"Sharpe! Please! Please!" A wan Runciman stared at Sharpe's penknife. "Do you have to be so graphic?"

"General! I'm raising a serious matter! I can't hold off a brigade of Frenchmen with my handful of riflemen. I might do some damage if the Irish boys had muskets, but without muskets, bayonets and ammunition?" Sharpe shook his head, then snapped the blade shut. "It's your choice, General, but if I was the senior British officer in this fort then I'd find a way to get some decent weapons up here as fast as possible. Unless, of course, I wanted to be singing the high notes in the church choir when I got back to Hampshire."

Runciman gaped at Sharpe. The Colonel was sweating now, overwhelmed by a vision of castrating Frenchmen running wild inside the crumbling fort. "But they won't give us muskets, Sharpe. We tried! Kiely and I tried together! And that awkward man General Valverde pleaded for us as well, but the Quartermaster General says there's a temporary shortage of spare weapons. He hoped General Valverde might persuade Cadiz to send us some Spanish muskets."

Sharpe shook his head at Runciman's despair. "So we have to borrow some muskets, General, till the Spanish ones arrive. We just need to divert a wagon or two with the help of those seals you've still got."

"But I can't issue orders to the wagon train, Sharpe! Not any longer! I have new duties, new responsibilities."

"You've got too many responsibilities, General," Sharpe said, "because you're too valuable a man, but really, sir, you shouldn't be worrying yourself over details. Your job is to look after the big decisions and let me look after the small." Sharpe tossed the penknife in the air and caught it. "And let me look after the Crapauds if they come, sir. You've got better things to do."

Runciman leaned back in his folding chair, making it creak dangerously. "You have a point, Sharpe, you do indeed have a point." Runciman shuddered as he contemplated the enormity of the crime. "But you think I am merely anticipating an order rather than breaking one?"

Sharpe stared at the Colonel with feigned admiration. "I wish I had your mind, General, I really do. That's a brilliant way of putting it. "Anticipating an order." I wish I'd thought of that."

Runciman preened at the compliment. "My dear mother always maintained I could have been a lawyer," he said proudly, "maybe even Lord Chancellor! But my father preferred me to take an honest career." He pulled some empty papers across his makeshift desk and began writing orders. From time to time the horror of his conduct made him pause, but each time Sharpe snapped the small blade open and shut and the noise prompted the Colonel to dip his quill's tip into the inkwell.

And next day four ox-drawn wagons with puzzled drivers and beds loaded with weapons, ammunition and supplies arrived at the San Isidro Fort.

And the Real Companпa Irlandesa was armed at last.

And thinking of mutiny.

CHAPTER IV

Next morning, just after dawn, a delegation discovered Sharpe at the deserted northern end of the fort. The sun was slicing across the valley to gild the small mist that sifted above the stream where Sharpe was watching a harrier float effortlessly in the light wind with its gaze trained down on the hillside. The eight men of the delegation halted awkwardly behind Sharpe who, after one sour glance at their serious faces, looked back to the valley. "There's some rabbits down there," Sharpe said to no one in particular, "and that daft bird keeps losing them in the mist."

"He won't go hungry for long though," Harper said, "I've never seen a hawk dafter than a rabbit." The greenjacket Sergeant was the only delegate from Sharpe's company: the other men were all from the Real Companпa Irlandesa. "It's a nice morning," Harper said, sounding uncharacteristically nervous. He plainly believed that either Father Sarsfield, Captain Donaju or Captain Lacy should broach the delicate subject that had caused this delegation to seek Sharpe out, but the chaplain and the two embarrassed officers were silent. "A grand morning," Harper said, breaking the silence again.

"Is it?" Sharpe responded. He had been standing on a merlon beside a gun embrasure, but now he jumped down to the firing platform and from there into the bed of the dry ditch. Years of rainfall had eroded the glacis and filled the ditch, just as frost had degraded and crumbled the stonework of the ramparts. "I've seen hovels built better than this," Sharpe said. He kicked at the wall's base and one of the larger stones shifted perceptibly. "There's no bloody mortar there!" he said.

"There wasn't enough water in the mix," Harper explained. He took a deep breath, then, realizing that his companions would not speak up, took the plunge himself. "We wanted to see you, sir. It's important, sir."

Sharpe clambered back up to the ramparts and brushed his hands together. "Is it about the new muskets?"

"No, sir. The muskets are just grand, sir."

"The training?"

"No, sir."

"Then the man you want to see is Colonel Runciman," Sharpe said curtly. "Call him «General» and he'll give you anything." Sharpe was deliberately dissembling. He knew exactly why the delegation was here, but he had small appetite for their worries. "Talk to Runciman after breakfast and he'll be in a good enough mood," he said.

"We've spoken to the Colonel," Captain Donaju spoke at last, "and the Colonel said we should speak with you."

Father Sarsfield smiled. "I think we knew he would say that, Captain, when we approached him. I don't think Colonel Runciman is particularly sympathetic to the problems of Ireland."

Sharpe looked from Sarsfield to Donaju, from Donaju to Lacy, then from Lacy to the sullen faces of the four rank and file guardsmen. "So it's about Ireland, is it?" Sharpe said. "Well, go on. I haven't got any other problems to solve today."

The chaplain ignored the sarcasm, offering Sharpe a folded newspaper instead. "It is about that, Captain Sharpe," Sarsfield said respectfully.

Sharpe took the paper which, to his surprise, came from Philadelphia. The front page was a dense mass of black type: lists of ships arriving or departing from the city wharves; news from Europe; reports of Congress and tales of Indian atrocities suffered by settlers in the western territories.

"It's at the bottom of the page," Donaju offered.

" 'The Melancholy Effects of Intemperance'?" Sharpe read a headline aloud.

"No, Sharpe. Just before that," Donaju said, and Sharpe sighed as he read the words "New Massacres in Ireland". What followed was a more lurid version of the tale Runciman had already told Sharpe: a catalogue of rape and slaughter, of innocent children cut down by English dragoons and of praying women dragged out of houses by drink-crazed grenadiers. The newspaper claimed that the ghosts of Cromwell's troopers had come back to life to turn Ireland into a blood-drenched misery again. Ireland, the English government had announced, would be pacified once and for all, and the newspaper commented that the English were choosing to make that pacification when so many Irishmen were fighting against France in the King's army in Portugal. Sharpe read the piece through twice. "What did Lord Kiely say?" he asked Father Sarsfield, not because he cared one fig what Kiely thought, but the question bought him a few seconds while he thought how to respond. He also wanted to encourage Sarsfield to do the delegation's talking, for the Real Companпa Irlandesa's chaplain had struck Sharpe as a friendly, sensible and cool-headed man and if he could get the priest on his side then he reckoned the rest of the company would follow.

"His Lordship hasn't seen the newspaper," Sarsfield said. "He has gone hunting with the Dona Juanita."

Sharpe handed the paper back to the priest. "Well, I've seen the newspaper," he said, "and I can tell you it's bloody rubbish." One of the guardsmen stirred indignantly, then stiffened when Sharpe gave him a threatening look. "It's a fairy tale for idiots," Sharpe said provocatively, "pure bloody make-believe."