‘Watching you.’
It was a feeble answer and El Catolico treated it with the contempt it deserved. He laughed. ‘You were seen crawling to the grave, Captain, all alone and in the darkness. But you’re not alone, are you?’
‘No. And I didn’t expect to find you here.’
El Catolico bowed. ‘An unexpected pleasure, then. Teresa’s father is leading the ambush. I decided to come back.’
‘To protect your gold?’ It was a futile attempt, but everything was futile now.
El Catolico put an arm round Teresa’s shoulders. ‘To protect my treasure, Captain.’ He translated again, and the men laughed. The girl’s face stayed enigmatic as ever. El Catolico waved a hand at the gate. ‘Go, Captain. I know your men are near. Go home, little gravediggcr, and remember one thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘Watch your back. Very carefully. It’s a long road.’ El Catolico laughed, watched Sharpe bend down to retrieve his rifle. ‘Leave the rifle, little gravedigger. It will save us picking it up from the road.’
Sharpe picked it up, slung it defiantly on his shoulder, and swore uselessly at the Spaniard. El Catolico laughed, shrugged, and gestured again at the gate.
‘Go, Captain. The French have the gold, as I told you. The French.’
The gate was not locked; it could have been opened easily, but Patrick Harper, with the blood of Irish heroes in his veins, chose to stand back and kick it with one enormous foot. It exploded inwards, the hinges tearing from the dry mortar, and there he stood, six feet four inches of grinning Irishman, filthy as a slaughterer, and with seven barrels held in one hand that pointed casually at El Catolico and his men.
‘Top of the morning! And how’s our lordship this morning?’
Sharpe was rarely given a glimpse of Harper’s imitation of what the rest of the world thought of as Irish mannerisms, but this was obviously a rich performance. The dreadful shroud of failure vanished because Sharpe knew, with an absolute certainty, that Patrick Harper was boiling with good news. There was the grin, the jigging walk, and the inane words that bubbled from the huge soldier.
‘And a fine morning it is, to be sure, your honour.’ He was looking at El Catolico. ‘I wouldn’t move, your grace, not while I’ve got the gun on you. It could go off with a desperate bang, so it could, and take the whole of your precious head off.’ He glanced at Sharpe. ‘Morning, sir! Excuse my appearance.’
Sharpe smiled, began to laugh with the relief of it. Harper was disgusting, covered with glistening and decaying muck, and the Sergeant grinned through the mask of manure.
‘I fell in the shit, sir.’ Only one thing about the Sergeant was not smothered in manure – the gun – and that, despite his excitement, was held very steadily on El Catolico. The Irishman glanced quickly again at Sharpe. ‘Would you mind calling the lads, sir?’
Sharpe drew the whistle from its holster on his leather crossbelt and blew the signal that would bring the Riflemen running to the village. Harper still looked steadily at El Catolico. ‘Thank you, sir.’ This was his moment, his victory, and Sharpe was not going to spoil it for him.
The Sergeant smiled at El Catolico. ‘You were saying, your holiness, that the French have the gold?’
El Catolico nodded, said nothing. Teresa looked defiantly at Harper, then at Sharpe, who now pointed his rifle at the small group of Partisans.
‘The French have the gold.’ Her voice was firm, her tone almost contemptuous of the two men with the guns. The Spaniards had guns, but none of them dared move while the vast muzzle of the seven-barrelled gun stared at them from the flank. Teresa repeated herself. ‘The French have the gold.’
‘That’s good, miss, so it is.’ Harper’s voice was suddenly gentle. ‘Because what you don’t know about, as my old mother used to say, you won’t miss. And look what I found in the dung-heap.’ He grinned at them all, raised his free hand, and from it, trickling in a glittering cascade, fell thick gold coins. The grin became wider.
‘The Good Lord,’ said Patrick Augustine Harper, ‘has been kind to me this morning.’