‘Good morning! You must be Sharpe!’ Captain Charles, a Portuguese officer beside him, sounded cheerful. He looked at the midshipman. ‘Morning, Jeremy. Sleep well?’
‘Yes, sir.’ The midshipman had put up the telescope and trained it on the far mast. ‘Hold on, sir.’
He looked through the glass for a second, then leaped to the mast, untied the bladder ropes, and hauled on them one at a time so that the black bags shot up to the pulley at the cross-trees and fell down again.
‘What was that?’ Sharpe asked.
‘Just saying good morning, sir.’ The midshipman left three bladders down, the other raised. ‘That says we’re transmitting, sir,’ he added helpfully.
Sharpe looked through the big telescope. The far tower, much closer now, had two black dots level and halfway up the mast, presumably the signal that said they were ready to receive a message.
‘Here you are, Jeremy.’ Charles handed over the first sheet and the boy leaped to the ropes, tugged and dropped them, sometimes looking at the sheet Captain Charles had given him, but mostly doing it from memory. Cox’s Staff Captain jerked a thumb at the midshipman. ‘Busy little blighter, eh? Used to be two of them, but the other got the pox. Died on us.’
Sharpe looked over the midshipman’s shoulder at the sheet of paper and read 48726, 91858, 38197.
‘Code,’ Captain Charles boomed at him. ‘Jolly clever, yes?’
‘What does it say?’
The Staff Captain, gold lace at his cuffs, touched his nose. ‘Can’t say, dear chap. Top secret. Probably says the Brigadier has run out of rum; please send supply urgent. Something like that.’
‘Isn’t that the gold message?’
‘Gold? Don’t know about that. Only three messages this morning. That one tells the General that the 68th Regiment of the Line are outside since yesterday. This one’s the daily report on available shot, and the last one’s about the French battery.’
‘Christ Almighty!’ Sharpe started towards the stairs, but Lossow touched his arm.
‘I’ll go.’ The German was serious. ‘You stay.’
Harper stood beside Lossow. ‘You should stay here, sir. You don’t know what the Spanish are up to.’
Lossow smiled. ‘You see? Outvoted.’
He ran down the stairs and Sharpe turned back to Captain Charles.
‘What the hell’s happening at headquarters?’
Charles sniffed, handed the second piece of paper to the midshipman. ‘Affairs of state. I don’t know. Your Major, the Spanish Colonel, and it’s all arm-waving and table-thumping. Not my style, dear boy. Oh, I say! That is clever!’ He was staring to the south.
Sharpe turned, picked up the telescope, and trained it on the French battery. Nothing was happening; the fascines still lay splayed apart and split open, and there were not even men attempting to repair the damage.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Over there.’ Charles was pointing farther to the right. ‘A second battery, hidden. We bang away at a heap of earth and the clever devils sneak the real battery into place. Jolly clever.’
It was clever. Sharpe saw French soldiers dragging away branches that had cloaked the excavation of a battery that, judging from the activity around it, was ready to open fire. He could see how well protected it was, by yards of earth, mounted fascines, and trenches for the gunners to use when under fire. The siege gun, hidden by shadows, could harass the defenders’ guns as the French built their works forward until the breaching batteries were in place and the two forces, attackers and defenders, got down to work in earnest. The battery was built on the edge of dead ground and Sharpe knew that there would be infantry there, well protected from the Portuguese batteries, ready to repel an attack on the harassing battery.
Charles rubbed his hands. ‘Things will hot up soon. They’ve been slow.’
Harper looked at the elegant Captain. ‘How long can you hold out, sir?’
Captain Charles beamed at him. ‘Forever, Sergeant! Or at least as long as the ammunition lasts! Once that’s gone we’ll just have to throw rocks.’ That was evidently a joke, for he laughed. ‘But there are tons of powder in the cathedral. And the Portuguese are good! By Jove, they’re good!’