all seemed so simple when he had discovered the boat, but he should have known nothing was ever that easy. And if the marquesa had summoned men from the town then there was a chance of bloodshed, and though Sharpe had no doubt that his soldiers would brush the townsmen away he also feared that he would take two or three more casualties. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said aloud, and, because there was nothing else to do, went back to the kitchen and rousted Harris from the table. ‘You’re to stand outside the brigadier’s room,’ he told him, ‘and let me know when the doctor’s finished.’
He went up to the tower where Harper still stood guard. ‘Nothing moving, sir,’ Harper said, ‘except I thought I saw a horseman up there a half-hour ago,’ he pointed to the northern heights, ‘but he’s gone.’
‘I thought I saw the same thing.’
‘He’s not there now, sir.’
‘We’re just waiting for the doctor to finish with the brigadier,’ Sharpe said, ‘then we’ll go.’ He said nothing about the men guarding the boathouse. He would deal with them when the time came. ‘That’s a sour old bitch who lives here,’ he said.
‘The marquesa?’
‘A shrivelled old bitch. She bloody hit me!’
‘There’s some good in the woman then?’ Harper suggested, and when Sharpe glowered, hurried on. ‘It’s funny, though, isn’t it, that the Frogs haven’t ruined this place? I mean there’s food enough here for a battalion! And their foraging parties must have found this place months ago.’
‘She’s made her peace with the bloody Frogs,’ Sharpe said. ‘She probably sells them food and they leave her alone. She’s not on our side, that’s for sure. She hates us.’
‘So has she told the Crapauds we’re here?’
‘That worries me,’ Sharpe said. ‘She might have told them because she’s a wicked old bitch, that’s what she is.’ He gazed down the road. Something felt wrong. Everything was too peaceful. Perhaps, he thought, it was the news that the marquesa was trying to protect the boat that had unsettled him, and the thought of a boat reminded him of what Sergeant Noolan had told the brigadier that morning. The French had crossed the river. Either they had fashioned a usable boat out of one of the undamaged pontoons, or else they had kept a boat in Fort Josephine, but if the French had a boat, any boat, then this road was not their only approach. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said softly.
‘What, sir?’
‘They’re coming downriver.’
‘There’s that fellow again,’ Slattery said, pointing to the northern hill where, silhouetted against the sky, the horseman had reappeared. The man was standing in his stirrups now and waving his arms extravagantly.
‘Let’s go!’ Sharpe said.
The horseman must have been watching them all day, but his job was not just to watch, but to tell Colonel Vandal when the forces on the river were close to the house. Then the rest of the 8th would advance. Trapped, Sharpe thought. Some Frenchmen were coming by boat, others by road, and he was between them and then he was running down the crumbling staircase and shouting for the rest of his men who were lolling outside the kitchen to get down to the river. ‘We’ll fetch the brigadier!’ he told Harper.
The marquesa was in the brigadier’s room, watching as the doctor wrapped a bandage about a new splint that replaced Sharpe’s makeshift contraption. She saw the alarm on Sharpe’s face and gave a cackle. ‘So the French are coming,’ she taunted him, ‘the French are coming.’
‘We’re going, sir,’ Sharpe said, ignoring her.
‘He can’t finish this?’ The brigadier gestured at the half-wrapped bandage.
‘We’re going!’ Sharpe insisted. ‘Sergeant!’
Harper pushed the doctor aside and lifted the brigadier. ‘My sabre!’ the brigadier protested. ‘The crutches!’
‘Out!’ Sharpe ordered.
‘My sabre!’
‘The French are coming!’ the marquesa mocked.
‘You sent for them, you sour old bitch,’ Sharpe said, and he was tempted to hammer her malevolent face, but instead went outside where Harper had unceremoniously dumped Moon in the wheelbarrow.
‘My sabre!’ the brigadier pleaded.
‘Slattery, push the barrow,’ Sharpe said. ‘Pat, get that volley gun ready.’ The seven-barrel gun, more than anything, would frighten the men guarding the boat. ‘Hurry!’ he shouted.
Moon was still complaining about his lost sabre, but Sharpe had no time for the man. He ran ahead with Harper, through the bushes, then he was in the kitchen garden and he could see the knot of townsmen standing guard on the boathouse. ‘Sergeant Noolan!’
‘Sir!’ That was Harris. ‘There, sir.’
Bloody hell. Two pontoons, crammed with French troops, drifting downstream. ‘Shoot at them, Harris! Sergeant Noolan!’
‘Sir?’
‘Forward march.’ Sharpe joined the small rank of Connaught men. They were outnumbered by the townsmen, but the redcoats had bayonets and Harper had joined them with his volley gun. Rifles fired from the upstream bank and French muskets cracked from the pontoons. A bullet struck the boathouse roof and the townsmen flinched. ‘Váyase,’ Sharpe said, hoping his Spanish was understandable, ‘yo le mataré.’
‘What does that mean, sir?’ Sergeant Noolan asked.
‘Go away or we kill them.’
Another French musket ball hit the boathouse and it was that, more perhaps than the threat of the advancing bayonets, that took the last shred of courage from the civilians. They fled, and Sharpe breathed a sigh of relief. Slattery arrived, pushing the brigadier, as Sharpe hauled the door open. ‘Get the brigadier in the boat!’ he told Slattery, then ran to where Harris and three other riflemen were crouching by the bank. The two French boats, both salvaged pontoons being driven by crude paddles, were coming fast and he put the rifle to his shoulder, cocked it and fired. The smoke hid the nearest French boat. He started to reload, then decided there was no time. ‘To the boat!’ he called, and he ran back with the other riflemen and they threw themselves into the precious boat and Noolan had already cut the mooring lines and they shoved the boat out into the stream as they untangled the oars. A volley came from the French boats and one of Noolan’s men gave a grunt and fell sideways. Other musket balls thumped into the gunwales. The brigadier was in the bows. Men were scrambling into thwarts, but Harper already had two of the long oars in their rowlocks and, standing up, was hauling on the shafts. The current caught them and turned them downstream. Another shot came from the nearest French boat and Sharpe waded over the men amidships and snatched up Harper’s volley gun. He fired it at the French pontoon and the huge noise of the gun echoed back from the Portuguese hills as at last they began to outstrip their pursuers.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Sharpe said in pure relief for their narrow escape.
‘I think he’s dying, sir,’ Noolan said.
‘Who?’
‘Conor, poor boy.’ The man who had been shot was coughing up blood that frothed pink at his lips.
‘You left my sabre!’ Moon complained.
‘Sorry about that, sir.’
‘It was one of Bennett’s best!’
‘I said I’m sorry, sir.’
‘And there was dung in that wheelbarrow.’
Sharpe just looked into the brigadier’s eyes, and said nothing. The brigadier gave way first. ‘Did well to get away,’ he said grudgingly.
Sharpe turned to the men on the benches. ‘Geoghegan? Tie up the brigadier’s splint. Well