with his feet almost touching the ground. He suggested using the mule to carry their weapons, but of all the party he was the oldest and the least spry, and so Sharpe insisted he ride. „I’ve no idea what we’ll find,” Hogan told Sharpe as they climbed into the rock-strewn hills. „If the bridge at Ponte Nova has been blown, as it should have been by now, then the French will scatter. They’ll just be running for their lives and we’ll be hard put to find Mister Christopher in all that chaos. Still, we must try.”
„And if it hasn’t been blown?”
„We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Hogan said, and laughed. „Ah, Jesus, I do hate this rain. Have you ever tried taking snuff in the rain, Richard? It’s like sniffing up cat vomit.”
They walked eastward through a wide valley edged by high, pale hills that were crowned with gray boulders. The road lay to the south of the River Cavado which ran clear and deep through rich pastureland that had been plundered by the French so that no cattle or sheep grazed the spring grass. The villages had once been prosperous, but were now almost deserted and the few folk who remained were wary. Hogan, like Vicente and his men, wore blue and that was also the color of the enemy’s coats, while the riflemen’s green jackets could be mistaken for the uniforms of dismounted French dragoons. Most people, if they expected anything, thought the British wore red and so Sergeant Macedo, anticipating the confusion, had found a Portuguese flag in Braga that he carried on a pole hacked from an ash tree. The flag showed a wreathed crest of Portugal surmounted by a great golden crown and it reassured those folk who recognized the emblem. Not all did, but once the villagers had spoken with Vicente they could not do enough for the soldiers. „For God’s sake,” Sharpe told Vicente, „tell them to hide their wine.”
„They’re friendly, sure enough,” Harper said as they left another small settlement where the dungheaps were bigger than the cottages. „Not like the Spanish. They could be cold. Not all of them, but some were bastards.”
„The Spanish don’t like the English,” Hogan told him.
„They don’t like the English?” Harper asked, surprised. „So they’re not bastards after all then, just wary, eh? But are you saying, sir, that the Portuguese do like the English?”
„The Portuguese,” Hogan said, „hate the Spanish and when you have a bigger neighbor whom you detest then you look for a big friend to help you.”
„So who’s Ireland’s big friend, sir?”
„God, Sergeant,” Hogan said, „God.”
„Dear Lord above,” Harper said piously, staring into the rainy sky, „for Christ’s sake, wake up.”
„Why don’t you fight for the bloody French,” Harris snarled.
„Enough!” Sharpe snapped.
They marched in silence for a while, then Vicente could not contain his curiosity. „If the Irish hate the English,” he asked, „why do they fight for them?” Harper chuckled at the question, Hogan raised his eyes to the gray heavens and Sharpe just scowled.
The road, now that they were far from Braga, was less well maintained. Grass grew down its center between ruts made by ox carts. The French had not scavenged this far and there were a few flocks of bedraggled sheep and some small herds of cattle, but as soon as a herdsman or shepherd saw the soldiers he hustled his beasts away. Vicente was still puzzled and, having failed to elicit an answer from his companions, tried again. „I really do not understand,” he said in a very earnest voice, „why the Irish would fight for the English King.” Harris drew a breath as if to reply, but one savage look from Sharpe made him change his mind. Harper began to whistle „Over the Hills and Far Away,” then could not help laughing at the strained silence that was at last broken by Hogan.
„It’s hunger,” the engineer explained to Vicente, „hunger and poverty and desperation, and because there’s precious little work for a good man at home, and because we’ve always been a people that enjoy a good fight.”
Vicente was intrigued by the answer. „And that is true for you, Captain?” he asked.
„Not for me,” Hogan allowed. „My family’s always had some money. Not much, but we never had to scratch in thin soil to raise our daily bread. No, I joined the army because I like being an engineer. I like practical things and this was the best way to do what I liked. But someone like Sergeant Harper?” He glanced at Harper. „I dare say he’s here because he’d be starving otherwise.”
„True,” Harper said.
„And you hate the English?” Vicente asked Harper.
„Careful,” Sharpe growled.
„I hate the bloody ground the bastards walk on, sir,” Harper said cheerfully, then saw Vicente cast a bewildered glance at Sharpe. „I didn’t say I hated them all,” Harper added.
„Life is complicated,” Hogan said vaguely. „I mean there’s a Portuguese Legion in the French army, I hear?”
Vicente looked embarrassed. „They believe in French ideas, sir.”
„Ah! Ideas,” Hogan said, „they’re much more dangerous than big or little neighbors. I don’t believe in fighting for ideas”-he shook his head ruefully-”and nor does Sergeant Harper.”
„I don’t?” Harper asked.
„No, you bloody don’t,” Sharpe snarled.
„So what do you believe in?” Vicente wanted to know.
„The trinity, sir,” Harper said sententiously.
„The trinity?” Vicente was surprised.
„The Baker rifle,” Sharpe said, „the sword bayonet, and me.”
„Those too,” Harper acknowledged, and laughed.
„What it is,” Hogan tried to help Vicente, „is that it’s like being in a house where there’s an unhappy marriage and you ask a question about fidelity. You cause embarrassment. No one wants to talk about it.”
„Harris!” Sharpe warned, seeing the red-headed rifleman open his mouth.
„I was only going to say, sir,” Harris said, „that there’s a dozen horsemen on that hill over there.”
Sharpe turned just in time to see the horsemen vanish across the crest. The rain was too thick and the light too poor to see if they were in uniform, but Hogan suggested the French might well have sent cavalry patrols far ahead of their retreat. „They’ll be wanting to know whether we’ve taken Braga,” he explained, „because if we hadn’t then they’d turn this way and try to escape up to Pontevedra.”
Sharpe gazed at the far hill. „If there’s bloody cavalry about,” he said, „then I don’t want to be caught on the road.” It was the one place in a nightmare landscape where horsemen would have an advantage.
So to avoid enemy horsemen they struck north into the wilderness. It meant crossing the Cavado which they managed at a deep ford which led only to the high summer pastures. Sharpe continually looked behind, but saw no sign of the horsemen. The path climbed into a wild land. The hills were steep, the valleys deep and the high ground bare of anything except gorse, ferns, thin grass and vast rounded boulders, some balanced on others so precariously that they looked as if a child’s touch would send them bounding down the precipitous slopes. The grass was fit only for a few tangle-haired sheep and scores of feral goats on which the mountain wolves and wild lynx fed. The only village they passed was a poor place with high rock walls about its small vegetable gardens. Goats were hobbled on pastures the size of inn yards and a few bony cattle stared at the soldiers as they passed. They climbed still higher, listening to the goat bells among the rocks and passing a small shrine heaped with faded gorse blossom. Vicente crossed himself as he passed the shrine.
They turned eastward again, following a stony ridge where the great rounded boulders would make it impossible for any cavalry to form and charge, and Sharpe kept watching southwards and saw nothing. Yet there had been horsemen, and there would be more, for he was making a rendezvous with a desperate army that had been bounced from imminent success to abject defeat in one swift day.
It was hard traveling in the hills. They rested every hour, then trudged on. All were soaked, tired and chilled. The rain was relentless and the wind had now gone into the east so that it came straight into their faces. The rifle slings rubbed their wet shoulders raw, but at least the rain lifted that afternoon, even if the wind stayed brisk and cold. At dusk, feeling as weary as he ever had on the terrible retreat to Vigo, Sharpe led them down from the ridge to a small deserted hamlet of low stone cottages roofed with turf. „Just like home,” Harper said happily. The driest places to sleep were two long, coffin-shaped granaries that protected their contents from rats by being raised on mushroom-shaped stone pillars, and most of the men crammed themselves into the narrow
