'There's more by that door, sir.
'More?
Harper nodded, pointed at a door that flanked the great processional gates. 'There, sir. Bloody great pile of cartridges. Did you want some?
Sharpe shook his head, peered into the gloom, and saw that against the door there were a dozen bales of the paper cartridges. He guessed they were placed so that infantry battalions could replenish swiftly without getting in the way of the men who brought up the huge powder kegs. He turned back to the crypt. Planks had been laid down the stairs, two feet apart, so that the barrels could be rolled up easily.
'Come on.
They went down the stairs, into the intermittent light of the horn lanterns, and Sharpe saw that the rest of the garrison's supply of small arms ammunition was now stacked either side of the vault, forming a corridor to the leather-curtained steps of the deep crypt. He padded down the corridor and knelt by the curtain. Two thicknesses of stiff leather, weighted at the bottom, a precaution in case there was a small explosion in the first vault. The stiff leather could soak up a minor blast, protect the massive dump of gunpowder beneath, and Harper watched, astonished, as Sharpe drew his sword and cut off the weights, clenching his teeth as he sawed through the leather.
'What the hell, sir?
Sharpe looked up at him. 'Don't ask. Where are the sentries?
'Upstairs. The Sergeant knelt beside him. 'Sir?
Sharpe stopped the desperate cutting, looked at the broad, friendly face. 'Don't you trust me?
Harper was offended, even hurt, and he bent past Sharpe, took hold of the torn part of the curtain in one hand, the upper leather in the other, and pulled. As a demonstration of strength it was remarkable, the veins standing out in his neck, his whole body rigid with effort as the double-thick leather peeled apart, silently and slowly, and Sharpe helped it with the sword blade until, after thirty seconds, Harper leaned back with a grunt and in his hand was the separated bottom two inches of the curtain with its heavy lead weights sewn into the hem.
'Of course I bloody trust you. Just tell me. The Irishman's anger was real.
Sharpe shook his head. 'I will. Later. Come on.
Upstairs, taking off the slippers, Sharpe nodded at the candles.
'Funny keeping them alight.
Harper shook his head. 'They're a hell of a way from the vault, sir. His voice showed that he was slightly mollified, still insulted, but ready to be friendly. 'Anyway. It's what they call insurance, isn't it?
'Insurance?
'Sure. The huge head nodded. 'A few prayers never did any army any harm. He stood up. 'Where now, sir?
To a bakery. The soldiers, British and German, were mystified as Sharpe traced a gutter away from the cathedral to a building not far from the north gate. He tried the door, but it was well locked, and Harper gestured him to one side.
'Helmet? Door.
The German Sergeant nodded, moved ponderously at the barrier, grunted as he hit it, and then turned with what passed as a smile as the wood splintered away in front of him.
'Told you, sir, Harper said. 'Any provosts about?
'If there are any, kill them, Sharpe said.
'Sir! You hear that, Helmet? Kill the provosts!
It was pitch black inside but Sharpe felt his way over the floor, past a table that must once have been the counter for the shop, and found huge brick ovens, cold now, hunched at the back of the bakery. He went back to the street, empty of Portuguese provosts or patrols.
They climbed the shallow ramp to the first wall and stopped by the battlements. Sentries lined the rampart, bunched near the gleaming batteries that had been dug into the wall's heart and, in front of them, crouched like grey fingers, were the outer defences, gently sloping, deceptive, filled with Portuguese troops whose fires cast strange glows on the deep ditches that were unseen by the enemy. Further out, beyond the dark strip of earth that was cleared of cover so that the defenders could tear the heart out of an assault, Sharpe could see French fires, some half hidden, and from the far darkness came the occasional ring of a pickaxe, the thump of earth being pried loose.
He jumped, startled by a sudden report, and realized that the Portuguese were sending the occasional missile in the hope of disturbing the French engineers. Night was when the batteries were dug, trenches extended, but the time was not yet right for the Portuguese troops to sally out of the defences and raid the French works in the night-time assault of bayonets in enemy trenches. The French were not close enough yet. A siege worked to a timetable, understood by both sides, and this was just the beginning when the besiegers' ring was not yet complete and the fortress town was at the height of its strength and pride.
He led the way on the rampart's top to the north gate, and Harper watched his Captain stare moodily down at the sentries, the vast gate, the companies of infantry who lived between the granite traps to guard the entrance of the town.
Harper guessed what was in Sharpe's mind. 'No way out, sir.
'No. The last small chance gone. 'No. Back to the house.
They went down steps and found a street that went towards the lower town and Sharpe stayed away from the dark houses with their blind windows and shut-up doors. Their boots rang cold on the cobbles, as they peered into alleyways, up the cross streets, and once or twice Harper thought he saw a shadow that was too irregular to be part of a building, but he could not be sure. Almeida was quiet, eerie. Sharpe drew his sword.
'Sir? Harper's voice was worried. 'You wouldn't be planning, would you, to…
They had forgotten the rooftops, but Helmut, alerted by a sound, had turned, looked up, and the man who dropped on him screamed terribly as the sabre pierced him. Sharpe went right, Harper left, and the street was suddenly full of men with swords, dark clothes, and the dying man's pathetic whimpers. Hagman was using his bayonet, backed against a wall and letting El Catolico's men come to him, and Sharpe, by the same wall, twisted desperately to one side as a rapier blade came at him and missed his waist by inches. He parried a second man with the sword, remembered El Catolico calling it a butcher's weapon, and, forsaking technique for anger he hacked with it once and felt the edge hit something, bite, and slide free. He turned back to the first attacker, but Roach was there, massive and ponderous, pounding the life from the man with his rifle-butt, and Sharpe twisted back, flickered his sword out in a blind lunge and felt it parried, pushed aside, and he leaped back, knowing the attack was coming, tripped on the dead man and fell backwards.
The fall saved his life. The seven-barrelled gun, held against the far wall, fizzed as the spark lit the pan and then blasted a channel clear across the street. The sound, magnified by the close walls, rang in Sharpe's head, but he saw three men staggering, one down, and Roach pulled him to his feet and he went forward, into the confusion of the blast, and chopped down on one man, kicked a second, and suddenly the four British were together, across the street, and the Spanish were caught between them and the three men of the King's German Legion.
The Germans had done well. The sabre was their weapon and they fought the swordsmen with their own skills. Sharpe knew he had to learn the art of the sword but this was no time to try. He hacked forward, his left arm hurting but the right chopping diagonally down, left and right, pushing opponents to either side, where Roach and Hagman bayoneted them, and the Partisans, their surprise gone, began to run, to slip past the Germans and escape into the night.
Helmut growled. With these odds there was no point in trying to kill, and he had small chance of beating the long rapiers with their delicate finesse. He used his curved sabre in short, economic strokes, going for the eyes, always the eyes, because a man will run before he loses his sight, and Helmut sent his attackers reeling, one after the other, hands clasped to their faces and blood showing between the fingers. The Spanish had had enough; they ran, but the short Sergeant dropped his sabre, grabbed one by the arm, hugged him like a bear, and then, quickly releasing him, swung him against a wall with all his force. It sounded like a sack of turnips falling from the top of a barn on to a stone floor.