"You know what I told the men with empty canteens?" Sharpe asked. "That they were idiots. But you're not, because you're an officer, and there aren't any idiot officers."

"Quite correct, sir," Slingsby put in, then snorted. He always snorted when he laughed and Sharpe suppressed an urge to cut the bastard's throat.

"Hoard your water," Sharpe said, thrusting the canteen back at Iliffe. "Sergeant Harper! March on!"

It took another half-hour to reach the hilltop. The barn-like building was evidently a shrine, for a chipped statue of the Virgin Mary was mounted in a niche above its door. The telegraph tower had been built against the shrine's eastern gable which helped support the lattice of thick timbers that carried the platform on which the Midshipman had worked his arcane skill. The tower was deserted now, its tethered signal ropes banging against the tarred mast in the brisk wind that blew around the summit. The black-painted bladders had been taken away, but the ropes used to hoist and lower them were still in place and from one of them hung a square of white cloth and Sharpe wondered if the strangers on the hilltop had raised the makeshift flag as a signal.

Those strangers, a dozen civilians, were standing beside the shrine's door and with them was a Portuguese infantry officer, his blue coat faded to a color very close to the French blue. It was the officer who strode forward to meet Sharpe. "I am Major Ferreira," he said in good English, "and you are?"

"Captain Sharpe."

"And Captain Slingsby." Lieutenant Slingsby had insisted on accompanying Sharpe to meet the Portuguese officer, just as he insisted on using his brevet rank even though he had no right to do so any longer.

"I command here," Sharpe said laconically.

"And your purpose, Captain?" Ferreira demanded. He was a tall man, lean and dark, with a carefully trimmed mustache. He had the manners and bearing of privilege, but Sharpe detected an uneasiness in the Portuguese Major that Ferreira attempted to cover with a brusque manner that tempted Sharpe to insolence. He fought the temptation and told the truth instead.