Harper smelt the air. “We’re going to have rain, sir, bad rain.”
“That’s why God made our skins waterproof,” Sharpe said.
“I was thinking we might do better to wait till after midnight, sir. Give the rain a
chance to blow over.”
Sharpe shook his head. “I want to get out of here, Pat. I feel bad about this place
suddenly. We’ll take everyone south. Toward the river.”
“I thought the Crapauds had stripped out all the boats?”
“I don’t want to go east”-Sharpe jerked his head toward Amarante where rumor said a battle
still raged-”and there’s nothing but Crapauds to the west.” The north was all mountain, rock
and starvation, but to the south lay the river and he knew British forces were somewhere
beyond the Douro and Sharpe had been thinking that the French could not have destroyed every
boat along its long, rocky banks. “We’ll find a boat,” he promised Harper.
“It’ll be dark tonight, sir. Lucky even to find the way.”
“For God’s sake,” Sharpe said, irritated with Harper’s pessimism, “we’ve been patrolling
this place for a bloody month! We can find our way south.”
By evening they had two sacks of bread, some rock-hard smoked goat meat, two cheeses and a bag
of beans that Sharpe distributed among the men, then he had an inspiration and went to the
Quinta’s kitchen and stole two large tins of tea. He reckoned it was time Kate did something
for her country and there were few finer gestures than donating good China tea to
riflemen. He gave one tin to Harper and shoved the other into his pack. It had started to
rain, the drops pounding on the stable roof and cascading off the tiles into the cobbled
yard. Daniel Hagman watched the rain from the stable door. “I feel just fine, sir,” he
reassured Sharpe.
“We can make a stretcher, Dan, if you feel poorly.”
“Lord, no, sir! I’m right as rain, right as rain.”
No one wanted to leave in this downpour, but Sharpe was determined to use every hour of
darkness to make his way toward the Douro. There was a chance, he thought, of reaching the
river by midday tomorrow and he would let the men rest while he scouted the river bank for
a means to cross. “Packs on!” he ordered. “Ready yourselves.” He watched Williamson for any
sign of reluctance, but the man got a move on with the rest. Vicente had distributed wine
corks and the men pushed them into the muzzles of their rifles or muskets. The weapons were
not loaded because in this rain the priming would turn to gray slush. There was more
grumbling when Sharpe ordered them out of the stables, but they hunched their shoulders and
followed him out of the courtyard and up into the wood where the oaks and silver birches
thrashed under the assault of wind and rain. Sharpe was soaked to the skin before they had
gone a quarter-mile, but he consoled himself that no one else was likely to be out in this
vile weather. The evening light was fading fast and early, stolen by the black, thick-bellied
clouds that scraped against the jagged outcrop of the ruined watchtower. Sharpe was
following a path that would lead around the western side of the watchtower’s hill and he
glanced up at the old masonry as they emerged from the trees and thought ruefully of all that
work.
He called a halt to let the rear of the line catch up. Daniel Hagman was evidently holding
up well. Harper, two smoked legs of goat hanging from his belt, climbed up to join Sharpe, who
was watching the arriving men from a vantage point a few feet higher than the path. “Bloody
rain,” Harper said.
“It’ll stop eventually.”
“Is that so?” Harper asked innocently.
It was then Sharpe saw the gleam of light in the vineyards. It was not lightning, it was too
dull, too small and too close to the ground, but he knew he had not imagined it and he cursed
Christopher for stealing his telescope. He gazed at the spot where the light had shown so
briefly, but saw nothing.
“What is it?” Vicente had climbed to join him.
“Thought I saw a flash of light,” Sharpe said.
“Just rain,” Harper said dismissively.
“Perhaps it was a piece of broken glass,” Vicente suggested. “I once found some Roman
glass in a field near Entre-os-Rios. There were two broken vases and some coins of Septimus
Severus.”
Sharpe was not listening. He was watching the vineyards.
“I gave the coins to the seminary in Porto,” Vicente went on, raising his voice to make
himself heard over the seething rain, “because the Fathers keep a small museum there.”
“The sun doesn’t reflect off glass when it’s raining,” Sharpe said, but something had
reflected out there, more like a smear of light, a damp gleam, and he searched the hedgerow
between the vines and suddenly saw it again. He swore.
“What is it?” Vicente asked.
“Dragoons,” Sharpe said, “dozens of the bastards. Dismounted and watching us.” The gleam
had been the dull light reflecting from one of the brass helmets. There must have been a tear
in the helmet’s protective cloth cover and the man, running along the hedge, had served as a
beacon, but now that Sharpe had seen the first green uniform among the green vines, he could
see dozens more. “The bastards were going to ambush us,” he said, and he felt a reluctant
admiration for an enemy who could use such vile weather, then he worked out that the
dragoons must have approached Vila Real de Zedes during the day and somehow he had missed
them, but they would not have missed the significance of the work he was doing on the hilltop
and they must know that the hog-backed ridge was his refuge. “Sergeant!” he snapped at Harper.
“Up the hill now! Now!” And pray they were not too late.
Colonel Christopher might have rewritten the rules, yet the chess pieces could still only
move in their accustomed ways, but his knowledge of the moves allowed him to look ahead and,
he fancied, he did that with more perspicacity than most men.
There were two possible outcomes to the French invasion of Portugal. Either the French
would win or, far less likely, the Portuguese with their British allies would somehow evict
Soult’s forces.
If the French won then Christopher would be the owner of Savages’ lodge, the trusted ally
of the country’s new masters, and rich beyond belief.
If the Portuguese and their British allies won then he would use Argenton’s pathetic
conspiracy to explain why he had remained in enemy territory, and use the collapse of
the proposed mutiny as an excuse for the failure of his schemes. And then he would need to
move a couple of pawns to remain the owner of Savages which would be enough to make him a
rich man, if not rich beyond belief.
So he could not lose, so long as the pawns did what they were supposed to do, and one of
those pawns was Major Henri Dulong, the second in command of the 31st Leger, one of the
crack French light infantry units in Portugal. The 31st knew it was good, but none of its
soldiers was the equal of Dulong, who was famous throughout the army. He was tough, daring
and ruthless, and on this early May evening of wind and rain and low cloud, Major Dulong’s
job was to lead his voltigeurs up the southern path that led to the watchtower on the hill
above the Quinta. Take that height, Brigadier Vuillard explained, and the scrappy forces in
Vila Real de Zedes had nowhere to go. So while the dragoons made a noose about the village
and the Quinta, Dulong would capture the hill.
It had been Brigadier Vuillard’s idea to attack at dusk. Most soldiers would expect an
assault at dawn, but it was Vuillard’s notion that men’s guard was lower late in the day.
“They’re looking forward to a skin of wine, a wench and a hot meal,” he had told Christopher,
then he had fixed the time for the assault at a quarter to eight in the evening. The sun would
actually set a few moments before, but the twilight would stretch until half past eight,
though the clouds had proved so thick that Vuillard doubted there would be any twilight to
speak of. Not that it mattered. Dulong had been lent a good Breguet watch and he had promised
that his men would be on the watchtower’s peak at a quarter to eight just as the dragoons
converged on the village and the Quinta. The remaining companies of the 31st Leger would
first climb up to the wood and then sweep down onto the Quinta from the south. “I doubt Dulong
will see any action,” Vuillard told Christopher, “and he’ll be unhappy about that. He’s a
bloodthirsty rascal.”
“You’ve given him the most dangerous task, surely?”
“But only if the enemy are on the hilltop,” the Brigadier explained. “I hope to catch them
off guard, Colonel.”
And it seemed to Christopher as though Vuillard’s hopes were justified for, at a quarter
to eight, the dragoons charged into Vila Real de Zedes and met almost no opposition. A
clap of thunder was the accompaniment to the attack and a stab of lightning split the sky
and reflected silver white from the dragoons’ long swords. A handful of men resisted, some
muskets were fired from a tavern beside the church and Vuillard later discovered, through
questioning the survivors, that a band of partisans had been recuperating in the
village. A handful of them escaped, but eight others were killed and a score more,
including their leader, who called himself the Schoolteacher, were captured. Two of
Vuillard’s dragoons were wounded.
A hundred more dragoons rode to the Quinta. They were commanded by a captain who would
rendezvous with the infantry coming down through the woods and the Captain had promised to
make certain the property was not looted. “You don’t want to go with them?” Vuillard
asked.
“No.” Christopher was watching the village girls being pushed toward the largest
tavern.
“I don’t blame you,” Vuillard said, noticing the girls, “the sport will be here.”
And Vuillard’s sport began. The villagers hated the French and the French hated the
villagers and the dragoons had discovered partisans in the houses and they all knew how to
treat such vermin. Manuel Lopes and his captured partisans were taken to the church where
they were forced to break up the altars, rails and images, then ordered to heap all the
shattered timber in the center of the nave. Father Josefa came to protest at the vandalism
and the dragoons stripped him naked, tore his cassock into strips and used the strips to lash
the priest to the big crucifix that hung above the main altar. “The priests are the worst,”
Vuillard explained to Christopher, “they encourage their people to fight us. I swear we’ll
have to kill every last priest in Portugal before we’re through.”
Other captives were being brought to the church. Any villager whose house contained a
firearm or who had defied the dragoons was taken there. A man who had tried to protect his
thirteen-year-old daughter was dragged to the church and, once inside, a dragoon sergeant
broke the mens’ arms and legs with a great sledgehammer taken from the blacksmith’s forge.
“It’s a lot easier than tying them up,” Vuillard explained. Christopher flinched as the big
hammer snapped the bones. Some men whimpered, a few screamed, but most stayed obstinately
silent. Father Josefa said the prayer for the dying until a dragoon quieted him by
breaking his jaw with a sword.
It was dark by now. The rain still beat on the church roof, but not so violently. Lightning
lit the windows from the outside as Vuillard crossed to the remnants of a side altar and
picked up a candle that had been burning on the floor. He took it to the pile of splintered
furniture that had been laced with powder from the dragoons’ carbine ammunition. He
placed the candle deep in the pile and backed away. For a moment the flame flickered small and
insignificant, then there was a hiss and a bright fire streaked up the pile’s center. The
wounded men cried aloud as smoke began to curl toward the beams and as Vuillard and the
dragoons retreated toward the door. “They flap like fish.” The Brigadier spoke of the men who
tried to drag themselves toward the fire in the vain hope of extinguishing it. Vuillard
laughed. “The rain will slow things,” he told Christopher, “but not by much.” The fire was
crackling now, spewing thick smoke. “It’s when the roof catches fire that they die,“ Vuillard
said, “and it takes quite a time. Best not to stay though.”
The dragoons left, locking the church behind them. A dozen men stayed out in the rain to
make certain that the fire did not go out or, more unlikely, that no one escaped from the
flames, while Vuillard led Christopher and a half-dozen other officers to the village’s
largest tavern which was cheerfully lit by scores of candles and lamps. “The infantry will
report to us here,” Vuillard explained, “so we must find something to pass the time, eh?”
“Indeed.” Christopher plucked off his cocked hat as he stooped through the tavern door.
“We’ll have a meal,” Brigadier Vuillard said, “and what passes in this country for wine.”
He stopped in the main room where the village’s girls had been lined against a wall. “What do
you think?” he asked Christopher.
“Tempting,” Christopher said.
“Indeed.” Vuillard still did not entirely trust Christopher. The Englishman was too
aloof, but now, Vuillard thought, he would put him to the test. “Take your choice,” he said,
pointing to the girls. The men guarding the girls grinned. The girls were crying softly.
Christopher took a pace toward the captives. If the Englishman was squeamish, Vuillard
thought, then that would betray scruples or, worse, a sympathy for the Portuguese. There
were even some in the French army who expressed such sympathies, officers who argued that
by maltreating the Portuguese the army only made their own problems worse, but Vuillard,
like most Frenchmen, believed that the Portuguese needed to be punished with such severity
that none would ever dare lift a finger against the French again. Rape, theft and wanton
destruction were, to Vuillard, defensive tactics and now he wanted to see Christopher
join him in an act of war. He wanted to see the aloof Englishman behave like the French in
their moment of triumph. “Be quick,” Vuillard said, “I promised my men they could have the
ones we don’t want.”