Harper came back, scrubbed clean, his clothes soaking wet. He nodded at the Partisans. 'What do we do with them, sir?'
'Lock them up when we go.' It would gain a little time, not much, but every minute was valuable. He turned to Knowles. 'Are we ready?'
'Nearly, sir.'
Knowles was splitting open the bags while two men, Sergeant McGovern and Rifleman Tongue, poured the coins into packs. Sharpe was grateful that so many of his men had looted French cowhide packs at Talavera; the British canvas and wood packs would have split open under the weight. The men hated the British packs, made by the firm of Trotter's, with their terrible chest straps, which, at the end of a long march, made the lungs feel as if they were filled with acid: 'Trotter's pains', it was called, and all but a couple of the men had captured French equipment on their backs.
Rifleman Tongue looked up at Sharpe. 'Shouldn't there be sixty-four bags, sir?'
'Sixty-four?'
Tongue pushed back a hank of hair that continually fell over his eyes. 'Supposed to be sixteen thousand coins, sir. We've got sixty-three bags, two hundred and fifty in that one.' He pointed to the opened bag. 'That makes fifteen thousand seven hundred and fifty. Two hundred and fifty short.'
'That's not all that's missing.' Harper's voice was soft and it took a moment for Sharpe to understand. Hardy. He had forgotten Captain Hardy in the excitement of finding the gold. He looked at El Catolico. 'Well?'
The Spaniard shrugged. 'We used one bag, yes. We must buy weapons, powder, shot, even food.'
'I wasn't talking about gold."
'What then?' El Catolico was very still.
Another drop of rain, and another, and Sharpe glanced up at the clouds. It would be a hard march. 'Captain Hardy is missing.'
'I know.'
'What else do you know?'
El Catolico's tongue flicked out, licked his lips. 'We think he was captured by the French.' He dropped into his sneering tone. 'No doubt they will exchange him, politely. You do not understand real war, Captain.'
Harper growled, stepped forward. 'Let me ask the questions, sir. I'll break him apart.'
'No.' It was the girl who spoke. 'Hardy tried to escape the French. We don't know where he is.'
'They're lying.' The Irishman's hands clenched.
The rain was beating on the dry ground, big, warm drops. Sharpe turned to the Company. 'Wrap your locks! Stop muzzles!'
Rain was the enemy of gunpowder and the most they could do was try to keep the rifles and muskets dry. Sharpe saw the ground soaking up the water. They had to leave soon, before the dust turned to mud.
'Sir!' Hagman again, calling from the tower.
'Daniel?'
'Horsemen, sir. Couple of miles south.'
'French?'
'No. Dagoes, sir.'
Now time was everything. Sharpe turned to Harper.
'Lock them up. Find somewhere, anywhere.' They must forget Captain Hardy and march fast, try to build a lead over the Partisans' pursuit, but Sharpe knew it was impossible. The gold was heavy. El Catolico understood. As the Spaniards were herded unceremoniously towards the village he pushed his way past a Rifleman.
'You won't get far, Captain.'
Sharpe walked up to him. 'Why not?'
El Catolico smiled, gestured at the rain, the gold. 'We'll chase you. Kill you.'
It was true. Sharpe knew that even by using the horses that were still in the village he could not travel fast enough. The rain was falling harder, bouncing up from the ground so that the earth seemed to have a sparkling mist an inch or two above its surface. Sharpe smiled, pushed past the Spaniard.
'You won't.' He put out his hand, took hold of Teresa's collar, and pulled her out of the group. 'She dies if even one of us gets hurt.'
El Catolico lunged for him, the girl twisted away, but Harper brought his fist into the Spaniard's stomach and Sharpe grabbed Teresa with a choking hold on her neck.
'Do you understand? She dies. If that gold does not reach the British army, she dies!'
El Catolico straightened up, his eyes furious. 'You will die, Sharpe, I promise you, and not an easy death.'
Sharpe ignored him. 'Sergeant?'
'Sir?'
'Rope.'
The Spaniard watched, silent, as Harper found a scrap of rope and, at Sharpe's directions, looped and tightened it round Teresa's neck.
Sharpe nodded. 'Hold her, Sergeant.' He turned to El Catolico. 'Remember her like that. If you come near me, she's dead. If I get back safely, then I'll release her to marry you.'
He gestured and the Company pushed the Spaniards away. Sharpe watched them go, knowing that soon they would be on his tracks, but he had bought more than time now. He had his hostage. He looked at her, seeing the hatred in her proud face, and knew he could not kill her. He hoped El Catolico did not know that, or else, in the seething rain, the Light Company were all dead men.
They started out, silent and wet, on the long journey home.
Chapter 14
Six horses had been in the village and for the first two miles, back along the same track they had come, the going was easy enough. The horses carried the packs of gold, the men climbed the slope, the rain hissed in their ears, and there was the elation of success, of being at least on the road home, but it could not last. The direct route westwards, the path they were using, was not the most sensible route. It was the obvious track, the one that El Catolico would search first, and it led straight towards Almeida and the burgeoning French army that was concentrating on the town. Sharpe felt the temptation to stay on the easy route, to make the march easier, but once the village was out of sight he turned the men north, up into the hills, and abandoned the horses. Lieutenant Knowles with three men took them on, further westward, and Sharpe hoped the continuing hoof-marks would delay the pursuit while the Company, astonished at the weight of the coins, struggled into the northern wasteland, up rocks and slopes that no horse could have climbed. The rain kept on steadily, soaking their uniforms, driving their tired, aching, sleepless bodies to new layers of discomfort.
Teresa seemed unafraid, as if she knew Sharpe would not kill her, and she refused the offer of a greatcoat with a disdainful shake of her head. She was cold, soaked through, humiliated by the rope round her neck, but Sharpe left it on because it would have been simple for her to run away, unencumbered, into the slippery rocks where the heavily laden men of the Light Company would never have caught her. Harper held the other end looped round his wrist.
'Where are you heading, sir?' He had to shout over the rain.
'The ford at San Anton. You remember? The Major told us about it.' Sharpe wondered where Kearsey was, what his reaction would be.
It took Knowles an hour and a half to catch up, his men worn out by the effort but glad to be back in the safety of the full Company. Knowles shook his head. 'Didn't see a thing, sir. Nothing.'
Sharpe was not reassured. These hills could have been full of hidden watchers and the ploy of laying the false trail might not delay El Catolico for one minute, but as the day went on, and their tiredness became a numbness beyond pain, Sharpe let his hopes rise. They were walking a nightmare landscape on a plateau that was criss-crossed with ravines, streambeds, and rock. No horse would make fast time up here and Sharpe forced the men on pitilessly, cracking his anger like a whip, driving them north and west, through the relentless weather, kicking the men who fell, and carrying two of the packs of gold to prove to them it could be done.
Teresa watched it all, her mouth curved in an ironic smile, as her captors slipped, crashed painfully into the rocks, and blundered onwards in the storm. Sharpe prayed that the wind stayed in the north; he had lost all bearings and his only guide was the rain on his face. He stopped occasionally, let the men rest, and searched the wind-scoured plateau for the sign of a horseman. There was nothing, just the rain sweeping in slow curtains towards him, the bounce of drops from the rocks, and the grey horizon where air and stone became indistinguishable. Perhaps the ploy had wo
rked, he thought, and El Catolico was searching miles away on the wrong road, and the longer they stayed undetected the more Sharpe dared to hope that the crude ploy of the false tracks had worked.
Every half hour or so the Company stopped and the men who had not been carrying the gold-filled packs took over from those who had. It was a painfully slow march. The packs chafed their shoulders, rubbed them raw, and the gold, far from being something from their wildest dreams, became a loathed burden that the men would happily have thrown away if Sharpe had not taken his position at the rear, driving them on, forcing the Company across the bleak plateau. He had no idea how far they had come, even what time of day it was, only that they must keep marching, putting distance between themselves and El Catolico, and his anger snapped when the Company suddenly stopped, dropped, and yelled at them, 'Get up!'
'But, sir!' Knowles, leading the Company, waved ahead. 'Look!'
Even in the rain, in the crushing weather, it was a beautiful sight. The plateau suddenly ended, dropped to a wide valley through which meandered a stream and a track.
The Agueda. It had to be the river Agueda, off to the left, and the stream at the bottom of the valley flowed east to west to join the river where the track led to the ford. Sharpe's heart leapt. They had made it! He could see the road start again at the far side of the river; it was the ford at San Anton, and beside the track, on this side of the river, was an ancient fort on a rock bluff that once must have guarded the crossing. At this distance, he guessed a mile and a half, the walls looked broken, stubbled in the grey light, but the fortress had to mark the site of the ford. They had done it!
'Five minutes' rest!'
The Company sat down, relieved, cheered up. Sharpe perched on a rock and searched the valley. Second by second his hopes revived. It was empty. No horsemen, no Partisans, nothing but the stream and the track going to the river. He took out his telescope, praying that the driving rain would not seep through the junctions of its cylinders, and searched the valley again. A second road, running north and south, ran this side of the river, but it, too, was empty. By God! They had done it!
'Come on!' He clapped his hands, pulled men up and pushed them on. 'To the river! We cross tonight! Well done!'
The rain still fell, blinding the men as they stumbled down the slope, but they had made it! They could see their goal, feel pride in an achievement, and tomorrow they would wake up on the west bank of the Agueda and march to the Coa. There were British patrols on the far bank, to be sure not as many as there were French, but the river Agueda marked some kind of limit, and after a day's effort like this they needed that limit. They almost ran the last part of the slope, splashed through the stream, boots crunching on its gravel bed, and then stamped on to the wet track as if it were a paved highway in the centre of London. The ford was a mile ahead, trees on both banks, and the Company knew that once they crossed they could rest, let the tiredness flow, and shut their eyes against the grey horror of the day and its journey.
'Sir.' Harper spoke quietly, with a desperate resignation. 'Sir. Behind.'
Horsemen. Bloody horsemen. Partisans who had ridden not over the plateau but up the direct road from Casatejada and who now appeared on the track behind them. Teresa smiled, gave Sharpe a look of victory, and he ignored it. He called wearily to the Company to halt.
'How many, Sergeant?'
There was a pause. 'Reckon it's just a small party.'
Sharpe could see no more than twenty or thirty horsemen, standing in the rain just three hundred yards behind the Company. He took a deep breath.
'They can't hurt us, lads. Bayonets. They won't charge bayonets!'
There was something strangely comforting about the sound of the blades scraping from the scabbards, the sight of the men crouching with bent knees as they fixed on the long blades, to be doing something that was aimed at their enemy instead of the muscle-racking tramp through the rain. The band of horsemen came forward, spurred into a trot, and Sharpe stood with his men in the front rank.
'We'll teach them to respect the bayonet! Wait for it! Wait for it!'
The Partisans had no intention of charging the small Company. The horsemen split into two groups and galloped either side of the bedraggled soldiers, almost ignoring them. El Catolico was there, a smile of triumph on his face, and he swept off his hat in an ironic gesture as he went past, thirty yards away and untouchable. Teresa jerked towards him, but Harper held her firm, and she watched as the horsemen went on towards the fortress and the river. Sharpe knew what they were doing. The Company would be blocked in, trapped in the valley, and El Catolico would wait until the rest of the Partisans, summoned from the south, came to his support.
He wiped rain from his face. 'Come on.' There was nowhere to go, so the best thing was to go on. Perhaps El Catolico could be threatened, a bayonet at Teresa's throat, but in Sharpe's mind he could envisage only failure, defeat. El Catolico had never been fooled. They must have known Sharpe had gone north, and while the Company struggled over the foul uplands the Spaniard had brought his followers along the easy road. Sharpe cursed himself for a fool, for an optimistic fool, but there was nothing to be done. He listened to the boots scuffing on the wet surface, the hiss of the rain, the splashing of the ever-rising stream, and he let his eyes look at the far, shrouded hills across the river, then at the stone of the small fort that had been built, centuries before, to protect the upland valleys from marauders crossing from Portugal, and then he looked right, farther north, at the spur of the hills that almost reached the river, and saw, on the blurred horizon, the shape of a horseman who had a strange, square hat.
'Down! Down! Down!'
Something, an instinct, a half-perceived blur, told him the French patrol had only just arrived on the skyline. He forced the men down, into the streambed, burying the Light Company into cover. They scrambled behind the shallow turf-bank, wet faces looking to him for explanation, receiving none as he pushed them down.
El Catolico was much, much slower. Sharpe, lying next to Harper and the girl, watched the Partisans ride towards the ford, and it was not until the French lancers were moving, trotting almost sedately down the slope, that the grey figure wheeled, waved his arm, and the Partisans urged their tired mounts into a gallop. The Spaniards rode back into the valley, scattering as they picked their own course, and the lancers, a different regiment from the Poles', chose their targets and went for them with levelled blades and spurts of bright water from their hooves. Sharpe, peering between tufts of grass, could see twenty lancers, but, looking back to the northern skyline, he saw more appear, and then a group at the place where the hills almost met the river, and he realized that a full French regiment was there, coming south, and as he tried to find rhyme or reason in their presence he saw the girl jerk the rope free, scrabble backwards, and she was up, white dress brilliant in the murk, and running south towards the hills, to where El Catolico and his men were desperately fleeing. He pushed Harper down.
'Stay there!'
The girl stumbled on the far bank of the stream, lost her balance, turned and saw Sharpe coming. She seemed to panic, for she ran downstream, past a wide bend in the water, and turned south again. They must see her! Sharpe shouted at her to get down, but the wind snatched away the words and he forced himself on, getting closer, and leapt at her. He crashed into her as she turned to look where he was and his weight drove her into the gravel beside the stream. She fought at him, snarling, her fingernails scratching at his eyes, but he bore" her down, his weight crushing her, took her wrists and forced them apart, ground them into the small sharp stones, and used all his strength to keep them still. She kicked at him and he hooked his legs over hers, hammered them down, not caring if he hurt her, thinking only of the eight feet ten inches of lance that could pin them both like wriggling insects. The stream ran cold round his ankles and he knew that Teresa must be lying in water to her waist, but there was no time to care about that because there were hooves near, and he thrust down his head, cracking her f
orehead, as a horse splashed by them in the stream.
He looked up, saw Jose, the man who had escorted them to the river, shouting down at the girl, his words lost in the whipping rain; then the Partisan's elbows and heels moved, the horse spurred into a frantic gallop, and Sharpe saw three lancers, their mouths open in the gaping, silent scream of a cavalry charge, galloping across to trap the Spaniard.
Jose twisted, slashed at his horse, found level ground and put his head down, but the lancers were too close. Sharpe watched, saw a Frenchman rise in his stirrups, draw back his lance, and lunge forward so the lance had all the rider's weight behind the steel point that rammed into Jose's back. He arched, screamed into the wind, fell with the pelting rain, and his hands fumbled at his spine to pull at the great spear that was ridden over him. The other two lancers leaned into the dying man, thrust down as they slowed their horses, and Sharpe heard the snatch of a laugh on the wind.
Teresa took a breath, twisted violently, and Sharpe knew she was about to scream. She had not seen Jose's death, knew only that El Catolico was near, and there was only one thing for Sharpe to do. His legs were across hers, hooking hers flat, his hands were on her wrists, so he jammed his mouth on top of hers and forced her head down. She bit at him; their teeth clashed jarringly, but he twisted his mouth so that his was at a right angle to hers and, using his teeth, forced her down into the gravel. One eye glared at him, she jerked beneath him, twisted, but his weight smothered her and, very suddenly, she lay still.
The voice was close; it seemed almost on top of them, and she could hear, as he could, the crunch of hooves in the gravel.
'Jean!'
There was a shout from further away, more hooves, and the girl lay utterly still. Sharpe could see the sudden fear in her eye, feel her heart beating beneath his chest, her breath suddenly checked in his mouth. He raised his mouth, with its bloodied lip, from hers, turned his head, infinitely slowly, so that he could see all her face, and whispered, 'Lie still. Still.'