Sharpe's Devil

this man.'

Cochrane responded in Spanish, loud enough for Marcos to hear. 'If the dog lies, we shall cut off his balls with a blunt razor. Are you telling lies, Marcos?'

'No, senor! I promise!'

'It still doesn't make sense,' Sharpe said softly.

'Why not?' Cochrane stood beside him.

'Why would Vivar ride into the valley without an escort?'

'Because he didn't want anyone to see who he was going to meet?' Cochrane suggested.

'Meaning?'

Cochrane drew Sharpe away from the others, escorting him down the ramparts. His Lordship drew on a cigar, its smoke whirling away in the southern wind. 'I think he was meeting Bautista. This man's story,' Cochrane jerked his cigar toward Marcos, 'confirms other things I've been hearing. Your friend Vivar had learned something about Bautista, something that would break Bautista's career. He was going to offer Bautista a choice: either a public humiliation or a private escape. I believe he went into the valley to meet Bautista, not knowing that Bautista would take neither choice, but had planned a coup d'etat. That's what we're talking about, Sharpe! A coup d'etat! And it worked brilliantly!'

'Then why didn't Bautista kill Vivar?'

Cochrane shrugged. 'How do I know? Perhaps he was frightened? If everything went wrong, and Vivar's supporters rallied and opposed Bautista, he could still release Vivar and plead it was all a misunderstanding. That way, whatever other punishment he faced, Bautista would not have the iron collar around his neck, eh?' Cochrane grimaced in grotesque imitation of a man being garotted.

'But Don Bias must be dead by now!' Sharpe insisted. He had spoken in Spanish and loud enough for Marcos to hear.

'Senor?' Marcos's frightened face was lit from beneath by the lurid glow of the brazier's coals. 'I think he was alive six weeks ago. That was when I left Valdivia, and I think General Vivar was alive then.'

'How can you tell?' Sharpe asked scornfully.

The infantryman paused, then spoke low so that his voice scarcely carried along the battlements. 'I can tell, serior, because the new Captain-General likes to visit the Angel Tower. He goes alone, after dark. He has a key. The tower has only one door, you understand, and they say there is only one key, and General Bautista has that key. I have seen him go there. Sometimes he takes an aide with him, a Captain Marquinez, but usually he goes alone.'

'Oh, sweet Jesus.' Sharpe rested his hands on the parapet and raised his face to the sea wind. The detail of Marquinez had convinced him. Dear God, he thought, but let this man be lying, for it would be better for Don Bias if he were dead.

'What are you thinking?' Cochrane asked softly.

'I'm frightened this man Marcos is telling the truth.'

Cochrane listened for a few seconds to the sound of the sea, then he spoke gently. 'He is telling the truth. We're dealing with hatred. With madness. With cruelty on a monumental scale. Vivar and Bautista were enemies, that much we know. Vivar would have treated his enemy with honor, but Bautista does not deal with honor. I hear Bautista likes to see men suffer, so think how much he would like to watch his greatest enemy suffer! I think he goes to the Angel Tower at night to watch Vivar's misery, to remind Vivar of his defeat, and to see Vivar's humiliation.'

'Oh, Christ,' Sharpe said wearily.

'We know now why Vivar's body was never found,' Cochrane said, 'because plainly there is no body, and never was. Bautista had to pretend to make a search, for he dared not let anyone suspect Vivar was alive, but he must have been laughing every time he sent out another search party. And there's something else,' Cochrane added with relish.

'Which is?'

'The Angel Tower is in Valdivia!' Cochrane chuckled, 'So perhaps you had better come with me after all?'

'Oh, shit.' Sharpe said, for he was tired of war, and he wanted to go home. He felt a sudden overwhelming need to be in Normandy, to smell woollen clothes drying before the fire, to listen to the day's small change of news and gossip, to doze before the kitchen fire while the cauldron bubbled. He had lost his taste for battle, and could find no relish for the kind of suicidal horror that Cochrane risked at Valdivia.

But Valdivia it would have to be, for Sharpe's word was given, and so a last battle must be fought. To pluck a friend from madness.

PART THREE VIVAR

The embers were gathering. Reinforcements arrived from the northern provinces. They were not many, and none was officially despatched by the republic's government in Santiago, yet still they came. A few owed Lord Cochrane for past favors, but most were adventurers who smelled plunder in Chile. They arrived at Puerto Crucero in small groups; the largest were brought back on Cochrane's pinnace, but others came by land, all daring the forests and the savages as they skirted the Spanish-held territory to gather at Puerto Crucero. After two weeks the newcomers had added just over two hundred volunteers to Cochrane's meager forces, but Cochrane was convinced that his war would be won by just such small increments. At least half of the newcomers had fought in the European wars, and more than a few recognized Sharpe and hoped he would remember them. 'I was in the breach at Badajoz with you,' a Welshman told Sharpe. 'Bloody terrible, that was. But I'm glad you're here, sir, it means we're going to win again, does it not?'

Sharpe did not have the heart to tell the Welshman that he believed the attack on Valdivia to be suicidal. Instead he asked what had brought the man to this backside of the world. 'Money, sir, money! What else?' The Welshman was confident that the royalists, having been defeated in Peru, Chile, and in the wide grasslands beyond the Andes, must have carried the spoils of all that empire back to Valdivia. 'It's their last great stronghold in South America!' the Welshman said, 'so if we capture it, sir, we'll all be rich. I shall buy a house and a farm in the border country, and I'll find a fat wife, and I shall never want for a thing again. All it takes is money, sir, and all we need for money is this battle. Life is not for the weak or timid, sir, but for the brave!'

The Spaniards were making no effort to recapture Puerto Crucero. Instead they had pulled all their forces back into the Valdivia region, abandoning a score of towns and outlying forts. Cochrane's volunteers arrived at Puerto Crucero with tales of burning stockades, deserted customs posts and empty guardhouses. 'Maybe,' Sharpe suggested, 'they're planning a complete withdrawal?'

'Back to Spain, you mean?' Cochrane scorned the suggestion. 'They're waiting for reinforcements. Madrid won't abandon Chile. They believe God gave them this empire as a reward for slaughtering all those Muslims in the fifteenth century, and what God gives, kings keep. No, they're not withdrawing, Sharpe, they're just planning more wickedness. They know we're going to attack them, so they're drawing in their horns and getting their guns ready.' He rubbed his hands with glee. 'All those guns and men in one place, just waiting to be captured!'

'That's just what Bautista wants,' Sharpe warned Cochrane. 'He believes his guns will pound you into mincemeat.'

Cochrane spat. 'The man's useless. His guns couldn't kill a spavined chicken. Besides, we'll be taking him by surprise.'

The surprise depended entirely on the Spaniards being deceived by the two disguised warships. The O'Higgins, brought into the inner harbor, was being disguised with tar so that her gunports were indistinguishable from any distance. She looked, by the time Cochrane's men had done with her, as drab and ugly a ship as had ever sailed the ocean. The fine gilrwork at her bow and stern had been ruthlessly stripped away so that she resembled some unloved transport ship. The Kitty, the erstwhile Espiritu Santo, was being similarly disfigured. She was also being made