“Major Vivar says it holds papers.”
“Papers!” The Sergeant’s voice was scornful.
“Well, I don’t suppose we’re going to find out,” Sharpe said. “And I wouldn’t recommend being too inquisitive, Sergeant. The Major doesn’t take kindly to curiosity.”
“No, sir.” Williams sounded disappointed at his lack of enthusiasm.
But Sharpe merely hid his own inquisitiveness for, after a few more moments of desultory conversation and after bidding the Sergeant a good night, he went softly and slowly towards the church. He used the stealth he had learned as a child in the London rookery where, if a boy did not steal, he starved.
He walked round the church, then stood for a long time in the shadows by the door. He listened. He heard the fire’s crackle and the wind’s rising noise, but nothing else. Still he waited, straining to hear a single sound from within the old stone building. He heard nothing. He could smell the fallen and burnt timbers within the building, but he could sense no human presence. The nearest Spaniards were thirty paces away, rolled in their cloaks, asleep.
The church door was ajar. Sharpe edged through and, once inside the church, stopped again.
Moonlight illuminated the sanctuary. The walls were scorched black, the altar was gone, yet Vivar’s men had begun to clear the desecration by forcing the burnt roof timbers aside to make an aisle which led to the altar steps. At the top of those steps, black like the walls, was the strongbox.
Sharpe waited. He looked round the building’s small interior; watching for movement, but there was none. A small black window opened on the church’s southern wall, but that was the only aperture. Nothing showed in the opening, except darkness, suggesting that the small window opened into a cupboard or a deep shelf.
Sharpe walked forward between the fallen timbers, some of which still smouldered. Once his loose right sole crunched a black lump of burnt wood, but that was the only sound he made.
He stopped at the foot of the two steps which had led to the altar and squatted there. Curled on the lid of the strongbox was a jet rosary, its small crucifix shining in the moonlight. Within this box, Sharpe thought, lay something that had drawn French soldiers into the frozen highlands. Vivar had said it was papers, but even the most religious of men would not guard papers with a crucifix.
The chest was wrapped in oilcloth that had been sewn tight. During the fight two bullets had embedded themselves in the big box, breaking the cloth, and Sharpe, fingering under the holes and past the lumpen bullets, felt the hard smoothness of the wood. He traced the shapes of the hasps and padlocks beneath the oilcloth. The padlocks were old-fashioned ball-locks that Sharpe knew he could open in seconds with a rifle’s cleaning pin.
He rocked back on his heels, staring at the chest. Four Riflemen had died because of it and yet more might die, and that, Sharpe decided, gave him the right to know what lay inside. He knew he would not be able to disguise that the box had been opened, but he had no intention of stealing its contents so had no scruples about leaving the oilcloth torn and the locks picked.
He reached into his jacket pocket and brought out the clasp knife he used for food. He opened its blade and reached forward to cut the cloth.
“Touch it, Englishman, and you die.”
Sharpe twisted to his right. The click of a pistol’s lock sounded from the small dark window. “Major?”
“The sick could watch the Mass from this window, Lieutenant.” Vivar’s voice sounded from the blackness. “It’s a good place for a sentry,”
“What is the sentry guarding?”
“Just papers.” Vivar’s voice was cold. “Put your knife away, Lieutenant, and stay there.”
Sharpe obeyed. After a moment the Major appeared in the church doorway. “Don’t do that again, Lieutenant. I will kill to protect what is in that box.”
Sharpe felt like a small boy caught by a watchman, but he tried to brazen out the confrontation. “Papers?”
“Papers,” Vivar said bleakly. He looked up at the sky where silvered clouds flew fast beside the moon. “It isn’t a night for killing, Englishman. The estadea are already restless.” He walked up the aisle. “Now I think you should try to sleep. We have far to go in the morning.”