„I don’t blame you,” Vuillard said, noticing the girls, „the sport will be here.”
And Vuillard’s sport began. The villagers hated the French and the French hated the villagers and the dragoons had discovered partisans in the houses and they all knew how to treat such vermin. Manuel Lopes and his captured partisans were taken to the church where they were forced to break up the altars, rails and images, then ordered to heap all the shattered timber in the center of the nave. Father Josefa came to protest at the vandalism and the dragoons stripped him naked, tore his cassock into strips and used the strips to lash the priest to the big crucifix that hung above the main altar. „The priests are the worst,” Vuillard explained to Christopher, „they encourage their people to fight us. I swear we’ll have to kill every last priest in Portugal before we’re through.”
Other captives were being brought to the church. Any villager whose house contained a firearm or who had defied the dragoons was taken there. A man who had tried to protect his thirteen-year-old daughter was dragged to the church and, once inside, a dragoon sergeant broke the mens’ arms and legs with a great sledgehammer taken from the blacksmith’s forge. „It’s a lot easier than tying them up,” Vuillard explained. Christopher flinched as the big hammer snapped the bones. Some men whimpered, a few screamed, but most stayed obstinately silent. Father Josefa said the prayer for the dying until a dragoon quieted him by breaking his jaw with a sword.
It was dark by now. The rain still beat on the church roof, but not so violently. Lightning lit the windows from the outside as Vuillard crossed to the remnants of a side altar and picked up a candle that had been burning on the floor. He took it to the pile of splintered furniture that had been laced with powder from the dragoons’ carbine ammunition. He placed the candle deep in the pile and backed away. For a moment the flame flickered small and insignificant, then there was a hiss and a bright fire streaked up the pile’s center. The wounded men cried aloud as smoke began to curl toward the beams and as Vuillard and the dragoons retreated toward the door. „They flap like fish.” The Brigadier spoke of the men who tried to drag themselves toward the fire in the vain hope of extinguishing it. Vuillard laughed. „The rain will slow things,” he told Christopher, „but not by much.” The fire was crackling now, spewing thick smoke. „It’s when the roof catches fire that they die,“ Vuillard said, „and it takes quite a time. Best not to stay though.”
The dragoons left, locking the church behind them. A dozen men stayed out in the rain to make certain that the fire did not go out or, more unlikely, that no one escaped from the flames, while Vuillard led Christopher and a half-dozen other officers to the village’s largest tavern which was cheerfully lit by scores of candles and lamps. „The infantry will report to us here,” Vuillard explained, „so we must find something to pass the time, eh?”
„Indeed.” Christopher plucked off his cocked hat as he stooped through the tavern door.
„We’ll have a meal,” Brigadier Vuillard said, „and what passes in this country for wine.” He stopped in the main room where the village’s girls had been lined against a wall. „What do you think?” he asked Christopher.
„Tempting,” Christopher said.
„Indeed.” Vuillard still did not entirely trust Christopher. The Englishman was too aloof, but now, Vuillard thought, he would put him to the test. „Take your choice,” he said, pointing to the girls. The men guarding the girls grinned. The girls were crying softly.
Christopher took a pace toward the captives. If the Englishman was squeamish, Vuillard thought, then that would betray scruples or, worse, a sympathy for the Portuguese. There were even some in the French army who expressed such sympathies, officers who argued that by maltreating the Portuguese the army only made their own problems worse, but Vuillard, like most Frenchmen, believed that the Portuguese needed to be punished with such severity that none would ever dare lift a finger against the French again. Rape, theft and wanton destruction were, to Vuillard, defensive tactics and now he wanted to see Christopher join him in an act of war. He wanted to see the aloof Englishman behave like the French in their moment of triumph. „Be quick,” Vuillard said, „I promised my men they could have the ones we don’t want.”