Sharpes Havoc   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

„Didn’t I just tell you that?” Hogan inquired innocently, then turned as a clatter of hooves announced the appearance of the widow Savage’s traveling coach from the stable yard at the rear of the house. The coach was heaped with baggage and there was even some furniture and two rolled carpets lashed onto the rear rack where a coachman, precariously poised between a half-dozen gilded chairs, was leading Hogan’s black mare by the reins. The Captain took the horse and used the coach’s mounting step to hoist himself into the saddle. „You’ll be back with us in a couple of days,” he assured Sharpe. „Say six, seven hours to Vila Real de Zedes? The same back to the ferry at Barca d’Avintas and then a quiet stroll home. You know where Barca d’Avintas is?”

„No, sir.”

„That way.” Hogan pointed eastward. „Four country miles.” He pushed his right boot into its stirrup, then lifted his body to flick out the tails of his blue coat. „With luck you may even rejoin us tomorrow night.”

„What I don’t understand… “ Sharpe began, then paused because the front door of the house had been thrown open and Mrs. Savage, widow and mother of the missing daughter, came into the sunlight. She was a good-looking woman in her forties: dark-haired, tall and slender with a pale face and high arched eyebrows. She hurried down the steps as a cannonball rumbled overhead and then there was a smattering of musket fire alarmingly close, so close that Sharpe climbed the porch steps to stare at the crest of the hill where the Braga road disappeared between a large tavern and a handsome church. A Portuguese six-pounder gun had just deployed by the church and was now firing at the invisible enemy. The bishop’s forces had dug new redoubts on the crest and patched the old medieval wall with hastily erected palisades and earthworks, but the sight of the small gun firing from its makeshift position in the center of the road suggested that those defenses were crumbling fast.

Mrs. Savage sobbed that her baby daughter was lost, then Captain Hogan managed to persuade the widow into the carriage. Two servants laden with bags stuffed with clothes followed their mistress into the vehicle. „You will find Kate?” Mrs. Savage pushed open the door and inquired of Captain Hogan.

„The precious darling will be with you very soon,” Hogan said reassuringly. „Mister Sharpe will see to that,” he added, then used his foot to close the coach door on Mrs. Savage, who was the widow of one of the many British wine merchants who lived and worked in the city of Oporto.