Hogan whistled softly. “Will they attack this evening?”
“No.” Sharpe scanned the far lines. “They’ll wait for their artillery.”
Hogan pointed into the darkening east. “They’ve got guns. Look, you can see them.”
Sharpe shook his head. “Those are just the small ones they attach to each infantry Battalion. No, the big bastards will be back on the road somewhere. They’ll come in the night.”
And in the morning, he thought, the French will open with one of their favourite cannonades, the massed artillery hurling its iron shot at the enemy lines before the dense, drummed columns follow the Eagles across the stream. French tactics were hardly subtle. Not for them the clever manoeuvrings of turning an enemy’s flank. Instead, again and again, they massed the guns and the men and they hurled a terrifying hammer blow at the enemy line and, again and again, it worked. He shrugged to himself. Who needed to be subtle? The guns and men of France had broken every army sent against them.
There were shouts from behind him and he crossed the battlement and peered down at the gate where Harper and his men were on guard. Lieutenant Gibbons was there with Berry, both mounted, both shouting at Harper. Sharpe leaned over the parapet.
“What’s the problem?”
Gibbons turned round slowly. It dawned on Sharpe that the Lieutenant was slightly drunk and was having some difficulty in staying on his horse. Gibbons saluted Sharpe with his usual irony.
“I didn’t see you there, sir. So sorry.” He bowed. Lieutenant Berry giggled. Gibbons straightened up. “I was just telling your Sergeant here that you can go back to the Battalion now, all right?”
“But you stopped on the way for refreshment?”
Berry giggled loudly. Gibbons looked at him and burst into a laugh himself. He bowed again. “You could say so, sir.”
The two Lieutenants urged their horses under the gateway and started up the road to the British lines to the north. Sharpe watched them go.
“Bastards.”
“Do they give you problems?” Hogan was sitting on the parapet again.
Sharpe shook his head. “No. Just insolence, remarks in the mess, you know.” He wondered about Josefina. Hogan seemed to read his thoughts. “You’re thinking about the girl?”
Sharpe nodded. “Yes. But she should be all right.” He was thinking out loud. “She keeps the door locked. We’re on the top floor and I can’t see how they’d find us.” He turned to Hogan and grinned. “Stop worrying about it. They’ve done nothing so far; they’re cowards. They’ve given up!”
Hogan shook his head. “They would kill you, Richard, with as little regret as putting down a lame horse. Less regret. And as for the girl? They’ll try to hurt her, too.”
Sharpe turned back to the spectacle on the plain. He knew Hogan was right, knew that too much was unsettled, but the game was not in his hands; everything must wait for the battle. The French troops had flooded the end of the plain, they flowed round woods, trees, farms, coming ever forward towards the stream and the Medellin Hill. They darkened the plain, filled it with a tide of men flecked with steel, and still they came; Hussars, Dragoons, Lancers, Chasseurs, Grenadiers and Voltigeurs, the follow-ers of the Eagles, the men who had made an Empire, the old enemy.
“Hot work tomorrow.” Hogan shook his head as he watched the French.
“It will be.” Sharpe turned and called to Harper. “Come here!” The big Irish Sergeant scrambled up the broken wall and stood beside the two officers. The first of thousands of fires sparkled in the French lines. Harper shook his massive head.
“Perhaps they’ll forget to wake up tomorrow.”
Sharpe laughed. “It’s the next morning they have to worry about.”
Hogan shaded his eyes. “I wonder how many more armies like that we’ll have to meet before it’s done.”
The two Riflemen said nothing. They had been with Wellesley the year before when he defeated the French at Rolica and Vimeiro, yet this army was ten times bigger than the French force at Rolica, three times larger than Junot’s army at Vimeiro, and twice the size of the force they had thrown out of Portugal in the spring. It went on like the dragon’s teeth. For every Frenchman killed another two or three marched from the depots, and when you killed them then a dozen more came, and so it went on. Harper grinned. “There’s no point in worrying our-selves by looking at them. The man knows what he’s doing.”