AND so he hurried, taking the short route across the shoulder of the hill and then down the steep slope to where the choked mill-leat was skimmed with ice.

He crossed the leat bridge, something else that needed rebuilding, and stopped to gaze into the farm" s courtyard beyond the moat. Nothing moved there. Smoke drifted from the kitchen chimney. The windows were misted.

Everything looked as it should, and yet the danger still nagged him. It was a feeling he had come to trust, a feeling that had saved his life on countless Spanish fields. He thought about loading the rifle, then decided it was too late. If there were men in the farm then there would be too many for one rifle bullet. Besides, they would already be watching him and it was best not to make a show of hostility. What would be best, he thought, was to get the hell away from here and watch the farmhouse until he understood if there was danger there or not, but he had no choice in the matter. Lucille and his son were inside the farm, so he had to go there even though his every instinct shrieked at him to stay away. "Come on, Nosey, " he said, and he walked on, crossing the bridge over the moat and anticipating what a fool he would feel as he pushed the kitchen door open to discover Lucille feeding Patrick, Marie chopping turnips and the stove blazing cheerfully. The war had left him nervous, he told himself, nervous, jumpy, skittish and prone to fears, and it was all nonsense. Nothing was wrong. Tomorrow was Christmas and all was well with the world, except that all the world needed rebuilding.

He pushed open the kitchen door. "Got one of the sods, " he announced happily, then went very still. A small bespectacled man was sitting opposite Lucille.

Another man was behind her with a pistol pointing at her black hair. Marie was huddled in the corner chair, while in front of Sharpe, and carrying Sharpe's old sword that he had taken down from the wall above the spice cupboard, was a tall man with dragoon pigtails framing a face that was as hard as horn.