'A good night, my friend?"

Knowles winced, Harper looked at the ceiling, but Sharpe growled something approximately polite and crossed to the fire. 'Tea?'

'Here, sir.' Harper pushed a mug over the table. 'Just wet it.'

A dozen men of the Company were in the kitchen, and some Germans, and they were sawing with knives at the new bread and looking surprised because there were pots of butter, fresh butter, on the table. Sharpe scraped his boot on the hearth and his men looked up.

'The girl.' He wondered if he sounded embarrassed, but the men seemed not to mind. 'Look after her till I get back.'

They nodded, grinned at him, and he was suddenly immensely proud of them. She would be safe with them, scoundrels though they were, just as a King's ransom in gold was safe with them. He had never thought of it, not in detail, but it occurred to Sharpe that most officers would never have trusted their men with the gold. They would have feared desertion; that the temptation of so much money would be simply too much, but Sharpe had never been worried. These were his men, his Company, and he trusted his life with their skills, so why not gold, or a girl?

Robert Knowles cleared his throat. 'When will you be back, sir?'

'Three hours.' An hour till the message could be sent, an hour for the reply to come, and then another hour unpicking the details with Cox. 'Keep an eye out for El Catolico. He's here. Keep a guard, Robert, all the time, and don't let anyone in, no one.'

The men grinned at him, laughed as they thought what they could do to anyone who interfered with them, and Lossow clapped his hands together.

'We surprise the Spanish, yes? They think they have the gold? But they don't know about the telegraph. Ah! The wonders of modern war.'

It was cold in the street, the sky still dark grey, but as Sharpe, Lossow, and Harper mounted the final steps to the rampart of the castle they could see the eastern sky blazing with the coming sun. The telegraph was unmanned, the sheep bladders tied to the mast, and in the cruel, grey light it reminded Sharpe of a gallows. The wind slapped the ropes in a forlorn tattoo against the mast.

The sun shattered the remnants of night, dazzled over the eastern hills, and streaked its bleak, early light into the countryside round Almeida. As if in salute there was a blare of bugles, shouts from the walls, and Lossow clapped Sharpe's good shoulder and pointed south.

'Look!'

The bugles had responded to the first formal move of the siege. The waiting was over, and through his undamaged telescope Sharpe saw that the dawn light had revealed a mound of fresh earth that had been thrown up a thousand yards from the fortifications. It was the first French battery and, even as Sharpe watched, he saw the tiny figures of men throwing up more earth and battening great fascines to the crest of the mound. It had been years since he had carried a fascine to war, a great wicker cylinder that was filled with soil and provided an instant battlement to protect men and guns from enemy artillery. The Portuguese gunners had seen the fresh earthworks and were running along the town wall.

Lossow pounded his fist on the ramparts. 'Fire! You bastards!'

A Portuguese gun team on the town defences seemed to hear him, for there was the flat crack of a cannon, and through the glass, Sharpe saw an eruption of earth where the roundshot struck the ground just in front of the French battery. The ball must have bounced right over the top and he knew the Portuguese gunners would be satisfied. After another two firings their gun barrel would be hot and the shot would carry farther and he listened for the next shot, saw it fall a little beyond the first, and watched as the French soldiers hurried to take cover.

'Next one.'

He let the telescope lie where it was and straightened up. Over the roofs of the town he could see the smoke of the cannon drifting in the breeze, saw another smudge as the Portuguese fired again, and then, a second later, heard the crash and watched the fascines blow apart.

'Bravo!' Lossow clapped his hands. 'That's held them up for five minutes!'

Sharpe picked up the telescope and panned it to the south. There were few Frenchmen visible – the new battery, an encampment half a mile beyond that, and a few figures on horseback riding the circuit well beyond the range of the defenders' guns. The close siege had not started yet, the careful digging of the zigzag trenches that would bring the infantry to striking distance of the breach that the French would hope to blast through the walls with battery after battery of huge, iron siege guns. And all the time the howitzers, untouchable in their deep pits, would lob their bombs into the town day after day. He looked westward, to the road that led to the Coa, and beyond one earthen barricade there was no real attempt by the French to seal it off. That would come in a day or two, when the siege proper began, and he handed the glass to Lossow.

'We can do it.'

The German looked at the road, smiled. 'It will be a pleasure.'

There were footsteps on the circular stone stairway and the young midshipman, holding a thick sandwich, emerged on to the ramparts and looked startled to see the waiting men. He put his sandwich in his mouth, saluted, rescued his sandwich.

'Morning, sir.'

He put down the pile of books he was carrying in his other hand.

'Morning.' Sharpe guessed the boy was no older than fifteen. 'When do you start sending?'

'When the messages get here, sir.'

Sharpe pointed to the books. 'What's that?'

'Lessons, sir. Principles of navigation. I've got to pass the exam soon, sir, even though I'm not at sea.'

'You should join the Rifles, lad.' Harper picked up the book. 'We don't stuff your head with mathematics.'

Sharpe looked westwards. 'Where's the relay station?'

The boy pointed north-west. 'Between the two hills, sir. It's over the river, on a church.'

Sharpe pointed the glass, held it steady by jamming it next to the telegraph's mast and, far away, like a speck of dust, he could see the tiny telegraph station. 'How the hell do you read it?'

'With this, sir.' The boy unlocked a trunk that was part of the mast's foundation and dragged out an iron tripod that carried a telescope twice the size of Sharpe's. Lossow laughed.

'Thank you, Captain,' Sharpe said dryly. He liked Lossow, but was not sure about the man's sense of humour. Harper seemed to enjoy it.

In the Plaza, in front of the cathedral, Sharpe watched the foreshortened shapes of two officers walking towards the castle.

'Are those your messages?'

The midshipman leaned over. 'Yes, sir. Captain Charles usually brings them.'

As Sharpe watched he saw three men rolling a keg of powder from the cathedral, across the Plaza, and towards the warren of streets. He guessed that the guns on the wall kept very little ready powder, fearing a spark and an explosion that would save the French weeks of work, and the soldiers would be busy taking the black powder from the cathedral and delivering it to the gunners who sweated on the defences. He was glad he would not be here for the siege, for the helpless feeling of watching the earthworks creep closer, the siege guns firing slowly, but with massive, hammering force.

'Good morning! You must be Sharpe!' Captain Charles, a Portuguese officer beside him, sounded cheerful. He looked at the midshipman. 'Morning, Jeremy. Sleep well?'

'Yes, sir.' The midshipman had put up the telescope and trained it on the far mast. 'Hold on, sir.'

He looked through the glass for a second, then leaped to the mast, untied the bladder ropes, and hauled on them one at a time so that the black bags shot up to the pulley at the cross-trees and fell down again.

'What was that?' Sharpe asked.

'Just saying good morning, sir.' The midshipman left three bladders down, the other raised. 'That says we're transmitting, sir,' he added helpfully.