"Like my men, my Lord," Sharpe said, "smartly. And you begin fighting smartly by killing the enemy officers." Sharpe raised his voice so that the whole of the Real Companпa Irlandesa could hear him. "You don't go into battle to stand and die like bullocks in a slaughteryard, you go to win, and you begin to win when you drop the enemy officers dead." Sharpe had walked away from Kiely and Valverde now and was using the voice he had developed as a sergeant, a voice pitched to cut across windy parade grounds and through the deadly clamour of battlefields. "You start by looking for the enemy officers. They're easy to recognize because they're the overpaid, overdressed bastards with swords and you aim for them first. Kill them any way you can. Shoot them, club them, bayonet them, strangle them if you must, but kill the bastards and after that you kill the sergeants and then you can begin murdering the rest of the poor leaderless bastards. Isn't that right, Sergeant Harper?"

"That's the way of it, sure enough," Harper called back.

"And how many officers have you killed in battle, Sergeant?" Sharpe asked, without looking at the rifle Sergeant.

"More than I can number, sir."

"And were they all Frog officers, Sergeant Harper?" Sharpe asked, and Harper, surprised by the question, did not answer, so Sharpe provided the answer himself. "Of course they were not. We've killed officers in blue coats, officers in white coats and even officers in red coats, because I don't care what army an officer fights for, or what colour coat he wears or what king he serves, a bad officer is better off dead and a good soldier had better learn how to kill him. Ain't that right, Sergeant Harper?"

"Right as rain, sir."

"My name is Captain Sharpe." Sharpe stood in the centre front of the Real Companпa Irlandesa. The faces watching him showed a mixture of astonishment and surprise, but he had their attention now and neither Kiely nor Valverde had dared to interfere. "My name is Captain Sharpe," he said again, "and I began where you are. In the ranks, and I'm going to end up where he is, in the saddle." He pointed at Lord Kiely. "But in the meantime my job is to teach you to be soldiers. I dare say there are some good killers among you and some fine fighters too, but soon you're going to be good soldiers as well. But for tonight we've all got a fair step to go before dark and once we're there you'll get food, shelter and we'll find out when you were last paid. Sergeant Harper! We'll finish the inspection later. Get them moving!"

"Sir!" Harper shouted. "Talion will turn to the right. Right turn! By the left! March!"

Sharpe did not even look at Lord Kiely, let alone seek his Lordship's permission to march the Real Companпa Irlandesa away. Instead he just watched as Harper led the guard off the waste ground towards the main road. He heard footsteps behind, but still he did not turn. "By God, Sharpe, but you push your luck." It was Major Hogan who spoke.

"It's all I've got to push, sir," Sharpe said bitterly. "I wasn't born to rank, sir, I don't have a purse to buy it and I don't have the privileges to attract it, so I need to push what bit of luck I've got."

"By giving lectures on assassinating officers?" Hogan's voice was frigid with disapproval. "The Peer won't like that, Richard. It smacks of republicanism."

"Bugger republicanism," Sharpe said savagely. "But you were the one who told me the Real Companпa Irlandesa can't be trusted. But I tell you, sir, that if there's any mischief there, it isn't coming from the ranks. Those soldiers weren't trusted with French mischief. They don't have enough power. Those men are what soldiers always are: victims of their officers, and if you want to find where the French have sown their mischief, sir, then you look among those damned, overpaid, overdressed, overfed bloody officers," and Sharpe threw a scornful glance towards the Real Companпa Irlandesa's officers who seemed unsure whether or not they were supposed to follow their men northwards. "That's where your rotten apples are, sir," Sharpe went on, "not in the ranks. I'd as happily fight alongside those guardsmen as alongside any other soldier in the world, but I wouldn't trust my life to that rabble of perfumed fools."

Hogan made a calming gesture with his hand, as if he feared Sharpe's voice might reach the worried officers. "You make your point, Richard."

"My point, sir, is that you told me to make them miserable. So that's what I'm doing."

"I just wasn't sure I wanted you to start a revolution in the process, Richard," Hogan said, "and certainly not in front of Valverde. You have to be nice to Valverde. One day, with any luck, you can kill him for me, but until that happy day arrives you have to butter the bastard up. If we're ever going to get proper command of the Spanish armies, Richard, then bastards like Don Luis Valverde have to be well buttered, so please don't preach revolution in front of him. He's just a simple-minded aristocrat who isn't capable of thinking much beyond his next meal or his last mistress, but if we're going to beat the French we need his support. And he expects us to treat the Real Companпa Irlandesa well, so when he's nearby, Richard, be diplomatic, will you?" Hogan turned as the group of Real Companпa Irlandesa's officers led by Lord Kiely and General Valverde came close. Riding between the two aristocrats was a tall, plump, white-haired priest mounted on a bony roan mare.

"This is Father Sarsfield" — Kiely introduced the priest to Hogan, conspicuously ignoring Sharpe — "who is our chaplain. Father Sarsfield and Captain Donaju will travel with the company tonight, the rest of the company's officers will attend General Valverde's reception."

"Where you'll meet Colonel Runciman," Hogan promised. "I think you'll find him much to your Lordship's taste."

"You mean he knows how to treat royal troops?" General Valverde asked, looking pointedly at Sharpe as he spoke.

"I know how to treat royal guards, sir," Sharpe intervened. "This isn't the first royal bodyguard I've met."

Kiely and Valverde both stared down at Sharpe with looks little short of loathing, but Kiely could not resist the bait of Sharpe's comment. "You refer, I suppose, to the Hanoverian's lackeys?" he said in his half-drunken voice.

"No, my Lord," Sharpe said. "This was in India. They were royal guards protecting a fat little royal bugger called the Sultan Tippoo."

"And you trained them too, no doubt?" Valverde inquired.

"I killed them," Sharpe said, "and the fat little bugger too." His words wiped the supercilious look off both men's thin faces, while Sharpe himself was suddenly overwhelmed with a memory of the Tippoo's water-tunnel filled with the shouting bodyguard armed with jewelled muskets and broad-bladed sabres. Sharpe had been thigh-deep in scummy water, fighting in the shadows, digging out the bodyguard one by one to reach that fat, glittering-eyed, buttery-skinned bastard who had tortured some of Sharpe's companions to death. He remembered the echoing shouts, the musket flashes reflecting from the broken water and the glint of the gems draped over the Tippoo's silk clothes. He remembered the Tippoo's death too, one of the few killings that had ever lodged in Sharpe's memory as a thing of comfort. "He was a right royal bastard," Sharpe said feelingly, "but he died like a man."

"Captain Sharpe," Hogan put in hastily, "has something of a reputation in our army. Indeed, you may have heard of him yourself, my Lord? It was Captain Sharpe who took the Talavera eagle."

"With Sergeant Harper," Sharpe put in, and Kiely's officers stared at Sharpe with a new curiosity. Any soldier who had taken an enemy standard was a man of renown and the faces of most of the guards' officers showed that respect, but it was the chaplain, Father Sarsfield, who reacted most fulsomely.