‘Lossow!’ Sharpe called. ‘Come on!’
Portuguese soldiers stopped them at the top of the steps and stood silently as they pulled felt slippers over their boots. Sharpe fumbled with the drawstrings, his left arm stiff, but then the slippers were on and the three men, their heels protected against sparking on stone, went down into the crypt. The light was dim and only a handful of lanterns, their horn panes dulling the candle flames, flickered on block-like tombs. There was no sign of Cox or his officers, but at the far end a leather curtain swayed in a doorway.
‘Come on.’ Sharpe led them to the curtain, forced its stiff weight aside, and gasped.
‘Good God.’ Lossow paused at the head of a short flight of steps that dropped into a dark cavern. ‘Good God.’
The lower crypt was jammed with barrels, piled to the low, arched ceiling, row after row of them, reaching back into a gloom that was relieved only by an occasional horn lantern, double-shielded, and to right and left were further aisles, and when Sharpe turned, at the foot of the stairs, he saw that the steps came down in the middle of the room and the gigantic quantity of powder in front was mirrored behind. He whistled softly.
‘This way.’
Cox had disappeared down the aisle and they hurried after, looking at the rotund barrels above them, awed by the sheer destructive power of the gunpowder that had been stacked in the deep vault. Captain Charles, before he died, had said that Almeida could last as long as its powder, and that could be months, Sharpe thought, and then he tried to imagine a French shell smashing through the stonework and sparking the barrels. It could not happen. The floors were too thick, but all the same he looked up and was glad to see the broad buttresses, hugely strong, that arched beneath a floor that could have resisted a thousand French shells, and then still be strong.
Cox was at the very end of the vault, listening to a Portuguese officer, and the conversation was urgent. It was part in Portuguese, part in English, and Sharpe could hear enough to understand the problem. Water was seeping into the crypt, not much, but enough to have soaked two bales of musket ammunition that were stored there. Cox swung round.
‘Who put it here?’ There was silence. ‘We must move it!’ He dropped into Portuguese, then saw Sharpe. ‘Captain!’
‘Sir?’
‘In my headquarters! Wait for me there!’
‘Sir…’
Cox whirled angrily. ‘I have enough problems, Sharpe! Damned ammunition stored in the wrong place! It shouldn’t be here anyway! Put it upstairs!’ He went back into Portuguese, waved his arms, pointed upstairs.
Harper touched Sharpe’s elbow. ‘Come on, sir.’
Sharpe turned, but Cox called him again. ‘Captain!’
‘Sir?’
‘Where is the gold?’ The faces of the Portuguese officers seemed to be accusing Sharpe.
‘In our quarters, sir.’
‘Wrong place, Sharpe, wrong place. I’ll send men and it will be put in my headquarters.”
‘Sir!’ But Lossow grabbed him, took him away, and Cox turned back to the damp walls and the problem of moving thousands of rounds of musket cartridges up to the cathedral floor.
Sharpe resisted the German’s pull. ‘I will not give up the gold.’
‘I know, I know. Listen, my friend. You go to the headquarters and I will go back. I promise you, no one will touch the gold. No one.’
Lossow’s face was deep in shadow, but by the tone of his voice Sharpe knew the gold was safe. He turned to Harper. ‘Go with him. On my orders no one, but no one, is to go near that gold. You understand?’
‘Yes, sir. You’ll be careful in the street?’
‘They’re full of soldiers. I’ll be fine. Now go.’
The two went ahead. Sharpe called after them. ‘Patrick?’
‘Sir?’
‘Look after the girl.’
The big Irishman nodded. ‘You know I will, sir.’
The cathedral bells reverberated with noon, the sun was almost directly overhead, and Sharpe walked slowly across the main Plaza behind two men pushing a barrel of gunpowder. The big French gun, as he had thought, had done its job and was silent, but out there, beyond the spreading ramparts and beyond the killing-ground, the French would be digging their trenches, making new batteries, and the oxen would be hauling the giant guns towards the siege. Almeida was about to become the war, the point of effort, and when it fell, there was nothing between Massena and the sea, except the gold, and suddenly Sharpe stopped, utterly still, and stared at the Portuguese soldiers who came and went by the cathedral. The gold, Hogan had said, was more important than men or horses. The General, Sharpe remembered, had spoken of delaying the enemy, bringing him to battle, but none of that effort would save Portugal. Only the gold. He looked at the castle, with its granite masonry and the stump of the telegraph jutting a brief shadow over the battlement, and then at the cathedral with its carved saints, and despite the sun, the blistering heat, he felt cold. Was it more important than this? Than a town and its defenders? Out there, beyond the houses, were all the paraphernalia of a scientific defence. The great grey defences of this town, the star-shape of glacis and covered way, of town ditch and counter-guard, of bastion and battery, and he shivered. He was not afraid of decisions; they were his job and he despised men who feared to make them. But in the sudden moment, in the middle of the great Plaza, he felt the fear.