Kearsey climbed up to lie alongside Sharpe and took the telescope so that he could spy down on the French. ‘They’re packing up.’
‘Sir?’
Kearsey nodded at the village. ‘Mules, Sharpe. String of them.’
Sharpe took his telescope back and found the village street. Kearsey was right, a string of mules with men lashing ropes over their burdens, but it was impossible to tell whether there was gold or just forage in the packs.
‘Perhaps they won’t look for us.’
The Major had calmed down since dawn. ‘Bound to. Look at the track we left.’ Running across the barley field, like a giant signpost, was the trampled spoor of the Light Company’s retreat. ‘They’ll want to look over the ridge, just to make sure you’ve gone.’
Sharpe looked at the bare rocks and turf of the hillside. ‘Should we move?’
Another shake of the head. ‘Best hiding place for miles, this gully. You can’t see it from any side; even from above it’s difficult. Keep your heads down and you’ll be all right.’
Sharpe thought it strange that Kearsey should talk of ‘you’, as if the Major himself were not part of the British army, or as if the survival of Sharpe in enemy territory were not his concern. He said nothing. The Major nibbled nervously at a strand of his moustache; he seemed to be deep in thought, and when he spoke he sounded as if he had come to the end of long deliberation.
‘You must understand why it’s important.’
‘Sir?’ Sharpe was puzzled.
‘The gold, Sharpe.’ He stopped and Sharpe waited. The small man flicked at his moustache. ‘The Spanish have been let down badly, Sharpe, very badly. Think what happened after Talavera, eh? And Ciudad Rodrigo. A shameful business, Sharpe, shameful.’
Sharpe still kept silent. After Talavera the Spanish had forfeited Wellington’s support by failing to provide the food and supplies they had promised. A starving British army was of no use to Spain. Ciudad Rodrigo? Five weeks ago the Spanish fortress town had surrendered, after an heroic defence, and Wellington had sent no help. The town had been an obstacle to Massena’s advance, Almeida was the next, and Sharpe had heard savage criticism that the British had let their allies down, but Sharpe was no strategist. He let the Major go on.
‘We must prove something to them, Sharpe, that we can help, that we can be useful, or else we must forfeit their support. Do you understand?’ He turned his fierce gaze on Sharpe.
‘Yes, sir.’
The jauntiness and confidence crept back into the Major’s voice. ‘Of course, we lose the war if we don’t have the Spanish! That’s what Wellington has come to understand, eh, Sharpe? Better late than never!’ He gave his laugh. ‘That’s why Wellington wants us to bring the gold, so that the British are seen to deliver it to Cadiz. It proves a point, Sharpe, shows that we made an honest effort. Helps to cover up the betrayal at Ciudad Rodrigo! Ah, politics, politics!’ He said the last two words much as an indulgent father might talk about the rowdy games of his children. ‘Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
It was no time to argue, even though Sharpe disbelieved every word Kearsey had uttered. Of course the Spanish were important, but so were the British to the Spanish, and delivering a few bags of gold would not restore the amity and trust that had been shattered by Spanish inefficiency the year before. Yet it was important that Kearsey believed Wellington’s motives to be honest. The small Major, Sharpe knew, was passionately engaged on the Spanish side, as if, after a lifetime of soldiering, he had found in the harsh hills and white houses of the Spaniards a warmth and trust he had found nowhere else.
Sharpe turned and nodded at Teresa and Ramon. ‘Do they know anything about the gold? About Captain Hardy?’
‘They say not.’ Kearsey shrugged. ‘Perhaps El Catolico moved the gold and Hardy went with it. I ordered him to stay with it.’
‘Then surely the girl would know?’
Kearsey turned and spoke in staccato Spanish to her. Sharpe listened to the reply; her voice was deep and husky, and even if he could not understand the language he was glad to look at her. She had long, dark hair, as black as Josefina’s, but there the resemblance ended. The Portuguese girl had been a lover of comfort, of wine drunk by candlelight, of soft sheets, while this girl reminded Sharpe of a wild beast with eyes that were deep, wary, and set either side of a hawk-like nose. She was young. Kearsey had told him twenty-three, but at either side of her mouth were curved lines. Sharpe remembered that her mother had died at the hands of the French, God knows what she herself had suffered, and he remembered the smile after she had skewered the Colonel with his own sabre. She had aimed low, he recalled, and he laughed at the remembrance. She looked at Sharpe as if she would have liked to claw out his eyes with her long fingers.