strange Spanish fashion, under their armpits, and nothing about them, from their splendid uniforms to their thin cigars, gave the Rifleman any comfort about the army of Spain.
He felt his own hunger as he walked down the street. Josefina’s servant had found food, at a price, and at least tonight he would eat, and every mouthful was almost a day’s pay. The two rooms she had found were costing a fortnight’s pay every night but, he thought, the hell with it. If the worst came to pass and he was forced to choose between a West Indies commission and civilian life, then damn the money and enjoy it. Rent the rooms, pay through the nose for a scrawny chicken that would boil into grey scraps, and carry into the fever ward the remembrance of Josefina’s body and the extraordinary luxury of a wide, shared bed. So far there was only the memory of the one night at the inn, and then she had ridden ahead, grudgingly escorted by Hogan, while Sharpe spent two days marching through the dust and heat with the Battalion. He had seen her briefly at midday, been dazzled by a smile of welcome, and now there was a whole evening, a long night, and no march tomorrow.
“Sir!”
Sharpe turned. Sergeant Harper was running towards him; another man, one of the South Essex’s Light Company, with him. “Sir!”
“What is it?” Sharpe noticed that Harper was looking agitated and worried, an unusual sight, but he felt a twinge of impatience as he returned their salutes. Damn them! He wanted to be with Josefina. “Well?”
“It’s the deserters, sir.” Harper was almost wriggling in embarrassment.
“Deserters?”
“You know, sir. The ones who escaped at Castelo?”
The day they had met up with the South Essex. Sharpe remembered the men being flogged because four deserters had slipped past the guard at night. He looked hard at Harper. “How do you know?”
“Kirby’s a mate of theirs, sir.” He pointed to the man standing next to him. Sharpe looked at him. He was a small man who had lost most of his teeth. “Well, Kirby?”
“Dunno, sir.”
“You want to be flogged, Kirby?”
The man’s eyes jerked up to his, astonished. “What, sir?”
“If you don’t tell me I’ll have to presume you are helping them to escape.”
Harper and Kirby were silent. Finally the Sergeant looked at Sharpe. “Kirby saw one of them in the street, sir. He went back with him. Two of them are wounded, sir. Kirby came to see me.”
“And in turn you came to see me.” Sharpe kept his voice harsh. “And what do you expect me to do?”
Again they said nothing. Sharpe knew that they hoped he could work a miracle; that somehow lucky Captain Sharpe could find a way to save the four men from the savage punishment the army gave to deserters. He felt an unreasonable anger mount inside him, alloyed with impatience. What did they think he was? “Fetch six men, Sergeant. Three Riflemen and three others. Meet me here in five minutes. Kirby, stay here.”
Harper stood to attention. “But, sir… „
“Go!”
There was a translucent quality to the air, that quality of light just before dusk when the sun seems suspended in coloured liquid. A gnat buzzed irritatingly round Sharpe’s face, and he slapped at it. The church bells rang the Angelus, a woman hurrying down the street crossed herself, and Sharpe cursed inside because he had promised Josefina to join her just after six o’clock. Damn the deserters! Damn Harper for expecting a miracle! Did the Sergeant really think that Sharpe would condone desertion? Behind him, frightened and nervous, Kirby fidgeted in the roadway, and Sharpe thought gloomily of what this could mean to the Battalion. The whole army was frustrated but at least they could look forward with a mixture of fear and eagerness to the inevitable battle that gave their present discomforts some purpose. The South Essex did not share the anticipation. It had been disgraced at Valdelacasa, its colour shamefully lost, and the men of the Battalion had no stomach for another fight. The South Essex was sullen and bitter. Every man in it would wish the deserters well.
Harper reappeared with his men, all of them armed, all of them looking apprehensively at Sharpe. One of them asked nervously if the deserters would be shot.
“I don’t know,” Sharpe snapped. “Lead on, Kirby.”
They walked down the hill into the poorest section of the town, into a tangle of alleyways where half- dressed children played in the filth that was hurled from the night-buckets into the roadway. Washing hung between the high balconies, obscuring the light, and the closeness of the walls seemed to heighten the stench. It was a smell the men had first encountered in Lisbon, and they had become accustomed to it even though its source made walking through the streets after dark a risky and nauseating business. The men were silent and resentful, following Sharpe reluctantly to a duty they had no wish to perform.
“Here, sir.” Kirby pointed to a building that was little more than a hovel. It had partly collapsed, and the rest looked as if it could fall at any moment. Sharpe turned to the men. “You wait here. Sergeant, Peters, come with me.”
Peters was from the South Essex. Sharpe had noted him as a sensible man, older than most, and he needed someone from the deserters’ own Battalion so that no-one could think that the green-jacketed Riflemen had ganged up on the South Essex.
He pushed open the door. He had half expected someone to be waiting with a gun but instead he found himself looking at a room of unimaginable squalor. The four men were on the floor, two of them lying, the others sitting by the dead embers of a fire. Light filtered thickly through holes that had once been windows and through the broken roof and upper floors. The men were dressed in rags.
Sharpe crossed to the two sick men. He crouched and looked at their faces; they were white and shivering, the pulse beat almost gone. He turned to the others.
“Who are you?”
“Corporal Moss, sir.” The man had a fortnight’s growth of beard and his cheeks were sunken. They had obviously not been eating. “This is Private Ibbotson.” He pointed to his companion. “And those are Privates Campbell and Trapper, sir.” Moss was being punctilious and polite, as though it could save him from his fate. Dust lay heavy in the air; the room was filled with the stench of illness and ordure.
“Why are you in Oropesa?”
“Came to rejoin the Regiment, sir,” Moss said, but it was said too quickly. There was silence. Ibbotson sat by the dead fire and stared at the ground between his knees. He was the only one with a weapon, a bayonet held in his left hand, and Sharpe guessed that he did not approve of what was happening.
“Where are your weapons?”
“Lost ‘em, sir. And the uniforms.” Moss was eager to please.
“You mean you sold them.”
Moss shrugged. “Yes, sir.”
“And you drank away the money?”
“Yes, sir.”
There was a sudden noise in the next room, and Sharpe whirled to face the doorway. There was nothing there. Moss shook his head. “Rats, sir. Bloody armies of them.”
Sharpe looked back to the deserters. Ibbotson was now staring at him, the frightening stare of a crazed fanatic. For a moment Sharpe wondered if he was planning to use the bayonet.
“What are you doing here, Ibbotson? You don’t want to rejoin the Regiment.”
The man said nothing. Instead he lifted his right arm that had been hidden behind his body. There was no hand, just a stump wrapped in blood-soaked rags.
“Ibbs got in a fight, sir,” Moss said. “Lost ‘is ’and. He’s no use to anyone no more, sir. ”E’s right-handed, you see,“ he added lamely.
“You mean he’s no use to the French.”
There was silence. The dust hung thick in the air. “That’s right.” Ibbotson had spoken. He had an educated voice. Moss tried to quieten him but Ibbotson ignored the Corporal. “We would have been with the French a week ago but these fools decided to drink.”
Sharpe stared at him. It was strange to hear a cultured voice coming from the rags, stubble and blood- soaked bandages. The man was ill, he probably had gangrene, but it hardly mattered now. By admitting they were running towards the enemy Ibbotson had condemned all four. If they had been caught trying to get to a neutral country they might have been sent, as Sharpe might be, to the garrison in the West Indies, where the fever would
