"Spaniard?" Sharpe wondered aloud.

"The dons are always gaudy, sir," Harper said. "The dons never did like dying in drab clothes."

"Maybe he's a partisan," Sharpe suggested.

"He's got Crapaud weapons," Price said, "and trousers." The pissing horseman was indeed armed just like a French dragoon. He wore a straight sword, had a short-barrelled carbine sheathed in his saddle holster and had a brace of pistols stuck in his belt. He also wore the distinctively baggy saroual trousers that the French dragoons liked, but Sharpe had never seen a French dragoon wearing grey ones, and certainly never a grey jacket. Enemy dragoons always wore green coats. Not dark hunting green like the coats of Britain's riflemen, but a lighter and brighter green.

"Maybe the buggers are running out of green dye?" Harper suggested, then fell silent as the horseman buttoned his floppy trousers and hauled himself up onto his saddle. The man looked carefully about the valley, saw nothing to alarm him and so spurred his horse back into the hidden side valley. "He was scouting," Harper said softly. "He was sent to see if anyone was here."

"He made a bloody bad job of it," Sharpe commented.

"Even so," Price said fervently, "it's a good thing we're going in the other direction."

"We're not, Harry," Sharpe said. "We're going to see who those bastards are and what they're doing." He pointed uphill. "You first, Harry. Take your fellows and go halfway up, then wait."

Lieutenant Price led the redcoats of Sharpe's company up the steep slope.