"Or does the oath mean nothing to you?" Sharpe demanded. "Because I'll tell you what the rest of this army thinks about you, and I mean the rest of this army, including the Connaught Rangers and the Inniskilling Dragoons and the Royal Irish Regiment and the Royal County Down Regiment and the Prince of Wales's Own Irish Regiment and the Tipperary Regiment and the County of Dublin Regiment and the Duke of York's Irish Regiment. They say you lot are soft. They say you're powder-puff soldiers, good for guarding a pisspot in a palace, but not good for a fight. They say you ran away from Ireland once and you'll run away again. They say you're about as much use to an army as a pack of singing nuns. They say you're overdressed and over-coddled. But that's going to change, because one day you and I will go into battle together and on that day you're going to have to be good! Bloody good!"

Sharpe hated making speeches, but he had seized these men's attention or at least the three castrated bodies had gripped their interest and Sharpe's words were making some kind of sense to them. He pointed east. "Over there," Sharpe said, and he plucked the helmet off the cart's shaft, "there's a man called Loup, a Frenchman, and he leads a regiment of dragoons called the wolf pack, and they wear these helmets and they leave that mark on the men they kill. So we're going to kill them. We're going to prove that there isn't a French regiment in the world that can stand up to an Irish regiment, and we're going to do that together. And we're going to do it because this is your war, and your only damned choice is whether you want to die like gelded dogs or fight like men. Now you make up your damned minds what you're going to do. Sergeant Harper?"

"Sir!"

"One half-hour for breakfast. I want a burial party for these three men, then we begin work."

"Yes, sir!"

Harris caught Sharpe's eye as the officer turned away. "Not one word, Harris," Sharpe said, thrusting the helmet into the rifleman's belly, "not one bloody word."

Captain Donaju stopped Sharpe as he walked away from the ramparts. "How do we fight without muskets?"

"I'll get you muskets, Donaju."

"How?"

"The same way a soldier gets everything that isn't issued to him," Sharpe said, "by theft."

That night not a single man deserted.

And next morning, though Sharpe did not recognize it at first, the trouble began.

"It's a bad business, Sharpe," Colonel Runciman said. "My God, man, but it's a bad business."

"What is, General?"

"You haven't heard?" Runciman asked.

"About the muskets, you mean?" Sharpe asked, assuming that Runciman must be referring to his visit to the army headquarters, a visit that had ended in predictable failure. Runciman and Kiely had returned with no muskets, no ammunition, no blankets, no pipe clay, no boots, no knapsacks and not even a promise of money for the unit's back pay. Wellington's parsimony was doubtless intended to draw the fangs of the Real Companпa Irlandesa, but it gave Sharpe horrid problems. He was struggling to raise the guardsmen's morale, but without weapons and equipment that morale was doomed. Worse still Sharpe knew he was close to enemy lines and if the French did attack then it would be no consolation to know that the Real Companпa Irlandesa's defeat had been a part of Hogan's plans, not if Sharpe was himself involved in the debacle. Hogan might want the Real Companпa Irlandesa destroyed, but Sharpe needed it armed and dangerous in case Brigadier Loup came calling.

"I wasn't talking about muskets, Sharpe," Runciman said, "but about the news from Ireland. You really haven't heard?"

"No, sir."

Runciman shook his head, making his jowls wobble. "It seems there are new problems in Ireland, Sharpe. Damned bad business. Bloody rebels making trouble, troops fighting back, women and children dead. River Erne blocked with bodies at Belleek. Talk of rape. Dear me. I really thought that 98 had settled the Irish business once and for all, but it seems not. The damned papists are making trouble again. Dear me, dear me. Why did God allow the papists to flourish? They try us Christians so sorely. Ah, well." Runciman sighed. "We'll have to break some skulls over there, just as we did when Tone rebelled in 98."

Sharpe reflected that if the remedy had failed in 1798 then it was just as likely to be ineffective in 1811, but he thought it tactful not to say as much. "It might mean trouble here, General," he said instead, "when the Irish troops hear about it?"

"That's why we have the lash, Sharpe."

"We might have the lash, General, but we don't have muskets. And I was just wondering, sir, exactly how a Wagon Master General orders his convoys about."

Runciman goggled at Sharpe, amazed at the apparently inappropriate question. "Paper, of course, paper! Orders!"

Sharpe smiled. "And you're still Wagon Master General, sir, isn't that so? Because they haven't replaced you. I doubt they can find a man to fill your shoes, sir."

"Kind of you to say so, Sharpe, most kind." Runciman looked slightly surprised at receiving a compliment, but tried not to show too much unfamiliarity with the experience. "And it's probably true," he added.

"And I was wondering, General, how we might divert a wagon or two of weapons up to the fort here?"

Runciman gaped at Sharpe. "Steal them, you mean?"

"I wouldn't call it theft, General," Sharpe said reproachfully, "not when they're being employed against the enemy. We're just re-allocating the guns, sir, if you see what I mean. Eventually, sir, the army will have to equip us, so why don't we anticipate the order now? We can always catch up with the paperwork later."

Runciman shook his head wildly, dislodging the careful strands of long hair that he obsessively brushed over his balding pate. "It can't be done, Sharpe, it can't be done! It's against all precedence. Against all arrangements! Damn it, man, it's against regulations! I could be court-martialled! Think of the disgrace!" Runciman shuddered at the thought. "I'm astonished, Sharpe," he went on, "even disappointed, that you should make such a suggestion. I know you were denied a gentleman's breeding or even an education, but I had still expected better from you! A gentleman does not steal, he does not lie, he does not demean a woman, he honours God and the King. These attributes are not beyond you, Sharpe!"

Sharpe went to the door of Runciman's quarters. The Colonel's day parlour was the old guard room in one of the gatehouse towers and, with the fortress's ancient gates propped open, the doorway offered a stunning view south. Sharpe leaned on a doorpost. "What happened, General," he asked when Runciman's sermon had petered out, "when a wagon went missing? You must have lost some wagons to thieves?"

"A few, very few. Hardly one. Two, maybe. A handful, possibly."

"So then—" Sharpe began.

Colonel Runciman held up a hand to interrupt him. "Don't suggest it, Sharpe! I am an honest man, a God-fearing man, and I won't contrive to cheat His Majesty's exchequer of a wagonload of muskets. No, I won't. I have never dealt in untruths and I shall not start now. Indeed, I expressly forbid you to continue talking of the matter, and that is a direct order, Sharpe!"

"Two wagonloads of muskets," Sharpe offered the correction, "and three ammunition carts."

"No! I have already forbidden you to speak of the matter, and that is an end of it. You will say no more!"

Sharpe took out the penknife he used to clean the fouling off his rifle's lock. He unfolded the blade and ran his thumb along the edge. "Brigadier Loup knows we're here now, General, and he's going to be upset about that young fellow that Kiely's whore killed. It wouldn't surprise me if he tried to take revenge. Let's see now? A night assault? Probably. And he's got two full battalions of infantry and each and every one of those bastards will be trying to earn the reward Loup's put on my head. If I was Loup I'd attack from the north because the walls have virtually disappeared there, and I'd have the dragoons waiting down there to cut off the survivors." Sharpe nodded down the steep approach road, then chuckled. "Just imagine it, can't you? Being hunted down in the dawn by a pack of grey dragoons, each of them with a newly sharpened castrating knife in his sabretache. Loup doesn't give quarter, you see. He's not known for taking prisoners, General. He just pulls out the knife, yanks down your breeches and slices off your—"