'An army of deserters?

That did ring faint bells. Sharpe remembered a night on the retreat from Burgos, a night when the wind flung rain at the roofless barn where four hundred wet, miserable and hungry soldiers had sheltered. There had been talk there of a haven for soldiers, an army of deserters who were defying the French and the English, but Sharpe had dismissed the stories. They were like other rumours that went through the army. He frowned. 'Is that true?

Nairn nodded. 'Yes. He told the story that he had gleaned that morning from Hogan's papers, from the priest of Adrados, and from a Partisan who had brought the priest to Frenada. It was a story so incredible that Sharpe, at times, stopped Nairn simply to ask for confirmation. Some of the wildest rumours, it seemed, turned out to be fact.

For a year now, perhaps a few months longer, there had been an organized band of deserters, calling themselves an army, living in the mountains of southern Galicia. Their leader was a Frenchman whose real name was unknown, an ex-Sergeant who now styled himself as Marshal Pot-au-Feu. Nairn grinned. 'Stockpot, I suppose that translates. There's a story that he was once a cook. Under Pot-au-Feu the ‘army’ had prospered. They lived in territory that was unimportant to the French Marshals or to Wellington, they subsisted by terrorizing the countryside, taking what they wanted, and their numbers grew as deserters from every army in the Peninsula heard of their existence. French, British, Portuguese and Spanish, all were in Pot-au-Feu's ranks.

'How many, sir?

Nairn shrugged. 'We don't know. Numbers vary between four hundred and two thousand. I'd guess six or seven hundred.

Sharpe raised his eyebrows. That could be a formidable force. 'Why have they come south, sir?

'That's a question. Nairn blew his nose into the huge wrinkled handkerchief. 'It seems that the Frogs are being pretty lively in Galicia.