Sharpe's Escape

leavings and Sharpe did not have time to search for clothes and boots for the women. Nor could he stay on the road, for it would lead only to the French rearguard, and so, when the sun was at its height, they struck eastwards across country. Sarah and Joana, neither of whom had robust shoes, went barefoot.

They climbed into steep hills. The few villages were deserted, and by mid-afternoon they were among trees. They stopped to rest where a great outcrop of rock jutted into the valley like the prow of a monstrous ship, and from its summit Sharpe could see French troops far below. He took out his telescope, found it was undamaged after his adventures, and trained it down into the shadows of the valley where he saw fifty or more dragoons searching a small village for food.

Sarah joined him. 'May I?' she asked, reaching for the telescope. Sharpe gave it to her and she stared down. 'They're just pouring water onto the ground,' she said after a while.

'Looking for food, love.'

'How does that help?'

'Peasants can't carry their whole harvest off to safety,' Sharpe explained, 'so sometimes they bury it. Dig a hole, put the grain in, cover it with soil and put the turf back. You could walk right across and never see it, but pour water on the soil and it drains faster where it's been dug.'

'They're not finding anything,' she said.

'Good,' Sharpe said, and watched her, thinking what a fine face she had, and thinking, too, that she was a spirited creature. Like Teresa, he reflected, and wondered what the Spanish girl did, or whether she even lived.

'They're going,' Sarah reported, and collapsed the telescope, noticing the small brass plate attached to the biggest barrel. 'In gratitude,' she read aloud, 'AW. Who's AW?'

'Wellington.'

'Why was he grateful to you?'

'It was a fight in India,' Sharpe said, 'and I helped him.'

'Just that?'

'He'd come off his horse,' Sharpe said. 'He was in a bit of trouble, really. Still, he got out safe enough.'

Sarah handed him the glass. 'Sergeant Harper says you're the best soldier in the army.'

'Pat's full of Irish wind,' Sharpe said. 'Mind you, he's a terror himself. No one better in a fight.'

'And Captain Vicente says you taught him everything he knows.'

'Full of Portuguese wind.'

'Yet you think your captaincy is at risk?'

'The army doesn't care if you're good, love.'

'I don't believe you.'

'I wish I didn't believe me,' Sharpe said, then grinned. 'I'll get by, love.'

Sarah was about to speak, but whatever she wanted to say went unspoken because there was a crackle of gunfire from across the valley. Sharpe turned, saw nothing. The dragoons in the village were remounting their horses and were gazing southwards, but they could evidently see nothing either for they did not move in that direction. The musketry went on, a distant splintering sound, then slowly died away.

'There,' Sharpe said, and he pointed across the wide valley to where more French horsemen were spilling out of a high saddle in the hills. Sarah gazed and could see nothing until Sharpe gave her back the glass and told her where to look. 'They've been ambushed, probably,' he said.

'I thought no one was supposed to be here. Weren't they ordered to Lisbon?'

'Folk had a choice,' Sharpe explained, 'they could either go to Lisbon or climb into high ground. My guess is these hills are full of people. We just have to hope they're friendly.'

'Why wouldn't they be?'

'How would you feel about an army that says you must leave home? Which tears down your mills, destroys your harvest and breaks your ovens? They hate the French, but they've not much love for us either.'

They slept under the trees. Sharpe did not light a fire, for he had no idea who was in these hills or how they regarded soldiers. They woke early, cold and damp, and set off uphill in the gray first light. Vicente led, following a path that climbed steadily eastwards towards a range of rocky peaks, the highest of which was crowned with the stump of an ancient tower. 'An atalaia,' Vicente said.

'A what?'

'Atalaia. A watchtower. They are very old. They were built to keep a look out for the Moors.' Vicente crossed himself. 'Some were turned into windmills, others just decay. When we get to that one we will be able to see the route ahead.'

The sun, streaked with purple and pink clouds, was behind them. The day was warming, helped by a southern wind. Off to the south, far away, a ragged smear of smoke rose from a valley, evidence that the French were searching the countryside, but Sharpe was confident no horsemen would climb this high. There was nothing up here to steal except heather, gorse and rock.

Both girls were suffering. The path was stony and Sarah's bare feet were too tender for the hard going so Sharpe made her wear his boots, first wrapping her feet in strips of cloth that he tore from the ragged hem of what was left of her dress. 'You'll still get blisters,' he warned her, but for a time she made better progress. Joana, more used to hardship, kept going, though the soles of her feet were bleeding. And still they climbed, sometimes losing sight of the watchtower as the path twisted through gullies.

'Goat paths,' Vicente guessed. 'Nothing else could live up here.'

They dropped into a small high valley where a tiny stream trickled between mossy rocks and Sharpe filled their canteens, then distributed the last of the food he had taken from Ferragus's warehouse. Joana was massaging her feet and Sarah was trying not to show the pain of her newly forming blisters. Sharpe jerked his head to Harper. 'You and me,' he said, 'up that hill.'

Harper looked at the hill looming to their left. It lay north of them, off their path, and his face showed puzzlement as to why Sharpe should want to climb it.

'Give them a rest,' Sharpe said, and he took his boots back from Sarah who gratefully put her feet into the water. 'We can see a long way from that peak,' Sharpe said. Perhaps not as far as they would from the watchtower, but going up the hill was an excuse to give the girls some time to recover.

They climbed. 'How are your feet?' Harper asked.

'Cut to bloody pieces,' Sharpe said.

'I was thinking I should give my boots to Joana.'

'She'd probably think she was wearing a boat on each foot,' Sharpe said.

'She's managing, though. A tough one, that.'

'Needs to be if she's going to endure you, Pat.'

'Soft as lights with women, I am.'

They climbed straight up through the tangling heather, the slope every bit as steep as the one the French had assailed at Bussaco, and both stopped talking long before they reached the summit. They were saving their breath. Sweat was pouring down Sharpe's face as he neared the peak which was crowned with a scatter of rocks and he kept looking up, willing the rocks to get closer, and it was on his fourth or fifth glance that he saw the small movement, saw the foreshortened barrel moving and he threw himself sideways. 'Down, Pat!'

Sharpe was pushing the rifle forward when the musket fired. The puff of smoke blossomed among the rocks and the bullet ripped through the heather between him and Harper, and Sharpe immediately stood and, his tiredness forgotten, ran diagonally up the hill, daring anyone else on the summit to take a shot at him, but no shot sounded. Instead he could hear the clatter of a ramrod on a barrel and he knew whoever had fired was reloading and he swerved uphill, always watching the rocks for the sight of another barrel, and then he saw the man, a young man, just rising from behind a boulder, and Sharpe stopped and brought the rifle up. The young man saw him then, saw the soldier fifty paces from where he had expected him to be, and he began to move the musket and then understood that one more inch of movement would mean that the green-jacketed soldier would pull the trigger and he went very still. 'Put the gun down,' Sharpe said.

The young man did not understand him. He looked from Sharpe to Harper, who was now climbing towards his other side. 'Put the bloody gun down!' Sharpe snarled and walked forward, keeping the rifle at his shoulder. 'Down!'

'Arma!' Harper called. 'Por terra!'