Sharpe 3-Book Collection 4. Bernard Cornwell
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of the passage, door on the right.’
The supper was awkward. They ate in one of the small cells that was lined with cork to keep out the cold of the coming winter, and their meal was a stew of goat and beans, with coarse bread, cheese and a plentiful supply of wine. Hogan did his best to keep the conversation moving, but Sharpe had little to say to Major Ferreira who never referred to the events on the hilltop where Sharpe had burned the telegraph tower. Instead he talked of his time in Brazil where he had commanded a fort in one of the Portuguese settlements. ‘The women are beautiful!’ Ferreira exclaimed. ‘The most beautiful women in all the world!’
‘Including the slaves?’ Sharpe asked, causing Hogan, who knew Sharpe was trying to turn the subject to the Major’s brother, to roll his eyes.
‘The slaves are the prettiest!’ Ferreira said. ‘And so obliging.’
‘Not much choice,’ Sharpe observed sourly. ‘Your brother didn’t give them any, did he?’
Hogan tried to intervene, but Major Ferreira stilled his protest. ‘My brother, Mister Sharpe?’
‘He was a slaver, yes?’
‘My brother has been many things,’ Ferreira said. ‘As a child he was beaten because the monks who taught us wanted him to be pious. He is not pious. My father beat him because he would not read his books, but the beating did not make him a reader. He was happiest with the servants’ children, he ran wild with them until my mother could take his wildness no longer and so he was sent to the nuns of Santo Espírito. They tried to beat the spirit from him, but he ran away. He was thirteen then, and he came back sixteen years later. He came back rich and quite determined, Mister Sharpe, that no one would ever beat him again.’
‘I did,’ Sharpe said.
‘Richard!’ Hogan remonstrated.
Ferreira ignored Hogan, staring at Sharpe across the candles. ‘He has not forgotten,’ he said quietly.
‘But it’s all cleared up,’ Hogan said. ‘An accident! Apologies have been made. Try some of this cheese, Major.’ He pushed a chipped plate of cheese across the table. ‘Major Ferreira and I, Richard, have been questioning deserters all afternoon.’
‘French?’
‘Lord, no. Portuguese.’ Hogan explained that, following the fall of Almeida, scores of that fortress’s Portuguese garrison had volunteered into the Portuguese Legion, a French unit. ‘It seems they did it,’ Hogan explained, ‘because it gave them a chance to get near our lines and desert. Over thirty came in this evening. And they’re all saying that the French will attack in the morning.’
‘You believe them?’
‘I believe they are telling the truth as they know it,’ Hogan said, ‘and their orders were to make ready for an attack. What they don’t know, of course, is whether Masséna will change his mind.’
‘Monsieur Masséna,’ Ferreira remarked acidly, ‘is too busy with his mistress to think sensibly about battle.’
‘His mistress?’ Sharpe asked.
‘Mademoiselle Henriette Leberton,’ Hogan said, amused, ‘who is eighteen years old, Richard, while Monsieur Masséna is what? Fifty-one? No, fifty-two. Nothing distracts an old man so effectively as young flesh which makes Mademoiselle Leberton one of our more valued allies. His Majesty’s government should pay her an allowance. A guinea a night, perhaps?’
When the supper was eaten Ferreira insisted on showing Hogan and Sharpe the shrine where, as Clayton had said, wooden breasts lay on an altar. A score of small candles flickered around the weird objects and dozens of other candles had burned down to wax puddles. ‘Women bring the breasts,’ Ferreira explained, ‘to be cured of diseases. Women’s diseases.’ He yawned, then pulled a watch from his waistcoat pocket. ‘I must get back to the ridge top,’ he said. ‘An early night, I think. Perhaps the enemy will come at dawn.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ Hogan said.
Ferreira made the sign of the cross, bowed to the altar and left. Sharpe listened as the sound of the Major’s spurred boots faded down the passage. ‘What the hell was that all about?’ he asked Hogan.
‘What was what about, Richard?’
‘That supper!’
‘He was being friendly. Showing you there are no hard feelings.’
‘But there are! He said his brother hadn’t forgotten.’
‘Not forgotten, but persuaded to let the matter rest. And so should you.’
‘I wouldn’t trust that bugger as far as I can spit,’ Sharpe said, then had to step back because the door had been pushed wide open and a noisily cheerful group of British officers stepped into the small room. One man alone was not in uniform, wearing instead a blue top coat and a white silk stock. It was Lord Wellington, who glanced at Sharpe, but appeared not to notice him.
Instead the General nodded to Hogan. ‘Come to worship, Major?’ he asked.
‘I was showing Mister Sharpe the sights, my lord.’
‘I doubt Mister Sharpe needs to see replications,’ Wellington said. ‘He probably sees more of the real article than most of us, eh?’ He spoke genially enough, but with an edge of scorn, then looked directly at Sharpe. ‘I hear you did your duty three days ago, Mister Sharpe,’ he said.
Sharpe was confused, first by the sudden change of tone and then by the statement, which seemed strange after Hogan’s earlier reproof. ‘I hope so, my lord,’ he answered carefully.
‘Can’t leave food for the French,’ the General said, turning back to the modelled breasts, ‘and I would have thought I had made that stratagem entirely clear.’ The last few words were said harshly and left the other officers silent. Then Wellington smiled and gestured at the votive breasts. ‘Can’t quite imagine these things in Saint Paul’s,’ he went on, ‘can you, Hogan?’
‘They might improve the place, my lord.’
‘Indeed they might. I shall advert the matter to the Dean.’ He gave his horse neigh of a laugh, then abruptly looked at Hogan again. ‘Any news from Trant?’
‘None, my lord.’
‘Let us hope that is good news.’ The General nodded at Hogan, ignored Sharpe again and led his guests back to wherever they were having supper.
‘Trant?’ Sharpe asked.
‘There’s a road round the top of the ridge,’ Hogan said, ‘and we have a cavalry vedette there and, I trust, some Portuguese militia under Colonel Trant. They are under orders to alert us if they see any sign of the enemy, but no word has come, so we must hope Masséna is ignorant of the route. If he thinks his only road to Lisbon is up this hill, then up this hill he must come. I must say, unlikely as it seems, that he probably will attack.’
‘And maybe at dawn,’ Sharpe said, ‘so I must get some sleep.’ He grinned at Hogan. ‘So I was right about bloody Ferragus and you were wrong?’
Hogan returned the grin. ‘It is very ungentlemanly to gloat, Richard.’
‘How did Wellington know?’
‘I suppose Major Ferreira complained to him. He said he didn’t, but…’ Hogan shrugged.
‘You can’t trust that Portuguese bugger,’ Sharpe said. ‘Get one of your nasties to slit his throat.’
‘You’re the only nasty I know,’ Hogan said, ‘and it’s past your bedtime. So good night, Richard.’
It was not late yet, probably no more than nine o’clock, but the sky was black dark and the temperature had fallen sharply. A wind had come from the west to bring cold air from the distant sea and a mist was forming among the trees as Sharpe climbed back to the path where the strange statues