She did not call out. Instead she looked back to Sharpe, her eyes shining with a kind of quick mischief. 'It is you?

'Yes.

'He said you were dead! She looked once more towards her uncle and it struck Sharpe that she feared Sir Henry as much as he at this moment did. She looked to Sharpe again. 'What are you doing here? She had grabbed the small dog and now cuddled it in her lap. 'What are you doing? She repeated the question with almost breathless astonishment, mixed with pleasure, and Sharpe, who had only met her once, was startled by her quick vivacity, by the secret delight she took in this meeting. She was beautiful, and there was a streak of mischief in her that gave quickness to that beauty.

Sergeant Major Brightwell’s voice boomed loud over Sharpe's head. 'Companies! Close order! March!

Instinctively Sharpe shrank back, fearing discovery, and to his astonishment Jane Gibbons gathered her skirts up, clutching the dog with her other hand, and, with one more backward glance towards her uncle, came down the steps until she was hidden from the lawn. She sat close to Sharpe. 'What are you doing here?

Giles Marriott gaped at them. 'Dick?

'Go away! Leave us! Sharpe hissed it. 'Go and clear the entrance! Go on!

Marriott backed into the darkness of the boathouse tunnel. Jane Gibbons laughed nervously. 'I can't believe it! It is you! What are you doing?

'I came to find the Second Battalion. He made a gesture of impatience, not with her, but with himself as if he was uncertain how to explain the long story of his presence, but she understood immediately.

'They hide them here and sell them off. They auction them.

'Auction? It was Sharpe's turn to sound astonished. Somehow auctioning seemed to make the crimping worse. 'That's what they're doing up there?

She nodded. 'They make their bids over lunch. My uncle said it was legal, but it isn't, is it?

He almost smiled, so solemnly had she asked the question. 'No, it isn't.

'He said you were dead!

'Someone tried to kill me.

She shuddered, staring at him with her astonished, huge eyes. 'But you're still an officer? It was a natural enough question, seeing him smeared to the waist with mud.

'Yes. A Major.

She bit her lower lip, smiled, and looked to the top of the steps as if fearing her uncle's approach. Her dog wriggled in her arms and she quieted it. 'I saw your name in The Times. After Salamanca. A place with a funny name?

'Garcia Hernandez.

'I think so. They said you were very heroic.

'No. I was in a cavalry charge. I couldn't stop the horse.

She laughed. Both were uncertain. Sharpe had dreamed so often of seeing her again, of talking with her, yet now he seemed struck dumb. He stared into her face as though he would try to remember it for ever. Her skin looked so soft. Her hair was gold. 'I…" he began to say, but at the very same moment she said, 'Will. . and they both stopped, embarrassed and smiling.

'Go on, he said.

'Will they try and kill you again?

'If they know who I am. They don't. I'm calling myself Dick Vaughn.

'What will you do?

'I have to get away. Me and a friend. You remember Sergeant Harper? The big fellow?

She nodded, but her face was suddenly worried. 'You have to escape?

'Tonight. He had made up his mind. He knew now what happened here, that Girdwood, Simmerson, and Lord Fenner were crimping on a grand scale. He had no more business as Private Dick Vaughn, just vengeance as Major Richard Sharpe. 'After dark tonight.

She glanced back up the steps, then to Sharpe again. 'They guard the camp. Her voice was an earnest, sibilant warning. 'They have militia patrolling from here to Wickford. There are cockle boats on the sands, off the shore, and they even watch those. If they catch men deserting they get a reward.

The fishermen?

'And the militia. I've heard shooting in the night. Above them, Sergeant Major Brightwell ordered the Companies to turn left. Jane bit her lip and held her dog tight. 'You could take one of our punts. Cross the river. They don't guard the north bank. Her voice was only a whisper.

He smiled, suddenly delighted that she had become a conspirator. She could have betrayed him, she could have screamed at the sight of him, but instead she had come into this hiding place and plotted with him. She had taken his sudden presence as coolly as a veteran soldier would have taken an ambush, she had not screamed, nor shouted, just made her decision and talked with him. He admired her for it, and, looking into her eyes, he suddenly knew that his own heart was beating like a frightened recruit facing the French for the first time. 'Can you leave us some food? Money?

'Two guineas?

'That would be plenty. In the boathouse? Tonight?

She nodded, her eyes suddenly bright with mischievous delight. 'And you'll stop the auctions?

‘I’ll stop them. With your help. He smiled at her, and it seemed like a miracle that their heads were so close. He could smell her scent, like a clean thing in a foul land.

She looked at the dog in her lap. She seemed embarrassed suddenly, then her big eyes came back to Sharpe and she hesitated. 'I want. . But whatever she was to say could not be said, for there was a sudden yelping coming from the lawn.

'Jane! It was the petulant, peremptory voice that had haunted Sharpe through the summer before Talavera. 'Where are you, girl? Jane! Anger flecked Sir Henry's voice. Sharpe imagined him, portly and red-faced, striding over the lawn. 'Jane!

She scrambled backwards up the steps. 'I was looking for Rascal, uncle. He got out of the house! She was at the top of the steps now, and Sharpe was shrinking back into the tunnel. Sir Henry's voice was desperately close.

'Lock him up, for God's sake, girl! You know Colonel Girdwood doesn't like dogs! Now hurry!

'I'm coming, uncle!

She turned, walked away without a backward glance, and Sharpe, muddy and undiscovered in the boathouse, wanted to shout his luck aloud. His heart was still beating in extraordinary, tremulous excitement and he was filled with a crazy, idiotic happiness that made him want to laugh out loud, to shout his good news across these lonely marshes, to forget that he was trapped in this crimping business of Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood's Battalion.

She remembered him! He had thought so often of her. Even when he was married, and the dreams had seemed unworthy, he had thought of her and tried to convince himself that her behaviour to him in that small, cool church where they had met so briefly had shown that she liked him. And now this!

She remembered him, she trusted him! She would help him! She had given him the key to escape. He knew, from their first meeting, that her parents were dead, that she lived with her aunt and uncle, and he had assumed that she would be long married, but he had seen no ring on her ringer. Instead he had seen delight on her face as she, surely, must have seen it on his.

The happiness was on him, the foolish, crazy, insane happiness of a man who believes himself, despite the lack of evidence, to be in love, and the happiness made him laugh aloud as he leaned down to pick up his shovel and as he wondered how he and Harper would escape from Foulness this night.

Then the happiness went.

He had not noticed it till this moment, so bound up was he by her sudden appearance and by the shock of her words on all his hopes, but Giles Marriott, whom Sharpe had ordered to go away, had obeyed. He had gone.