Besides the muskets and sword, the horsemen had pistols, knives and one rider even had a great axe slung beside his saddle, and as they drew nearer Tubbs could see that their faces were scarred, moustached, sun-darkened and unsmiling. "Guerilleros?" He suggested to Sharpe.
"Like as not, Major, " Sharpe agreed.
Tubbs sighed. "I know they're supposed to be on our side, Sharpe, but I can never truly trust them. Little more than bandits."
"That's true, sir."
"Cut-throats, rogues, criminals! They're not above slitting a British straggler's throat for the value of his equipment, Sharpe! They're not to be trusted!»
"So I've heard, sir."
The Major lowered his telescope and looked with horror at Sharpe. "You don't suppose, Sharpe, that the wine belongs to them, do you?"
"I doubt it, sir, " Sharpe said. The wine was French plunder, stolen from one of the local vineyards, and the wine's original owner had probably died when the frogs pillaged his property.
"My God, man! " Tubbs said, "but if the wine does belong to them, they'll be furious! Furious! Call your men back! " Tubbs stared at the retreating Light Company, then turned to gaze at the horsemen. "Suppose they want payment for the wine, Sharpe? What do we do?"
"Tell them to bugger off, sir."
"Tell them to. . Oh, my God! " Tubbs was alarmed because one of the riders had broken from the group and was now spurring towards the fortress. He raised his glass again, stared for a few heartbeats, then looked astonished. "Good Lord!»
"What is it, sir?" Sharpe asked calmly.
"It's a woman, Sharpe, a woman! And armed! " Tubbs was gazing at a thin-faced, good-looking young woman who trotted towards the small fortress with a gun on her back and a sword at her side. She swept off her hat as she approached, loosing a torrent of long black hair. "A woman!»
Tubbs exclaimed, "and rather beautiful."
"She's called La Aguja, sir, " Sharpe said, "which means 'the needle', and that ain't because she's handy with the cotton and thread, sir, but because she likes to kill with a stiletto."
"Kill with a. . you know her, Sharpe?"
"I'm married to her, Major, " Sharpe said, and went down the stairs to greet Teresa.
And reflected that, maybe, whatever they were, he was in the Elysian Fields after all.
Major Pierre Ducos was no more a proper Major than was Lucius Tubbs, but nor was he quite a civilian, though he wore civilian clothes. A policeman, perhaps? Yet that did not do justice to the exquisite subtlety of Ducos's mind, nor to the influence that he could wield. He was a small man, balding and slight, who wore thick spectacles. At first glance he might have been taken for a clerk, or perhaps a scholar, except that his sober clothes were too well tailored, and then there were his eyes. They might be short-sighted, but they were also as cold and green as a northern sea, suggesting that mercy and pity were qualities long discarded by Major Pierre Ducos. Pity, Ducos considered, was an emotion fit only for women, while mercy was the prerogative of God, and the Emperor deserved sterner virtues. The Emperor needed efficiency, dedication and intelligence, and Ducos supplied all three, which was why he had the Emperor's ear. He might be a mere Major, but Marshals of France worried about Ducos's opinion, because that opinion could go straight to Napoleon himself.
And Napoleon had sent Ducos to Spain because the Marshals were failing.
They were being beaten! They were losing eagles! The armies of France, faced by a rabid pack of Spanish peasants and a despicable little British army, were being trounced. Ducos's responsibility was to analyse those defeats and inform the Emperor what should be done, but no one in Spain knew that was the limit of Ducos's instructions. They just knew that Ducos had the Emperor's ear, and if Ducos, having made his analysis, then suggested a remedy, the Marshals were inclined to listen to him.
And now, just after Ducos's arrival, Marmont had been destroyed!
Humiliated! His so-called Army of Portugal was running through Spain as hard as it could, and even Madrid was being abandoned. Only Soult, Marshal of the Army of the South, was winning victories, but what use were victories over rag-tag Spanish armies when the real war was being fought in Castile?
So Ducos had ridden south, protected from the guerilleros by six hundred cavalrymen, and he had presented Marshal Soult with opportunity, though at first Soult had been unwilling to grasp it. "I cannot spare any men, monsieur, " he told Ducos. "Wherever you look there are guerilleros! And General Ballesteros's army is intact."
Ballesteros's Spanish army was intact, Ducos thought, because Soult had not destroyed it. He had merely defeated it, and so driven it back to the protection of the great guns of the British garrison at Gibraltar. Defeat was not enough. The enemy had to be annihilated! There was a lack of audacity among the French commanders in Spain, Ducos had decided. They feared losing battles, and so did not take the risks which might let them win great victories.
"Ballesteros does not count, " Ducos said, "he is a pawn. The guerilleros do not count. They are bandits. Only Wellington's army counts."
"And part of his army is on my northern flank, " Soult pointed out. "I have General Hill to my north, Ballesteros to my south, and you want me to send men to help Marmont?"
«No,» Ducos said, "the Emperor wants you to send men to defeat Wellington."
Soult looked at the map. The mention of Napoleon had stilled his protests, and in truth the idea that Major Ducos had suggested was not unappealing.
It was daring, very daring. By itself it might not destroy Wellington, but it would unbalance him and bring him hurrying back to the Portuguese border. Such a retreat would save Madrid, it would give Marmont time to reform his army and it would damage Wellington's reputation.
Take a few thousand men, Ducos had suggested, and march them eastwards until they could cross the headwaters of the Guadiana. There they must strike north, through Madridejos to Toledo, where the bridge over the Tagus was still in French hands. The British would find nothing odd in such a manouevre, indeed they would assume that Soult was merely retreating northwards like the rest of the French armies. But from Toledo, Ducos urged, the force should strike north west towards the roads on which Wellington's supply convoys travelled. To reach those vulnerable roads they must cross the Sierra de Gredos, then bridge the deep, fast-flowing River Tormes. That was the problem, crossing the river, but Ducos had identified a little-used bridge guarded by a mediaeval fortress called San Miguel. At best, Ducos told Soult, San Miguel would be garrisoned by a company of Spaniards, maybe two, and once across the bridge the French would be in the flat country across which the British supply line ran from Portugal. "The British believe they are safe, " Ducos urged Soult. "They believe there is not a Frenchman within a hundred miles of those roads!
They are sleeping."
And if Soult's picked force could come down from the Sierra de Gredos like a pack of wolves then for a week, no more, they could destroy, capture and kill, before they would need to march away. A ring of retreating British troops would otherwise tighten about them, but that week could save the French in Spain. And it would also make the Emperor very grateful to Nicolas Jean-de Dieu Soult, Duke of Dalmatia.
So Soult agreed.
And picked six thousand men, of whom a third were cavalry, and put them under the command of his best cavalry general, Jean Herault.
Who now led his men north through Toledo, with Ducos by his side, a sleeping enemy ahead and glory in his grasp.
Major Tubbs insisted that one small room of the fortress, which only had four usable rooms on its three floors, be described as an officer's mess, and there Sharpe, Teresa, Major Tubbs, Lieutenant Price and Ensign Hickey ate. Sharpe, perhaps wanting to unsettle Lucius Tubbs, had insisted on inviting the major's foreman, Mister MacKeon, and so the Scotsman, who was a tall, frowning man with huge hands, sat awkwardly at the table which was far too small for six people.
Ensign Hickey could not take his eyes from Teresa. He did try once or twice, and even ventured a conversation with MacKeon, but MacKeon just scowled at him and Hickey's watery eyes inevitably strayed back to Teresa who was illuminated by the large candles that the village priest had carried up from the church. The flamelight cast intriguing shadows on Teresa's face and Hickey stared at her mournfully.
"You've never seen a woman before, Mister Hickey?" Sharpe asked.
"Yes, sir. Yes, I have. Yes." Hickey nodded vigorously. He was sixteen, new to the battalion and in awe of Captain Sharpe. "Sorry, sir, " he mumbled, reddening.
"Stare away, Hickey, " Harry Price said, "I do! Damned watchable is Mrs Sharpe, if you'll forgive me saying so, Ma'am."
"I forgive you, Harry." Teresa said.
"The first woman who ever has, " Sharpe said.
"Not fair, Richard, " Price said, "I'm forever being forgiven by women."
Hickey was again gazing at Teresa and, realising that Sharpe was looking at him, he tried to make conversation. "You really do fight, Ma'am?"
"When I have to, " Teresa said.
"Against the French, Ma'am?" Hickey suggested.
"Who the hell else?" Sharpe growled.
"Against all men who are rude, " Teresa said, dazzling Hickey with a smile.