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 blossom 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 harbour 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.’
‘So you come here for inspiration?’
‘We do, yes.’ Vicente nodded eagerly.
Giving inspiration to a lawyer, Sharpe thought sourly, was like feeding fine brandy to a rat. ‘And let me guess,’ he said, barely hiding his derision, ‘that the members of your society of rhyming philosophers are all men. Not a woman among you, eh?’
‘How did you know?’ Vicente asked in amazement.
‘I told you, I guessed.’
Vicente nodded. ‘It is not, of course, that we do not like women. You must not think that we do not want their company, but they are reluctant to join our discussions. They would be most welcome, of course, but …’ His voice tailed away.
‘Women are like that,’ Sharpe said. Women, he had found, preferred the company of rogues to the joys of conversation with sober and earnest young men like Lieutenant Vicente who harboured romantic dreams about the world and whose thin black moustache had patently been grown in an attempt to make himself look older and more sophisticated and only succeeded in making him look younger. ‘Tell me something, Lieutenant,’ he said.
‘Jorge,’ Vicente interrupted him, ‘my name is Jorge. Like your saint.’
‘So tell me something, Jorge. You said you had some training as a soldier. What kind of training was it?’
‘We had lectures in Porto.’
‘Lectures?’
‘On the history of warfare. On Hannibal, Alexander and Caesar.’
‘Book learning?’ Sharpe asked, not hiding his derision.
‘Book learning,’ Vicente said bravely, ‘comes naturally to a lawyer, and a lawyer, moreover, who saved your life, Lieutenant.’
Sharpe grunted, knowing he had deserved that mild reproof. ‘What did happen back there,’ he asked, ‘when you rescued me? I know you shot one of your sergeants, but why didn’t the French hear you do that?’
‘Ah!’ Vicente frowned, thinking. ‘I shall be honest, Lieutenant, and tell you it is not all to my credit. I had shot the Sergeant before I saw you. He was telling the men to strip off their uniforms and run away. Some did and the others would not listen to me so I shot him. It was very sad. And most of the men were in the tavern by the river, close to where the French made their barricade.’ Sharpe had seen no tavern; he had been too busy trying to extricate his men from the dragoons to notice one. ‘It was then I saw you coming. Sergeant Macedo’ – Vicente gestured towards a squat, dark-faced man stumping along behind – ‘wanted to stay hidden in the tavern and I told the men that it was time to fight for Portugal. Most did not seem to listen, so I drew my pistol, senhor, and I went into the road. I thought I would die, but I also thought I must set an example.’
‘But your men followed you?’
‘They did,’ Vicente said warmly, ‘and Sergeant Macedo fought very bravely.’
‘I think,’ Sharpe said, ‘that despite being a bloody lawyer you’re a remarkable bloody soldier.’
‘I am?’ The young Portuguese sounded amazed, but Sharpe knew it must have taken a natural leader to bring men out of a tavern to ambush a party of dragoons.
‘So did all your philosophers and poets join the army?’ Sharpe asked.
Vicente looked embarrassed. ‘Some joined the French, alas.’
‘The French!’
The Lieutenant shrugged. ‘There is a belief, senhor, that the future of mankind is prophesied in French thought. In French ideas. In Portugal, I think, we are old-fashioned and in response many of us are inspired by the French philosophers. They reject the church and the old ways. They dislike the monarchy and despise unearned privilege. Their ideas are very exciting. You have read them?’
‘No,’ Sharpe said.
‘But I love my country more than I love Monsieur Rousseau,’ Vicente said sadly, ‘so I shall be a soldier before I am a poet.’
‘Quite right,’ Sharpe said, ‘best choose something useful to do with your life.’ They crossed a small rise in the ground and Sharpe saw the river ahead and a small village beside it and he checked Vicente with an upraised hand. ‘Is that Barca d’Avintas?’
‘It is,’ Vicente said.
‘God damn it,’ Sharpe said bitterly, because the French were there already.
The river curled gently at the foot of some blue-tinged hills, and between Sharpe and the river were meadows, vineyards, the small village, a stream flowing to the river and the goddamned bloody French. More dragoons. The green-coated cavalrymen had dismounted and now strolled about the village as if they did not have a care in the world