Fortune's Bride Part 8

The march from Lavos to Lugar the next day was, for Esmeralda, much the same as that from Figueira to Lavos. For the men there were differences. A far stricter watch was kept by the officers all along the route, and fewer fell out of ranks. Problems in the quarters were much the same but were easier to deal with because of past experience, and Robert was much more cautious about entering rooms without announcing himself so there were no further embarra.s.sing incidents, a little to Esmeralda's regret. On August 10 they came to Leiria.

This was a town of modest size rather than a village. Sir Arthur took over a decent inn, and all of the officers had clean and comfortable lodgings. The state of the men was not as good. When they had camped near villages, the people, either because they were truly glad to see the English or as a preventive measure, had been most hospitable. They had carried fruit out to the camps, oranges, melons, grapes, and figs, and even brought calves to be slaughtered to add to the salt meat and biscuit the men were issued. The townsfolk of Leiria were not so generous.

There was a magazine of supplies in the town, collected by the Portuguese authorities for the sustenance of the troops. However, it was seized by General Freire, who then refused to share it with the English. He also refused to cooperate further with Sir Arthur, insisting that the English supply any Portuguese troops who followed the coast road. Sir Arthur refused to do this, partly because he did not think it reasonable but also because he did not think most of the Portuguese troops reliable enough to be of much a.s.sistance. Eventually a compromise was reached. About two hundred sixty of the Portuguese cavalry and sixteen hundred infantry were to accompany the English under the command of Colonel Trant. The remainder of Freire's army was to remain near Leiria to protect Sir Arthur's rear.

Robert was so busy and so furious that he had no time to ponder any personal concerns. He was aware only subliminally of the comfort Esmeralda brought him by providing for his physical needs and by listening sympathetically to the tirades it was not safe to express elsewhere. As one of the senior ADCs, it was Robert's duty to soothe the younger men so that they would not show their true feelings even by cold looks or haughty manners and complicate or perhaps ruin Sir Arthur's negotiations. Had Robert not had Esmeralda to confide in, he might have burst.

Over the days of the march, owing partly to conversations with Robert, partly to her casual snippets of talk with the young officers, and partly to the tales and anecdotes she heard from Molly and her husband, Esmeralda had begun to identify with the army. Thus, her response to Robert became deeper and more sincere. The army became her army, and she encouraged Robert to tell her everything he could because of genuine interest rather than because she wished to please him.

As a result, Esmeralda's indignation about the treatment they were receiving from Freire was sincere, but she was herself so happy that she could always see a small advantage here and there to ameliorate the problems Robert described. Her days were very full. Good fabrics were to be had to make gowns. Robert's friends and many of the young officers from the regiments were very much at home in her apartment. Carlos was there to be taught both English and the fine points of being an excellent servant.

Only two shadows clouded Esmeralda's serene sky. One had existed from the beginning, how was she to make her marriage real? The other was new. As the army became more real to her, its purpose also became more real. The English were in Portugal to make war on the French. Men died in war. Too often now, when Esmeralda talked and laughed with the young men who sought comfort and entertainment in her quarters, a chill of fear would pa.s.s over her. And Robert... He, too, was flesh and blood. He, too, was vulnerable.

Late in the evening of August 12, the second of Esmeralda's clouds gathered substance and blotted out the brightness in her life. She knew that something important was about to happen because none of her usual guests showed up for tea and Robert was unusually late in returning after dinner, but she was at first fooled by Robert's sparkling eyes and brilliant smile, especially since it was quite apparent that the gaiety was not owing to drink.

"Something has gone right at last, I see," she said. "Can you tell me?"

"We are moving out tomorrow," Robert replied, tossing his hat into the nearest chair. "And we will be rid of General Freire."

"I am delighted we will be shot of Freire." Esmeralda laughed and shook her head. "But I cannot quite match your enthusiasm for leaving Leiria if we are to be again quartered in villages." Nonetheless, she was smiling as brightly as he. If Robert was happy, a few fleas were nothing to Esmeralda.

"Oh, you won't be going-at least, not tomorrow," Robert told her. "Sir Arthur is leaving most of the baggage train here until we have some definite news of the French."

It was lightly said as Robert walked toward the table where several bottles of wine and gla.s.ses stood ready, but Esmeralda caught a peculiar sidelong glance from him as he went by the chair in which she was sitting. She rose to her feet as he pa.s.sed and barely prevented herself from catching at him. It was the look that held her back; she took warning from it and choked down the impulse to throw her arms around him and plead to be taken along. By now Esmeralda knew enough about military matters to understand that if Sir Arthur had decided to leave his baggage train behind, it was not just news of the French he expected to find, but their army.

Fighting the terror that threatened to choke her, Esmeralda said, "You will not leave me for long, will you? I-I will be very eager for news."

Robert turned toward her, smiling. He had almost expected her to say, "Thank G.o.d," or just, "Oh, very well." Instead, her statement that she was eager for news gave him an intense pleasure that he did not understand, but he just accepted the warmth and gladness as part of the general feeling of joy Esmeralda produced in him. The clear thought in his mind was that Merry was the most perfect girl. She never made a fuss.

"Perhaps I could come back tomorrow night," Robert said. "We won't have moved too far for me to ride in if I can get leave from Sir Arthur."

"Oh, please do, Robert," Esmeralda cried. She was about to say she would be worried sick if he did not come, but she bit that back, remembering that she had resolved not to ask for any attention that if necessarily neglected would place a burden of guilt on him. Instead, she added, "And if there is no sign of the French, I could move forward with you in the morning, could I not?"

"I suppose that would be safe enough," Robert replied slowly, again feeling inordinately pleased, but then his conscience smote him. "But why should you? You will be more comfortable here."

"I was only joking about the bad accommodation in the villages, truly I was," Esmeralda a.s.sured him, struggling to prevent a note of pleading from entering her voice. "If I move up, you see, I will still be in reach the following day..." She hesitated, unsure of how far it would be safe to go, and then said uncertainly, "Unless it would be too much trouble for you to ride back each night like that."

"No trouble at all." Without a.n.a.lyzing the idea, he knew he would go as far as necessary to join Esmeralda.

They discussed the route the army would take and the fact that he and Esmeralda would have to be on the road just at dawn to be certain that Robert would arrive at Sir Arthur's headquarters, wherever it might be, by the time his commanding officer might want him. A number of practical complications arose from Robert's spending his nights apart from the other ADCs, but he soon found a reason for his eagerness to involve himself in so much trouble.

"It will be much easier for me, too, if I ride down with you in the morning," Esmeralda had just a.s.sured him, laughingly. "That way I will have the whole day to get the fleas out of the place instead of only a few hours, and you will not return to find me most improperly clad."

Robert laughed, too, but a disconcerting vision of Esmeralda in pantalets rose again in his mind. He blanked out the vision most firmly. Of course, he told himself, it is perfectly reasonable to look forward to decent lodgings. An hour's ride is well worth a full night's sleep and an escape from scratching all the next day.

In any event, Robert did not take Esmeralda with him the next day. There was no place for her to stay. Sir Arthur himself had found nothing better than a miserable mud hut, and when Robert left, the staff had been settling down to sleep-if it could be called sleep-under a nearby tree.

"They called me all the names they could think of when I got permission to come back," he said, laughing. "Sir Arthur wasn't pleased, but he conceded that it was necessary to rea.s.sure you that all was well, so long as I was on duty by six."

"I won't mind staying wherever Sir Arthur was," Esmeralda offered. "We have the cots, and I can load Luisa with food. Molly would follow me, too, I'm sure."

Robert shook his head firmly, insisting that the place was not fit for her. She did not argue, only lowered her eyes to her hands, which were tightly clasped in her lap. Somehow Robert could not say the words he had planned, which were that in a few days, as soon as they found a satisfactory place to camp, the whole baggage train would follow since it would be necessary to bring supplies. Instead, he laughed and told her that he was growing addicted to the fleshpots of Leiria himself and would come for her the next night if it were possible.

As he said it, he wondered if he were mad. It would mean riding twenty miles in the dark after a full day of scouting the road ahead and riding up and down the line of march with messages and reprimands from Wellesley to his line officers. But Merry's beautiful eyes had risen to his, glowing with grat.i.tude when she said she knew she was being ridiculous and that he must not put himself to so much trouble to satisfy her whim. So Robert laughed again and said not to worry about that.

They reached Alcobaca on August 14 and learned that a brigade of the French army under Thomieres had been there until the preceding day and that General Delaborde was somewhere to the south in the area of obidos with a weak division. Clearly the French were drawing together and would make contact within a day or two.

Robert was aware of an unaccustomed dichotomy in his emotions when he heard these reports. Normally the information that action was near thrilled him. After a battle, when he saw the dead and, more particularly, the wounded, he felt regrets, but beforehand he thought only of the excitement, of the thunder of the guns and the exhilaration of riding with messages and seeing the results of the troop movements. This time he also felt a sharp pang of disappointment. Perhaps it would be unwise to bring Merry so close to the action.

Almost immediately Robert banished the disappointing doubts. Merry would not be near the action at all. Thomieres was no longer in the area. obidos was over seventeen miles south of Alcobaca. Surely she would be in no more danger staying in Alcobaca than in Leiria. If they retreated-and Robert did not really believe that any retreat would be necessary, the troops were in good condition, morale was high, and Sir Arthur had not yet lost a battle-Merry would be well in advance of retrograde movement. Thus, it would be perfectly safe to bring her to Alcobaca.

When Robert again asked permission to return to Leiria, Sir Arthur looked at him most peculiarly, however, since there were several other officers in the room, he did not comment cynically about Robert's being surprisingly attentive for a husband engaged in a marriage of convenience, which he might have done had they been alone. Nor did he make any objection to the request because Robert had been waiting that morning with the other ADCs when Sir Arthur had finished shaving and been ready to give orders. In fact, Sir Arthur was beginning to believe that what had started as an act of duty had turned into a love affair. A romantic himself, although he kept his soft heart very well hidden, Sir Arthur felt considerable empathy with his handsome young ADC. If he wished to spend a last night with his love, why not?

Had Sir Arthur known that Robert intended to bring his wife south, he might have remonstrated, but no mention was made of that. It was not a conscious omission on Robert's part. He had reasoned it all out, and it seemed logical enough to him. To his mind it was silly to annoy Sir Arthur with unessential, personal details. Nor, for the same reason, did Robert mention the next morning when he appeared for duty that Esmeralda had taken over the quarters that the ADCs had just vacated.

To Robert's mind, Merry had listened to the news of the proximity of the French army with absolute indifference, and she had agreed with complete conviction with Robert's a.n.a.lysis of the situation. In fact, Esmeralda believed Robert was right, but she knew she would have agreed with equal fervor even if he had told her the sky was bright red and that the officers would attack riding flying pigs instead of horses. Not that she was still ignorant of the ways of war. She realized that a total rout completely out of control might endanger her, even as far as seventeen miles away. However even if she had thought certain destruction very likely and had been terrified, Esmeralda would have pretended indifference.

Having heard that action was imminent, she was determined to be near Robert. If he should be hurt, she intended to nurse him. It was her conviction, from stories she had heard, that as many wounded died from neglect and the inadequate medical facilities as died from the effects of the wounds themselves. And actually, Esmeralda was not at all afraid. Her military opinions having been molded by Robert and his friends, she was even more confident than Robert that the British would be victorious in any action Sir Arthur decided to undertake. It was not herself, safe in Alcobaca, for whom she feared.

Fortunately, Robert had taken her frozen rigidity of absolute horror to be indifference. And when he began to tell her of the distance between the armies and that it was likely that the French would retreat for several days longer while they grouped their forces and brought up reinforcements, Esmeralda's immediate anxiety had melted enough for her to reply to his conversation rationally. Even so, Robert had his doubts as to the wisdom of Esmeralda moving farther south, but the two evenings he had spent alone with her had sharply reinforced his pleasure in her company. As on that first evening in Oporto, they had talked about army affairs, played cards, and laughed a great deal.

By now Robert was growing quite expert in finding excuses to keep Esmeralda close, and she aided and abetted him with the agility of mind developed by years of outwitting her father. Between them, they found reasons enough for her to continue south with Robert to Caldas on the morning of August 15. There had not been even a smell of the French, Robert told himself. There could be no danger in moving her south once more.

His conscience should have stabbed him, because early the next morning four companies of the Sixtieth and of the Ninety-fifth Rifles came upon French pickets established at the windmill of Brilos, just about a mile outside of Caldas. Upon order the English troops drove the French out without the smallest difficulty, but their officers, being more gallant than sensible and lifted to enthusiasm by finally coming upon the enemy, unwisely followed the fleeing French troops, firing as they ran.

When the mill was clear, Sir Arthur dismounted to climb to the top of it to survey the countryside. He examined the terrain minutely while the sound of the firing diminished into the distance. After fifteen or twenty minutes, he dropped his gla.s.s from his eye and c.o.c.ked his head to listen to the intermittent sound of the guns still fading. Then he tchk'd and lifted his gla.s.s to his eye. After a few minutes more, he turned his head toward his staff.

"Campbell, Spencer's division should be well forward to our left. Tell him to send a brigade on to obidos with all the speed they can make. Moreton, ride after those idiotic Rifles and tell them to stop at once. They can hold their ground if it is reasonable to do so, but they are to retire to Spencer's protection without further contact if threatened by a superior force."

Campbell was already gone down the stairs, and Robert followed him, leapt into the saddle, and kicked Mars into a full gallop. The skirmishers were well in front, however, and it was apparent by the time he came close that it was too late. The sharp cracks of the rifled weapons still came intermittently, but there was a heavy roll of the duller explosions produced by unrifled muskets. Robert could see a thick fog of gun smoke spread over the rising ground, behind which, he presumed, lay the village of obidos.

Cursing fluently, he drove Mars even faster. It was clear that the advance skirmishers had run into the rear guard of Delaborde's division for whom they were no match. Quickly Robert ran over Sir Arthur's orders in his mind. Sir Arthur expected his orders to be obeyed as they were given, but sometimes there was leeway in how to obey. Robert did not believe it was still possible to retreat without bringing the rear guard after the English troops. If he had been certain just where Spencer was, that might be a clever move because Spencer's division could then surprise and overwhelm the French, however he did not know how far away Spencer was.

At this point in his ruminations a ball whizzed by so close that Robert flinched automatically. It was nearly spent and could have done little harm even if it had hit him, nonetheless, he began to look for cover. Aside from low bushes, there was none. All Robert could do was ride off the road itself to where bushes and irregular ground might confuse the eye. For all of that, he had scarcely slackened his pace. Mars was sagacious about where he put his feet. A shot plucked at Robert's sleeve, and he cursed again. Then, off to the right, he saw a Rifleman sitting behind a bush trying to stanch the bleeding from one shoulder.

"Have you come back far, Rifleman?" Robert shouted.

"Haven't fallen back at all, sir," the man replied. "I was one of the first hit."

Seeing as he came closer that the bush was taller than he had first thought, Robert pulled up and dismounted. He ripped off his sash and tied it quickly around the trooper's shoulder, hoping the pressure would decrease the flow of blood. It was not a gratuitous act of mercy. Robert wanted to use the man.

"Hold my horse in this shelter," he ordered. "If you go faint, tie him to you or the bush. I don't wish to walk back to Sir Arthur."

The Rifleman nodded, and Robert began to run forward. Bullets flew by with more frequency, but they were, he thought, the result of bad aim rather than any attempt to shoot him. Most of the fire was still concentrated ahead of him. Another two minutes brought him to a corpse, then another, then a man doubled forward, breathing hard.

"Where are your officers?" Robert called.

"Lieutenant Bunbury's dead, sir," he gasped, and waved vaguely farther to the right.

A dead officer was of no use to Robert, so he veered off to the left, hoping positions had not been so inextricably mixed that another officer would be toward the center of the action at a distance. Robert's movements were now necessarily erratic as he ducked and darted, using whatever cover he could find.

"d.a.m.n your b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.s!" a voice bellowed at him suddenly. "Get down and use your gun."

Robert sighed with relief as he bent double and crawled in the direction from which that enraged and authoritative voice had come. "Staff!" he shouted, not wanting his blue coat to be taken for a Frenchman's uniform.

"I suppose if I don't get shot here," the young officer said bitterly as Robert flopped beside him, "the Beau will have us all shot when we get back."

Robert laughed. "You deserve it, but no, I don't think it will be as bad as that. He's likely to peel off your ears, though." As he spoke he had pulled out his Ellis and c.o.c.ked it. "What he said," Robert went on as he peered intently through the fog created by the repeated powder explosions for a target within pistol range, "was to tell those idiots to stop at once. You are to hold the ground if you can but retreat to Spencer's protection without further contact before a superior force."

The officer groaned. Robert started to laugh again, but an errant breeze pulled the smoke apart, and ahead of him just barely within pistol range a blue-coated figure rose and leveled a musket. Robert fired. The figure cried out and fell backward. The fog closed in again.

"How the devil can we retreat?" the officer snarled. "They'll be down on us like hounds on a fox."

"You might not need to," Robert offered, working the c.o.c.king mechanism on his pistol. "A brigade of Spencer's is coming to the rescue. It depends on how far forward his division is, how fast he can move them, and how long you can hold out here."

"The French will run over us if they charge."

Robert shrugged. He knew it. He knew, too, that technically a staff officer should be able to offer advice within the bounds of the orders he carried. The theory was that, owing to experience in the field and a wider view of the battle situation, a staff officer could provide information a field officer would not have. Robert was in a better position to offer help than most of the ADCs since he had nearly ten years of military service and had seen considerable action. However, he had never served in the field, and in this case the possibilities were so limited that advice was useless. Obviously the lieutenant with whom he was speaking could not make any major decision, either.

"Where is your captain?" Robert asked.

"Ahead, if he's still alive. Bunbury's had it."

"Yes, I know," Robert said, rising to a crouch and starting off in the direction pointed.

Because the troops were pinned down, Robert thought he could find the captain of the company in the same position, but he had moved. Robert hunted for another fifteen or twenty minutes before he found Captain Leach, with whom he was acquainted, worrying all the time he searched about what he could say aside from the orders he had been given. Fortunately, just as he squatted down to speak, the sound of Spencer's drums came, very faint and distant, but nonetheless unmistakable.

The crisis was not over, in fact the indication that a supporting force was close might induce the French officers to order an immediate attack to do as much damage as they could before they retreated. However, with help coming, the solution was obvious. Robert delivered his orders, identified the oncoming rescuers, and when Captain Leach snapped orders to the buglers for the men to fall in to close defensive formation-which was what Robert himself would have suggested-he relaxed. Sometimes a field officer resented suggestions from staff that were not direct orders from a commanding officer.

Robert did not, however, leave at once. It was his duty not only to pa.s.s along orders but to report accurately concerning the situation, and there was little he could say about it until he knew whether the beleaguered troops would be rushed and, if so, whether they could hold out. Essentially, however, the action had ended. The men successfully formed three deep around the summit of a little hill, and although there was enough firing to keep them pinned down, the rush they expected never came. When the light began to fail, Robert made his way back to his horse, a.s.sured the Rifleman, who was still conscious, that help was on its way, mounted up, and galloped back to make his report to Sir Arthur.

Robert was too wise after years of service with Sir Arthur to advance any personal opinion unless asked for it or to offer any excuses for the action of men and officers as he might have done had he been serving with Sir John Moore. He reported exactly what he had seen and done-no more, no less.

"Casualties?" Sir Arthur asked.

"Lieutenant Bunbury dead, sir. That was reported by one of the men and one of the officers. I saw about a dozen wounded, three dead, aside from Bunbury."

Sir Arthur made a small sound of irritation, but his expression held none of the rigidity that appeared when he was reining in his temper. "Ah, well," he said, his voice sounding indulgent, "it was very foolish, but it shows an excellent spirit. They behaved very well, after all, if not with great prudence."

The army advanced into obidos with due caution, but the French were gone. Small detachments of cavalry were sent out with strict orders not to engage, but they found nothing as far as three miles south of the town. Pickets were set up within the perimeter that the cavalry had covered, and Sir Arthur settled into quarters. His genial behavior that evening showed he was well satisfied with the march of events, and Robert was so exhilarated by his first taste of action since the affair at Copenhagen that he forgot Esmeralda's existence entirely.

Even when the ADCs left the mess, the talk was all of the coming action. It was not until Robert began to strip off his clothing to go to sleep that he remembered Esmeralda would be expecting him and he had not even sent a message. He paused in his undressing to consider whether he should ride back to Caldas, but he was a little the worse for wine. Burghersh had laid his hands on a very tolerable vintage. After a moment Robert continued with his disrobing. After all, Merry had told him that he was not to worry himself if it was inconvenient to send a message. If she did not care, why should he? It did not take much more effort for Robert to decide that he was not fit to present himself to a lady, and he tumbled into bed.

Chapter Fourteen.

The next day it was discovered that the French had retreated only a few miles farther than Sir Arthur's scouting parties had gone, to a village at the meeting of the roads leading to Torres Vedras, Montachique, and Alcoentre, called Rolica. Sir Arthur decided to ride out to examine the land himself, as was his habit, and his staff would naturally accompany him. Fortunately, Robert had expected this and had made arrangements to warn Esmeralda that he might be absent for several days.

Since more action was imminent, Robert could not detach M'Guire from his unit, but he managed to locate one of the men of the Sixtieth who had been hit in the upper arm and could not fire a gun but whose wound was slight enough to permit him to walk the three and a half miles to Caldas. Robert scribbled a note to Esmeralda to be delivered by this man. Having relieved his conscience, he went buoyantly about his duties.

The position at Rolica taken up by the French commander Delaborde was a good one. The sandy plain that stretched south of obidos became enclosed on either flank by bold hills in the region of Rolica, and behind the village lay a connecting cross ridge, broken by a sort of gorge through which the road pa.s.sed southward. To the right of the defile of the road just below the heights of the ridge was another village called Columbeira. On the other side, but some distance behind, was Zambugeira. However, Delaborde had placed his men on an isolated rise of ground some distance ahead of the cross ridge. On the eastern slope of the isolated rise was the village of Rolica.

The names of the villages beyond Rolica and the lay of the land were determined by a combination of observation and information obtained from the local people. Robert was detailed to the duty of questioning the inhabitants of obidos, since he had become reasonably fluent in Portuguese. Often when he missed a word and had to ask for repet.i.tion or explanation, he found himself wis.h.i.+ng for Esmeralda. Once or twice he found himself wondering whether it would be possible for him to get back to Caldas-and he was rather shocked at having such an idea when it was plain Sir Arthur was waiting only for the whole army to be a.s.sembled and given a night's rest before they attacked in earnest.

Nonetheless, once the idea got into Robert's head it kept recurring, and with each recurrence it seemed more reasonable. It was less than four miles to Caldas. He would not stay the night, he told himself. He would only ride over for an hour or two to tell Merry what was going on. She was always so eager for news.

Now and again common sense reared its ugly head to point out that visiting with Merry, even for an hour or two, was an invitation to s.e.xual discomfort, if not actually to a sleepless night then to very restless dreams. That, Robert told himself as he finished the written report of the information he had gathered, was not Merry's fault. Merry never flirted with him or made suggestive remarks. Robert paused with the report in hand. How odd that was. All the young women he knew flirted and made suggestive remarks to him if he gave them half a chance. Yet he had spent hours alone with Merry and she had acted just like his sisters, except of course a hundred times more sensibly. Why? It had been pleasant at first because he was able to be relaxed with her. Why was it no longer pleasant?

The questions were not to be answered immediately. Somerset came out of the room Sir Arthur was using as an office and said, "Oh, there you are. Sir Arthur's ready for you."

But at that moment Sir Arthur himself came out and said, "Come along, Moreton. We're going to compare all the information we've picked up, and there are likely to be questions that can't be answered by a report."

Robert followed Sir Arthur into a larger chamber, in which most of the general officers were already sitting and talking. Lord Fitzroy Somerset and Lord Burghersh had preceded him and Sir Arthur. Burghersh was refilling gla.s.ses as they emptied, and Somerset remained seated inconspicuously at a small table with writing implements and paper for taking notes. Sir Arthur greeted his officers genially. Nothing could have pleased him more than a chance for action. With the immediate threat of supersession hanging over him, he was very eager to make some mark.

"Well, Taylor," he said to the commander of the Twentieth Light Dragoons, which had been scouting the area, "what have your men to tell us?"

He listened to that report and to other fragmentary information, to the details Robert had extracted from the local Portuguese, and at last turned to Somerset and asked, "What have we, then?"

"General Delaborde seems to have four to five thousand men and about five or six guns," Lord Fitzroy summarized. "All reports agree that he has taken up a position on the hill behind Rolica. The Portuguese believe that General Loison was recently as close as Alcoentre and is marching to support Delaborde with as many as ten thousand troops and twenty guns."

"How reliable is the last rumor?" General Henry Fane asked.

Sir Arthur looked to Robert, who replied, "I should say the numbers are exaggerated. I got wild variations in estimates of troops. Those who are afraid we will run immediately give ridiculously low numbers. I have been told over and over that Delaborde has no more than fifteen hundred or two thousand men. Then there are those locals who fear that if we fight and then run, the French will punish them. They give much higher numbers, six or eight thousand for Delaborde and ten or fifteen guns, to discourage us from fighting. I've heard as many as twenty thousand for Loison and that he is hiding just over the hills at Zambugeira until we launch an attack."

"What I like," Caitlin Crawfurd said sardonically, "is the universal opinion that we will be beaten. The only doubt seems to be whether we will run away before the fight or after it."

Fane laughed. "There seems to be considerable surprise among the locals that we dared challenge the pickets at Brilos."

"The less said about that the better," Sir Arthur remarked, but not with any great severity. "I like to see dash in the men, but a little prudence would have accomplished the same result without any loss at all."

"I have spoken to my brigade," Fane said, with just a shade of stiffness in his voice.

"What I want to know," Rowland Hill put in smoothly, "is what Delaborde thinks he is doing on that silly hill in the middle of nowhere. If the information we have about his guns is correct, he can't hope to hold us off with artillery. As the ground lies, he's just asking to be encircled and swallowed. I wonder, could Delaborde have more guns than we believe? Could he know more of Loison's position than we do?"

"Anything is possible," Sir Arthur admitted without a shade of worry, "but it is my belief that Delaborde is afflicted with the same conviction as the Portuguese. Frankly, I am convinced he thinks we are afraid of the 'invincible' French. I imagine he hopes that we will either retreat or sit here trying to find the courage to attack until Junot's main force comes up from Lisbon."

There was a low, throaty sound in the room. Robert was surprised by it for a split second and then, as he realized he was contributing to it himself by growling like an animal, he almost laughed. Gentility, he thought, was spread very thin when a man's courage was brought into question, and Sir Arthur he realized with another near spurt of laughter, had deliberately poked his finger into a sore spot. How many of his officers did think Bonaparte's troops were invincible? How many might have counseled caution before Sir Arthur had made that statement? Robert repressed a temptation to smile. Not one would do so now.

Quite naturally, Sir Arthur now moved into the planning stage of this conference. Just as Robert had surmised, there was not a single protest or suggestion that more reconnaissance might be necessary. Indeed, the only objections voiced at all, and those were humorous, were by the officers relegated to reserve positions. Once the general designations were made, Sir Arthur suggested that they have dinner before they got down to particulars.

The night of August 15 was the worst of Esmeralda's life since that of her mother's death. She had not worried much at first. Occasionally Robert had come in very late, even when they had been at Figueira. However, by midnight she had given up hope and gone to bed. Over and over she told herself that there were endless reasons for his absence, but none she could think of gave her any comfort. Even the most harmless, that Sir Arthur had required some service that sent Robert too far to return to Caldas, implied some serious situation had arisen. And there was the recurring fear that the quiet evenings had become boring and that Robert simply preferred being with his cronies.