LITMIR.BIZ

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laughed. ‘I’ve waited so long for that invitation, Helena.’

      ‘You’ll have to wait a little longer, dear.’ She smiled at him. ‘Was that Richard Sharpe?’

      ‘It was. A genuine hero, and all for ten guineas.’

      ‘Which I doubt I’ll ever see. Is he truly a hero?’ Her huge eyes were fixed on Spears.

      ‘Good Lord, yes! Absolutely genuine. The poor fool must have a death wish. He took an Eagle, he was first into Badajoz, and there’s a rumour he blew up Almeida.’

      ‘How delicious.’ She opened her fan. ‘You’re a little jealous of him, aren’t you?’

      He laughed, because the accusation was not true. ‘I wish to have a long, long life, Helena, and die in the bed of someone very young and breathtakingly beautiful.’

      She smiled. Her teeth were unusually white. ‘I rather want to meet a real hero, Jack. Persuade him to come to the Palacio.’

      Spears twisted in his saddle, grimacing suddenly because the arm in its sling hurt. ‘You feel like slumming, Helena?’

      She smiled. ‘If I do, Jack, I’ll come to you for guidance. Just bring him to me.’

      He grinned and saluted. ‘Yes, Ma’am.’

      The French would not be goaded into battle. They made no attempt to throw the British off the knoll. Marmont could not see beyond the great ridge and he feared, sensibly, to attack Wellington in a position of the Englishman’s choosing.

      Smoke drifted from the knoll, dissipating into shimmering heat over the grass. Men lay on the ground and drank brackish warm water from their canteens. A few desultory fires burned from the musket fire, but no-one moved to stamp them out. Some men slept.

      ‘Is that it?’ Lieutenant Price frowned towards the French.

      ‘You want more, Harry?’ Sharpe grinned at his Lieutenant.

      ‘I sort of expected more.’ Price laughed and turned round to look at the ridge. A staff officer was riding his horse recklessly down the slope. ‘Here comes a fancy boy.’

      ‘We’re probably being pulled back.’

      Harper gave a massive yawn. ‘Perhaps they’re offering us free entrance to the staff brothel tonight.’

      ‘Isabella would kill you, Harps!’ Price laughed at the thought. ‘You should be unattached, like me.’

      ‘It’s the pox, sir. I couldn’t live with it.’

      ‘And I can’t live without it. Hello!’ Price frowned because the staff officer, instead of riding towards the Colours where the Battalion’s commanding officer would be found, was aiming straight for the Light Company. ‘We’ve got a visitor, sir.’

      Sharpe walked to meet the staff officer who called out when he was still thirty yards away. ‘Captain Sharpe?’

      ‘Yes!’

      ‘You’re wanted at Headquarters. Now! Do you have a horse?’

      ‘No.’

      The young man frowned at the reply and Sharpe knew he was considering yielding up his own horse to expedite the General’s orders. The consideration did not last long in the face of the steep uphill climb. The staff officer smiled. ‘You’ll have to walk! Quick as you can, please.’

      Sharpe smiled at him. ‘Bastard. Harry?’

      ‘Sir?’

      ‘Take over! Tell the Major I’ve been called to see the General!’

      ‘Aye aye, sir! Give him my best wishes!’

      Sharpe walked away from the Company, between the small fires, and up the hillside that was littered with the torn cartridge papers of his skirmishers. Leroux. It had to be Leroux who was pulling Sharpe back towards the city. Leroux, his enemy, and the man who possessed the sword Sharpe wanted. He smiled. He would have it yet.

      CHAPTER SIX

      Wellington was angry, the officers about him nervous of his irritability. They watched Sharpe walk up to the General and salute.

      Wellington scowled from the saddle. ‘By God, you took your time, Mr Sharpe.’

      ‘I came as fast as I could, my lord.’

      ‘Dammit! Don’t you have a horse?’

      ‘I’m an infantryman, sir.’ It was an insolent reply, one that made the aristocratic aides-de-camp that Wellington liked look sharply at the dishevelled, hot Rifleman with the scarred face and battered weapons. Sharpe was not worried. He knew his man. He had saved the General’s life in India and ever since there had been a strange bond between them. The bond was not of friendship, never that, but a bond of need. Sharpe needed a patron, however remote, and Wellington sometimes had reluctant need of a ruthless and efficient soldier. Each man had a respect for the other. The General looked sourly at Sharpe. ‘So they didn’t fight?’

      ‘No, sir.’

      ‘God damn his French soul.’ He was talking of Marshal Marmont. ‘They march all this bloody way just to pose for us? God damn them! So you met Leroux?’ He asked the question in exactly the same tone in which he had damned the French.

      ‘Yes, my lord.’

      ‘You’d recognise him again?’

      ‘Yes, my lord.’

      ‘Good.’ Wellington sounded far from pleased. ‘He’s not to escape from us, d’you understand? You’re to capture him. Understand?’

      Sharpe understood. He would be going back to Salamanca and his job, suddenly, was to trap the pale-eyed French Colonel who even had Wellington worried. ‘I understand, sir.’

      ‘Thank God somebody does.’ The General snapped. ‘I’m putting you under Major Hogan’s command. He seems to have the knack of making you toe the line, God knows how. Good day, Mr Sharpe.’

      ‘My lord?’ Sharpe raised his voice for the General was already wheeling away.

      ‘What is it?’

      ‘I have a whole Company that would recognise him, sir.’

      ‘You do, do you?’ Wellington’s bad mood had driven him into clumsy sarcasm. ‘You want me to strip the South Essex of a Light Company just to make your life easier?’

      ‘There are three forts, my lord, a long perimeter, and one man can’t have eyes everywhere.’

      ‘Why not? They expect it of me.’ Wellington laughed, breaking his bad mood with an extraordinary suddenness. ‘All right, Sharpe, you can have them. But don’t you lose him. Understand? You will not lose him.’ The blue eyes conveyed the message.

      ‘I won’t lose him, sir.’

      Wellington half smiled. ‘He’s all yours, Hogan. Gentlemen!’

      The staff officers trotted obediently after the General, leaving Hogan alone with Sharpe.

      The Irishman laughed quietly. ‘You have a deep respect for senior officers, Richard, it’s what makes you into such a great soldier.’

      ‘I’d have been here sooner if that bastard had lent me his horse.’

      ‘He probably paid two hundred guineas for it. He reckons it’s worth more than you are. On the other hand that nag cost ten pounds, and you can borrow it.’ Hogan was pointing towards his servant who was leading a spare horse towards them. Hogan had anticipated Sharpe arriving on foot and he waited as the Rifleman climbed clumsily into the saddle. ‘I’m sorry about the panic, Richard.’

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