The war was lost; not finished, but lost. Everyone knew it, from Generals of Division to the whores of Lisbon: that the British were trapped, trussed, ready for cooking, and all Europe waited for the master chef himself, Bonaparte, to cross the mountains and put his finishing touch to the roast. Then, to add insult to imminent defeat, it seemed that the small British army was not worthy of the great Bonaparte's attention. The war was lost.

Spain had fallen. The last Spanish armies had gone, butchered into the history books, and all that was left was the fortress harbour of Cadiz and the peasants who fought the guerrilla, the 'little war'. They fought with Spanish knives and British guns, with ambush and terror, till the French troops loathed and feared the Spanish people. But the little war was not the war, and that, everyone said, was lost.

Captain Richard Sharpe, once of His Majesty's 95th Rifles, now Captain of the Light Company of the South Essex Regiment, did not think that the war was lost, although, despite that, he was in a foul mood, morose and irritable. Rain had fallen since dawn and had turned the dust of the road's surface into slick, slippery mud and made his Rifleman's uniform clammy and uncomfortable. He marched in solitary silence, listening to his men chatter, and Lieutenant Robert Knowles and Sergeant Patrick Harper, who both would normally have sought his company, let him alone. Lieutenant Knowles had commented on Sharpe's mood, but the huge Irish Sergeant had shaken his head.

'There's no chance of cheering him up, sir. He likes being miserable, so he does, and the bastard will get over it.'

Knowles shrugged. He rather disapproved of a Sergeant calling a Captain a 'bastard', but there was no point in protesting. The Sergeant would look innocent and assure' Knowles that the Captain's parents had never married, which was true, and anyway Patrick Harper had fought beside Sharpe for years and had a friendship with the Captain that Knowles rather envied. It had taken Knowles months to understand the friendship, which was not, as many officers thought, based on the fact that Sharpe had once been a private soldier, marching and fighting in the ranks, and now, elevated to the glories of the officers' mess, still sought out the company of the lower ranks. 'Once a peasant, always a peasant,' an officer had sneered, and Sharpe had heard, looked at the man, and Knowles had seen the fear come under the impact of those chilling, mocking eyes. Besides, Sharpe and Harper did not spend off-duty time together; the difference in rank made that impossible. But still, behind the formal relationship, Knowles saw the friendship. Both were big men, the Irishman hugely strong, and both confident in their abilities. Knowles could never imagine either out of uniform. It was as if they had been born to the job and it was on the battlefield, where most men thought nervously of their own survival, that Sharpe and Harper came together in an uncanny understanding. It was almost, Knowles thought, as if they were at home on a battlefield, and he envied them.

He looked up at the sky, at the low clouds touching the hilltops either side of the road. 'Bloody weather.'

'Back home, sir, we'd call this a fine day!' Harper grinned at Knowles, the rain dripping off his shako, and then turned to look at the Company, who followed the fast-marching figure of Sharpe. They were straggling a little, slipping on the road, and Harper raised his voice. 'Come on, you Protestant scum! The war's not waiting for you!'

He grinned at them as he shouted, proud they had outmarched the rest of the Regiment, and happy that, at last, the South Essex was marching north to where the summer's battles would be fought. Patrick Harper had heard the rumours – everyone had – of the French armies and their new commander, but Patrick Harper did not intend to lose any sleep over the future even though the South Essex was pitifully under strength. Replacements had sailed from Portsmouth in March, but the convoy had been hit by a storm, arid, weeks later, rumours came of hundreds of bodies washed ashore on the southern Biscay beaches, and now the Regiment must fight with less than half its proper number. Harper did not mind. At Talavera the army had been outnumbered two to one, and tonight, in the town of Celorico, where the army was gathering, there would be women in the streets and wine in the shops. Life could be a lot worse for a lad from Donegal, and Patrick Harper began whistling.

Sharpe heard the whistling and checked his impulse to snap at the Sergeant, recognizing it as pure irritation, but he was annoyed by Harper's customary equanimity. Sharpe did not believe the rumours of defeat, because, to a soldier, defeat was unthinkable. It was something that happened to the enemy. Yet Sharpe despised himself because, like a walking nightmare, the remorseless logic of numbers was haunting him. Defeat was in the air, whether he believed it or not, and as the thought came to him again he marched even faster, as if the aching pace could obliterate the pessimism. But at least, at long last, they were doing something. Since Talavera the Regiment had patrolled the bleak southern border between Spain and Portugal, and it had been a long, boring winter. The sun had risen and set, the Regiment had trained, they had watched the empty hills, and there had been too much leisure, too much softness. The officers had found a discarded French cavalryman's breastplate and used it as a shaving bowl, and to his disgust Sharpe had found himself taking the luxury of hot water in a bowl as a normal daily occurrence! And weddings. Twenty alone in the last three months, so that, miles behind, the other nine companies of the South Essex were leading a motley procession of women and children, wives and whores, like a travelling fairground. But now, at last, in an unseasonably wet summer, they were marching north, to where the French attack would come, and where the doubts and fears would be banished in action.

The road reached a crest, revealing a shallow valley with a small village at its centre. There were cavalry in the village, presumably summoned north, like the South Essex, and as Sharpe saw the mass of horses, he let his irritation escape by spitting on the road. Bloody cavalry, with their airs and graces, their undisguised condescension to the infantry, but then he saw the uniforms of the dismounted riders and felt ashamed of his reaction. The men wore the blue of the King's German Legion, and Sharpe respected the Germans. They were fellow professionals, and Sharpe, above everything else, was a professional soldier. He had to be. He had no money to buy promotion, and his future lay only in his skill and experience. There was plenty of experience. He had been a soldier for seventeen of his thirty-three years, first as a Private, then a Sergeant, then the dizzy jump to officer's rank, and all the promotions had been earned on battlefields. He had fought in Flanders, in India, and now in the Peninsula, and he knew that should peace arrive the army would drop him like a red-hot bullet. It was only in war that they needed professionals like himself, like Harper, like the tough Germans who fought France in Britain's army.

He halted the Company in the village street under the curious gaze of the cavalrymen. One of them, an officer, hitched his curved sabre off the ground and walked over to Sharpe. 'Captain?' The cavalryman made it a question because Sharpe's only signs of rank were the faded scarlet sash and the sword.

Sharpe nodded. 'Captain Sharpe. South Essex.'

The German officer's eyebrows went up; his face split into a smile. 'Captain Sharpe! Talavera!' He pumped Sharpe's hand, clapped him on the shoulder, then turned to shout at his men. The blue-coated cavalry grinned at Sharpe, nodded at him. They had all heard of him: the man who had captured the French Eagle at Talavera.

Sharpe jerked his head towards Patrick Harper and the Company. 'Don't forget Sergeant Harper, and the Company. We were all there.'

The German beamed at the Light Company. 'It was well done!' He clicked his heels to Sharpe and gave the slightest nod. 'Lossow. Captain Lossow at your service. You going to Celorico?' The German's English was accented but good. His men, Sharpe knew, would probably speak no English.

Sharpe nodded again. 'And you?'

Lossow shook his head. 'The Coa. Patrolling. The enemy are getting close, so there will be fighting.' He sounded pleased and Sharpe envied the cavalry. What fighting there was to be had was all taking place along the steep banks of the river Coa and not at Celorico. Lossow laughed. 'This time we get an Eagle, yes?'

Sharpe wished him luck. If any cavalry regiment were likely to break apart a French battalion, it would be the Germans. The English cavalry were brave enough, well mounted, but with no discipline. English horsemen grew bored with patrols, with picquet duty, and dreamed only of the blood-curdling charge, swords high, that left their horses blown and the men scattered and vulnerable. Sharpe, like all infantry in the army, preferred the Germans because they knew their job and did it well.

Lossow grinned at the compliment. He was a square-faced man, with a pleasant and ready smile and eyes that looked out shrewdly from the web of lines traced on his face by staring too long at the enemy-held horizons. 'Oh, one more thing, Captain. The bloody provosts are in the village.' The phrase came awkwardly from Lossow's lips, as if he did not usually use English swearwords except to describe the provosts, for whom any other language's curse would be inadequate.

Sharpe thanked him and turned to the Company. 'You heard Captain Lossow! There are provosts here. So keep your thieving hands to yourselves. Understand?' They understood. No one wanted to be hung on the spot for being caught looting. 'We stop for ten minutes. Dismiss them, Sergeant.'

The Germans left, cloaked against the rain, and Sharpe walked up the only street towards the church. It was a miserable village, poor and deserted, and the cottage doors swung emptily. The inhabitants had gone south and west, as the Portuguese government had ordered. When the French advanced they would find no crops, no animals, wells filled with stones or poisoned with dead sheep: a land of hunger and thirst.

Patrick Harper, sensing that Sharpe's mood had lightened after the meeting with Lossow, fell into step beside his Captain. 'Nothing here to loot, sir.'

Sharpe glanced at the men stooping into the cottages. 'They'll find something.'

The provosts were beside the church, three of them, mounted on black horses and standing like highwaymen waiting for a plump coach. Their equipment was new, their faces burned red, and Sharpe guessed they were fresh out from England, though why the Horse Guards sent provosts instead of fighting soldiers was a mystery. He nodded civilly to them. 'Good morning.1

One of the three, with an officer's sword jutting from beneath his cloak, nodded back. He seemed, like all of his kind, to be suspicious of any friendly gesture. He looked at their green Riflemen's jackets. 'There aren't supposed to be any Riflemen in this area.'

Sharpe let the accusation go unanswered. If the provost thought they were deserters, then the provost was a fool. Deserters did not travel the open road in daylight, or wear uniforms, or stroll casually up to provosts. Sharpe and Harper, like the other eighteen Riflemen in the Company, had kept their old uniforms out of pride, preferring the dark green to the red of the line battalions.

The provost's eyes flicked between the two men. 'You have orders?'

'The General wants to see us, sir.' Harper spoke cheerfully.

A tiny smile came and went on the provost's face. 'You mean Lord Wellington wants to see you?'

'As a matter of fact, yes.'

Sharpe's voice had a warning in it, but the provost seemed oblivious. He was looking Sharpe up and down, letting his suspicions show. Sharpe's appearance was extraordinary. The green jacket, faded and torn, was worn over French cavalry overalls. On his feet were tall leather boots that had originally been bought in Paris by a Colonel of Napoleon's Imperial Guard. On his back, like most of his men, he carried a French pack, made of ox hide, and on his shoulder, though he was an officer, he slung a rifle. The officer's epaulettes had gone, leaving broken stitches, and the scarlet sash was stained and faded. Even Sharpe's sword, his other badge of rank, was irregular. As an officer of a Light Company he should have carried the curved sabre of the British Light Cavalry, but Richard Sharpe preferred the sword of the Heavy Cavalry, straight-bladed and ill balanced. Cavalrymen hated it; they claimed its weight made it impossible to parry swiftly, but Sharpe was six feet tall and strong enough to wield the thirty-five inches of ponderous steel with deceptive ease.

The provost officer was unsettled. 'What's your Regiment?'

'We're the Light of the South Essex.' Sharpe made his tone friendly.

The provost responded by spurring his horse forward so he could see down the street and watch Sharpe's men. There was no immediately apparent reason to hang anyone, so he looked back at the two men and his eyes stopped, with surprise, when they reached Harper's shoulder. The Irishman, with four inches more height than Sharpe, was a daunting sight at the best of times, but his weapons were even more irregular than Sharpe's big sword. Slung with his rifle was a brute of a gun – a seven-barrelled, squat menace. The provost pointed. 'What's that?'

'Seven-barrelled gun, sir.' Harper's voice was full of pride in his new weapon.

'Where did you get it?'

'Christmas present, sir.'

Sharpe grinned. It had been a present, given at Christmas time, from Sharpe to his Sergeant, but it was obvious that the provost, with his two silent companions, did not believe it. He was still staring at the gun, one of Henry Nock's less successful inventions, and Sharpe realized that the provost had probably never seen one before. Only a few hundred had ever been made, for the Navy, and at the time it had seemed like a good idea. Seven barrels, each twenty inches long, were all fired by the same flintlock, and it was thought that sailors, perched precariously in the fighting tops, could wreak havoc by firing the seven barrels down on to the enemy's crowded decks. One thing had been overlooked. Seven half-inch barrels fired together made a fearful discharge, like a small cannon's, that not only wreaked havoc but also broke the shoulder of any man who pulled the trigger. Only Harper, in Sharpe's acquaintance, had the brute strength to use the gun, and even the Irishman, in trying it out, had been astonished by the crashing recoil as the seven bullets spread from the flaming muzzles.

The provost sniffed. 'A Christmas present.'

'I gave it to him,' Sharpe said.

'And you are?'

'Captain Richard Sharpe. South Essex. You?'

The provost stiffened. 'Lieutenant Ayres, sir.' The last word was spoken reluctantly.

'And where are you going, Lieutenant Ayres?'

Sharpe was annoyed by the man's suspicions, by the pointless display of his power, and he edged his questions with a touch of venom. Sharpe carried on his back the scars of a flogging that had been caused by just such an officer as this: Captain Morris, a supercilious bully, with his flattering familiar, Sergeant Hakeswill. Sharpe carried the memory along with the scars and a promise that one day he would revenge himself on both men. Morris, he knew, was stationed in Dublin; Hakeswill was God knows where, but one day, Sharpe promised himself, he would find him. But for now it was this young puppy with more power than sense. 'Where, Lieutenant?'

'Celorico, sir.'

'Then have a good journey, Lieutenant.'

Ayres nodded. 'I'll look round first, sir. If you don't mind.'

Sharpe watched the three men ride down the street, the rain beading the wide, black rumps of the horses. 'I hope you're right, Sergeant.'

'Right, sir?'

'That there's nothing to loot.'

The thought struck both together, a single instinct for trouble, and they began running. Sharpe pulled his whistle from the small holster on his crossbelt and blew the long blasts that were usually reserved for the battlefield when the Light Company was strung out in a loose skirmish line, the enemy was pressing close, and the officers and Sergeants whistled the men back to rally and re-form under the shelter of die Battalion. The provosts heard the whistle blasts, put spurs to their horses, and swerved between two low cottages to search the yards as Sharpe's men tumbled from doorways and grumbled into ranks.

Harper pulled up in front of the Company. 'Packs on!'

There was a shout from behind the cottages. Sharpe turned. Lieutenant Knowles was at his elbow.

'What's happening, sir?'

'Provost trouble. Bastards are throwing their weight around.'

They were determined, he knew, to find something, and as Sharpe's eyes went down his ranks he had a sinking feeling that Lieutenant Ayres had succeeded. There should have been forty-eight men, three Sergeants, and the two officers, but one man was missing: Private Batten. Private bloody Batten, who was dragged by his hair from between the cottages by a triumphant provost.

'A looter, sir. Caught in the act.' Ayres was smiling.

Batten, who grumbled incessantly, who moaned if it rained and made a fuss when it stopped because the sun was in his eyes. Private Batten, a one-man destroyer of flintlocks, who thought the whole world was conspiring to annoy him, and who now stood flinching beneath the grasp of one of Ayres's men. If there were any one member of the Company whom Sharpe would gladly have hanged, it would be Batten, but he was damned if any provost was going to do it for him.

Sharpe looked up at Ayres. 'What was he looting, Lieutenant?'

'This.'

Ayres held up a scrawny chicken as if it were the Crown of England. Its neck had been well wrung, but the legs still jerked and scrabbled at the air. Sharpe felt the anger come inside him, not at the provosts but at Batten.

'I'll deal with him, Lieutenant.'

Batten cringed away from his Captain.

Ayres shook his head. 'You misunderstand, sir.' He was talking with silky condescension. 'Looters are hung, sir. On the spot, sir. As an example to others.'

There was a muttering from the Company, broken by Harper's bellowed order for silence. Batten's eyes flicked left and right as if looking for an escape from this latest example of the world's injustice. Sharpe snapped at him. 'Batten!'

'Sir?'

'Where did you find the chicken?"

'It was in the field, sir. Honest.' He winced as his hair was pulled. 'It was a wild chicken, sir.'

There was a rustle of laughter from the ranks that Harper let go. Ayres snorted. 'A wild chicken. Dangerous beasts, eh, sir? He's lying. I found him in the cottage.'

Sharpe believed him, but he was not going to give up. 'Who lives in the cottage, Lieutenant?'

Ayres raised an eyebrow. 'Really, sir, I have not exchanged cards with every slum in Portugal.' He turned to his men. 'String him up.'

'Lieutenant Ayres.' The tone of Sharpe's voice stopped any movement in the street. 'How do you know the cottage is inhabited?'

'Look for yourself.'

'Sir.'

Ayres swallowed. 'Sir.'

Sharpe raised his voice. 'Are there people there, Lieutenant?'

'No, sir. But it's lived in.'

'How do you know? The village is deserted. You can't steal a chicken from nobody.'

Ayres thought about his reply. The village was deserted, the inhabitants gone away from the French attack, but absence was not a relinquishing of ownership. He shook his head. 'The chicken is Portuguese property, sir.' He turned again. 'Hang him!'

'Halt!' Sharpe bellowed and again movement stopped. 'You're not going to hang him, so just go your way.'

Ayres swivelled back to Sharpe. 'He was caught red-handed and the bastard will hang. Your men are probably a pack of bloody thieves and they need an example and, by God, they will get one!' He raised himself in his stirrups and shouted at the Company. 'You will see him hang! And if you steal, then you will hang too!'

A click interrupted him. He looked down and the anger in his face was replaced by astonishment. Sharpe held his Baker rifle, cocked, so that the barrel was pointing at Ayres.

'Let him go, Lieutenant.'

'Have you gone mad?'

Ayres had gone white, had sagged back into his saddle.

Sergeant Harper, instinctively, came and stood beside Sharpe and ignored the hand that waved him away. Ayres stared at the two men. Both tall, both with hard, fighters' faces, and a memory tickled at him. He looked at Sharpe, at the face that appeared to have a perpetually mocking expression, caused by the scar that ran down the right cheek, and he suddenly remembered. Wild chickens, bird-catchers! The South Essex Light Company. Were these the two men who had captured the Eagle? Who had hacked their way into a French regiment and come out with the standard? He could believe it.

Sharpe watched the Lieutenant's eyes waver and knew that he had won, but it was a victory that would cost him dearly. The army did not look kindly on men who held rifles on provosts, even empty rifles.

Ayres pushed Batten forward. 'Have your thief, Captain. We shall meet again.'

Sharpe lowered the rifle. Ayres waited until Batten was clear of the horses, then wrenched the reins and led his men towards Celorico. 'You'll hear from me!' His words were flung back. Sharpe could sense the trouble like a boiling, black cloud on the horizon. He turned to Batten.

'Did you steal that bloody hen?'

'Yes, sir.' Batten flapped a hand after the provost. 'He took it, sir.' He made it sound unfair.

'I wish he'd bloody taken you. I wish he'd bloody spread your guts across the bloody landscape.' Batten backed away from Sharpe's anger. 'What are the bloody rules, Batten?'

The eyes blinked at Sharpe. 'Rules, sir?'

'You know the bloody rules. Tell me.'

The army issued regulations that were inches thick, but Sharpe gave his men three rules. They were simple, they worked, and if broken the men knew they could expect punishment. Batten cleared his throat.

'To fight well, sir. Not to get drunk without permission, sir. And-'

'Go on.'

'Not to steal, sir, except from the enemy or when starving, sir.'

'Were you starving?'

Batten clearly wanted to say he was, but there were still two days' rations in every man's haversack. 'No, sir.'

Sharpe hit him, all his frustration pouring into one fist that slammed Batten's chest, winded him, and knocked him gasping into the wet road. 'You're a bloody fool, Batten, a cringing, miserable, whoreson, slimy fool.' He turned away from the man, whose musket had fallen into the mud. 'Company! March!'

They marched behind the tall Rifleman as Batten picked himself up, brushed ineffectively at the water that had flowed into the lock of his gun, and then shambled after the Company. He pushed himself into his file and muttered at his silent companions. 'He's not supposed to hit me.'

'Shut your mouth, Batten!' Harper's voice was as harsh as his Captain's. 'You know the rules. Would you rather be kicking your useless heels now?'

The Sergeant shouted at the Company to pick up their feet, bellowed the steps at them, and all the time he wondered what faced Sharpe now. A complaint from that bloody provost would mean an enquiry and probably a court-martial. And all for the miserable Batten, a failed horse-cooper, whom Harper would gladly have killed himself. Lieutenant Knowles seemed to share Harper's thoughts, for he fell in step beside the Irishman and looked at him with a troubled face. 'All for one chicken, Sergeant?'

Harper looked down at the young Lieutenant. 'I doubt it, sir.' He turned to the ranks. 'Daniel!'

Hagman, one of the Riflemen, broke ranks and fell in beside the Sergeant. He was the oldest man in the Company, in his forties, but the best marksman. A Cheshireman, raised as a poacher, Hagman could shoot the buttons off a French General's coat at three hundred yards. 'Sarge?'

'How many chickens were there?'

Hagman flashed his toothless grin, glanced at the Company, then up at Harper. The Sergeant was a fair man, never demanding more than a fair share. 'Dozen, Sarge.'

Harper looked at Knowles. 'There you are, sir. At least sixteen wild chickens there. Probably twenty. God knows what they were doing there, why the owners didn't take them.'

'Difficult to catch, sir, chickens.' Hagman chuckled. 'That all, Sarge?'

Harper grinned down at the Rifleman. 'A leg each for the officers, Daniel. And not the stringy ones.'

Hagman glanced at Knowles. 'Very good, sir. Leg each.' He went back to the ranks.

Knowles chuckled to himself. A leg each for the officers meant a good breast for the Sergeant, chicken broth for everyone, and nothing for Private Batten. And for Sharpe? Knowles felt his spirits drop. The war was lost, it was still raining, and tomorrow Captain Richard Sharpe would be in provost trouble, real trouble, right up to his sabre-scarred neck.