Sharpe could offer no answer.
Gataker, as fly a rogue as any in the army, stared empty-eyed at the landscape. Isaiah Tongue, whose education had been wasted by gin, winced as a terrible scream sounded from the village; then, realizing that the scream must have come from a captured Frenchman, spat to show that it had not troubled him.
Sharpe moved on, placing more sentries, finally reaching a spot from which, between two great granite boulders, he could see far to the south. He sat there alone, staring into the immense sky that promised yet more bad weather. His drawn sword was still in his hand and, almost in a daze, he tried to push it home into its metal scabbard. The blade, still sticky with blood, stopped halfway, and he saw to his astonishment that a bullet had pierced the scabbard and driven the lips of metal inwards.
“Sir?”
Sharpe looked round to see a nervous Sergeant Williams. “Sergeant?”
“We lost four men, sir.”
Sharpe had forgotten to ask, and he cursed himself for the omission. “Who?”
Williams named the dead, though the names meant nothing to Sharpe. “I thought we’d have lost more,” he said in wonderment.
“Sims is wounded, sir. And Cameron. There are some others, sir, but those are the worst.” The Sergeant was only doing his job, but he was shaking with nerves as he spoke to his officer.
Sharpe tried to gather his thoughts, but the memory of the dead children was withering his senses. He had seen dead children often enough, who had not? In these past weeks he had passed a score of the army’s children frozen to death in the ghastly retreat, but none of them had been murdered. He had seen children beaten till their blood ran, but not till they were dead. How could the French have waited in the village and not first hidden their obscene butchery? How could they have committed it in the first place?
Williams, troubled by Sharpe’s brooding silence, muttered something about finding a stream from which the men could fill their canteens. Sharpe nodded. “Make sure the French haven’t fouled the water, Sergeant.”
“Of course, sir.”
Sharpe twisted to look at the burly man. “And the men did well. Very well.”
“Thank you, sir.” Williams sounded relieved. He flinched as another scream sounded from the village.
“They did very well.” He said it too hastily, as if trying to distract both their thoughts from the scream. The French prisoners were being questioned, then would die. Sharpe stared south, wondering whether the clouds would send rain or snow. He remembered the man in the red coat, the chasseur of the Imperial Guard, and the man in the black coat beside him. Why those two men again? Because, he thought, they had known Vivar was coming, yet the one thing the French had not reckoned on was Riflemen. Sharpe thought of the moment at the hilltop when the first green-jacket had gone past him, sword-bayonet fixed, and he recalled another failing of his own. He had never ordered the swords to be fixed, but the men had done it themselves. “The men did very well,” Sharpe repeated, “tell them that.”
Williams hesitated. “Sir? Wouldn’t it be better if you told them?”
“Me?” Sharpe turned abruptly towards the Sergeant.
“They did it for you, sir.” Williams was embarrassed, and made more so because Sharpe did not respond to his awkward words. “They were trying to prove something, sir. We all were. And hoping you’d…“
“Hoping what?” The question was asked too harshly, and Sharpe knew it. “I’m sorry.”
“We were hoping you’d let Harps go, sir. The men like him, you see, and the army’s always let men offpunishment, sir, if their comrades fight well.”
The bitterness Sharpe felt for the Irishman was too strong to let him grant the request immediately. Til tell the men they did well, Sergeant.“ He paused. ”And I’ll think about Harper.“
“Yes, sir.” Sergeant Williams was plainly thankful that, for the first time since he had come under Sharpe’s orders, the Lieutenant had treated him with some civility.
Sharpe realized that too, and was shocked by it. He had been nervous of leading these men, and frightened of their insubordination, but he had not understood that they were also frightened of him. Sharpe knew himself to be a tough man, but he had always thought of himself as a reasonable one, yet now, in the mirror of William’s nervousness, he saw himself as something far worse; a bullying man who would use the small authority of his rank to frighten men. In fact, the very kind of officer Sharpe had most hated when he himself was under their embittered authority. He felt remorse for all the mistakes he had made with these men, and wondered how to make amends. He was too proud to apologize, so instead he made an embarrassed confession to the Sergeant. “I wasn’t sure any of the men would follow me up that hill.”