„Maybe it is peace?” Vicente suggested after he had stared at the retreating French. „Maybe the fighting really is over. Why else would they go?”
„They’re going, sir,” Harper said, „that’s all that matters.” He had taken the glass from Vicente and could see a farm wagon loaded with the French wounded. „Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” he exulted, „but they’re going!”
But why? Was it peace? Had the horsemen, whom Sharpe had feared were escorting a mortar, brought a message instead? An order to retreat? Or was it a trick? Were the French hoping he would go down to the village and so give the dragoons a chance to attack his men on level ground? He was as confused as ever.
„I’m going down,” he said. „Me, Cooper, Harris, Perkins, Cresacre and Sims.” He deliberately named the last two because they had been friends of Williamson and if any men were likely to follow the deserter it was those two and he wanted to show them he still trusted them. „The rest of you stay here.”
„I would like to come,” Vicente said and, when he saw Sharpe was about to refuse, he explained. „The village, senhor. I want to see the village. I want to see what happened to our people.” Vicente, like Sharpe, took five men; Sergeant Harper and Sergeant Macedo were left in charge on the hilltop, and Sharpe’s patrol set off down the hill. They went past the great fanshaped scorch mark which showed where the howitzer had been fired and Sharpe half expected a volley to blast from the wood, but no gun sounded and then he was under the shade of the trees. He and Cooper led, going stealthily, watching for an ambush among the laurels, birch and oak, but they were undisturbed. They followed the path to the Quinta which had its blue shutters closed against the sun and looked quite undamaged. A tabby cat washed itself on the sun-warmed cobbles beneath the stable arch and paused to stare indignantly at the soldiers, then went back to its ablutions. Sharpe tried the kitchen door, but it was locked. He thought of breaking it down, then decided to leave it and led the men round to the front of the house instead. The front door was locked, the driveway deserted. He backed slowly away from the Quinta, watching the shutters, almost expecting them to be thrown open to loose a blast of musketry, but the big house slept on in the early-afternoon warmth.
„I think it’s empty, sir,” Harris said, though he sounded nervous.
„I reckon you’re right,” Sharpe agreed and he turned and walked on down the drive. The gravel crunched under his boots so he moved to the verge and signaled that his men should do the same. The day was hot and still, even the birds were silent.
And then he smelt it. And immediately he thought of India and even imagined, for a wild second, that he was back in that mysterious country for it was there that he had experienced this smell so often. It was thick and rank and somehow honey-sweet. A smell that almost made him want to vomit, then that urge passed, but he saw that Perkins, almost as young as Pendleton, was looking sickly. „Take a deep breath,” Sharpe told him. „You’re going to need it.”
Vicente, looking as nervous as Perkins, glanced at Sharpe. „Is it… „he began.
„Yes,” Sharpe said.
It was death.
Vila Real de Zedes had never been a large or a famous village. No pilgrims came to worship in its church. Saint Joseph might be revered locally, but his influence had never extended beyond the vineyards, yet for all its insignificance it had not been a bad village in which to raise children. There was always work in the Savage vineyards, the soil was fertile and even the poorest house had a vegetable patch. Some of the villagers had possessed cows, most kept hens and a few reared pigs, though there was no livestock left now. There had been little authority to persecute the villagers. Father Josefa had been the most important person in Vila Real de Zedes, other than the English in the Quinta, and the priest had sometimes been irascible, but he had also taught the children their letters. He had never been unkind.
And now he was dead. His body, unrecognizable, was in the ashes of the church where other bodies, shrunken by heat, lay among the charred and fallen rafters. A dead dog was in the street, a trickle of dried blood extending from its mouth and a cloud of flies buzzing above the wound in its flank. More flies sounded inside the biggest of the two taverns and Sharpe pushed open the door with the butt of his rifle and gave an involuntary shudder. Maria, the girl Harper had liked, was spread naked on the only table left unbroken in the taproom. She had been pinned to the table by knives thrust through her hands and now the flies crawled across her bloody belly and breasts. Every wine barrel had been splintered, every pot smashed and every piece of furniture other than the single table torn apart. Sharpe slung his rifle and tugged the knives from Maria’s palms so that her white arms flapped as the blades came free. Perkins stared aghast from the door. „Don’t just stand there,” Sharpe snapped, „find a blanket, anything, and cover her.”
„Yes, sir.”
Sharpe went back to the street. Vicente had tears in his eyes. There were bodies in half a dozen houses, blood in every house, but no living folk. Any survivors of Vila Real de Zedes had fled the village, chased out by the casual brutality of their conquerors. „We should have stayed here,” Vicente said angrily.
„And died with them?” Sharpe asked.
„They had no one to fight for them!” Vicente said.
„They had Lopes,” Sharpe said, „and he didn’t know how to fight, and if he had then he wouldn’t have stayed. And if we’d fought for them we’d be dead now and these folk would be just as dead.”
„We should have stayed,” Vicente insisted.
Sharpe ignored him. „Cooper? Sims?” The two men cocked their rifles. Cooper shot first, Sharpe counted to ten and then Sims pulled his trigger, Sharpe counted to ten again and then he fired into the air. It was a signal that Harper could lead the others down from the hilltop. „Look for spades,” Sharpe said to Vicente.
„Spades?”
„We’re going to bury them.”
The graveyard was a walled enclosure just north of the village and there was a small hut with sextons’ shovels that Sharpe gave to his men. „Deep enough so the animals don’t scratch them up,” he ordered, „but not too deep.”
„Why not too deep?” Vicente bridled, thinking that a shallow grave was a callous insult to the dead.
„Because when the villagers come back,” Sharpe said, „they’ll dig them up to find their relatives.” He found a large piece of sacking in the shed and he used it to collect the charred bodies from the church, dragging them one by one to the graveyard. The left arm came off Father Josefa’s body when Sharpe tried to pull the priest free of the charred cross, but Sims saw what was happening and came to help roll the shrunken, blackened corpse onto the sacking.
„I’ll take it, sir,” Sims said, seizing hold of the sacking.
„You don’t have to.”
Sims looked embarrassed. „We’re not going to run, sir,” he blurted out, then looked fearful as if he expected to get the rough edge of Sharpe’s tongue.
Sharpe looked at him and saw another thief, another drunk, another failure, another rifleman. Then Sharpe smiled. „Thank you, Sims. Tell Pat Harper to give you some of his holy water.”
„Holy water?” Sims asked.
„The brandy he keeps in his second canteen. The one he thinks I don’t know about.”
Afterward, when the men who had come down from the hilltop were helping to bury the dead, Sharpe went back to the church where Harper found him. „Picquets are set, sir.”
„Good.”
„And Sims says I was to give him some brandy.”
„I hope you did.”
„I did, sir, I did. And Mister Vicente, sir, he’s wanting to say a prayer or two.”
„I hope God’s listening.”
„You want to be there?”
„No, Pat.”
„Didn’t think you would.” The big Irishman picked his way through the ashes. Some of the wreckage still smoked where the altar had stood, but he pushed a hand into the blackened tangle and pulled out a twisted, black crucifix. It was only four inches high and he laid it on his left palm and made the sign of the cross. „Mister Vicente’s not happy, sir.”