“ Madras sappers, and miners. They should work a lot better in this climate than the Sherwood Foresters and Dragoon guards.”

The captain nodded agreement. “Heat — and disease, there is no escaping them. Working in the sun, the men are exhausted almost as soon as they begin their daily labors. And they are weakened as well. They get the fever and die from it, more every day. We must be losing ten men to the mile building this road.”

“Nearer twenty I would say. Take a look at the new cemetery near the shore.”

“Too depressing. So it is, let us say, a hundred miles, from the Pacific to the coastal plain and then on to the Atlantic Ocean. At this rate we will lose a regiment that way.”

“It’s the same distance again, if not more, to Vera Cruz.”

“Yes, but the land there is dead flat. Once the road reaches the plain it will just be a matter of smoothing the donkey track that is already there.”

“I pray you are right. England is too far from this stinking hole. I fear that I will die here and be buried in the moldy soil. I despair of ever seeing her blissfully cold and fog-shrouded shores ever again.”

The dark-skinned man at a nearby table apparently took no notice of them. His thin shirt was more suited to the climate than their wool tunics. His meal of guacamole and juevos rancheros was far easier to digest as well. He scooped the last of it off of his plate with half of a fresh tortilla. Washed it down with black coffee, sighed and belched slightly. A single languid wave of his hand brought the proprietor rushing over to serve him.

“A sus órdenes, Don Ambrosio.”