„So why would she go there, sir?” Sergeant Harper asked.

„Because she’s a fatherless nineteen-year-old girl,” Hogan said, „who insists on having her own way. Because she’s fallen out with her mother. Because she’s a bloody idiot who deserves a ruddy good hiding. Because, oh I don’t know why! Because she’s young and knows everything, that’s why.” Hogan was a stocky, middle-aged Irishman, a Royal Engineer, with a shrewd face, a soft brogue, graying hair and a charitable disposition. „Because she’s a bloody halfwit, that’s why,” he finished.

„This Vila Real de whatever,” Sharpe said, „is it far? Why don’t we just fetch her?”

„Which is precisely what I’ve told the mother you will do, Richard. You will go to Vila Real de Zedes, you will find the wretched girl and you will get her across the river. We’ll wait for you in Vila Nova and if the damned French capture Vila Nova then we’ll wait for you in Coimbra.” He paused as he penciled these instructions on a scrap of paper. „And if the Frogs take Coimbra we’ll wait for you in Lisbon, and if the bastards take Lisbon we’ll be pissing our breeches in London and you’ll be God knows where. Don’t fall in love with her,” he went on, handing Sharpe the piece of paper, „don’t get the silly girl pregnant, don’t give her the thrashing she bloody well deserves and don’t, for the love of Christ, lose her, and don’t lose Colonel Christopher either. Am I plain?”

„Colonel Christopher is coming with us?” Sharpe asked, appalled.

„Didn’t I just tell you that?” Hogan inquired innocently, then turned as a clatter of hooves announced the appearance of the widow Savage’s traveling coach from the stable yard at the rear of the house. The coach was heaped with baggage and there was even some furniture and two rolled carpets lashed onto the rear rack where a coachman, precariously poised between a half-dozen gilded chairs, was leading Hogan’s black mare by the reins. The Captain took the horse and used the coach’s mounting step to hoist himself into the saddle. „You’ll be back with us in a couple of days,” he assured Sharpe. „Say six, seven hours to Vila Real de Zedes? The same back to the ferry at Barca d’Avintas and then a quiet stroll home. You know where Barca d’Avintas is?”