The line of the Christmas hymn kept going through his head, another unwelcome visitor to his thoughts. ‘Goodwill to sinful men is shewn’. Not tonight.
He had meant to go at midnight, but it was too dark for Frederickson or any of the other owners of watches to see their timepieces and it was too damned cold to wait in the interminable darkness. The men were numbed with the cold, somnolent with it, cut to the bone by the western wind and Sharpe decided to go early.
And there was light. It was a glow, hazed in the air, made by fires in the valley. The glow had been invisible from the gully, but as Sharpe led his force south, stumbling on the rough broken ground, the crest of the valley’s northern edge was limned by the flame-glow in the air. He could see the slight dip in that crest which he had marked as his target, and he sensed the path that led left and right and then on towards the flames of Adrados’ valley.
They carried only their weapons and ammunition. Their packs, haversacks, blankets and canteens were left in the gully. That equipment could be fetched in the morning, but this night they would fight unladen. The Riflemen would discard their greatcoats before the attack, revealing their dark-green uniforms which would be their distinguishing mark this night. Goodwill to sinful men.
Sharpe stopped, hearing noise ahead, and for a fraction of a second he feared that the enemy had a picquet line at the valley’s rim. He listened, relaxed. It was the sound of revelry, cheers and laughter, the roar of mens’ voices. Christmas Eve.
A bloody night to be born, Sharpe thought. Midwinter, when food was scarce and wolves prowled close to the hill villages. Perhaps it was warmer in Palestine, and perhaps the shepherds who saw the angels did not have to worry about wolves, but winter was still winter everywhere. Sharpe had always thought Spain a hot country and so it was in the summer when the sun baked the plains into dust, but in winter it could still be freezing and he thought of being born in a stable where the wind sliced like a knife between the cracks of the timber. He led them on again towards the Gateway of God, a dark line of men bringing blades in the night.
He dropped flat at the valley’s rim. Thorn trees were dark on the slope before him, the valley was lit by the fires in Castle, Convent, watchtower and village, and, glory to God in the highest, there was a path leading at an angle down through the thorns.
The sound of laughter came from the Convent. Sharpe could see other men silhouetted by the fires in the Castle’s big yard. It was cold.
He turned his head round and hissed at his men. ‘Count!’
‘One.’ Harper.
‘Two.’ A German Sergeant called Rossner.
‘Three.’ Thomas Taylor.
Frederickson dropped beside Sharpe, but stayed silent as the men counted themselves off in the darkness. All were present. Sharpe pointed to the foot of the slope where the dark path between the thorns debouched onto a rough pasture land that was stippled red and black by the firelight. ‘Wait at the tree-line.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Frederickson’s men would have only fifty yards to cover from the edge of the bushes to the door of the Convent. They would come when they heard the boom of the seven-barrelled gun, or if they heard a volley of musketry, but they would ignore a single musket shot. On a night like this, a night of drinking and celebration, the odd single shot would be nothing unusual. If Frederickson heard nothing while he counted off fifteen minutes, then he was to come anyway. Sharpe looked at the Captain whose black patch gave his face a spectral look in the darkness. He was beginning to like this man. ‘Your men are all right?’
‘Anticipating the pleasure, sir.’ Goodwill to sinful men.
Sharpe took his own group forward. He looked once to his right. Far off, in Portugal, a speck of light throbbed like a red star. A fire in the border hills.