eyes away from her. Louisa Parker, from the glimpses he had already caught of her, was disturbingly pretty. She had a tall and slender grace, a brightly inquisitive face, and a clear skin unscarred by hardship or disease. A girl, Sharpe thought, to make a soldier twitch in his dreams, even if she was a God-damned Methodist.
Louisa brought the map to the table. George Parker attempted an introduction. “Louisa, my dear, you have not been named to Lieutenant…“
“Louisa!” Mrs Parker, evidently well aware of the dangers that soldiers presented to young girls, interrupted. “You will come here and sit!”
Sharpe unfolded the map in the ensuing silence.
Tt isn’t a very accurate map,“ Parker said humbly, as if he was personally responsible for its vagaries, ”but I assure you the road exists.“ He traced a thin black line which meant little to Sharpe who was still trying to find just where he was on the ill-printed sheet. ”The road meets the coastal route here, well south of Villagarcia,“ Parker continued, ”and I was hoping we might find a vessel here, at Pontevedra. I believe the Royal Navy patrols this coast and, God willing, perhaps a friendly fisherman can be persuaded to take us to one of their ships?“
Sharpe was not really listening. He was staring at the map, trying to discover the tortuous route he had followed with Vivar. He could not find the exact course of the journey, but one thing was very clear: in the last days, he and his Riflemen had passed at least two southern roads. Vivar had told Sharpe again and again that there was no southern road, that the Riflemen must go to Santiago de Compostela before they turned towards Lisbon. The Spaniard had lied.
George Parker mistook Sharpe’s grim expression for pessimism. “I do assure you the road exists.”
Sharpe was suddenly very aware of the girl’s gaze on him, and all his soldier’s protective instincts were warmed by that examination. “You say you travelled the road a month ago, sir?”
“Indeed.”
“And a coach can manage it in winter?”
“Indeed it can.”
“Do you intend to fritter away this whole night?” Mrs Parker stood threateningly. “Or do British soldiers no longer care for the fate of British womanhood?”
Sharpe folded the map and, without permission, thrust it into his pouch. “We can leave very soon, ma’am, but first I have business in the town.”
“Business!” Mrs Parker was clearly stoking the fires of her awesome wrath. “What possible business can a Lieutenant have, Mr Sharpe, that will take precedence over our safety?”
Sharpe pulled open the door. “I shall be a quarter of an hour at the most. You will do me the kindness, ma’am, of being ready in ten minutes. I have two wounded men who will need to travel inside your carriage.” He saw another protest boiling up inside her. “And my men’s packs will travel on the roof. Otherwise, ma’am, you can find your way south without me.” He offered a trace of a bow. “Your servant, ma’am.”
Sharpe turned away before Mrs Parker could argue with him, and he could have sworn he heard an amused chuckle from the girl. God damn it! God damn it! God damn it! He had enough to worry about without that perennial soldier’s problem. He went to find Vivar.
“Good news!” Vivar greeted Sharpe the moment the Rifleman appeared in the alcalde’s house. “My reinforcements are a mere half-day away! Lieutenant Davila has found fresh horses and fresh men! Did I tell you about Davila?”
“You didn’t tell me about the road, did you?”
“Road?”
“You told me we had to go west before we could go south!”
Sharpe had not meant to speak with such anger, but he could not hide his bitterness. He and his men had crossed a cold country, clambering wet hills and struggling through icy streams, and all for nothing. They could have headed south days ago. By now they could be across the Portuguese border. Instead they were within a few hours’ march of the enemy. “The road!” He slammed George Parker’s map onto the table. “There’s a road, Vivar! A God-damned road! And you marched us past two other God-damned roads! And the God-damned French are just a day’s bloody march away. You bloody lied to me!”
“Lied to you?” Bias Vivar’s anger flared as fiercely as Sharpe’s. “I saved your miserable lives! You think your men would have lasted a week in Spain without me? If you’re not fighting amongst yourselves, you’re all getting drunk! I’ve brought a pack of useless drunkards across Spain and I get no thanks, none. I spit on your map!” Vivar seized the precious map and, instead of spitting on it, tore it into shreds which he tossed onto the fire.
The alcalde, together with a priest and half a dozen other elderly and serious men, watched the confrontation in perturbed silence.
“Damn you!” Sharpe had grabbed at the map a second too late.
“Damn me?” Vivar shouted. “I’m fighting for Spain, Lieutenant. I’m not running away like a frightened little boy. But that’s the British way, isn’t it? One setback and they run home to their mothers. Very well! Run away! But you won’t find a garrison at Lisbon, Lieutenant. They’ll have run away too!”
Sharpe ignored the insults to ask the question that boiled indignantly inside him. “Why did you bring us here at all, you bastard?”
Vivar leaned over the table. “Because for once in your benighted life, Lieutenant, I thought an Englishman could do something for Spain. Something for God. Something useful! You’re a nation of pirates, of barbarians, of heathens! God alone knows why He put the English on this earth, but
I thought, just once, you might do something of use to His creation!“
“To protect your precious strongbox?” Sharpe gestured at the mysterious chest which stood against one wall. “You’d have lost the bloody thing without us, wouldn’t you? And why, Major? Because your precious Spanish armies are bloody useless, that’s why!”
“And your army’s broken, beaten, and gone. It’s less than useless. Now get out! Run away!”
“I hope the French get your bloody box.” Sharpe twisted away, then heard the rasp of a sword being drawn. He whipped back, scraping his own sword quickly from its mended scabbard as Vivar, blade already flickering in the candlelight, came towards him.
‘Bastaf It was the priest who threw himself between the two furious men. He pleaded with Vivar, who stared contemptuously at Sharpe. Understanding none of the conversation, the Rifleman held his ground with his sword still raised.
Vivar, reluctantly persuaded by the priest, dropped his blade. “You won’t last a day without me, Lieutenant, but get out!”
Sharpe spat on the floor to show his own contempt, then, his sword still drawn, went back into the night. The French had gained the north, and he must flee.
CHAPTER 7
Progress during the first day of the southward journey proved better than Sharpe had dared to hope. The Parkers’ carriage was cumbersome, but it had broad-rimmed wheels designed to cope with rutted and muddy roads and a patient Spanish coachman who skilfully handled its team of six big draught horses. Only twice in that first day was it necessary for the Riflemen to help pull the carriage out of difficulty; once on a steep incline and the second time when a wheel dropped into a roadside morass. Of Louisa Parker Sharpe saw nothing, for the girl’s aunt made certain that she stayed safely mewed up behind the coach’s drawn leather curtains.
The size and cost of the carriage impressed Sharpe. The Parkers’ self-imposed mission to enlighten the Papist heathens of Spain clearly lacked for little and George Parker, who seemed to prefer walking with Sharpe to the company of his wife, explained that it was the bequest of the Admiral’s prize money that had made such comforts possible.
“Was the Admiral a religious man, sir?” Sharpe asked.
“Alas, no. Far from it. But a wealthy one, Lieutenant. Nor do I see,” Parker was clearly piqued by Sharpe’s questions about the carriage’s cost, “why the Lord’s work should be constrained by a paucity of funds, do you?”
“Indeed not,” Sharpe cheerfully agreed. “But why Spain, sir? I’d have thought there were enough heathens
