The Lieutenant Colonel was impatient. He wanted the prisoners moved, to release his men from guarding them in the afternoon heat, but Sharpe stubbornly went down the ranks again. He wiped the sweat from his eyes, searched the faces, but he knew it was no good. He nodded reluctantly to the Colonel. “I’m through, sir.”

He was not through. He searched the burning convent again, went down into the coolness of the huge cellar that had been the magazine, but there were no signs of the fugitive. It was Harper who finally admitted what Sharpe did not want to admit. “He’s not here, sir.”

“No.” But he would not give up. If Leroux had escaped, and for the life of him he could not see how, then La Marquesa was in danger. It might take the Frenchman days, or weeks, or just hours before he made his move and Sharpe thought of her body in that man’s hands and he hacked with his sword at an open cupboard as if it might conceal a false compartment. He let the rage subside. “Search the dead.” It was quite possible that Leroux was among the dead, but Sharpe suspected the tall, clever Colonel would not have exposed himself to the artillery fire. Yet Sharpe must search the corpses.

The dead stank. Some had been dead for two days, unburied in the heat, and Sharpe raked the bodies off the pile and, the nearer the bottom he reached, the more he knew that Leroux was not here. He went out again, onto the glacis, and stared at the other two forts. La Merced was empty, its garrison marching away into captivity, and only McGovern with his small picquet stood guard on the San Cayetano.. Sharpe looked at Harper’s squad. They were tired, worn out, and he gestured at them to sit down. He took off his jacket and gave it to Lieutenant Price. “I’m going for one more look at the San Cayetano.”

“Yes, sir.” Price was coated with sweat-streaked dust.

Harper came with Sharpe, but no one else, and for the fourth time they climbed the ravine and the two tall Riflemen walked slowly towards the first fort to fall. Sergeant McGovern had seen nothing. His men had searched the building again, but he swore it was empty, and Sharpe nodded. “Go back to Lieutenant Price, Mac. Send a man to bring Sergeant Huckfield back.”

La Merced had received very little of the bombardment and there were no corpses in the smallest fort, so the only hope left was the dead in the San Cayetano. Sharpe and Harper went slowly into the ghastly courtyard and looked at the grisly pile. There was nothing for it but to search.

The corpses lolled unnaturally after they had been raked down from the stack. Sharpe looked at each face, and each was a stranger, and then he went up to one of the less damaged parapets and stared with Harper across the river. The clean, green hills were pale in the sunlight. He looked at his hands, stained with the dirt and blood of death, and swore long and foully.

Harper offered his canteen and said nothing. He knew what Sharpe was thinking; that the Light Company had pulled an easy duty, a detachment that had given them days by the river and nights in wine shops, and in return they had failed in the one thing they had been asked to do.

Huckfield’s men filed beneath the parapet and the Sergeant looked up at Sharpe and offered help. Sharpe shook his head. “There’s nothing here! Go on. We’ll join you in a minute.”

“What now, sir?” Harper sat on the parapet.

“I don’t know.” He glanced at the small fort, La Merced, and wondered if he should search it again, but he knew it was empty. He could wait for the fires to burn down in the San Vincente and then rake through the ashes looking for a body. By God! He would do it! And he would pull the damned convents down, stone by bloody stone, until he had found the Frenchman. His new shirt was stained and stinking, glued to his chest with sweat. He thought of La Marquesa, of the coolness of her rooms, of the bath that waited for him and the chilled wine on the mirador. He shook his head. „He can’t have escaped. He can’t!“

“He did before.” Harper offered cold comfort.

Sharpe thought of La Marquesa’s silk smooth skin ripped from her body, inch by inch, and the thought of Leroux torturing her made him shut his eyes.

Harper swilled his mouth with water and spat it into the ditch. “We can search again, sir.”

“No, Patrick. It’s no damned good.” He stood up and walked wearily down the steps into the courtyard. He hated to admit failure, but he did not think another search would reveal anything. He stopped, waiting for Harper, and stared at a French corpse that had been disembowelled. The man was naked, his wound had laid him open so that his spine was visible through his stomach, but Sharpe was not seeing anything. He was just staring, his thoughts hammering at him. Harper saw the stare and looked himself at the corpse.

“Funny, that.”

“What?” Sharpe was startled from his reverie.

Harper nodded at the corpse. “That other poor bugger was gutted, just like that. Except the other one lived.”

“Yes.” Sharpe shrugged. “Funny things, wounds. Remember Major Collett? Not a mark on him. Other poor bastards live with half their stuffing taken out.” He was making conversation, trying to hide his disappointment. He moved away, but Harper still stared at the corpse. “You coming? Patrick?”

Harper crouched and batted at the flies with a hand. “Sir?” His voice was worried. “Would you say this one had his full kit, sir? I know he’s a bloody mess, so he is, but…‘

“Oh God in heaven! Christ!” Sharpe knew that the corpse’s guts could have been lost in an explosion, they could have been tossed to the stray dogs that scavenged the wasteland at night, or they could have been scooped out to make the perfect disguise. “Oh Christ!”

They began running.

CHAPTER 12

They ran, forcing themselves over the stones, stumbling in the debris of the ruined houses, taking the shortest route to the city. The cordon of Light troops, still in place, watched in astonishment as the two huge men, one in a stained and damp shirt and wielding a huge blade, the other carrying a seven-barrelled gun, charged at them. A man levelled a musket and gave an uncertain challenge.

“Out the bloody way!” Sharpe’s bellow convinced the picquets that the two were British.

Sharpe led the way into the alleyway from which the abortive attack, four days before, had been launched. Civilians were crammed in the streets, hoping for a glimpse of the excitement in the wasteland, but they parted hurriedly before the armed men. Thank God, Sharpe thought, it was downhill to the Irish College where the wounded were taken.

Yet the man who must, surely, have piled the guts of another man onto his stomach, who had smeared himself in blood and soot, who had sought his disguise in a wound so terrible that no one would think he could survive or think he was worth troubling over, had such a lead on them. Thirty minutes, forty even, and Sharpe felt a blind rage at his own stupidity. Trust nothing, and trust no one! Search everyone, and yet the sight of the disembowelled artillery officer had made him turn away in horror and pity. It had been the first officer he had seen inside the first fort and now he was convinced it had to be Leroux. Who could now be free inside the city.

They turned left, their breath coming in humid gasps, and Sharpe saw that they still had a chance. It was not much, but it drove him on. The crowds were holding up the wagons carrying the wounded, jeering at the enemy, and British troops were holding the people back with muskets. Sharpe pushed and forced his way to the nearest cart and shouted up at the driver. “Is this the first batch?”

“No, mate. Haifa dozen have gone already. Gawd knows ‘ow they’ll get through.”

The driver had mistaken Sharpe for a private. He had seen the rifle slung on the shoulder and, without his jacket or sash, Sharpe had no badge of rank except the sword. He looked for Harper. “Come on!”