Sharpe, embarrassed by Vivar’s humble tone, shrugged. “Of course.”
“I shall talk to him, and tell him his duties of obedience.”
“He can be released.” Sharpe had already half persuaded himself of the necessity of releasing Harper, if only to prove his own reasonableness to Sergeant Williams.
“I’ve already released him,” Vivar admitted, “but I thought it best to seek your approval.” He grinned, saw that Sharpe would offer no protest, then stooped to pick up a fallen French helmet. He ripped away the canvas cover which both protected the fine brass and prevented it from reflecting the sunlight to betray the Dragoon’s position. “A pretty bauble,” he said scathingly, “something to hang on the staircase when the war’s over.”
Sharpe was not interested in a dented Dragoon’s helmet; instead he was realizing that the ‘thing most precious’ Harper had done for Vivar was to protect the strongbox. He remembered the horror on the Spaniard’s face when he thought the chest might be lost. Like a stab of sunlight searing through a rent in dark clouds, Sharpe at last understood. The chasseur had been chasing Vivar, and that chase had unwittingly drawn the Dragoons across the tail of the British army where they had casually broken four companies of Riflemen, but then they had kept going. Not after the retreating British, but after the strongbox. “What’s in the chest, Major?” he asked accusingly.
“I told you, papers,” Vivar answered carelessly as he tore away the last shreds of canvas from the helmet.
“The French came here to capture that strongbox.”
“The prisoners told me they came for food. I’m sure they were speaking the truth, Lieutenant. Men who face death usually do, and they all told me the same story. They were a forage party.” Vivar polished the helmet’s brass with his sleeve, then held the helmet out for Sharpe’s inspection. “Shoddy workmanship. See how badly the chinstrap is riveted?”
Sharpe again ignored the helmet. “They came here for that chest, didn’t they? They’ve been following you, and they must have known you had to cross these mountains.”
Vivar frowned at the helmet. “I don’t think I shall keep it. I shall find a better one before the killing’s done.”
“They’re the same men who attacked our rearguard. We’re lucky they didn’t send the whole Regiment up here, Major!”
“The prisoners said that only the men on fit horses could come this far.” It seemed a partial affirmation of Sharpe’s suspicions, but Vivar immediately denied the rest. “I assure you they only came here for forage and food. They told me they’ve stripped the villages in the valley bare, so now they must climb high for their food.”
“What’s in the chest, Major?” Sharpe persisted.
“Curiosity!” Vivar turned away and began to walk towards the village. “Curiosity!” He drew back his arm and hurled the helmet far into the void where the plateau dropped steeply away. The helmet glittered, turned, then fell with a crash into the undergrowth. “Curiosity! An English disease, Lieutenant, which leads to death. Avoid it!”
The fires died in the night, all but for one burning house that Vivar’s men fed with wood cut from the surrounding trees in which they roasted hunks of horsemeat that had been threaded onto their swords. The Riflemen cooked the horsemeat on their ramrods. All were glad that the villagers’ bodies had been buried. The picquets were pulled back to the very edge of the burnt village where they shivered in the cold wind. The afternoon rain had stopped at dusk, and in the night there were even gaps in the high flying clouds which allowed a wan moonlight to illumine the jagged hills from which the snow had part-melted to leave the landscape looking strangely leprous. Somewhere in those hills a wolf howled.
Sharpe’s men provided the sentries for the first half of the night. At midnight he walked around the village and spoke a few awkward words with each man. The conversations were stilted because none of the greenjackets could forget the morning when they had conspired for Sharpe’s death, but a Welshman, Jenkins, more loquacious than the others, wondered where Sir John Moore’s army was now.
“God knows,” Sharpe said. “Far away.”