is out and that you're retreating here. So keep a good watch and don't let me down!'
'I won't, sir. I won't.' If Slingsby had been more than a little drunk when he arrived at the bastion he was now stone-cold sober. He had not meant to be drunk. He had woken feeling cold and damp and he had thought a little rum might revive him. He never meant to drink too much, but the rum gave him confidence and he needed it for he was finding the light company very hard to manage. They did not like him, he knew that, and the rum gave him the drive to cope with their obdurate behavior. 'We won't let you down, sir,' he said, meaning every word.
'That's good,' Lawford said warmly, 'very good.' In truth he did not need the picquet in the old barn, but if he was to keep the promise he had given to his wife then he had to make a decent officer out of Slingsby, so now he would give him a simple job, one that would keep him alert instead of idling behind the lines. This was Slingsby's chance to show he could manage men, and Lawford was generous in giving it to him. 'And I insist on one last thing,' Lawford said.
'Anything, sir,' Slingsby said eagerly.
'No rum, Cornelius. Don't take your medicine to the picquet, understand? And if you feel you're getting the fever, come back and we'll let the doctor have at you. Wear flannel, eh? That's supposed to ward it off.'
'Flannel,' Slingsby said, nodding.
'And what you do now,' the Colonel went on patiently, 'is take a dozen men and reconnoiter the farm. There's a path down the hill behind Work Number 118,' he pointed, 'and meanwhile the rest of your company can get ready. Clean muskets, sharp bayonets, fresh flints and full cartridge boxes. Tell Mister Knowles you're drawing rations for three days and be ready to deploy this afternoon,'
'Very good, sir,' Slingsby said, 'and thank you, sir.' Lawford watched Slingsby go down the steps, then he sighed and took out his telescope which he mounted on a tripod already placed on the bastion. He stooped to the eyepiece and gazed at the northern landscape. The hills across the valley were crowned with three broken windmills, nothing left of them but their white stone stumps. Those, he supposed, would become French watchtowers. He swung the glass to the right, coming at last to a glimpse of the Tagus which swept wide towards the sea. A Royal Navy gunboat was anchored in the river, its ensign hanging limp in the rain. 'If they come,' a voice spoke behind Lawford, 'then they can't use the road because it's flooded, so they'll be forced to make a detour and come straight up here.'
Lawford straightened from the glass and saw it was Major Hogan who was swathed in an oilskin cape and had a black oilskin cover over his cocked hat. 'You're well?' Lawford greeted the Irishman.
'I can feel a cold coming on,' Hogan said, 'a damned cold. First of the winter, eh?'
'Not winter yet, Hogan.'
'Feels like it. May I?' Hogan gestured at the telescope. 'Be my guest,' Lawford said, and courteously wiped the rain from the outer lens. 'How's the Peer?'
'His lordship thrives,' Hogan said, stooping to the glass, 'and sends his regards. He's angry, of course.'
'Angry?'
'All those damned croakers, Lawford, who say the war's lost. Men who write home and get their block- headed opinions in the newspapers. He'd like to shoot the whole damned lot of them.' Hogan was silent for a few seconds as he gazed at the British gunboat in the river, then he turned a mischievous look on Lawford. 'You're not writing home with a bad opinion of his lordship's strategy, are you, Lawford?'
'Good Lord, no!' Lawford said, honestly.
Hogan bent to the glass again. 'The flooding isn't all we hoped for,' he said, 'or what Colonel Fletcher hoped for. But it should suffice. They can't use the road, anyway, so what the bastards will do, Lawford, is march inland. Follow the base of those hills,' Hogan was tracking the possible French route with the telescope, 'and somewhere near that abandoned barn they'll cross over and come straight at you.'
'Exactly what I'd surmised,' Lawford said, 'and then they'll advance into that valley.' He nodded to the low ground that curled about the hill.
'Where they'll die,' Hogan said with an indecent satisfaction. He stood up straight and winced at a twinge in his back. 'In truth, Lawford, I don't expect them to try. But they might get desperate. Any news of Sharpe?'
Lawford hesitated, surprised by the question, then realized that it was probably the reason Hogan had sought him out. 'None.'
'Bloody lost, is he?'
'I fear it's time to write him out of the books,' Lawford said, meaning that he could officially declare Sharpe missing and so create a vacant captainship.
'A bit premature, don't you think?' Hogan suggested vaguely. 'Your affair, of course, Lawford, your affair entirely, and no damned business of mine whether you write him out or not.' He stooped to the glass again and stared at one of the broken mills that crowned a hilltop across the wide valley. 'What was he doing when he went missing?'
'Looking for turpentine, I think. That and escorting an English woman.'
'Ah!' Hogan said, still vaguely, then straightened from the glass again. 'A woman, eh? That sounds like Mister Sharpe, doesn't it? Good for him. That was in Coimbra, yes?'
'In Coimbra, yes,' Lawford confirmed, then added indignantly, 'He never turned up!'
'Another fellow disappeared there,' Hogan said, standing at the bastion's edge and staring through the rain at the northern hills. 'A major, quite important. He does for the Portuguese what I do for the Peer. Be a bad thing if he fell into French hands.'
Lawford was no fool and knew that Hogan did not just make vague conversation. 'You think they're connected?'
'I know they're connected,' Hogan said. 'Sharpe and this fellow had what you might call a disagreement.'
'Sharpe never told me!' Lawford was piqued.
'Flour? On a hilltop?'
'Ah. He did tell me. No details, though.'
'Richard never wastes details on senior officers,' Hogan said, then paused to take a pinch of snuff. He sneezed. 'He doesn't tell us,' he went on, 'in case we get confused. But he coped, in a way, and got himself thoroughly beaten up as a result.'
'Beaten up?'
'The night before the battle.'
'He said he'd tripped.'
'Well, he would, wouldn't he?' Hogan was not surprised. 'So, yes, the two were connected, but whether they still are is very dubious. Very dubious, but not impossible. I have great faith in Sharpe.'
'As do I,' Lawford said.
'Indeed you do,' Hogan said, who knew more about the South Essex than Lawford would ever have guessed. 'So if Sharpe does turn up, Lawford, send him on to the Peer's headquarters, would you? Tell him we need his information about Major Ferreira.' Hogan very much doubted that Wellington would want to waste a second on Sharpe, but Hogan did, and it did no harm for Lawford to think that the General shared that wish.
'Of course I will,' Lawford promised.
'We're at Pero Negro,' Hogan said, 'a couple of hours' ride westwards. And of course we'll send him back as soon as we can. I'm sure you're eager for Sharpe to resume his proper duties.' There was a faint stress on the word «proper» that did not escape Lawford who sensed the mildest of reproofs, and the Colonel was wondering whether he should explain just what had happened between Sharpe and Slingsby when Hogan suddenly gave an exclamation and put his eye to the glass. 'Our friends are here,' he said.
For a moment Lawford thought Hogan meant that Sharpe had turned up, but then he saw horses on the far hill and he knew it was the French. The first patrols had come to the lines, and that meant Massena's army could not be far behind.
The Lines of Torres Vedras, built without the knowledge of the British government, had cost two hundred thousand pounds. They were the greatest, most expensive defensive works ever made in Europe.
And now they would be tested.
They were dragoons, the inevitable, green-coated dragoons who rode along the river beneath the looming
