„Like as not,” the big man said. „I mean it’s not as if they don’t know we’re here.”
„And they’ll slice us into pieces when they do arrive,” Sharpe said.
Harper shrugged at that pessimistic opinion, then frowned. „How far are we going?”
„The top,” Sharpe said. He had led Harper through the trees and now they were on the rocky slope that led to the old watchtower on the hill’s summit. „Have you never been up here?” Sharpe asked.
„I grew up in Donegal,” Harper said, „and there was one thing we learned there, which was never go to the top of the hills.”
„Why ever not?”
„Because anything valuable will have long rolled down, sir, and all you’ll be doing is getting yourself out of breath by climbing up to find it gone. Jesus Christ, but you can see halfway to heaven from up here.”
The track followed a rocky spine that led to the summit and on either side the slope steepened until only a goat could have found footing on the treacherous scree, yet the path itself was safe enough, winding up toward the watchtower’s ancient stump. „We’re going to make a fort up here,” Sharpe said enthusiastically.
„God save us,” Harper said.
„We’re getting lazy, Pat, soft. Idle. It ain’t good.”
„But why make a fort?” Harper asked. „It’s a fortress already! The devil himself couldn’t take this hill, not if it was defended.”
„There are two ways up here,” Sharpe said, ignoring the question, „this path and another on the south side. I want walls across each path. Stone walls, Pat, high enough so a man can stand behind them and fire over their tops. There’s plenty of stone up here.” Sharpe led Harper through the tower’s broken archway and showed him how the old building had been raised about a natural pit in the hill’s summit and how the crumbling tower had filled the pit with stones.
Harper peered down into the pit. „You want us to move all that masonry and build new walls?” He sounded appalled.
„I was talking to Kate Savage about this place,” Sharpe said. „This old tower was built hundreds of years ago, Pat, when the Moors were here. They were killing Christians then, and the King built the watchtower so they could see when a Moorish raiding party was coming.”
„It’s a sensible thing to do,” Harper said.
„And Kate was saying how the folk in the valleys would send their valuables up here. Coins, jewels, gold. All of it up here, Pat, so that the heathen bastards wouldn’t snatch it. And then there was an earthquake nd the tower fell in and the locals reckon there’s treasure under those tones.”
Harper looked skeptical. „And why wouldn’t they dig it up, sir? The folk in the village don’t strike me as halfwits. I mean, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, if I knew there was a pit of bloody gold up on a hill I wouldn’t be vasting my time with a plough or a harrow.”
„That’s just it,” Sharpe said. He was making up the story as he went ilong and thought desperately for an answer to Harper’s entirely reasonable objection. „There was a child, you see, buried with the gold and the egend says the child will haunt the house of whoever digs up its bones. But only a local house,” he added hastily.
Harper sniffed at that embellishment, then looked back down the path. „So you want a fort here?”
„And we need to bring barrels of water here,” Sharpe said. That was the summit’s weakness, no water. If the French came and he had to retreat to the hilltop then he did not want to surrender just because of thirst. „Miss Savage”-he still did not think of her as Mrs. Christopher-’will find us barrels.”
„Up here? In the sun? Water will go rancid,” Harper warned him.
„A splash of brandy in each one,” Sharpe said, remembering his voyages to and from India and how the water had always tasted faintly of rum. „I’ll find the brandy.”
„And you really expect me to believe there’s gold under those stones, sir?”
„No,” Sharpe admitted, „but I want the men to half believe it. It’s going to be hard work building walls up here, Pat, and dreams of treasure never hurt.”