Preparing to Leave Lisbon

She smiled and shook her head. "Nah, only me old dad. No brothers and sisters like you. Tell me the others' names."

He grinned. "Well, there's Billy, an' Becky, then me. Daniel, Sukey, Sam. Then Billy went to work up at the big house, in the stables like I said. So there was Josh and Tabby - Tabitha - then Becky went into service and Ruth came. And I was about fourteen when Mal was born. And that's my family."

He had another mouthful of wine. "Dunno how we all fit in the cottage; it was only small." Like any labourer's cottage was, of course.

"That's a lot of children in a cottage. It's a good thing you had another ma."

"Well, we wasn't all children at the same time. I was workin' by the time Mal was born. Well, I'd started workin' when I was five or so. Bird-scarin' and stone-pickin', mostly. Keepin' the bird off'n the fields in spring, and picking stones out o' them afore the winter ploughin'. With a family that big, we needed all the money we could get."

"It ain't the King's fault he's mad. Prob'ly been driven mad by his son, fr'm all I've heard about him."

It probably was treasonous, but they were wearing the King's uniform - well, he was, anyway - and risking their lives in his service. So only a fool would say anything about it. If there was anyone here who cared; the Rifleman had finally put his arm around the girl, their voices dropping low as they spoke about who knew what.

"It is not, poor creature," Stephen said, relieved. He followed Sharpe's gaze to the rifleman, his arms around a woman. "I wish them joy of it," he said, meaning it, but a little wistfully.

"Look happy enough, don't they?" Sharpe said. Was the woman planning on following him to war? She looked tough enough to cope, to Sharpe's mind.

"Hmm." Stephen examined the scene, his head cocked to the left. "The lady's posture is a little rigid - see the slightly unnatural curvature of the spine?" He gestured with his hand, and then watched for a moment. "She forces herself to relax, but then her shoulders grow tense again. I wonder if the young man is oblivious."

Sharpe frowned. "He ain't forcin' himself on her, is he?" They looked happy enough, and he wasn't sure he saw what the Doctor was seeing. But the Doctor was used to looking at people in a way that Sharpe wasn't, and was probably used to seeing things in the way they held themselves that Sharpe couldn't see.

"Oh, Christ in heaven, no. No, that I am certain of. I would guess that he is the instigator, but a gentle one - see the touch so tender, there - he was too hesitant by far, though he looks happier now. The one thing that can be said of all the rapists I have known is that they did not know hesitancy. Embarrassment, occasionally. No - the physical vulnerability is hers, of course, but it is him that my instinct might fear for. She knows something he does not. She was hesitant herself earlier, she leant away, and hid her face, but now she nods, and stares enraptured - she denies herself."

Sharpe wasn't sure he understood quite what the doctor meant. "Are you sayin' she's tryin' to make him happy, but isn't happy herself?" Because that sounded strange to him. This was interesting, though, watching while while the object of their observations was unaware of their scrutiny. He tried to see what seemed to be so clear to the Doctor, but couldn't. "You seem to be more practiced than me in seein' things," he said lightly, quietly, unwilling to make the Rifleman and his girl aware they were being watched.

"There is some self-interest, I would wager, and a genuine liking, but in the essentials, that would be my guess. A great uncertainty in all." Stephen quickly turned his head to Sharpe when he judged that he might be in the man's peripheral vision. "Well, my professional field is the study of people, and observation is of course essential in... But I would never be able to look at a ship and instantly know which rope was out of place, or scan a terrain and know whether it would be an advantage or a disadvantage to fight there, save the most obvious of assessments that any innocent might make. In all of our occupations," with a small emphasis on 'our', "the eyes are more important than the hands."

"Aye, that's true enough. I reckon we learn to take note of the things that we need to know, and see things that will affect us." He was good enough at reading ground and to see the advantages and disadvantages of places for certain types of fighting, from sniping and skirmishing as a Rifleman, to manouevring as a redcoat.

Though of course he'd not learned his skill so well where it applied to redcoats; most of the time when he needed the open plains for marching around, he was in the ranks, blindly obeying orders.

"Do you suppose she could learn to be happy with him?" he asked, indicating the couple again. He rather hoped there would be a happy ending for them, though why that should be so, he didn't know.

"Possibilissima - it is eminently possible - there is certainly an evident tendre, a mutual liking and kindness, a desire for friendship and companionship. I have seen relationships built on far shakier foundations than that. A gentler emotion may kindle love where passion may burn it out."

It was somehow easier to discuss love and emotions when the focus wasn't on him. When people asked him how he felt about stuff like that, he retreated into brusqueness, and knew that people thought of him as some emotionless bastard of a soldier because of it.

But he did appreciate the finer things about love. Just not when he was the focal point of the examination. "I hope they do work it out," he said, ostensibly focussing on the cup he was holding, yet watching them out of the corner of his eye.

Stephen was a stranger to Storge. He did not know where he stood in terms of Agape, in direct contravention of the teachings of the Church. He thought that Philia had been burnt from his soul along with his will to live, but a chance meeting in Mahon had unfurled its banner within him again, and now he was a fiercely devoted follower. He was Eros' failure, broken and rejected, save in that Platonic sense, in which he was its favoured and blessed child. "As do I," he said, sharing a warm smile between the couple and Richard Sharpe, pleased by his companion's emotion.

"It ain't so easy, having your girl followin' you to war," Sharpe said, remembering India and Mary Bickerstaff. She'd found another man, someone much better suited to her than Sharpe was, and he wondered if they had married.

Then there was Grace - Lady Grace Hale - who he'd taken up with, only for her to die in childbed. He wondered if he'd ever find a woman he could marry and settle down with. Probably not; he'd be a soldier till his dying day - which might be all too soon, considering.

Stephen wondered if Sharpe spoke from personal experience, or from half a lifetime spent as a soldier watching the lives of others. "I do not doubt it. It is an option more available in the army, I find. I wonder if she will choose to do the same?"

"It bein' the last night we're here, and them lookin' the way they do, I reckon she's made her mind up to follow him." He looked back at his companion. "How do they cope in the Navy, if they can't take their girls with them?"

"Quietly."

"What? Oh." He nearly choked on his drink before realising what the doctor meant. Like that, was it? It happened in the army as well, sometimes, but he'd heard less about it since gaining his commission. Everyone in the ranks knew about it, but officers, even officers like himself, were no longer in the ranks, and there were certain things officers did not, and could not, know about. That being one of them.

"Ever known a case of sodomy, then?" he asked, keeping his voice down. It was not, of course, something you discussed in polite society.

"A fair number. When I first entered the service I was quite astonished to hear of a man to be hanged for molesting a goat; the goat to be hanged too, in some Byzantine ritual of punishment. Quite horrible." He sighed, and sat back. "The goat would then be given to the mess who informed on him - the reward of informing was nearly as upsetting as the illiberal punishment of the crime."

He sipped at his brandy, and then continued. "And then there is of course the inevitable venereal explosion as soon as the ship reaches port, and I to treat half the crew for pox on the way out again. Some captains even allow the prostitutes to board the ship as soon as they are able, to turn the lower decks into a nude writhing mass, but I have always sailed under one captain, who has never allowed it. Some men find the long voyages too much to bear, especially if their tastes are rather less forgiven by society; I have found the tincture of laudanum to answer well as an antaphrodisiac."

"Hardly the goat's fault if someone wanted to bugger the poor thing. But if a ship has been away from port for months, it ain't surprising what men will do to get a bit of relief, the law be damned." And most towns with soldiers or sailors had a sizable number of brothels, so it was hardly surprising that if sailors couldn't get leave, the women would come to them.

"I wouldn't have thought that giving a man laudanum would help him do his job, though. But maybe they don't have to be so alert as riflemen do?" Though he recalled watching the sailors on the Pucelle and doubted any of them could have managed what they did if dosed to the gills.

"Oh, the men have to be very alert, particularly during a chase - but laudanum softens by its nature, and much less is needed to do its work than, for example, alcohol. Used sparingly, of course, and in need. And a man cannot be alert if plagued by desire and staring longingly after the ship's boys or midshipmen instead of scanning the horizon or keeping an eye to his work."

"Well, that's certainly true. Seems to me that if a man joins the Navy, he should cease to be a man at all. It's only natural to want a woman once in a while, after all." He leaned back in his seat, stretching his legs out under the table, careful to avoid bumping Stephen because of his injury. "Must say, I'm glad I took the shillin' and 'listed in th'Army."