Sharpe pointed to the south-western corner of the city. “That’s where he’ll make his attack.”
“After dark?”
“At dusk.” Sharpe frowned. “Maybe earlier.”
Harper followed him over a ditch and an embankment. The two Riflemen were walking towards a slew of buildings that straggled like a limb from the city’s south-western corner and which could shelter de I’Eclin’s men as they approached. “We’ll have to put men in the houses,” Harper said.
Sharpe seemed not to hear. “I don’t like it.”
“A thousand Dragoons? Who would?”
“De I’Eclin’s a clever bastard.” Sharpe was half-talking to himself. “A clever, clever bloody bastard. And he’s especially clever when he’s attacking.” He turned and stared at the city’s barricaded streets. The obstacles were manned by Cazadores and by the brown-coated volunteers who were piling brushwood into fires that could illuminate a night attack. They were doing, in fact, exactly what the French had done the night before, yet surely Colonel de l’Eclin would foresee all these preparations? So what would the Frenchman do? “He’s going to be bloody clever, Sergeant, and I don’t know how clever.”
“He can’t fly,” Harper said stoically, “and he doesn’t have time to dig a bloody tunnel, so he has to come in through one of the streets, doesn’t he?”
The stolid good sense made Sharpe suppose he was seeing danger where there was none. Better, he thought, to rely on his first instincts. “He’ll send his cavalry on a feint there,” he pointed to the smooth western ground, “and when he thinks we’re all staring that way, he’ll send dismounted men in from the south. They’ll be ordered to break that barricade,” he pointed to the street which led from the city to the church, “and his cavalry will swerve in behind them.”
Harper turned to judge for himself, and seemed to find Sharpe’s words convincing. “And so long as we’re on the hill or in those houses,” he nodded towards the straggling buildings that lay outside the defences, “we’ll murder the bastard.” The big Irishman picked up a sprig of laurel and twisted the pliant wood in his fingers. “But what really worries me, sir, is not holding the bastard off, but what happens when we withdraw? They’ll be flooding into those streets like devils on a spree, so they will.”
Sharpe was also worried about that moment of retreat. Once Vivar’s business in the cathedral was done, the signal would be given and a great mass of people would flee eastwards. There would be volunteers, Riflemen, Cazadores, priests, and whatever townspeople no longer cared to stay under French occupation; all jostling and running into the darkness. Vivar had planned to have his cavalry protect the retreat, but Sharpe knew what savage chaos could overtake his men in the streets when the French Dragoons realized that barricades had been abandoned. He shrugged. “We’ll just have to run like hell.”
“And that’s the truth,” Harper said gloomily. He tossed away the crumpled twig.
Sharpe stared at the twisted scrap of laurel. “Good God!”
“What have I done now?”
“Jesus wept!” Sharpe clicked his fingers. “I want half the men in those houses,” he pointed at the line of buildings which led from the south-western barricade, and enfiladed the southern approach to the city, “and the rest on the hill.” He began running towards the city. Til be back, Sergeant!“
“What’s up with him?” Hagman asked when the Sergeant returned to the hilltop.
“The doxie turned him down,” Harper said with evident satisfaction, “so you owes me a shilling, Dan. She’s marrying the Major, so she is.”
“I thought she was soft as lights on Mr Sharpe!” Hagman said ruefully.
“She’s got more sense than to marry him. He ain’t ready for a chain and shackle, is he? She needs someone a bit steady, she does.”
“But he was sotted on her.”
“He would be, wouldn’t he? He’ll fall in love with anything in a petticoat. I’ve seen his type before. Got the sense of a half-witted sheep when it comes to women.” Harper spat. “It’s a good job he’s got me to look after him now.”
“You!”
“I can handle him, Dan. Just as I can handle you lot. Right, you Protestant scum! The French are coming for supper, so let’s be getting ready for the bastards!”