Lossow shrugged. ‘Cox.’
Sharpe nodded. He spoke patiently. ‘And Cox has his authority as Commander of the garrison. If there were no garrison, there would be no authority, no way to stop us.’
‘So?’ Knowles was frowning.
‘So, at dawn tomorrow we destroy the garrison.’
There was a moment’s utter silence, broken by Knowles. ‘We can’t!’
Teresa laughed at the sheer joy of it. ‘We can!’
‘God in his heaven!’ Lossow’s face was appalled, fascinated.
Harper did not seem surprised. ‘How?’
So Sharpe told them.
CHAPTER 23
Almeida stirred early, that Monday morning; it was well before first light as men stamped their boots on cobbled streets and made the small talk that is the talisman against great events. The war, after all, had come to the border town, and between the defenders’ outer glacis and the masked guns of the French, the hopes and fears of Europe were concentrated. In far-off cities men looked at maps. If Almeida could hold, then perhaps Portugal could be saved, but they knew better. Eight weeks at the most, they said, and probably just six, and then Massena’s troops would have Lisbon at their mercy. The British had had their run and now it was over, the last hurdles to be cleared, but in St Petersburg and Vienna, Stockholm and Berlin, they let the maps curl up and wondered where the victorious blue-jacketed troops would be next sent. A pity about the British, but what did anyone expect?
Cox was on the southern ramparts, standing by a brazier, waiting for the first light to show him the new French batteries. Yesterday the French had fired a few shots, destroying the telegraph, but today, Cox knew, things would begin in earnest. He hoped for a great defence, a struggle that would make the history books, that would block the French till the rains of late autumn could save Portugal; but he also imagined the siege guns, the paths blasted through the great walls, and then the screaming, steel-tipped battalions that would come forward in the night to drown his hopes in chaos and defeat. Cox and the French both knew the town was the last obstacle to French victory, and, hope as Cox did, in his heart he did not believe that the town could hold out till the roads were swamped and the rivers made impassable by rain.
High above Cox, by the castle and cathedral that topped Almeida’s hill, Sharpe pushed open the bakery door. The ovens were curved shapes in the blackness, cold to the touch, and Teresa shivered beside him despite being swathed in the Rifleman’s long green greatcoat. He ached. His leg, shoulder, the sliced cuts either side of his waist, and a head that throbbed after talking too deep into the early morning.
Knowles had pleaded, ‘There must be another way!’
‘Tell me.’
Now, in the cold silence, Sharpe still tried to find another way. To talk to Cox? Or Kearsey? But only Sharpe knew how desperately Wellington needed the gold. To Cox and Kearsey it was unimaginable that a few thousand gold coins could save Portugal, and Sharpe could not tell them how, because he had not been told. He damned the secrecy. It would mean death for hundreds; but if the gold did not get through it would mean a lost war.
Teresa would be gone, anyway. In a few hours they would part, he to the army, she back to the hills and her own fight. He held her close, smelling her hair, wanting to be with her, but then they stepped apart as footsteps sounded outside and Patrick Harper pushed open the door and peered into the gloom.
‘Sir?’
‘We’re here. Did you get it?’
‘No problem.’ Harper sounded happy enough. He gestured past Helmut. ‘One barrel of powder, sir, compliments of Tom Garrard.’
‘Did he ask what it was for?’
Harper shook his head. ‘He said if it was for you, sir, it was all right.’ He helped the German bring the great keg through the door. ‘Bloody heavy, sir.’
‘Will you need help?’
Harper straightened up with a scoffing look. ‘An officer carrying a barrel, sir? This is the army! No. We got it here; we’ll do the rest.’