Their numbers had grown so that the low ground was now dark with men, while nearer the ridge shirt sleeved gunners were piling shot beside the newly placed batteries. The position of those batteries suggested where the French would attack, if indeed they did, and Sharpe saw that the South Essex would be just to the left of any assault aimed up the rough southern track that had been barricaded near its top with felled trees, presumably to deter the French from dragging their artillery up towards the crest. More French guns were crowded close to the road at the northern end of the ridge, which suggested there would be two assaults, and Sharpe supposed they would be like every other French attack he had ever endured: great columns of men advancing to the beat of massed drums, hoping to batter their way through the Anglo-Portuguese line like giant rams. The vast columns were supposed to overawe inexperienced troops and Sharpe looked to his left where the officers of a Portuguese battalion were watching the enemy. Would they stand? The Portuguese army had been reorganized in the last few months, but they were enduring the third invasion of their country in three years, and so far no one could pretend that the Portuguese army had covered itself in glory.
There was a parade and inspection of kit in the late afternoon, and when it was done Sharpe walked north along the ridge until he saw the high stone wall enclosing a great wood. The Portuguese and British soldiers, wanting passage through the wall, had knocked gaps in it and Sharpe negotiated one such breach and went into the trees, eventually finding a path which led downhill. There were odd-looking brick sheds beside the path, equally spaced, each about the size of a gardener's potting shed, and Sharpe stopped at the first to peer through the door which was made of iron bars. Inside were clay statues, life-size, showing a group of women clustered about a half-naked man and then Sharpe saw the crown of thorns and realized the central figure must be Jesus and that the brick sheds had to be part of the monastery. All of the small buildings had the eerie statues, and at several of the shrines shawled women were kneeling in prayer. A very pretty girl was beside another, listening shyly to an impassioned Portuguese officer who paused, embarrassed, as Sharpe walked by. The officer began his harangue again as soon as Sharpe had gone down a flight of stone steps that led to the monastery. An ancient and gnarled olive tree grew by the entrance and a dozen saddled horses were tethered to its branches, while two redcoats stood guard by the doorway. They ignored Sharpe as he ducked through the low archway into a dark passageway lined with doors that were covered with thick layers of cork. One of the doors was open and Sharpe looked inside to see a shirt sleeved surgeon in a monk's small cell. The surgeon was sharpening a scalpel. "I'm open for trade," he said cheerfully.
"Not today, sir. Do you know where I'll find Major Hogan?"
"End of the passage, door on the right."
The supper was awkward. They ate in one of the small cells that was lined with cork to keep out the cold of the coming winter, and their meal was a stew of goat and beans, with coarse bread, cheese and a plentiful supply of wine. Hogan did his best to keep the conversation moving, but Sharpe had little to say to Major Ferreira who never referred to the events on the hilltop where Sharpe had burned the telegraph tower. Instead he talked of his time in Brazil where he had commanded a fort in one of the Portuguese settlements. "The women are beautiful!" Ferreira exclaimed. "The most beautiful women in all the world!"
"Including the slaves?" Sharpe asked, causing Hogan, who knew Sharpe was trying to turn the subject to the Major's brother, to roll his eyes.
"The slaves are the prettiest!" Ferreira said. "And so obliging."
"Not much choice," Sharpe observed sourly. "Your brother didn't give them any, did he?"
Hogan tried to intervene, but Major Ferreira stilled his protest. "My brother, Mister Sharpe?"
"He was a slaver, yes?"
"My brother has been many things," Ferreira said. "As a child he was beaten because the monks who taught us wanted him to be pious. He is not pious. My father beat him because he would not read his books, but the beating did not make him a reader. He was happiest with the servants' children, he ran wild with them until my mother could take his wildness no longer and so he was sent to the nuns of Santo Espirito. They tried to beat the spirit from him, but he ran away. He was thirteen then, and he came back sixteen years later. He came back rich and quite determined, Mister Sharpe, that no one would ever beat him again."
"I did," Sharpe said.
"Richard!" Hogan remonstrated.
Ferreira ignored Hogan, staring at Sharpe across the candles. "He has not forgotten," he said quietly.
"But it's all cleared up," Hogan said. "An accident! Apologies have been made. Try some of this cheese, Major." He pushed a chipped plate of cheese across the table. "Major Ferreira and I, Richard, have been questioning deserters all afternoon."
"French?"
"Lord, no. Portuguese." Hogan explained that, following the fall of Almeida, scores of that fortress's Portuguese garrison had volunteered into the Portuguese Legion, a French unit. "It seems they did it," Hogan explained, "because it gave them a chance to get near our lines and desert. Over thirty came in this evening. And they're all saying that the French will attack in the morning."
"You believe them?"
"I believe they are telling the truth as they know it," Hogan said, "and their orders were to make ready for an attack. What they don't know, of course, is whether Massena will change his mind."
"Monsieur Massena," Ferreira remarked acidly, "is too busy with his mistress to think sensibly about battle."
"His mistress?" Sharpe asked.
"Mademoiselle Henriette Leberton," Hogan said, amused, "who is eighteen years old, Richard, while Monsieur Massena is what? Fifty-one? No, fifty-two. Nothing distracts an old man so effectively as young flesh, which makes Mademoiselle Leberton one of our more valued allies. His Majesty's government should pay her an allowance. A guinea a night, perhaps?"
When the supper was eaten Ferreira insisted on showing Hogan and Sharpe the shrine where, as Clayton had said, wooden breasts lay on an altar. A score of small candles flickered around the weird objects and dozens of other candles had burned down to wax puddles. "Women bring the breasts," Ferreira explained, "to be cured of diseases. Women's diseases." He yawned, then pulled a watch from his waistcoat pocket. "I must get back to the ridge top," he said. "An early night, I think.
Perhaps the enemy will come at dawn."
"Let's hope so," Hogan said.
Ferreira made the sign of the cross, bowed to the altar and left. Sharpe listened as the sound of the Major's spurred boots faded down the passage. "What the hell was that all about?" he asked Hogan.
"What was what about, Richard?"
"That supper!"
"He was being friendly. Showing you there are no hard feelings."
"But there are! He said his brother hadn't forgotten."
"Not forgotten, but persuaded to let the matter rest. And so should you."
"I wouldn't trust that bugger as far as I can spit," Sharpe said, then had to step back because the door had been pushed wide open and a noisily cheerful group of British officers stepped into the small room. One man alone was not in uniform, wearing instead a blue top coat and a white silk stock. It was Lord Wellington, who glanced at Sharpe, but appeared not to notice him.
Instead the General nodded to Hogan. "Come to worship, Major?" he asked.
"I was showing Mister Sharpe the sights, my lord."
"I doubt Mister Sharpe needs to see replications," Wellington said. "He probably sees more of the real article than most of us, eh?" He spoke genially enough, but with an edge of scorn, then looked directly at Sharpe. "I hear you did your duty three days ago, Mister Sharpe," he said. Sharpe was confused, first by the sudden change of tone and then by the statement, which seemed strange after Hogan's earlier reproof. "I hope so, my lord," he answered carefully.
"Can't leave food for the French," the General said, turning back to the modeled breasts, "and I would have thought I had made that stratagem entirely clear." The last few words were said harshly and left the other officers silent. Then Wellington smiled and gestured at the votive breasts. "Can't quite imagine these things in Saint Paul's," he went on, "can you, Hogan?"
"They might improve the place, my lord."
"Indeed they might. I shall advert the matter to the Dean." He gave his horse neigh of a laugh, then abruptly looked at Hogan again. "Any news from Trant?"
"None, my lord."
"Let us hope that is good news." The General nodded at Hogan, ignored Sharpe again and led his guests back to wherever they were having supper.
"Trant?" Sharpe asked.
"There's a road round the top of the ridge," Hogan said, "and we have a cavalry vedette there and, I trust, some Portuguese militia under Colonel Trant. They are under orders to alert us if they see any sign of the enemy, but no word has come, so we must hope Massena is ignorant of the route. If he thinks his only road to Lisbon is up this hill, then up this hill he must come. I must say, unlikely as it seems, that he probably will attack."
"And maybe at dawn," Sharpe said, "so I must get some sleep." He grinned at Hogan. "So I was right about bloody Ferragus and you were wrong?"
Hogan returned the grin. "It is very ungentlemanly to gloat, Richard."
"How did Wellington know?"
"I suppose Major Ferreira complained to him. He said he didn't, but… " Hogan shrugged.
"You can't trust that Portuguese bugger," Sharpe said. "Get one of your nasties to slit his throat."
"You're the only nasty I know," Hogan said, "and it's past your bedtime. So good night, Richard."
It was not late yet, probably no more than nine o'clock, but the sky was black dark and the temperature had fallen sharply. A wind had come from the west to bring cold air from the distant sea and a mist was forming among the trees as Sharpe climbed back to the path where the strange statues were housed in their brick huts. The path was deserted now. The bulk of the army was up on the ridge and any troops bivouacking behind the line were encamped around the monastery where their fires offered some small light that filtered through the wood to throw Sharpe's monstrous shadow flickering across tree trunks, but that small light faded as Sharpe climbed higher. There were no fires on the ridge top because Wellington had ordered that none were to be lit so that their glow could not betray to the French where the allied army was concentrated, though Sharpe suspected the enemy must have guessed. The lack of campfires made the upper hill bleakly dark. The mist thickened. Far off, beyond the wall that encircled the monastery and its forest, Sharpe could hear singing coming from the British and Portuguese encampments, but the loudest noise was his own footsteps on the pine needles that carpeted the path. The first of the shrines came into sight, lit from inside by votive candles that cast a small hazy glow through the chill mist. A black-gowned monk knelt in prayer by the last shrine and, as Sharpe passed, he thought of offering the man a greeting, then decided against interrupting the monk's devotions, but just then the cowled man lashed out, catching Sharpe behind his left knee, and two more men came from behind the shrine, one with a cudgel that smacked into Sharpe's belly. He went down hard, his metal scabbard clanging against the ground. He twisted away, trying to draw the sword, but the two men who had come from behind the shrine seized his arms and dragged him into the building where there was a small space in front of the statues. They kicked some candles aside to make more room. One drew Sharpe's sword and tossed it onto the path outside, while the cowled monk pushed back his hood.
It was Ferragus, vast and tall, filling the shrine with his menace. "You cost me a lot of money," he said in his strongly accented English. Sharpe was still on the ground. He tried to stand up, but one of Ferragus's two companions kicked him in the shoulder and forced him back. "A lot of money," Ferragus said heavily. "You wish to pay me now?" Sharpe said nothing. He needed a weapon. He had a folding knife in one pocket, but he knew he would never have time to pull it out, let alone extract the blade. "How much money do you have?" Ferragus asked. Sharpe still said nothing. "Or would you rather fight me?" Ferragus went on. "Bare knuckles, Captain, toe to toe."
Sharpe made a curt suggestion of what Ferragus could do and the big man smiled and spoke to his men in Portuguese. They attacked with their boots, kicking Sharpe, who drew up his knees to shield his belly. He guessed they were ordered to disable him and thus leave him to Ferragus's mercies, but the shrine was small, the space left by the statues cramped and the two men got in each other's way. Their kicks still hurt. Sharpe tried to lunge up at them, but a boot caught him on the side of the face and he fell back heavily, rocking the kneeling image of Mary Magdalene, and that gave him his weapon.