Sharpes Battle   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

Sharpe suppressed a stab ofevil temper. He had been speaking to Oliveira, not to Kiely's whore, but this was not the time or the place to pick a quarrel. Besides, he recognized that in some obscure way his and Juanita's dislike of each other was bred into the bone and probably unavoidable. She would talk to any other officer in the fort, even to Runciman, but at Sharpe's very appearance she would turn and walk away rather than offer a polite greeting. "I think he'll bother with me, ma'am, yes," Sharpe said mildly.

"Why?" Oliveira demanded.

"Go on, man, answer!" Kiely said when Sharpe hesitated.

"Well, Captain?" Juanita mocked Sharpe. "Lost your tongue?"

"I think he'll bother with me, ma'am," Sharpe said, stung into an answer, "because I killed two of his men."

"Oh, my God!" Juanita pretended to be shocked. "Anyone would think there was a war happening!"

Kiely and some of the Portuguese officers smiled, but Colonel Oliveira just stared at Sharpe as though weighing the warning carefully. Finally he shrugged. "Why would he worry that you killed two of his men?" he asked.

Sharpe hesitated to confess to what he knew was a crime against military justice, but he could hardly withdraw now. The safety of the fort and all the men inside depended on him convincing Oliveira of the genuine danger and so, very reluctantly, he described the raped and massacred village and how he had captured two of Loup's men and stood them up against a wall.

"You had orders to shoot them?" Oliveira asked presciently.

"No, sir," Sharpe said, aware of the eyes staring at him. He knew it might prove a horrid mistake to have admitted the executions, but he desperately needed to persuade Oliveira of the danger and so he described how Loup had ridden to the small upland village to plead for his men's lives and how, despite that appeal, Sharpe had ordered them shot. Colonel Runciman, hearing the tale for the first time, shook his head in disbelief.

"You shot the men in front of Loup?" Oliveira asked, surprised.

"Yes, sir."

"So this rivalry between you and Loup is a personal vendetta, Captain Sharpe?" the Portuguese Colonel asked.

"In a way, sir."

"Either yes or no!" Oliveira snapped. He was a forceful, quicktempered man who reminded Sharpe of General Craufurd, the Light Division's commander. Oliveira had the same impatience with evasive answers.

"I believe Brigadier Loup will attack very soon, sir," Sharpe insisted.

"Proof?"

"Our vulnerability," Sharpe said, "and because he's put a price on my head, sir.