"The only thing that Dona Juanita could distribute, Richard, is the pox. Jesus wept! You let that bitch twist you round her little fingers. For Christ's sake, Richard, I already knew she was the one fetching the newspapers. She was an errand girl. The real villain is someone else and I was hoping to follow her to him. Now you've buggered that up. Jesus!" Hogan paused to contain his anger, then shook his head wearily. "But at least she left you your bloody jacket."

Sharpe frowned in puzzlement. "My jacket, sir?"

"Remember what I told you, Richard? How the Lady Juanita collects the uniforms of every man she sleeps with. Her wardrobes must be vast, but I'm glad to see she won't be hanging a jacket of rifle green along with all the other coats."

"No, sir," Sharpe said, and blushed an even deeper red. "Sorry, sir."

"It can't be helped," Hogan said as he wriggled back from the crest. "You're an idiot for women and always were. If we thrash Massйna then the lady can't do us much harm, and if we don't, then the war's probably lost anyway. Let's get you the hell out of here. You're on administrative duties till your crucifixion." He backed away from the crest and put his telescope back into a belt pouch. "I'll do my best for you, God knows why, but your best prayer, Richard, and I hate to tell you this, is that we lose this battle. Because if we do it'll be such a disaster that no one will have the time or energy to remember your idiocy."

It was dark by the time they reached San Cristobal. Donaju had returned to the village with Hogan and now he led his fifty men of the Real Companпa Irlandesa back towards the British lines. "I saw Lord Kiely at headquarters," he told Sharpe.

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him his lover was an afrancesada and that she was sleeping with Loup." Donaju's tone was stark. "And I told him he was a fool."

"What did he say?"

Donaju shrugged. "What do you think? He's an aristocrat, he has pride. He told me to go to hell."

"And tomorrow," Sharpe said, "we all might do just that." Because tomorrow the French would attack and he would once again see those vast blue columns drummed forward beneath their eagles and listen to the skull-splitting sound of massed French batteries pounding away. He shuddered at the thought, then turned to watch his greenjackets march past. "Perkins," he suddenly shouted, "come here!"

Perkins had been trying to hide on the far side of the column, but now, sheepishly, he came to stand in front of Sharpe. Harper came with him. "It isn't his fault, sir," Harper said hurriedly.

"Shut up," Sharpe said, and looked down at Perkins. "Where, Perkins, is your green jacket?"

"Stolen, sir." Perkins was in shirt, boots and trousers over which his equipment was belted. "It got wet, sir, when I was carrying water round to the lads so I hung it out to dry and it was stolen, sir."

"That lady was not so far away, sir, from where he hung it," Harper said meaningfully.

"Why would she steal a rifleman's jacket?" Sharpe asked, but sensed a blush beginning. He was glad it was dark.

"Why would anyone want Perkins's jacket, sir?" Harper asked, "It was a threadbare thing at best, so it was, and too small to fit most men. But I reckon it was stolen, sir, and I don't reckon Perkins should pay for it. "Twasn't his fault."

"Go away, Perkins," Sharpe said.

"Yes, sir, thank you, sir."

Harper watched the boy run back to his file. "And why would the Lady Juanita steal a jacket? That puzzles me, sir, truly does, for I can't think it was anyone else who took it."

"She didn't steal it," Sharpe said, "the lying bitch earned it. Now keep on going. We've a way to go yet, Pat." Though whether the road led anywhere good, he no longer knew, for he was a scapegoat and he faced the foregone conclusions of a court of inquiry and in the dark, following his men west, he shivered.

There were only two sentries at the door to the house which served as Wellington's headquarters. Other generals might conclude that their dignity demanded a whole company of soldiers, or even a whole battalion, but Wellington never wanted more than two men and they were only there to keep away the town's children and to control the more importunate petitioners who believed the General could solve their problems with a stroke of his quill pen. Merchants came seeking contracts to supply the army with fouled beef or with bolts of linen stored too long in moth-infested warehouses, officers came seeking redress against imagined slights, and priests arrived to complain that Protestant British soldiers mocked the holy church, and in the midst of these distractions the General tried to solve his own problems: the lack of entrenching tools, the paucity of heavy guns that could grind down a fortress's defences and the ever-pressing duty of convincing a nervous ministry in London that his campaign was not doomed.

So Lord Kiely was not a welcome visitor following the General's customary early dinner of roast saddle of mutton with vinegar sauce. Nor did it help that Kiely had plainly fortified himself with brandy for this confrontation with Wellington who, early in his career, had decided that an over-indulgence in alcohol hurt a man's abilities as a soldier. "One man in this army had better stay sober," he liked to say of himself, and now, seated behind a table in the room that served as his office, parlour and bedroom, he looked dourly at the flushed, excited Kiely who had arrived with an urgent request. Urgent to Kiely, if not to anyone else.

Candles flickered on the table that was spread with maps. A galloper had come from Hogan reporting that the French were out and marching on the southern road that led through Fuentes de Onoro. That news was not unexpected, but it meant that the General's plans were now to be subjected to the test of cannon fire and musket volleys. "I am busy, Kiely," Wellington said icily.

"I ask only that my unit be allowed to take the forefront of the battle line," Kiely said with the careful dignity of a man who knows that liquor might otherwise slur his words.

"No," Wellington said. The General's aide, standing in the window, gestured towards the door, but Kiely ignored the invitation to leave.

"We have been ill used, my Lord," he said unwisely. "We came here at the request of my sovereign in good faith, expecting to be properly employed, and instead you have ignored us, denied us our supplies—"

"No!" The loudness of the word was such that the sentries at the house's front step were visibly startled. Then they looked at each other and grinned. The General had a temper, though it was rarely seen, but when Wellington did choose to unleash the full fury of his personality it was an awesome thing.

The General stared up at his visitor. His voice dropped to a conversational level, but it still reeked of scorn. "You came here, sir, ill prepared, unwanted, unfunded, and expected me, sir, to provide both your men's livelihoods and their accoutrements, and in return, sir, you have offered me insolence and, worse, betrayal. You did not come at His Majesty's bidding, but because the enemy desired you to come, and it is now my desire that you should go. And you shall go, sir, with honour because it is unthinkable that we should send away King Ferdinand's household troops in any other condition, but that honour, sir, has been earned at the expense of other men. Your troops, sir, shall serve in the battle, for there will be no opportunity to remove them before the French arrive, but they shall serve as guards on my ammunition park. You may choose to command them or to sulk in your tent. Good day to you, my Lord."

"My Lord?" The aide addressed Kiely tactfully, stepping towards the door.

But Lord Kiely was blind to tact. "Insolence?" He pounced on the word. "My God, but I command King Ferdinand's guard and—"