'Where are we going?

'Badajoz!

The Battalion found the joke endlessly amusing. It took just one man in a company to shout the question and the rest of the men took a deep breath and bawled out the answer. They exaggerated the Spanish pronunciation; the guttural, choking sound of the 'j' drawn out to the final 'th' sound of the Spanish V. The name, shouted by the South Essex, sounded like four hundred men simultaneously vomiting and spitting, and the amusement had carried them far down the familiar Portuguese roads. They marched close to the frontier, going south.

'Where are we going?

'Badajoz!

It was still cold. The snow had gone, except from the hilltops, and the final ice had melted in the rivers, but the wind stayed in the north and brought daily rain that flogged through the greatcoats, soaked blankets, and made the nightly billets steamy and damp. Most of the army was still in the north, close to Ciudad Rodrigo, attempting to persuade the French that no move was contemplated against the huge southern fortress that guarded the invasion route from Lisbon.

'Where are we going?

'Badajoz!

Lawford was alive, feverish and weak, but growing stronger in the convent hospital where Crauford had died. In a month or so, as his old battalion faced Badajoz, the Colonel would be shipped home and, doubtless, taken by carriage from the dockside to the family estate. He had smiled when Sharpe visited him, and struggled to sit up. 'It's only the left arm, Richard.

'Yes, sir.

'I can still ride, carry a sword. I'll be back.

'I hope so, sir.

Lawford shook his head. 'Bloody foolish thing to do, eh? Still, you were wrong about one thing.

'What's that?

'No one shot me, and I didn't wear the cloak.

'Then you deserved to be shot.’

Lawford smiled. ‘I’ll take your advice next time.

If there was a next time, Sharpe thought. Lawford might be back, as he hoped, but not for months, and not with the South Essex. There would be a new Colonel and the rumors had blown through the Regiment like musket smoke over a battlefield. There had been a suggestion, greeted with dismay, that Sir Henry Simmerson might return to Spain, but Sharpe doubted whether the old Colonel would want to give up his lucrative job with the new-fangled Income Tax. Another thought was that Forrest might be promoted, then that was discounted, and other names came and went. Every Lieutenant Colonel whose path brought him near the South Essex was carefully scrutinized in case he should be the new man, but, as they marched one dawn across the Tagus, into the south, Forrest still commanded and there was no news of Lawford's replacement.

Teresa rode with the Battalion. The Light Company knew her, remembered her from the fighting around Almeida and, somehow, though Sharpe never spoke of it, the men learned of the child's existence. Harper, marching with his effortless stride, grinned at Sharpe. 'Not to worry, sir. The baby'l be all right, so she will. The lads will all look out for her.

The wives of the Battalion, marching at the rear with their children, brought small presents to Sharpe and Teresa. A blanket, a pair of baby's mittens knitted from an unraveled sock, a carved rattle. Sharpe was surprised, touched and embarrassed by the pleasure the news had caused.

The men themselves were confident, looking forward to Badajoz because the casualties at Ciudad Rodrigo had been blessedly light. The South Essex, like the rest of the army, thought that if they could storm the breaches at Ciudad Rodrigo for only sixty dead, men they would slice through the defences of Badajoz for a similarly light loss. Teresa listened to them and had shaken her head. 'They don't know Badajoz. Perhaps, Sharpe thought, it was as well that they did not.

'Where are we going?

'Badajoz!

They stopped three days in Portalegre, letting a rainstorm hammer overhead that had made the roads treacherous and a river crossing impassable. They were the only battalion in town, living in comfort, but Sharpe could see from the doorposts of the houses how frequently the army had used this road. The Commissary marked the doors with chalk; thus SE/L/6 meant that six men of the South Essex's Light Company were to be billeted in that particular house, but each house had a jumble of such fading marks that spoke of the years of this war. The marks told of English Regiments, Irish, Welsh, Scottish, German, Portuguese, and there were even strange markings left by the French battalions. Only when Badajoz was taken would the war move again into Spain and leave Portalegre to its customary peace.

Sharpe and Teresa slept in an inn, the Battalion's headquarters, and for Sharpe the three days were a period of contentment, perhaps his last before they would meet again, if they did, inside high, dark fortress walls. Teresa was leaving soon, riding on ahead to Badajoz, to the small, sick baby. She had to leave before the British arrived at the city and its gates were shut.

'Why Badajoz? Sharpe asked the question again, lying in the Portalegre attic as the afternoon rained itself into a soaking night.

'I had family there. I didn't want her born at home.

He knew why! Because his daughter was a bastard, with the mark of shame on her. 'But they know, don't they?

She shrugged. 'They know, but they don't see what they know, so they pretend they do not know. She shrugged again. 'And my father's brother is a rich man, they're childless, and they look after her well.

Antonia was ill. Teresa did not know what was the matter, nor indeed did the doctors, but the child was small, did not hold her food, and the sisters in the convent had said that the child would die.

Teresa shook her head. 'She will not. It was said with grim determination; no child of hers would give up easily its hold on life.

'And she has black hair? Sharpe was enthralled by any scrap of information.

'You know she has, I have told you a hundred times. Long, black hair, and she was born with it, then it all fell out, and now it is coming back. And she has a little nose. Not like mine, and not bent like yours.

'Perhaps she isn't mine.

She hit him, laughing. 'She's yours. She scowls, like this. And she screwed up her face in imitation of Sharpe and growled at him so that he pulled her down on to the bed and they lay in silence, the rain slapping at the window, and he wondered what lay ahead on the greasy, stony road.

'Perhaps we should marry?

She did not reply at first. She lay beside him and listened to the rain, to voices downstairs, and then the clatter of hooves in the stable yard. 'Someone's traveling.

He said nothing.

She traced the scar on his cheek. 'Would you live in Casatejada?

He still lay silent. To be a stranger in a strange land? To be Teresa's man, dependant on her for survival? He sighed. 'Maybe. After the war.

She smiled, knowing the answer to be meaningless. This was the fourth year of fighting the French in Spain, and stillthe country was occupied by the enemy. No one could remember a time of peace. Before they fought France, the Spanish had fought against the English until their fleet sailed to utter defeat at Trafalgar, sunk or captured with the French fleet. There was no peace beyond the borders. Russia, Austria, Italy, Prussia, Denmark, Egypt, India, war everywhere, until now even the Americans were talking of war as if the young nation wanted to prove it could stand with the old world in a game that had racked the globe for two decades. It was a war fought on three continents, on all the oceans, and some men believed this was the final war, the ending of everything, the withering destruction foretold in the Bible. God only knew when it would end. Perhaps only when the last Frenchman, still dreaming of ruling the world, was hammered and battered into the blood-soaked mud.