"He's wonderful, sir," Harper said with genuine enthusiasm, "just wonderful. Would he be Irish now?"

"He is!" Lawford was delighted. "He is! Bred in County Meath. I can see you know your horses, Sergeant." The Colonel fondled the gelding's ears. "He takes fences like the wind. He'll hunt magnificently. Can't wait to get him home and set him at a few damn great hedgerows." He leaned towards Sharpe and lowered his voice. "He cost me a few pennies, I can tell you."

"I'm sure he did, sir," Sharpe said, "and did you pass on my message about the telegraph station?"

"I did," Lawford said, "but they're busy at headquarters, Sharpe, damned busy, and I doubt they'll worry too much about a few pounds of flour. Still, you did the right thing."

"I wasn't thinking of the flour, sir," Sharpe said, "but about Major Ferreira."

"I'm sure there's an innocent explanation," Lawford said airily, then rode ahead, leaving Sharpe scowling. He liked Lawford, whom he had known years before in India and who was a clever, genial man whose only fault, perhaps, was a tendency to avoid trouble. Not fighting trouble: Lawford had never shirked a fight with the French, but he hated confrontations within his own ranks. By nature he was a diplomat, always trying to smooth the corners and find areas of agreement, and Sharpe was hardly surprised that the Colonel had shied away from accusing Major Ferreira of dishonesty. In Lawford's world it was always best to believe that yapping dogs were really sleeping.

So Sharpe put the confrontation of the previous day out of his mind and trudged on, half his thoughts conscious of what every man in the company was doing and the other half thinking of Teresa and Josefina, and he was still thinking of them when a horseman rode past him in the opposite direction, wheeled around in a flurry of dust and called to him. "In trouble again, Richard?"

Sharpe, startled out of his daydream, looked up to see Major Hogan looking indecently cheerful. "I'm in trouble, sir?"