‘Hardy?’ Sharpe had somehow sensed it, the feeling of an incomplete story.
‘That’s right.’ Kearsey glanced sharply at the Rifleman. ‘Captain Claud Hardy. You know him?’
‘No, sir.’
Which was true. He had never met him, just watched Josefina walk away to Hardy’s side. He had thought that the rich young cavalry officer was in Lisbon, dancing away the nights, and instead he was here! Waiting a day’s march away. He stared westward, away from Kearsey, at the deep, dark-shadowed gorge of the Coa that slashed across the landscape. Kearsey stamped his feet.
‘Anything else, Sharpe?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Good. We march tonight. Nine o’clock.”
Sharpe turned back. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘One rule, Sharpe. I know the country, you don’t, so no questions, just instant obedience.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Company prayers at sunset, unless the Froggies interfere.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Good Lord!
Kearsey returned Sharpe’s salute. ‘Nine o’clock, then. At the north gate!’ He turned and clattered down the winding stairs and Sharpe went back to the battlement, leaned on the granite, and stared unseeing at the huge sprawl of defences beneath him.
Josefina. Hardy. He squeezed the silver ring, engraved with an eagle, which she had bought for him before the battle, but which had been her parting gift when the killing had finished along the banks of the Portina stream north of Talavera. He had tried to forget her, to tell himself she was not worth it, and as he looked up at the rough countryside to the north he tried to force his mind away from her, to think of the gold, of El Catolico, the praying killer, and Cesar Moreno. But to do the job with Josefina’s lover? God damn it!
A midshipman, far from the sea, came on to the turret to man the telegraph, and he looked curiously at the tall, dark haired Rifleman with the scarred face. He looked, the midshipman decided, a dangerous beast, and he watched as a big, tanned hand fidgeted with the hilt of an enormous, straight-bladed sword.
‘She’s a bitch!’ Sharpe said.
‘Pardon, sir?’ The midshipman, fifteen years old, was frightened.
Sharpe turned, unaware he had been joined. ‘Nothing, son, nothing.’ He grinned at the bemused boy. ‘Gold for greed, women for jealousy, and death for the French. Right?’
‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir.’
The boy watched the tall man go down the stairs. Once he had wanted to join the army, years before, but his father had simply looked up and said that anyone who joined the army was stark mad. He started untying the ropes that secured the bladders. His father, as ever, had been undoubtedly right.
CHAPTER 4
On foot Kearsey was busy and, to Sharpe’s eyes, ludicrous. He strutted with tiny steps, legs scissoring quickly, while his eyes, above the big, grey moustache, peered acutely at the mass of taller humanity. On horseback, though, astride his huge roan, he was at home as if he had been restored to his true height. Sharpe was impressed by the night’s march. The moon was thin and cloud-ridden, yet the Major led the Company unerringly across difficult country. They crossed the frontier somewhere in the darkness, a grunt from Kearsey announcing the news, and then the route led downhill to the river Agueda, where they waited for the first sign of dawn.
If Kearsey was impressive he was also annoying. The march had been punctuated with advice, condescending advice, as if Kearsey were the only man who understood the problems. He certainly knew the countryside, from the farmlands along the road from Almeida to Ciudad Rodrigo, to the high country that was to the north, the chaos of the valleys and hills that dropped finally to the river Duero, into which the Coa and the Agueda flowed. He knew the villages, the paths, the rivers and where they could be crossed; he knew the high hills and the sheltered passes, and within the lonely countryside he knew the guerrilla bands and where they could be found. Sitting in the mist that ghosted up from the Agueda, he talked, in his gruff voice, about the Partisans. Sharpe and Knowles listened, the unseen river a sound in the background, as the Major talked of ambushes and murders, the secret places where arms were stored, and the signal codes that flashed from hilltop to hilltop.