Williams spat. “Put a bloody sash and sword on them and they think they’re God Almighty. He’s not a real Rifle, just a bloody Quartermaster, Harps!”
“Nothing else,” Harper agreed.
“Bloody jumped-up storekeeper, ain’t he?”
Sharpe turned quickly and Williams, even though it was impossible, felt that he had been overheard. The Lieutenant’s eyes were hard as flint. “Sergeant Williams!”
“Sir.” Williams, despite his assertion of disobedience, stepped dutifully towards Lieutenant Sharpe.
“Shelter.” Sharpe pointed down into the northern valley where, far beneath them and slowly being revealed by a shredding mist, a stone farmstead could be seen. “Get the wounded down there.”
Williams hissed a dubious breath between yellowed teeth. “I dunno as how they should be moved, sir. The Captain’s…“
“I said get the wounded down there, Sergeant.” Sharpe had stepped away, but now turned back. “I didn’t ask for a debate on the God-damned matter. Move.”
It took the best part of the morning, but they succeeded in carrying the wounded down to the derelict farm. The dryest building was a stone barn, built on rock pillars that were meant to keep vermin at bay, and with a roof surmounted by crosses so that, from a distance, it looked like a small crude church. The ruined house and byres yielded damp and fungus-ridden timbers that, split and shredded with cartridge Powder, were coaxed into a fire that slowly warmed the wounded men. Rifleman Hagman, a toothless, middle-aged Cheshire man, went to hunt for food, while the Lieutenant put picquets on the goat tracks that led east and west.
“Captain Murray’s in a poorly way, sir.” Sergeant Williams cornered Sharpe when the Lieutenant returned to the barn. “He needs a surgeon, sir.”
“Hardly possible, is it?”
“Unless we… that is…“ The Sergeant, a squat, red-faced man, could not say what was in his mind.
“Unless we surrender to the French?” Sharpe asked acidly.
Williams looked into the Lieutenant’s eyes. They were curious eyes, almost reptilian in their present coldness. The Sergeant found a truculence to brace his argument. “At least the crapauds have got surgeons, sir.”
“In one hour,” Sharpe’s voice implied that he had not even heard Williams’s words, Til inspect every man’s rifle. Make sure they’re ready.“
Williams stared belligerently at the officer, but could not summon the courage necessary for disobedience. He nodded curtly and turned away.
Captain Murray was propped against a pile of packs inside the barn. He offered Sharpe a feeble smile. “What will you do?”
“Sergeant Williams thinks I should take you to a French surgeon.”
Murray grimaced. “I asked what you wanted to do.”
Sharpe sat beside the Captain. “Rejoin.”
Murray nodded. He was cradling a mug of tea, a precious gift from one of the Riflemen who had hoarded the leaves in the bottom of his ammunition pouch. “You can leave me here.”
“I can’t…“
“I’m dying.” Murray made a deprecatory shrug to show that he wanted no sympathy. His wound was not bleeding overmuch, but the Captain’s belly was swelling blue to show that there was bleeding inside. He nodded towards the other three badly wounded men, all of them with great sword cuts on their faces or chests. “Leave them too. Where will you go? The coast?”
Sharpe shook his head. “We’ll never catch the army now.”
“Probably not.” Murray closed his eyes.
Sharpe waited. It had started to rain again and a leak in the stone roof dripped insistently into the fire. He was thinking of his options. The most inviting choice was to attempt to follow Sir John Moore’s army, but they were retreating so fast, and the French now controlled the road that Sharpe must take, and thus he knew he must resist that temptation for it would only lead into captivity. Instead he must go south. Sir John had marched from Lisbon, and a few troops had been left to protect the Portuguese capital, and perhaps that garrison still existed and Sharpe could find it. “How far is Lisbon?” he asked Murray.
The Captain opened his eyes and shrugged. “God knows. Four? Five hundred miles?” He flinched from a stab of pain. “It’s probably nearer six hundred on these roads. D’you think we’ve still got troops there?”
“We can at least find a ship.”
“If the French don’t get there first. What about Vigo?”
“The French are more likely to be there than Lisbon.”
“True.” The Light Division had been sent to Vigo on a more southerly road. Only a few light troops, like these Riflemen, had been retained to protect Sir John Moore’s retreat. “Maybe Lisbon would be best.” Murray looked past Sharpe and saw how the men were brushing and oiling their rifle locks. He sighed. “Don’t be too hard on them.”
“I’m not.” Sharpe was instantly defensive.
Murray’s face flickered with a smile. “Were you ever commanded by an officer from the ranks?”
Sharpe, smelling criticism, bridled for an instant, then realized that Murray was trying to be helpful. “No, sir, never.”
“The men don’t like it. Stupid, really. They believe officers are born, not made.” Murray paused to take a breath that made him shudder with pain. He saw Sharpe about to enjoin him to silence, but shook his head. “I haven’t got much time. I might as well use what there is. Do you think I’m being damnably rude?”
“No, sir.”
Murray paused to sip at his tea. “They’re good lads.”
“Yes.”
“But they have an odd sense of what’s proper. They expect officers to be different, you see. They want them to be privileged. Officers are men who choose to fight, they aren’t forced to it by poverty. Do you understand that?”
“Yes.”
“They think you’re really one of them; one of the damned, and they want their officers to be touched by something more than that.” Murray shook his head sadly. “It isn’t very good advice, is it?”
“It’s very good,” Sharpe lied.
The wind sighed at the corners of the stone barn and flickered the flames of the small fire. Murray smiled sadly. “Let me think of some more practical advice for you. Something that will get you to Lisbon.” He frowned for an instant, then turned his red-rimmed eyes to Sharpe. “Get Patrick Harper on your side.”
Sharpe turned to glance at the men who were crowded at the barn’s far end. The big Irishman seemed to sense that his name had been mentioned for he offered Sharpe a hostile glance.
“He’s a troublemaker, but the men listen to him. I tried to make him a Chosen Man once,” Murray instinctively used the Rifle’s old term for a Corporal, “but he wouldn’t have it. He’d make a good Sergeant. Hell! Even a good officer if he could read, but he won’t have any of it. But the men listen to him. He’s got Sergeant Williams under his thumb.”
“I can manage Harper.” Sharpe said the words with a false conviction. In the short time that he had been with this Battalion, Sharpe had often noticed the Irishman, and he had seen for himself the truth of Captain Murray’s assertion that he was a natural leader. Men crowded to Harper’s campfire, partly to relish his stories, and partly because they wanted his approval. To the officers he liked the Irishman offered a humorous allegiance, while to those he disliked he offered nothing but scorn. And there was something very intimidating about Rifleman Harper; not just because of his size, but because of his air of knowing self-reliance.
“I’ve no doubt Harper thinks he can manage you. He’s a hard man,” Murray paused, then smiled, “but he’s filled with sentimentality.”
“So he has a weakness,” Sharpe said harshly.
“Is that a weakness?” Murray shrugged. “I doubt it. But now you’ll think I’m weak. When I’m dead, you see,” and again he had to shake his head to stop Sharpe interjecting, “when I’m dead,” he repeated, “I want you take my sword. I’ll tell Williams you’re to have it.”