LITMIR.BIZ

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reddish blossom which drifted above the city’s steep slope. Daniel Hagman stared at the airborne blossom. ‘Looks like a wedding,’ he said and then, glancing up as a musket ball ricocheted off a roof tile, brought a pair of scissors from his pocket. ‘Finish your hair, sir?’

      ‘Why not, Dan,’ Sharpe said. He sat on the porch steps and took off his shako.

      Sergeant Harper checked that the sentinels were watching the north. A troop of Portuguese cavalry had appeared on the crest where the single cannon was firing bravely. A rattle of musketry proved that some infantry was still fighting, but more and more troops were retreating past the house and Sharpe knew it could only be a matter of minutes before the city’s defences collapsed entirely. Hagman began slicing away at Sharpe’s hair. ‘You don’t like it over the ears, ain’t that right?’

      ‘I like it short, Dan.’

      ‘Short like a good sermon, sir,’ Hagman said. ‘Now keep still, sir, just keep still.’ There was a sudden stab of pain as Hagman speared a louse with the scissors’ blade. He spat on the drop of blood that showed on Sharpe’s scalp, then wiped it away. ‘So the Crapauds will get the city, sir?’

      ‘Looks like it,’ Sharpe said.

      ‘And they’ll march on Lisbon next?’ Hagman asked, cutting away.

      ‘Long way to Lisbon,’ Sharpe said.

      ‘Maybe, sir, but there’s an awful lot of them, sir, and precious few of us.’

      ‘But they say Wellesley’s coming here,’ Sharpe said.

      ‘As you keep telling us, sir,’ Hagman said, ‘but is he really a miracle worker?’

      ‘You fought at Copenhagen, Dan,’ Sharpe said, ‘and down the coast here.’ He meant the battles at Rolica and Vimeiro. ‘You could see for yourself.’

      ‘From the skirmish line, sir, all generals are the same,’ Hagman said, ‘and who knows if Sir Arthur’s really coming?’ It was, after all, only a rumour that Sir Arthur Wellesley was taking over from General Cradock and not everyone believed it. Many thought the British would withdraw, ought to withdraw, that they should give up the game and let the French have Portugal. ‘Turn your head to the right,’ Hagman said. The scissors clicked busily, not even pausing as a round shot buried itself in the church at the hill’s top. A mist of dust showed beside the whitewashed bell tower down which a crack had suddenly appeared. The Portuguese cavalry had been swallowed by the gun smoke and a trumpet called far away. There was a burst of musketry, then silence. A building must have been burning beyond the crest for there was a great smear of smoke drifting westwards. ‘Why would someone call their home the House Beautiful?’ Hagman wondered.

      ‘Didn’t know you could read, Dan,’ Sharpe said.

      ‘I can’t, sir, but Isaiah read it to me.’

      ‘Tongue!’ Sharpe called. ‘Why would someone call their home House Beautiful?’

      Isaiah Tongue, long and thin and dark and educated, who had joined the army because he was a drunk and thereby lost his respectable job, grinned. ‘Because he’s a good Protestant, sir.’

      ‘Because he’s a bloody what?’

      ‘It’s from a book by John Bunyan,’ Tongue explained, ‘called Pilgrim’s Progress.’

      ‘I’ve heard of that,’ Sharpe said.

      ‘Some folk consider it essential reading,’ Tongue said airily, ‘the story of a soul’s journey from sin to salvation, sir.’

      ‘Just the thing to keep you burning the candles at night,’ Sharpe said.

      ‘And the hero, Christian, calls at the House Beautiful, sir,’ – Tongue ignored Sharpe’s sarcasm – ‘where he talks with four virgins.’

      Hagman laughed. ‘Let’s get inside now, sir.’

      ‘You’re too old for a virgin, Dan,’ Sharpe said.

      ‘Discretion,’ Tongue said, ‘Piety, Prudence and Charity.’

      ‘What about them?’ Sharpe asked.

      ‘Those were the names of the virgins, sir,’ Tongue said.

      ‘Bloody hell,’ Sharpe said.

      ‘Charity’s mine,’ Hagman said. ‘Pull your collar down, sir, that’s the way.’ He snipped at the black hair. ‘He sounds like he was a tedious old man, Mister Savage, if it was him what named the house.’ Hagman stooped to manoeuvre the scissors over Sharpe’s high collar. ‘So why did the Captain leave us here, sir?’ he asked.

      ‘He wants us to look after Colonel Christopher,’ Sharpe said.

      ‘To look after Colonel Christopher,’ Hagman repeated, making his disapproval evident by the slowness with which he said the words. Hagman was the oldest man in Sharpe’s troop of riflemen, a poacher from Cheshire who was a deadly shot with his Baker rifle. ‘So Colonel Christopher can’t look after himself now?’

      ‘Captain Hogan left us here, Dan,’ Sharpe said, ‘so he must think the Colonel needs us.’

      ‘And the Captain’s a good man, sir,’ Hagman said. ‘You can let the collar go. Almost done.’

      But why had Captain Hogan left Sharpe and his riflemen behind? Sharpe wondered about that as Hagman tidied up his work. And had there been any significance in Hogan’s final injunction to keep a close eye on the Colonel? Sharpe had only met the Colonel once. Hogan had been mapping the upper reaches of the River Cavado and the Colonel and his servant had ridden out of the hills and shared a bivouac with the riflemen. Sharpe had not liked Christopher who had been supercilious and even scornful of Hogan’s work. ‘You map the country, Hogan,’ the Colonel had said, ‘but I map their minds. A very complicated thing, the human mind, not simple like hills and rivers and bridges.’ Beyond that statement he had not explained his presence, but just ridden on next morning. He had revealed that he was based in Oporto which, presumably, was how he had met Mrs Savage and her daughter, and Sharpe wondered why Colonel Christopher had not persuaded the widow to leave Oporto much sooner.

      ‘You’re done, sir,’ Hagman said, wrapping his scissors in a piece of calfskin, ‘and you’ll be feeling the cold wind now, sir, like a newly shorn sheep.’

      ‘You should get your own hair cut, Dan,’ Sharpe said.

      ‘Weakens a man, sir, weakens him something dreadful.’ Hagman frowned up the hill as two round shots bounced on the crest of the road, one of them taking off the leg of a Portuguese gunner. Sharpe’s men watched expressionless as the round shot bounded on, spraying blood like a Catherine wheel, to finally bang and stop against a garden wall across the road. Hagman chuckled. ‘Fancy calling a girl Discretion! It ain’t a natural name, sir. Ain’t kind to call a girl Discretion.’

      ‘It’s in a book, Dan,’ Sharpe said, ‘so it isn’t supposed to be natural.’ He climbed to the porch and shoved hard on the front door, but found it locked. So where the hell was Colonel Christopher? More Portuguese retreated down the slope and these men were so frightened that they did not pause when they saw the British troops, but just kept running. The Portuguese cannon was being attached to its limber and spent musket balls were tearing at the cedars and rattling against the tiles, shutters and stones of the House Beautiful. Sharpe hammered on the locked door, but there was no answer.

      ‘Sir?’ Sergeant Patrick Harper called a warning to him. ‘Sir?’ Harper jerked his head towards the side of the house and Sharpe backed away from the door to see Lieutenant Colonel Christopher riding from the stable yard. The Colonel, who was armed with a sabre and a brace of pistols, was cleaning his teeth with a wooden pick, something he did frequently, evidently because he was proud of his even white smile. He was accompanied by his Portuguese servant who, mounted on his master’s spare horse, was carrying an enormous valise that was so stuffed with lace, silk and satins that the bag could not be closed.

      Colonel

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