Hogan bent to the glass again. "The flooding isn't all we hoped for," he said, "or what Colonel Fletcher hoped for. But it should suffice. They can't use the road, anyway, so what the bastards will do, Lawford, is march inland. Follow the base of those hills," Hogan was tracking the possible French route with the telescope, "and somewhere near that abandoned barn they'll cross over and come straight at you."

"Exactly what I'd surmised," Lawford said, "and then they'll advance into that valley." He nodded to the low ground that curled about the hill.

"Where they'll die," Hogan said with an indecent satisfaction. He stood up straight and winced at a twinge in his back. "In truth, Lawford, I don't expect them to try. But they might get desperate. Any news of Sharpe?"

Lawford hesitated, surprised by the question, then realized that it was probably the reason Hogan had sought him out. "None."

"Bloody lost, is he?"

"I fear it's time to write him out of the books," Lawford said, meaning that he could officially declare Sharpe missing and so create a vacant captainship.

"A bit premature, don't you think?" Hogan suggested vaguely. "Your affair, of course, Lawford, your affair entirely, and no damned business of mine whether you write him out or not." He stooped to the glass again and stared at one of the broken mills that crowned a hilltop across the wide valley. "What was he doing when he went missing?"

"Looking for turpentine, I think. That and escorting an English woman."

"Ah!" Hogan said, still vaguely, then straightened from the glass again. "A woman, eh? That sounds like Mister Sharpe, doesn't it? Good for him. That was in Coimbra, yes?"

"In Coimbra, yes," Lawford confirmed, then added indignantly, "He never turned up!"

"Another fellow disappeared there," Hogan said, standing at the bastion's edge and staring through the rain at the northern hills. "A major, quite important. He does for the Portuguese what I do for the Peer. Be a bad thing if he fell into French hands."

Lawford was no fool and knew that Hogan did not just make vague conversation. "You think they're connected?"

"I know they're connected," Hogan said. "Sharpe and this fellow had what you might call a disagreement."

"Sharpe never told me!" Lawford was piqued.

"Flour? On a hilltop?"

"Ah. He did tell me. No details, though."

"Richard never wastes details on senior officers," Hogan said, then paused to take a pinch of snuff. He sneezed. "He doesn't tell us," he went on, "in case we get confused. But he coped, in a way, and got himself thoroughly beaten up as a result."

"Beaten up?"

"The night before the battle."

"He said he'd tripped."

"Well, he would, wouldn't he?" Hogan was not surprised. "So, yes, the two were connected, but whether they still are is very dubious. Very dubious, but not impossible. I have great faith in Sharpe."

"As do I," Lawford said.

"Indeed you do," Hogan said, who knew more about the South Essex than Lawford would ever have guessed. "So if Sharpe does turn up, Lawford, send him on to the Peer's headquarters, would you? Tell him we need his information about Major Ferreira." Hogan very much doubted that Wellington would want to waste a second on Sharpe, but Hogan did, and it did no harm for Lawford to think that the General shared that wish.

"Of course I will," Lawford promised.

"We're at Pero Negro," Hogan said, "a couple of hours' ride westwards. And of course we'll send him back as soon as we can. I'm sure you're eager for Sharpe to resume his proper duties." There was a faint stress on the word «proper» that did not escape Lawford who sensed the mildest of reproofs, and the Colonel was wondering whether he should explain just what had happened between Sharpe and Slingsby when Hogan suddenly gave an exclamation and put his eye to the glass. "Our friends are here," he said.

For a moment Lawford thought Hogan meant that Sharpe had turned up, but then he saw horses on the far hill and he knew it was the French. The first patrols had come to the lines, and that meant Massena's army could not be far behind.

The Lines of Torres Vedras, built without the knowledge of the British government, had cost two hundred thousand pounds. They were the greatest, most expensive defensive works ever made in Europe.

And now they would be tested.

They were dragoons, the inevitable, green-coated dragoons who rode along the river beneath the looming hills of the Tagus's western bank. There were at least thirty of them and they had plainly been foraging for they had two small cows tied to one man's horse, but now, in the wet afternoon, they saw the small boat with its three men and two women, and the chance for sport was too good for the dragoons to pass up. They began by shouting that the boat was to be brought to their bank, but they had no expectation that their words would be understood, let alone obeyed, and a few seconds afterwards the first man fired.

The carbine shot splashed into the water five paces short of the boat. Sharpe and Harper began rowing harder, steering the boat obliquely away from the horsemen towards the eastern bank, and the dragoons spurred on ahead, a dozen or more of the horsemen dismounting where a wooded spur projected into the river. "They're getting ready to fire at us," Vicente warned.

The river made a bend around the wooded headland and on its eastern bank, a hundred paces from the dragoons, a vast tree had fallen into the water where it lay, half in and half out, its gaunt, sun-whitened branches jutting into the drizzle. Sharpe, twisting on the thwart, saw the tree and tugged hard on his left oar to steer for it. The other dragoons had dismounted now and hurried to the river's edge where they knelt, aimed and fired. The balls skipped across the river and one drove a splinter out of the small boat's gunwale. "You see the tree, Pat?" Sharpe asked, and Harper turned on the thwart and grunted confirmation and the two pulled at the heavy oars as another ragged volley crackled from the far bank, then the high, tarred prow of the boat smashed into the dead branches that tangled the backwater formed by the huge, pale trunk. A carbine bullet smacked into the dead wood and another whip-cracked overhead as Vicente pulled the boat farther into the sanctuary made by the fallen tree. Now, so long as they kept their heads down, the dragoons could not see them and could not hit them, but that did not deter the French, who kept up a desultory fire, evidently convinced that sooner or later the boat must reappear.

Vicente got tired of it first. He stood and edged his rifle over the tree. "I must find out if I can still fire a rifle," he said.

"Your left shoulder won't stop you," Sharpe said.

"Fire it accurately, I mean," Vicente said, and bent to the sights. The dragoons were using smoothbore carbines that were even less accurate than a musket, but at this range Vicente's rifle was deadly and he aimed at a mounted man he presumed was an officer. The dragoons had seen him, though whether they saw his gun was doubtful, and a flurry of shots banged from the far bank. None came close. Sharpe was peering over the trunk, curious as to how good a marksman Vicente was. He heard the bang of the rifle and saw the dragoon officer twitch hard back to leave a spray of blood. The man fell sideways.

"Good shooting," Sharpe said, impressed.

"I practiced all last winter," Vicente said. He could fire the rifle well enough, but reloading hurt his wounded shoulder. "If I am to be a leader of a tirador company then I must be a good marksman, yes?"

"Yes," Sharpe said, as a volley of French carbine fire rattled through the dead branches.

"And I won every competition," Vicente said as modestly as he could, "but it was only because of practice." He rammed a new bullet down and stood again. "This time I will kill the horse," he said.