The Portuguese stayed where they were, not going down to the spur where the horsemen could attack them, content to have made their demonstration. Two guns fired, the shells falling into the empty space between the cazadores and the remaining French. "The Peer will be very unhappy," Hogan said. "He detests gunners firing at hopeless targets. It just reveals where his batteries are placed and it does no damn harm to the enemy." He turned the telescope to the valley and spent a long time looking at the enemy encampments beyond the stream. "We reckon Monsieur Massena has sixty thousand men," he said, "and maybe a hundred guns."
"And us, sir?" Sharpe asked.
"Fifty thousand and sixty," Hogan said, giving Sharpe back the telescope, "and half of ours are Portuguese."
There was something in his tone that caught Sharpe's attention. "Is that bad?" he asked.
"We'll see, won't we?" Hogan said, then stamped his foot on the turf. "But we do have this." He meant the ridge.
"Those lads seem eager enough." Sharpe nodded at the cazadores who were now retreating up the hill.
"Eagerness in new troops is quickly wiped away by gunfire," Hogan said.
"I doubt we'll find out," Sharpe said. "The Crapauds won't attack up here. They're not mad."
"I certainly wouldn't want to attack up this slope " Hogan agreed. "My suspicion is that they'll spend the day staring at us, then go away."
"Back to Spain?"
"Good Lord, no. If they did but know it there's a fine road that loops round the top of this ridge," he pointed north, "and they don't need to fight us here at all. They'll find that road eventually. Pity, really. This would be a grand place to give them a bloody nose. But they may come. They reckon the Portuguese aren't up to scratch, so perhaps they'll think it's worth an attempt."
"Are the Portuguese up to scratch?" Sharpe asked. The gunfire had ended, leaving scorched grass and small patches of smoke on the spur. The French, denied their game of dare, were drifting back towards their lines.
"We'll find out about the Portuguese if the French decide to have at us," Hogan said grimly, then smiled. "Can you come for supper tonight?"
"Tonight?" Sharpe was surprised by the question.
"I spoke with Colonel Lawford," Hogan said, "and he's happy to spare you, so long as the French aren't being a nuisance. Six o'clock, Richard, at the monastery. You know where that is?"
"No, sir."
"Go north," Hogan pointed up the ridge, "until you see a great stone wall. Find a gap in it, go downhill through the trees until you discover a path and follow that till you see rooftops. There'll be three of us sitting down."
"Three?" Sharpe asked suspiciously.
"You," Hogan said, "me and Major Ferreira."
"Ferreira!" Sharpe exclaimed. "Why's that slimy piece of traitorous shit having supper with us?"
Hogan sighed. "Has it occurred to you, Richard, that the two tons of flour might have been a bribe? Something to exchange for information?"
"Was it?"
"Ferreira says so. Do I believe him? I'm not sure. But whatever, Richard, I think he regrets what happened and wants to make his peace with us. It was his idea to have supper, and I must say I think it decent of him." Hogan saw Sharpe's reluctance. "Truly, Richard. We don't want resentments to fester between allies, do we?"
"We don't, sir?"
"Six o'clock, Richard," Hogan said firmly, "and try to convey the impression that you're enjoying yourself." The Irishman smiled, then walked back to the ridge's crest where officers were pacing off the ground to determine where each battalion would be positioned. Sharpe wished he had found a good excuse to miss the supper. It was not Hogan's company he wanted to avoid, but the Portuguese Major, and he felt increasingly bitter as he sat in the unseasonable warmth, watching the wind stir the heather beneath which an army, sixty thousand strong, had come to contest the ridge of Bussaco.
Sharpe spent the afternoon bringing the company books up to date, helped by Clayton, the company clerk, who had the annoying habit of saying the words aloud as he wrote them. "Isaiah Tongue, deceased," he said to himself, then blew on the ink. "Does he have a widow, sir?"
"Don't think so."
"He's owed four shillings and sixpence halfpenny is why I ask."
"Put it in the company fund."
"If we ever gets any wages," Clayton said gloomily. The company fund was where stray money went, not that there ever was much stray money, but wages owed to the dead were put there and, once in a while, it was spent on brandy, or to pay the company wives for the laundry. Some of those wives had come to the ridge's crest where, joined by scores of civilians, they were gazing down at the French. The civilians had all been ordered to go south, to find the safety of the countryside around Lisbon that was protected by the Lines of Torres Vedras, but plainly many had disobeyed for there were scores of Portuguese folk gawping at the invaders. Some of the spectators had brought bread, cheese and wine and now sat in groups eating and talking and pointing at the French, and a dozen monks, all with bare feet, were among them.
"Why don't they wear shoes?" Clayton asked.
"God knows."
Clayton frowned disapprovingly at a monk who had joined one of the small groups eating on the ridge. " Dejeuner a la fourchette ," he said, sniffing with disapproval.
"Day-jay what?" Sharpe asked.
"Dinner with a fork," Clayton explained. He had been a footman in a great house before he joined the South Essex, and had a great knowledge of the gentry's strange ways. "It's what people of quality do, sir, when they don't want to spend a lot of money. Give 'em food and a fork and let 'em wander round the grounds sniffing the bloody flowers. All titter and eissle in the garden." He frowned at the monks. "Shoeless bloody papist monks," he said. The gowned men were not monks at all, but friars of the Discalced Carmelite order, two of whom were gravely inspecting a nine-pounder cannon. "And you should see inside their bloody monastery, sir," Clayton went on. "The altar in one of the chapels is smothered with wooden tits."
Sharpe gaped at Clayton. "It's smothered with what?"
"Wooden tits, sir, all painted to look real. Got nipples and everything! I took the ration returns down there, sir, and one of the guards showed me. I couldn't believe my eyes! Mind you, them monks ain't allowed the real things, are they, so perhaps they make do as best they can. Punishment book now, sir?"
"See if you can scuff up some tea instead," Sharpe suggested.
He drank the tea on the crest. The French were plainly not planning to attack this day for their troops were scattered about the bivouacs near the villages.