Sharpes Battle   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

"What reason did General Loup have for his attack last night?"

"You must ask him, General," Sharpe said.

Valverde smiled. "Maybe I shall. Now back to your digging, Captain. Or should it be Lieutenant?" Valverde waited for an answer, but when none came he turned his horse and rammed his spurs hard back.

"What was all that about?" Harper asked.

"God knows," Sharpe said, watching the elegant Spaniard gallop to catch up with the wagons and the other horsemen. Except he did know, and he knew it meant trouble. He swore, then plucked the pick out of the soil and rammed it hard down again. A spark flew from a scrap of flint as the pick's spike slashed deep. Sharpe let go of the handle. "But I'll tell you what I do know, Pat. Everyone loses out of last night's business except goddamned Loup, and Loup's still out there and that gives me the gripe."

"So what can you do about it, sir?"

"At this moment, Pat, nothing. I don't even know where to find the bastard."

Then El Castrador arrived.

"El Lobo is in San Cristobal, seсor ," El Castrador said. The partisan had come with five of his men to collect the muskets Sharpe had promised him. The Spaniard claimed he needed a hundred weapons, though Sharpe doubted whether the man had even a dozen followers any more, yet doubtless any extra guns would be sold for a healthy profit. Sharpe gave El Castrador thirty of the muskets he had stored overnight in Runciman's quarters.

"I cannot spare more," he had told El Castrador, who had shrugged acceptance in the manner of a man accustomed to disappointments.

Now El Castrador was poking among the Portuguese dead, searching for plunder. He picked up a rifle horn, turned it over and saw it had been holed by a bullet. He nevertheless wrenched off the horn's metal spout and shoved it into a capacious pocket of his bloodstained apron. "El Lobo is in San Cristobal," he said again.

"How do you know?" Sharpe asked.

"I am El Castrador!" the gross man said boastfully, then squatted beside a blackening corpse. He prised open the dead man's jaws with his big fingers. "Is it true, seсor, that you can sell the teeth of the dead?"

"In London, yes."

"For gold?"

"They pay gold, yes. Or silver," Sharpe said. The plundered teeth were made into sets of dentures for rich clients who wanted something better than replacement teeth made from bone or ivory.

El Castrador peeled the corpse's lips back to reveal a handsome set of incisors. "If I take the teeth out, seсor, will you buy them from me? Then you can send them to London for a profit.