Sharpes Sword   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

She sat silent for a moment, her head cocked as if listening for a faraway sound, then she relaxed. “No guns today.”

“No.” No battle, which meant that the French had outmarched Wellington again, that the armies were getting nearer to the city, and that perhaps the time when Sharpe would have to leave Salamanca was getting closer. He looked at her. “Come with us.”

“Perhaps you won’t go.”

“Perhaps.” But his instinct told him otherwise.

She leaned against him, her eyes closed, and then Spears’ voice shouted from the house that her carriage waited. She looked up at Sharpe. Til come early tomorrow.“

“Please.”

She kissed him. “You exercised today?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” He grinned.

She gave him a mock salute. “Don’t give up, Captain.”

“Never.”

He followed her to the house and watched as the carriage went through the high gates, Spears’ horse beside it, and then he turned back into the building. It was his last evening with Harper, till God knew when, for on the next day the Sergeant was going north, taking Isabella, going back to the South Essex. Harper was marching with a group of men recovered from their wounds and to mark their final evening the big Irishman and Isabella ate with Sharpe in the formal dining room instead of in the kitchen.

Sharpe spent the next days alone, exercising and walking, and the news from the north went from bad to worse. An officer, posting back to Ciudad Rodrigo, stopped at the house for water and he sat in the garden with Sharpe and spoke of the troops’ anger because they were not allowed to fight. Wellington seemed to be giving ground, to be always retreating from the French, and each new day brought reinforcements to Marmont’s army. The officer claimed that Wellington was being too cautious, that he was losing the campaign, and Sharpe did not understand it. The army had marched from Portugal with such high hopes and now those hopes were frittered away. The campaign was being lost without a battle and each day’s manoeuvring brought the armies nearer to the city, promised that soon Leroux would have the freedom to hunt again, and Sharpe wondered where the Frenchman was, what he was doing, and practised with the big sword in the slim hope that he might see Leroux again.

A month after Sharpe’s wounding the bad news was all confirmed. The day had brought clouds of dust to the east and by the evening Sharpe knew that the armies had reached the Tormes, east of the city, and he knew that Salamanca must change hands again.