‘Sharpe! Major Sharpe!’
Sir Augustus Farthingdale, Josefina mounted sidesaddle beside him, standing his horse in the archway.
Sir Augustus bloody Farthingdale, looking for all the world as if he was riding in London’s Hyde Park. The only discrepancy was a clean white bandage that showed beneath his hat on his right temple. He was summoning Sharpe with jerks of his riding crop. ‘Sharpe!’
Sharpe walked to the low wall. ‘Sir?’
‘Sharpe. My lady wife would like to see a rocket fired. Be so good as to arrange it.’
‘That won’t be possible, sir.’
Sir Augustus was not a man who liked to be crossed, and certainly not by an inferior officer in front of the love of his life. ‘I think I gave an order, Mr Sharpe. I expect it to be obeyed.’
Sharpe put his right foot on the wall and the wineskin hung from the hand resting on the knee. ‘If I demonstrated a rocket for Lady Farthingdale, sir, then I am also demonstrating it to the French troops in the village.’
Josefina squeaked, looking excited, Sir Augustus stared at Sharpe as though the Rifle officer was mad. ‘The what?’
‘French troops, sir. In the village.’ Sharpe looked at the ramparts of the keep and shouted. ‘What d’you see?’
A Rifleman, from Cross’s Company, bellowed back. ‘Two squadrons Lancers, sir! Battalion of Infantry in sight now, sir!’
Infantry now! Sharpe twisted to look at the village, but still no French had pushed through the houses and come in sight. Farthingdale moved his horse forward, the hooves loud on the cobbles. ‘Why the devil wasn’t I told, Sharpe?’
‘No one knew where you were, sir.’
‘God damn it, man, I was with the doctor!’
‘Nothing serious I trust, sir?’
Josefina smiled at Sharpe. ‘Sir Augustus was hit by a stone, Major. In the explosion.’ And Sir Augustus, Sharpe thought, had insisted on the doctor’s attention when there were eviscerated, screaming men who needed it far more.
‘God damn it, Sharpe! Why are they in the village?’
The question, Sharpe decided, really meant why had the French been allowed to reach the village; to which there was an obvious answer, an answer that even the author of ‘Practical Instructions to the Young Officer in the Art of Warfare with Special Reference to the Engagements now Proceeding in Spain’ should have known. The French were in the village because there were not enough troops to hold watchtower, Castle, and Convent, and still fight the French further east. Sharpe chose to read a different meaning into Sir Augustus’s petulant enquiry. ‘I imagine they’ve come for the same reason we came, sir. To rescue their hostages.’
‘Are they going to fight?’ Sir Augustus was not happy to ask the question, but he could not help himself. The author of ‘Practical Instructions’ had taken his material entirely from Despatches and from the other books similar to his own, and he was not used to such close proximity to the enemy.
Sharpe pulled the plug from the wineskin’s neck. ‘I doubt it, sir. Their women are still with us. I expect we’ll get a flag of truce within the half hour. Might I suggest we advise Madame Dubreton that she will be leaving us soon.’
‘Yes.’ Farthingdale was craning over Sharpe’s head looking for a glimpse of the enemy. Nothing was yet in sight. ‘Look after it, Sharpe.’
Sharpe looked after it, and he also sent Harper with a request to Gilliland for the loan of a saddle horse. He had no intention of letting Sir Augustus do all the talking with the enemy, and Sharpe’s trust in the senior officer was not bolstered when he at last took an interest in Sharpe’s preparations. He watched the soldiers dismantling the low wall and frowned. ‘Why did you order that?’
‘Because it’s useless as a defence, sir. And anyway, if it comes to a fight I’d rather they got into the courtyard.’
Farthingdale was speechless for a moment. ‘Into the courtyard?’
Sharpe wiped wine from his lips, restoppered the bottle, and smiled. ‘A rat-pit, sir. Once inside they’re trapped.’ He made himself sound more confident than he felt. ‘But you said they wouldn’t fight.’
‘I don’t suppose they will, sir, but we should prepare against the possibility.’ He told Farthingdale of his other precautions, of the garrison in the watchtower, and kept his voice polite. ‘Is there anything else you’d want done, sir?’