"I always do," Harper said resentfully.

"Yes, you do, Pat, and I'm sorry."

"And if the stories were true—" Harper began.

"They're not!" Sharpe shouted.

"All right! All right! God save Ireland." Harper blew out a long breath, then there was an awkward silence between the two men. Sharpe just glowered to the north while Harper clambered down into a nearby gun embrasure and kicked at a loosened stone. "God knows why they built a fort up here," he said at last.

"There used to be a main road down there." Sharpe nodded to the pass which lay to the north. "It was a way to avoid Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, but half the road got washed away and what's left of it can't take modern guns so it's no use these days. But the road eastwards is still all there, Pat, and Loup's bloody brigade can use it. Down there" — he pointed to the route as he spoke—"up this slope, over these walls and straight down on us and there's bugger all here to stop them."

"Why would Loup do that?" Harper asked.

"Because he's a mad, brave, ruthless bugger, that's why. And because he hates me and because kicking the lights out of us would be a cheap victory for the bastard." Sharpe had become preoccupied by the threat of a night raid by Loup's brigade. He had first thought of the raid merely as a means of frightening Colonel Runciman into signing his fraudulent wagon orders, but the more Sharpe had thought about it, the more likely such a raid seemed. And the San Isidro Fort was hopelessly ill prepared for such an attack. A thousand men might have been able to hold its degraded ramparts, but the Real Companпa Irlandesa was far too small a unit to offer any real resistance. They would be trapped within the vast, crumbling walls like rats in a terrier's fighting ring. "Which is just what Hogan and Wellington want," Sharpe said aloud.

"What's that, sir?"

"They don't bloody trust your Irishmen, see? They want them out of the way and I'm supposed to help get rid of the buggers, but the trouble is I like them. Damn it, Pat. If Loup comes we'll all be dead."

"You think he's coming?"

"I bloody well know he's coming," Sharpe said fervently, and suddenly the vague suspicions hardened into an utter certainty. He might have just made a vigorous proclamation of his practicality, but in truth he relied on instinct most of the time. Sometimes, Sharpe knew, the wise soldier listened to his superstitions and fears because they were a better guide than mere practicality. Good flat hard sense dictated that Loup would not waste valuable effort by raiding the San Isidro Fort, but Sharpe rejected that good sense because his every instinct told him there was trouble coming. "I don't know when or how he'll come," he told Harper, "but I'm not trusting a palace guard to serve picquet. I want our boys up here." He meant he wanted riflemen guarding the fort's northern extremity. "And I want a night picquet too, so make sure a couple of the lads get some sleep today."

Harper gazed down the long northern slope. "You think they'll come this way?"

"It's the easiest. West and east are too steep, the southern end is too strong, but a cripple could waltz across this wall. Jesus." This last imprecation was torn from Sharpe as he realized just how vulnerable the fort was. He stared eastwards. "I'll bet that bastard is watching us right now." From the far peaks a Frenchman armed with a good telescope could probably count the buttons on Sharpe's jacket.

"You really think he'll come?" Harper asked.

"I think we're damn lucky he hasn't come already. I think we're damn lucky to be alive." Sharpe jumped off the ramparts onto the grass inside the fort. There was nothing but grass and weed-strewn waste land for a hundred yards, then the red stone barracks buildings began. There were eight long buildings and the Real Companпa Irlandesa bivouacked in the two that had been kept in best repair while Sharpe's riflemen camped in one of the magazines close to the gate tower. That tower, Sharpe decided, was the key to the defence, for whoever held the tower would dominate the fight. "All we need is three or four minutes' warning," Sharpe said, "and we can make the bugger wish he'd stayed in bed."

"You can beat him?" Harper asked.

"He thinks he can surprise us. He thinks he can break into the barracks and slaughter us in our beds, Pat, but if we just have some warning we can turn that gate tower into a fortress and without artillery Loup can't do a damn thing about it." Sharpe was suddenly enthusiastic. "Don't you always say that a good fight is a tonic to an Irishman?" he asked.

"Only when I'm drunk," Harper said.

"Let's pray for a fight anyway," Sharpe said eagerly, "and a victory. My God, that'll put some confidence into these guards!"

But then, at dusk, just as the last red-gold rays were shrinking behind the western hills, everything changed.

The Portuguese battalion arrived unannounced. They were caзadores, skirmishers like the greenjackets, only these troops were outfitted in blood-brown jackets and grey British trousers. They carried Baker rifles and looked as if they knew how to use them. They marched into the fort with the easy, lazy step of veteran troops, while behind them came a convoy of three ox-drawn wagons loaded with rations, firewood and spare ammunition. The battalion was a little over half strength, mustering just four hundred rank and file, but the men still made a brave show as they paraded on the fort's old plaza.

Their Colonel was a thin-faced man called Oliveira. "For a few days every year," he explained off-handedly to Lord Kiely, "we occupy the San Isidro. Just as a way of reminding ourselves that the fort exists and to discourage anyone else from setting up house here. No, don't move your men out of the barracks. My men don't need roofs. And we won't be in your way, Colonel. I'll exercise my rogues across the frontier for the next few days."

Behind the last supply wagons the fort's great gates creaked shut. They crashed together, then one of Kiely's men lifted the locking bar into position. Colonel Runciman hurried out of the gatehouse to offer his greeting to Colonel Oliveira and to invite the Portuguese officer to supper, but Oliveira declined. "I share my men's supper, Colonel. No offence." Oliveira spoke good English and nearly half his officers were British, the result of a policy to integrate the Portuguese army into Wellington's forces. To Sharpe's delight one of the caзador officers was Thomas Garrard, a man who had served with Sharpe in the ranks of the 33rd and who had taken advantage of the promotion prospects offered to British sergeants willing to join the Portuguese army. The two men had last met at Almeida when the great fortress had exploded in a horror that had led to the garrison's surrender. Garrard had been among the men forced to lay down his arms.

"Bloody Crapaud bastards," he said feelingly. "Kept us in Burgos with hardly enough food to feed a rat, and what food there was was all rotted. Christ, Dick, you and I have eaten some bad meals in our time, but this was really bad. And all because that damned cathedral exploded. I'd like to meet the French gunner who did that and wring his bloody neck."

In truth it had been Sharpe who had caused the magazine in the cathedral's crypt to explode, but it did not seem a politic admission to make. "It was a bad business," Sharpe agreed mildly.

"You got out next morning, didn't you?" Garrard asked. "Cox wouldn't let us go. We wanted to fight our way out, but he said we had to do the decent thing and surrender." He shook his head in disgust. "Not that it matters now," he went on. "The Crapauds exchanged me and Oliveira asked me to join his regiment and now I'm a captain like you."

"Well done."

"They're good lads," Garrard said fondly of his company which was bivouacking in the open space inside the northern ramparts where the Portuguese campfires burned bright in the dusk. Oliveira's picquets were on every rampart save the gate tower. Such efficient sentries meant that Sharpe no longer needed to deploy his own riflemen on picquet duty, but he was still apprehensive and told Garrard his fears as the two men strolled round the darkening ramparts.