Sharpe's Rifles

CHAPTER 7

Progress during the first day of the southward journey proved better than Sharpe had dared to hope. The Parkers’ carriage was cumbersome, but it had broad-rimmed wheels designed to cope with rutted and muddy roads and a patient Spanish coachman who skilfully handled its team of six big draught horses. Only twice in that first day was it necessary for the Riflemen to help pull the carriage out of difficulty; once on a steep incline and the second time when a wheel dropped into a roadside morass. Of Louisa Parker Sharpe saw nothing, for the girl’s aunt made certain that she stayed safely mewed up behind the coach’s drawn leather curtains.

The size and cost of the carriage impressed Sharpe. The Parkers’ self-imposed mission to enlighten the Papist heathens of Spain clearly lacked for little and George Parker, who seemed to prefer walking with Sharpe to the company of his wife, explained that it was the bequest of the Admiral’s prize money that had made such comforts possible.

“Was the Admiral a religious man, sir?” Sharpe asked.

“Alas, no. Far from it. But a wealthy one, Lieutenant. Nor do I see,” Parker was clearly piqued by Sharpe’s questions about the carriage’s cost, “why the Lord’s work should be constrained by a paucity of funds, do you?”

“Indeed not,” Sharpe cheerfully agreed. “But why Spain, sir? I’d have thought there were enough heathens in England without bothering the Spanish.”

“Because the Spanish labour under the darkness of Rome, Lieutenant. Do you have any idea what that means? The horror of it? I can tell you tales of priestly behaviour that would make you shudder! Do you know what superstitions these people harbour?”

“I’ve an idea, sir.” Sharpe turned to check on the carriage’s progress. His two wounded men were travelling on the roof, banished there on Mrs Parker’s insistence. “But the Dons don’t seem quite ready for Methodism, sir, if you’ll forgive me saying as much.”

“It is stony ground,” Parker agreed glumly.

“Mind you, I knew an officer in India who converted the heathen to Christianity,” Sharpe said helpfully, “and he was most successful.”

“Truly?” Mr Parker was pleased to hear of this evidence of God’s grace. “A godly man?”

“Mad as a hatter, sir. One of the Royal Irish, and they’ve all got wormscrew wits.”

“But you say he was successful?”

“He threatened to blow their heads off with a musket unless they were baptized, sir. That queue went twice round the armoury and clear back to the guardhouse.”

Mr Parker fell silent, plunged into a gloom that was matched only by the rebellious mood of the trudging Riflemen. Sharpe’s own cheerfulness was forced, for he was unwilling to admit that the small progress he had so far made in gaining the Riflemen’s confidence had been shattered by his decision to strike off south alone. He told himself that the men’s sullenness was due to lack of sleep, while in truth he knew it was because they had been forced to leave Major Vivar. They trusted Vivar, while his own authority over them was still on trial, and that knowledge fretted at Sharpe’s fragile dignity.

Confirmation of the Riflemen’s unhappiness came from Sergeant Williams, who fell into step with Sharpe as the small column marched between wide apple orchards. “The lads really wanted to stay with the Major, sir.”

“For Christ’s sake why?”

“Because of his jewels, sir! He was going to give us gold when we got to Santy-aggy.”

“You’re a bloody fool, Sergeant. There was never going to be any gold. There may have been jewels in that damned box, but the only reason he wanted our company was to give him protection.” Sharpe was certain he was right. Vivar’s encounter with the Riflemen had almost doubled the Major’s small force, and Sharpe’s duty was not to some damned strongbox but to the British army. “We’d never have reached Santiago anyway. It’s full of the damned Frogs.”

“Yes, sir,” Williams said dutifully, but with regret.

They stopped that night in a small town where George Parker’s command of Spanish secured space in an inn. The Parkers hired themselves one of the rooms off the tavern’s large chamber, while the Riflemen were given the use of a stable.

The remains of the monastery’s gift of bread was the only food the men carried, and Sharpe knew they needed more. The innkeeper had meat and wine, but would not part with either unless Sharpe paid. He had no money, so approached George Parker who confessed, sadly, that his wife controlled the family purse.

Mrs Parker, divesting herself of cloaks and scarves, seemed to swell with indignation at his request. “Money, Mr Sharpe?”

“The men need meat, ma’am.”

“We are to make a subvention to the army?”

“It will be repaid, ma’am.” Sharpe felt Louisa’s gaze on him but, in the interests of his men’s appetites, he resisted looking at the niece for rear of offending the aunt.

Mrs Parker jangled her leather purse. “This is Christ’s money, Lieutenant.”

“We’re only borrowing it, ma’am. And my men can offer you no protection if they’re starving.”

That argument, put so humbly, seemed to convince Mrs Parker. She demanded the presence of the innkeeper with whom she negotiated the purchase of a pot of goat-bones which, she told Sharpe, could be seethed into a nourishing broth.

When the haggling was done, Sharpe hesitated before writing out the receipt that Mrs Parker demanded. “And some money for wine, ma’am?”

George Parker raised eyes to the ceiling, Louisa busied

I

herself with candle-wicks, and Mrs Parker turned to stare with horror at Sharpe. “Wine?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Your men are bibbers of strong drink?”

“They’re entitled to wine, ma’am.”

“Entitled?” The rising inflection presaged trouble.

“British army regulations, ma’am. One third of a pint of spirits a day, ma’am, or a pint of wine.”

“Each?”

“Of course, ma’am.”

“Not, Lieutenant Sharpe, while they are escorting Christian folk to safety.” Mrs Parker thrust the purse into a pocket of her skirt. “Our Lord and Saviour’s money, Lieutenant, will not be frittered away on liquor. Your men may drink water. My husband and I drink nothing but water.”

“Or small beer,” George hastened to correct her.

Mrs Parker ignored him. “The receipt, Lieutenant, if you please.”

Sharpe dutifully signed the piece of paper, then followed the innkeeper into the large room where, for lack of any other currency, he sliced off four of the silver buttons sewn on the outside seams of his uniform trousers. The buttons purchased enough wineskins to give each man a cupful. The issue, like the pot of gristly bones, was received in sullen silence that was only broken by a mutinous muttering when Sharpe announced a reveille for four o’clock in the morning. Stung by this new evidence of the Riflemen’s most uncooperative behaviour, he snapped that if any man preferred to be a French prisoner, then that man could leave now. He gestured to the stable door, beyond which the frost was already forming on the stableyard.

No one spoke or moved. Sharpe could see Harper’s eyes glittering from the back of the stable, and he saw again how the Riflemen had instinctively grouped themselves about the big Irishman. But there was no point in looking to Harper for help. He, more than any man, seemed to resent leaving Major Vivar, though what purpose any of them imagined would be served by staying at the Major’s side was beyond Sharpe’s imagination. Tour o’clock!“ he said. ”And we’ll be marching at five!“

Mrs Parker was no happier at the news than the Riflemen. “Rising at four? You think a body can survive without sleep, Lieutenant?”

“I think, ma’am, that it’s best to be travelling before the French.” Sharpe hesitated, not willing to make another request of this disobliging woman, but knowing he could not trust himself to judge the hours in the night’s blackness. “I was wondering, ma’am, if you had a clock, or a watch?”

“A timepiece, Lieutenant?” Mrs Parker asked the question to gain time in which to marshal her forces of rejection.

“Please, ma’am.”

Louisa smiled at Sharpe from her seat on the shelf in the alcove which formed the bed. Her aunt, seeing the smile, snatched the alcove’s curtain closed. “You, of course, will sleep outside this door. Lieutenant?”

Sharpe, thinking of timepieces, was taken aback by the peremptory demand. “I beg your pardon, ma’am?”

“There are defenceless females in this room, Lieutenant! British females!”

“I’m certain you will be safe, ma’am.” Sharpe pointed at the heavy bolt inside the door.

“Have you no conception of your responsibilities, Lieutenant?” Mrs Parker advanced in wrath. “Is it any wonder that you have never secured promotion beyond your lowly rank?”

“Ma’am, I…“

“Do not interrupt me! I will have none of your barrack manners here, Lieutenant. Have you seen the Papist creatures who are drinking like animals in this tavern? Do you know what horrors strong drink provokes? And let me remind you that Mr Parker paid his taxes in England, which entitles us to your protection.”

George Parker, trying to read his scriptures by the light of a tallow dip, looked beseechingly at Sharpe. “Please, Lieutenant?”

“I shall sleep outside, ma’am, but I need a timepiece/

Mrs Parker, pleased with her small victory, smiled.

“If you are to guard us, Lieutenant, then you will want to be wakeful. Turning an hourglass will keep you from slumbering. George?”

George Parker rooted about in his valise to produce an hourglass that he handed, with an apologetic grimace, to Sharpe. Mrs Parker nodded satisfaction. “It lacks twenty-five minutes of ten o’clock, Lieutenant, and the glass takes one hour to evacuate itself.” She waved an imperious hand in dismissal.

Sharpe leaned on the wall outside the Parker’s room. He put the hourglass on a window sill and watched the first grains trickle through. Damn the bloody woman. No wonder the army discouraged the spread of Methodism in its ranks. Yet in one way Sharpe was glad to be a bodyguard, even to someone as disobliging as Mrs Parker, for it gave him an excuse not to go back to the stable where his Riflemen would make their displeasure and disdain clear once more. There had been a time when the company of such men had been his life and pleasure, but now, because he was an officer, he was bereft of such companionship. He felt an immense and hopeless weariness, and wished this damned journey was over.

He cut one more button from his trousers which already gaped to show a length of scarred thigh, and bought himself a skin of wine. He drank it quickly and miserably, then dragged a bench close to the family’s door. The tavern customers, suspicious of the ragged, harsh-faced, foreign soldier, kept clear of him. The bench was close to a small unshuttered window that gave Sharpe a view of the stables. He half suspected that the Riflemen might attempt another mutiny, perhaps sneaking off in the darkness to rejoin their beloved Major Vivar, but except for a few men who appeared in the stableyard to urinate, all seemed calm. Calm, but not quiet. Sharpe could hear the Riflemen’s laughter and it galled his loneliness. Gradually the laughter turned to silence.

He could not sleep. The tavern emptied, except for two drovers who snored cheerfully by the dying fire and the potman who made his bed under the serving hatch. Sharpe felt the beginnings of a headache. He suddenly missed Vivar. The Spaniard’s cheerfulness and certainty had made the long march bearable, and now he felt adrift in chaos. What if the British garrison had left Lisbon? Or what if there were no naval ships off the coast? Was he doomed to wander through Spain till, at last, the French solved his problems by making him a prisoner? And what if they did? The war must soon end with French victory, and the French would send their prisoners home. Sharpe would go back to England as just another failed officer who must eke out a bare existence on half-pay. He turned the hourglass and scratched another mark on the limewashed wall.

There was a half-collapsed skin of wine beside the sleeping drovers and Sharpe stole it. He squirted the foul liquid into his mouth, hoping that the raw taste would cut through his burgeoning headache. He knew it would not. He knew that in the morning he would feel foul-tempered and sore. So, doubtless, would his men, and the memory of their sullenness only depressed him more. Damn them. Damn Williams. Damn Harper. Damn Vivar. Damn Sir John Moore for ruining the best damned army that had ever left England. And damn Spain and damn the bloody Parkers and damn the bloody cold that slowly seeped into the tavern as the fire died.

He heard the bolt shifting in the door behind him. It was being drawn surreptitiously and with excruciating care. Then, after what seemed a long time, the heavy door creaked ajar. A pair of nervous eyes stared at Sharpe. “Lieutenant?”

“Miss?”

“I brought you this.” Louisa closed the door very, very carefully and crossed to the bench. She held out a thick silver watch. “It’s a striking watch,” she said quietly, “and I have set it to ring at four o’clock.”

Sharpe took the heavy watch. “Thank you.”

“I have to apologize,” Louisa said hastily.

“No…“

“Indeed I do. I spend many hours apologizing for my aunt’s behaviour. Perhaps tomorrow you would be kind enough to return the watch without her noticing?”

“Of course.”

“I also thought you might like this, Lieutenant.” She smiled mischievously as she brought a black bottle from beneath her cloak. To Sharpe’s astonishment it held Spanish brandy. “It’s my uncle’s,” she explained, “though he’s not supposed to drink it. He’ll think my aunt found it and threw it away.”

“Thank you.” Sharpe swallowed some of the fierce liquid. Then, with awkward courtesy, he wiped the bottle’s mouth on his dirty sleeve and offered it to Louisa.

“No, thank you.” She smiled at the clumsy gesture but, recognizing it as a friendly invitation, sat in decorous acceptance at the far end of Sharpe’s bench. She was still dressed in skirts, cloak and bonnet.

“Your uncle drinks?” Sharpe asked in amazement.

“Wouldn’t you? Married to her?” Louisa smiled at his expression. “Believe me, Lieutenant, I only came with my aunt for the opportunity to see Spain. It was hardly because I desired months of her company.”

“I see,” Sharpe said, though he really did not understand any of it, and certainly not why this girl had sought his company in the middle of the night. He did not think she had risked her aunt’s wrath just to lend him a watch, but she seemed eager to talk and, even though her presence made him shy and tongue-tied, he wanted her to stay. The dying fire cast just enough light to give a red sheen to her face. He thought her very beautiful.

“My aunt is uncommonly rude,” Louisa said in further apology. “She had no cause to comment on your rank in the manner that she did.”

Sharpe shrugged. “She’s right. I am old to he a Lieutenant, but five years ago I was a Sergeant.”

Louisa looked at him with new interest. “Truly?”

”Truly.“

She smiled, thus striking darts of desire into Sharpe’s soul. “I think you must be an extremely remarkable man, Lieutenant, though I should tell you that my aunt thinks you are extremely uncouth. She continually expresses amazement that you hold His Majesty’s commission, and avers that Sir Hyde would never have allowed a ruffian like you as an officer on one of his ships.”

For an instant Sharpe’s battered self-esteem made him bristle at the criticism, then he saw that Louisa’s face was mischievous rather than serious. He saw, too, a friendliness in the girl. It was a friendliness that Sharpe had not received from anyone in months and, though he warmed to it, his awkwardness made his response clumsy. A born officer, he thought sourly, would know how to reply to the girl’s dry humour, but he could only ask a dull question. “Was Sir Hyde your father?”

“He was a cousin of my father’s, a very distant cousin indeed. I’m told he was not a good Admiral. He believed Nelson was a mere adventurer.” She froze, alerted by a sudden noise, but it was only the fall of a log in the smouldering fire. “But he became a very rich Admiral,” Louisa went on, “and the family benefited from all that prize money.”

“So you’re rich?” Sharpe could not help asking.

“Not I. But my aunt received a sufficiency to create trouble in the world.” Louisa spoke very gravely. “Have you any idea, Mr Sharpe, just how embarrassing it is to be spreading Protestantism in Spain?”

Sharpe shrugged. “You volunteered, miss.”

“True. And the embarrassment is the price I pay for seeing Granada and Seville.” Her eyes lit up, or perhaps it was just the reflected flare of glowing embers. “I would like to see more!”

“But you’re returning to England?”

“My aunt thinks that is wise.” Louisa’s voice was carefully mocking. “The Spanish, you see, are not welcoming her attempts to free them from Rome’s shackles.”

“But you’d like to stay?”

“It’s scarcely possible, is it? Young women, Mr Sharpe, do not have the freedom of this world. I must return to Godalming where a Mr Bufford awaits me.”

Sharpe had to smile at her tone. “Mr Bufford?”

“He’s entirely respectable,” Louisa said, as though Sharpe had intimidated otherwise, “and, of course, a Methodist. His money comes from the manufacture of ink, a trade of such profitability that the future Mrs Bufford may look forward to a large house and a life of great, if tedious, comfort. Certainly it will never be discoloured by the ink, which is manufactured in faraway Deptford.”

Sharpe had never before talked with a girl of Louisa’s evident education, nor heard the monied class spoken of with such deprecation. He had always believed that anyone born to great, if tedious, comfort would be eternally grateful for the gift. “You’re the future Mrs Bufford?”

“That is the intention, yes.”

“But you don’t want to be married?”

“I do desire that, I think.” Louisa frowned. “Are you married?”

“I’m not rich enough to marry.”

“That’s rarely stopped others, I think. No, Mr Sharpe, I simply do not desire to marry Mr Bufford, though my reluctance is doubtless very selfish of me.” Louisa shrugged away her indiscretions. “But I did not hope to find you awakejust to impose my small unhappiness on you. I wished to ask of you, Lieutenant, whether our presence makes it more likely that you and your men will be captured by the French?”

The answer was clearly yes, but equally clearly Sharpe could not say so. “No, miss. So long as we keep going at a fair clip, we should keep ahead of the bast—of them.”

“I was going to enjoin you, should you have answered me truthfully, to abandon us to the bast—to them.” Louisa smiled her gravely mischievous smile.

“I wouldn’t abandon you, miss,” Sharpe said clumsily, glad that the gloom hid his blush.

“My aunt does provoke great loyalty.”

“Exactly.” Sharpe smiled, and the smile turned into a laugh which Louisa hushed by holding a finger to her lips.

“Thank you, Lieutenant.” She stood. “I hope you do not feel badly about our encumbering you?”

“Not now, miss.”

Louisa crept to her door. “Sleep well, Lieutenant.”

“And you, miss.” Sharpe watched as she slipped through the door, and held his breath until he heard the bolt slide safely shut on its far side. His sleep would be turbulent now, for all his thoughts and desires and dreams had been turned inside out and upside down by a gentle, mocking smile. Richard Sharpe was far from home, endangered by a conquering enemy and, just to make things worse, he had fallen in love.

At four in the morning Sharpe was woken by the tinkling alarm of Louisa’s silver watch. He hammered on the Parkers’ door until a groan assured him the family was awake. Then he went to the stable and found that his men had not absconded in the night. They were all present, and they were nearly all drunk.

They were not as drunk as the men who had been abandoned to the French during the retreat, but they had come close. All but a handful of them were insensible, soused, unconscious. The wineskins which Sharpe had purchased lay empty on the floor, but among the bedding straw were also numerous empty bottles of aguardiente and he knew that the Cistercian monks, when they had brought out the sacks of bread, had secreted the brandy as part of their gift. Sharpe swore.

Sergeant Williams was groggy, but managed to stagger to his feet. “It was the lads, sir,” he said helplessly. “They was upset, sir.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about the brandy?”

“Tell you, sir?” Williams was astonished that he should expect such a thing.

“God damn them.” Sharpe’s head was thick, his own belly sore, but his hangover was as nothing compared to the state of the greenjackets. “Get the bastards up!”

Williams hiccupped. The lantern revealed just how hopeless was the task of rousing the Riflemen but, scared by Sharpe’s demeanour, he made some feeble attempts to stir the nearest man.

Sharpe brushed Williams aside. He shouted at the men. He kicked them awake, dragged them up from stupor, and he punched tender bellies so that suffering men vomited on the stable floor. “Up! Up! Up!”

The men reeled in dazed confusion. This was ever the danger in this army. The men joined for drink. They could only be kept in the ranks by the daily issue of rum. They took every opportunity to drown themselves in liquor. Sharpe had done it himself as a redcoat, but now he was an officer and his authority once again had been flouted. He primed his loaded rifle with dry powder, and cocked the flint. Sergeant Williams flinched from the expected noise, Sharpe pulled the trigger, and the explosion hammered about the stable. “Up, you bastards! Up, up!” Sharpe kicked out again, his anger made worse by his own incompetence in not knowing about the brandy. He was also keenly and miserably aware of how badly this behaviour would appear to Miss Louisa Parker.

By a quarter past five, in a drizzle that promised to persist all day, Sharpe finally paraded the men on the road. The Parkers’ carriage was being manoeuvred out of the tavern yard as Sharpe, in the light of a lantern carried by Sergeant Williams, inspected weapons and equipment. He smelt each canteen and poured what was left of the brandy onto the road.

“Sergeant Williams?”

“Sir?”

“We’ll go at the quick!” The quick march of the Rifles was immensely fast and, anticipating the pain to come, the men groaned. “Silence!” Sharpe bellowed. “Rifles will turn to the right! Right turn!” The men’s unshaven faces were bleary, their eyes reddened, their drill sloppy. “Quick march!”

They marched into a grey and dispiriting dawn. Sharpe forced the pace so hard that some men had to drop out to vomit into the flooded ditches. He kicked them back into line. At this moment he thought he probably hated these men, and almost wanted them to defy him so that he could swear and lash out at the ill-disciplined bastards. He forced them so fast that the Parkers’ carriage fell behind.

Sharpe ignored its slow progress. Instead he made the Riflemen’s pace still quicker until Sergeant Williams, fearing the men’s mutinous mood, fell back to his side. At this point the road twisted down a long slope towards a wide stream that was crossed by a stone bridge. “They can’t do it, sir.”

“They can get drunk, though, can’t they? So let them bloody suffer now.”

Sergeant Williams was clearly suffering. He was pale and breathless, dragging his feet, seemingly on the point of being sick. Other men were in a far worse state. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said feebly.

“I should have abandoned you to the French. All of you.” Sharpe’s anger was made worse by remorse. He knew it was his own fault. He should have had the courage to inspect the stables in the night, but instead he had tried to hide from the men’s dislike by staying in the inn. He remembered the drunks who had been abandoned during Sir John Moore’s retreat; hopeless men left to the untender mercies of the pursuing French and, though he had just threatened them with the same fate, Sharpe knew he would not abandon these men. It was a matter of pride now. He would bring this group of Riflemen out of disaster. They might not thank him for it, they might not like him for it, but he would take them through hell if it led to safety. Vivar had said it could not be done, but Sharpe would do it.

“I’m sorry, sir.” Williams still tried to assuage-him.

Sharpe said nothing. He was thinking how much easier this ordeal would be if he had a Sergeant who could keep the men to order. Williams cared too much about being liked, but there was no one else he could see taking the stripes. Gataker was too fly and too eager for the good opinion of his fellow Riflemen. Tongue was educated, but the worst drunkard in the company. Parry Jenkins, the Welshman, could have made a Sergeant, but Sharpe suspected he lacked the necessary ruthlessness. Hagman was too lazy. Dodd, the quiet man, was too slow and diffident. There was only Harper, and he, Sharpe knew, would do nothing to help the despised Quartermaster. Sharpe was stuck with Williams, just as Williams and the company were stuck with Lieutenant Sharpe who, when he reached the stone bridge, ordered the men to halt.

They halted. There was relief on their faces. The coach was out of sight, still negotiating the boulders beyond the hill’s crest.

“Company!” Sharpe’s loud voice made some of the men wince. “Ground arms!”

There was more relief as they grounded their heavy weapons, then as they unbuckled their bayonets and pouches. Sharpe separated the handful of men who had been sober that morning and ordered the rest to take off their packs, greatcoats, and boots.

The men thought he was mad, but all soldiers were used to humouring eccentric officers and so they removed their boots under the Lieutenant’s sour gaze. The coach appeared at the top of the slope and Sharpe snapped at the men to look to their front and not gape at it. The squeal of the carriage’s brake-blocks was like a nail scratching on slate. “You did not have my permission to get drunk.” Sharpe’s voice was flat now, no longer angry. “I hope, as a result, that you feel God-damned awful.”

It was apparent to the men that Sharpe’s rage had passed and some of them grinned to show that they did indeed feel dreadful.

He smüid. “Good. So now jump in the stream. All of you.”

They stared at him. The thunder and squeal of the carnage wheels grew louder.

Sharpe loaded his rifle with the swift movements of a man long trained to the army. The men stared in disbelief as he brought the brass butt into his shoulder and aimed the weapon at their front file. “I said jump in the stream! Go!”

He cocked the rifle.

The men jumped.

The drop from the bridge parapet was perhaps eight feet and the stream, swollen by melting snow and winter rains, was four feet deep. The water was icy cold, but Sharpe stood on the parapet and ordered each man to soak himself in the bitter flood. He used the rifle as an encouragement. “You! Get your bloody head under! Harper! Duck, man, duck!” Only the sober, the wounded and, in deference to his flimsy authority, Sergeant Williams, were spared the ordeal. “Sergeant! Form threes on the bank. Hurry now!”

The shivering men waded from the stream and formed three miserable ranks on the grass. The coach lumbered to a halt and George Parker, his face nervous, was ejected from the door. “Lieutenant? My dear wife is concerned that you might abandon us by your swift pace.” Parker then saw the soaked parade and his jaw fell.

“They’re drunk.” Sharpe said it loudly enough for the men to hear. “Pickled. Stewed. God-damn useless! I’ve been sweating the bloody liquor out of the bastards.”

Parker flapped a hand in protest at the blasphemy but Sharpe ignored him. Instead he shouted at his men. “Strip!”

There was a pause of disbelief. “Strip!”

They stripped themselves naked. Forty freezing men, pale and miserable, stood in the drizzle.

Sharpe stared down at them. “I don’t care if you all bloody die.” That got their attention. “At any moment now, you bastards, the bloody French could be coming down that road,” he jerked his thumb back up the hill, “and I’ve a good mind to leave you here for them. You’re good for nothing! I thought you were Rifles! I thought you were the best! I’ve seen bloody militia Battalions that were better than you! I’ve seen bloody cavalrymen who looked more like soldiers!” That was a difficult insult to beat, but Sharpe tried. “I’ve seen bloody Methodists who were tougher than you bastards!”

Mrs Parker ripped back the leather curtain to demand an end to the cursing, saw the naked men, and screamed. The curtain closed.

Sharpe stared his men down. He did not blame them for being frightened, for any soldier could be forgiven terror when defeat and chaos destroyed an army. These men were stranded, far from home, and bereft of the commissary that clothed and fed them, but they were still soldiers, under discipline, and that word reminded Sharpe of Major Vivar’s simple commandments. With one simple change, those three rules would suit him well.

Sharpe made his voice less harsh. “From now on we have three rules. Just three rules. Break one of them and I’ll break you. None of you will steal anything unless you have my permission to do so. None of you will get drunk without my permission. And you will fight like bastards when the enemy appears. Is that understood?”

Silence.

“I said, is that understood? Louder! Louder! Louder!”

The naked men were shouting their assent; shouting frantically, shouting to get this madman off their freezing backs. They looked a good deal more sober now.

“Sergeant Williams!”

“Sir?”

“Greatcoats on! You have two hours. Light fires, dry the clothes, then form up in threes again. I’ll stand guard.”

“Yes, sir.”

The carriage stood immobile, its Spanish coachman expressionless on his high box. Only when the Riflemen were in their dry greatcoats did the door fly open and a furious Mrs Parker appear. “Lieutenant!”

Sharpe knew what that voice portended. He whipped round. “Madam! You will keep silent!”

“I will…“

“Silence, God damn you!” Sharpe strode towards the coach and Mrs Parker, fearing violence, slammed the door.

But Sharpe went instead to the luggage box’from which he took a handful of the Spanish testaments. “Sergeant Williams? Kindling for the fires!” He threw the books down to the meadow while George Parker, who thought the world had gone mad, kept a politic silence.

Two hours later, in a very chastened silence, the Riflemen marched south.

At midday it stopped raining. The road joined a larger road, wider and muddier, which slowed the coach’s lumbering progress. Yet, as if in promise of better things to come, Sharpe could see a stretch of water far to his right. It was too wide to be a river, and thus was either a lake or an arm of the ocean which, like a Scottish sea-loch, stretched deep inland. George Parker opined that it was indeed a ria, a valley flooded by the sea, which could therefore lead to the patrolling ships of the Royal Navy.

That thought brought optimism, as did the country they now traversed. The road led through pastureland interspersed with stands of trees, stone walls, and small streams. The slopes were gentle and the few farms looked prosperous. Sharpe, trying to remember the map that Vivar had destroyed, knew they must be well south of Santiago de Com-postela. His despair of the night before was being eroded by the hopes of this southern road, and by the subdued look on his men’s faces. The glimpse of the sea had helped. Perhaps, in the very next town, there might be fishermen who could take these refugees out to where the Navy’s ships patrolled. George Parker, walking with Sharpe, agreed. “And if not, Lieutenant, then we certainly won’t need to go as far as Lisbon.”

“No, sir?”

“There’ll be English ships loading with wine at Oporto. And we can’t be more than a week from Oporto.”

One week to safety! Sharpe rejoiced in the thought. One week of hard marching on his broken boots. One week to prove that he could survive without Bias Vivar. One week of whipping these Riflemen into a disciplined unit. One week with Louisa Parker, and then at least two more weeks at sea as their ship beat north against the Biscay winds.

Two hours after midday, Sharpe called a halt. The sea was still invisible, yet its salt odour was thin among the straggly pine trees beneath which the carriage horses were given a feed of dried maize and hay. The Riflemen, after breaking apart the last of the monastery’s loaves, lay exhausted. They had just crossed a stretch of flooded meadows where the road had proved a morass from which the men had had to push the great carriage free. Now the road led gently upwards between mossy walls towards a stone farmhouse which lay, perhaps a mile to the south, on the next crest.

The Parkers sat on rugs beside their carriage. Mrs Parker would not look at Sharpe since his outburst beside the stream, but Louisa gave him a happy and conspiratorial smile that caused Sharpe instant embarrassment for he feared his men would see it and jump to the correct and unavoidable conclusion that the Lieutenant was smitten. To avoid betraying his feelings, Sharpe walked from beneath the stand of pines to where a single picquet squatted beside the road.

“Anything?” he asked.

“Nothing, sir.” It was Hagman, the oldest Rifleman, and one of the very few not to have drunk himself insensible during the night. He was chewing tobacco and his eyes never left the northern skyline. “It’s going to rain again.”

“You think so?”

“Know so.”

Sharpe squatted. The clouds seemed endless, black and grey, rolling from the invisible sea. “Why did you join the army?” he asked.

Hagman, whose toothless mouth gave his already ugly face a nutcracker profile, grinned. “Caught poaching, sir. Magistrate gave me a choice, sir. Clink or the ranks.”

“Married?”

“That’s why I chose the ranks, sir.” Hagman laughed, then spat a stream of yellow spittle into a puddle. “God-damned sawny-mouthed bitch of a sodding witch she was, sir.”

Sharpe laughed, then went utterly still.

“Sir!” Hagman said softly.

“I see them.” Then Sharpe was standing, turning, shout-lrig, for on the southern skyline, silhouetted against the dark clouds, were cavalry.

The French had caught up.