"Sharpe's Havoc" - читать интересную книгу автора (Корнуэлл Бернард)CHAPTER 7it was just before midday when a French soldier climbed the hill carrying a white flag of truce tied to the muzzle of his musket. Two officers accompanied him, one in French infantry blue and the other, Colonel Christopher, in his red British uniform jacket with its black facings and cuffs. Sharpe and Vicente went to meet the two officers who had advanced a dozen paces ahead of the glum-looking man with the white flag and Vicente was forcibly struck by the resemblance between Sharpe and the French infantry officer, who was a tall, black-haired man with a scar on his right cheek and a bruise across the bridge of his nose. His ragged blue uniform bore the green-fringed epaulettes that showed he was a light infantryman and his flared shako was fronted with a white metal plate stamped with the French eagle and the number 31. The badge was surmounted by a plume of red and white feathers which looked new and fresh compared to the Frenchman’s stained and threadbare uniform. „We’ll kill the Frog first,” Sharpe said to Vicente, „because he’s the dangerous bugger, and then we’ll fillet Christopher slowly.” „Sharpe!” the lawyer in Vicente was shocked. „They’re under a flag of truce!” They stopped a few paces from Colonel Christopher, who took a toothpick from his lips and chucked it away. „How are you, Sharpe?” he asked genially, then held up a hand to stay any answer. „Give me a moment, will you?” the Colonel said and one-handedly clicked open a tinderbox, struck a light and drew on a cigar. When it was burning satisfactorily he closed the tinderbox’s lid on the small flames and smiled. „Fellow with me is called Major Dulong. He don’t speak a word of English, but he wanted to have a look at you.” Sharpe looked at Dulong, recognized him as the officer who had led so bravely up the hill, and then felt sorry that a good man had climbed back up the hill alongside a traitor. A traitor and a thief. „Where’s my telescope?” he demanded of Christopher. „Back down the hill,” Christopher said carelessly. „You can have it later.” He drew on the cigar and looked at the French bodies among the rocks. „Brigadier Vuillard has been a mite over eager, wouldn’t you say? Cigar?” „Please yourself.” The Colonel sucked deep. „You’ve done well, Sharpe, proud of you. The 31st Leger”-he jerked his head toward Dulong-”ain’t used to losing. You showed the damn Frogs how an Englishman fights, eh?” „And how Irishmen fight,” Sharpe said, „and Scots, Welsh and Portuguese.” „Decent of you to remember the uglier breeds,” Christopher said, „but it’s over now, Sharpe, all over. Time to pack up and go. Frogs are offering you honors of war and all that. March out with your guns shouldered, your colors flying and let bygones be bygones. They ain’t happy, Sharpe, but I persuaded them.” Sharpe looked at Dulong again and he wondered if there was a look of warning in the Frenchman’s eyes. Dulong had said nothing, but just stood a pace behind Christopher and two paces to the side and Sharpe suspected the Major was distancing himself from Christopher’s errand. Sharpe looked back to Christopher. „You think I’m a damned fool, don’t you?” he retorted. Christopher ignored the comment. „I don’t think you’ve time to reach Lisbon. Cradock will be gone in a day or two and his army with him. They’re going home, Sharpe. Back to England, so probably the best thing for you to do is wait in Oporto. The French have agreed to repatriate all British citizens and a ship will probably be sailing from there within a week or two and you and your fellows can be aboard.” „Will you be aboard?” Sharpe asked. „I very well might, Sharpe, thank you for asking. And if you’ll forgive me for sounding immodest I rather fancy I shall sail home to a hero’s welcome. The man who brought peace to Portugal! There has to be a knighthood in that, don’t you think? Not that I care, of course, but I’m sure Kate will enjoy being Lady Christopher.” „If you weren’t under a flag of truce,” Sharpe said, „I’d disembowel you here and now. I know what you’ve been doing. Dinner parties with French generals? Bringing them here so they could snap us up? You’re a bloody traitor, Christopher, nothing but a bloody traitor.” The vehemence of his tone brought a small smile to Major Dulong’s grim face. „Oh dear.” Christopher looked pained. „Oh dear me, dear me.” He stared at a nearby French corpse for a few seconds, then shook his head. „I’ll overlook your impertinence, Sharpe. I suppose that damned servant of mine found his way to you? He did? Thought as much. Luis has an unrivaled talent for misunderstanding circumstances.” He drew on his cigar, then blew a plume of smoke that was whirled away on the wind. „I was sent here, Sharpe, by His Majesty’s government with instructions to discover whether Portugal was worth fighting for, whether it was worth an effusion of British blood and I concluded, and I’ve no doubt you will disagree with me, that it was not. So I obeyed the second part of my remit, which was to secure terms from the French. Not terms of surrender, Sharpe, but of settlement. We shall withdraw our forces and they will withdraw theirs, though for form’s sake they will be allowed to march a token division through the streets of Lisbon. Then they’re going: „I know,” Sharpe interrupted. „More things in heaven and earth than I bloody know about, but what the hell were you doing here?” His voice was angry now. „And you’ve been wearing a French uniform. Luis told me.” „Can’t usually wear this red coat behind French lines, Sharpe,” Christopher said, „and civilian clothes don’t exactly command respect these days, so yes, I do sometimes wear a French uniform. It’s a „Oh, Sharpe,” Christopher said sadly. „We needed somewhere quiet to sign the memorandum of agreement, some place where the mob could not express its crude opinions and so I offered the Quinta. I confess I did not consider your predicament as thoroughly as I should and that is my fault. I am sorry.” He even offered Sharpe the hint of a bow. „The French came here, they deemed your presence a trap and, against my advice, attempted to attack you. I apologize again, Sharpe, most profusely, but it’s over now. You are free to leave, you do not offer a surrender, you do not yield your weapons, you march out with your head held high and you will go with my sincerest congratulations and, naturally, I shall make quite certain that your Colonel learns of your achievement here.” He waited for Sharpe’s answer and, when none came, smiled. „And, of course,” he went on, „I shall be honored to return your telescope. I clean forgot to bring it with me just now.” „You forgot nothing, you bastard,” Sharpe growled. „Sharpe,” Christopher said reprovingly, „try not to be brutish. Try to understand that diplomacy employs subtlety, intelligence and, yes, deceit. And try to understand that I have negotiated your freedom. You may leave the hill in triumph.” Shame stared into Christopher’s face which seemed so guileless, so pleased to be the bearer of this news. „And what happens if we stay?” he asked. „I have not the foggiest idea,” Christopher said, „but of course I shall try to find out if that is, indeed, your wish. But my guess, Sharpe, is that the French will construe such stubbornness as a hostile gesture. There are, sadly, folk in this country who will oppose our settlement. They are misguided people who would prefer to fight rather than accept a negotiated peace, and if you stay here then that encourages their foolishness. My own suspicion is that if you insist upon staying, and thus break the terms of our agreement, the French will bring mortars from Oporto and do their best to persuade you to leave.” He drew on the cigar, then flinched as a raven pecked at the eyes of a nearby corpse. „Major Dulong would like to collect these men.” He gestured with the cigar toward the bodies left by Sharpe’s riflemen. „He’s got one hour,” Sharpe said, „and he can bring ten men, none of them armed. And tell him some of my men will be on the hill, and they won’t be armed either.” Christopher frowned. „Why would your men need to be on the open hillside?” he asked. „Because we’ve got to bury our dead,” Sharpe said, „and it’s all rock up there.” Christopher drew on the cigar. „I think it would be much better, Sharpe,” he said gently, „if you brought your men down now.” Sharpe shook his head. „I’ll think about it,” he said. „You’ll think about it?” Christopher repeated, looking irritated now. „And how long, might I ask, will it take you to think about it?” „As long as it takes,” Sharpe said, „and I can be a very slow thinker.” „You have one hour, Lieutenant,” Christopher said, „precisely one hour.” He spoke in French to Dulong who nodded at Sharpe, who nodded back, then Christopher threw away the half-smoked cigar, turned on his heel and went. „He’s lying,” Sharpe said. Vicente was less certain. „You can be sure of that?” „I’ll tell you why I’m sure,” Sharpe said, „the bugger didn’t give me an order. This is the army. You don’t suggest, you order. Do this, do that, but he didn’t. He’s given me orders before, but not today.” Vicente translated for the benefit of Sergeant Macedo who, with Harper, had been invited to listen to Sharpe’s report. Both sergeants, like Vicente, looked troubled, but they said nothing. „Why,” Vicente asked, „would he not give you an order?” „Because he wants me to walk off this hilltop of my own accord, because what’s going to happen down there isn’t pretty. Because he was lying.” „You can’t be sure of that,” Vicente said sternly, sounding more like the lawyer he had been rather than the soldier he now was. „We can’t be sure of bloody anything,” Sharpe grumbled. Vicente looked into the east. „The guns have stopped at Amarante. Maybe there is peace?” „And why would there be peace?” Sharpe asked. „Why did the French come here in the first place?” „To stop us trading with Britain,” Vicente said. „So why withdraw now? The trading will start again. They haven’t finished the job and it isn’t like the French to give up so quick.” Vicente thought for a few seconds. „Perhaps they know they will lose too many men? The further they go into Portugal the more enemies they make and the longer the supply roads they have to protect. Perhaps they are being sensible.” „They’re bloody Frogs,” Sharpe said, „they don’t know the meaning of the word. And there’s something else. Christopher didn’t show me any bits of paper, did he? No agreement signed and sealed.” Vicente considered that argument, then nodded to acknowledge its force. „If you like,” he said, „I will go down and ask to see the paper.” „There isn’t a piece of paper,” Sharpe said, „and none of us are going off this hilltop.” Vicente paused. „Is that an order, „That is an order,” Sharpe said. „We’re staying.” „Then we stay,” Vicente said. He clapped Macedo on the shoulder and the two went back to their men so Vicente could tell them what had happened. Harper sat beside Sharpe. „Are you sure now?” „Of course I’m not bloody sure, Pat,” Sharpe said testily, „but I think he’s lying. He never even asked me how many casualties we had up here! If he was on our side he’d ask that, wouldn’t he?” Harper shrugged as if he could not answer that question. „So what happens if we leave?” „They make us prisoners. March us off to bloody France.” „Or send us home?” „If the war is over, Pat, they’ll send us home, but if the war is over then someone else will tell us. A Portuguese official, someone. Not him, not Christopher. And if the fighting’s over, why give us just an hour? We’d have the rest of our lives to get off this hill, not one hour.” Sharpe stared down the slope where the last of the French bodies was being removed by a squad of infantrymen who had climbed the path with a flag of truce and no weapons. Dulong had led them and he had thought to bring two spades so that Sharpe’s men could bury their corpses: the two Portuguese killed by the howitzer in the dawn attack and Rifleman Donnelly who had been lying on the hilltop under a pile of stones ever since Sharpe had beaten Dulong’s men off the summit. Vicente had sent Sergeant Macedo and three men to dig his two graves and Sharpe had given the second spade to Williamson. „Digging the grave will be the end of your punishment,” he had said. Ever since the confrontation in the wood Sharpe had been giving Williamson extra duties, keeping the man busy and trying to wear his spirit down, but Sharpe reckoned Williamson had been punished enough. „And leave your rifle here,” Sharpe added. Williamson had snatched the spade, dropped his rifle with unnecessary force and, accompanied by Dodd and Harris, gone downhill to where there was enough soil above the rock to make an adequate grave. Harper and Slattery had carried the dead man down from the hilltop and rolled him into the hole and then Harper had said a prayer and Slattery had bowed his head and now Williamson, stripped to his shirtsleeves, was shoveling the soil back into the grave while Dodd and Harris watched the French carry their last casualties away. Harper also watched the French. „What happens if they bring a mortar?” he asked. „We’re buggered,” Sharpe said, „but a lot can happen before a mortar gets here.” „What?” „I don’t know,” Sharpe said irritably. He really did not know, any more than he knew what to do. Christopher had been very persuasive and it was only a streak of stubbornness in Sharpe that made him so certain the Colonel was lying. That and the look in Major Dulong’s eyes. „Maybe I’m wrong, Pat, maybe I’m wrong. Trouble is I like it here.” Harper smiled. „You like it here?” „I like being away from the army. Captain Hogan’s all right, but the rest? I can’t stand the rest.” „Jack puddings,” Harper said flatly, meaning officers. „I’m better on my own,” Sharpe said, „and out here I’m on my own. So we’re staying.” „Aye,” Harper said, „and I think you’re right.” „You do?” Sharpe sounded surprised. „I do,” Harper said, „mind you, my mother never reckoned I was any good at thinking.” Sharpe laughed. „Go and clean your rifle, Pat.” Cooper had boiled a can of water and some of the riflemen used it to swill out their weapons’ barrels. Every shot left a little layer of caked powder that would eventually build up and make the rifle unusable, but hot water dissolved the residue. Some riflemen preferred to piss down the barrel. Hagman used the boiling water, then scraped at his barrel with his ramrod. „You want me to clean yours, sir?” he asked Sharpe. „It’ll wait, Dan,” Sharpe said, then saw Sergeant Macedo and his men come back and he wondered where his own gravediggers were and so he went to the northernmost redoubt from where he could see Harris and Dodd stamping the earth down over Donnelly’s body while Williamson leaned on the spade. „Aren’t you finished?” Sharpe shouted at them. „Hurry!” „Coming, sir!” Harris called, and he and Dodd picked up their jackets and started up the hill. Williamson hefted the spade, looked as if he was about to follow and then, quite suddenly, turned and ran down the hill. „Jesus!” Harper appeared beside Sharpe and raised his rifle. Sharpe pushed it down. He was not trying to save Williamson’s life, but there was a truce on the hill and even a single rifle shot could be construed as breaking the truce and the howitzer could answer the shot while Dodd and Harris were still on the open slope. „The bastard!” Hagman watched Williamson run recklessly down the hill as though he was trying to outrun the expected bullet. Sharpe felt a terrible sense of failure. He had not liked Williamson, but even so it was the officer who had failed when a man ran. The officer would not get punished, of course, and the man, if he were ever caught, would be shot, but Sharpe knew that this was his failure. It was a reproof to his command. Harper saw the stricken look on Sharpe’s face and did not understand it. „We’re best off without the bastard, sir,” he said. Dodd and Harris looked dumbfounded and Harris even turned as if he wanted to chase Williamson until Sharpe called him back. „I should never have sent Williamson to do that job,” he said bitterly. „Why not?” Harper said. „You weren’t to know he’d run.” „I don’t like losing men,” Sharpe said bitterly. „It’s not your fault!” Harper protested. „Then whose is it?” Sharpe asked angrily. Williamson had vanished into the French ranks, presumably to join Christopher, and the only small consolation was that he had not been able to take his rifle with him. But it was still failure, and Sharpe knew it. „Best get under cover,” he told Harper. „Because they’ll start that damn gun again soon.” The howitzer fired ten minutes before the hour was up, though as no one on the hilltop possessed a watch they did not realize it. The shell struck a boulder just below the lowest redoubt and ricocheted up into the sky where it exploded in a gout of gray smoke, flame and whistling shards of shattered casing. One scrap of hot iron buried itself in the stock of Dodd’s rifle, the rest rattled on rocks. Sharpe, still reproaching himself for Williamson’s desertion, was watching the main road in the far valley. There was dust there and he could just make out horsemen riding from the northwest, from the Oporto road. Was it a mortar coming? If it was, he thought, then he would have to think about making an escape. Maybe, if they went fast, they could break through the dragoon cordon to the west and get into the high ground where the rocky terrain would make things hard for horsemen, but it would likely prove a bloody passage for the first half-mile. Unless he could try it at night? But if that was a mortar approaching then it would be in action long before nightfall. He stared at the distant road, cursing the shortcomings of Christopher’s telescope, and persuaded himself that he could see no kind of vehicle, whether gun carnage or mortar wagon, among the horsemen, but they were very far off and he could not be certain. „Mister Sharpe, sir?” It was Dan Hagman. „Can I have a go at the bastards?” Sharpe was still brooding over his failure and his first instinct was to tell the old poacher not to waste his time. Then he became aware of the odd atmosphere on the hill. His men were embarrassed because of Williamson. Many of them probably feared that Sharpe, in his anger, would punish them all for one man’s sin, and others, very few, might have wanted to follow Williamson, but most probably felt that the desertion was a reproach to them all. They were a unit, they were friends, they were proud of each other, and one of them had deliberately thrown that comradeship away. Yet now Hagman was offering to restore some of that pride and Sharpe nodded. „Go on, Dan,” he said, „but only you. Only Hagman!” he called to the other riflemen. He knew that they would all love to blaze away at the gun crew, but the distance was prodigious, right at the very end of a rifle’s range, and only Hagman had the skill to even come close. Sharpe looked again at the distant dust cloud, but the horses had turned onto the smaller track that led to Vila Real de Zedes and, head on, he could not see whether they escorted any vehicle so he trained the glass on the howitzer’s crew and saw they were ramming a new shell down the stubby barrel. „Get under cover!” Hagman alone stayed in the open. He was loading his rifle, first pouring powder from his horn into the barrel. Most of the time he would have used a cartridge which had powder and ball conveniently wrapped in waxed paper, but for this kind of shot, at seven hundred yards, he would use the high-quality powder carried in the horn. He used slightly more than was provided in a cartridge and, when the barrel was charged, he laid the weapon aside and took out the handful of loose bullets that nestled among the tea leaves at the bottom of his cartridge pouch. The enemy shell went just wide of the watchtower and exploded harmlessly over the steep western slope and, though the noise buffeted the eardrums and the broken casing rattled angrily against the stones, Hagman did not even look up. He was using the middle finger of his right hand to roll the bullets one by one in the palm of his left hand, and when he was sure he had found the most perfectly shaped ball, he put the others away and picked up his rifle again. At the back of the stock there was a small cavity covered with a brass lid. The cavity had two compartments; the larger held the rifle’s cleaning tools while the smaller was filled with patches made of thin and flexible leather that had been smeared with lard. He took one of the patches, closed the brass lid and saw Vicente was watching him closely. He grinned. „Slow old business, sir, isn’t it?” Now he wrapped the bullet in the patch so that, when the rifle fired, the expanding bullet would force the leather into the barrel’s lands. The leather also stopped any of the gasses escaping past the bullet and so concentrated the powder’s force. He pushed the leather-wrapped ball into the barrel, then used the rammer to force it down. It was hard work and he grimaced with the effort, then nodded his thanks as Sharpe took over. Sharpe put the butt end of the steel ramrod against a rock and eased the rifle slowly forward until he felt the bullet crunch against the powder. He took out the ramrod, slid it into the hoops under the barrel and gave the gun back to Hagman who used powder from his horn to prime the pan. He smoothed the priming with a blackened index finger, lowered the frizzen and grinned again at Vicente. „She’s like a woman, sir,” Hagman said, patting the rifle, „take care of her and she’ll take care of you.” „You’ll notice he let Mister Sharpe do the ramming, sir,” Harper said guilelessly. Vicente laughed and Sharpe suddenly remembered the horsemen and he snatched up the small telescope and trained it on the road leading into the village, but all that was left of the newcomers was the dust thrown up by their horses’ hooves. They were hidden by the trees around the Quinta and so he could not tell whether the horsemen had brought a mortar. He swore. Well, he would learn soon enough. Hagman lay on his back, his feet toward the enemy, then pillowed the back of his neck against a rock. His ankles were crossed and he was using the angle between his boots as a rest for the rifle’s muzzle and, because the weapon was just under four feet long, he had to curl his torso awkwardly to bring the stock into his shoulder. He settled at last, the rifle’s brass butt at his shoulder and its barrel running the length of his body and, though the pose looked clumsy, it was favored by marksmen because it held the rifle so rigidly. „Wind, sir?” „Left to right, Dan,” Sharpe said, „very light.” „Very light,” Hagman repeated softly, then he pulled back the flint. The swan-neck cock made a slight creaking noise as it compressed the mainspring, then there was a click as the pawl took the strain and Hagman hinged the backsight up as high as it would go, then lined its notch with the blade-sight dovetailed at the muzzle. He had to lower his head awkwardly to see down the barrel. He took a breath, let it half out and held it. The other men on the hilltop also held their breath. Hagman made some tiny adjustments, edging the barrel to the left and drawing the stock down to give the weapon more elevation. It was not only an impossibly long shot, but he was firing downhill which was notoriously difficult. No one moved. Sharpe was watching the howitzer crew through the telescope. The gunner was just bringing the portfire to the breech and Sharpe knew he should interrupt Hagman’s concentration and order his men to take cover, but just then Hagman pulled his trigger, the crack of the rifle startled birds up from the hillside, smoke wreathed about the rocks and Sharpe saw the gunner spin round and the portfire drop as the man clutched his right thigh. He staggered for a few seconds, then fell. „Right thigh, Dan,” Sharpe said, knowing that Hagman could not see through the smoke of his rifle, „and you put him down. Under cover! All of you! Quick!” Another gunner had snatched up the portfire. They scrambled behind rocks and flinched as the shell exploded on the face of a big boulder. Sharpe slapped Hagman’s back. „Unbelievable, Dan!” „I was aiming for his chest, sir.” „You spoiled his day, Dan,” Harper said. „You spoiled his bloody day.” The other riflemen were congratulating Hagman. They were proud of him, delighted that the old man was back on his feet and as good as ever. And the shot had somehow compensated for Williamson’s treachery. They were an elite again, they were riflemen. „Do it again, sir?” Hagman asked Sharpe. „Why not?” Sharpe said. If a mortar did come then its crew would be frightened if they discovered they were within range of the deadly rifles. Hagman began the laborious process all over again, but no sooner had he wrapped the next bullet in its leather patch than, to Sharpe’s astonishment, the howitzer’s trail was lifted onto the limber and the gun was dragged away into the trees. For a moment Sharpe was exultant, then he feared that the French were simply taking away the howitzer so that the mortar could use the cleared patch of land. He waited with a heavy sense of dread, but no mortar appeared. No one appeared. Even the infantry who had been posted close to the howitzer had gone back into the trees and, for the first time since Sharpe had retreated to the watch-tower, the northern slope was deserted. Dragoons still patrolled to the east and west, but after a half-hour they too rode north toward the village. „What’s happening?” Vicente asked. „God knows.” Then, suddenly, Sharpe saw the whole French force, the gun, the cavalry and the infantry, and they were all marching away down the road from Vila Real de Zedes. They must be going back to Oporto and he gazed, dumbfounded, not daring to believe what he saw. „It’s a trick,” Sharpe said, „has to be.” He gave the telescope to Vicente. „Maybe it is peace?” Vicente suggested after he had stared at the retreating French. „Maybe the fighting really is over. Why else would they go?” „They’re going, sir,” Harper said, „that’s all that matters.” He had taken the glass from Vicente and could see a farm wagon loaded with the French wounded. „Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” he exulted, „but they’re going!” But why? Was it peace? Had the horsemen, whom Sharpe had feared were escorting a mortar, brought a message instead? An order to retreat? Or was it a trick? Were the French hoping he would go down to the village and so give the dragoons a chance to attack his men on level ground? He was as confused as ever. „I’m going down,” he said. „Me, Cooper, Harris, Perkins, Cresacre and Sims.” He deliberately named the last two because they had been friends of Williamson and if any men were likely to follow the deserter it was those two and he wanted to show them he still trusted them. „The rest of you stay here.” „I would like to come,” Vicente said and, when he saw Sharpe was about to refuse, he explained. „The village, „I think it’s empty, sir,” Harris said, though he sounded nervous. „I reckon you’re right,” Sharpe agreed and he turned and walked on down the drive. The gravel crunched under his boots so he moved to the verge and signaled that his men should do the same. The day was hot and still, even the birds were silent. And then he smelt it. And immediately he thought of India and even imagined, for a wild second, that he was back in that mysterious country for it was there that he had experienced this smell so often. It was thick and rank and somehow honey-sweet. A smell that almost made him want to vomit, then that urge passed, but he saw that Perkins, almost as young as Pendleton, was looking sickly. „Take a deep breath,” Sharpe told him. „You’re going to need it.” Vicente, looking as nervous as Perkins, glanced at Sharpe. „Is it… „he began. „Yes,” Sharpe said. It was death. Vila Real de Zedes had never been a large or a famous village. No pilgrims came to worship in its church. Saint Joseph might be revered locally, but his influence had never extended beyond the vineyards, yet for all its insignificance it had not been a bad village in which to raise children. There was always work in the Savage vineyards, the soil was fertile and even the poorest house had a vegetable patch. Some of the villagers had possessed cows, most kept hens and a few reared pigs, though there was no livestock left now. There had been little authority to persecute the villagers. Father Josefa had been the most important person in Vila Real de Zedes, other than the English in the Quinta, and the priest had sometimes been irascible, but he had also taught the children their letters. He had never been unkind. And now he was dead. His body, unrecognizable, was in the ashes of the church where other bodies, shrunken by heat, lay among the charred and fallen rafters. A dead dog was in the street, a trickle of dried blood extending from its mouth and a cloud of flies buzzing above the wound in its flank. More flies sounded inside the biggest of the two taverns and Sharpe pushed open the door with the butt of his rifle and gave an involuntary shudder. Maria, the girl Harper had liked, was spread naked on the only table left unbroken in the taproom. She had been pinned to the table by knives thrust through her hands and now the flies crawled across her bloody belly and breasts. Every wine barrel had been splintered, every pot smashed and every piece of furniture other than the single table torn apart. Sharpe slung his rifle and tugged the knives from Maria’s palms so that her white arms flapped as the blades came free. Perkins stared aghast from the door. „Don’t just stand there,” Sharpe snapped, „find a blanket, anything, and cover her.” „Yes, sir.” Sharpe went back to the street. Vicente had tears in his eyes. There were bodies in half a dozen houses, blood in every house, but no living folk. Any survivors of Vila Real de Zedes had fled the village, chased out by the casual brutality of their conquerors. „We should have stayed here,” Vicente said angrily. „And died with them?” Sharpe asked. „They had no one to fight for them!” Vicente said. „They had Lopes,” Sharpe said, „and he didn’t know how to fight, and if he had then he wouldn’t have stayed. And if we’d fought for them we’d be dead now and these folk would be just as dead.” „We should have stayed,” Vicente insisted. Sharpe ignored him. „Cooper? Sims?” The two men cocked their rifles. Cooper shot first, Sharpe counted to ten and then Sims pulled his trigger, Sharpe counted to ten again and then he fired into the air. It was a signal that Harper could lead the others down from the hilltop. „Look for spades,” Sharpe said to Vicente. „Spades?” „We’re going to bury them.” The graveyard was a walled enclosure just north of the village and there was a small hut with sextons’ shovels that Sharpe gave to his men. „Deep enough so the animals don’t scratch them up,” he ordered, „but not too deep.” „Why not too deep?” Vicente bridled, thinking that a shallow grave was a callous insult to the dead. „Because when the villagers come back,” Sharpe said, „they’ll dig them up to find their relatives.” He found a large piece of sacking in the shed and he used it to collect the charred bodies from the church, dragging them one by one to the graveyard. The left arm came off Father Josefa’s body when Sharpe tried to pull the priest free of the charred cross, but Sims saw what was happening and came to help roll the shrunken, blackened corpse onto the sacking. „I’ll take it, sir,” Sims said, seizing hold of the sacking. „You don’t have to.” Sims looked embarrassed. „We’re not going to run, sir,” he blurted out, then looked fearful as if he expected to get the rough edge of Sharpe’s tongue. Sharpe looked at him and saw another thief, another drunk, another failure, another rifleman. Then Sharpe smiled. „Thank you, Sims. Tell Pat Harper to give you some of his holy water.” „Holy water?” Sims asked. „The brandy he keeps in his second canteen. The one he thinks I don’t know about.” Afterward, when the men who had come down from the hilltop were helping to bury the dead, Sharpe went back to the church where Harper found him. „Picquets are set, sir.” „Good.” „And Sims says I was to give him some brandy.” „I hope you did.” „I did, sir, I did. And Mister Vicente, sir, he’s wanting to say a prayer or two.” „I hope God’s listening.” „You want to be there?” „No, Pat.” „Didn’t think you would.” The big Irishman picked his way through the ashes. Some of the wreckage still smoked where the altar had stood, but he pushed a hand into the blackened tangle and pulled out a twisted, black crucifix. It was only four inches high and he laid it on his left palm and made the sign of the cross. „Mister Vicente’s not happy, sir.” „I know.” „He thinks we should have defended the village, but I told him, sir, I told him you don’t catch the rabbit by killing the dog.” Sharpe stared into the smoke. „Maybe we should have stayed here.” „Now you’re talking like an Irishman, sir,” Harper said, „because there’s nothing we don’t know about lost causes. Sure and we’d all have died. And if you see that the trigger guard on Gataker’s rifle is hanging loose then don’t give him hell about it. The screws are worn to buggery.” Sharpe smiled at Harper’s effort to divert him. „I know we did the right thing, Pat. I just wish Lieutenant Vicente could see it.” „He’s a lawyer, sir, can’t see a bloody thing straight. And he’s young. He’d sell his cow for a drink of milk.” „We did the right thing,” Sharpe insisted, „but what do we do now?” Harper tried to straighten the crucifix. „When I was a wee child,” he said, „I got lost. I was no more then seven, eight maybe. No bigger then Perkins, anyway. There were soldiers near the village, your lot in red, and to this day I don’t know what the bastards were doing there, but I ran away from them. They didn’t chase me, but I ran all the same because that’s what you did when the red bastards showed themselves. I ran and I ran, I did, and I ran until I didn’t know where the hell I was.” „So what did you do?” „I followed a stream,” Harper said, „and came to these two wee houses and my aunty lived in one and she took me home.” Sharpe started to laugh and, though it was not really funny, could not stop. „Maire,” Harper said, „Aunty Maire, rest her soul.” He put the crucifix into a pocket. „I wish your Aunty Maire was here, Pat. But we’re not lost.” „No?” „We go south. Find a boat. Cross the river. Keep going south.” „And if the army’s gone from Lisbon?” „Walk to Gibraltar,” Sharpe said, knowing it would never come to that. If there was peace then he would be found by someone in authority and sent to the nearest port, and if there was war then he would find someone to fight. Simple, really, he thought. „But we march at night, Pat.” „So we’re still at war, you think?” „Oh, we’re at war, Pat,” Sharpe said, looking at the wreckage and thinking of Christopher, „we’re bloody well at war.” Vicente was staring at the new graves. He nodded when Sharpe said he proposed marching south during the night, but he did not speak until they were outside the cemetery gates. „I am going to Porto,” he said. „You believe there’s been a peace treaty?” „No,” Vicente said, then shrugged. „Maybe? I don’t know. But I do know Colonel Christopher and Brigadier Vuillard are probably there. I didn’t fight them here, so I must pursue them there.” „So you’ll go to Oporto,” Sharpe said, „and die?” „Maybe,” Vicente said grandly, „but a man cannot hide from evil.” „No,” Sharpe said, „but if you fight it, fight it clever.” „I’m learning how to fight,“ Vicente said, „but I already know how to kill.” That was a recipe for suicide, Sharpe thought, but he did not argue. „What I’m planning,” he said instead, „is to go back the way we came. I can find the way easy enough. And once I’m at Barca d’Avintas I’ll look for a boat. There has to be something that will float.” „I’m sure there is.” „So come with me that far,” Sharpe suggested, „because it’s close to Oporto.” Vicente agreed and his men fell in behind Sharpe’s when they left the village, and Sharpe was glad of it for the night was pitch black again and despite his confidence that he could find the way he would have become hopelessly lost if Vicente had not been there. As it was they made painfully slow progress and eventually rested in the darkest heart of the night and made better time when the wolf light edged the eastern horizon. Sharpe was in two minds about going back to Barca d’Avintas. There was a risk, for the village was perilously close to Oporto, but on the other hand he knew it was a place where the river was safe to cross, and he reckoned he should be able to find some wreckage from the huts and houses that his men could fashion into a raft. Vicente agreed, saying that much of the rest of the Douro valley was a rocky ravine and that Sharpe would face difficulty in either approaching the river or finding a crossing place. A larger risk was that the French would be guarding Barca d’Avintas, but Sharpe suspected they would be content with having destroyed all the boats in the village. Dawn found them in some wooded hills. They stopped by a stream and made a breakfast of stale bread and smoked meat so tough that the men joked about re-soling their boots, then grumbled because Sharpe would not let them light a fire and so make tea. Sharpe carried a crust to the summit of a nearby hill and searched the landscape with the small telescope. He saw no enemy, indeed he saw no one at all. A deserted cottage lay further up the valley where the stream ran and there was a church bell tower a mile or so to the south, but there were no people. Vicente joined him. „You think there might be French here?” „I always think that,” Sharpe said. „And do you think the British have gone home?” Vicente asked. „No.” „Why not?” Sharpe shrugged. „If we wanted to go home,” he said, „we’d have gone after Sir John Moore’s retreat.” Vicente stared south. „I know we could not have defended the village,” he said. „I wish we could have done.” „It is just that they are my people.” Vicente shrugged. „I know,” Sharpe said, and he tried to imagine the French army in the dales of Yorkshire or in the streets of London. He tried to imagine the cottages burning, the alehouses sacked and the women screaming, but he could not envisage that horror. It seemed oddly impossible. Harper could doubtless imagine his home being violated, could probably recall it, but Sharpe could not. „Why do they do it?” Vicente asked with a genuine note of anguish. Sharpe collapsed the telescope then scuffed the earth with the toe of his right boot. On the day after they had climbed to the watchtower he had dried the rain-soaked boots in front of the fire, but he had left them too close and the leather had cracked. „There are no rules in war,” he said uncomfortably. „There are rules,” Vicente insisted. Sharpe ignored the protest. „Most soldiers aren’t saints. They’re drunks, thieves, rogues. They’ve failed at everything, so they join the army or else they’re forced to join by some bastard of a magistrate. Then they’re given a weapon and told to kill. Back home they’d be hanged for it, but in the army they’re praised for it, and if you don’t hold them hard then they think any killing is permitted. Those lads,”-he nodded down the hill to the men grouped under the cork oaks-”know damn well they’ll be punished if they step out of line. But if I let them off the leash? They’d run this country ragged, then make a mess of Spain and they’d never stop till someone killed them.” He paused, knowing he had been unfair to his men. „Mind you, I like them,” he went on. „They’re not the worst, not really, just unlucky, and they’re damn fine soldiers. I don’t know.” He frowned, embarrassed. „But the Frogs? They don’t have any choice. It’s called conscription. Some poor bastard is working as a baker or a wheelwright one day and the next he’s in uniform and being marched half a continent away. They resent it, and the French don’t flog their soldiers so there’s no way of holding them.” „Do you flog?” „Not me.” He thought about telling Vicente that he had been flogged once, long ago, on a hot parade ground in India, then decided it would sound like boasting. „I just take them behind a wall and beat them up,” he said instead. „It’s quicker.” Vicente smiled. „I could not do that.” „You could always give them a writ instead,” Sharpe said. „I’d rather be beaten up than get tangled by a lawyer.” Maybe, he thought, if he had beaten Williamson the man might have settled to authority. Maybe not. „So how far is the river?” he asked. „Three hours? Not much longer.” „Bugger all happening here, we might as well keep going.” „But the French?” Vicente suggested nervously. „None here, none there.” Sharpe nodded to the south. „No smoke, no birds coming out of trees like a cat was after them. And you can smell French dragoons a mile off. Their horses all have saddle sores, they stink like a cesspit.” So they marched. The dew was still on the grass. They went through a deserted village that looked undamaged and Sharpe suspected the villagers had seen them coming and hidden themselves. There were certainly people there, for some drying washing was draped over two laurel bushes, but though Sergeant Macedo bellowed that they were friends no one dared to appear. One of the pieces of washing was a fine man’s shirt with bone buttons and Sharpe saw Cresacre dawdling so that he would have a moment on his own when the others were ahead. „The penalty for theft,” Sharpe called to his men, „is hanging. And there are good hanging trees here.” Cresacre pretended he had not heard, but hurried on all the same. They stopped when they reached the Douro. Barca d’Avintas was still some way to the west and Sharpe knew his men were tired and so they bivouacked in a wood high on a bluff above the river. No boats moved there. Far off to the south a single spire of smoke wavered in the sky, and to the west there was a shimmering haze that Sharpe suspected was the smoke of Oporto’s cooking fires. Vicente said Barca d’Avintas was little more than an hour away, but Sharpe decided they would wait till next morning before marching again. Haifa dozen of the men were limping because their boots were rotting and Gataker, who had been wounded in the thigh, was feeling the pain. One of Vicente’s men was walking barefoot and Sharpe was thinking of doing the same because of the condition of his boots. But there was a still better reason for delay. „If the French are there,” he explained, „then I’d rather sneak up on them in the dawn. And if they’re not we’ve got all day to make some sort of raft.” „What about us?” Vicente asked. „You still want to go to Oporto?” „That’s where the regiment is from,” Vicente said, „it’s home. The men are anxious. Some have families there.” „See us to Barca d’Avintas,” Sharpe suggested, „then go home. But go the last few miles slowly, go carefully. You’ll be all right.” He did not believe that, but he could not say what he did believe. So they rested. Picquets watched from the wood’s edge while the others slept and some time after midday, when the heat made everyone drowsy, Sharpe thought he heard thunder far away, but there were no rain clouds in sight and that meant the thunder had to be gunfire, but he could not be sure. Harper was sleeping and Sharpe wondered if he was just hearing the echo of the big Irishman’s snores, but then he thought he heard the thunder again, though it was so faint that he could just have imagined it. He nudged Harper. „What is it?” „I’m trying to listen,” Sharpe said. „And I’m trying to sleep.” „Listen!” But there was silence except for the murmur of the river and the rustle of leaves in the east wind. Sharpe thought about taking a patrol to reconnoiter Barca d’Avintas, but decided against it. He did not want to divide his already perilously small force, and whatever dangers lurked at the village could wait till morning. At nightfall he thought he heard the thunder again, but then the wind gusted and snatched the sound away. Dawn was silent, still, and the gently misted river looked as polished as steel. Luis, who had attached himself to Vicente’s men, had proved to be a good cobbler and had sewn up some of the more decrepit boots. He had volunteered to shave Sharpe who had shaken his head. „I’ll have a shave when we’re across the river,” he said. „I pray you don’t grow a beard,” Vicente said, and then they marched, following a track that meandered along the high ground. The track was rough, overgrown and deeply rutted and the going was slow, but they saw no enemy, and then the land flattened, the track turned into a lane that ran beside vineyards and Barca d’Avintas, its white walls lit bright by the rising sun, was ahead. There were no French there. Two score of folk had moved back into the plundered houses and they looked alarmed at the uniformed ruffians who came across the small bridge over the stream, but Vicente calmed them. There were no boats, the people said, the French had taken or burned them all. They rarely saw the French, they added. Sometimes a patrol of dragoons would clatter through the village, stare across the river, steal some food and then go away. They had little other news. One woman who sold olive oil, eggs and smoked fish in Oporto’s market said that the French were all guarding the river bank between the city and the sea, but Sharpe did not put much weight on her words. Her husband, a bent giant with gnarled hands, guardedly allowed that it might be possible to make a raft from some of the village’s broken furniture. Sharpe put picquets on the village’s western margin where Hagman had been wounded. He climbed a tree there and was amazed that he could see some of Oporto’s outlying buildings on the hilly horizon. The big, flat-roofed white building that he remembered passing when he first met Vicente was the most obvious and he was appalled that they were so close. He was no more than three miles from the big white building and surely the French would have their own picquets on that hill. And surely they would have a telescope up there to watch the city approaches. But he was committed to crossing the river here and so he clambered down and was just brushing off his jacket when a wild-haired young man in ragged clothes mooed at him. Sharpe stared back, astonished. The man mooed again, then grinned inanely before giving a cackle of laughter. He had dirty red hair, bright blue eyes and a slack, dribbling mouth and Sharpe realized he was an idiot and probably harmless. Sharpe remembered Ronnie, a village idiot in Yorkshire, whose parents would shackle him to the stump of an elm on the village green where Ronnie would bellow at the grazing cows, talk to himself and growl at the girls. This man was much the same, but he was also importunate, plucking at Sharpe’s elbow as he tried to drag the Englishman toward the river. „Made yourself a friend, sir?” Tongue asked, amused. „He’s being a bloody nuisance, sir,” Perkins said. „He don’t mean harm,” Tongue said, „just wants you to go for a swim, sir.” Sharpe pulled away from the idiot. „What’s your name?” he asked, then realized there was probably little point in speaking English to a Portuguese lunatic, but the idiot was so pleased at being spoken to that he gibbered wildly, grinned and bounced up and down on his toes. Then he plucked at Sharpe’s elbow again. „I’ll call you Ronnie,” Sharpe said, „and what do you want?” His men were laughing now, but Sharpe had intended to go to the river bank anyway to see what kind of challenge his raft would face and so he let Ronnie pull him along. The idiot made conversation all the way, but none of it made any sense. He took Sharpe right to the river bank and, when Sharpe tried to detach his surprisingly strong grip, Ronnie shook his head and tugged Sharpe on through some poplars, down through thick bushes and then at last he relinquished his grip on Sharpe’s arm and clapped his hands. „You’re not such an idiot after all, are you?” Sharpe said. „In fact you’re a bloody genius, Ronnie.” There was a boat. Sharpe had seen the ferry burned and sunk on his first visit to Barca d’Avintas, but now realized there must have been two craft and this was the second. It was a flat, wide and cumbersome vessel, the kind of boat that could carry a small flock of sheep or even a carriage and its horses, and it had been weighted with stones and sunk in this wide ditch-like creek that jutted under the trees to make a small backwater. Sharpe wondered why the villagers had not shown it to him before and guessed that they feared all soldiers and so they had hidden their most valuable boat until peaceful times returned. The French had destroyed every other boat and had never guessed that this second ferry still existed. „You’re a bloody genius,” Sharpe told Ronnie again, and he gave him the last of his bread, which was the only gift he had. But he also had a boat. And then he had something else for the thunder he had heard so distantly the previous day sounded again. Only this time it was close and it was unmistakable and it was not thunder at all and Christopher had lied and there was no peace in Portugal. It was cannon fire. |
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