The old gonfalon, Louisa told Sharpe, was sewn into the new. She had done the work in secret, in the high fortress, before she had left Santiago de Compostela. It had been Major Vivar’s idea, and the task had brought the Spaniard close to the English girl.

“The Sergeant’s stripes,” she said, “are made from the same silk.”

Sharpe looked at Harper who walked ahead with the Riflemen. “Don’t tell him, for God’s sake, or he’ll think he’s a miracle worker.”

“You’re all miracle workers,” Louisa said warmly.

“We’re just Rifles.”

Louisa laughed at the modesty which betrayed such a monstrous pride. “But the gonfalon worked a miracle,” she said chidingly. “It wasn’t such nonsense, was it?”

“It wasn’t nonsense,” Sharpe confessed. He walked beside her horse, ahead of Major Vivar and his Spaniards. “What happens to the gonfalon now?”

“It goes to Seville or Cadiz; wherever it will be safest. And one day it will be returned to a Spanish King in Madrid.” Already, in the small villages and towns through which the Riflemen marched, the story of the gonfalon was being told. The news raced like a fire in parched grass; telling of a French defeat and a Spanish victory, and of a saint keeping an ancient promise to defend his people.

“And where do you go now?” Sharpe asked Louisa.

“I go where Don Bias goes, which is wherever there are Frenchmen to be killed.”

“Not Godalming?”

She laughed. “I do hope not.”

“And you’ll be a Countess,” Sharpe said in wonderment.

“I think that’s better than being Mrs Bufford, though it’s uncommonly nasty of me to say so. And my aunt will never forgive me for becoming a Catholic, so you see some good has come from all this.”

Sharpe smiled. They had come south, and now they must part. The French were left behind, the snow had melted, and they had come to a shallow valley above which the February wind blew cold. They halted at the valley’s rim. The far crest was in Portugual, and on that foreign skyline Sharpe could see a group of blue-uniformed men. Those men watched the strangers who had come from the Spanish hills.

Bias Vivar, Count of Mouromorto, dismounted. He thanked the Riflemen one by one, ending with Sharpe whom, to Sharpe’s acute embarrassment, he embraced. “Are you sure you won’t stay, Lieutenant?”

“I’m tempted, sir, but,” Sharpe shrugged.

“You wish to show off your new trousers and boots to the British army. I hope they let you keep them.”

“They won’t if I’m sent back to Britain.”

“Which I fear you will be,” Vivar said. “While we are left to fight the French. But one day, Lieutenant, when the last Frenchman is dead, you will come back to Spain and celebrate with the Count and Countess of Mouromorto.”

“I shall, sir.”

“And I doubt you will still be a Lieutenant?”

“I imagine I will, sir.” Sharpe looked up at Louisa, and he saw a happiness in her that he could not wish away. He smiled and touched his pouch. “I have your letter.” She had written to her aunt and uncle, telling them they had lost her to the church of Rome and to a Spanish soldier. Sharpe looked back at Vivar. “Thank you, sir.”

Vivar smiled. “You are an insubordinate bastard, a heathen, and an Englishman. But also my friend. Remember that.”

“Yes, sir.”

Then there was nothing more to say, and the Riflemen filed down the hill towards the stream that was the border with Portugal. Bias Vivar watched as the greenjackets splashed through the water and began to climb the further slope.

One of the men waiting on the Portuguese crest was impatient to discover who the strangers were. He scrambled downhill towards the Riflemen, and Sharpe saw that the man was a British officer; a middle-aged Captain wearing the blue coat of the Royal Engineers. Sharpe’s heart sank. He was coming back to the strict hierarchy of an army that did not believe ex-Sergeants, made into officers, should lead fighting troops. He was tempted to turn, flee back across the stream, and take his freedom with Bias Vivar, but the British Captain shouted a question down the hillside and the old constraints of discipline made Sharpe answer it. “Sharpe, sir. Rifles.”

“Hogan, Engineers. From the Lisbon garrison.” Hogan scrambled down the last few feet. “Where have you come from?”

“We got separated from Moore’s army, sir.”

“You did well to get away!” Hogan’s admiration seemed genuine, and was spoken in an Irish accent. “Any French behind you?”

“We haven’t seen any in a week, sir. They’re having a hell of a time from the Spanish people.”

“Good! Splendid! Well, come on, man! We’ve got a war to fight!”

Sharpe did not move. “You mean we’re not running away, sir?”

“Running away?” Hogan seemed appalled by the question. “Of course we’re not running away. The idea is to make the French run away. They’re sending Wellesley back here. He’s a pompous bastard, but he knows how to fight. Of course we’re not running away!”

“We’re staying here?”

“Of course we’re staying! What do you think I’m doing? Mapping a country we intend to abandon? Good God, man, we’re going to stay and fight!” Hogan had an ebullient energy that reminded Sharpe of Bias Vivar. “If the bastard politicians in London don’t lose their nerve we’ll run the bloody French clear back to Paris!”

Sharpe turned to stare at Louisa. For a moment he was tempted to shout the good news, then he shrugged it off. She would learn soon enough, and it could change nothing. He laughed.

Hogan led the Riflemen back up the hill. “I suppose your Battalion went back to England?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“If it went to Corunna or Vigo, it did. But I don’t imagine you’ll join them.”

“No, sir?”

“We need all the Rifles we can get. If I know Wellesley he’ll want you to stay on. It won’t be official, of course, but we’ll find some cranny to hide you in. Does that worry you?”

“No, sir.” Sharpe felt a burst of hope that perhaps he would not be doomed to a Quartermaster’s drudgery again, but could stay and fight. “I want to stay, sir.”

“Good man!” Hogan stopped at the hilltop and watched the Spaniards ride away. “Helped you escape, did they?”

“Yes, sir. And they took a city from the French, not for long, but long enough.”

Hogan looked sharply at the Rifleman. “Santiago?”

“Yes, sir.” Sharpe sounded defensive. “I wasn’t sure we should help them, sir, but, well…“ He shrugged, too tired to explain everything.

“Good God, man! We heard about it! That was you?” It was plain that this Captain of Engineers would make no protest at Sharpe’s adventure. On the contrary, Hogan was clearly delighted. “You must tell me the story. I like a good story. Now! I suppose your lads would like a meal?”

“They’d prefer some rum, sir.”

Hogan laughed. “That, too.” He watched as the Riflemen walked past him. The greenjackets were ragged and dirty, but they grinned at the two officers as they passed, and Hogan noted that though these men might lack regulation shoes, and though some had French greatcoats rolled on French packs, and though they were unshaven, unwashed, and unkempt, they all had their weapons, and those weapons were in perfect condition. “Not many escaped,” Hogan said.

“Sir?”

“Of the men who were cut off from Moore’s retreat,” Hogan explained. “Most just gave up, you see.”

“It was cold,” Sharpe said, Very cold. But I was lucky in my Sergeant. The big fellow there. He’s an Irishman.“

“The best are,” Hogan said happily. “But they all look like good lads.”

“They are, sir.” Sharpe raised his voice so every tired man could hear the extravagant praise. “They’re drunken sods, sir, but they’re the best soldiers in the world. The very best.” And he meant it. They were the elite, the damned, the Rifles. They were the soldiers in green.

They were Sharpe’s Rifles.