LITMIR.BIZ

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out and make sure his people deliver food for you. Bread, beans and a bullock should do your fellows for a week, eh? And for God’s sake don’t make yourselves obvious; I don’t want the French sacking this house. There’s some damn fine pipes of port in the cellars and I don’t want your rogues helping themselves.’

      ‘They won’t, sir,’ Sharpe said. Last night, when Christopher had first told him that he and his men must stay at the Quinta, the Colonel had produced a letter from General Cradock. The letter had been carried around for so long that it was fragile, especially along the creases, and its ink was faded, but it clearly stated, in English and Portuguese, that Lieutenant-Colonel James Christopher was employed on work of great importance and enjoined every British and Portuguese officer to attend to the Colonel’s orders and offer him whatever help he might require. The letter, which Sharpe had no reason to believe was counterfeit, made it clear that Christopher was in a position to give Sharpe orders and so he now sounded more respectful than he had the previous evening. ‘They won’t touch the port, sir,’ he said.

      ‘Good. Good. That’s all, Sharpe, you’re dismissed.’

      ‘You’re going south, sir?’ Sharpe asked instead of leaving.

      ‘I told you, we’re going to see General Cradock.’

      ‘Then perhaps you’d take a letter to Captain Hogan for me, sir?’

      ‘Write it quick, Sharpe, write it quick. I have to be off.’

      Sharpe wrote it quick. He disliked writing for he had never learned his letters properly, not school proper, and he knew his expressions were as clumsy as his penmanship, but he wrote to tell Hogan that he was stranded north of the river, that he was ordered to stay at the Quinta do Zedes and that, just as soon as he was released from those orders, he would return to duty. He guessed that Christopher would read the letter and so he had made no mention of the Colonel nor offered any criticism of his orders. He gave the letter to Christopher who, dressed in civilian clothes and accompanied by the Frenchman who was also out of uniform, left in mid-morning. Luis rode with them.

      Kate had also written a letter, this one to her mother. She had been pale and tearful in the morning, which Sharpe put down to her imminent parting from her new husband, but in truth Kate was upset that Christopher would not let her accompany him, an idea the Colonel had brusquely refused to consider. ‘Where we are going,’ he had insisted, ‘is exceedingly dangerous. Going through the lines, my dear one, is perilous in the extreme and I cannot expose you to such risk.’ He had seen Kate’s unhappiness and taken both her hands in his. ‘Do you believe that I wish to part from you so soon? Do you not understand that only matters of duty, of the very highest duty, would tear me from your side? You must trust me, Kate. I think trust is very important in marriage, don’t you?’

      And Kate, trying not to cry, had agreed that it was.

      ‘You will be safe,’ Christopher had told her. ‘Sharpe’s men will guard you. I know he looks uncouth, but he’s an English officer and that means he’s almost a gentleman. And you’ve got plenty of servants to chaperone you.’ He frowned. ‘Does having Sharpe here worry you?’

      ‘No,’ Kate said, ‘I’ll just stay out of his way.’

      ‘I’ve no doubt he’ll be glad of that. Lady Grace might have tamed him a little, but he’s plainly uncomfortable around civilized folk. I’m sure you’ll be quite safe till I return. I can leave you a pistol if you’re worried?’

      ‘No,’ Kate said, for she knew there was a pistol in her father’s old gun room and, anyway, she did not think she would need it to deter Sharpe. ‘How long will you be away?’ she asked.

      ‘A week? At most ten days. One cannot be precise about such things, but be assured, my dearest, that I shall hurry back to you with the utmost dispatch.’

      She gave him the letter for her mother. The letter, written by candlelight just before dawn, told Mrs Savage that her daughter loved her, that she was sorry she had deceived her, but nevertheless she was married to a wonderful man, a man Mrs Savage would surely come to love as though he were her own son, and Kate promised she would be back at her mother’s side just as soon as she possibly could. In the meantime she commended herself, her husband and her mother to God’s tender care.

      Colonel James Christopher read his wife’s letter as he rode towards Oporto. Then he read Sharpe’s letter.

      ‘Something important?’ Captain Argenton asked him.

      ‘Trivialities, my dear Captain, mere trivialities,’ Christopher said and read Sharpe’s letter a second time. ‘Good God,’ he said, ‘but they allow utter illiterates to carry the King’s commission these days,’ and with those words he tore both letters into tiny shreds that he let fly upon the cold, rain-laden wind so that, for a moment, the white scraps looked like snow behind his horse. ‘I assume,’ he asked Argenton, ‘that we shall need a permit to cross the river?’

      ‘I shall get one from headquarters,’ Argenton said.

      ‘Good,’ Christopher said, ‘good,’ because in his saddlebag, unknown to Captain Argenton, was a third letter, one that Christopher had written himself in polished, perfect French, and it was addressed, care of Marshal Soult’s headquarters, to Brigadier Henri Vuillard, the man who was most feared by Argenton and his fellow plotters. Christopher smiled, remembered the joys of the night and anticipated the greater joys to come. He was a happy man.

       CHAPTER 4

      ‘Spider webs,’ Hagman whispered, ‘and moss. That’ll do it, sir.’

      ‘Spider webs and moss?’ Sharpe asked.

      ‘A poultice, sir, of spider webs, moss and a little vinegar. Back it with brown paper and bind it on tight.’

      ‘The doctor says you should just keep the bandage damp, Dan, nothing else.’

      ‘We knows better than a doctor, sir.’ Hagman’s voice was scarcely audible. ‘My mother always swore by vinegar, moss and webs.’ He fell silent, except that every breath was a wheeze. ‘And brown paper,’ he said after a long while. ‘And my father, sir, when he was shot by a gatekeeper at Dunham on the Hill, he was brought back by vinegar, moss and spider silk. She was a wonderful woman, my mother.’

      Sharpe, sitting beside the bed, wondered if he would be different if he had known his mother, if he had been raised by a mother. He thought of Lady Grace, dead these three years, and how she had once told him he was full of rage and he wondered if that was what mothers did, took the rage away, and then his mind sheered away from Grace as it always did. It was just too painful to remember and he forced a smile. ‘You were talking about Amy in your sleep, Dan. Is she your wife?’

      ‘Amy!’ Hagman blinked in surprise. ‘Amy? I haven’t thought of Amy in years. She was the rector’s daughter, sir, the rector’s daughter, and she did things no rector’s daughter ought to have even known about.’ He chuckled and it must have hurt him for the smile vanished and he groaned, but Sharpe reckoned Hagman had a chance now. For the first two days he had been feverish, but the sweat had broken. ‘How long are we staying here, sir?’

      ‘Long as we need to, Dan, but the truth is I don’t know. The Colonel gave me orders so we’ll just stay till he gives us more.’ Sharpe had been reassured by the letter from General Cradock, and even more by the news that Christopher was going to meet the General. Plainly the Colonel was up to his neck in strange work, but Sharpe now wondered whether he had misconstrued Captain Hogan’s words about keeping a close eye on Christopher. Perhaps Hogan had meant that he wanted Christopher protected because his work was so important. Whatever, Sharpe had his orders now and he was satisfied that the Colonel had the authority to issue them, yet even so he felt guilty that he and his men were resting in the Quinta do Zedes while a war went on somewhere to the south and another to the east.

      At least he assumed there was fighting

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