He was looking for shelter, hoping for a farm or at the least, a bush to keep the worst of the rain from him. There was nothing. He walked on, trying to force his pace to the fast Rifleman’s march, persuading himself that by ignoring the pain it would go away. His feet squelched in his boots and rain trickled into his eyes.
He heard a horse and turned to see a single horseman a hundred yards behind him. He cursed himself for not looking before, though there would have been nowhere to hide in this bare land even with ten minutes more warning. It was possible, he knew, that the man was simply a farmer on his way home, but the horse was bigger and stronger than a farmer’s mount. Sharpe suspected it was one of El Matarife’s men, left behind for some reason on the road.
Sharpe gripped his sword-handle. His right hand was still stiff because of the gouging of the brass telescope tube. He saw the horseman spur into a trot, then the man waved, and suddenly Sharpe was laughing and stumbling back down the road. ‘Angel! Angel!’
The boy was laughing. He jumped from Carbine’s back and put his arms round Sharpe. ‘Major!’ He was slapping Sharpe’s back. ‘You’re here!’
‘Where did you come from?’
‘Your face!’ Angel took off his cloak and insisted on putting it round Sharpe’s shoulders.
‘How the hell did you find me?’ Sharpe took the proffered flask of wine and tipped it to his lips. It felt good.
Angel had done no more than follow orders. Major Hogan had told him not to leave Sharpe and so, when the lancers took Sharpe south, Angel had followed. He had hidden himself outside Burgos, watching the Great Road to see if Sharpe was taken eastwards.
The boy had seen the explosion. Afterwards, when the last of the French had left the city and he had seen no prisoners with them, he had tried to get news of Sharpe. ‘They said you were dead.’
‘Who did?’
‘The people who worked for the French. There was one English prisoner in the castle, but the building he was in collapsed.’
Sharpe grinned. ‘I got out first.’
‘So I looked in the ruins.’ Angel shrugged. ‘Nothing. Then El Matarife came so I hid again.’
‘What did he want?’
‘There was a rumour that the French left their wounded in a hospital. It wasn’t true.’ Angel nodded up the road. ‘He went on.’
‘I saw him.’
The boy grinned. ‘So now what?’
‘We find Wellington.’ Sharpe looked at Carbine and suddenly knew that everything would be all right. He laughed aloud, his tiredness forgotten. ‘We’re going to win the bloody war, Angel. You and I, just you and I!’ He patted the patient, strong horse. Carbine would take him to Wellington, he would vindicate himself and, he laughed at the thought, do everything that Helene wanted him to do, but with his honour intact. ‘We’re going to win the goddamned war!’
The army tried to sleep. Some men succeeded, others listened to the rain on canvas, to the owls calling in the valleys and, from the hills, the howling of wolves that made the horses nervous. Children cried and were soothed by their mothers.
An hour after midnight the rain stopped and, slow and ragged, the sky cleared. Stars showed for the first time in weeks. The wind was still cold, shivering the picquets who stared into the shadows and thought of the morning.
The bugles called the army awake when the stars were still bright. The breakfast was cold. The tents were collapsed and folded. Men muttered and shivered and thanked God it was not raining. Sufficient unto this day was the evil that awaited them.
Captain d’Alembord, stumbling through the mud and long grass with a mug of tea in his hand, shouted into the darkness for his Company. Sergeant Harper’s voice answered.
The Captain stood shivering by the small fire. ‘Thank God it’s not raining.’
‘Aye.’ Harper looked pleased.
‘The Colonel says it’s true.’
‘Might as well get it over with.’ The huge Sergeant was rolling up his blanket. The South Essex had marched without tents.
Captain d’Alembord, who had never fought in a real battle, was nervous. ‘They reckon they’re waiting over the hills.’
‘But not far away, eh?’ Harper laughed. ‘So there’ll be a fight, yes?’
‘So they say.’
‘With all the trimmings, sir. It’ll be a grand day for it, if it doesn’t rain.’
‘I’m sure we’ll acquit ourselves nobly, Sergeant.’
‘We always do, sir.’ Harper was strapping the blanket to his pack. ‘Farrell!’ The roar of Harper’s voice made d’Alembord jump.
‘Sarge?’ A plaintive voice sounded from the darkness.
‘Get up, you protestant bastard! We’ve got a battle to fight!’
Some men laughed, some men groaned. Harper grinned reassuringly at Captain d’Alembord. ‘The lads will be all right, sir, don’t you fret.’ Captain d’Alembord, quite understandably, was fretting whether he would be all right. He smiled.
‘Finish the tea, Sergeant?’
‘You’re a granthman, sir, so you are. I thank you.’ Harper tilted the mug and swallowed what was left in great gulps. ‘Would you be a betting man, sir?’
‘I am.’
‘I have a feeling we’ll be seeing an old friend today.’ The Sergeant said it comfortably, his voice utterly confident.
Captain d’Alembord, who had come to trust Sergeant Harper, sighed. He knew that the Irishman had never accepted Sharpe’s death and the Captain feared what would happen when it dawned on Harper that the Major was truly dead. There were stories that, before he met Sharpe, Harper had been the wildest man in the army and d’Alembord feared he would become so again. The officer chose his words carefully. This was the first time that Harper had spoken of Sharpe to him since the hanging, and d’Alembord did not want to be too savage in breaking the Irishman’s hopes.
‘What if you don’t see him, Sergeant?’
‘I’ve been thinking about it, so I have, sir.’ Harper thumped his shako into shape with a fist. Isabella was rolling her own blanket beside him. Harper smiled. ‘There’s no way Nosey would hang him, not after Sharpe saved his life, sir. And there’s no way the frogs can kill him, so he has to be alive. He’ll be back, sir, and if we’re in a fight, that’s where he’ll be. A pound says I’m right.’
‘D’Alembord grinned. ‘You haven’t got a pound.’
‘I will tonight, though. Farrell! You heathen bastard! Get up!’ Harper looked back to his officer. ‘A pound?’
‘You need your money, Harps. You’re getting married.’
‘Christ! Don’t talk about it.’ Harper sounded gloomy. ‘I’ll still lay the pound/sir.’
‘I accept.’
In the valley a trumpet sounded. In the darkness thousands of men prepared themselves. Behind them was a epic march through the hills, and beyond the next hill was Vitoria.
They marched before dawn, the columns splitting again, but all going eastwards, going towards the enemy. The columns twisted through the misted valleys, going towards Vitoria, going towards the treasure of an empire, and going to battle.
CHAPTER 19
