“Marines?” Lassan asked.

“At least a hundred.” Killick shrugged.

Lassan looked through the window, saw the fog, and knew he must find a horse, any horse, and take his news to those who could best use it. The British had come, had won their victory, but they had not yet left Arcachon, so Lassan would go to Bordeaux and there find the men who could organize revenge on a Rifleman.

Fog writhed about the low walls of the Teste de Buch, utterly obscuring the ramparts from the courtyard where Sharpe, in the dawn, paraded his Riflemen.

“He’s not best pleased with you,” Captain of Marines Palmer spoke hesitantly. Sharpe replied with his brief opinion of Captain Bampfylde that made the tough Marine smile. “I’m to give you this.” Palmer handed Sharpe a sealed paper.

Sharpe supposed the paper was a reprimand or protest from Bampfylde, but it was merely a reminder that Major Sharpe was expected back at the Teste de Buch by noon on Thursday. Doubtless Bampfylde was unwilling to face Sharpe in person, and Sharpe did not care. His head was aching, sometimes pulsing with a stab of dark agony, and his mood was bleak.

“We’re marching with you,” Captain Palmer said. He had fifty Marines on parade. He had also taken two of the captured gun-limbers, each harnessed behind a pair of carthorses that had been discovered in a meadow by the village and which now drew the Marines’ packs and supplies. “The men aren’t hardened to marching,” Palmer explained.

“You’re attached to us?” Sharpe asked with surprise.

Palmer shook his head. “We’re supposed to be hunting your Americans.”

“If they’ve got any sense,” Sharpe said, “they’ll be long gone.”

The gate squealed open, boots slammed on the cobbles, and the small force that was intended to cut the French supply-road marched into the cold whiteness of the fog. If his map was right Sharpe reckoned they faced a full day’s march. First they would follow the main road, keeping to its ruts in the blinding fog as far as a bridge at a village called Facture. There they would turn south-east and follow the River Leyre until they reached the supply road. One day on the road to cause what chaos he could, then one day for the return journey.

The Riflemen again outstripped the Marines. Gradually the sound of the horses’ trace-chains faded behind and Sharpe’s men marched amidst the clinging, soft wet fog as if in a silent cloud.

Nothing stirred in Arcachon. The fog half obscured the buildings, the shuttered windows stayed shuttered, but the road led straight through the market-place.

“I wanted to thank you,” Frederickson said, “for your actions last night.”

Sharpe had been lost in the private pain of a stabbing headache. He had to think to remember the events of the night, then he shrugged. “For nothing.”

“I doubt that Bampfylde feels it’s nothing?”

Sharpe gave a dutiful smile. He flinched as a dart of pain stabbed behind his bandaged forehead.

Frederickson saw the flinch. “Are you well, sir?”

“I’m well.” It was said curtly.

Frederickson walked in silence for a few paces. “I doubt Captain Palmer can find the fugitives in this fog.” He spoke in the tones of a man who openly changed the subject.

“Bampfylde’s got the chasse-marees,” Sharpe said, “what the hell else does he want?”

“He wants the American schooner for prize money. Did you ever meet a naval captain who didn’t want prize money?” Frederickson sounded scornful. “The web-foots fight a battle and spend the next ten years in litigation over the division of the spoils. The Navy’s made the legal profession wealthy!”

It was an old Army complaint. A naval captain could become rich for ever by capturing an unarmed enemy merchantman, while a soldier could fight a score of terrible engagements and never see a sixpence for all the crammed warehouses he might capture. Sharpe could hardly complain, for he and Harper had stolen their wealth off a battlefield, but the old soldier’s envious habit of despising the Navy for legalizing theft persisted. The Army did award prize money; a saddle horse, taken in battle, fetched three shillings and ninepence, but that sum shared between a Company of infantry made no man wealthy and no lawyers fat. Sharpe forced a smile and fed Frederickson’s resentment. “You can’t be rude about the Navy, William; they’re the heroes, remember?”

“Bloody web-foots.” Frederickson, like the rest of the Army, resented that the Navy received so much acclaim in Britain while the Army was despised. The jealous grousing, so well practised and comforting, kept Frederickson voluble through the long morning’s march.

In the afternoon the Riflemen marched clear of the fog which hung behind them like a great cloud over the Bassin d’Arcachon. Wisps of mist, like outriders to the fog bank, still drifted above the flat, marshy landscape over which the road was carried on an embankment shored by plaited hurdles. Widgeon, teal and snipe flapped away from the marching men. Harper, who loved birds, watched them, but not so closely that he did not see the twisted rope handle of an eel-trap. Two eels were inside and the beasts were chopped up with a sword bayonet and distributed among the Riflemen.

It was cold, but the march warmed them. By late afternoon, within sight of two small villages, they reached a miserable, plank bridge rotting over a sluggish stream. “I suppose this could be Facture.” Sharpe stared at the map. “Christ knows.”

He sent Lieutenant Minver with six men to discover the names of the closest villages, and with them went a bag of silver French francs to buy what food could be prised from the peasants. The ten-franc silver coins were forgeries, made at Wellington’s command by counterfeiters recruited from the Army’s ranks. The Peer insisted that all supplies in France were paid for with good coin, but French peasants would not touch Spanish silver, only French, so Wellington had simply melted the one down to make the other. The silver content was good, the coins indistinguishable from those minted in Paris, and everyone concerned was happy.

“They’re bloody poor, sir.” Minver returned with five loaves, three eels, and a basket of lentils. “And this is the River Leyre, sir.”

“No meat?” Frederickson was disgusted. Each of the Riflemen carried three days’ supply of dried beef in their packs, but Frederickson, Sharpe knew, was very fond of freshly-killed pork.

“No meat,” Minver said. “Unless they’re hiding it.”

“Of course they’re bloody hiding it,” Frederickson said scathingly. “You want me to go, sir?” He looked hopefully to Sharpe.

“No.” Sharpe was staring back the way they had come where, in the distance, a straggle of redcoats appeared. Sharpe was cold, his head was hurting like the devil, and now he had the Marines on his coat-tails. “Bloody hell!”

“I was hoping you’d be here, sir,” Palmer greeted Sharpe.

“Hoping?”

“If Killick went inland, which seems likely, then we’re better following you. Or going with you.” Palmer grinned, and Sharpe realized that the Marine captain had no intention of hunting Killick and only wanted to be a part of Sharpe’s expedition. Setting an ambush on a high road of France was, to Captain Palmer, a taste of real soldiering, while following some half-armed fugitives in a scramble over a cold marsh was just a waste of time. Palmer’s lieutenant, a thin, vacant youth called Fytch, hovered close to his seniors to overhear Sharpe’s decision.

“I presume, Captain,” Sharpe said carefully, “that you were given a free hand in your search for Captain Killick?”

“Indeed, sir. I was told not to come back till I’d found the scoundrel. Not till Thursday, anyway.”

“Then I can’t stop you accompanying me, can I?” Fifty muskets would be damned useful, so long as the Marines could keep pace with the Riflemen. “We march that way.”

Sharpe pointed south-east into the damp water-meadows that edged the Leyre.