“I’m sorry, sir.” Williams still tried to assuage-him.

Sharpe said nothing. He was thinking how much easier this ordeal would be if he had a Sergeant who could keep the men to order. Williams cared too much about being liked, but there was no one else he could see taking the stripes. Gataker was too fly and too eager for the good opinion of his fellow Riflemen. Tongue was educated, but the worst drunkard in the company. Parry Jenkins, the Welshman, could have made a Sergeant, but Sharpe suspected he lacked the necessary ruthlessness. Hagman was too lazy. Dodd, the quiet man, was too slow and diffident. There was only Harper, and he, Sharpe knew, would do nothing to help the despised Quartermaster. Sharpe was stuck with Williams, just as Williams and the company were stuck with Lieutenant Sharpe who, when he reached the stone bridge, ordered the men to halt.

They halted. There was relief on their faces. The coach was out of sight, still negotiating the boulders beyond the hill’s crest.

“Company!” Sharpe’s loud voice made some of the men wince. “Ground arms!”

There was more relief as they grounded their heavy weapons, then as they unbuckled their bayonets and pouches. Sharpe separated the handful of men who had been sober that morning and ordered the rest to take off their packs, greatcoats, and boots.

The men thought he was mad, but all soldiers were used to humouring eccentric officers and so they removed their boots under the Lieutenant’s sour gaze. The coach appeared at the top of the slope and Sharpe snapped at the men to look to their front and not gape at it. The squeal of the carriage’s brake-blocks was like a nail scratching on slate. “You did not have my permission to get drunk.” Sharpe’s voice was flat now, no longer angry. “I hope, as a result, that you feel God-damned awful.”

It was apparent to the men that Sharpe’s rage had passed and some of them grinned to show that they did indeed feel dreadful.

He smüid. “Good. So now jump in the stream. All of you.”

They stared at him. The thunder and squeal of the carnage wheels grew louder.

Sharpe loaded his rifle with the swift movements of a man long trained to the army. The men stared in disbelief as he brought the brass butt into his shoulder and aimed the weapon at their front file. “I said jump in the stream! Go!”

He cocked the rifle.

The men jumped.

The drop from the bridge parapet was perhaps eight feet and the stream, swollen by melting snow and winter rains, was four feet deep. The water was icy cold, but Sharpe stood on the parapet and ordered each man to soak himself in the bitter flood. He used the rifle as an encouragement. “You! Get your bloody head under! Harper! Duck, man, duck!” Only the sober, the wounded and, in deference to his flimsy authority, Sergeant Williams, were spared the ordeal. “Sergeant! Form threes on the bank. Hurry now!”

The shivering men waded from the stream and formed three miserable ranks on the grass. The coach lumbered to a halt and George Parker, his face nervous, was ejected from the door. “Lieutenant? My dear wife is concerned that you might abandon us by your swift pace.” Parker then saw the soaked parade and his jaw fell.

“They’re drunk.” Sharpe said it loudly enough for the men to hear. “Pickled. Stewed. God-damn useless! I’ve been sweating the bloody liquor out of the bastards.”

Parker flapped a hand in protest at the blasphemy but Sharpe ignored him. Instead he shouted at his men. “Strip!”

There was a pause of disbelief. “Strip!”

They stripped themselves naked. Forty freezing men, pale and miserable, stood in the drizzle.

Sharpe stared down at them. “I don’t care if you all bloody die.” That got their attention. “At any moment now, you bastards, the bloody French could be coming down that road,” he jerked his thumb back up the hill, “and I’ve a good mind to leave you here for them. You’re good for nothing! I thought you were Rifles! I thought you were the best! I’ve seen bloody militia Battalions that were better than you! I’ve seen bloody cavalrymen who looked more like soldiers!” That was a difficult insult to beat, but Sharpe tried. “I’ve seen bloody Methodists who were tougher than you bastards!”

Mrs Parker ripped back the leather curtain to demand an end to the cursing, saw the naked men, and screamed. The curtain closed.

Sharpe stared his men down. He did not blame them for being frightened, for any soldier could be forgiven terror when defeat and chaos destroyed an army. These men were stranded, far from home, and bereft of the commissary that clothed and fed them, but they were still soldiers, under discipline, and that word reminded Sharpe of Major Vivar’s simple commandments. With one simple change, those three rules would suit him well.

Sharpe made his voice less harsh. “From now on we have three rules. Just three rules. Break one of them and I’ll break you. None of you will steal anything unless you have my permission to do so. None of you will get drunk without my permission. And you will fight like bastards when the enemy appears. Is that understood?”

Silence.

“I said, is that understood? Louder! Louder! Louder!”

The naked men were shouting their assent; shouting frantically, shouting to get this madman off their freezing backs. They looked a good deal more sober now.

“Sergeant Williams!”

“Sir?”

“Greatcoats on! You have two hours. Light fires, dry the clothes, then form up in threes again. I’ll stand guard.”

“Yes, sir.”

The carriage stood immobile, its Spanish coachman expressionless on his high box. Only when the Riflemen were in their dry greatcoats did the door fly open and a furious Mrs Parker appear. “Lieutenant!”

Sharpe knew what that voice portended. He whipped round. “Madam! You will keep silent!”

“I will…“

“Silence, God damn you!” Sharpe strode towards the coach and Mrs Parker, fearing violence, slammed the door.

But Sharpe went instead to the luggage box’from which he took a handful of the Spanish testaments. “Sergeant Williams? Kindling for the fires!” He threw the books down to the meadow while George Parker, who thought the world had gone mad, kept a politic silence.

Two hours later, in a very chastened silence, the Riflemen marched south.

At midday it stopped raining. The road joined a larger road, wider and muddier, which slowed the coach’s lumbering progress. Yet, as if in promise of better things to come, Sharpe could see a stretch of water far to his right. It was too wide to be a river, and thus was either a lake or an arm of the ocean which, like a Scottish sea-loch, stretched deep inland. George Parker opined that it was indeed a ria, a valley flooded by the sea, which could therefore lead to the patrolling ships of the Royal Navy.

That thought brought optimism, as did the country they now traversed. The road led through pastureland interspersed with stands of trees, stone walls, and small streams. The slopes were gentle and the few farms looked prosperous. Sharpe, trying to remember the map that Vivar had destroyed, knew they must be well south of Santiago de Com-postela. His despair of the night before was being eroded by the hopes of this southern road, and by the subdued look on his men’s faces. The glimpse of the sea had helped. Perhaps, in the very next town, there might be fishermen who could take these refugees out to where the Navy’s ships patrolled. George Parker, walking with Sharpe, agreed. “And if not, Lieutenant, then we certainly won’t need to go as far as Lisbon.”

“No, sir?”

“There’ll be English ships loading with wine at Oporto. And we can’t be more than a week from Oporto.”

One week to safety! Sharpe rejoiced in the thought. One week of hard marching on his broken boots. One week to prove that he could survive without Bias Vivar. One week of whipping these Riflemen into a disciplined unit. One week with Louisa Parker, and then at least two more weeks at sea as their ship beat north against the Biscay winds.