‘That was close,’ Harper said.
‘You were in the wrong bloody place.’
‘It wasn’t healthy,’ Harper said, then looked to see if any man had been left behind. ‘Perkins! What the hell is that you’ve got?’
‘It’s a French general, Sergeant,’ Perkins said. He had dragged the corpse all the way up the hill and now knelt by the body and began searching the pockets.
‘Leave that body alone!’ It was Slingsby, back again, on foot now, striding towards the company. ‘Form on number nine company, look sharp now! I told you to leave that alone!’ he snapped at Perkins who had ignored the order. ‘Take that man’s name, Sergeant!’ he ordered Huckfield.
‘Perkins!’ Sharpe said. ‘Search that body properly. Lieutenant!’
Slingsby looked wide-eyed at Sharpe. ‘Sir?’
‘Come with me.’ Sharpe stalked off to the left, well out of earshot of the company, then turned on Slingsby and all his pent-up rage exploded. ‘Listen, you goddamn bastard, you bloody well nearly lost the company there. Lost them! Every damned man of them! And they know it. So shut your damned mouth until you’ve learned how to fight.’
‘You’re being offensive, Sharpe!’ Slingsby protested.
‘I mean to be.’
‘I take exception,’ Slingsby said stiffly. ‘I will not be insulted by your kind, Sharpe.’
Sharpe smiled and it was not a pretty smile. ‘My kind, Slingsby? I’ll tell you what I am, you snivelling little bastard, I’m a killer. I’ve been killing men for damn near thirty years. You want a duel? I don’t mind. Sword, pistol, knives, anything you bloody well like, Slingsby. Just let me know when and where. But till then, shut your damned mouth and bugger off.’ He walked back to Perkins who had virtually stripped the French officer naked. ‘What did you find?’
‘Cash, sir.’ Perkins glanced at an outraged Slingsby, then back to Sharpe. ‘And his scabbard, sir.’ He showed Sharpe the scabbard that was sheathed in blue velvet studded with small golden N’s.
‘They’re probably brass,’ Sharpe said, ‘but you never know. Keep half the cash and share the other half.’
All the Frenchmen had retreated now, except those who were dead or wounded. The voltigeurs who had held the rocky knoll had stayed, though, and those men had been reinforced by some of the survivors from the defeated columns, the rest of whom had stopped halfway down the ridge from where they just stared upwards. None had gone all the way back to the valley that was now clear of fog so that the French gunners could aim their shells which came up the hill, trailing wisps of smoke, to bang among the scatter of dead bodies. British and Portuguese skirmish companies were going down among the shell bursts to form a picquet line, but Sharpe, without any orders from Lawford or anyone else, took his own men to where the hill jutted out towards the boulder-strewn promontory held by the French. ‘Rifles,’ he ordered, ‘keep their heads down.’
He let his riflemen shoot at the French who, armed with muskets, could not reply. Meanwhile Sharpe searched the lower slopes with his telescope, looking for a green-jacketed body among the drifts of dead French, but he could see no sign of Corporal Dodd.
Sharpe’s riflemen kept up their desultory target practice. He sent the redcoats back a few paces so they would not be an inviting target for the French gunners at the foot of the slope. The rest of the British troops had also marched back, denying the enemy artillery a plain target, but the presence of the skirmish chain on the forward slope told the defeated enemy infantry that the volleys were still waiting just out of sight. None tried to advance and then, one by one, the French cannon fell silent and the smoke slowly drifted off the hill.
Then the guns started a mile to the north. For a few seconds it was just one or two guns, and then whole batteries opened and the thunder started again. The next French attack was coming.
Lieutenant Slingsby did not rejoin the company, going back to the battalion instead. Sharpe did not care.
He rested on the hillside, watched the French, and waited.
‘The letter,’ Ferragus instructed Sarah, ‘is to a Senhor Verzi.’ He paced up and down behind her, the floorboards creaking beneath his weight. The sound of the guns reverberated softly on the big window through which, at the end of a street that ran downhill, Sarah could just see the River Mondego. ‘Tell Senhor Verzi that he is in my debt,’ Ferragus ordered her.
The pen scratched. Sarah, summoned to write a second letter, had wrapped a scarf about her neck so that no skin was exposed between her hair and the blue dress’s high embroidered collar.
‘Tell him he may discharge all his debts to me with a favour. I require accommodation on one of his boats. I want a cabin for my brother’s wife, children and household.’
‘Not too fast, senhor,’ Sarah said. She dipped the nib and wrote. ‘For your brother’s wife, children and household,’ she said as she finished.
‘I am sending the family and their servants to Lisbon,’ Ferragus went on, ‘and I ask, no, I require Senhor Verzi to give them shelter on a suitable vessel.’
‘On a suitable vessel,’ Sarah repeated.
‘If the French come to Lisbon,’ Ferragus continued, ‘the vessel may carry them to the Azores and wait there until it is safe to return. Tell him to expect my brother’s wife within three days of receipt of this letter.’ He waited. ‘And say, finally, that I know he will treat my brother’s people as though they were his own.’ Verzi had better treat them well, Ferragus thought, if he did not want his guts punched into a liquid mess in some Lisbon alley. He stopped and stared down at Sarah’s back. He could see her spine against the thin blue material. He knew she was aware of his gaze and could sense her indignation. It amused him. ‘Read me the letter.’
Sarah read and Ferragus gazed out of the window. Verzi would oblige him, he knew that, and so Major Ferreira’s wife and family would be far away if the French came. They would escape the rape and slaughter that would doubtless occur, and when the French had settled, when they had slaked their appetites, it would be safe for the family to return.
‘You sound certain the French will come, senhor,’ Sarah said when she had finished reading.
‘I don’t know whether they will or not,’ Ferragus said, ‘but I know preparations must be made. If they come, then my brother’s family is safe; if they do not, then Senhor Verzi’s services will not be needed.’
Sarah sprinkled sand on the paper. ‘How long would we wait in the Azores?’ she asked.
Ferragus smiled at her misapprehension. He had no intention of letting Sarah go to the Azores, but this was not the time to tell her. ‘As long as necessary,’ he said.
‘Perhaps the French will not come,’ Sarah suggested just as a renewed bout of gunfire sounded louder than ever.
‘The French,’ Ferragus said, giving her the seal, ‘have conquered every place in Europe. No one fights them now, except us. Over a hundred thousand Frenchmen have reinforced the armies in Spain. They have how many soldiers south of the Pyrenees? Three hundred thousand? Do you really believe, Miss Fry, that we can win against so many? If we win today then they will come back, even more of them.’
He sent three men with the letter. The road to Lisbon was safe enough, but he had heard there was trouble in the city itself. The people there believed the British planned to abandon Portugal and so leave them to the French and there