'Captain Sharpe!' Kearsey was standing in a clear patch of the gully. 'Captain!'

Sharpe went down the side of the gully. 'Sir?'

Kearsey stared at him, his small eyes fierce. 'Are you mad, Sharpe?'

For a second the meaning did not percolate into Sharpe's head.

'I beg your pardon, sir?'

'What were you doing?'

'Doing, sir? Rescuing you.' Sharpe had expected thanks.

Kearsey winced, whether from the pain of his leg or from Sharpe's ingenuousness it was difficult to tell. The dawn was revealing the details of the gully: the collapsed men, the blood, the anger on Kearsey's face. 'You fool!'

Sharpe bit back his anger. 'Sir?'

Kearsey waved at the wounded. 'How do you get them back?'

'We carry them, sir.'

'Carry them, sir.' Kearsey mimicked him. 'Over twenty miles of country? You were only here to help carry the gold, Sharpe! Not fight a battle in the back of beyond!'

Sharpe took a deep breath, suppressing the urge to shout back. 'Without you, sir, we would have had no chance of persuading El Catolico to let us take the gold. That was my judgment.'

Kearsey looked at him, shook his head and pointed at Jim Kelly. 'You think it was worth that?'

'The General told me the gold was important, sir.' Sharpe spoke quietly.

'Important, Sharpe, only because it is a gesture to the Spanish.'

'Yes, sir.' It was no time for an argument.

'At least you rescued them.' The Major waved at the two Spaniards.

Sharpe looked at the girl's dark beauty. 'Them, sir?'

'Moreno's children. Teresa and Ramon. The French were holding them as bait, hoping Moreno or El Catolico would try a rescue. At least we've earned their thanks and that's probably more valuable than carrying the gold for them. Besides, I doubt if the gold is there.'

The sun split across the gully's rim. Sharpe blinked. 'Pardon, sir?'

'What do you expect? The French are there. They probably have the gold. Or hadn't that occurred to you?'

It had, but Sharpe was not in a mood to give Kearsey his thoughts. If the French had found the gold he suspected they would have ridden it straight to Ciudad Rodrigo, but doubtless Kearsey would not be convinced. Sharpe nodded. 'Did they say anything about it to you, sir?'

Kearsey shrugged, not liking the reminder that he had been captured. 'I was unlucky, Sharpe. Not to know lancers were there.' He shook his head, sounded suddenly tired. 'No, they said nothing.'

'So there's hope, sir?'

The Major looked bitter, waved at Kelly. 'Tell him that.'

'Yes, sir.'

Kearsey sighed. 'I'm sorry, Sharpe. Undeserved.' He seemed to think for a moment. 'You do know, though, don't you, that they'll be after us today?'

'The French, sir?'

The Major nodded. 'Who else? You'd better sleep, Sharpe. In a couple of hours you'll have to defend this place.'

'Yes, sir.'

He turned away, and as he did he caught Teresa's eyes. She looked at him without interest, without recognition, as if the rescue and the two shared killings meant nothing. El Catolico, he thought, is a lucky man. He slept.

CHAPTER 8

Casatejada was like a shattered ants' nest. All morning the patrols left, searched the valley, then galloped in their dust clouds back to the houses and the thin spires of smoke that were the only signs left of the night's activity. Others rounded up stray horses, circling the valley floor, reminding Harper of the pony drives on his native Donegal moors. In the gully the men moved slowly, quietly, as if their sound could carry to the village, but in truth the elation of the attack had given way to weariness and sadness. Kelly's breath bubbled through the morning, a constant pink froth at the corner of his mouth, and the men avoided him as if death were contagious. Sharpe woke up, told Harper to sleep, replaced the picquets, and struggled to scrape the clotted blood from his sword with a handful of wiry grass. They dared not light a fire to heat the water that could scour out their muskets, so the men used the battlefield expedient, urinating into the barrels, and grinned self-consciously at the girl as they sloshed the liquid around to loosen the caked powder deposits of the night. The girl did not react, her face seemed unmovable, and she sat holding her brother's hand, talking quietly to him and giving him sips of tepid water from a wooden canteen. The heat bounced from the rocky sides of the gully, attacked from all sides, roasting the living and the dying alike.

Kearsey climbed up to lie alongside Sharpe and took the telescope so that he could spy down on the French. 'They're packing up.'

'Sir?'

Kearsey nodded at the village. 'Mules, Sharpe. String of them.'

Sharpe took his telescope back and found the village street. Kearsey was right, a string of mules with men lashing ropes over their burdens, but it was impossible to tell whether there was gold or just forage in the packs.

'Perhaps they won't look for us.'

The Major had calmed down since dawn. 'Bound to. Look at the track we left.' Running across the barley field, like a giant signpost, was the trampled spoor of the Light Company's retreat. 'They'll want to look over the ridge, just to make sure you've gone.'

Sharpe looked at the bare rocks and turf of the hillside. 'Should we move?'

Another shake of the head. 'Best hiding place for miles, this gully. You can't see it from any side; even from above it's difficult. Keep your heads down and you'll be all right.'

Sharpe thought it strange that Kearsey should talk of 'you', as if the Major himself were not part of the British army, or as if the survival of Sharpe in enemy territory were not his concern. He said nothing. The Major nibbled nervously at a strand of his moustache; he seemed to be deep in thought, and when he spoke he sounded as if he had come to the end of long deliberation.

'You must understand why it's important.'

'Sir?' Sharpe was puzzled.

'The gold, Sharpe.' He stopped and Sharpe waited. The small man flicked at his moustache. 'The Spanish have been let down badly, Sharpe, very badly. Think what happened after Talavera, eh? And Ciudad Rodrigo. A shameful business, Sharpe, shameful.'

Sharpe still kept silent. After Talavera the Spanish had forfeited Wellington's support by failing to provide the food and supplies they had promised. A starving British army was of no use to Spain. Ciudad Rodrigo? Five weeks ago the Spanish fortress town had surrendered, after an heroic defence, and Wellington had sent no help. The town had been an obstacle to Massena's advance, Almeida was the next, and Sharpe had heard savage criticism that the British had let their allies down, but Sharpe was no strategist. He let the Major go on.

'We must prove something to them, Sharpe, that we can help, that we can be useful, or else we must forfeit their support. Do you understand?' He turned his fierce gaze on Sharpe.

'Yes, sir.'

The jauntiness and confidence crept back into the Major's voice. 'Of course, we lose the war if we don't have the Spanish! That's what Wellington has come to understand, eh, Sharpe? Better late than never!' He gave his laugh. 'That's why Wellington wants us to bring the gold, so that the British are seen to deliver it to Cadiz. It proves a point, Sharpe, shows that we made an honest effort. Helps to cover up the betrayal at Ciudad Rodrigo! Ah, politics, politics!' He said the last two words much as an indulgent father might talk about the rowdy games of his children. 'Do you understand?'

'Yes, sir.'

It was no time to argue, even though Sharpe disbelieved every word Kearsey had uttered. Of course the Spanish were important, but so were the British to the Spanish, and delivering a few bags of gold would not restore the amity and trust that had been shattered by Spanish inefficiency the year before. Yet it was important that Kearsey believed Wellington's motives to be honest. The small Major, Sharpe knew, was passionately engaged on the Spanish side, as if, after a lifetime of soldiering, he had found in the harsh hills and white houses of the Spaniards a warmth and trust he had found nowhere else.