For a few seconds Sharpe just stared at the Portuguese Lieutenant. „You did what?” he finally asked.
„I led these men back to give you aid. I am the only officer of my company left, so who else could make the decision? Captain Rocha was killed by a cannonball up on the redoubt, and the others? I do not know what happened to them.”
„No,” Sharpe said, „before that. You shot your Sergeant?”
Vicente nodded. „I shall stand trial, of course. I shall plead necessity.” There were tears in his eyes. „But the Sergeant said you were all dead men and that we were beaten ones. He was urging the men to shed their uniforms and desert.”
„You did the right thing,” Sharpe said, astonished.
Vicente bowed again. „You flatter me, senhor.”
„And stop calling me senhor,” Sharpe said. „I’m a lieutenant like you.”
Vicente took a half step back, unable to hide his surprise. „You are a…?” he began to ask, then understood that the question was rude. Sharpe was older than he was, maybe by ten years, and if Sharpe was still a lieutenant then presumably he was not a good soldier, for a good soldier, by the age of thirty, must have been promoted. „But I am sure, senhor” Vicente went on, „that you are senior to me.”
„I might not be,” Sharpe said.
„I have been a lieutenant for two weeks,” Vicente said.
It was Sharpe’s turn to look surprised. „Two weeks!”
„I had some training before that, of course,” Vicente said, „and during my studies I read the exploits of the great soldiers.”
„Your studies?”
„I am a lawyer, senhor.”
„A lawyer!” Sharpe could not hide his instinctive disgust. He came from the gutters of England and anyone born and raised in those gutters knew that most persecution and oppression was inflicted by lawyers. Lawyers were the devil’s servants who ushered men and women to the gallows, they were the vermin who gave orders to the bailiffs, they made their snares from statutes and became wealthy on their victims and when they were rich enough they became politicians so they could devise even more laws to make themselves even wealthier. „I hate bloody lawyers,” Sharpe growled with a genuine intensity for he was remembering Lady Grace and what had happened after she died and how the lawyers had stripped him of every penny he had ever made, and the memory of Grace and her dead baby brought all the old misery back and he thrust it out of mind. „I do hate lawyers,” he said.
Vicente was so dumbfounded by Sharpe’s hostility that he seemed to simply blank it out of his mind. „I was a lawyer,” he said, „before I took up my country’s sword. I worked for the Real Companhia Velha, which is responsible for the regulation of the trade of port wine.”
„If a child of mine wanted to become a lawyer,” Sharpe said, „I’d strangle it with my own hands and then piss on its grave.”
“So you are married then, senhor?” Vicente asked politely. No, I’m bloody not married.”
I misunderstood,” Vicente said, then gestured toward his tired troops. „So here we are, senhor, and I thought we might join forces.”
Maybe,” Sharpe said grudgingly, „but make one thing clear, lawyer. If your commission is two weeks old then I’m the senior man. I’m in charge. No bloody lawyer weaselling around that.”
„Of course, senhor,” Vicente said, frowning as though he was offended by Sharpe’s stating of the obvious.
Bloody lawyer, Sharpe thought, of all the bloody ill fortune. He knew he had behaved boorishly, especially as this courtly young lawyer had possessed the courage to kill a sergeant and lead his men to Sharpe’s rescue, and he knew he should apologize for his rudeness, but instead he stared south and west, trying to make sense of the landscape, looking for any pursuit and wondering where in hell he was. He took out his fine telescope which had been a gift from Sir Arthur Wellesley and trained it back the way they had come, staring over the trees, and at last he saw what he expected to see. Dust. A lot of dust being kicked up by hooves, boots or wheels. It could have been fugitives streaming eastward on the road beside the river, or it could have been the French, Sharpe could not tell.
„You will be trying to get south of the Douro?” Vicente asked.
„Aye, I am. But there’s no bridges on this part of the river, is that right?”
„Not till you reach Amarante,” Vicente said, „and that is on the River Tamega. It is a… how do you say? A side river? Tributary, thank you, of the Douro, but once across the Tamega there is a bridge over the Douro at Peso da Regua.”
„And are the Frogs on the far side of the Tamega?”
Vicente shook his head. „We were told General Silveira is there.”
Being told that a Portuguese general was waiting across a river was not the same as knowing it, Sharpe thought. „And there’s a ferry over the Douro,” he asked, „not far from here?”
Vicente nodded. „At Barca d’Avintas.”
„How close is it?”
Vicente thought for a heartbeat. „Maybe a half-hour’s walk? Less, probably.”
„That close?” But if the ferry was close to Oporto then the French could already be there. „And how far is Amarante?”
„We could be there tomorrow.”
„Tomorrow,” Sharpe echoed, then collapsed the telescope. He stared south. Was that dust thrown up by the French? Were they on their way to Barca d’Avintas? He wanted to use the ferry because it was so much nearer, but also riskier. Would the French be expecting fugitives to use the ferry? Or perhaps the invaders did not even know it existed. There was only one way to find out. „How do we get to Barca d’Avintas?” he asked Vicente, gesturing back down the track that led through the cork oaks. „The same way we came?”
„There is a quicker path,” Vicente said.
„Then lead on.”
Some of the men were sleeping, but Harper kicked them awake and they all followed Vicente off the road and down into a gentle valley where vines grew in neatly tended rows. From there they climbed another hill and walked through meadows dotted with the small haystacks left from the previous year. Flowers studded the grass and twined about the witch-hat haystacks, while blossoms filled the hedgerows. There was no path, though Vicente led the men confidently enough.
„You know where you’re going?” Sharpe asked suspiciously after a while.
„I know this landscape,” Vicente assured the rifleman, „I know it well.”
You grew up here, then?”
Vicente shook his head. „I was raised in Coimbra. That’s far to the south, senhor, but I know this landscape because I belong”-he checked and corrected himself-”belonged to a society that walks here.”
„A society that walks in the countryside?” Sharpe asked, amused.
Vicente blushed. „We are philosophers, senhor, and poets.”
Sharpe was too astonished to respond immediately, but finally managed a question. „You were what?”
“Philosophers and poets, senhor.”
“Jesus bloody Christ,” Sharpe said.
„We believe, senhor,” Vicente went on, „that there is inspiration in the countryside. The country, you see, is natural, while towns are made by man and so harbor all men’s wickedness. If we wish to discover our natural goodness then it must be sought in the country.” He was having trouble finding the right English words to express what he meant. „There is, I think,” he tried again, „a natural goodness in the world and we seek it.”