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a fine job of letting them get away, for they had seen no trace of pursuit as they began the long climb into the hills. He hoped that the others had not paid too high a price, and it was frustrating that they would not know what had happened until they were picked up in a week’s time. If they were picked up.
    Sergeant Murphy had dismounted and let the rest of the party pass until Pringle reached him.
    ‘We are being followed, sir,’ the Irishman whispered.
    ‘Have you seen them?’ Pringle asked.
    Murphy shrugged. ‘Not quite, sir.’
    ‘Keep looking. It may be the partisans.’
    ‘There is that, sir.’
    Pringle wondered whether this was how the French felt wherever they marched in Spain or Portugal, always looking over their shoulders, never sure whether one or two – or hundreds or even thousands of – irregulars were lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce on stragglers or anyone else who looked vulnerable. He shuddered, and for a moment felt very sorry for his enemies. Pringle did not hate the French. It was natural to see them as enemies, for the war had begun when he was very young, and was just another war between Britain and France in over a century of conflict. John Bull fought Johnny Crapaud on sea and on land and that was simply how it was. Pringle’s allegiance to his country was so deep rooted that he rarely called it to mind, let alone felt any need to speak of it. When he thought at all, it was more of his regiment and friends, but even there the loyalty was instinctive. He fought for them, and because he was a soldier, moderately ambitious for distinction, and because he would have thought less of himself if he failed. Some of the French fought to impose their way of life or their power on others, but Pringle guessed most thought as he did, at least most of their officers.Napoleon’s men fought bravely and skilfully – too skilfully sometimes – and Pringle respected them. He could remember the British and French mingling as they filled canteens from the stream between the rival armies during that long lull at Talavera.
    That would not happen in the ‘little war’. The guerrilleros hated and were hated in return by the French. When either side bothered to take prisoners at all it was often only to execute them at a later time. This war was bitter and brutal, and was fought in any little place at any time when there was a chance to kill. Pringle could understand the hatred of the Spanish for the invader, and wondered whether he might act as the French had done, hanging and shooting indiscriminately, if he had seen some of his own men tortured and mutilated by angry peasants. He simply prayed that he would never face such implacable and elusive foes.
    For the next hour Pringle did his best to look for any sign of trouble. Once or twice he thought he glimpsed darker shadows amid the trees, but could not swear to it, and it may have been imagination. After a while the woods thinned to isolated trees, until these too failed and all that was left was low scrub. The guide led them into a maze of tight little valleys, until finally they came to a small lake filled with dark water, sitting at the bottom of a circle of high crests. Big boulders and clumps of bushes dotted the grass around them. Little ravines led off on several sides, and the guide led them up one of them. When they came closer they saw a gap between two rocky slopes, the entrance barely wide enough for a man or a mule to pass through. The guide for once gave more detailed instructions, telling them to wait as he walked warily up to the gap.
    ‘I think we might have arrived,’ said Hanley.
    ‘ Ya veremos ,’ Sinclair replied, giving them all a stage wink.
    The one-eyed guide produced a whistle and blew three short blasts and one long, echoes taking up the sound and repeating it from all sides.
    ‘Would it not be a terrible shame if no one was at home,’ Pringle said.
    ‘Well, we could always leave our cards,’ the major