Sharpe's Revenge (41 page)

Sergeant Challon lay disarmed and unconscious on the roof, but Pierre Ducos could not know of his loyal Sergeant's predicament. Instead he cursed the Sergeant for abandoning him, just as he cursed the hired men who now scrambled desperately from the villa to run away into the night's remnant. Only a handful of Dragoons had stayed with Ducos, not out of loyalty, but with the demand that Ducos now open the great strongbox and let them flee with their plunder.

Their greed was interrupted by Calvet's men who began storming the lower corridors. Women and children screamed as they tried to escape the vengeful Guardsmen, and the screams served to remind Ducos's Dragoons of their predicament. They slammed doors shut to cut the strongbox off from the attackers, then axed loopholes in the doors so they could keep Calvet's men at bay. The grasshopper gun fired once more at the far roof, but the three green uniformed men seemed to have gone and the gun was brought down into the curtained archway that faced towards the sea. From that position it could slaughter any enemy who tried to outflank the loopholed doors by crossing the paved and balustraded terrace. ‘If we just hold long enough,' Ducos urged his six remaining men, ‘I promise we'll get help.'

Ducos loaded two gilt-chased pistols that had been gifts from the Czar of Russia to the Emperor of France before the two nations fell into enmity. He carried the pistols to the window facing the courtyard and fired them both at the place where he believed he had seen Sharpe. No one could be seen on that far roof now, so Ducos merely shot at phantoms. He was trying to persuade himself that Sharpe's appearance had been just that; a phantom sprung on him by his over-heated fears and made more palpable by the dawn's bad light. Yet he could hear that the men in the corridors outside the locked doors were no phantoms; they were fellow Frenchmen, come for a treasure that Ducos would not surrender.

Some of the products of that treasure were now used to barricade the archway where the grasshopper gun stood. A celestial globe was heaped on top of a japanned chest of drawers. A green silk covered chaise-longue made a breastwork, while beneath it an ebony table with a surface of inlaid silver and ivory was stacked as a shield for enemy bullets. Cushions, curtains, rugs and bedclothes were crammed between chairs to make the barricade yet more formidable. Only the heavy green curtain which shielded the deep alcove where the strongbox was hidden was left in its place. Two men crewed the grasshopper gun in its cushioned embrasure, while the other four Dragoons took it in turns to fire through the two loopholed doors. Ducos, his gaudy uniform hanging from him like finery draped on a scarecrow, paced between the three positions and spun a fantasy of imminent Neapolitan rescue.

The two loopholed doors were old and tough. A musket bullet could not penetrate the wood. At first the fire from the corridors was frightening in its intensity, but the Dragoons soon learned they were safe, and soon discovered they could drive the attackers away by firing from the loopholes. They had made a fortress within the villa, and the only entrances into the fortress were through the two doors or across the terrace that would prove a killing ground for the small brass gun. The Dragoons missed Sergeant Challon's reassuring presence, but they felt safe enough now and even found a grim enjoyment in their successful defiance. Ducos made himself useful by loading every spare musket, carbine and pistol so that any determined attack could be met by an unrelenting fire.

‘Pity about the women,' one Dragoon muttered.

‘They'll come back.' His companion fired through one of the splintered loopholes and his bullet ricocheted down the dark corridor. The attackers had taken cover from the fire, and their answering shots were as ill-aimed as they were infrequent. The man who had fired stepped back and glanced scornfully at Ducos. ‘First time I've seen a Marshal of France loading a musket.'

‘We'll drive these bastards off,' his companion muttered, ‘then we'll kill the little runt and take the money home.' It had only been Sergeant Challon's stubborn loyalty that had prevented such a desirable solution before, but Challon was now gone. The man fired through the door again, stepped back, then glanced up as an odd sound attracted his attention. He gaped at the high ceiling, then grabbed a loaded musket which he pointed directly overhead and fired. The fortress within a fortress was not quite as safe as it might have seemed.

The musket bullet buried itself in a floorboard beneath Harper's feet, but struck with such force that the heavy board seemed to quiver beneath him. Dust jarred up along the timber's formidable length. Harper wrenched at a crack between the boards with his bayonet. ‘I need a bloody axe.'

‘We haven't got a bloody axe,' Frederickson said curtly, then jumped back as three more gunshots thumped into the floor. ‘Why don't we just set the bloody place on fire?'

Neither Sharpe nor Harper answered. Both had stouter blades than Frederickson's slim sword, and both were levering at the old thick timbers. They had made their way around the villa's roof to find this dusty attic directly over the enemy's inner sanctuary. Sharpe had knocked tiles from the roof to get into the dusty space where bat droppings lay thick on the floor.

‘It's moving!' Harper alerted Sharpe who went to the other side of the heavy floorboard. Sharpe slid his sword under the wood and levered. Both men were crouching back from their work. Bullets were slamming noisily into the underside of the floor, and Sharpe feared that one would strike the tip of his sword and break the steel. He stood upright, put his foot on the hilt, and shoved downwards so that the timber creaked and heaved along its whole length. The far end of the board was still held fast by ancient nails and the consequent tension threatened to snap the timber back like a spring until Frederickson jammed his rifle beneath to hold the raised end firm. Ducos's men were shouting below. One musket bullet found the gap and smashed a tile not a foot from Frederickson's head.

Harper found his seven-barrelled gun, poked it under the raised timber, and fired blindly down. The noise was huge in the confined space, but even so the Riflemen could hear a scream from the room below as the seven bullets ricocheted wildly from its stone walls and floor. Sharpe fired his rifle into the gap, then both men stepped back to reload. Frederickson crouched to fire Harper's rifle into Ducos's lair. ‘Like shooting rats in a barrel,' he said grimly, then suddenly all the Riflemen were deafened and Frederickson, the rifle still unfired, fell back.

The raised board seemed to have exploded and jumped up at him. The attic was filled with a rending and splintering crash, beneath which sound and mixed with it, was the vast echoing report of the small grasshopper cannon. The gun had been placed upright, balanced on its hind legs and breech, then fired upwards. Its roundshot had mangled one of the attic's floor timbers, then splintered on up through the tiles. Frederickson lay motionless. His face was bleeding from a score of splinters, but Sharpe could find no other wounds. The closeness of the cannonball's passage must have literally knocked him out. Sharpe had seen men similarly felled by a buffet of a roundshot's air. Frederickson would live, but within a few hours his face would be one huge bruise.

‘He'll live,' Sharpe told Harper, then, vengefully, he picked up the unfired rifle and fired it down through the hole torn by the roundshot. Harper was grimly loading his seven-barrelled gun and, at the same time, counting the seconds it would take for the men below to reload the small cannon. Frederickson groaned woefully. One of the splinters had lodged in his empty eye-socket that was now filling with blood.

‘Mind yourself, sir,' Harper warned. He was guessing that the grasshopper gun was reloaded. The two Riflemen went very still. If the men below had any wit they would not fire at the same place, but would blast the shot into an unbroken part of the ceiling. Sharpe felt the fear of utter helplessness, knowing that at any second a cannonball could drive up beneath his feet.

‘Fire, you bastards!' he muttered.

The gun fired. The men below had guessed wrong and the shot smashed through the attic's far end. Dust and noise billowed about the confined space while broken tiles clattered down the roof and smashed themselves in the courtyard.

As the cannon's noise still echoed in the attic, Harper moved with the speed of a scalded cat to the first hole. He peered down, rammed the seven barrels through the ragged gap, then pulled the trigger. He had only had time to charge five of the barrels, so much of the gun's force was wasted through the two empty muzzles, but the grasshopper's crew was only fifteen feet below him and the five bullets had enough force to kill both men. Sharpe fired his own reloaded rifle through the newer hole, then went to help Harper who was levering at the tensioned floorboard. Frederickson moaned, rolled on to his side, then lay still. The floorboard, weakened by the cannonball's strike, snapped, and Sharpe and Harper could at last peer down at their enemy.

Two men lay dead beside the fallen grasshopper gun which, because it had been placed on its butt to fire upwards, now had two bent back legs. A third wounded man lay in a puddle of blood by the far door. The other Dragoons had taken shelter in the corners of the room. One of them raised a carbine and both Sharpe and Harper ducked back.

Sharpe reloaded his rifle. Frederickson was breathing hoarsely now. There was silence from below. Ducos and the remaining Dragoons feared the awesome destructive power of the seven-barrelled gun and none of them dared step into the room's centre to retrieve their small cannon, and so they shrank back into corners and stared in fear at the broken ceiling. They were still staring as Calvet's men came to the loopholed doors and thrust their muskets through.

‘Non! Non!'
one of the Dragoons shouted.

Sharpe took one of the rifles and worked at the board beside the broken one. It had been loosened by the two cannon blows and came up with surprising ease. He saw the Dragoons with their hands up, and he saw the muskets protruding from the doors, but he could not see Ducos. ‘General!' he shouted.

‘Major?' Calvet's voice was muffled.

‘Wait there! I'll open up!'

Harper tried to stop Sharpe. ‘You'll break your bloody legs, sir!'

But Sharpe wanted Ducos alive. Sharpe wanted to capture the small cunning enemy who had dogged his footsteps from the Portuguese border to this broken house in Italy, and Sharpe, this close to his old enemy, would not be denied. He lowered himself through the gaping hole, hung for a second by his hands, then dropped.

The height from ceiling to floor was fifteen feet. Sharpe had shrunk that distance by hanging from the broken boards, but he still dropped the best part of nine feet. The fall jarred him. He spilt sideways on the stone floor and a pain shrieked up from his right ankle to his newly mended thigh. He screamed with the pain, rolled to the right, and snarled at the Dragoons to stay still. He expected a bullet at any second. Harper was above him, threatening the room with his rifle. None of the Dragoons fired. They just stared at the blood-streaked, savagely scarred man who had dropped from the roof and who now struggled to stand upright. There was no sign of Ducos. The room was lit by the pale grey wash of the lightening sky. Sharpe drew his sword and the sound of the scraping blade made one of the Dragoons whimper and shake his head.

‘Where's Ducos?' Sharpe asked in French.

One of the Dragoons gestured towards a heavy green curtain.

Sharpe knew he should have unlocked the doors to let Calvet's men into the room, but he was too close to his enemy now, and he had travelled too far and suffered too much to let this man escape him. He limped towards the curtain, flinching each time the weight went on to his right leg. He stopped a half dozen paces from the heavy green cloth. ‘Ducos! You bastard? It's Major Sharpe!'

A pistol exploded beyond the curtain and a bullet plucked at the green cloth. The pistol ball tore a ragged hole, went a foot to Sharpe's right, then buried itself in the ebony and silver inlaid table.

Sharpe stepped two paces closer to the curtain. ‘Ducos! You missed!'

Another bullet twitched the heavy curtain. This one went to Sharpe's left. The curtain quivered from the bullet's passing. The new ragged hole had scorched edges. The Dragoons stared at the limping madman who was playing this insane game with death.

Sharpe stepped so close that he could have reached out a hand and touched the green curtain. ‘You missed again!' He could hear the Frenchman breathing hoarsely beyond the curtain, then he heard the click as another weapon was cocked. Sharpe sensed from the sound that Ducos was standing well back from the green material and must be firing in blind panic at its heavy folds. ‘Ducos? Try again!' he called.