Sharpe's Eagle

“Yes.”

She nodded. “Good. I was following them when the shoe came off.” She looked at her servant and smiled. “Poor Agostino. He’s frightened of horses.”

“And you, ma’am?” Sharpe wanted to keep her talking. It was not unusual for women to follow the army; already Sir Arthur Wellesley’s troops had collected English, Irish, Spanish and Portuguese wives, mistresses, and whores, but it was unusual to see a beautiful girl, well horsed, attended by a servant, and Sharpe’s curiosity was aroused. More than his curiosity. He wanted this girl. It was a reaction to her beauty as much as a reaction to the knowledge that a girl with this kind of looks did not need a shabby Lieutenant without a private fortune. She could take her pick of the rich officers, but that did not stop Sharpe looking at her and desiring her. She seemed to read his thoughts.

“You think I should be afraid?”

Sharpe shrugged, glancing up the road where the Battalion’s smoke drifted into the evening. “Soldiers aren’t delicate, ma’am.”

“Thank you for warning me.” She was mocking him. She looked down at his faded red sash. “Lieutenant?”

“Lieutenant Sharpe, ma’am.”

“Lieutenant Sharpe.” She smiled at him, spitting him with her beauty. “You must know Christian Gibbons?”

He nodded, knowing the unfairness of life. Money could buy anything: a commission, promotion, a sword fashioned to a man’s height and strength, even a woman like this. “I know him.”

“And you don’t like him!” She laughed, knowing that her instinct was right. “But I do.” She clicked her tongue at the horse and gathered up the reins. “I expect we will meet again. I am going with you to Madrid.”

Sharpe did not want her to go. “You’re a long way from home.”

She turned back, mocking him with a smile. “So are you, Lieutenant, so are you.”

She led the limping mare, followed by the mute servant, towards the stand of trees and the cooking fires. Sharpe watched her go, let his eyes see her slim figure beneath the black clothes, and felt the envy and heaviness of his desire. He walked back into the olive grove, as if by leaving the road he could wipe her from his memory and regain the peace of the afternoon. Damn Gibbons and his money, damn all officers who could buy such thoroughbred beauty. He knew it was jealousy, yet he encouraged the sour thoughts, let them swill round his head to try to convince himself that he did not want her, but as he walked between the gnarled trees he felt the horse-shoe nail still held in his right palm. He looked at it, a short, bent nail, and tucked it carefully into his ammunition pouch. He told himself it would come in useful; he needed a nail to jam the mainspring of the rifle when he stripped the lock for cleaning, but better nails were plentiful and he knew he was keeping it because it had been hers. Angrily he fished among the fat cartridges and threw the nail far away.

From the Battalion there came the sound of musket fire, and he knew that bullocks had been slaughtered for the evening meal. There would be wine with the stew, and Hogan’s brandy after it, and stories about old friends and half-forgotten campaigns. He had been looking forward to the meal, to the evening, but suddenly everything was changed. The girl was in the camp, her laughter would invade the peace, and he thought, as he walked back by the stream, that he did not even know her name.

CHAPTER 5

The Regimienta de la Santa Maria would have conquered the world if words and display had been enough. But punctuality was not among their more obvious military virtues.

The South Essex had marched hard for four days to reach the rendezvous at Plasencia, but the town was empty of Spanish troops. Storks flapped lazily from their nests among the steep roofs that climbed to the ancient cathedral which dominated both the town and the circling plain, but of the Santa Maria there was no sign. The Battalion waited. Simmerson had bivouacked outside the walls, and the men watched jealously as other units arrived and marched into the tantalising streets with their wine shops and women. Three men disobeyed the standing order to stay away from the town and were caught, helplessly drunk, by the Provost-Marshal and received a flogging as the Battalion paraded beside the River Jerte.

Finally, two days late, the Spanish Regiment arrived and the South Essex mustered at five in the morning to begin their march south to Valdelacasa. There was a chill in the air which the rising sun would disperse, but as five thirty, the hour set for departure, came and went there was still no sign of the Santa Maria and the men stamped their feet and rubbed their hands to ward off the cold. The hour of six chimed from the bells in the town. The children who were waiting with their mothers to see the Battalion depart grew bored and ran through the ranks despite all the shouting that began with Simmerson and worked its way down to the Sergeants and Corporals. The Battalion was paraded beside the Roman bridge that spa

But it was not just Simmerson. He looked at the road leading to the town where an indistinct group of women stood, the wives of the Battalion, and wondered whether the girl, Josefina Lacosta, was there. He had at least learned her name and seen her, a dozen times, mounted on the delicate black mare with a crowd of Simmerson’s Lieutenants laughing and joking with her. He had listened to the rumours about her; that she was the widow of a rich Portuguese officer, that she had run away from the Portuguese officer, no-one seemed sure, but what was certain was that she had met Gibbons at a ball in Lisbon’s American Hotel and, within hours, had decided to go to the war with him. It was said that they pla