“What is it you say, Sergeant?”
“Sir?”
“God save Ireland? Not a chance. He’s got his hands full coping with Spain.”
The noise and panic subsided. There were a handful of men left in the grove, others were being driven back by the Spanish cavalry, but Sharpe guessed it would take the horsemen all night to round up the fugitives and force them back to the breastworks, and even then thousands would escape to spread rumours of a great French victory outside Talavera. Sharpe stood up. “Come on, Sergeant, time we were getting back to the Battalion.”
A voice called up from the street. “Captain Sharpe! Sir!”
One of the Riflemen was gesticulating and, next to him, stood Agostino, Josefina’s servant. Sharpe felt his carefree mood disappear to be replaced with an awful dread. He scrambled down the broken stonework, Harper and Hogan behind him, and strode across to the two men. “What is it?”
Agostino burst into Portuguese. He was a tiny man who normally said little but watched all from his wide, brown eyes. Sharpe held up his hand for quiet. “What’s he saying?”
Hogan knew enough Portuguese. The Engineer licked his lips. “It’s Josefina.”
“What about her?” Sharpe had the inklings of disaster, a cold feeling of evil. He let Hogan take his elbow and walk him, with Agostino, away from the listening Riflemen. Hogan asked more questions, let the small servant talk, and finally turned to Sharpe. His voice was low. “She’s been attacked. They locked Agostino in a cupboard.”
“They?” He already knew the answer. Gibbons and Berry.
Sergeant Harper crossed to them, his manner formal and correct. “Sir!”
“Sergeant?” Sharpe forced the hundreds of jostling fears down so that he could listen to Harper.
“I’ll take the men back, sir.”
Sharpe nodded. It occurred to him that Patrick Harper knew more of what was going on than Sharpe had assumed. Behind the careful words there was a concern that made Sharpe regret that he had not taken Harper more into his confidence. There was also a controlled anger in the Irishman. Your enemies, he was saying, are mine.
“Carry on, Sergeant.”
“Yes, sir. And sir?” Harper’s face was bleak. “You will let me know what happens?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
Sharpe and Hogan ran into the dark streets, slipping on the filth, pushing their way through the fugitives who were forcing the doors of wine-shops and private houses. Hogan panted to keep up with the Rifleman. It would be a bad night in Talavera, a night of looting, destruction, and rape. Tomorrow a hundred thousand men would march into a maelstrom of fire, and Hogan, catching a glimpse of Sharpe’s snarling face as he hurled two Spanish infantry-men out of his way, feared for the evil that seemed to be welling up in preparation for the morrow. Then they were in the quiet street where Josefina was living and Hogan peered up at the quiet windows, the closed shutters, and prayed that Richard Sharpe would not destroy himself with his huge anger.
CHAPTER 18
Sharpe’s boots crunched on broken plaster; he listened to the voices murmuring in the room, on the other side of the splintered door, and stared unseeing through a small window at the high ragged clouds which raced past the moon. Hogan sat on the top step of the steep stairs next to the sheets they had taken from Josefina’s bed. In the half light of the candles seeping through the doorway the sheets seemed to be patterned in red and white. There was a cry from the room. Sharpe spun round in irritation.
“What are they doing to her?”
Hogan hushed him. “The doctor’s bleeding her, Sharpe. He knows what he’s doing.”
“As if she hasn’t lost enough blood already!”
“I know, I know.” Hogan spoke soothingly. There was nothing he could say that would ease the turmoil in Sharpe’s head, to soften the blow or deflect the revenge which Hogan knew was being minutely plotted as the Rifleman paced up and down the tiny landing. The Engineer sighed and picked up a tiny plaster head. The house belonged to a seller of religious statues, and the stairs and corridors were stacked with his wares. When Gibbons and Berry had forced their way into the girl’s room they had trampled on twenty or thirty images of Christ, each with a bleeding heart, and the scraps of statues still littered the landing. Hogan was a peaceful man. He enjoyed his job, he liked the fresh challenges of each day, he was happy with his head full of angles and reentries, yardages and imperial weights; he liked company that laughed easily, drank generously, and would pass the time with stories of happiness past. He was no fighter. His war was fought with picks, shovels and powder, yet when he had burst with Sharpe into the attic room he had felt in himself a searing anger and lust for revenge. The mood had passed. Now he sat, saddened and quiet, but as he watched the tall Rifleman he knew that in Sharpe the mood was being refined and fed. For the twentieth time Sharpe stopped.