looked through the small window by the back door at the rain which was pelting down. ‘You’ll need better weather.’
Hogan shrugged. ‘It can’t rain for ever.’
‘That’s what Noah’s brother said.’
Hogan smiled. ‘Aye, but at least he was spared shovelling elephant dung for forty days.’
Sharpe grinned. The Battalion would soon be shovelling mud, digging forward to the great fortress and, as he thought of Badajoz, his expression changed. Hogan saw the worry.
‘What’s the problem?’
Sharpe shook his head. ‘Nothing.’
‘Would it be that gazette, now?’
Sharpe gave a minute shrug. ‘I suppose so.’
‘They’re fool’s gold, sure enough, but they can’t take it away from you, not now.’
‘Would you bet me some wine on that?’
Hogan said nothing. There was no answer. The Horse Guards had promoted officers who were totally blind, others who were only outside of the madhouse because of their money and connections, and they were certainly not in the habit of ratifying gazettes simply because a man was good at his job. Hogan shook his head, raised his glass again. ‘A pox to pen pushers.’
‘May they rot in agony.’
There was a heaving of bodies near the serving hatch, a welcoming smile on Hogan’s face, and Major Forrest joined them. Sharpe half listened to Hogan repeating his news, but his thoughts drifted away, back to that damned gazette. If only they would ratify it, he could relax. He tried to imagine what would happen if they did not, if he were to find himself a Lieutenant again. He would have to salute Knowles, call him ‘sir’, and someone else would lead the Company that Sharpe had trained, brought up, and led through two years of war. He remembered his first sight of them; cowed and helpless, but now they were as fine as any soldiers in the army. He could not imagine losing them, losing Harper? Good God! Losing Harper!
‘Good God!’ For a moment Sharpe thought Hogan had been reading his thoughts, and then he saw the Major staring across the room. Hogan shook his head. ‘If ever any beauty I did see which I desired and got, ’twas but a dream of she.’ Teresa had come into the room and was crossing towards them. Hogan turned to Forrest. ‘Would she be your lady, Major? She can’t be Sharpe’s. The man has no taste! He hasn’t even heard of John Donne, let alone recognize a misquotation. No. Something as beautiful as that would only fall in love with a man of taste, a man like you, Major, or me.’ He twitched at his collar as Forrest blushed with pleasure.
Lieutenant Price had gone on his knees to Teresa, blocking her path, and was offering her his undying love in the form of a red pepper held up like a rose. The other Lieutenants encouraged him, shouted at Teresa that Harold Price had prospects, but she just blew him a kiss and stepped past him. Sharpe was so immensely proud of her. In any place in the world, in any drawing room, in any theatre, in any palace, let alone in a damp, smoky inn at Portalegre, she would be counted beautiful. The mother of his child. His woman. He stood up for her, embarrassed that his pleasure was obvious to so many, and offered her a chair. He introduced Hogan who dropped into his fluent Spanish and made her laugh. She glanced at Sharpe, eyes fond under the long, dark lashes, listened to the Irishman’s nonsense, and laughed again. The Engineer toasted her, flirted with her, and looked at Sharpe. ‘You’re a lucky man, Richard.’
‘I know, sir, I know.’
Lieutenant Price was left with the red pepper. He threw it across the room and followed it with a bellowed question. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Badajoz!’ The room roared with laughter.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘Halt!’ Boots thudded on to the roadway. ‘Stand bloody still, you bastards! Still!’ The Sergeant cackled, ground his few remaining teeth together, turned away and immediately spun back. ‘I said still! If you want your sodding bum scratched, Gutteridge, I’ll do it with my bayonet! Still!’ He turned to the young officer and snapped an immaculate salute. ‘Sir!’
The Ensign, visibly nervous of the tall Sergeant, returned the salute. ‘Thank you, Sergeant.’
‘Don’t thank me, sir. My job, sir.’ The Sergeant gave his habitual cackle, a wild, discomfiting sound, and his eyes flicked left and right. The Sergeant’s eyes were blue, almost a baby blue, the Ensign decided, while the rest of him was yellow, fever yellow, a sickly cast over his hair, teeth and skin. The baby blue eyes settled on the Ensign. ‘Are you going to find the Captain, sir, are you? Tell him we’ve arrived, sir?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Give him my best, sir. My very best.’ The Sergeant cackled again, and the cackle turned into a racking cough, and the head twitched on its long, scrawny neck that had the terrible scar.
The Ensign walked into the courtyard that had SE/LC chalked on the gatepost. He was relieved to be away from the Sergeant, his constant bane on the long journey from the South Essex depot, and relieved that the other officers of the South Essex Light Company could now share the brunt of the Sergeant’s madness. No, that was not right. The Sergeant was not mad, the Ensign decided, but there was something about him that spoke of the possibility of utter horror that lurked just below the yellow surface. The Sergeant was terrifying to the Ensign, as he was to the recruits.
The soldiers in the courtyard were almost as frightening. They had the look that other veterans in Portugal had assumed, a look quite at odds with soldiering in England. Their uniforms had turned from scarlet into either a faded, whitish pink, or else into a dark, virulent purple. The commonest colour was brown where jackets and trousers had been repeatedly patched with coarse, peasant cloth. Their skins, even in winter, were dark brown. Above all, the Ensign noticed, was their air of confidence. They carried themselves casually, at home with their polished and battered weapons, and the Ensign felt ill at ease in his new scarlet jacket with its bright yellow facings. An Ensign was the lowest of all commissioned officers and William Matthews, a sixteen-year-old who pretended to shave, was scared by the first sight of these men he was supposed to command.
A man was bent beneath the yard pump, a second man working the handle so that water pulsed on to his head and naked back. As the man stood up Matthews saw a lattice of thick scars that had been caused by a flogging and the Ensign turned away, sickened by the sight. His father had warned him that the army attracted the filth of society, the troublemakers, and Matthews knew he had just seen such a piece of human flotsam. Another soldier, for some reason dressed in Rifle green, saw his expression and grinned. Matthews knew he was being watched, and judged, but then an officer appeared, dressed properly, and it was with relief that he crossed to the newcomer, a Lieutenant, and saluted. ‘Ensign Matthews, sir. Reporting with the recruits.’
The Lieutenant smiled vaguely, turned away, and vomited. ‘Oh, Christ!’ The Lieutenant seemed to be having trouble in breathing, but he stood upright again, painfully, and turned back to the Ensign. ‘My dear fellow, frightfully sorry. Bloody Portuguese put garlic in everything. I’m Harold Price.’ Price took off his shako and rubbed his head. ‘I missed your name. Frightfully sorry.’
‘Matthews,
