Sharpe gazed down the valley to where, in the dusk’s snowstorm, he thought he had seen the grey smear of smoke from a village’s fires. Now, through the finely ground lenses, he saw the stone buildings and small high arch of a church’s bell tower. So there was a village just a few hours’ march away and, however poor, it would have some hoarded food; grain and beans would be buried in wax-sealed pots and hams hanging in chimneys. The thought of food was suddenly poignant and overwhelming.
He edged the telescope right, scanning the glaring brilliance of the snow. A tree hung with icicles skidded across the lens. A sudden movement made Sharpe stop the slewing glass, but it was only a raven flapping black against a white hillside. Behind the raven a churned line of footsteps showed where men had slithered down the hill into dead ground.
Sharpe stared. The tracks were fresh. Why had the picquets not raised an alarm? He moved the glass to look at the shallow trench in the snow that marked the line of the goat track and he saw that the picquets were gone. He swore silently. The men were already in mutiny. God damn them! He slammed the tubes of the spyglass shut, stood, and turned.
He turned to see Rifleman Harper standing in the hovel’s western doorway. He must have approached with a catlike stealth, for Sharpe had heard nothing. “We’re not going south,” the Irishman said flatly. He seemed somewhat startled that Sharpe had moved so suddenly but his voice was implacable.
“I don’t give a damn what you think. Just get out and get ready.”
“No.”
Sharpe laid the telescope on his haversack that he had placed with his new sword and battered rifle on the window-sill of the ruined house. There was a choice now. He could reason and cajole, persuade and plead, or he could exercise the authority of his rank. He was too cold and too hungry to adopt the laborious course, and so he fell back on rank. “You’re under arrest, Rifleman.”
Harper ignored the words. “We’re not going, sir, and that’s that.”
“Sergeant Williams!” Sharpe shouted through the door of the hovel that faced towards the barn. The Riflemen stood in an arc about the shallow grave they had scooped in the snow. They watched, and their stillness was evidence that Harper was their emissary and spokesman this morning. Williams did not move. “Sergeant Williams!”
“He’s not coming,” Harper said. “It’s very simple, sir. We’re not going south. We’ll go north to the coast. We talked about it, so we did, and that’s where we’re going. You can come or stay. It’s all the same to us.”
Sharpe stood very still, disguising the fear that pricked his skin cold and churned in his hungry belly. If he went north then he tacitly agreed with this mutiny, he accepted it, and with that acceptance he lost every shred of his authority. Yet if he insisted on going south he was inviting his own murder. “We’re going south.”
“You don’t understand, sir.”
“Oh, I do. I understand very well. You’ve decided to go north, but you’re scared to death that I might go south on my own and reach the Lisbon garrison. Then I report you for disobedience and mutiny. They’ll stand you by your own grave, Harper, and shoot you.”
“You’ll never make it to the south, sir.”
“What you mean, Harper, is that you’ve been sent here to make sure I don’t survive. A dead officer can’t betray a mutiny, isn’t that right?”
Sharpe could see from the Irishman’s expression that his words had been accurate. Harper shifted uneasily. He was a huge man, four inches taller than Sharpe’s six feet, and with a broad body that betrayed a massive strength. Doubtless the other Riflemen were content to let Harper do their dirty work, and perhaps only he had the guts to do it. Or perhaps his nation’s hatred of the English would make this murder into a pleasure.
“Well?” Sharpe insisted. “Am I right?”
Harper licked his lips, then put his hand to the braids hilt of his bayonet. “You can come with us, sir.”
Sharpe let the silence drag out, then, as though surrendering to the inevitable, he nodded wearily. “I don’t seem to have much choice, do I?”
“No, sir.” Harper’s voice betrayed relief that he would not have to kill the officer.
“Bring those things.” Sharpe nodded at his haversack and weapons.
Harper, somewhat astonished to receive the peremptory order, nevertheless bent over to pick up the haversack. He was still bending when he saw he had been tricked. Harper began to twist away but, before he could protect himself, Sharpe had kicked him in the belly. It was a massive kick, thumping deep into the hard flesh, and Sharpe followed it with a two-handed blow that slammed down onto the back of Harper’s neck.
Sharpe was amazed that the Irishman could even stand. Another man would have been winded and stunned, but not him. He shook his head like a cornered boar, staggered backwards, then succeeded in straightening himself to receive Sharpe’s next blows. The officer’s right fist slammed into the big man’s belly, then his left followed.
It was like hitting teak, but the blows hurt Harper. Not enough. The Irishman grunted, then lurched forward. Sharpe ducked, hit again, then his head seemed to explode like a cannon firing as a huge fist slammed into the side of his skull. He butted his head forward and felt it smash on the other man’s face, then his arms and chest were being hugged in a great, rib-cracking embrace.
Sharpe raised his right foot and raked his heel down Harper’s shin. It must have hurt, but the grip did not lessen and Sharpe had no weapon left but his teeth. He bit the Irishman’s cheek, clamping his teeth down, tasting the blood, and the pain was enough to force Harper to release his huge embrace to hit at the officer’s head.
Sharpe was faster. He had grown up in a rookery where he had learned every trick of cheating and brutality. He punched Harper’s throat, then slammed a boot into his groin. Any other man would have been blubbing by now, shrivelling away from the pain, but Harper just seemed to shudder, then bored in again with his overwhelming strength.
“Bastard.” Sharpe hissed the word, ducked, feinted, then threw himself backwards so that he bounced off the blackened stone wall and used the momentum of his recoil to drive his bunched fists into the other man’s belly. Harper’s head came forward, and Sharpe butted again; then, through the whirl of lights that seared across his vision, he brought his fists backwards and forwards across the Irishman’s face.
Harper would not back down. He punched back, and drew blood from Sharpe’s nose and lips, then drove him reeling backwards. Sharpe slipped on snow, tripped on the floor’s rubble, and fell. He saw the massive boot coming, and twisted clear. He came up from the floor, snarling through blood, and grabbed Harper’s crossbelt. The Irishman was himself off balance now and Sharpe turned him, swung him, then let go. Harper spun away, staggered, and fell against the wall. A stone gouged blood down his left cheek.
Sharpe was hurting. His ribs were tender, his head spinning, and his face bloody. He saw the other greenjackets edging closer to where the two men fought. Their faces showed disbelief, and Sharpe knew that not one of them would intervene to help Harper. The big Irishman had been delegated to do this job, and would be left alone to finish it.
Harper spat, stared at Sharpe through a mask of blood, then heaved himself to his feet. He found his bayonet and drew it.
“Use that, you Irish bastard, and I’ll kill you.”
Harper said nothing, and there was something very terrifying in his silence.
“Bastard,” Sharpe said again. He glanced towards his new sword, but the Irishman had edged round to bar that salvation.
Harper stepped forward, coming slowly, the sword-bayonet held like a fighter’s knife. He lunged with it once, sending Sharpe to one side, then lunged again, quick and hard, hoping to catch the officer off balance.
Sharpe, expecting the second lunge, avoided it. He saw the flicker of astonishment on the big man’s face. Harper was good, he was younger than Sharpe, but he had not fought a man with Sharpe’s quickness. Nor had he been hurt so much in a long time, and the flicker of surprise turned to pain as Sharpe’s fists slapped at his eyes. Harper slashed with the bayonet, using it now to drive his attacker away, and Sharpe let the blade come at him. He felt it slice at his forearm, he ignored it, and rammed the heel of his hand forward to break the Irishman’s nose. He clawed at Harper’s eyes, trying to hook them out of his skull. The Irishman wrenched away and Sharpe pushed him off balance again. Fire seared at his arm, the fire of warm blood drawn by steel, but the pain went as Harper fell.
Sharpe followed fast. He kicked once, twice, crunching his boot into the big man’s ribs, then he seized the bayonet, cutting his fingers, and stamped his heel onto Harper’s wrist. The weapon came away. Sharpe reversed
