Sharpe 18 - Sharpe's Siege (4 page)

“Is it a rumour?”

“Some precious Frenchman pinned his ear back.” Elphinstone plucked his cloak even tighter as the barge struggled against the current-sweeping about the sandbar. “Michael Hogan didn't help. He's a friend of yours, isn't he?”

“Yes, sir.”

Elphinstone sniffed. “Damned shame he's ill. I can't understand why he encouraged Wigram, but he did. But you're to take no notice, Sharpe. The Peer expects you to take the fortress, let bloody Bampfylde extract the boats, then come back here.”

Sharpe stared at Elphinstone and received a nod of confirmation. So Wellington was not unaware of Wigram's plans, but Wellington was putting his own man, Sharpe, into the operation. Was that, Sharpe wondered, the reason why he had lost his Battalion?

“It wouldn't matter,” Elphinstone went on, “except that we need the bloody Navy to carry us there, and we can't control them. Bampfylde thinks he'll get an earldom out of Bordeaux, so stop the silly bugger dead. No rising, no rebellion, no hopes, no glory, and no bloody earldom.”

Sharpe smiled. “There'll be no fortress unless I have decent troops, sir.”

“You'll get the best I can find,” Elphinstone promised, “but not in such numbers that might tempt you to invade Bordeaux.”

“Indeed, sir.”

The oarsmen were grunting with the effort of fighting the tide's last ebb as the barge rounded the harbour's northern mole. Sharpe understood well enough what was happening. A simple cutting out expedition, necessitating the capture of a coastal fort, was needed to release the chasse-marees, but ambitious officers, eager to make a name for themselves in the waning months of the war, wished to turn that mundane operation into a flight of fancy. Sharpe, who would make the reconnaissance inland, was ordered to blunt their hopes.

The steersman pointed the boat's prow towards a flight of green-slimed steps. The white-painted barge, in smoother water now, cut swiftly towards the quay. The rain became tempestuous, slicking the quay's stones darker and drumming on the top of Sharpe's shako.

“In oars!” the steersman shouted.

The white bladed oars rose like wings and the craft coasted in a smooth curve to the foot of the steps. Sharpe looked up. The harbour wall, sheer and black and wet, reared above him like a cliff. “How high is that?” he asked Elphinstone.

The Colonel squinted upwards. “Eighteen feet?” Then Elphinstone saw the point of Sharpe's question and shrugged. “Let's hope Wigram's right and they've stripped the Teste de Buch of defenders.”

Because if the fort's enceinte was defended Sharpe would have no chance, none, and his men would die so that the naval officer could blame the Army for failure. That was a chilling thought for a winter's dusk in which the rain slanted from a steel-grey sky to pursue Sharpe through the alleys to where his wife sewed up a rent in his old jacket; his battle-jacket, the green jacket that he would wear to a fortress wall that waited for him in Arcachon.

CHAPTER 3

“I suppose,” Richard Sharpe said harshly, “that the Army couldn't find any real soldiers?”

“That's about the cut of it,” the Rifle captain replied. “Mind you, I suppose the Army couldn't find any real commanding officers either?”

Sharpe laughed. Colonel Elphinstone had done his best, and that best was very good indeed for, if Sharpe could not take his own men into battle, then there was no unit he would rather lead than Captain William Frederickson's men of the 60th Rifles. He took Frederickson's hand. “I'm glad, William.”

“We're not unhappy ourselves.” Frederickson was a man of villainous, even vile, appearance. His left eye was gone and the socket was covered by a mildewed patch. Most of his right ear had been torn away by a bullet while two of his front teeth were clumsy fakes. All the wounds had been taken on the battlefield.

Frederickson's men, with clumsy and affectionate wit, called him `Sweet William'. The 60th, raised to fight against the Indian tribes in America, was still known as the Royal American Rifles, though half the Company were Germans, a quarter were Spaniards enrolled during the long war, and the rest were British except for a single, harsh-faced man who alone justified his regiment's old name. Sharpe had fought alongside this Company two years before and, seeing the bitter face, the name came back to him. “That's the American. Taylor, isn't it?”

“Yes.” Frederickson and Sharpe stood far enough from the two paraded Companies so their voices could not be overheard by the men.

“We might come up against some jonathons,” Sharpe said. “There's some bugger called Killick skulking in Arcachon. Will it worry Taylor if he has to fight his countrymen?”

Frederickson shrugged. “Leave him to me, sir.”

Two Companies of the green-jacketed Riflemen had been given to Sharpe. Frederickson commanded one, a Lieutenant Minver the other, and together they numbered one hundred and twenty-three men. Not many, Sharpe thought, to assault a fortress on the French coast. He walked further along the quay with Frederickson, stopping by a fish cart that dripped bloody scales into a puddle. “Between you and me, William, it's a mess.”

“I thought it might be.”

“We leave tomorrow to capture a fortress. It isn't supposed to be heavily defended, but no one's sure. After that, God knows what happens. There's a madman who wants us to invade France, but between you and me we're not.”

Frederickson grinned, then turned and looked at the two Companies of Riflemen. “We're capturing a fort all by our little selves?”

“The Navy says a few Marines might be well enough to help us.”

“That's very decent of them.” Frederickson stared at the great bulk of the Vengeance. Barges, propelled by huge sweeps, were taking casks of water from the harbour to the huge ship.

“You'll draw extra ammunition,” Sharpe said. “The First Division's paying for it.”

,I'll rob the bastards blind," Frederickson said happily.

“And tonight you'll do me the honour of dining with Jane and myself?”

“I'd like to meet her.” Frederickson sounded guarded.

“She's wonderful.” Sharpe said it warmly, and Frederickson, seeing his friend's enthusiasm, hoped that a new wife had not sapped Sharpe's appetite for the bloody business that lay ahead at Arcachon.

Commandant Henri Lassan thought he detected sleet in the dawn, but he could not be sure until he climbed to the western bastion and saw how the flakes settled briefly on the great cheeks of his guns before melting into cold rivulets of water. The guns were loaded, as they always were, but their muzzles and vent-holes were stoppered against the damp. “Good morning, Sergeant!”

“Sir!” The sergeant stamped his feet and slapped his hands against the cold.

Lassan's orderly climbed the stone ramp with a tray of coffee-mugs. Lassan always brought the morning guard a mug of coffee each and the men appreciated the small gesture. The Commandant, they said, was a gentleman.

Children ran across the courtyard and women's voices sounded from the kitchens. There should not be women in the fort, but Lassan had let the families of his gun crews take up the quarters vacated by the infantry who had gone to the northern battles. Lassan believed his men were less likely to desert if their families were inside the defences.

“There she is, sir.” The sergeant pointed through the sleeting rain.

Lassan looked over the narrow Arcachon channel where the tide raced across the shoals. Beyond the sandbanks the surging grey waves were torn by wind into a maelstrom of broken white water amidst which, beating southwards, was a little ship.

The ship was a British brig-sloop with two tall masts and a vast driver-sail at her stern. Her black and white banded hull hid, Lassan knew, eighteen guns. Her sails were reefed, but even so she seemed to plunge through the waves and Lassan saw how high the spray fountained from the brig's stem. “Our enemies,” he said mildly, “are having a disturbed breakfast.”

“Yes, sir.” The sergeant laughed.

Lassan cradled his coffee mug. There was something vulnerable about his face, a drawn and frightened look that made his men protective of him. They knew Commandant Lassan wished to become a priest when this war ended and they liked him for it, but they also knew that he would fight as a soldier until the last shot of the war had been fired. Now he stared at the British brig. “You saw her last night?”

“At sundown, sir,” the sergeant was certain. “And there were lights out there at night.”

“He's watching us, isn't he?” Lassan smiled. “He's seeing what we're made of.”

The sergeant slapped the gun as a reply.

Lassan turned to stare thoughtfully into the fort's courtyard. A warning had come from Bordeaux that he was to prepare for a British attack, but Bordeaux had sent him no men to reinforce his shrunken garrison. Lassan could man his big guns, or he could protect the landward walls, but he could not do both. If the British landed troops, and sent warships into the channel, then Lassan would be trapped between the hammer and the anvil. He turned back to stare at the British brig. If Bordeaux was right, that inquisitive craft was making a reconnaissance, and Lassan must deceive the watchers. He must make them think the fort was so thinly defended that a landing by troops would be unnecessary.

Lieutenant Gerard came yawning from the green-painted door of the officers' quarters. Lassan hailed him. “Lieutenant!”

“Sir?”

“No flag today! And no washing hung to dry on the barracks' roof!” Not that anyone was likely to dry washing in this weather.

Gerard, his blue jacket unbuttoned above his braces, frowned. “No flag, sir?”

“You heard me, Lieutenant! And no men in the embrasures, you hear? Sentries in the citadels only.”

“I hear you, sir.”

Lassan turned back to see the brig-sloop tack into the rain-sodden wind. He saw a shiver of sails, a spume of foam, and he imagined the cloaked officers, their braid tarnished by salt, staring at the grey, crouching fort through their spyglasses. He knew that such little ships, sent to spy on the French coast, often stopped the fishing boats that worked close inshore. Today then, and every day for the next week, only those fishermen whom Henri Lassan trusted would be allowed past the guns of the Teste de Buch. They would be encouraged to take English gold, and encouraged to drink a glass of dark rum in English cabins, and encouraged to sell lobsters to blue-coated Englishmen, and in return they would tell a plausible lie or two on behalf of Henri Lassan.

Then, with a roar from these great, passive guns that waited for employment, Henri Lassan would strike a blow for France.

He smiled, pleased with his notion, and went to breakfast.

Before dinner Sharpe faced a miserable and unhappy few moments. “The answer,” he repeated, “is no.”

Regimental Sergeant Major Patrick Harper stood in the small parlour of Jane's lodgings and twisted his wet shako in thick, strong fingers. “I talked with Mr d'Alembord, sir, so I did, and he said I could come. I mean we're only sitting around like washer-women in a bloody drought, so we are.”

“There's a new colonel coming, Patrick. He needs his RSM.”

Harper frowned. “Needs his major, too.”

“He can't lose both of us.” Sharpe did not have the power to deny the Prince of Wales's Own Volunteers the services of this massive Irishman. “And if you come, Patrick, the new man will only appoint a new RSM. You wouldn't want that.”

Harper frowned. “I'd rather be in a scrap if one's going, sir, and Mr Frederickson wouldn't take me amiss, nor would he.”

Sharpe could not be persuaded. “No.”

The huge man, four inches taller than Sharpe's six feet, grinned. “I could take sick leave, sir, so I could.”

“You have to be sick first.”

“But I am!” Harper pointed to his mouth. “I've got a toothache something desperate, sir. Here!” He opened his mouth, jabbed with his finger, and Sharpe saw that Harper did indeed have a reddened and swollen upper gum.

“Does it hurt?”

“It's dreadful, so it is!” Harper, sensing a chink in Sharpe's armour, became enthusiastic about his pain. “It's more of a throb, sir. On and off, on and off, like a great drumbeat in your skull. Desperate, it is!”

“Then see a surgeon tonight,” Sharpe said unsympathetically, “and have it pulled. Then get back to Battalion where you belong.”

Harper's face dropped. “Truly, sir? I can't come?”

Sharpe sighed. “I'd rather have you along, RSM, than any dozen other men.” That was true a thousand times over. Sharpe knew of no man he would rather fight beside, but it could not be at Arcachon. “I'm sorry, Patrick. Besides you're a father now. You should take care.” Harper's Spanish wife, just a month before, had given birth to a son that had been christened Richard Patricio Augustine Harper. Sharpe had found the choice of Richard an embarrassment, but Jane had been delighted when Harper sought permission to use the name. “And I'm doing you a favour, RSM,” Sharpe went on.

“How would that be, sir?”

“Because your son will still have a father in two weeks.” Sharpe was seeing that black, sheer, wet wall and the image of it made his voice savage. Then he turned as the door opened. “My dear.”

Jane, beautiful in a blue silken dress, smiled delightedly at Harper. “Sergeant Major! How's the baby?”

“Just grand, ma'am!” Harper had formed a firm alliance with Mrs Sharpe that seemed aimed at subverting Major Sharpe's authority. “And Isabella thanks you for the linen.”

“You've got toothache!” Jane frowned with concern. “Your cheek's swollen.”

Harper blushed. “It's only a wee ache, ma'am, nothing at all!”

“You must have oil of cloves! There's some in the kitchen. Come along!”

The oil of cloves was discovered and Harper sent, disconsolate, into the night.

“He can't come,” Sharpe said after dinner, when he and Jane walked back alone through the town.

“Poor Patrick.” Jane insisted on stopping at Hogan's lodgings, but there was no news. She had visited earlier in the day and thought the sick man was looking better.

“I wish you wouldn't risk yourself,” Sharpe said.

“You've said so a dozen times, Richard, and I promise I heard you each time.”

They went to bed and, just four hours later, the landlady hammered on their door. It was pitch dark outside and bitterly cold inside the bedroom. Frost had etched patterns on the small windowpanes, patterns that were reluctant to melt even though Sharpe revived the fire in the tiny grate. The landlady had brought candles and hot water. Sharpe shaved, then pulled on his old and faded Rifleman's uniform. It was the uniform in which he fought, stained with blood and torn by bullet and blade. He would not go into action in any other uniform.

He oiled his rifle's lock. He always carried a long-arm into battle, even though it had been ten years since he had been made into an officer. He drew his Heavy Cavalry sword from its scabbard and tested the fore-edge. It seemed odd to be going to war from his wife's bed, odder still not to be marching with his own men or with Harper, and that thought gave him a flicker of unrest for he was not used to fighting without Harper beside him.

“Two weeks,” he said. “I should be back in two weeks. Maybe less.”

“It will seem like eternity,” Jane said loyally, then, with an exaggerated shudder, she threw the bedclothes back and snatched up the clothes that Sharpe had hung to warm before the fire. Her small dog, grateful for the chance, leaped into the warm pit of the bed.

“You don't have to come,” Sharpe said.

“Of course I'll come. It's every woman's duty to watch her husband sail to the wars.” Jane shivered suddenly, then sneezed.

A half hour later they went into the fish-smelling lane and the wind was like a knife in their faces. Torches flared on the quayside where the Amelie rose on the incoming tide.

A dark line of men, weapons gleaming softly, filed aboard the merchantman that was to be Sharpe's transport. The Amelie was no jewel of Britain's trading fleet. She had begun life as a collier, taking coal from the Tyne to the smoke thick Thames, and her dark timbers still stank thickly of coal-dust.

Casks and crates and nets of supplies were slung on board in the pre-dawn darkness. Boxes of rifle ammunition were piled on the quayside and with them were barrels of vilely salted and freshly-killed beef. Twice baked bread was wrapped in canvas and boxed in resinous pine. There were casks of water for the voyage, spare flints for the fighting, and whetstones for the sword-bayonets. Rope ladders were coiled in the Amelie's scuppers so that the Riflemen, reaching the beach where they must disembark, could scramble down to the longboats sent from the Vengeance.

A smear of silver-grey marked the dawn and flooded slowly to show the filthy, littered water of the harbour. Aboard the Scylla, a frigate moored in the harbour roads, yellow lights showed from the stern cabin where doubtless the frigate's captain took his breakfast.

“I've wrapped you a cheese.” Jane's voice sounded small and frightened. “It's in your pack.”

“Thank you.” Sharpe bent to kiss her and wished suddenly that he was not going. A wife, General Craufurd used to say, weakens a soldier. Sharpe held his wife an instant, feeling her ribs beneath the layers of wool and silk, then, suddenly, her slim body jerked as she sneezed again.