SHARPE’S DEVIL. Bernard Cornwell

Sharpe turned to look back into the fort. “These aren’t built for defense.”

“No, sir. They’re just refuges where tired men can spend a few nights in comparative safety. General Vivar deliberately made them uncomfortable so that we wouldn’t be tempted to live in them permanently. He believed our place was out there.” Morillo waved toward the darkening hills.

The temporary nature of the fort’s accommodation was suggesting an idea to Sharpe. There was only one walled and roofed structure, a log cabin which Sharpe guessed was the officer’s perquisite, while the other cavalrymen were sheltered beneath the overhang of the firestep. Essentially the fort was nothing more than a walled bivouac; there was not even a water supply inside the walls. The horses had to be watered at the stream at the ridge’s foot, and any other drinking water had to be lugged up from the same place. Sharpe gestured at the log cabin. “Your quarters, Captain?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Maybe Mister Harper and I can share them with you?”

Morillo frowned, not quite understanding the request, but he nodded anyway. “We’ll be cramped, but you’re welcome.”

“What time do you rouse the men?” Sharpe asked.

“Usually at six. We’d expect to leave at seven.”

“Could you leave earlier? While it was dark?”

Morillo nodded cautiously. “I could.”

Sharpe smiled. “I’m thinking, Captain, that if Sergeant Dregara is convinced Mister Harper and I are still asleep, he won’t disturb us. He may even wait till midmorning before he ventures to knock on the door of your quarters.”

Morillo understood the ruse, but looked doubtful. “He’ll surely see your horses are gone.”

“He might not notice if the horses are missing. After all, his horses and a dozen of yours will still be here. But he’ll notice if the mule is gone, so I’ll just have to leave it here, won’t I?”

Morillo drew on his cigar, then blew a stream of smoke toward the distant sea. “Captain-General Bautista’s orders are addressed to me. They say nothing about you, sir, and if you choose to leave at three in the morning, then I can’t stop you, can I?”

“No, Captain, you can’t. And thank you.”

But Morillo was not finished. “I’d still be unhappy about you using the main road, sir. Even if you get a six-hour start on Dregara, you’ll be traveling slowly, while he knows the short cuts.” Morillo smiled. “I’ll give you Ferdinand.”

“Ferdinand?”

“You’ll meet him in the morning.” Morillo seemed amused, but would not say more.

The two men went back into the fort where the cooking fires crackled and smoked. Sentries paced the firestep as darkness seeped up from the valleys to engulf the sky and the mountains. Sulphurous yellow clouds shredded off the Andean peaks to spill toward the seaward plains, patterning the stars and shadowing the moon. An hour after sundown, Sharpe and Harper accompanied Captain Morillo as he went around the cooking fires to announce that his Valdivia patrol would be leaving three hours before dawn. Men groaned at the news, but Sharpe heard the humor behind their reaction and knew that at least these men still had confidence in their cause. Not all Vivar’s work had gone to waste.

“And you, senor?” Sergeant Dregara, who had been sitting at the fire with Morillo’s sergeants, looked slyly up at Sharpe. “You will go early, too?”

“Good Lord, no!” Sharpe yawned. “I’m an English gentleman, Sergeant, and English gentlemen don’t stir till at least an hour after dawn.”

“And the Irish not for another hour after that,” Harper put in happily.

Dregara was a middle-aged runt of a man with yellow teeth, a lined face, a scarred forehead and the eyes of a killer. He was holding a half-empty bottle of clear Chilean brandy that he now gestured toward Sharpe. “Maybe we can ride south together, senor! There is sometimes safety in numbers.”

“Good idea,” Sharpe said in his best approximation of the braying voice some British officers liked to use. “And one of your men can bring us hot shaving water at, say, ten o’clock? Just tell the fellow to knock on the door and leave the bowl on the step.”

“Shaving water?” Dregara clearly hated being treated as a servant.

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