Sharpe lowered the rifle's cock, then turned to see Ensign Charles Nicholls rustling over the grass.

Nicholls had only just arrived in Spain and went everywhere at a tumultuous pace, as if he feared the war might get away from him.

"Slow down, Mr. Nicholls, " Sharpe said.

"It's Colonel Hogan, sir, " Ensign Nicholls panted, "he wants you, sir. He says it's the Frogs, sir. He says we've got to stop some Frogs, sir, and it's urgent."

Sharpe slung the rifle on his shoulder. "We'll do this later, sergeant major, " he said.

"Yes, sir, of course we shall."

The bullock watched the men go, then lowered its head to the grass. "Were you going to shoot it, sir?" Nicholls asked excitedly.

"What do you think I was going to do?" Sharpe asked the boy. "Strangle it?"

"I couldn't shoot one, " Nicholls admitted. "I'd feel too sorry for it." He gazed at Sharpe and Harper in admiration, and no wonder, for there were no two men in Wellington's army who were more admired or feared. It was Sharpe and Harper who had taken the French Eagle at Talavera, who had stormed through the breach of blood at Badajoz and cut the great road at the rout of Vitoria.

Nicholls hardly dared believe he was in their battalion. "You think we're going to fight, sir?" he asked eagerly.

"I hope not, " Sharpe said.

"No, sir?" Nicholls sounded disappointed.

"It's Christmas in three days, " Sharpe said. "Would you want to die at Christmas?"

"I don't suppose I would, sir, " Nicholls admitted.

The ensign was seventeen, but looked fourteen. He wore a second-hand uniform coat on which his mother had sewn loops of tarnished gold lace, then turned up the yellow-tipped sleeves so they did not fall down over his hands.

"I was worried, " Nicholls had explained to Sharpe when he arrived at the battalion just a week before, "that I would miss the war. Awful bad luck to miss a war."