„What’s that?”
„That we’re always outnumbered and surrounded.”
Sharpe had been listening, not to Harper, but to the day itself. „Notice anything?” he asked.
„That we’re surrounded and outnumbered, sir?”
„No.” Sharpe paused to listen again, then frowned. „Wind’s in the east, isn’t it?”
„More or less.”
„No sound of gunfire, Pat.”
Harper listened. „Good God and you’re right, sir.”
Vicente had noticed the same thing and came to the watchtower where Sharpe had set up his command post. „There’s no noise from Amarante,” the Portuguese Lieutenant said unhappily.
„So they’ve finished fighting there,” Harper commented.
Vicente made the sign of the cross which was admission enough that he suspected the Portuguese army that had been holding the bridge over the Tamega had been defeated.
„We don’t know what’s happening,” Sharpe said, trying to cheer Vicente up, but in truth that admission was almost as depressing as the thought that Amarante had fallen. So long as the distant thunder of the guns had sounded from the east then so long had they known there were still forces fighting the French, had known that the war itself was continuing and that there was hope that one day they could rejoin some friendly forces, but the morning’s silence was ominous. And if the Portuguese were gone from Amarante, then what of the British in Coimbra and Lisbon? Were they boarding ships in the broad mouth of the Tagus, ready to be convoyed home? Sir John Moore’s army had been chased out of Spain, so was the smaller British force in Lisbon now scuttling away? Sharpe felt a sudden and horrid fear that he was the last British officer in northern Portugal and the last morsel to be devoured by an insatiable enemy. „It doesn’t mean anything,” he lied, seeing the same fear of being stranded on his companions’ faces. „Sir Arthur Wellesley’s coming.”
„We hope,” Harper said.
„Is he good?” Vicente asked.
„The very bloody best,” Sharpe said fervently and then, seeing that his words had not really encouraged hope, he made Harper busy. All the food that had been brought up to the watchtower had been stored in one corner of the ruin where Sharpe could keep an eye on it, but the men had taken no breakfast so he had Harper supervise the distribution. „Give them hunger rations, Sergeant,” he ordered, „for God alone knows how long we’ll be up here.”
Vicente followed Sharpe onto the small terrace outside the watch-tower entrance from where he stared at the distant dragoons. He looked distracted and began fiddling with a scrap of the white piping that decorated his dark-blue uniform and the more he fidgeted, the more piping was stripped away from his jacket. „Yesterday,” he suddenly blurted out. „Yesterday was the first time that I killed a man with a sword.” He frowned as he pulled another inch or two of the piping from his jacket’s hem. „A hard thing to do.”
„Especially with a sword like that,” Sharpe said, nodding at Vicente’s scabbard. The Portuguese officer’s sword was slim, straight and not particularly robust. It was a sword for parades, for show, not for gutter fights in the rain. „Now a sword like this”-Sharpe patted the heavy cavalry sword that hung from his belt-”batters the bastards down. It don’t cut them to death so much as it bludgeons them. You could batter an ox to death with this blade. Get yourself a cavalry sword, Jorge. They’re made for killing. Infantry officers’ swords are for dance floors.”
„I mean it was difficult to look in his eyes,” Vicente explained, „and still use the blade.”
„I know what you mean,” Sharpe said, „but it’s still the best thing to do. What you want to do is to watch the sword or bayonet, isn’t it? But if you keep watching their eyes you can tell what they’re going to do next by where they look. Never look at the place you’re going to hit them, though. Keep looking at their eyes and just hit.”
Vicente realized he was stripping the piping from his jacket and tucked the errant length into a buttonhole. „When I shot my own sergeant,” he said, „it seemed unreal. Like theater even. But he was not trying to kill me. That man last night? It was frightening.”