Sharpe 3-Book Collection 2: Sharpe’s Havoc, Sharpe’s Eagle, Sharpe’s Gold (81 page)

El Católico had killed northerners before, Frenchmen, and some had taken three moons to die and every second they had known their own pain. Sharpe, El Católico promised himself, would plead for such a death.

After the sobbing, the noise of boots on stone, came shouted orders, and the Company marched out with fixed bayonets on shouldered guns, and in the lead was the Captain holding a rifle sling looped round the neck of Teresa Moreno. The Partisans growled, looked at the father, at El Católico, but dared not move. Teresa was crying, her face half hidden by her hands, but every man could see the white bandage, torn from the bottom of her dress, and they could see the bright blood which stained the cloth. Sharpe was holding a gleaming, saw-backed bayonet at her head and if she stumbled he pulled at the sling round her throat. Kearsey felt a terrible shame as he watched the Rifle Officer shield himself from El Católico’s guns with the girl’s body, and as the Company, in a silence that seemed as if it could explode at any instant in a dreadful violence, marched past the poised horsemen, Cesar Moreno gazed at the blood-soaked bandage, at the spots of blood on his daughter’s dress, and he promised himself the luxury of this English Captain’s death. Kearsey touched his arm.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It does not matter. I will catch them and kill them.’ Cesar Moreno watched the faces of the Company and he thought they looked shocked, as if their Captain had dragged them into new depths of horror. ‘I will kill him.’

Kearsey nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’

Moreno looked at him. ‘It was not your doing, Major.’ He nodded at where the Light Company were beginning their crossing, the lightly loaded men forming a human dam to help the gold-carriers to cross. ‘Go in peace.’

Sharpe crossed last, holding the girl and feeling the long weeds snatch at his legs and try to drag him under. The water level was low but the current still strong, and it was awkward with one arm round Teresa’s neck, but they made it and were pulled on to the far bank by Patrick Harper, who nodded back over the river.

‘Felt sorry for her father, sir.’

‘He’ll find out she wasn’t touched.’

‘Aye, that’s true. The Major’s coming.’

‘Let him.’

They set off across the grassland, in the heat of the morning, their boots leaving a wide swath through the pale stalks and with the Partisans never far behind. Harper walked with Sharpe and Teresa and he looked over the girl’s head at his Captain.

‘How’s the arm, sir?’

‘It’s fine.’ Sharpe had cut open his left forearm for the blood with which to soak Teresa’s bandage.

Harper nodded ahead, to the Company. ‘Should have cut open Private Batten. It’s all he’s good for.’

Sharpe grinned. The thought had occurred to him, but he had rejected it as petty. ‘I’ll survive. You’d better tell the lads that the girl’s not harmed. Quietly.’

‘I’ll do that.’

Harper went ahead. The men were silent, shocked, because Sharpe had let them believe he was working the great blade on the girl. If they had known the truth they would have marched past El Católico with grinning faces, suppressed glee, and the whole thing would have been lost. Sharpe looked at the Partisans, to the side and behind, and then at Teresa.

‘You must keep pretending.’

She nodded, looked up at him. ‘You keep your promise?’

‘I promise. We have a bargain.’

It was a good one, too, he decided, and he admired Teresa for its terms. At least, now, he knew why she was on his side, and there was only one regret: he knew they would not be together long, that the bargain called for them to be far apart, but the war would be long and, who knew, perhaps he would meet her again.

At midday the Company climbed a steep ridge that ran directly west, towards their goal, and Sharpe led the way up its steep, razor-stoned flank with a sense of relief. The Partisans could not take their horses up the slope and their figures grew smaller and smaller as the Company laboured upwards. The men carrying the gold needed frequent rests, lying and panting beneath the sun, but each hour took them nearer the Coa, and for a time Sharpe dared to hope that they had shaken off El Católico and his men. The spine of the ridge was a bare, rocky place and littered with small bones left by wolves and vultures. Sharpe had the feeling of walking in a place where no man ever trod, a place that was commanded by the beasts, and all round them the hills crouched in the searing, aching sun, and nothing moved except for the Company crawling along the high crest, and Sharpe felt as if the world had ended and they had been forgotten. Ahead he could see the hazed hills that led to the river, to safety, and he forced the Company on. Patrick Harper, carrying two packs of gold, nodded at the western hills to their front.

‘Are the French there, sir?’

Sharpe shrugged. ‘Probably.’

The Sergeant looked round their high, sun-bleached path. ‘I hope they’re not watching for us.’

‘Better than being down with the Partisans.’ But he knew Harper was right. If the French were patrolling the hills, and they must be, then the Company would be visible for miles. Sharpe made his own gold-filled pack more comfortable on his shoulder. ‘We’ll keep going west in the night.’ He looked at his tired men. ‘Just this one effort, Sergeant, just this one.’

It was not to be. At dusk, as the westering sun dazzled them, the ridge dropped away and Sharpe saw they had been cheated. The ridge was like an island, separated from the other hills by a wide, convoluted valley, and in its shadows, far below, he could see the tiny dots that were El Católico’s men. He stopped the Company, let them rest, and stared down.

‘Damn. Damn. Damn.’ He spoke quietly. The Partisans had ridden an easy path, either side of the ridge, and the Company had slogged its useless toil over the baking rocks, the edged stones, the scorpion-infested ridge. On the far side of the valley the hills rose again and he looked at the bouldered slope they would have to climb, but he knew that before they could go on they must cross the valley. It was a perfect place for an ambush. Like an indented sea-coast the valley had hidden spurs, deep shadows; even, to the north, some scrubby trees. Once they were on the valley’s grassed floor they would be terribly vulnerable, unable to see what lurked behind the spurs of the hill, in the dead folds of ground. Sharpe stared into the shadowed depth and then at his exhausted Company with their battered weapons and heavy packs.

‘We cross at dawn.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Harper looked down. ‘The Major’s coming, sir.’

Kearsey had abandoned his horse and, his blue uniform melding with the shadows, was climbing the slope towards the Company. Sharpe grunted.

‘He can say a prayer for us.’ He looked at the valley. A prayer, maybe, would not be a bad thing.

The water in the canteens was brackish, the food down to the last mildewed crumbs, and in the hour before dawn the ground was slippery with dew. It was cold. The Company, foul-mouthed and evil-tempered, slithered and fell as they went down the dark hillside to the black valley. Kearsey, his steel scabbard crashing against rocks, tried to keep up with Sharpe.

‘Almeida, Sharpe. It’s the only way!’

Sharpe stopped, towered over the Major. ‘Damn Almeida, sir.’

‘There’s no need for cursing, Sharpe.’ Kearsey sounded peevish. He had arrived, as night fell, and launched himself into a rehearsed condemnation of Sharpe that had petered out when he saw an undamaged Teresa calmly watching him. She had spoken to him in Spanish, driving down his objections, until the Major, confused by the speed of events that he could not control, had fallen into an unhappy silence. Later, when the wind stirred the night grass, and sentries twitched as the black rocks seemed to move, he had tried to persuade Sharpe to turn south. Now, in the creeping dawn, he had returned to the subject.

‘The French, Sharpe. You don’t understand. They’ll be blocking the Coa. You must go south.’

‘And damn the bloody French, sir!’

Sharpe turned away, slipped, and cursed as a boot flew from beneath him and he sat down, painfully, on a stone. He would not go to Almeida. The French were about to start the siege and would be concentrating in force. He would go west, towards the Coa, and take the gold to the General.

The turf on the valley floor was springy, easy to walk, but Sharpe crouched and hissed at his men to be quiet. He could hear nothing, see nothing, and his instinct told him the Partisans had gone. Sergeant Harper crouched beside him.

‘Bastards have gone, sir.’

‘They’re somewhere.’

‘Not here.’

And if not, then why had they gone? El Católico would not give up the gold, nor Moreno the chance to punish the man whom he thought had mutilated his daughter, so why was the valley so empty and quiet? Sharpe led the way over the grass, his rifle cocked, and looked at the hill ahead, littered with rocks, and he imagined the muskets ambushing them as they climbed. The hillside could hide a thousand men.

He stopped again, at the foot of the slope, and the eerie feeling came back of being alone in the world, as if, while they were walking on the ridge the day before, the world had ended and the Angel of Death had forgotten the Light Company. Sharpe listened. He could hear his men breathing, but nothing else. Not the scrabble of a lizard on the rocks, the thump of a frightened rabbit, no birds, not even the wind on the stones. He found Kearsey.

‘What’s over the hill, sir?’

‘Summer pasture for sheep. Spring water, two shelters. Cavalry country.’

‘North?’

‘A village.’

‘South, sir?’

‘The road to Almeida.’

Sharpe bit his lip, stared up the slope, and pushed away the sensation of being alone. His instinct told him that the enemy was near, but which enemy? Ahead was foraging country, enemy patrols, and Kearsey had claimed that the French would hold the countryside in force so that they could strip it of food. And if the French were not there? He looked behind, at the valley, and was tempted to stay in the low ground, but where was El Católico? Waiting up the valley? Or had his men hidden the horses and climbed the hill? He knew the Company was nervous, frightened both of the stillness and Sharpe’s caution, and he stood up.

‘Rifles! Skirmish line. Lieutenant! Follow with the Company. Forward!’

This, at least, was a trade they knew, and the Riflemen split into skirmishing pairs and spread out into the thin, elastic screen that sheltered the main battle-line in a fight. The Rifles were trained to this, taught to think independently and to fight on their own initiative without orders from an officer. One man moved as his partner covered him, just as in battle one man reloaded while the other watched to see if any enemy was aiming at his comrade during the vulnerable and clumsy wielding of ramrod and cartridge. Fifty yards behind the Green Jackets, clumsy and noisy, the Redcoats climbed the hill, and Teresa stayed with Knowles and watched the elusive shapes, fleeting glimpses, of the Riflemen. She was wearing Sharpe’s greatcoat, covering the white dress, and she could sense the apprehension among the men. The world seemed empty, the dawn rising on grey rocks and limitless grass, but Teresa knew, better even than Sharpe, that only one thing could have driven away the Partisans and that the world was not empty. Somewhere, watching them, were the French.

The sun rose behind them, lancing its light across the ridge they had walked the day before, and Sharpe, ahead of the Riflemen, saw it touch gold on the hill-crest seventy yards ahead. The rock was covered in light and at its base, half hidden by shadowed grass, was a dull red colour and he turned, casually, and waved his men flat as if he wanted to give them a rest. He yawned, massively, stretched his arms, and sauntered across the line to where Harper had stopped the left-hand pairs. He looked down the slope and waved at Knowles, laconically indicating for the heavily laden group to lie down, and then he nodded amicably at the Sergeant.

‘Bloody voltigeurs on the crest.’

Voltigeurs, the French skirmishers, the light infantry who fought against the British Light Companies. Sharpe squatted on the ground, his back to the enemy, and talked softly.

‘Saw the red eqaulette.’

Harper looked over Sharpe’s shoulder, flicking his eyes along the crest, and swore quietly. Sharpe plucked a blade of grass and pushed it between his teeth. Another twenty yards and they would have been in range of the French muskets. He swore as well.

Harper squatted. ‘And if there are infantry, sir…

‘There are bloody cavalry as well.’

Harper jerked his head sideways, down the slope, to the empty, still-shadowed valley. ‘There?’

Sharpe nodded. ‘They must have seen us yesterday. Walking on a bloody ridge like virgins.’ He spat into the grass, scratched irritably through the torn hole in his left sleeve. ‘Bloody Spanish.’

Harper yawned for the benefit of the watching enemy. ‘Time we had a proper fight, sir.’ He spoke mildly.

Sharpe scowled. ‘If we could choose where.’ He stood up. ‘We go left.’

The hillside to the left, to the south, offered more cover, but he knew, with a terrible certainty, that the Light Company was outnumbered by the enemy and almost certainly outflanked as well. He blew his whistle, waved to the south, and the Company moved along the side of the hill while Sharpe and Harper, quietly and slowly, warned the Riflemen of the enemy skirmishers above.

Kearsey climbed up from the Redcoats. ‘What are we doing, Sharpe?’

Sharpe told him about the skirmishers above. Kearsey looked triumphant, as if he had been proved right.

‘Told you, Sharpe. Pastureland, village. They’re locking up the country and the food. So what do you do now?’

‘What we do now, sir, is get out of this.’

‘How?’

‘I have no idea, Major, no idea.’

‘Told you, Sharpe! Capturing Eagles is all very well, but out here in enemy country things are different, eh? El Católico didn’t get caught! Must have smelt the French and vanished. We’re sitting ducks.’

‘Yes, sir.’

There was no point in arguing. If El Católico had the gold he would not even have come this far, but as Sharpe worked his way round the hill he knew that at any moment the journey could end, the men with the gold caught between voltigeurs and cavalry, and in a month’s time someone at the army headquarters would wonder idly whatever happened to Captain Sharpe and the Light Company that was sent on the impossible job of bringing back Spanish gold. He turned on Kearsey.

‘So where is El Católico?’

‘I doubt if he’ll help you, Sharpe.’

‘But he won’t give up the gold, will he, Major? I suppose he’s happy to let the French ambush us and then he’ll ambush them, right?’

Kearsey nodded. ‘It’s his only hope.’

Rifleman Tongue, educated and argumentative, spun round.‘Sir!’

The shout was his last; the bang of a musket muffled it, the smoke hanging in front of a rock just twenty yards from him, and Tongue went on spinning and falling, and Sharpe ignored Kearsey and ran ahead. Harper was crouching and searching for the man who had fired at Tongue. Sharpe raced past, knelt by the Rifleman, and lifted up the head. ‘Isaiah!’

The head was heavy; the eyes were sightless. The musket ball had gone cleanly between two ribs and killed him even as he shouted the warning. Sharpe could hear the ramrod rattle as the enemy skirmisher pushed his next round into the barrel; then the unseen enemy’s partner fired, the ball missing Sharpe by inches because the Frenchman had suddenly seen Harper. The Sergeant’s rifle bullet lifted the Frenchman up off the ground; he opened his mouth to scream, but only blood came out and he dropped back. Sharpe could still hear the scraping of the iron ramrod; he stood up with Tongue’s rifle and ran forward. The voltigeur saw him coming, panicked, and scrambled backwards, and Sharpe shot him in the base of the spine and watched the man drop his musket and fall in agony to the hillside.

Parry Jenkins, Tongue’s partner, seemed almost in tears. The Welshman stooped over Tongue’s body, unbuckling the ammunition pouch and canteen, and Sharpe threw him the dead man’s rifle. ‘Here!’ A French ball thudded into his pack, pushing him forward, and he knew that the enemy skirmish line had bent down the hill, cutting their southward advance, and he waved his men down and ran back to Jenkins.

‘Have you got everything?’

‘Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir. God, I’m sorry, sir.’

Sharpe hit him on the shoulder. ‘Come on, Parry. Not your fault. Down!’

They went down the hill, the musket balls over their heads, and found cover in the rocks. Tongue’s body would have to stay there, another Rifleman lost in Spain, or was this Portugal? Sharpe did not know, but he thought of the school in the Midlands where Tongue had once taught, appropriately enough, languages, and he wondered if anyone would remember the clever young man with the friendly eyes who took to drink.

‘Sir!’

Knowles was pointing behind and Sharpe rolled over and looked back the way they had come. French skirmishers in faded blue jackets with red epaulettes were angling down the hill behind them. He stayed on his back, facing his men.

‘Rifles! Bayonets!’

The French would understand that all right, and feel the fear. He had unconsciously counted the bullets that missed him when he went forward to Tongue’s body and he knew, though he had not thought about it, that the hillside in front was sparsely held. The French had put a skirmish line there, thin and spaced, thinking it was enough to drive the British back downhill where, still unseen, the cavalry must wait.

‘Lieutenant!’

‘Sir?’

‘You’ll follow us.’

We buy ten minutes, he thought, but we might get outside their cordon, and we might find a place to defend. He knew it was hopeless, but it was better than being driven like fat sheep, and he tugged out his sword, felt its edge, and was on his feet.

‘Forward!’

One man of each pair watched, the other ran, and Sharpe heard the Bakers cracking the morning apart as the Frenchmen put up their heads to fire at the small, spread band of men in green who screamed at them and had twenty-three inches of steel fixed to their rifles. The few skirmishers in their front ran, or else died from the spinning rifle bullets that could not miss at fifty paces, and the Company kept running. Sharpe was ahead, his sword across his body and his rifle bumping on his back. He saw skirmishers above them on the hillside, and below, but muskets were a terrible instrument for precision work, and he let the enemy fire and knew the odds were in the Company’s favour. One man went down, hit in the buttocks, but he was dragged up and they were through the gap and there were just a few panicked French fugitives ahead who had not had the sense to climb the hill. One turned, reached with his musket, and found himself faced with a giant Irishman who split him neatly between the ribs, kicked the blade free, and went on. Sharpe cut at a man with his sword, felt the bone-hammering jar as the Frenchman parried with his musket, and then he ran on and wondered what kind of a dent he had put in the heavy steel edge.

‘Come on! Uphill!’

That was not what the French expected, so it was the only way to go. The Company had smashed the cordon, lost only one man, and now they forced their tired legs to go up the slope, towards the western crest, and behind them the French orders rang out, the blue-coated officers realigning their men, and there was no time for anything but to force the legs up the impossible slope, feel the pain as the breath hurt the lungs, and then Sharpe made the crest and, without stopping, turned and kept running. The damned French were there, not expecting the British, but there all the same and lined up in files and ranks waiting for orders. Sharpe had a glimpse of a gently falling slope, well grassed, and the French battalion lined in companies, and the French watched, astonished, as the British ran past their front, only a hundred paces away, and not a musket was fired.

There was no escape to the west, none to the north where the skirmishers chased them, and Sharpe knew they must go south and east where the cavalry expected them. It was the only direction that gave time, and time was the only hope. He turned, waved the Riflemen down, and pushed Knowles and the red-jacketed men down the slope.