„What’s the time?” Waters asked, then answered his own question by taking out a turnip watch. „Nearly eleven!”
„Are you with the staff, sir?” Sharpe asked because Waters’s red coat, though decorated with some tarnished gold braid, had no regimental facings.
„I’m one of Sir Arthur’s exploring officers,” Waters said cheerfully. „We ride ahead to scout the land like those fellows in the Bible that Joshua sent ahead to spy out Jericho, remember the tale? And a frow called Rahab gave them shelter? That’s the luck of the Jews, ain’t it? The chosen people get greeted by a prostitute and I get welcomed by a rifleman, but I suppose it’s better than a sloppy wet kiss from a bloody Frog dragoon, eh?”
Sharpe smiled. „Do you know Captain Hogan, sir?”
„The mapping fellow? Of course I know Hogan. A capital man, capital!” Waters suddenly stopped and looked at Sharpe. „My God, of course! You’re his lost rifleman, ain’t you? Ah, I’ve placed you now. He said you’d survive. Well done, Sharpe. Ah, here come the first of the gallant Buffs.”
Vicente and his men had escorted thirty redcoats up the hill, but instead of using the unlocked arched door they had trudged round to the front and now gaped up at Waters and Sharpe who in turn looked down from the window. The newcomers wore the buff facings of the 3rd Regiment of Foot, a Kentish regiment, and they were sweating after their climb under the hot sun. A thin lieutenant led them and he assured Colonel Waters that two more bargeloads of men were already disembarking, then he looked curiously at Sharpe. „What on earth are the Rifles doing here?”
„First on the field,” Sharpe quoted the regiment’s favorite boast, „and last off it.”
„First? You must have flown across the bloody river.” The Lieutenant wiped his forehead. „Any water here?”
„Barrel inside the main door,” Sharpe said, „courtesy of the 95th.”
More men arrived. The barges were toiling to and fro across the river, propelled by the massive sweeps which were manned by local people who were eager to help, and every twenty minutes another eighty or ninety men would toil up the hill. One group arrived with a general, Sir Edward Paget, who took over command of the growing garrison from Waters. Paget was a young man, still in his thirties, energetic and eager, who owed his high rank to his aristocratic family’s wealth, but he had the reputation of being a general who was popular with his soldiers. He climbed to the seminary roof where Sharpe’s men were now positioned and, seeing Sharpe’s small telescope, asked to borrow it. „Lost me own,” he explained, „it’s somewhere in the baggage in Lisbon.”
„You came with Sir Arthur, sir?” Sharpe asked.
„Three weeks ago,” Paget said, staring at the city.
„Sir Edward,” Waters told Sharpe, „is second in command to Sir Arthur.”
„Which doesn’t mean much,” Sir Edward said, „because he never tells me anything. What’s wrong with this bloody telescope?”
„You have to hold the outer lens in place, sir,” Sharpe said.
„Take mine,” Waters said, offering the better instrument.
Sir Edward scanned the city, then frowned. „So what are the bloody French doing?” he asked in a puzzled tone.
„Sleeping,” Waters answered.
„Won’t like it when they wake up, will they?” Paget remarked. „Asleep in the keeper’s lodge with poachers all over the coverts!” He gave the telescope back to Waters and nodded at Sharpe. „Damn pleased to have some riflemen here, Lieutenant. I dare say you’ll get some target practice before the day’s out.”
Another group of men came up the hill. Every window of the seminary’s brief western facade now had a group of redcoats and a quarter of the windows on the long northern wall were also manned. The garden wall had been loopholed and garrisoned by Vicente’s Portuguese and by the Buffs’ grenadier company. The French, thinking themselves secure in Oporto, were watching the river between the city and the sea while behind their backs, on the high eastern hill, the redcoats were gathering.
Which meant the gods of war were tightening the screws.
And something had to break.
Officers were posted in the entrance hall of the Palacio das Carrancas to make sure all visitors took their boots off. „His grace,” they explained, referring to Marshal Nicolas Soult, Duke of Dalmatia, whose nickname was now King Nicolas, „is sleeping.”