Captain Murray was propped against a pile of packs inside the barn. He offered Sharpe a feeble smile. “What will you do?”
“Sergeant Williams thinks I should take you to a French surgeon.”
Murray grimaced. “I asked what you wanted to do.”
Sharpe sat beside the Captain. “Rejoin.”
Murray nodded. He was cradling a mug of tea, a precious gift from one of the Riflemen who had hoarded the leaves in the bottom of his ammunition pouch. “You can leave me here.”
“I can’t…“
“I’m dying.” Murray made a deprecatory shrug to show that he wanted no sympathy. His wound was not bleeding overmuch, but the Captain’s belly was swelling blue to show that there was bleeding inside. He nodded towards the other three badly wounded men, all of them with great sword cuts on their faces or chests. “Leave them too. Where will you go? The coast?”
Sharpe shook his head. “We’ll never catch the army now.”
“Probably not.” Murray closed his eyes.
Sharpe waited. It had started to rain again and a leak in the stone roof dripped insistently into the fire. He was thinking of his options. The most inviting choice was to attempt to follow Sir John Moore’s army, but they were retreating so fast, and the French now controlled the road that Sharpe must take, and thus he knew he must resist that temptation for it would only lead into captivity. Instead he must go south. Sir John had marched from Lisbon, and a few troops had been left to protect the Portuguese capital, and perhaps that garrison still existed and Sharpe could find it. “How far is Lisbon?” he asked Murray.
The Captain opened his eyes and shrugged. “God knows. Four? Five hundred miles?” He flinched from a stab of pain. “It’s probably nearer six hundred on these roads. D’you think we’ve still got troops there?”
“We can at least find a ship.”
“If the French don’t get there first. What about Vigo?”
“The French are more likely to be there than Lisbon.”
“True.” The Light Division had been sent to Vigo on a more southerly road. Only a few light troops, like these Riflemen, had been retained to protect Sir John Moore’s retreat. “Maybe Lisbon would be best.” Murray looked past Sharpe and saw how the men were brushing and oiling their rifle locks. He sighed. “Don’t be too hard on them.”
“I’m not.” Sharpe was instantly defensive.
Murray’s face flickered with a smile. “Were you ever commanded by an officer from the ranks?”
Sharpe, smelling criticism, bridled for an instant, then realized that Murray was trying to be helpful. “No, sir, never.”
“The men don’t like it. Stupid, really. They believe officers are born, not made.” Murray paused to take a breath that made him shudder with pain. He saw Sharpe about to enjoin him to silence, but shook his head. “I haven’t got much time. I might as well use what there is. Do you think I’m being damnably rude?”
“No, sir.”
Murray paused to sip at his tea. “They’re good lads.”
“Yes.”
“But they have an odd sense of what’s proper. They expect officers to be different, you see. They want them to be privileged. Officers are men who choose to fight, they aren’t forced to it by poverty. Do you understand that?”
“Yes.”
“They think you’re really one of them; one of the damned, and they want their officers to be touched by something more than that.” Murray shook his head sadly. “It isn’t very good advice, is it?”
“It’s very good,” Sharpe lied.
The wind sighed at the corners of the stone barn and flickered the flames of the small fire. Murray smiled sadly. “Let me think of some more practical advice for you. Something that will get you to Lisbon.” He frowned for an instant, then turned his red-rimmed eyes to Sharpe. “Get Patrick Harper on your side.”
Sharpe turned to glance at the men who were crowded at the barn’s far end. The big Irishman seemed to sense that his name had been mentioned for he offered Sharpe a hostile glance.
“He’s a troublemaker, but the men listen to him. I tried to make him a Chosen Man once,” Murray instinctively used the Rifle’s old term for a Corporal, “but he wouldn’t have it. He’d make a good Sergeant. Hell! Even a good officer if he could read, but he won’t have any of it. But the men listen to him. He’s got Sergeant Williams under his thumb.”