On foot Kearsey was busy and, to Sharpe’s eyes, ludicrous. He strutted with tiny steps, legs scissoring quickly, while his eyes, above the big, grey moustache, peered acutely at the mass of taller humanity. On horseback, though, astride his huge roan, he was at home as if he had been restored to his true height. Sharpe was impressed by the night’s march. The moon was thin and cloud-ridden, yet the Major led the Company unerringly across difficult country. They crossed the frontier somewhere in the darkness, a grunt from Kearsey announcing the news, and then the route led downhill to the river Agueda, where they waited for the first sign of dawn.
If Kearsey was impressive he was also annoying. The march had been punctuated with advice, condescending advice, as if Kearsey were the only man who understood the problems. He certainly knew the countryside, from the farmlands along the road from Almeida to Ciudad Rodrigo, to the high country that was to the north, the chaos of the valleys and hills that dropped finally to the river Duero, into which the Coa and the Agueda flowed. He knew the villages, the paths, the rivers and where they could be crossed; he knew the high hills and the sheltered passes, and within the lonely countryside he knew the guerrilla bands and where they could be found. Sitting in the mist that ghosted up from the Agueda, he talked, in his gruff voice, about the Partisans. Sharpe and Knowles listened, the unseen river a sound in the background, as the Major talked of ambushes and murders, the secret places where arms were stored, and the signal codes that flashed from hilltop to hilltop.
‘Nothing can move here, Sharpe, nothing, without the Partisans knowing. The French have to escort every messenger with four hundred men. Imagine that? Four hundred sabres to protect one despatch and sometimes even that’s not enough.’
Sharpe could imagine it, and even pity the French for it. Wellington paid hard cash for every captured despatch; sometimes they came to his headquarters with the crusted blood of the dead messenger still crisp on the paper. The messenger who died clean in such a fight was lucky. The wounded were taken not for the information but for revenge, and the war in the hills between French and Spanish was a terrible tale of ghastly pain. Kearsey was riffling the pages of his unseen Bible as he talked.
‘By day the men are shepherds, farmers, millers, but by night they’re killers. For every Frenchman we kill, they kill two. Think what it’s like for the French, Sharpe. Every man, every woman, every child, is an enemy in the countryside. Even the catechism has changed. “Are the French true believers?” “No, they are the devil’s spawn, doing his work, and must be eradicated.”’ He gave his barking laugh.
Knowles stretched his legs. ‘Do the women fight, sir?’
‘They fight, Lieutenant, like the men. Moreno’s daughter, Teresa, is as good as any man. She knows how to ambush, to pursue. I’ve seen her kill.’
Sharpe looked up and saw the mist silvering overhead as the dawn leaked across the hills. ‘Is she the one who’s to marry El Católico?’
Kearsey laughed. ‘Yes.’ He was silent for a second. ‘They’re not all good, of course. Some are just brigands, looting their own people.’ He was silent again. Knowles picked up his uncertainty.
‘Do you mean El Católico, sir?’
‘No.’ Kearsey still seemed uncertain. ‘But he’s a hard man. I’ve seen him skin a Frenchman alive, inch by inch, and praying over him at the same time.’ Knowles made a sound of disgust, but Kearsey, visible now, shook his head. ‘You must understand, Lieutenant, how much they hate. Teresa’s mother was killed by the French and she did not die well.’ He peered down at the Bible, trying to read the print, then looked up at the lightening mist. ‘We must move. Casatejada’s a two-hour march.’ He stood up. ‘You’ll find it best to tie your boots round your neck as we cross the river.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Sharpe said it patiently. He had probably crossed a thousand rivers in his years as a soldier, but Kearsey insisted on treating them all as pure amateurs.
Once over the Agueda, waist-high and cold, they were beyond the farthest British patrols. From now on there was no hope of any friendly cavalry, no Captain Lossow with his German sabres, to help out in trouble. This was French territory, and Kearsey rode ahead, searching the landscape for signs of the enemy. The hills were the French hunting-ground, the scene of countless small and bloody encounters between cavalrymen and Partisans, and Kearsey led the Light Company on paths high up the slopes so that should an enemy patrol appear they could scramble quickly into the high rocks where horsemen could not follow. The Company seemed excited, glad to be near the enemy, and they grinned at Sharpe as he watched them file past on the goat track.
He had only twenty Riflemen now, including himself and Harper, out of the thirty-one survivors he had led from the horror of the retreat to Corunna. They were good men, the Green Jackets, the best in the army, and he was proud of them. Daniel Hagman, the old poacher, who was the best marksman. Parry Jenkins, five feet and four inches of Welsh loquaciousness, who could tease fish out of the most reluctant water. Jenkins, in battle, partnered Isaiah Tongue, educated in books and alcohol, who believed Napoleon was an enlightened genius, England a foul tyranny, but nevertheless fought with the cool deliberation of a good Rifleman. Tongue wrote letters for the other men in the Company, read their infrequent mail when it arrived, and dearly wanted to argue his levelling ideas with Sharpe, but dared not. They were good men.
The other thirty-three were all Redcoats, armed with the smoothbore Brown Bess musket, but they had proved themselves at Talavera and in the tedious winter patrols. Lieutenant Knowles, still awed by Sharpe, but a good officer, decisive and fair. Sharpe nodded at James Kelly, an Irish Corporal, who had stunned the Battalion by marrying Pru Baxter, a widow who was a foot taller and two stones heavier than the skinny Kelly, but the Irishman had hardly stopped smiling in the three months since the marriage. Sergeant Read, the Methodist, who worried about the souls of the Company, and so he should. Most were criminals, avoiding justice by enlisting, and nearly all were drunks, but they were in Sharpe’s Company and he would defend them, even the useless ones like Private Batten or Private Roach, who pimped his wife for a shilling a time.
Sergeant Harper, the best of them all, moved alongside Sharpe. Next to the seven-barrelled gun he had slung two packs belonging to men who were falling with tiredness after the night’s march. He nodded ahead. ‘What’s next, sir?’
‘We pick up the gold and come back. Simple.’
Harper grinned. In battle he was savage, crooning the old stories of the Gaelic heroes, the warriors of Ireland, but away from the fighting he covered his intelligence with a charm that would have fooled the devil. ‘You believe that, sir?’
Sharpe had no time to reply. Kearsey had stopped, two hundred yards ahead, and dismounted. He pointed left, up the slope, and Sharpe repeated the gesture. The Company moved quickly into the stones and crouched while Sharpe, still puzzled, ran towards the Major. ‘Sir?’
Kearsey did not reply. The Major was alert, like a dog pointing at game, but Sharpe could see from his eyes that Kearsey was not sure what had alarmed him. Instinct, the soldier’s best gift, was working, and Sharpe, who trusted his own instinct, could sense nothing. ‘Sir?’
The Major nodded at a hilltop, half a mile away. ‘See the stones?’
Sharpe could see a heap of boulders on the peak of the hill. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘There’s a white stone showing, yes?’ Sharpe nodded, and Kearsey seemed relieved that his eyes had not deceived him. ‘That means the enemy are abroad. Come on.’
The Major led his horse, Marlborough, into the tangle of rocks, and Sharpe followed patiently, wondering how many other secret signs they had passed in the night.
