They dropped again, panting, in a field of half-cut barley that the French had trampled with their horses, criss-crossing the field so that, in the darkness, it was made of fantastic patterns and strangely shadowed curves. ‘Come on.’ They wriggled forward, the hermitage a quarter-mile away with its bell-tower staring at them, picking paths through the stalks where the crop had been flattened and where standing clumps gave them cover. No one spoke; each man knew his job, and each knew, too, that the Spaniards, who talked to one another with white stones on hilltops, could have watched them for the last five miles. Yet why should they be suspicious? Sharpe was haunted by the question, by the possible answers, by the knife-edge on which he had balanced the Company.
Two hundred yards to go and he stopped, raised a hand, and turned to Hagman. ‘All right?’
The man nodded, grinned his toothless grin. ‘Perfect, sir.’
Sharpe looked at Harper. ‘Come on.’
Now it was just the two of them, creeping forward into the growing stench of the manure, listening for the tiny sounds that could betray an alert sentry. The barley, crushed and tortuous, grew almost to the wall of the graveyard, but as they twisted their way closer to the high white wall Sharpe knew they could not hope to climb it unseen. He let Harper wriggle alongside and put his mouth close to the Sergeant’s ear.
‘You see the bell-tower?”
Harper nodded.
‘There has to be someone up there. We can’t cross here. We’ll be seen.’
The Sergeant put out a hand and curved it to the left. Sharpe nodded. ‘Come on.’
The bell-tower, with its arches facing the four points of the compass, was the most obvious sentry post in the village. Sharpe could see nothing in the shadowed space at the top of the tower, but he knew a man was there, and as they crawled, the stalks of the barley deafening, he felt like a small animal creeping towards a trap. They reached the corner of the cemetery, stood against the wall with a false sense of relief, and then, hidden from the tower, edged slowly down its left-hand side towards the gate, the bushes, and the rank heap of manure.
Nothing stirred. It was as if Casatejada were deserted, and for a moment Sharpe let his mind dwell on the luxurious possibility that El Catolico had ridden with all his followers and that the village truly was empty. Then he remembered Ramon, who could not yet ride, and his sister, Teresa, who had stayed to look after him, and he knew that the village was lived in, was guarded, yet somehow they had reached the gate into the cemetery and no one had shouted, no one had clicked back the lock of a musket, and still the village had the blank look of a sleeping community. Sharpe peered through the wrought-iron gate. The graves were lit by the moon. It was quiet, the hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and suddenly the idea of sixteen thousand gold coins hidden in the grave was ridiculous. He twitched Harper’s elbow, forcing the Sergeant into the thick shadow of the bushes by the gate.
‘I don’t like it,’ he whispered. There was no point in trying to dissect his fears; a soldier had to trust instinct and the moment he tried to pin it down it would vanish like smoke in a mist. ‘You stay here. I’ll go in. If anyone interferes with me use that damned gun.’
Patrick Harper nodded. He had unslung the seven-barrelled gun and he pulled back the flint, slowly and evenly, so that the heavily greased pawl slid silently into place. The Sergeant shared his officer’s apprehension, though whether it was the sight of the empty graveyard in the thin moonlight or that their enemies mockingly watched them he was not sure. He watched Sharpe jump for the top of the wall, not trusting the hinges of the gate, and then he looked into the hills and saw the faintest edge on the horizon, the harbinger of dawn, and felt a chill breeze disturb the thick stench of the manure. He heard Sharpe’s scabbard scrape on the stones. There was a thump as he hit the ground; then Harper was alone, in the thick cover of the bush, and gripping the stock of the killer gun.