not one. He came alone and Sharpe recognized the Frenchman’s bravery and, to show it, he stepped forward and raised his sword in a formal salute.
Dulong saw the salute, checked and turned and saw he was alone. He looked back to Sharpe, raised his own sabre, then sheathed it with a violent thrust that betrayed the disgust he felt at his men’s reluctance to die for the Emperor. He nodded at Sharpe, then walked away, and twenty minutes later the rest of the French were gone from the hill. Vicente’s men had been formed in two ranks on the tower’s open terrace, ready to fire a volley that had not been needed, and two of them had been killed by a howitzer shell, and another shell had slammed a piece of its casing into Gataker’s leg, gouging a bloody path down his right thigh, but leaving the bone unbroken. Sharpe had not even registered that the howitzer had been firing during the attack, but it had stopped now, the sun was fully risen and the valleys were flooded by light and Sergeant Harper, his rifle barrel fouled by powder deposits and hot from firing, had made the day’s first pot of tea.
It was just before midday when a French soldier climbed the hill carrying a white flag of truce tied to the muzzle of his musket. Two officers accompanied him, one in French infantry blue and the other, Colonel Christopher, in his red British uniform jacket with its black facings and cuffs.
Sharpe and Vicente went to meet the two officers who had advanced a dozen paces ahead of the glum-looking man with the white flag and Vicente was forcibly struck by the resemblance between Sharpe and the French infantry officer, who was a tall, black-haired man with a scar on his right cheek and a bruise across the bridge of his nose. His ragged blue uniform bore the green-fringed epaulettes that showed he was a light infantryman and his flared shako was fronted with a white metal plate stamped with the French eagle and the number 31. The badge was surmounted by a plume of red and white feathers which looked new and fresh compared to the Frenchman’s stained and threadbare uniform.
‘We’ll kill the Frog first,’ Sharpe said to Vicente, ‘because he’s the dangerous bugger, and then we’ll fillet Christopher slowly.’
‘Sharpe!’ the lawyer in Vicente was shocked. ‘They’re under a flag of truce!’
They stopped a few paces from Colonel Christopher, who took a toothpick from his lips and chucked it away. ‘How are you, Sharpe?’ he asked genially, then held up a hand to stay any answer. ‘Give me a moment, will you?’ the Colonel said and one-handedly clicked open a tinderbox, struck a light and drew on a cigar. When it was burning satisfactorily he closed the tinderbox’s lid on the small flames and smiled. ‘Fellow with me is called Major Dulong. He don’t speak a word of English, but he wanted to have a look at you.’
Sharpe looked at Dulong, recognized him as the officer who had led so bravely up the hill, and then felt sorry that a good man had climbed back up the hill alongside a traitor. A traitor and a thief. ‘Where’s my telescope?’ he demanded of Christopher.
‘Back down the hill,’ Christopher said carelessly. ‘You can have it later.’ He drew on the cigar and looked at the French bodies among the rocks. ‘Brigadier Vuillard has been a mite over eager, wouldn’t you say? Cigar?’
‘No.’
‘Please yourself.’ The Colonel sucked deep. ‘You’ve done well, Sharpe, proud of you. The 31st Léger’ – he jerked his head towards Dulong – ‘ain’t used to losing. You showed the damn Frogs how an Englishman fights, eh?’
‘And how Irishmen fight,’ Sharpe said, ‘and Scots, Welsh and Portuguese.’
‘Decent of you to remember the uglier breeds,’ Christopher said, ‘but it’s over now, Sharpe, all over. Time to pack up and go. Frogs are offering you honours of war and all that. March out with your guns shouldered, your colours flying and let bygones be bygones. They ain’t happy, Sharpe, but I persuaded them.’
Sharpe looked at Dulong again and he wondered if there was a look of warning in the Frenchman’s eyes. Dulong had said nothing, but just stood a pace behind Christopher and two paces to the side and Sharpe suspected the Major was distancing himself from Christopher’s errand. Sharpe looked back to Christopher. ‘You think I’m a damned fool, don’t you?’ he retorted.
Christopher ignored the comment. ‘I don’t think you’ve time to reach Lisbon. Cradock will be gone in a day or two and his army with him. They’re going home, Sharpe. Back to England, so probably the best thing for you to do is wait in Oporto. The French have agreed to repatriate all British citizens and a ship will probably be sailing from there within a week or two and you and your fellows can be aboard.’
‘Will you be aboard?’ Sharpe asked.
‘I very well might, Sharpe, thank you for asking. And if you’ll forgive me for sounding immodest I rather fancy I shall sail home to a hero’s welcome. The man who brought peace to Portugal! There has to be a knighthood in that, don’t you think? Not that I care, of course, but I’m sure Kate will enjoy being Lady Christopher.’
‘If you weren’t under a flag of truce,’ Sharpe said, ‘I’d disembowel you here and now. I know what you’ve been doing. Dinner parties with French generals? Bringing them here so they could snap us up? You’re a bloody traitor, Christopher, nothing but a bloody traitor.’ The vehemence of his tone brought a small smile to Major Dulong’s grim face.
‘Oh dear.’ Christopher looked pained. ‘Oh dear me, dear me.’ He stared at a nearby French corpse for a few seconds, then shook his head. ‘I’ll overlook your impertinence, Sharpe. I suppose that damned servant of mine found his way to you? He did? Thought as much. Luis has an unrivalled talent for misunderstanding circumstances.’ He drew on his cigar, then blew a plume of smoke that was whirled away on the wind. ‘I was sent here, Sharpe, by His Majesty’s government with instructions to discover whether Portugal was worth fighting for, whether it was worth an effusion of British blood and I concluded, and I’ve no doubt you will disagree with me, that it was not. So I obeyed the second part of my remit, which was to secure terms from the French. Not terms of surrender, Sharpe, but of settlement. We shall withdraw our forces and they will withdraw theirs, though for form’s sake they will be allowed to march a token division through the streets of Lisbon. Then they’re going: bonsoir, adieu and au revoir. By the end of July there will not be one foreign soldier remaining on Portugal’s soil. That is my achievement, Sharpe, and it was necessary to dine with French generals, French marshals and French officials to secure it.’ He paused, as if expecting some reaction, but Sharpe just looked sceptical and Christopher sighed. ‘That is the truth, Sharpe, however hard you may find it to believe, but remember “there are more things in …”’
‘I know,’ Sharpe interrupted. ‘More things in heaven and earth than I bloody know about, but what the hell were you doing here?’ His voice was angry now. ‘And you’ve been wearing a French uniform. Luis told me.’
‘Can’t usually wear this red coat behind French lines, Sharpe,’ Christopher said, ‘and civilian clothes don’t exactly command respect these days, so yes, I do sometimes wear French uniform. It’s a ruse de guerre, Sharpe, a ruse de guerre.’
‘A ruse of bloody nothing,’ Sharpe snarled. ‘Those bastards have been trying to kill my men, and you brought them here!’
‘Oh, Sharpe,’ Christopher said sadly. ‘We needed somewhere quiet to sign the memorandum of agreement, some place where the mob could not express its crude opinions and so I offered the Quinta. I confess I did
