“So long as they’re properly cooked. Can’t bear them cold.”
“You are a horrible man, Lieutenant.”
“Richard.”
“You are a horrible man, Richard.” She put her arm into his elbow. “How will you get through the city gates?”
“I’ll find a way.”
They stopped close to the Norre Gate. The ramparts above the tunnel were crowded with folk staring westward. Musketry still crackled in the city suburbs and every now and then a bigger gun hammered. A constant stream of militiamen was going through the gate and Sharpe reckoned he would lose himself among that crowd. Yet he did not want to go. He looked down at Astrid. “Be careful,” he told her.
“We are a careful nation,” she said with a smile. “When it is over… ” She stopped.
“I shall come and look for you.”
She nodded. “I’d like that.” She held out a hand. “I am sorry it is like this. My father? He has not been happy since Mother died. And Aksel?” She shrugged as if she could find no explanation for Bang.
Sharpe ignored her hand. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek instead. “I’ll see you soon.”
She nodded again, then abruptly turned and hurried away. Sharpe stared after her, and to anyone watching it must have just seemed like another man saying farewell to his woman. She turned when she was twenty paces away and saw him gazing at her and he knew she did not want him to go, but what choice was there? He walked to the gate where his weapons made him look like any other militiaman. He turned a last time to look for Astrid, but she was gone. The crowd jostled him on and he emerged from the gate’s tunnel to see a dirty cloud above the roofs and trees of the western suburbs. It was powder smoke.
He stopped outside and stared back through the tunnel, hoping for one last glimpse of Astrid. He was confused. He was in love with a woman he did not know, except he knew her loyalty was to the enemy. Yet Denmark did not feel like an enemy, though it was. And he was a soldier still, and soldiers, he reckoned, fought for those who could not fight for themselves, and that meant he should be fighting for Astrid’s folk and not his own. But that was too great a wrench to contemplate. So he was simply confused.
A sergeant grabbed Sharpe’s elbow and shoved him toward a growing band of men who were being hurriedly assembled close to the moat-like lake. Sharpe let himself be pushed. An officer was standing on a low wall and haranguing around three hundred men, most of them confused militiamen though there was a core of sailors armed with heavy sea-service muskets. Sharpe did not understand a word, but from the officer’s tone and from the man’s gestures he gathered that the British were threatening some place to the southwest and this makeshift half-battalion was being asked to throw the invaders out. A roar of approval rewarded whatever the officer had said, then the whole group, Sharpe among them, streamed across the causeway. Sharpe made no effort to leave the group. He had no choice but to rejoin the British army and every step took him closer.
The officer led them across the moat, past a cemetery, a church, a hospital and then through streets of new houses. The sound of musketry grew louder. Bigger guns hammered to the north, clouding the sky with powder smoke. The officer stopped beside a high brick wall and waited as his ragtag followers gathered around him, then he spoke urgently, and whatever he said must have roused the men for they gave a growl of agreement. A man turned to Sharpe and asked him a question. “American,” Sharpe said.
“You’re American?”
“Sailor.”
“You are welcome I think. You know what the Captain said?”
“No.”
“The English are in the garden”-the man nodded toward the wall-“but there are not many of them and we shall throw them out. We are making a new battery here. You have fought before, perhaps?”
“Yes,” Sharpe said.
“Then I sall stay with you.” The man smiled. “I am Jens.”