They climbed that night through a dark landscape of broken rocks and dismal shadows, the howl of wolves in their ears. The wolves rarely attacked men, though Sharpe had seen one leap on a tethered horse, bite a mouthful from its rump and scare off into the darkness pursued by a futile volley of musket shots. Higher and higher they climbed, going eastward, and a fitful moon deceived Sharpe about the landmarks he had memorized on his first visit to the Convent. He was going to the north of the Gateway of God and, past midnight, he turned the soldiers southwards and the going was easier because the climbing was done. He feared the dawn. They must be in hiding before Pot-au-Feu’s men in the watchtower could search the upland scenery for intruders.
He took them too close, unaware until a sentry across the Valley dropped a whole dry thorn bush onto a fire and the flames startled upwards, sheeting the watchtower stones with light, and Sharpe hissed for silence. God! They were close. He circled back and, just before dawn, he found a deep gully.
The gully, though too close to the Convent for comfort, was otherwise perfect. A Major, two Captains, four Lieutenants, eleven Sergeants, and one hundred and sixty-five rank and file were hidden by its deep banks. They must spend the whole day in concealment.
It was a strange way to spend Christmas Eve. In Britain they would be preparing food for the day’s feast. Geese would be hanging plucked on the farmhouse walls next to hams rich from the smokehouse. Plum puddings would be trussed next to the hearths on which brawn would be boiling while, in the houses of the rich, the servants would be taking the pigs’ heads from the pickle barrels and stuffing them with force-meat. Christmas pies were being made, veal and beef, while the Christmas fruit breads rose in the brick ovens, their smell rivalling the rich aroma of the new-brewed beer. Firelight would glint on bottles of home made wine, and on the great bowl that waited for the spices and hot wine of the wassail cup. Christmas was a time when a man should be in a warm house, steamy from cooking, and thinking of little else but the mid-winter feast.
Sharpe wondered if these men would resent losing their Christmas to the war, yet as its Eve passed slow and cold, he detected a pride in them that they had been chosen for their task. They had conceived a bitter hatred for the deserters and Sharpe suspected that hatred was caused partly by envy. Most soldiers thought at one time or another of desertion, but few did it, and all soldiers dreamed of a perfect paradise where there was no discipline, much wine and plentiful women. Pot-au-Feu and Hakeswill had come close to realizing that dream and Sharpe’s men would punish them for daring to do what they had only dreamed of doing.
Frederickson thought Sharpe was being fanciful. He sat on the gully’s side, next to Sharpe and Harper, and nodded at his men. ‘It’s because they’re romantics, sir.’
‘Romantics?’ The word sounded surprising coming from Sweet William.
‘Look at the bastards. Half of them would murder for ten shillings, less. They’re drunkards, they’d steal their mother’s wedding ring for a pint of rum. Jesus! They’re bastards!’ He smiled fondly at them, then lifted a frayed corner of the eyepatch and poked with a finger at the wound. It seemed to be an habitual, unthinking gesture. He wiped the finger on his jacket. ‘God knows they’re not saints, but they’re upset about the women in the Convent. They like the idea of rescuing women.’ Frederickspn smiled his crooked smile. ‘Everyone hates the bloody army till someone needs rescuing, then we’re all bloody heroes and white knights.’ He laughed.
Most of the men had slept fitfully through the morning while Price’s redcoats provided sentries. Now those men were huddled in sleep while Captain Cross’s picquets lined the gully’s rim, their heads barely visible above the skyline. Sharpe had seen figures on the watchtower turret and, just after mid-day, three men on horseback had appeared to the east. Sharpe assumed they were a patrol, but the men had disappeared into a hollow and not reappeared for an hour. He guessed they had taken bottles with them, drunk, then gone back to the valley with some fiction of an uneventful patrol.