“To stay at a place called Vila Real de Zedes, sir.”
“And do what there, pray?”
“Be killed, sir.”
“Be killed?” Sir Arthur asked in a dangerous tone. He knew Sharpe was being impudent and, though the rifleman had once saved his life, Sir Arthur was quite ready to slap him down.
“He brought a French force to the village, sir. They attacked us.”
“Not very effectively, it seems,” Wellesley said sarcastically.
“Not very, no, sir,” Sharpe agreed, “but there were twelve hundred of them, sir, and only sixty of us.” He said no more and there was silence in the big room as men worked out the odds. Twenty to one. Another peal of thunder racked the sky and a shard of lightning flickered to the west.
“Twelve hundred, Richard?” Hogan asked in a voice which suggested Sharpe might like to amend the figure downward.
“There were probably more, sir,” Sharpe said stoically. “The 31st Leger attacked us, but they were backed up by at least one regiment of dragoons and an howitzer. Only the one, though, sir, and we saw them off.” He stopped and no one spoke again, and Sharpe remembered he had not paid tribute to his ally and so turned back to Wellesley. “I had Lieutenant Vicente with me, sir, of the 18th Portuguese, and his thirty-odd lads helped us a lot, but I’m sorry to report he lost a couple of men and I lost a couple too. And one of my men deserted, sir. I’m sorry about that.”
There was another silence, a much longer one, in which the officers stared at Sharpe and Sharpe tried to count the candles on the big table, and then Lord Pumphrey broke the silence. “You tell us, Lieutenant, that Mister Christopher brought these troops to attack you?”
“Yes, sir.”
Pumphrey smiled. “Did he bring them? Or was he brought by them?”
“He brought them,” Sharpe said vigorously. “And then he had the bloody nerve to come up the hill and tell me the war was over and we ought to walk down and let the French take care of us.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Pumphrey said with exaggerated civility.
There was another silence, then Colonel Waters cleared his throat. “You will recall, sir,” he said softly, “that it was Lieutenant Sharpe who provided us with our navy this morning.” In other words, he was saying to Sir Arthur Wellesley, show some damned gratitude.
But Sir Arthur was in no mood to show gratitude. He just stared at Sharpe, and then Hogan remembered the letter that he had rescued from the House Beautiful and he took it from his pocket. “It’s for you, Lieutenant,” he said, holding the paper toward Sharpe, “but it wasn’t sealed and so I took the liberty of reading it.”
Sharpe unfolded the paper. “He is going with the French,” Sharpe read, “and forcing me to accompany him and I do not want to.” It was signed Kate and had plainly been written in a tearing hurry.
“The `him,’ I assume,” Hogan asked, “is Christopher?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So the reason that Miss Savage absented herself in March,” Hogan went on, “was Colonel Christopher?”
“Yes, sir.”
“She is sweet on him?”
“She’s married to him,” Sharpe said and was puzzled because Lord Pumphrey looked startled.
“A few weeks earlier”-Hogan was talking to Wellesley now-“Colonel Christopher was courting Miss Savage’s mother.”
“Does any of this ridiculous talk of romance help us determine what Christopher is doing?” Sir Arthur asked with considerable asperity.
“It’s amusing, if nothing else,” Pumphrey said. He stood up, flicked a speck of dust from a cuff, and smiled at Sharpe. “Did you really say Christopher married this girl?”
“He did, sir.”
“Then he is a bad boy,” Lord Pumphrey said happily, “because he’s already married.” His lordship plainly enjoyed that revelation. “He married Pearce Courtnell’s daughter ten years ago in the happy belief that she was worth eight thousand a year, then discovered she was hardly worth sixpence. It is not, I hear, a contented marriage, and might I observe, Sir Arthur, that Lieutenant Sharpe’s news answers our questions about Colonel Christopher’s true allegiance?”
“It does?” Wellesley asked, puzzled.
“Christopher cannot hope to survive a bigamous marriage if he intends to make his future in Britain or in a free Portugal,” Lord Pumphrey observed, “but in France? Or in a Portugal ruled by France? (