The firing died in the Gateway of God, the powder smoke drifting westward on the breeze, and Sharpe walked out into the pasture-land that he had spattered with the dead and waited for his enemy.

CHAPTER 21

'Major Sharpe.

'Sir. Sharpe saluted.

'I should have known, shouldn't I? Dubreton was leaning forward on his saddle. 'Did Sir Augustus die in the night?

'He found he had business elsewhere.

Dubreton sighed, straightened up and looked at the wounded. 'The next time it won't be so easy, Major.

'No.

The French Colonel gave Sharpe a wry smile. 'It's no good telling you that this is futile, is it? No. His voice became more formal. 'We wish to rescue our wounded.

'Please do.

'May I ask why you fired on the parties we sent forward to do just that?

'Did we hit anyone?

'Nevertheless I wish to register our protest.

Sharpe nodded. 'Sir.

Dubreton sighed. 'I am empowered to offer a truce for the time it takes to clear the field. He looked over Sharpe's head and frowned. Fusiliers were digging at the graves which had been dug the day before.

Sharpe shook his head. 'No, Colonel. The French could bring gun limbers and have their wounded off the field in thirty minutes. 'Any truce must last till mid-day.

Dubreton looked to his right. The wounded who were still conscious shouted at him for help, they knew why he had come, and some, more horrible still, pulled themselves by their arms towards him. Others lay in their blood and just cried. Some were silent, their lives shattered, their future to be cripples in France. Some would live to fight again and a few of them limped on the road towards the village. The French Colonel looked back to Sharpe. 'I must formally tell you that our truce will last only as long as it will take us to rescue our men.

'Then I must formally instruct you to send no more than ten men to their aid. Any others will be fired on, and my Riflemen will be ordered to kill.

Dubreton nodded. He had known, as Sharpe had known, how this conference would go. 'Eleven o'clock, Major? Sharpe hesitated, then nodded. 'Eleven o'clock, sir. Dubreton half smiled. 'Thank you, Major. He gestured towards the village. 'May I?’

’Please.

Dubreton waved vigorously and the first men ran out from the ranks of the waiting Battalion, some holding stretchers, and then there was a bigger disturbance in the ranks and two of the strange French ambulances were galloping along the road. They were small covered carts, sprung for the comfort of the wounded, and they were the envy of the British soldiers. More men survived an amputation if their limb was removed within minutes of the battle wound, and the French had developed the fast ambulances to take the casualties to the waiting surgeons. Sharpe looked up to Dubreton. 'You had them very close, considering you were not expecting to fight.

Dubreton shrugged. 'They were used to bring last night's food and wine, Major. Sharpe wished he had not spoken. The last time he had met Dubreton a gift had passed between them, now they were enemies on a field. The Colonel looked at the Pioneers who were shovelling the loose earth from the graves. 'I assume, Major, that we will undertake no military works for the duration of the truce? Sharpe nodded. 'I agree.’So I assume that is not a defensive trench?’

’A grave, sir. We lost men, too. The lie came smoothly off his tongue. Three Fusiliers had died, and eight were wounded, but the grave was not being enlarged for the dead.

Sharpe turned to the Castle and waved, as Dubreton had waved, and the French Captain was released by the sentries on the gate. He rode into the field, trotted towards Dubreton, and he looked aghast at the carnage that had been wreaked on his Battalion. Behind him Fusiliers rolled the cart into the archway, sealing it.

Sharpe waved towards the Captain and spoke to Dubreton. 'Captain Desaix had the misfortune to be in the Castle yard when the fighting begun. He has given me his parole and undertaken not to bear arms against His Britannic Majesty, or his allies, until he has been exchanged for an officer of equal rank. Till then he is in your charge. It was a pompous speech, but a necessary formality, and Dubreton nodded.

'It will be done. He spoke in French to the Captain, jerking his head towards the village, and the young man spurred away. Dubreton looked back to Sharpe. 'He was lucky.

'Yes.

'I hope luck stays with you, Major. Dubreton gathered his reins. 'We shall meet again.

He turned, his spurs touched the flanks of his horse, and Sharpe watched him go. An hour and a half, a little more, and the fighting would begin again.

He stopped by the Fusilier Pioneers who scraped in the graves. A Sergeant looked up at the officer. 'Bloody horrid, sir. What do we do with them?

The bodies had been uncovered, their nakedness horribly white and stained by earth, their wounds somehow unreal. 'They weren't buried deep, were they?

'No. The Pioneer Sergeant sniffed. The bodies were scarce one foot under the earth, no protection against the carrion eaters that would scrape them up and tear at the dead flesh.

Sharpe jerked his head towards the southernmost part of the trench, the excavation nearest to the thorn covered hillside. 'Put them up there. Dig it deep. I want most of this trench free.

'Yes, sir.

'And hurry.

The Sergeant shook his head. 'We could do with some help, sir.

Sharpe knew there were enough men. 'If it isn't ready in an hour and a half, Sergeant, I'll leave you here when they attack.

'Yes, sir. The formal politeness barely disguised the hatred the Sergeant felt. As Sharpe walked away he heard the sound of the man spitting, but then there were bellowed orders, shouts for the Pioneers to get on with it, and Sharpe let the Sergeant be. It was a horrid job, but the Pioneers of a Battalion often got the horrid jobs, the worst of the digging and the least thanks. At least this time their work would not be wasted. Sharpe would need the trench to bury his dead in when this business was done.

He climbed to the ramparts of the keep and settled himself with his telescope and a cup of tea. He could see Frederickson's men dragging thorn bushes from the slope facing the village, some men hacking at trunks with saw-backed bayonets, others pulling at the thorns so that a wide path was being cleared up the hillside. The bushes were being taken to the southern slope, the vulnerable slope, arid Sharpe wondered what cunning had devised the orders. Doubtless he would find out soon. He expected the watchtower to be the next point of attack, and he expected it to fall by mid-afternoon, and he rehearsed in his mind the plan he had to evacuate the garrison. Strictly speaking, whatever Fred-erickson was doing on the hill broke the terms of the truce, but the French were not meticulous in it either. Through the lens of his glass Sharpe could see the artillery coming into the village. Twelve pounders, the kings of the battlefield, big bastards to make the next hours into misery and death.

For once in the morning he wanted company, but there was no soldier he would want to talk to. Teresa, maybe, but even she would have given short shrift to his fears of defeat. Common wisdom said that an attacker needed a three to one advantage over a well-sited defence, and Sharpe's defence was as good as he could make it. Yet he lacked artillery to batter the French guns, and the French could bring far more than three attackers to each defender. There were the rockets, of course, but they would be useless against the artillery. For them Sharpe had other plans.

Futile plans, he thought, as useless as the pride and duty that had made him stay in this high place where he could not win. He could delay the French, and every hour was a victory of a sort, but the hours would be bought at the price of men. He knelt behind the rampart again, levelled the telescope, and saw eight Riflemens' shakoes lined on the topmost stones of the watchtower. Eight Battalions of French infantry in sight. Eight! Call that four thousand men and it sounded no better. He laughed silently to himself, a grim laugh, and he laughed because they had made him into a Major and his first achievement would be to lose a Battalion. What had Harry Price told him on the march from Frenada? That men did not live long when they fought for Sharpe. That was a grim epitaph, the summation of his life, and he shook his head as if to clear the pessimism from his mind.