Sharpe was suddenly aware that Cox had spoken his name. 'Sir?'

The Brigadier had pulled another sheet of paper forward. 'At ten o'clock tomorrow morning, Captain, your Company will join my defences on the south wall.' The pen splattered ink on the paper.

'Pardon, sir?'

Cox looked up from the paper, irritated. 'You heard me, Sharpe! You join the garrison. Captain Lossow leaves. I don't need cavalry, but you stay. No infantry can hope to escape now. Understand?'

God in heaven! 'Yes, sir.'

The cathedral clock began chiming. Kearsey put a hand on Sharpe's elbow. 'I'm sorry, Sharpe.'

Sharpe nodded, listening to the bell. He was oblivious of Kearsey's concern, of El Catolico's triumph, of Cox's preoccupation. Ten o'clock, and all not well. The decision had been forced on him, but it was still his decision. The last echo of the last note died flatly away, and Sharpe wondered if any bell would ever ring, ever again, in the grey-starred, ill-starred fortress town.

CHAPTER 21

'We're stuck. That's the problem. We're stuck.'

'Pardon, sir?' Sergeant Harper was waiting for Sharpe outside Cox's headquarters.

'Nothing.' Sharpe stood there, conscious of Patrick Harper's worried look. The Sergeant probably thought that his wound was going bad, poisoning the blood and sending insane vapours into his head. 'Are you alone?'

'No, sir. Private Roach, Daniel Hagman, and three Germans.'

Sharpe saw the others waiting in the shadows. The small, squat German Sergeant was there and Harper jerked a thumb at him.

'That's Helmet, sir.'

'You mean Helmut?'

'That's what I said, sir. He's a one-man army. Are you all right, sir?'

'Yes.'

Sharpe still stood on the steps, his escort waiting below, and fingered a piece of his sword's silver-wire hilt-wrapping that had worked itself loose. He made a mental note to have it soldered flat when they were back with the Battalion, and then marvelled that the mind could dwell on such a triviality at a moment like this.

Harper coughed. 'Are you ready, sir?'

'What? Yes.' He still did not move. He stared at the cathedral.

Patrick Harper tried again. 'Home, sir?'

'No. Over there.' He pointed at the cathedral.

'Yes, sir. Anything you say, sir.'

They walked across the Plaza, lit by the moon, and Sharpe pulled his thoughts back to the present.

'Is the girl all right?'

Harper nodded. 'Lovely, sir. She's fought all day.'

'Fought?'

The Irishman grinned. 'Helmet taught her how to use a sabre."

Sharpe laughed. It sounded like Teresa. He looked at the small German Sergeant and smiled at the man's curious walk: the legs bent apart like a lyre-frame, the stocky, immensely strong body scarcely moving as the legs pushed it forward.

Harper saw Sharpe's change of mood. 'We reckon you could just point Helmet at anything, sir, and he'd chew his way through. Houses, walls, regiments. They'd all have a wee hole, just his shape, straight through them.' Harper laughed. 'Bloody good with a sabre.'

Sharpe thought of the girl, knew that El Catolico had another score to settle, more personal than the gold, and was glad of his escort, of Harper with his seven-barrelled gun. 'What happened at the house today?'

Harper laughed. 'Not a lot, sir. They turned up for the gold, so they did, and first we couldn't speak the Portuguese and then Mr Lossow couldn't understand their English, and then Helmet growled a bit, chewed up some furniture, and the lads put on their spikes, and the Portuguese went home.'

'Where's the girl now?"

'Still there, sir.' Harper grinned at him, reassuringly. 'Down in the kitchen with the lads, having her weapons training. She'd make a good recruit."

'And Mr Knowles?'

'Enjoying himself, sir. All round defence, sir, and keep your eyes open, and Air Knowles doing the rounds every ten minutes. They won't get in. What's happening to us, sir?'

Sharpe shrugged, looked up at the dark windows of the houses. 'We're supposed to hand the gold over tomorrow. To El Catolico.'

'And are we, sir?'

'What do you think?'

Harper grinned, said nothing, and then one of the Germans crouched, sabre held up, and the group stopped. One of the few Portuguese civilians left in the town, hurrying from an alleyway, shrank into the wall and babbled incoherently at the odd group of soldiers who bristled with swords and guns and were looking at him as if sizing him for slaughter.

'All right,' Sharpe said. 'On we go.'

By the cathedral doors Sharpe could see the dark shapes of sentries guarding the ammunition. He crossed to them, his escort's heels echoing over the vast stone square, and the Portuguese guards snapped to attention, saluted, as Sharpe turned to the three Germans.

'Stay here.' Helmut nodded. 'Hagman, Roach. Stay with them. Come on, Sergeant.'

He stared over the Plaza before opening the small door that pierced the huge wooden gate into the cathedral. Was there a dark shape on the far side? Hovering by a corner of an alleyway? He suspected the Partisans were scouting the town, looking for him, but nothing would happen till they reached the dark warren of streets down the hill. He went inside.

The candles had come into their own, throwing small, wavering pools of yellow light on patches of the great stone vault. The tiny red glow of the eternal presence flickered at the far end, and Sharpe waited while Harper dipped a casual finger and crossed himself.

The Irishman stepped alongside Sharpe. 'What are we doing, sir?'

'I don't know.' Sharpe chewed his bottom lip, stared at the small lights, then walked towards the cluster of lanterns that marked the steps to the vault. More sentries stiffened as they approached and Sharpe waved them down. 'Slippers, Sergeant.'

There was a small pile of ammunition by the head of the steps, put there for the soldiers who came to fetch it for the ramparts to save them the bother of pulling on the felt slippers. Sharpe guessed that about twenty men would work the magazine, bringing up the barrels, living their days in the damp, cold air of the cathedral's underworld. Harper saw Sharpe staring at an opened bale of cartridges.

'There's more by that door, sir.'

'More?'

Harper nodded, pointed at a door that flanked the great processional gates. 'There, sir. Bloody great pile of cartridges. Did you want some?'

Sharpe shook his head, peered into the gloom, and saw that against the door there were a dozen bales of the paper cartridges. He guessed they were placed so that infantry battalions could replenish swiftly without getting in the way of the men who brought up the huge powder kegs. He turned back to the crypt. Planks had been laid down the stairs, two feet apart, so that the barrels could be rolled up easily.

'Come on.'

They went down the stairs, into the intermittent light of the horn lanterns, and Sharpe saw that the rest of the garrison's supply of small arms ammunition was now stacked either side of the vault, forming a corridor to the leather-curtained steps of the deep crypt. He padded down the corridor and knelt by the curtain. Two thicknesses of stiff leather, weighted at the bottom, a precaution in case there was a small explosion in the first vault. The stiff leather could soak up a minor blast, protect the massive dump of gunpowder beneath, and Harper watched, astonished, as Sharpe drew his sword and cut off the weights, clenching his teeth as he sawed through the leather.

'What the hell, sir?'

Sharpe looked up at him. 'Don't ask. Where are the sentries?'

'Upstairs.' The Sergeant knelt beside him. 'Sir?'

Sharpe stopped the desperate cutting, looked at the broad, friendly face. 'Don't you trust me?'

Harper was offended, even hurt, and he bent past Sharpe, took hold of the torn part of the curtain in one hand, the upper leather in the other, and pulled. As a demonstration of strength it was remarkable, the veins standing out in his neck, his whole body rigid with effort as the double-thick leather peeled apart, silently and slowly, and Sharpe helped it with the sword blade until, after thirty seconds, Harper leaned back with a grunt and in his hand was the separated bottom two inches of the curtain with its heavy lead weights sewn into the hem.