the control of the strung-out officers. They would assume that the Sergeant had found the girl, stripped her, let her get away, and was now pursuing her. Sharpe acknowledged her cleverness and bravery, but for the moment he had time only for the slim, muscled body, for a beauty that he wanted.
Kearsey had limped to the edge of the gully's floor and was looking up at Sharpe. 'What's happening?
'She's leading them away, sir. He talked normally, the lancers were way beyond earshot.
Kearsey nodded, as if he had expected the answer. Harper still looked curious. 'How, sir?
The girl had disappeared behind the summit, and the lancers, all discipline shredded, were panting up the slope a good fifty yards behind. Sharpe grinned at his Sergeant. 'She took her clothes off.
Kearsey whipped round, aghast. 'You looked!
'Only to see if I could help, sir.
'What kind of a man are you, Sharpe? Kearsey was furious, but Sharpe turned away. What kind of a man was it that would not have looked?
Harper still stood over the unconscious lancer and he sounded aggrieved. 'You might have told me, sir.
Sharpe turned back. Kearsey had limped away. 'I promised your mother I'd keep you out of trouble. Sorry. He grinned at the Sergeant again. 'If I'd told you, then the whole damn Company would have wanted a look. Yes? And by now we'd be back in the war instead of being safe.
Harper grinned. 'Privilege of rank, eh, sir?
'Something like that. He thought of the beauty, the shadowed body with its hard stomach, long thighs, and the challenges of the disinterested, almost antagonistic glances that she had given him.
It was two hours before she returned, as silently as she had left, and wearing her white dress. She had done her work well, for the lancers had been recalled, the Sergeant given up, and Casatejada was thronged with Frenchmen. Sharpe guessed that the village had been the centre of a huge operation to clear the Partisans from Massena's supply areas. Kearsey agreed, and the two men watched as other cavalry units came from the north to join the Polish lancers. Dragoons, chasseurs, the uniforms of empire, stirring a dust cloud that would have befitted a whole army, and all spent on chasing Partisans through dry hills.