fruit, where the larders had been emptied, the storehouses despoiled, the wells poisoned, the livestock driven away, the mills disassembled and the ovens broken. The Emperor himself could not do it! All the forces of heaven could not do it, yet Poquelin was expected to work the miracle, and his moustache tips were ragged with nerves. He had been ordered to carry three weeks of supplies with the army, and those supplies had existed in the depots of Spain, but there were not nearly enough draught animals to carry such an amount, and even though Masséna had reluctantly cut each division’s artillery from twelve guns to eight, and released those horses to haul wagons instead of cannon, Poquelin had still only managed to supply the army for a week. Then the hunger had set in. Dragoons and hussars had been sent miles away from the army’s line of march to search for food, and each such foray had worn out more horses, and the cavalry moaned at him because there were no replacement horseshoes, and some cavalrymen died each time because the Portuguese peasantry ambushed them in the hills. It did not seem to matter how many such peasants were hanged or shot, because more came to harass the foraging parties, which meant more horsemen had to be sent to protect the foragers, and more horseshoes were needed, and there were no more horseshoes and Poquelin got the blame. And the foragers rarely did find food, and if they did they usually ate most of it themselves, and Poquelin got the blame for that too. He had begun to wish he had followed his mother’s tearful advice and become a priest, anything would be better than serving in an army that was sucking on a dry teat and accusing him of inefficiency.
Yet now the miracle had happened. At a stroke, Poquelin’s troubles were over.
There was food. Such food! Ferragus, a surly Portuguese merchant who made Poquelin shiver with fear, had provided a warehouse that was as crammed with supplies as any depot in France. There was barley, wheat, rice, biscuits, rum, cheese, maize, dried fish, lemons, beans, salt meat, enough to feed the army for a month! There were other valuables too. There were barrels of lamp oil, coils of twine, boxes of horseshoes, bags of nails, casks of gunpowder, a sack of horn buttons, stacks of candles and bolts of cloth, none of them as essential as food, but all profitable because, though Poquelin would issue the food, the other things he could sell for his own enrichment.
He explored the warehouse, followed by a trio of fourriers, quartermaster-corporals, who noted the list of supplies that Ferragus was selling. It was impossible to list all of it, for the food was in stacks that would take a score of men hours to dismantle, but Poquelin, a thorough man, did order the fourriers to remove grain sacks from the top of one pile to make certain that the centre of the heap was not composed of bags of sand. He did the same with some barrels of salt beef and both times was assured that all was well, and as the estimates of the food rose, so Poquelin’s spirits soared. There were even two wagons inside the warehouse and, for an army short of all wheeled transport, those two vehicles were almost as valuable as food.
Then he began to worry at the frayed ends of his moustaches. He had food, and thus the army’s problems seemed solved, but, as ever, there was a cockroach in the soup. How could these new supplies be moved? It would be no use issuing several days’ rations to the troops, for they would gorge themselves on the whole lot in the first hour, then complain of hunger by nightfall, and Poquelin had far too few horses and mules to carry this vast amount. Still, he had to try. ‘Have the city searched for carts,’ he ordered one of the fourriers, ‘any cart. Handcarts, wheelbarrows, anything! We need men to haul the carts. Round up civilians to push the carts.’
‘I’m to do all that?’ the fourrier asked in amazement, his voice muffled because he was eating a piece of cheese.
‘I shall talk to the Marshal,’ Poquelin said grandly, then scowled. ‘Are you eating?’
‘Got a sore tooth, sir,’ the man mumbled. ‘All swollen up, sir. Doctor says he wants to pull it. Permission to go and have tooth pulled, sir.’
‘Refused,’ Poquelin said. He was tempted to draw his sword and beat the man for insolence, but he had never drawn the weapon and was afraid that if he tried then he would discover that the blade had rusted to the scabbard’s throat. He contented himself with striking the man with his hand. ‘We must set an example,’ he snapped. ‘If the army is hungry, we are hungry. We don’t eat the army’s food. You are a fool. What are you?’
‘A fool, sir,’ the fourrier dutifully replied, but at least he was no longer quite such a hungry fool.
‘Take a dozen men and search for carts. Anything with wheels,’ Poquelin ordered, confident that Marshal Masséna would approve of his idea to use Portuguese civilians as draught animals. The army was expected to march south in a day or two, and the rumour was that the British and Portuguese would make a last stand in the hills north of Lisbon, so Poquelin only needed to make a new depot some forty or fifty miles to the south. He had some transport, of course, enough to carry perhaps a quarter of the food, and those existing mules and wagons could come back for more, which meant the warehouse needed to be protected while its precious contents were laboriously moved closer to Lisbon. Poquelin hurried back to the warehouse door and looked for the dragoon Colonel who was guarding the street. ‘Dumesnil!’
Colonel Dumesnil, like all French soldiers, despised the commissary. He turned his horse with insolent slowness, rode to Poquelin so that he towered above him, then let his drawn sword drop so that it vaguely threatened the small man. ‘You want me?’
‘You have checked that there are no other doors to the warehouse?’
‘Of course I haven’t,’ Dumesnil said sarcastically.
‘No one must get in, you understand? No one! The army is saved, Colonel, saved!’
‘Alléluia,’ Dumesnil said drily.
‘I shall inform Marshal Masséna that you are responsible for the safety of these supplies,’ Poquelin said pompously.
Dumesnil leaned from the saddle. ‘Marshal Masséna himself gave me my orders, little man,’ he said, ‘and I obey my orders. I don’t need more from you.’
‘You need more men,’ Poquelin said, worried because the two squads of dragoons, barring the street either side of the warehouse doors, were already holding back crowds of hungry soldiers. ‘Why are those men here?’ he demanded petulantly.
‘Because rumour says there’s food in there,’ Dumesnil flicked his sword towards the warehouse, ‘and because they’re hungry. But for Christ’s sake stop fretting! I have enough men. You do your job, Poquelin, and stop telling me how to do mine.’
Poquelin, content that he had done his duty by stressing to Dumesnil how important the food was, went to find Colonel Barreto who was waiting with Major Ferreira and the alarming Ferragus beside the warehouse doors. ‘It is all good,’ Poquelin told Barreto. ‘There is even more than you told us!’
Barreto translated for Ferragus who, in turn, asked a question. ‘The gentleman,’ Barreto said to Poquelin, his sarcasm obvious, ‘wishes to know when he will be paid.’
‘Now,’ Poquelin said, though it was not in his power to issue payment. Yet he wanted to convey the good news to Masséna, and the Marshal would surely pay when he heard that the army had more than enough food to see it to Lisbon. That was all that was needed. Just to reach Lisbon, for even the British could not empty that great city of all its supplies. A treasure trove waited in Lisbon and now the Emperor’s Army of Portugal had been given the means to reach it.
The dragoons moved aside to let Poquelin and his companions through. Then the horsemen closed up again. Scores of hungry infantrymen had heard about the food and they were shouting that it should be distributed now, but Colonel Dumesnil was quite ready to kill them if they attempted to help themselves. He sat, hard-faced, unmoving, his long sword drawn, a soldier with orders, which meant the food was in secure hands and the Army of Portugal was safe.
Sharpe and Harper made the return run to the roof where Vicente and Sarah waited. Vicente was bent over in apparent pain, while Sarah, her black silk dress gleaming with spots of fresh blood, looked pale. ‘What happened?’ Sharpe asked.
In reply she showed Sharpe the bloodstained knife