Paget and Henry got a divorce, which meant he had to have an act of Parliament passed and that, believe me, was a deal of trouble, so then Henry comes here and meets this damnably attractive girl. He thought she was respectable and she absolutely wasn’t, and he wrote her some letters. Poor Henry. And she’s a pretty thing, terrifically pretty! Much prettier than Charlotte the Harlot, but the whole thing is completely embarrassing and we all pretend none of it has ever happened. So say nothing, Sharpe, absolutely nothing. Soul of discretion, Sharpe, that’s the thing to be. Soul of discretion.” He fell silent because they had come to the massive gates and huge bastions that guarded the city’s southern entrance. There were sentries, muskets, bayonets, and long-muzzled cannons in embrasures. Lord William had to produce a pass. Only then did the vast gates crash open and Sharpe could thread the walls and arches and tunnels of the ramparts until he found himself in the narrow streets of the sea-bound city. He had come to Cadiz.
SHARPE, TO his surprise, liked Henry Wellesley. He was a slender man in his late thirties and handsome like his elder brother, though his nose was less hooked and his chin was broader. He had none of Lord Wellington’s cold arrogance. Instead he seemed diffident and even gentle. He stood as Sharpe came into the embassy’s dining room and appeared to be genuinely pleased to see the rifleman. “My dear fellow,” he said, “have a seat here. You know the brigadier, of course?”
“I do, sir.”
Moon gave Sharpe a very cold look and not so much as a nod.
“And allow me to name Sir Thomas Graham,” Henry Wellesley said. “Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Graham who commands our garrison on the Isla de Leon.”
“Honored to make your acquaintance, Sharpe,” Sir Thomas said. He was a tall, well-built Scotsman with white hair, a sun-beaten face, and very shrewd eyes.
“And I believe you already know William Pumphrey,” Wellesley said as he introduced the last man at the table.
“Good lord,” Sharpe said involuntarily. He did know Lord Pumphrey, but was still astonished to see him. Lord Pumphrey, meanwhile, blew Sharpe a kiss off the tips of his fingers.
“Don’t embarrass our guest, Pumps,” Henry Wellesley said, though too late because Sharpe was already embarrassed. Lord Pumphrey had that effect on him, and on a good number of other men too. He was Foreign Office, that much Sharpe knew, and Sharpe had met his lordship in Copenhagen and then in northern Portugal, and Pumphrey was still as outrageous as ever. This night he was dressed in a lilac-colored coat embroidered with silver thread, and on his thin cheek was a black velvet beauty patch. “William is our principal secretary here,” Henry Wellesley explained.
“Actually, Richard, I was posted here to astonish the natives,” Lord Pumphrey said languidly.
“At which you’re bloody successful,” Sir Thomas said.
“You are too kind, Sir Thomas,” Lord Pumphrey said, giving the Scotsman an inclination of his head, “altogether too kind.”
Henry Wellesley sat and pushed a dish toward Sharpe. “Do try the crab claws,” he urged. “They’re a local delicacy, collected from the marshes. You crack them and suck the flesh out.”
“I’m sorry I’m late, sir,” Sharpe said. It was plain from the wreckage on the table that the dinner was over, and equally obvious that Henry Wellesley had eaten nothing. He saw Sharpe glance at his clean plate.
“I have a formal dinner to attend, Sharpe,” the ambassador explained, “and Spanish dinners start extraordinarily late, and I really can’t eat two dinners every night. Still, that crab does tempt me.” He took a claw and used a nutcracker to open the shell. Sharpe realized that the ambassador had only split the claw to show him how it was done, and he gratefully picked up a pair of nutcrackers himself. “So how is your head, Sharpe?” Henry Wellesley asked.
“Mending, sir, thank you.”
“Nasty things, head wounds,” the ambassador said. “I had an assistant in India who cracked his head open and I thought the poor fellow was dead. But he was up and about, quite cured, in a week.”
“You were in India, sir?” Sharpe asked.
“Twice,” Henry Wellesley said. “On the civil side, of course. I liked the place.”
“I did too, sir,” Sharpe said. He was ravenous and cracked open another claw, which he dipped into a bowl of melted butter. Lord William Russell, thankfully, was just as hungry and the two of them shared the dish as the other men took cigars.
It was February, but warm enough for the windows to be open. Brigadier Moon said nothing, content to glower at Sharpe while Sir Thomas Graham complained bitterly about his Spanish allies. “The extra ships haven’t come from the Balearics,” he grumbled, “and I’ve not seen any of the maps they promised.”
“I’m sure both will come,” Henry Wellesley said.
“And the ships we’ve already got are threatened by fire rafts. The French are building five of the things.”
“I’m certain you and Admiral Keats will be delighted to deal with the fire rafts,” Henry Wellesley said firmly, then changed the topic by looking at Sharpe. “Brigadier Moon tells me you got rid of the bridge over the Guadiana?”
“We did, sir.”
“That’s a relief. All in all, Sir Barnaby”—Wellesley looked at the brigadier—“a most successful operation.”
Moon shifted in his chair, then winced as pain stabbed at his leg. “It could have gone better, Your Excellency.”
“How so?”
“You’d need to be a soldier to understand,” Moon said abruptly. Sir Thomas frowned in disapproval of the brigadier’s rudeness, but Moon would not yield an inch. “At best,” he went on, “it was only a flawed success. A very flawed success.”
“I served in the 40th Foot,” Henry Wellesley said. “It was not, perhaps, my finest hour, but I am not ignorant of soldiering. So tell me why it was flawed, Sir Barnaby?”
“Things could have gone better,” Moon said as though that closed the matter.
The ambassador took a cut cigar from a servant, then bent to light it from the proffered taper. “And there I was,” he said, “inviting you to tell us of your triumph. You’re as reticent as my brother, Sir Barnaby.”
“I’m flattered to be compared with Lord Wellington, Your Excellency,” Moon said stiffly.
“Mind you, Arthur did once tell me of an exploit of his,” Henry Wellesley said, “and it’s not one from which he emerges with very much credit.” The ambassador blew a plume of smoke toward the crystal chandelier. Sir Thomas and Lord Pumphrey were sitting very still, as if they knew something was brewing in the room, while Sharpe, sensing the strained atmosphere, left the crab claws alone. “He was unhorsed at Assaye,” the ambassador went on. “I think that’s the name of the place. Whatever, he was pitched into the enemy ranks, and everyone else had galloped on and Arthur told me he knew he was going to die. He was surrounded by the enemy, all of them fierce as thieves, and then from nowhere a British sergeant appears. From nowhere, he says!” Henry Wellesley waved the cigar as though he were a magician who had suddenly made it appear. “And what followed, Arthur says, was the finest piece of soldiering he ever witnessed. He reckons that sergeant put down five men. At least five men, he told me. The fellow slaughtered them! All on his own.”
“Five men!” Lord Pumphrey said in unfeigned admiration.
“At least five,” the ambassador said.
“Recollection of battle,” Moon said, “can be very confusing.”
“Oh! You think Arthur embellished the tale?” Henry Wellesley asked with exaggerated politeness.
“One man against five?” Moon suggested. “I’d be very surprised, Your Excellency.”
“Then let us ask the sergeant who fought against them,” Henry Wellesley said, springing his trap. “How many men do you remember, Sharpe?”
Moon looked as if he had been stung by a wasp while Sharpe, embarrassed again, just shrugged.
“Well, Sharpe?” Sir Thomas Graham prompted him.
“There were a few, sir,” Sharpe said uncomfortably. “But of course the general was fighting beside me, sir.”
“Arthur told me he was dazed,” Henry Wellesley said. “He told me he was quite incapable of defending
