Sharpe's Battle Part 32

"I'm too busy to do business," Sharpe said, hiding his distaste. "Besides, we only take French teeth."

"And the French take British teeth to sell in Paris, yes? So the French bite with your teeth and you bite with theirs, and neither of you will bite with your own." El Castrador laughed as he straightened from the corpse. "Maybe they will buy teeth in Madrid," he said speculatively.

"Where's San Cristobal?" Sharpe changed the subject.

"Over the hills," El Castrador said vaguely.

"Show me." Sharpe pulled the big man towards the eastern ramparts. "Show me," he said again as they reached the firestep.

El Castrador indicated the track that twisted up into the hills on the valley's far side, the same track down which Juanita de Elia had fled from the pursuing dragoons. "You follow that path for five miles," El Castrador said,

"and you will come to San Cristobal. It is not a big place, but it is the only place you can reach by that road."

"And how do you know Loup is there?" Sharpe asked.

"Because my cousin saw him arrive there this morning. My cousin said he was carrying wounded men with him."

Sharpe gazed eastwards. Five miles. Say two hours if the moon was unclouded or six hours if it was jet dark. "What was your cousin doing there?" he asked.

"He once lived in the village, senor. He goes to watch it from time to time."

A pity, Sharpe thought, that no one had been watching Loup the previous evening. "Tell me about San Cristobal," he said.

It was a village, the Spaniard said, high in the hills. Not a large village, but prosperous with a fine church, a plaza, and a number of substantial stone houses. The place had once been famous for rearing bulls destined for the fighting rings of the small frontier towns. "But no more," El Castrador said.

"The French stewed the last bulls."

"Is it a hill-top village?" Sharpe asked.

El Castrador shook his head. "It sits in a valley like that one"-he waved at the eastern valley-"but not so deep. No trees grow there, senor, and a man cannot get close to San Cristobal without being seen. And El Lobo has built walls across all the gaps between the houses and he keeps watchmen in the church's bell tower. You cannot get close." El Castrador issued the warning in a worried voice. "You are thinking of going there?"

Sharpe did not answer for a long time. Of course he was thinking of going there, but to what purpose? Loup had a brigade of men while Sharpe had half a company. "How close can I get without being seen?" he asked.

El Castrador shrugged. "A half-mile? But there is also a defile there, a valley where the road runs. I've often thought we could trap Loup there. He used to scout the valley before he rode through it, but not now. Now he is too confident."

So go to the defile, Sharpe thought, and watch. Just watch. Nothing else. No attack, no ambush, no disobedience, no heroics, just a reconnaissance. And after all, he told himself, Wellington's order to take the Real Compania

Irlandesa to the army headquarters at Vilar Formoso did not detail the route he must take. Nothing specifically forbade Sharpe taking a long, circuitous journey via San Cristobal, but he knew, even as he thought of that evasion, that it was specious. The sensible thing was to forget Loup, but it cut against all his instincts to be beaten and just lie down and accept the beating. "Does Loup have artillery at San Cristobal?" he asked the partisan.

"No, senor."

Sharpe wondered if Loup had arranged for this intelligence to reach him. Was

Loup enticing Sharpe into a trap? "Would you come with us, senor?" he asked El

Castrador, suspecting that the partisan would never come if Loup was the inspiration behind this news of the brigade's whereabouts.

"To watch Loup," the Spaniard asked guardedly, "or to fight him?"

"To watch him," Sharpe said, knowing it was not the honest answer.

The Spaniard nodded. "You haven't enough men to fight him," he added to explain his cautious question.

Privately Sharpe agreed. He did not have enough men, not unless he could surprise Loup or maybe ambush him in the defile. One rifle bullet, well aimed, would kill a man as surely as a full battalion attack, and when Sharpe thought of Oliveira's mangled and tortured body he reckoned that Loup deserved that bullet. So maybe tonight, Sharpe thought, he could take his riflemen to San

Cristobal and pray for a private revenge in the defile at dawn. "I would welcome your help," Sharpe told El Castrador, flattering the man.

"In a week's time, senor," El Castrador said, "I can a.s.semble a respectable troop."

"We go tonight," Sharpe said.

"Tonight?" The Spaniard was appalled.

"I saw a bullfight once," Sharpe said, "and the matador gave the bull the killing stroke, the one over the neck and down through the shoulders, and the bull staggered, then sank to its knees. The man pulled the sword out and turned away with his arms raised in triumph. You can guess what happened."

El Castrador nodded. "The bull rose?"

"A horn in the small of the man's back," Sharpe confirmed. "Well, I am the bull, senor, and I confess to being wounded, but Loup's back is turned. So tonight, when he thinks we're too weak to move, we march."

"But only to watch him," the partisan said cautiously. He had been scorched by

Loup too often to risk a fight.

"To watch," Sharpe lied, "just to watch."

He was truthful with Harper. He took his friend to the top of the gatehouse tower from where the two riflemen stared across the eastern valley towards the hazed country where the village of San Cristobal was hidden. "I don't honestly know why I'm going," Sharpe confessed, "and we've got no orders to go and I'm not even sure we can do a d.a.m.ned thing when we get there. But there's a reason for going." He paused, suddenly feeling awkward. Sharpe found it hard to articulate his more private thoughts, perhaps because to do so exposed a vulnerability and few soldiers were good at doing that, and what he wanted to say was that a soldier was only as good as his last battle and Sharpe's last battle had been this disaster that had left San Isidro smoking and b.l.o.o.d.y. And there were plenty of carping fools in the army who would be glad that the upstart from the ranks had at last got his comeuppance, all of which meant that Sharpe must strike back at Loup or else lose his reputation as a lucky and victorious soldier.

"You have to beat the blood out of Loup?" Harper broke the silence with his suggestion.

"I don't have enough men to do that," Sharpe said. "The riflemen will come with me, but I can't order Donaju's men to San Cristobal. The whole idea's probably a waste of time, Pat, but there's a chance, a half-chance, that I can get that one-eyed b.a.s.t.a.r.d in my rifle sight."

"You'd be surprised," Harper said. "There's more than a few of the Real

Compania Irlandesa who'd love to come with us. I don't know about the officers, but Sergeant Major Noonan will come, and that fellow Rourke, and there's a wild b.u.g.g.e.r called Leon O'Reilly who wants nothing more than to kill

c.r.a.pauds and there's plenty more like him. They've got something to prove, you see. That they're not all as yellow as Kiely."

Sharpe smiled, then shrugged. "It probably is all a waste of time, Pat," he repeated.

"So what else were you planning on doing tonight?"

"Nothing," Sharpe said, "nothing at all." Yet he knew that if he marched to another defeat he would risk everything he had ever earned, but he also knew that not to go, however hopeless the prospect of revenge, was to accept the beating Loup had administered and Sharpe was too proud to accept that licking.

He would most likely achieve nothing by marching to San Cristobal, yet march he must.

They marched after dark. Donaju insisted on coming, and fifty of his men came too. More would have marched, but Sharpe wanted most of the Real Compania

Irlandesa to stay behind and guard the families and baggage. Everyone and everything left in the San Isidro Fort had been moved into the gatehouse just in case Loup did come back to finish off his previous night's work. "Which would just be my b.l.o.o.d.y luck," Sharpe said. "Me marching to shoot him and him marching to geld me." He had his riflemen ranging ahead as scouts just in case the French were returning to the San Isidro.