'Stirrup the infantry."
'Sir.'
And his duty was done. He had a minute left and Thor needed exercise so Lossow touched with his heels and the horse went forward, and the sabre turned a galloping lance so neatly that Lossow thought he would remember that moment till the day he died, preferably in Germany, and the Klingenthal steel of the curved blade opened the Frenchman's throat as far as his spine, and he wished that every moment was this good, with a fine horse, a good turf, a blade made by the dwarves themselves, and an enemy for breakfast.
He watched his men work, proud of them. They were disciplined, protecting one another, their sword drill immaculate and thorough, and Lossow knew why the lord Wellington preferred German cavalry. Not as flashy as the English, not as good for a parade, but for killing Frenchmen - they were as good as British infantry at that. Lossow, a happy man, thought in the valley's bottom – as part of his mind watched the enemy infantry, another checked on the fleeing lancers – that this army, Wellington's army, could be as perfect an instrument of war as any in history. With men like these horsemen and with that infantry? It was beautiful!
'Recall.'
The trumpet sounded, the men pulled back in perfect order, and Lossow waved the sabre. The lancers were done for, utterly beaten, but he had expected no less. Poor devils. They were not to know that Lossow's men had tracked this valley for three days, waiting for a sight of Sharpe, and Lossow was glad it was he and not that pig Schwalbach further south who had found the British infantry. He looked up the valley. The rescued infantry were moving fast, each man holding on to a cavalryman's stirrup, and Lossow brought the other hundred and fifty sabres back slowly, screening the retreat, enjoying the warm sun, and saluting the French infantry who were forming up, too late, their show spoiled.
'Compliments of Hanover!' he shouted, but the garlic-eating slime did not understand German.
An hour later Sharpe opened his eyes, saw Harper leaning over him, pinning him to the ground, and Teresa was holding one hand, and then a German soldier came to him with a piece of iron, glowing hot, and Sharpe knew the dream of the last few minutes, of his shoulder being pinned by an Indian with a lance, was just that: a dream. The Indian, turbaned and smiling, had played with him, and every time Sharpe had tried to jerk free the lance would come back, hoisting him a little higher.
'Still, Captain.' Harper spoke gently, gripped hard.
The cauterizing iron hit him like the devils of hell. His shout was cut off as he fainted, as the flash burned and stank, and it took all Harper's strength to hold him down, but it was done and Lossow's horse-doctor nodded his satisfaction. They splashed water on his face, trickled brandy into his throat, and Sharpe opened his eyes, grimaced as the pain shot through him, and struggled upwards. He looked at Harper.
'You said it would mend.'
'Didn't want to worry you, sir. Almost bled to death.' He propped Sharpe against a rock. 'Food! Bring that food!"
Sharpe looked up to see a German officer with crinkled eyes and a good smile looking down on him. He had met the man before. Where? He remembered. In the village where Batten had been caught by the provosts. He stuck out his good hand.
'Captain -'
'Lossow, sir. At your service!'
Sharpe smiled, a bit wanly. 'You have our thanks, sir.'
The German waved away the formality. 'On the contrary. You have ours. A lovely fight!'
'Did you lose anyone?'
'Lose anyone? They were lancers, Captain! An angry toad would be more dangerous! Now, if they put lances in the front rank, and sabres behind, they might be dangerous. But just lancers? No problem to us!'
Sharpe nodded, grateful. 'But thank you.'
Lossow took the mug of stew from Harper and put it on Sharpe's lap.
'You got the gold.'
'You know about it?'
'Why do you think I am here? A patrol to the south, me here, and all for you, Captain. The lord Wellington wants the gold badly!'
Kearsey sniffed, said nothing, and Sharpe sipped at the stew. It tasted miraculous after the hard tack of the last week.
'He can have it.'
'Yes, but there are problems.'
Sharpe put the mug down, willed the pain in his shoulder to go down. 'Problems?'
'French patrols.' Lossow's hand described an arc to the west. 'Like fleas on a bottom.'
Sharpe laughed and the pain came back, but he forced his left hand round to hold the hot mug and it worked. He spooned the tough beef into his mouth.
'We must get to the army.'
'I know.'
'We must.'
He looked to his right and saw one of Lossow's men sharpening his sword, using a stone and oil to smooth down the dent. It was only this morning that he had cut down on the voltigeur and the man – Sharpe remembered yellow teeth – had pushed his musket up and saved his life. 'We must.'
'We will try.'
Sharpe lifted Lossow's brandy bottle; the Germans were never short of captured brandy, and the spirit flowed like cream into his throat. He coughed.
'The Partisans? Have you seen Partisans?'
Lossow turned and spoke to one of his officers, a short exchange, and turned back to Sharpe. 'Two miles away, Captain, keeping in touch with us. They want the gold?'
Sharpe nodded. 'And me.' He looked at the girl and back to the German.
'Don't worry, Captain.' Lossow stood up and hitched his sword-belt round. 'You're in good hands.'
The girl smiled at Sharpe, stood up and came to him. Her dress was another four inches shorter and Sharpe realized he had been bandaged after the cauterizing iron had driven him in agony back to unconsciousness. She still had the rifle, slung proprietarily on a shoulder, with Tongue's ammunition pouch and bayonet strapped to her waist. Lossow moved to one side to let her sit by Sharpe.
'Any more wounded, Captain, and she will be naked!' The German Captain laughed. 'We should all cut ourselves!'
Teresa looked at Sharpe, spoke softly. 'The Captain's already seen me. Haven't you?'
How did she know? Sharpe thought. He wondered if his telescope was undamaged by the fight and he remembered a French bullet thumping into his pack and throwing him forward. He could not be bothered to check right now, but leaned back, sipped at the brandy, and slept in the sun. The girl sat beside him, watching the Light Company rest, while beyond them, beyond the tethered horses, Lossow's picquets watched French patrols comb the western valleys. The Light Company would move soon, cutting westward, but for now they could sleep and forget the one more river they had to cross.
Chapter 18
Dogs barked in the town, horses moved restless feet on the wooden stable-boards, and on the stone front steps the sentries shuffled in the darkness. In the hallway of the house a clock ticked heavily, but in the ground-floor room, lit by candles, the only sound was the rustling of paper until the tall, hooked-nosed man leaned back and tapped a long finger on the table's edge.
'The siege has not begun?'
'No, my lord."
The General leaned forward and drew a square map towards him, scraping it over the table, and put the long finger on a white space in its centre.
'Here?'
Major Michael Hogan leaned into the candlelight. The map showed the country from Celorico, where they sat, across the border to Ciudad Rodrigo. Crawling up the map, dividing it into three, were the Coa and Agueda rivers, and the long finger was pointing between the rivers, north of Almeida.
'As best we can judge, my lord.'
'And what is there, pray?'
The General's finger relaxed and traced an unconscious line down to the writing on the bottom. Drawn by Maj. Kearsey. Q'Master Gen's Dep't. Hogan wondered idly when Kearsey had drawn the map, but it did not matter. He drew a piece of paper to him.
'Four new French battalions, sir. We know the 18th of the Line are there, probably at strength. A regiment of lancers, one of chasseurs.'
There was a brief silence. Wellington snorted. 'After
food, I suppose?'
'Yes, my lord.'
'And round the town?'
Another piece of paper. 'A loose ring, my lord. Mostly to the south where the artillery park is building. We know of just two battalions of foot and, of course, cavalry patrols.'
'They're slow, Hogan, slow!'
'Yes, sir.'
Hogan waited. If the French were slow, all to the good, and the reports that filtered back from Partisans and exploring officers suggested that Massena was having problems assembling his transport, his siege materials, and, above all, his rations. There was also a rumour that he was with his mistress and reluctant to leave the comfort of her bedroom for the discomforts of the campaign. The General put his hand back on the map.
'Nothing from the KGL?'
'Nothing, sir.'
'Damn, damn, damn.' The words were spoken softly, almost reflectively.
He picked up a letter, postmarked London, and read it aloud, though Hogan suspected the words were known by heart.
'"I write in confidence, trusting to your discretion that however precarious the position of the army it is matched by our own. An opposition rampant, a press malignant, an ailing monarch, and there can be no hopes for a further draft of monies before the autumn. We put our faith in your exertions."' He put down the letter, dismissing the new government's fears, and looked at the map. 'I wonder where he is?'
It was not like the General, Hogan reflected, to articulate his worries. 'If I know him, my lord, and I do, then I suspect he will be avoiding Almeida. Coming the direct way.'
'He'd be better off in Almeida.'
'He would, my lord, but no one could expect that. And in two days…' Hogan shrugged. In two days the enemy would lock up the town as effectively as the countryside.
The General frowned, drummed the table with his fingers. 'Do I warn Cox?'
The question was asked of himself, not Hogan, but the Irishman knew what was in Wellington's mind. The fewer people who knew of the gold, the better. The Spanish government, in impotent obscurity at Cadiz, would assume the gold to have been captured by the French when the armies collapsed in the north, and if they were to discover that their allies, the British, had purloined it? No. The General's fingers slapped down in finality; he would not burden Almeida's commander with another problem.
'If Sharpe is alive, Hogan, we'll assume he does what you say. Avoid Almeida.' He dismissed the problem, looked up at the Irishman. 'How does the work go?'
'Well, my lord, excellently. But…'
'I know. The money. Can it wait a week?'
'Ten days.'
Wellington's eyebrows went up in mock surprise. 'Some good news. Let's hope for more.'
He passed on to other business, to a General Order that limited field officers' leave in Lisbon to just twenty-four hours. If they couldn't find a woman in that time, the General claimed, they might as well not stay on and look. There would be only one exception. The blue eyes looked at Hogan.
'If that damned rogue gets back, give him a month.'
The damned rogue, with a hurting shoulder and a seething sense of frustration, was riding a horse into the intricate defences of Almeida. Lossow rode beside him.
'I'm sorry, Sharpe. We had no choice!'
'I know. I know.'
It was true, too, however grudgingly he admitted it. Every move was headed off by damned Frenchmen who seemed to be everywhere. They had been chased twice, lost a German trooper, and in the end, exhausted and hunted, they turned for the safety of the town. Sharpe had wanted to lay up in the country, travel in darkness, but the French were alerted and he knew that there was no sense in being chased ragged round the east bank of the Coa.
Straw torches, soaked in resin, flamed and smoked in the tunnelled gateway, casting lurid shadows on the Portuguese infantry who had dragged open the huge doors and now watched the tired men ride and walk into the town. The insides of Sharpe's legs were sore; he hated riding horses, but Lossow had insisted. The gold was all on horseback, carried by the Germans, and Sharpe looked at them, all alert, and then at Lossow.
'Why don't we ride straight through? Out the other side?'
Lossow laughed. 'They must be fed! The horses, I mean. One good dinner of corn and they'll go through the French like the pox through a regiment. We go in the morning, ja?'
'Dawn?'
'Yes, my friend. Dawn."
There was still hope. The French had not even surrounded Almeida; they had ridden the last few miles unmolested, and Sharpe guessed that the cavalry patrols were concentrated to the north. In the southern sky, beyond the bulk of the castle, he could see the glow of fires, and assumed that the French had chosen the easier countryside in which to build their artillery park. To the west, where the river was so tantalizingly close, he had seen no fires, except in the distance, and they were British. Success was so close.
Kearsey, on yet another borrowed horse, led the procession into the Plaza. The castle and cathedral were close to the northern gate where they had entered, and the big Plaza seemed to be the only inhabited place in the town. Sharpe looked for Knowles.
'Lieutenant?'
'Sir?'
'Go to the lower town. You'll find billets. Knock a house open.' There were dozens of empty houses. 'Meet me back here. Sergeant?"
Harper came alongside the horse and Sharpe gestured at Teresa. 'She'll need a room. I'll join the Company when I'm finished here.'
Harper grinned. 'Yes, sir.'
Cox's headquarters were dark inside and Kearsey, Sharpe, and Lossow waited in an echoing hallway while a sleepy orderly went upstairs. The German officer grinned.
'In bed! Lucky man!'
'Major!' Cox was at the top of the stairs, his hair ruffled, dressed in a long red gown belted at his waist. 'You're back! A moment! Go into the drawing-room. Candles!'
Sharpe pulled back a heavy velvet curtain and across the Plaza could see the dark shape of the squat cathedral. There was a bustle behind him as Portuguese servants brought in candles and tapers, wine and food, and he let the curtain drop and sat, exhausted, in a deep, comfortable chair. Down the road, he thought, in the morning. One last effort, one last surprise attack, and it was done. He helped himself to the wine, offered some to Lossow, ignored the disapproving look from Kearsey.
The door opened. 'You helped yourself. Good!' Cox had pulled on a shirt and trousers, brushed his hair, and he nodded amicably at Sharpe. 'Captain. Captain Lossow. What can I do for you?'
Sharpe sat up, surprised. Did Cox not know? He exchanged a glance with Lossow; they both looked at Kearsey, expecting him to speak, but the Major sat tight-lipped. Sharpe put down his wine.
'You know about the gold, sir?'
Cox nodded; a shadow on his face hid the expression, but Sharpe thought it was guarded. 'I know, Captain.'
'We have it, sir. We must take it to Celorico. We wanted to feed the horses, rest, and leave at dawn. With your permission, sir, we'd like the western gate opened an hour before first light.'
Cox nodded, leaned over and poured himself a small glass of wine. 'Whose gold is it?'
Sharpe felt an immense burden come back. 'I am under orders from Lord Wellington, sir. Orders that tell me to take the gold to him.'
Cox's eyebrows shot up. 'Good! Let me see the orders, then!'
Sharpe glanced at Kearsey, who reddened. The Major cleared his throat. 'The orders were accidentally destroyed, sir. No blame to Captain Sharpe.'
Cox's hope seemed to diminish. He peered at Kearsey over his wine. 'You saw them? What did they say?'
'That all officers should render assistance to Captain Sharpe.' Kearsey spoke in a neutral voice.
Cox nodded. 'And Sharpe is taking the gold to Lord Wellington, right?'
Sharpe nodded, but Kearsey interrupted. 'The orders did not say, sir.'
'For God's sake, sir!' Sharpe exploded, but Cox banged on the table.
'Did your orders specifically mention the gold?'
'No, sir.'
Sharpe da
mned Kearsey for his quibbling honesty. Without the Major's last remark the Light Company might be homeward-bound in a few hours. Cox's fingers drummed on the table.
'I have a problem, gentlemen.' He pulled papers towards him, muttered something about tidiness, and held out a thick piece of parchment, sealed with a heavy wax circle, and waved it in the candlelight. 'A request from the Spanish government, our allies, that the gold does not pass through British hands. Damned strange, really.'
Lossow coughed. 'Strange, sir?'
Cox nodded. 'Fellow arrives today, full fig, and tells me about the gold. It was the first I knew about it. He's got an escort for it. Spanish Colonel. He's called Jovellanos.'
Sharpe looked at Kearsey. He knew the answer. 'Jovellanos?'
'El Catolico.' Kearsey stretched for the piece of paper and held the seal up to the candle before reading the words. 'It's in order, sir. Genuine.'
'How the hell can it be in order?' Sharpe's right hand was gripped tight into a fist. 'He's a bloody bandit! A crook! He wrote the damned thing himself! We have orders, sir, from the General. From Lord Wellington. That gold goes to Celorico!'
Cox, who had been friendly, scowled at Sharpe. 'I see no need for anger, Captain Sharpe. Colonel Jovellanos is here, my guest.'
'But, sir' – Lossow broke in, glancing at Sharpe sympathetically – 'Captain Sharpe speaks the truth. We were told that the gold was important. It had to go to the lord Wellington.'
Cox took a deep breath, let it out, tapped his toe on the floor. 'God damn it, gentlemen, I am facing a siege which will begin any day now. The enemy's guns are in sight, the placements are being dug, and you bring me this?'
Sharpe repeated doggedly, 'We have orders, sir.'
'So you say.' Cox picked up the paper. 'Is there a junta for Castile?'
Kearsey nodded. 'Yes, sir.'
'And does Joaquim Jovellanos have authority from it?'
Kearsey nodded again.
'And the gold is theirs?'
The nod again.
The paper dropped on to the table. 'The General gave me no orders!'
Sharpe sighed. An English Brigadier in the Portuguese army faced with a Spanish Colonel, an English Captain, a German cavalryman, Spanish gold, and no orders. He had an idea.