'Which one?

Hogan snorted. 'Which one! Teresa, of course.

Sharpe shook his head. 'Not for sixteen months. I don't know where she's been. 'Or even, he thought, if she was still alive. She fought the French in the 'Guerilla', the 'little war', and the hills and rocks of her battles were not far from Ciudad Rodrigo. He had not seen her since they parted below Almeida and, thinking of her, he felt a sudden longing inside him. She had the face of a hawk, slim and cruel, with dark hair and eyes. Teresa was beautiful as a fine sword was beautiful; slim and hard.

Then, in England, he had met Jane Gibbons whose brother, Lieutenant Christian Gibbons, had tried to kill him at Talavera. Gibbons had died. Jane Gibbons was beautiful as men dream of beauty; blonde and feminine, slim as Teresa was slim, but there the resemblance ended. The Spanish girl could strip a Baker rifle lock in thirty seconds, could kill a man at two hundred paces, could lay an ambush and knew how to give a captured Frenchman a lingering death as payment for her own mother's rape and murder. Jane Gibbons could play the pianoforte, write a pretty letter, knew how to use a fan at a county dance, and took her delight in spending money at Chelmsford's milliners. They were as different from each other as steel is from silk, yet Sharpe wanted both, though he knew such dreams were futile.

'She's alive. Hogan's voice was soft.

'Alive?

'Teresa. Hogan would know. Despite the shortage of Engineers, Wellington had put Hogan on his own staff. The Irishman spoke Spanish, Portuguese, and French, could break the enemy's codes, and spent much of his time working with the Guerilleros or with Wellington's Exploring Officers who rode, alone and in uniform, behind French lines. Hogan collected what Wellington called his 'intelligence' and Sharpe knew that if Teresa were still fighting, then Hogan would have news.

'What have you heard?

'Not much. She went south for a long time, by herself, but I heard she was back up here. Her brother is leading the band, not herself, but they still call her "La Aguja".

Sharpe smiled. He had given her the nickname himself; the needle. 'Why did she go south?

'I don't know. Hogan smiled at him. 'Cheer yourself up. You'll see her again. Besides, I'd like to meet her!

Sharpe shook his head. It had been a long time and she had made no effort to find him. 'There must be a last woman, sir, like a last battle.

Hogan whooped with laughter. 'God in heaven! A last woman. You gloomy bastard! You'll be telling me next that you're training for the Priesthood. He wiped a tear from his eye. 'A last woman, indeed! He turned to stare once more at the town. 'Listen, my friend, I must be busy, or I'll be the last Irishman on Wellington's staff. Will you look after yourself now?

Sharpe grinned and nodded. 'I'll survive.

'That's a useful delusion. It's good you're back. He smiled and began trudging through the snow towards Wellington's headquarters. Sharpe turned back towards Ciudad Rodrigo. Survival. It was a bad time to be fighting. The turn of a year was when men looked ahead, dreamed of far-away pleasures, of a small house and a good woman, and friends of an evening. Winter was a time when armies stayed in their quarters, waiting for the spring sunshine to dry the roads and shrink the rivers, but Wellington had marched in the first days of the New Year, and the French garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo had woken one cold morning to find that war and death had come early in 1812.

Ciudad Rodrigo was just the beginning. There were only two roads from Portugal into Spain that could take the weight of heavy artillery, the endless grinding of supply carts, and the pounding of battalions and squadrons. Ciudad Rodrigo guarded the northern road and tonight, as the church bell sounded seven, Wellington planned to take the fortress. Then, as all the army knew, as all Spain knew, there was the southern road to capture. To be safe, to protect Portugal, to attack into Spain, the British must control both roads, and to control the southern road they must first take Badajoz.

Badajoz. Sharpe had been there, after Talavera and before the Spanish army had feebly surrendered the city to the French. Ciudad Rodrigo was big, but small compared with Badajoz; the walls in this snow looked formidable, but they were puny next to the bastions of Badajoz. Richard Sharpe let his thoughts go south, drifting with the cannon-smoke over Ciudad Rodrigo, south over the mountains, to where the vast fortress cast dark shadows on the cold waters of the Guadiana River. Badajoz. Twice the British had failed to take the city from the French. Soon they must try again.

He turned away, to rejoin his Company at the foot of the hill. There could be a miracle, of course. The garrison of Badajoz might get the fever, the magazine might blow up, the war might end, but Sharpe knew they were vain hopes in a cold wind. He thought of his Captaincy, of his gazette, and though he knew that Lawford, his Colonel, would never take the Light Company from his command, he still wondered why he had not volunteered for the Forlorn Hope. It would have made his rank secure and he would have passed the test of overcoming the fear that each man had of being first into a defended breach. He had not volunteered and if he could not prove his bravery, that had been proved so many times before, in the breach at Ciudad Rodrigo, then the proof would have to come later.

At Badajoz.

The orders came late in the afternoon, surprising no one, but stirring the battalions into quiet activity. Bayonets were sharpened and oiled, muskets checked and re-checked, and still the siege guns hammered at the French defences, trying to unseat the hidden, waiting cannon. Grey smoke blossomed out of the batteries and drifted up to join the low, bellying clouds that were the colour of wet gunpowder.

Sharpe's Light Company, as Hogan had requested, were to join the Engineers on the approach to the largest breach. They would be carrying huge hay-bags that would be thrown down the steep face of the ditch to make a vast cushion on to which the Forlorn Hope and the attacking battalions could safely jump. Sharpe watched as his men filed into the forward trench, each holding one of the grotesquely stuffed bags. Sergeant Harper dropped his bag, sat on it, pummeled it into comfort, and then lay back. 'Better than a feather bed, sir.

Nearly one man in three of Wellington's army came, like the Sergeant, from Ireland. Patrick Harper was a huge man, six feet four inches of muscle and contentment, who no longer thought it odd that he fought for an army not his own. He had been recruited by hunger from his native Donegal and kept in his head a memory of his homeland, a love of its religion and language, and a fierce pride in its ancient warrior heroes. He did not fight for England, less still for the South Essex Regiment, but instead he fought for himself and for Sharpe. Sharpe was his officer, a fellow Rifleman and a friend if it was possible for a Captain and a Sergeant to be friends. Harper was proud to be a soldier, even in his enemy's army, because a man could take pride in doing a job well. One day, perhaps, he would fight for Ireland, but he could not imagine how that could happen because the land was crushed and persecuted, the flames of resistance trampled out, and, in truth, he did not give the prospect much thought or hope. For the moment he was in Spain and his job was to inspire, discipline, humour, and cajole the Light Company of the South Essex. He did it brilliantly.

Sharpe nodded at the hay-bag. 'It's probably full of fleas.

'Aye, sir, it probably is. Harper grinned. 'But there's no room on my body for another flea. The whole army was verminous; lice-ridden, flea-bitten, but so inured to the discomfort that they hardly noticed it. Tomorrow, thought Sharpe, in the comfort of Ciudad Rodrigo, they could all strip off, smoke out the lice and fleas, and crush the uniform seams with a hot iron to break the eggs. But that was tomorrow.