„I hope so, sir,” Dulong answered, uncertain where the conversation was going.
„But General Heudelet’s division is still clearing the road to Vigo,”
Vuillard went on, „Foy’s infantry is scouring the mountains of partisans, so our forces will still be stretched, Major, stretched. Even if we get Delaborde’s brigades back from General Loison and even with Lorges’s dragoons, we shall be stretched if we want to march on Lisbon.”
„I’m sure we’ll succeed all the same,” Dulong said loyally.
„But we need every man we can muster, Major, every man. And I do not want to detach valuable infantry to guard prisoners.”
There was silence round the table. Dulong gave a small smile as he understood the implications of the Brigadier’s words, but he said nothing.
„Do I make myself clear, Major?” Vuillard asked in a harder tone.
„You do, sir,” Dulong said.
„Bayonets fixed then,” Vuillard said, tapping ash from his cigar, „and use them, Major, use them well.”
Dulong looked up, his grim face unreadable. „No prisoners, sir.” He did not inflect the words as a question.
„That sounds like a very good idea,” Vuillard said, smiling. „Now go and get some sleep.”
Major Dulong left and Vuillard poured more port. „War is cruel,” he said sententiously, „but cruelty is sometimes necessary. The rest of you”-he looked at the officers on both sides of the table-”can ready yourselves for the march back to Oporto. We should have this business finished by eight tomorrow morning, so shall we set a march time of ten o’clock?”
For by then the watchtower on the hill would have fallen. The howitzer would keep Sharpe’s men awake by firing through the night and in the dawn, as the tired men fought off sleep and a wolf-gray light seeped across the world’s rim, Dulong’s well-trained infantry would go in for the kill.
At dawn.
Sharpe had watched till the very last seep of twilight had gone from the hill, until there was nothing but bleak darkness, and only then, with Pendleton, Tongue and Harris as his companions, he edged past the outer stone wall and felt his way down the path. Harper had wanted to come, had even been upset at not being allowed to accompany Sharpe, but Harper would need to command the riflemen if Sharpe did not come back. Sharpe would have liked to take Hagman, but the old man was still not fully mended and so he had gone with Pendleton who was young, agile and cunning, and with Tongue and Harris who were both good shots and both intelligent. Each of them carried two rifles, but Sharpe had left his big cavalry sword with Harper for he knew that the heavy metal scabbard was likely to knock on stones and so betray his position.
It was hard, slow work going down the hill. There was a thin suggestion of a moon, but stray clouds continually covered it and even when it showed clearly it had no power to light their path and so they felt their way down, saying nothing, groping ahead for each step and thereby making more noise than Sharpe liked, but the night was full of noises: insects, the sigh of the wind across the hill’s flank and the distant cry of a vixen. Hagman would have coped better, Sharpe thought, for he moved through the dark with the grace of a poacher, while all four of the riflemen going down the hill’s long slope were from towns. Pendleton, Sharpe knew, was from Bristol where he had joined the army rather than face transportation for being a pickpocket. Tongue, like Sharpe, came from London, but Sharpe could not remember where Harris had grown up and, when they stopped to catch their breath and search the darkness for any hint of light, Sharpe asked him.
„Lichfield, sir,” Harris whispered, „where Samuel Johnson came from.”
„Johnson?” Sharpe could not quite place the name. „Is he in the first battalion?”
„Very much so, sir,” Harris whispered, and then they went on and, as the slope became less steep and they accustomed themselves to this blind journey, they became quieter. Sharpe was proud of them. They might not have been born to such a task, as Hagman had, but they had become stalkers and killers. They wore the green jacket.