Sharpe was in two minds about going back to Barca d’Avintas. There was a risk, for the village was perilously close to Oporto, but on the other hand he knew it was a place where the river was safe to cross, and he reckoned he should be able to find some wreckage from the huts and houses that his men could fashion into a raft. Vicente agreed, saying that much of the rest of the Douro valley was a rocky ravine and that Sharpe would face difficulty in either approaching the river or finding a crossing place. A larger risk was that the French would be guarding Barca d’Avintas, but Sharpe suspected they would be content with having destroyed all the boats in the village.

Dawn found them in some wooded hills. They stopped by a stream and made a breakfast of stale bread and smoked meat so tough that the men joked about re-soling their boots, then grumbled because Sharpe would not let them light a fire and so make tea. Sharpe carried a crust to the summit of a nearby hill and searched the landscape with the small telescope. He saw no enemy, indeed he saw no one at all. A deserted cottage lay further up the valley where the stream ran and there was a church bell tower a mile or so to the south, but there were no people. Vicente joined him. „You think there might be French here?”

„I always think that,” Sharpe said.

„And do you think the British have gone home?” Vicente asked.

„No.”

„Why not?”

Sharpe shrugged. „If we wanted to go home,” he said, „we’d have gone after Sir John Moore’s retreat.”

Vicente stared south. „I know we could not have defended the village,” he said.

„I wish we could have done.”

„It is just that they are my people.” Vicente shrugged.

„I know,” Sharpe said, and he tried to imagine the French army in the dales of Yorkshire or in the streets of London. He tried to imagine the cottages burning, the alehouses sacked and the women screaming, but he could not envisage that horror. It seemed oddly impossible. Harper could doubtless imagine his home being violated, could probably recall it, but Sharpe could not.

„Why do they do it?” Vicente asked with a genuine note of anguish.

Sharpe collapsed the telescope then scuffed the earth with the toe of his right boot. On the day after they had climbed to the watchtower he had dried the rain-soaked boots in front of the fire, but he had left them too close and the leather had cracked. „There are no rules in war,” he said uncomfortably.

„There are rules,” Vicente insisted.

Sharpe ignored the protest. „Most soldiers aren’t saints. They’re drunks, thieves, rogues. They’ve failed at everything, so they join the army or else they’re forced to join by some bastard of a magistrate. Then they’re given a weapon and told to kill. Back home they’d be hanged for it, but in the army they’re praised for it, and if you don’t hold them hard then they think any killing is permitted. Those lads,”-he nodded down the hill to the men grouped under the cork oaks-”know damn well they’ll be punished if they step out of line. But if I let them off the leash? They’d run this country ragged, then make a mess of Spain and they’d never stop till someone killed them.” He paused, knowing he had been unfair to his men. „Mind you, I like them,” he went on. „They’re not the worst, not really, just unlucky, and they’re damn fine soldiers. I don’t know.” He frowned, embarrassed. „But the Frogs? They don’t have any choice. It’s called conscription. Some poor bastard is working as a baker or a wheelwright one day and the next he’s in uniform and being marched half a continent away. They resent it, and the French don’t flog their soldiers so there’s no way of holding them.”

„Do you flog?”

„Not me.” He thought about telling Vicente that he had been flogged once, long ago, on a hot parade ground in India, then decided it would sound like boasting. „I just take them behind a wall and beat them up,” he said instead. „It’s quicker.”

Vicente smiled. „I could not do that.”

„You could always give them a writ instead,” Sharpe said. „I’d rather be beaten up than get tangled by a lawyer.” Maybe, he thought, if he had beaten Williamson the man might have settled to authority. Maybe not. „So how far is the river?” he asked.

„Three hours? Not much longer.”

„Bugger all happening here, we might as well keep going.”

„But the French?” Vicente suggested nervously.

„None here, none there.” Sharpe nodded to the south. „No smoke, no birds coming out of trees like a cat was after them. And you can smell French dragoons a mile off. Their horses all have saddle sores, they stink like a cesspit.”

So they marched. The dew was still on the grass. They went through a deserted village that looked undamaged and Sharpe suspected the villagers had seen them coming and hidden themselves. There were certainly people there, for some drying washing was draped over two laurel bushes, but though Sergeant Macedo bellowed that they were friends no one dared to appear. One of the pieces of washing was a fine man’s shirt with bone buttons and Sharpe saw Cresacre dawdling so that he would have a moment on his own when the others were ahead. „The penalty for theft,” Sharpe called to his men, „is hanging. And there are good hanging trees here.” Cresacre pretended he had not heard, but hurried on all the same.

They stopped when they reached the Douro. Barca d’Avintas was still some way to the west and Sharpe knew his men were tired and so they bivouacked in a wood high on a bluff above the river. No boats moved there. Far off to the south a single spire of smoke wavered in the sky, and to the west there was a shimmering haze that Sharpe suspected was the smoke of Oporto’s cooking fires. Vicente said Barca d’Avintas was little more than an hour away, but Sharpe decided they would wait till next morning before marching again. Haifa dozen of the men were limping because their boots were rotting and Gataker, who had been wounded in the thigh, was feeling the pain. One of Vicente’s men was walking barefoot and Sharpe was thinking of doing the same because of the condition of his boots. But there was a still better reason for delay. „If the French are there,” he explained, „then I’d rather sneak up on them in the dawn. And if they’re not we’ve got all day to make some sort of raft.”

„What about us?” Vicente asked.

„You still want to go to Oporto?”

„That’s where the regiment is from,” Vicente said, „it’s home. The men are anxious. Some have families there.”

„See us to Barca d’Avintas,” Sharpe suggested, „then go home. But go the last few miles slowly, go carefully. You’ll be all right.” He did not believe that, but he could not say what he did believe.

So they rested. Picquets watched from the wood’s edge while the others slept and some time after midday, when the heat made everyone drowsy, Sharpe thought he heard thunder far away, but there were no rain clouds in sight and that meant the thunder had to be gunfire, but he could not be sure. Harper was sleeping and Sharpe wondered if he was just hearing the echo of the big Irishman’s snores, but then he thought he heard the thunder again, though it was so faint that he could just have imagined it. He nudged Harper.

„What is it?”

„I’m trying to listen,” Sharpe said.

„And I’m trying to sleep.”

„Listen!” But there was silence except for the murmur of the river and the rustle of leaves in the east wind.

Sharpe thought about taking a patrol to reconnoiter Barca d’Avintas, but decided against it. He did not want to divide his already perilously small force, and whatever dangers lurked at the village could wait till morning. At nightfall he thought he heard the thunder again, but then the wind gusted and snatched the sound away.

Dawn was silent, still, and the gently misted river looked as polished as steel. Luis, who had attached himself to Vicente’s men, had proved to be a good cobbler and had sewn up some of the more decrepit boots. He had volunteered to shave Sharpe who had shaken his head. „I’ll have a shave when we’re across the river,” he said.