Ferreira, as the dragoons came nearer, spread his arms to show he carried no weapons, then stood quite still as the horsemen surrounded him. A blade dipped near his throat, held by the officer, whose uniform had been faded by the sun. ‘I have a letter of introduction,’ Ferreira said in French.
‘To whom?’ It was the officer who answered.
‘To you,’ Ferreira answered, ‘from Colonel Barreto.’
‘And who in the name of holy Christ is Colonel Barreto?’
‘An aide to Marshal Masséna.’
‘Show me the letter.’
Ferreira brought the piece of paper from a pocket, unfolded it and handed it up to the French officer, who leaned from his saddle to take it. The letter, creased and dirty, explained to any French officer that the bearer could be trusted and should be given every help possible. Barreto had given Ferreira the letter when the Major had been negotiating the gift of the flour, but it came in more useful now. The dragoon officer read it swiftly, glanced once at Ferreira, then tossed the letter back. ‘So what do you want?’
‘To see Colonel Barreto, of course,’ Ferreira said.
It took an hour and a half to reach the village of Moura where Ney’s men, who had attacked towards the windmill above Sula, were resting. The surgeons were busy in the village and Ferreira had to steer his horse past a pile of severed arms and legs that lay just outside an open window. Next to the stream, where the flat stones provided a place for the village women to do their laundry, there was now a heap of corpses. Most had been stripped of their uniforms and their white skin was laced with blood. Ferreira averted his eyes as he followed the dragoons to a small hill just beyond the village where, in the shadow of Moura’s windmill, Marshal Masséna was eating a meal of bread, cheese and cold chicken. Ferreira dismounted and waited as the dragoon officer threaded his way through the aides, and, as he waited, the Major stared at the ridge and wondered that any general would think to throw his men up such a slope.
‘Major Ferreira!’ The voice was sour. A tall man in the uniform of a French colonel of dragoons approached him. ‘Give me one reason, Major,’ the Colonel said, pointing to the mill, ‘why we shouldn’t put you against that wall and shoot you.’ The Colonel, though dressed as a Frenchman, was Portuguese. He had been an officer in the old Portuguese army and had seen his home burned and his family killed by the ordenança, the Portuguese militia that had turned on the privileged classes in the chaos of the first French invasions. Colonel Barreto had joined the French, not because he hated Portugal, but because he saw no future for his country unless it was rid of superstition and anarchy. The French, he believed, would bring the blessings of modernity to Portugal, but only if the French forces were fed. ‘You promised us flour!’ Barreto said angrily. ‘And instead there was British infantry waiting for us!’
‘In war, Colonel, things go wrong,’ Ferreira said humbly. ‘The flour was there, my brother was there, and then a British company arrived. I tried to send them away, but they would not go.’ Ferreira knew he sounded weak, but he was terrified. Not of the French, but in case some officer on the ridge saw him through a telescope. He doubted that would happen. The ridge top was a long way away and his blue Portuguese jacket would look much like a French coat at that distance, but he was still frightened. Treachery was a hard trade.
Barreto seemed to accept the explanation. ‘I found the remnants of the flour,’ he admitted, ‘but it’s a pity, Major. This army is hungry. You know what we found in this village? One half barrel of lemons. What damn good is that?’
‘Coimbra,’ Ferreira said, ‘is full of food.’
‘Full of food, eh?’ Barreto asked sceptically.
‘Wheat, barley, rice, beans, figs, salt cod, beef,’ Ferreira said flatly.
‘And how, in God’s name, do we reach Coimbra, eh?’ Barreto had switched to French because a group of Masséna’s other aides had come to listen to the conversation. The Colonel pointed to the ridge. ‘Those bastards, Ferreira, are between us and Coimbra.’
‘There is a road round the ridge,’ Ferreira said.
‘A road,’ Barreto said, ‘which goes through the defile of Caramula, and how many damn redcoats are waiting for us there?’
‘None,’ Ferreira said. ‘There is only the Portuguese militia. No more than fifteen hundred. In three days, Colonel, you can be in Coimbra.’
‘And in three days,’ Barreto said, ‘the British will empty Coimbra of food.’
‘My brother guarantees you three months’ supply,’ Ferreira said, ‘but only…’ He faltered and stopped.
‘Only what?’ a Frenchman asked.
‘When your army enters a town, monsieur,’ Ferreira spoke very humbly, ‘they do not behave well. There is plundering, theft, murder. It has happened every time.’
‘So?’
‘So if your men get into my brother’s warehouses, what will they do?’
‘Take everything,’ the Frenchman said.
‘And destroy what they cannot take,’ Ferreira finished the statement. He looked back to Barreto. ‘My brother wants two things, Colonel. He wants a fair payment for the food he will supply to you, and he wants his property guarded from the moment you enter the city.’
‘We take what we want,’ another Frenchman put in, ‘we don’t pay our enemies for food.’
‘If I do not tell my brother that you agree,’ Ferreira said, his voice harder now, ‘then there will be no food when you arrive in Coimbra. You can take nothing, monsieur, or you can pay for something and eat.’
There was a moment’s silence, then Barreto nodded abruptly. ‘I will talk to the Marshal,’ he said and turned away.
One of the French aides, a tall and thin major, offered Ferreira a pinch of snuff. ‘I hear,’ he said, ‘that the British are building defences in front of Lisbon?’
Ferreira shrugged as if to suggest the Frenchman’s fears were trivial. ‘There are one or two new forts,’ he admitted, for he had seen them for himself when he was riding north from Lisbon, ‘but they are small works,’ he went on. ‘What they are also building, monsieur, is a new port at São Julião.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘South of Lisbon.’
‘They’re building a port?’
‘A new harbour, monsieur,’ Ferreira confirmed. ‘They fear trying to evacuate their troops through Lisbon. There might be riots. São Julião is a remote place and it will be easy for the British to take to their ships there without trouble.’
‘And the forts you saw?’
‘They overlook the main road to Lisbon,’ Ferreira said, ‘but there are other roads.’
‘And how far were they from Lisbon?’
‘Twenty miles,’ Ferreira guessed.
‘And there are hills there?’
‘Not
