from the cheek rest on the left side of the butt where a French musket ball had snicked out a splinter. He needed his own rifle because he knew it was still unloaded, and now he primed it while Harper twisted the newspaper into a spill. The spill caught on the second try, and the newspaper flared up, then the flames turned a strange blue-green as Harper moved the burning paper close to the hole.
‘Oh, no!’ Sarah said, looking down.
The sound might be a trickle, but it came from a green-scummed liquid that glistened some seven or eight feet below. Rats, frightened by the sudden light, scuttled along the edge of the slime, scrabbling on the old bricks that were black and furred with growth. Sharpe, judging from the curve of the ancient sewer, reckoned the effluent was about a foot deep, then the flames scorched Harper’s fingers and he let the torch drop. It burned blue for a second, then they were in the dark again. Thank God most of the richer folk were gone from Coimbra, Sharpe thought, or else the old Roman sewer would be brimming over its edge with filth.
‘Are you really thinking of going down into that?’ Vicente asked in a disbelieving voice.
‘No choice, really,’ Sharpe said. ‘Stay here and die, or go down there.’ He took off his boots. ‘You might want to wear my boots, miss,’ he said to Sarah. ‘They should be tall enough to keep you out of the you-know-what, but you might want to take that frock off as well.’
There were a few seconds’ silence. ‘You want me to…’ Sarah began, then her voice faded away.
‘No, miss,’ Sharpe said patiently, ‘I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do, but if your dress gets in that muck then it’ll stink to high heaven by the time we’re through, and so far as I know you haven’t got anything else to wear. Nor have I, and that’s why I’m stripping.’
‘You can’t ask Miss Fry to undress,’ Vicente said, shocked.
‘I’m not asking her,’ Sharpe said, shuffling out of his French cavalry overalls. ‘It’s up to her. But if you’ve got any sense, Jorge, you’ll get undressed as well. Bundle everything inside your jacket or shirt and tie the sleeves round your neck. Bloody hell, man, no one can see! It’s dark as Hades down there. Here, miss, my boots.’ He pushed them over the floor.
‘You want me to go into a sewer, Mister Sharpe?’ Sarah asked in a small voice.
‘No, miss, I don’t,’ Sharpe said. ‘I want you to be in green fields and happy, with enough money to last you the rest of your life. But to get you there I have to go through a sewer. If you like, you can wait here and Pat and I will go through and come back for you, but I can’t promise that Ferragus won’t come back first. So all in all, miss, it’s your choice.’
‘Mister Sharpe?’ Sarah sounded indignant, but was evidently not. ‘You’re right. I apologize.’
For a moment there was only the rustle of clothes, then all four rolled whatever they had stripped off into bundles. Sharpe was wearing his drawers, nothing else, and he wrapped his other clothes inside his overalls, then strapped the bundle tight with the shoulder straps. He laid the clothes beside the hole with his sword belt, which held his ammunition pouch, scabbard and haversack. ‘I’ll go first,’ he said. ‘Miss? You follow me and keep your hand on my back so you know where I am. Jorge? You come next and Pat will be rearguard.’
Sharpe sat on the edge of the hole, then Harper gripped his wrists and lowered him through the hole. Pieces of rubble and masonry splashed into the filth, then Sharpe’s feet were in the liquid and Harper was grunting with the effort. ‘Just another two inches, Pat,’ Sharpe said, and then his wrists slid from Harper’s grip and he fell those last inches and almost lost his balance because the bottom of the sewer was so treacherously slick. ‘Jesus,’ he said, filled with disgust and almost choking because of the noxious air. ‘Someone, hand down my sword belt, then my clothes.’
He hung the buckled sword belt round his neck. His shako was tied to the cartridge box’s buckle and the empty scabbard hung down his spine, then he knotted the overalls’ legs over the belt. ‘Rifle?’ he said, and someone pushed it down and he hung the weapon on his shoulder, then took his sword in his right hand. He reckoned the blade would be useful as a probe. For a moment he wondered which way to go, either uphill towards the university or down to the river, then decided the best hope of escape was the river. The sewer had to spew its muck out somewhere and that was the place he wanted. ‘You next, miss,’ he said, ‘and be careful. It’s slippery as…’ He paused, checking his language. ‘Don’t be frightened,’ he went on as he heard her gasp as she negotiated the hole. ‘Sergeant Harper will lower you,’ Sharpe said, ‘but I’m going to hold on to you because I almost slipped when I got down here. Is that all right?’
‘I don’t mind,’ she said, almost breathless because the stench was so overpowering.
He put out his hands, found her bare waist and half supported her as she put her booted feet into the sewage. She lowered herself, but panic or horror still made her flail for balance and she gripped him hard and Sharpe put his arms round her narrow waist. ‘It’s all right,’ he said, ‘you’ll live.’
Vicente handed down Sarah’s bundle of clothes and, because she was shivering and frightened, Sharpe tied it round her neck while she clung to him. ‘You now, Jorge,’ Sharpe said.
Harper came last. Rats scrabbled past them, the sound of their claws fading up the unseen tunnel. Sharpe could just stand upright, but he stooped in hope of seeing even a glimmer of light further down the sewer, but there was nothing. ‘You’re going to hold on to me, miss,’ he said, deciding that the courtesy of calling her ‘miss’ was really not needed now that they were both virtually naked and standing up to their calves in shit, but he suspected she would object if he called her anything else. ‘Jorge,’ he went on, ‘you hold on to Miss Fry’s clothes. And we all go slowly.’
Sharpe probed every step with the sword, then inched ahead before prodding the blade again, but after a while he became more confident and their pace increased to a shuffle. Sarah had her hands on Sharpe’s waist, gripping him tight, and she felt almost lightheaded. Something strange had happened to her in the last few minutes, almost as if by undressing and lowering herself into a sewer she had let go of her previous life, of her precarious but determined grip on respectability, and had let herself drop into a world of adventure and irresponsibility. She was, suddenly and unexpectedly, happy.
Nameless things hanging from the sewer roof brushed against Sharpe’s face and he ducked from them, dreading to think what they were, and after a while he used his sword to clear the air in front of him. He tried to count the feet and yards, but gave up because their progress was so painfully slow. After a while the floor of the sewer rose, while the roof stayed at the same level and he had to crouch to keep going. More tendrils brushed against his hair. Other things dripped from the roof, then the bottom of the tunnel abruptly fell away and he was poking the sword into a stinking nothingness. ‘Hold still,’ he told his companions, then gingerly pushed the sword forward and found the bottom of the sewer again two feet away and at least a foot lower. There was some kind of sump here, or else the base of the tunnel had collapsed into a cavern. ‘Let go of me,’ he told Sarah. He prodded again, measured the distance and then, still bent into a crouch, took one long step and made the far side safely, but his foot slipped as he landed and he fell heavily against the sewer’s side. He used the efficacious word. ‘Sorry, miss,’ he said, his voice echoing in the tunnel. He had managed to keep his clothes out of the muck, but the slip had scared him and his ribs were hurting again so that it was painful to draw breath. He straightened slowly and discovered he could stand up straight because the roof had risen again. He turned to face Sarah. ‘In front of you,’ he told her, ‘there’s a hole in the floor. It’s only a good pace wide. Find the edge of it with one of your feet.’
‘I’ve found it.’
‘You’re going to take a long step,’ Sharpe told her, ‘two feet forward and one foot down, but take my hands first.’ He propped the sword against the wall, reached out and found her hands. ‘Are you ready?’
‘Yes.’