“Conil?” he asked again, tapping the map.
“Conil de la Frontera.” Sarasa confirmed the location by giving the town its full name. “Conil beside the sea,” he added in an angrier voice.
Beside the sea. Sir Thomas stared at the map. Conil was indeed on the shore. Ten miles north of it was a village called Barrosa, and from there a road led east to Chiclana, which was the base of the French siege lines, but Sir Thomas already knew that General Lapena had no intention of using that road, because, just a couple of miles north of Barrosa was the Rio Sancti Petri where, supposedly, the Spanish garrison was making a pontoon bridge. Cross that bridge and the army would be back on the Isla de Leon, and another two hours’ marching would have Lapena’s men back in Cadiz and safe from the French. “No,” Sir Thomas said angrily and his horse stirred nervously.
The road north from Vejer was the one to take. Break through the French cordon of vedettes and march hard. Victor would be defending Chiclana, of course, but by skirting east of the city the allied army could maneuver the French marshal out of his prepared position and force him to fight on ground of their own choosing. But instead the Spanish general was thinking of a stroll by the sea? He was thinking of retreating to Cadiz? Sir Thomas could hardly believe it, but he knew that an attack on Chiclana from Barrosa was untenable. It would be an advance over poor country tracks against an army in prepared positions and Lapena would never contemplate such a risk. Dona Manolito just wanted to go home, but to get home he would march his army along a coastal road and all the French needed to do was advance on that road to trap the allies against the sea. “No!” Sir Thomas said again, then turned his horse toward the distant encampment. He spurred away, then abruptly curbed the stallion and turned back to Sarasa. “You’re not to engage, those are your orders?”
“Yes, Sir Thomas.”
“But of course, if those bastards threaten you, then your duty is to kill them, isn’t it?”
“Is it, Sir Thomas?”
“Assuredly yes! And I am sure you will do your duty, Captain, but don’t pursue them! Don’t abandon the foragers! No further than the skyline, you hear me?” Sir Thomas spurred on and reckoned that if one Frenchman of the vedette even raised a hand, then Sarasa would attack. So at least some enemy would die, even if Dona Manolito apparently wanted the rest to live forever. “Bloody man,” Sir Thomas growled to himself, “bloody, bloody man,” and rode to save the campaign.
“I SAW your friend last night,” Captain Galiana said to Sharpe.
“My friend?”
“Dancing at Bachica’s.”
“Oh, Caterina?” Sharpe said. Caterina had returned to Cadiz, traveling there in a hired carriage and with a valise filled with money.
“You didn’t tell me she was a widow,” Galiana said reprovingly. “You called her senorita!”
Sharpe gaped at Galiana. “A widow!”
“She was dressed in black, with a veil,” Galiana said. “She didn’t actually dance, of course, but she watched the dancing.” He and Sharpe were on a patch of shingle at the edge of the bay. The north wind brought the stench of the prison hulks moored off the salt flats. Two guard boats rowed slowly down the hulks.
“She didn’t dance?” Sharpe asked.
“She’s a widow. How could she? It is too soon. She told me her husband has only been dead for three months.” Galiana paused, evidently remembering Caterina riding on the beach where her dress and demeanor had been anything but bereaved. He decided to say nothing of that. “She was most gracious to me,” he said instead. “I like her.”
“She’s very likable,” Sharpe said.
“Your brigadier was also there,” Galiana said.
“Moon? He’s not my brigadier,” Sharpe said, “and I don’t suppose he was dancing either.”
“He was on crutches,” Galiana said, “and he gave me orders.”
“You! He can’t give you orders!” Sharpe spun a stone into the water, hoping it would skip across the small waves, but it sank instantly. “I hope you told him to go to hell and stay there.”
“These orders,” Galiana said, taking a piece of paper from his uniform pocket and handing it to Sharpe to whom, surprisingly, the orders were addressed. The paper was a dance card and the words had been carelessly scrawled in pencil. Captain Sharpe and the men under his command were to post themselves at the Rio Sancti Petri until further orders or until the forces presently under the command of Lieutenant General Graham were safely returned to the Isla de Leon. Sharpe read the scrawled note a second time. “I’m not sure Brigadier Moon can give me orders,” he said.
“He did, though,” Captain Galiana said, “and I, of course, will come with you.”
Sharpe returned the dance card. He said nothing, just skimmed another stone that managed one bounce before vanishing. Grazing, it was called. A good artilleryman knew how to skip cannon balls along the ground to increase their effective range. The balls grazed, kicking up dust, coming flat and hard and bloody.
“It is a precaution,” Galiana said, folding the card.
“Against what?”
Galiana selected a stone, threw it fast and low, and watched as it skipped a dozen times. “General Zayas is at the bridge across the Sancti Petri,” he said, “with four battalions. He has orders to stop anyone from the city crossing the river.”
“You told me,” Sharpe said, “but why stop you?”
“Because there are folk in the city,” Galiana explained, “who are anfrancesado. You know what that is?”
“They’re on the French side.”
Galiana nodded. “And some, alas, are officers in the garrison. General Zayas has orders to stop such men offering their services to the enemy.”
“Let the buggers go,” Sharpe said. “Have fewer mouths to feed.”
“But he won’t stop British troops.”
“You told me that, too, and I said I’d help you. So why the hell do you need orders from bloody Moon?”
“In my army, Captain,” Galiana said, “a man cannot just take it upon himself to do whatever he wants. He requires orders. You now have orders. So, you can take me over the river and I shall find our army.”
“And you?” Sharpe asked. “Do you have orders?”
“Me?” Galiana seemed surprised at the question, then paused because one of the great French mortars had fired from the forts on the Trocadero. The sound came flat and dull across the bay and Sharpe waited to see where the shell would fall, but he heard no explosion. The missile must have plunged into the sea. “I have no orders,” Galiana admitted.
“Then why are you going?”
“Because the French have to be beaten,” Galiana said with a sudden vehemence. “Spain must free herself! We must fight! But I am like your brigadier, like the widow—I cannot join the dance. General Lapena hated my father and he detests me and he does not want me to distinguish myself, so I am left behind. But I will not be left behind. I will fight for Spain.” The grandiosity of his last words were touched by passion.
Sharpe watched the cloud of smoke left by the mortar’s firing drift and dissipate across the distant marshes. He tried to imagine himself saying he would fight for Britain in that same heartfelt tone, and could not. He fought because it was all he was good for, and because he was good at it, and because he had a duty to his men. Then he thought of those riflemen. They would be unhappy at being ordered away from the taverns of San Fernando, and so they should be. But they would follow orders. “I”—he began and immediately fell silent.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Sharpe said. He had been about to say that he could not order his riflemen into a battle that was none of their business. Sharpe would fight if he saw Vandal, but that was personal, but his riflemen had no ax to grind and their battalion was miles away, and it was all too complicated to explain to Galiana. Besides, it was unlikely that Sharpe would travel to the army with Galiana. He might take the Spaniard across the river, but unless the allied army was within sight Sharpe would have to bring his men back. The Spaniard could ride across country to find Lapena, but Sharpe and his men would not have the luxury of horses. “Did you tell Moon all that?” he asked.
