„Why not too deep?” Vicente bridled, thinking that a shallow grave was a callous insult to the dead.
„Because when the villagers come back,” Sharpe said, „they’ll dig them up to find their relatives.” He found a large piece of sacking in the shed and he used it to collect the charred bodies from the church, dragging them one by one to the graveyard. The left arm came off Father Josefa’s body when Sharpe tried to pull the priest free of the charred cross, but Sims saw what was happening and came to help roll the shrunken, blackened corpse onto the sacking.
„I’ll take it, sir,” Sims said, seizing hold of the sacking.
„You don’t have to.”
Sims looked embarrassed. „We’re not going to run, sir,” he blurted out, then looked fearful as if he expected to get the rough edge of Sharpe’s tongue.
Sharpe looked at him and saw another thief, another drunk, another failure, another rifleman. Then Sharpe smiled. „Thank you, Sims. Tell Pat Harper to give you some of his holy water.”
„Holy water?” Sims asked.
„The brandy he keeps in his second canteen. The one he thinks I don’t know about.”
Afterward, when the men who had come down from the hilltop were helping to bury the dead, Sharpe went back to the church where Harper found him. „Picquets are set, sir.”
„Good.”
„And Sims says I was to give him some brandy.”
„I hope you did.”
„I did, sir, I did. And Mister Vicente, sir, he’s wanting to say a prayer or two.”
„I hope God’s listening.”
„You want to be there?”
„No, Pat.”
„Didn’t think you would.” The big Irishman picked his way through the ashes. Some of the wreckage still smoked where the altar had stood, but he pushed a hand into the blackened tangle and pulled out a twisted, black crucifix. It was only four inches high and he laid it on his left palm and made the sign of the cross. „Mister Vicente’s not happy, sir.”
„I know.”
„He thinks we should have defended the village, but I told him, sir, I told him you don’t catch the rabbit by killing the dog.”
Sharpe stared into the smoke. „Maybe we should have stayed here.”
„Now you’re talking like an Irishman, sir,” Harper said, „because there’s nothing we don’t know about lost causes. Sure and we’d all have died. And if you see that the trigger guard on Gataker’s rifle is hanging loose then don’t give him hell about it. The screws are worn to buggery.”
Sharpe smiled at Harper’s effort to divert him. „I know we did the right thing, Pat. I just wish Lieutenant Vicente could see it.”
„He’s a lawyer, sir, can’t see a bloody thing straight. And he’s young. He’d sell his cow for a drink of milk.”
„We did the right thing,” Sharpe insisted, „but what do we do now?”
Harper tried to straighten the crucifix. „When I was a wee child,” he said, „I got lost. I was no more then seven, eight maybe. No bigger then Perkins, anyway. There were soldiers near the village, your lot in red, and to this day I don’t know what the bastards were doing there, but I ran away from them. They didn’t chase me, but I ran all the same because that’s what you did when the red bastards showed themselves. I ran and I ran, I did, and I ran until I didn’t know where the hell I was.”
„So what did you do?”
„I followed a stream,” Harper said, „and came to these two wee houses and my aunty lived in one and she took me home.”
Sharpe started to laugh and, though it was not really funny, could not stop.
„Maire,” Harper said, „Aunty Maire, rest her soul.” He put the crucifix into a pocket.
„I wish your Aunty Maire was here, Pat. But we’re not lost.”
„No?”
„We go south. Find a boat. Cross the river. Keep going south.”
„And if the army’s gone from Lisbon?”
„Walk to Gibraltar,” Sharpe said, knowing it would never come to that. If there was peace then he would be found by someone in authority and sent to the nearest port, and if there was war then he would find someone to fight. Simple, really, he thought. „But we march at night, Pat.”