Halfway up the slope he stopped and turned round. On the far side of the stream was another hill, similar in shape to the Medellin but lower and smaller. On its level top Sharpe could see the fires of the French, the flitting shadows of his enemy, and he turned and hurried on up the hill. His mind was still alerted to danger, to a threat he did not understand, but continually he thought of the girl’s black hair fanned on the pillow, of her hand gripping the sheet, of the blood stains, her terror in the attic when the two men had burst in. He had no idea what he could do. Gibbons and Berry were probably safe in the company of Simmerson and his cronies. Somehow he must flush them out, get them into the darkness, and he pushed himself to go faster.
The slope levelled out onto the plateau. Far off he could see the fires of the British, and he ran slowly towards them, the pack bumping awkwardly, the rifle flapping at his side. He had still not been challenged. He was approaching the army from the direction of the enemy and there were no sentries, no line of picquets in the darkness, as if the army had forgotten about the French just the other side of the Portina. Two hundred yards from the line of fires he stopped and crouched low on the grass. He had found the South Essex. They were on the edge of the hill, and he could see the bright yellow facings of their uniforms glowing in the light of the flames. He searched the fires, saw the green uniforms of his Riflemen, and went on looking as though, from this distance, he might see the figures of his enemies. His anger was turning into frustra-tion. He had walked and run more than a mile to find the Battalion, yet he knew that there was nothing he could do. Gibbons and Berry would be sitting round a fire with the officers, secure from his revenge. Hogan was right. He would throw his career away if he fought them, yet he had made a promise to Josefina, and he did not know how to keep the promise. And tomorrow he must try to keep the earlier promise to Lennox. He tugged the great sword from its scabbard and laid its tip on the grass in front of him. The blade shone dully in the light of the fires; he stared at the length of steel and felt the sting of tears in his eyes as he remembered the girl’s body lying teasingly and naked along its flat blade. That had been only this afternoon. Now he cursed the fate that had led to this night, to the promises he could not keep. He thought of the girl, of the men clawing at her, and he looked up at the fires and felt his helplessness. It was better, he knew, to give it all up, to walk into the light of the fires and concentrate on tomorrow but how was he to face Gibbons or Berry and see the triumph on their faces without swinging the blade at them?
He turned round and stared at the far horizon and the red glow of the French fires that lined the edge of the hill with a faint light. There were rabbits moving on the crest of the hill he had climbed, he could see their small shapes bobbing, and suddenly he froze. Had there been sentries there he had missed? They were not rabbits. He could see the silhouettes of men, he had mistaken their heads for rabbits, but as they climbed over the crest he could see a dozen men, carrying guns, heading towards him. He lay flat on the grass, gripping the sword, and stared at the dim glow of the skyline. He put his ear to the ground and heard what he had feared to hear, the faint thump of marching feet, and he raised his head and kept looking as the dozen men turned into a misshapen mass. He remem-bered telling Hogan that the French would not attack at night, yet he suspected he was seeing just that; a night attack on the Medellin. The dozen men would be some of the skirmishers, the French Voltigeurs, and the solid mass was a French column climbing the hill in the silence of night. But how to be sure? It could as easily be a British Battalion moving in the dark, finding a new place to camp, but this late at night? He wriggled forward on knees and elbows, keeping his body close to the earth so that whoever was coming in the dark would not see him silhouetted in the fires. The sword rustled on the grass, he seemed to be making a deafening sound, but the men walked on towards him. He stopped when they stopped, and he watched them kneel. He was almost sure they were Voltigeurs, the skirmish line that had been sent ahead to flush out the sentries, and now that they were in sight of their targets they were waiting for the column so that the attack should crash home in unison. Sharpe held his breath. The kneeling men were calling softly to each other and he wanted to hear the language.