Sharpe said nothing. He yawned. He looked at the quick ripples where the rain struck the river. The sky was black, the western horizon dark gold, and he wondered if La Marquesa would wait for the storm to end before her coach made its way to the house by the river.
Curtis looked behind him at the rugs and the cushions that La Marquesa had put into the river shelter. "What are you frightened of, Sharpe?"
"Moths."
"I"m serious."
"So am I. I hate moths."
"h.e.l.l?"
Sharpe sighed. "Father, I do not wish to be offensive, I don"t really want to push you into the b.l.o.o.d.y river, but I do not want to sit here and be lectured about my soul. Understand?"
A thunderclap smashed the sky overhead, so sudden that Curtis jumped, and its lightning seared over the river, the smell of ozone sharp in the air, and the sound of the thunder seemed to roll westwards towards the city, bounce back, and then there was just the rain crashing on the water. Curtis looked at the river. "There"ll be a battle tomorrow." Sharpe said nothing. Curtis spoke louder. "There"ll be a battle tomorrow, and you will win."
"Tomorrow we"re running away from the French." Sharpe"s voice was bored.
Curtis stood up. His ca.s.sock was black against the gloom outside. He stood as close to the river as he could without letting the rain fall on him. He still spoke towards the water, his back turned on Sharpe. "You English have an ancient belief that your great victories come on the day after a night of thunder." The priest"s hair was white against the black clouds. "Tomorrow you will have your battle, your soldier"s solution, and you will win." Thunder growled half-heartedly and the priest, to Sharpe, looked like some ancient magician who had conjured this storm from the deep. When the thunder sound had died Curtis looked at Sharpe. "The dead will be legion."
Sharpe wondered if he heard the jangling of traces beyond the house. He c.o.c.ked his head, listened, but he could hear only the rain in the garden, the wind in the trees. He looked at Curtis who had sat down again. "And when does the world end?"
"That"s G.o.d"s business. Men make battles. Wouldn"t you like a battle tomorrow?" Sharpe said nothing. He leaned against the wall. Curtis spread his hands in resignation. "You didn"t want to talk about your soul, so instead I talk about a battle, and still you won"t talk! So. I"ll talk to you." The elderly priest looked down as if collecting his thoughts, and then the bushy eyebrows came back up to Sharpe, "Let"s suppose that the thunder tells the truth. Let"s suppose there"s a battle tomorrow and the English win. What happens?" He held up a hand to stop Sharpe speaking. "This is what happens. The French will have to retreat, this part of Spain will be free, and Colonel Leroux will be stuck here." Now he had Sharpe"s attention. The Rifleman had sat up. "Colonel Leroux," Curtis went on, "is almost certainly inside the city. He"s waiting for the British to leave. Once they do leave, Mr. Sharpe, then he will reappear and no doubt the killing and the torturing will go on. Am I right?"
"Yes." Curtis had said nothing that anyone else could not have worked out. "So?"
"So if Leroux has to be stopped, if the killings have to be stopped, then you must fight and win a battle tomorrow."
Sharpe leaned back again. Curtis was merely a living-room strategist. "Wellington has been waiting for a battle for a month. It"s hardly likely that he"ll get one tomorrow."
"Why has he waited?"
Sharpe paused while thunder sounded. He looked out at the river and saw that the rain was still heavy. It was almost dark. He wished the rain would stop, he wished Curtis would go. He forced himself to make conversation. "He"s waited because he wants Marmont to make a mistake. He wants to catch the French wrong-footed."
"Exactly!" Curtis nodded vigorously as though Sharpe was a pupil who had grasped a subtle point. "Now, bear with me, Mr. Sharpe. Tomorrow, am I right, Wellington will be south of the river and then he will turn west, to Portugal? Yes?" Sharpe nodded. Curtis was leaning forward, talking urgently. "Suppose he didn"t turn west. Suppose that he decided to hide his army at the turning place and then suppose the French did not know that. What would happen?"
It was very simple. Tomorrow both armies would cross the river and turn to their right. It was like the bend of a horse-racing course and the British were on the inside. If they wanted to get ahead of Marmont, to win the race to the Portuguese frontier, then they had to come off the bend fast and keep marching. Yet if Curtis was right, and if Wellington hid on the bend, then the French would march past him, their army strung out in a line of march, and it would be easy to trip him up. It would no longer be a race. It would be like a shepherd stringing his flock out in front of a pack of hungry wolves. But it was just conjecture. Sharpe shrugged. "The French get beaten. There"s just one thing wrong."
"What"s that?"
Sharpe thought of Hogan"s letter. "Tomorrow we"re marching west, as fast as we can."
"No you"re not, Mr. Sharpe." Curtis" voice was certain. "Your General is hiding his army at a village called Arapiles. He doesn"t want Marmont to know that. He wants the French to think that he"s simply leaving a rearguard at Arapiles and that the rest of the army is marching as fast as it can."
Sharpe smiled. "With the greatest respect, Father, I doubt if the French will be fooled. After all, if you"ve heard of this deception, then so must a lot of others."
"No." Curtis smiled. The rain still crashed down outside, hidden now by the darkness. "I spent the afternoon at Arapiles. There is one problem only."
Sharpe was sitting forward again, the rain forgotten. "Which is?"
"How do we tell Marmont"s spies that Wellington is really marching tomorrow?"
Sharpe shook his head. "You"re serious, aren"t you?"
"Yes."
The Rifleman stood up, walked to the door and peered into the garden. There was nothing to be seen except the trees lashing in the storm. He turned round, puzzled by the conversation. "What do you mean "we"?"
"I mean our side, Captain."
Sharpe walked back to his seat, picking up his rifle as he went, and he felt as if the ground beneath his feet was crumbling away. At first Curtis had provoked him, then mocked him, now he was making Sharpe feel very stupid. He let his fingers run over the lock of the rifle, liking its solidity, and looked at the priest. "Say what you have to say."
Curtis thrust his hand into the breast of his ca.s.sock and brought out a piece of paper. It was folded into a narrow strip. "This came to me today which is why I went to see Wellington. It came to me, Captain, sewn into the spine of a volume of sermons. It came from Paris."
Sharpe ran his finger against the rough edge of the rifle flint. He was unaware of the pain in his wound, he just listened to the elderly priest who had suddenly a.s.sumed great authority. "Leroux is a dangerous man, Captain, very dangerous, and we wanted to know more about him. I asked one of my correspondents, a friend, a man who works in a Ministry in Paris. This is the answer." He unfolded the paper. "I won"t read it all, because you"ve heard much of it from Major Hogan. I"ll just read the last line. "Leroux has a sister, as skilled in languages as himself, and I cannot discover her whereabouts. She was christened Helene""
Sharpe shut his eyes, then shook his head. "No."
"Yes."
"No, no, no." Thunder drowned his protest. He opened his eyes and the priest was dark in the night. "You"re El Mirador."
"Yes."
Sharpe hated to believe it. "No. No."
Curtis was inexorable. "You may not like it, Captain, but the answer is still "yes"."
Sharpe still refused to believe. "Then where"s your guardian?"
"Lord Spears? He thinks I"m hearing confessions in the Cathedral, I often do on Tuesday night. He"s saying his farewells to La Marquesa, Sharpe, which is what is holding her up. Half the cavalry officers in town are paying her court at this moment."
"No! Her parents were killed by the French! She lived in Zaragoza!"
"Sharpe!" Curtis shouted him down. "She met her husband in Paris just five years ago. He was part of a Spanish government emba.s.sy to Napoleon. She says her father was executed in the Terror, but who knows? So many died! Thousands! And no records were kept, Sharpe, no careful ledgers! It"s not difficult for Napoleon"s men to produce a pretty young girl and claim she"s the daughter of Don Antonio Huesca and his English wife. We"d never have known if we hadn"t asked about Leroux."
"You still don"t know. There are a thousand thousand Helenes and Helenas."
"Captain Sharpe, please think."
She had claimed she was El Mirador, she was not. He thought of the telescope on the mirador, the telescope that pointed to the San Cayetano fortress where there had been the second telescope. It would have been so easy for her to signal to Leroux, to talk to him using a system like the army"s telegraph system. Sharpe still hated to believe it. He swept an arm round the shelter. "But all this! She"s been looking after me!"
"Yes." Curtis stood up and moved about the floor. The rain had slackened, the thunder was further south. "I think, Sharpe, that she is more than a little in love with you. Lord Spears says so and, G.o.d knows, he would have sinned with her if she had let him. I think she is in love with you. She"s lonely, she"s far from home. As a priest I disapprove, as a man I"m envious, and as El Mirador I want to use that love."
"How?"
"You must lie to her, Captain, tonight. You must tell her that Wellington is leaving a rearguard at Arapiles and that he will try to convince Marmont that the rearguard is his whole army. You will tell her that Wellington wants to trick Marmont into staying still, into facing the rearguard while the bulk of the British army escapes. You will tell her that, Captain, and she will believe you because you have never deceived her. And she will tell Marmont, and then tomorrow you can watch the fruit of your labours."
Sharpe tried to laugh it off. "She tells Marmont? Just like that?"