"Why would the French come here?" Teresa asked. They were standing on the fort's parapet.
"If they can retake Salamanca, " Sharpe said, "they cut Wellington off from his supplies. They don't even need to take the city to do that! Just sit on the road to Ciudad Rodrigo. In a couple of days the supplies will dry up, and Nosey will have to turn round and come back to deal with the buggers. He won't be best pleased."
"So we must stop them?"
Sharpe nodded.
"So why don't you send for reinforcements?"
Sharpe shrugged.
"Because you're not sure they're coming?" Teresa asked.
"I can't be sure, " he said.
"And you're frightened of looking like a fool?"
"If I raise an alarm, " Sharpe said, "and no crapauds come, they'll string my guts out and hang their washing on them. I'll be a quartermaster for the rest of my days! They'll never trust me again."
Teresa shook her head. "Richard, you took a French eagle! You crossed the breach at Badajoz! You have pride to spare! So write a request now, " she said.
"You don't understand, " he said stubbornly. "I could snatch a thousand French eagles and I'm still the bugger who came up from the ranks. I'm still an upstart. They can smell me a hundred yards off, and they're just waiting, Teresa, just waiting for me to make a mistake. One mistake!
That's all it takes."
"Write a request now, " she said patiently, "and as soon as the first Frenchman shows, I will ride to Salamanca. As soon as we hear the first gunshot in the hills, I will ride. So then you will not have to hold for long, Richard."
He thought about it, and knew she was right, and so he went down to the mess and lit a candle and then woke Ensign Hickey because the Ensign had gone to a proper school and would know what words to use, and then Sharpe penned the words in his clumsy handwriting. 'I have reason to believe, he wrote, 'that a French column is approaching this fort which I have the honour to command. My command being perilously small in numbers, I request reinforcements as quickly as may be possible. Richard Sharpe, Capt'.
"Shouldn't I date it?" he asked, "put a time on it?"
"I will convince them you were in a hurry, " Teresa said.
Hickey, shy to be seen in front of Teresa in his undershirt, pulled a blanket over his bare legs. "Are the French really coming, sir?" He asked Sharpe.
"I reckon so. Why? Does that worry you?"
Hickey thought about it for a heartbeat, then nodded. "Yes, sir, it does,»
"It's why you joined the army, isn't it?"
"I joined the army, sir, because my father wanted me to."
"He wanted you dead?"
"I pray not, sir."
"I was an Ensign once, Hickey, " Sharpe said, "and I learned one lesson about being an Ensign."
"And what lesson was that, sir?"
"That ensigns are expendable, Hickey, expendable. Now go to sleep."
Sharpe and Teresa climbed back to the parapet. "You were cruel, Richard, " she said.
"I was honest."
"And were you expendable? As an ensign?"
"I climbed a cliff, love. I climbed a cliff. And they reckoned I would die, and none, I reckon, would have cared much if I had."
And who would be climbing the cliff in the morning, he wondered, who? And where? And how? And what had he forgotten? And would the bastards come?
And could he stop them? And Jesus, he was nervous. He had listened to his instinct, and he was ready for the French, but it still felt all wrong. It felt like defeat, and it had not even started yet.
Teresa's men, three miles south of San Miguel in the foothills of the Sierra de Gredos, roasted a hare over an open fire. They lit the fire in a grove of trees, deep in a rocky cleft, and were sure that its light could not be seen on the road which lay white beneath their position. If one Frenchman dared breathe on that road the partisans would fire their muskets and so warn the fort that the enemy was coming.
But Captain Pailleterie saw a gleam of their fire. It was tiny, merely a reflection of a leaping flame on a high rock, but only two kinds of men had fires in the hills; partisans or soldiers, and both kind were his enemies. He held up his hand and checked the company.
The gleam had been to the left of the road, at least he thought so, for he was still not in sight of the stretch of road that ran directly beneath the rocky bluff where he had seen the faint glimmer. Off to his right there was a dark valley and it seemed to him that it curled around to the north and so might offer a way to the river and the bridge which would be hidden from whoever had carelessly lit a fire in this dark night.
His men all had muffled scabbards so that the metal did not clash against a buckle or stirrup. Pailleterie could do little about the sound of their hooves, so that was a risk that must be taken. "We go slowly now, " he told his men, "slow and quiet."
They swerved off to the right, walking their tired horses through the gentle grassy valley that did indeed turn to the north. Then the land rose to a crest and Pailleterie sweated as he led the hundred horsemen up to that skyline for it would be a perfect place for an ambush, and the saddle of moonlit land was scattered with grey rocks that could hide a hundred partisans, but no musket fired.
He curbed his horse just south of the crest, gave its reins to a sergeant, then dismounted and walked uphill until he could just see over the hill's top.
Peace. That was all he could see, peace. A wide, moonlit land, though the moon was paling now as dawn came around the world, and in the grey white light of night's ending he could see the sheen of a river, and black trees, and then the white streak of the road and the black square shape of the fort. No fires there, and for a moment Pailleterie dared to hope that San Miguel would be unguarded, but he put that hope aside as he moved forward another few paces and realised there was a god after all. There was a god, and He was a Frenchman, for a spur of hill jutted out to hide his men all the way from the crest down to the plain, and once there they would be hidden from San Miguel's garrison by the olive groves. He edged back from the crest, straightened and walked down his column. "Load your pistols now, but don't cock them. You hear me? Load, but don't cock them.
If anyone fires before we reach the bridge I will personally drown that man! But I will geld him first! You hear me? I will geld him! " He watched as his men loaded the long-barrelled pistols. The weapons were not accurate, but at close quarters they were as deadly as any musket. "We shall ride slowly down the hill. Very slowly! We shall move like a morning mist, and then we shall stay among the trees. We go slowly, you hear me?
And none of you will sneeze! If you sneeze, I will geld you with a blunt knife. And we do not charge till the last minute, and when we reach the bridge you will kill whoever you find there. Kill and kill! And if you fail? I shall geld you with my own teeth. With my own blunt teeth!»
The hussars grinned. They liked Pailleterie, for he looked after them, he was brave and he gave them victory.
And he was about to give them another.
It was almost dawn and no warning shots had been fired from the hills.
Sharpe felt an immense weariness. It's nerves, he thought. Nerves as tight as a snare drum, and what kind of a soldier was it who got nervous? Damn it, he thought, but maybe he could not be trusted with command.
He walked to the western side of the parapet and leaned over to stare down at the barricade on the bridge. He had all his men awake, all on guard, for it was coming up to dawn and that was the most dangerous time. "Are you alert down there?" He shouted.